{"id":4173,"date":"2022-08-11T16:30:37","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T21:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4173"},"modified":"2022-08-11T16:30:37","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T21:30:37","slug":"devotional-on-exodus-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-exodus-12\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Exodus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-y9sa1M8dNLM\/XPnVTcaX34I\/AAAAAAAA8BQ\/AO4VjEjkvGwONI4ubw1EedfEWlunkZY3wCKgBGAs\/s1600\/100_2551.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"901\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Mesa Verde National Park, CO<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\n\u201cDoes not work well with others.\u201d<br \/>\nExodus 7: Pharaoh is not going to listen to you<br \/>\nFor a true blue \u201cfree-willer\u201d like me, Pharaoh\u2019s role in the Exodus is somewhat troubling.  Before Moses and Aaron ever meet with him the Lord promises that he\u2019s going to be stubborn.  The reason for that stubbornness is because the Lord\u2019s going to make him that way.   That\u2019s not how I see God at work in this world.  Instead, I see him supplying sufficient grace to people to respond to his call in their lives if they will.  In the story of the Exodus it appears that God not only sees Pharaoh\u2019s stubbornness but actually stiffens it even more to create conditions for a spectacular deliverance.  So what\u2019s going on here?  On the other side of this \u201cfree will\u201d coin is \u201csovereignty.\u201d  God is God and he holds absolute authority over all Creation.  The reason we have free will is that the Sovereign has granted it.  If I abuse the freedom I&#8217;ve been granted I&#8217;ll answer to him.  In Pharaoh\u2019s case, I don\u2019t think the Lord looked into the future and saw Pharaoh remain resolutely stubborn, but I do think the Lord saw his hard heart and, in his sovereignty declared, \u201cSo it shall be.\u201d  The Lord takes what Pharaoh does in his free will and hard wires it.  From that point on he has no other choice.  Pharaoh could have been an example of God\u2019s grace.  Instead, he becomes an instrument for God\u2019s glory.<br \/>\nTake Away: It\u2019s a dangerous thing to challenge the sovereignty of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cDoes not work well with others.\u201d Exodus 7: Pharaoh is not going to listen to you For a true blue \u201cfree-willer\u201d like me, Pharaoh\u2019s role in the Exodus is somewhat troubling. Before Moses and Aaron ever meet with him the Lord promises that he\u2019s going to be stubborn. The reason for that stubbornness is because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1493,7],"tags":[124,373,433,442,643],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4173"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13808,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4173\/revisions\/13808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}