Judicial hardening, Secondary Means

Yes....agreed:wavey: good thought:wavey:

WD....The results come out the same....what we all forget sometimes is we are discussing real people and real lives....in real time.

When we read of their condition as revealed in scripture.....we are not given an exact timeline too often....as to when what was determined by God in eternity....[the means]....actually comes to pass in real time,,,,

example;

In our evangelism...we should be totally about prayer to be faithful towards the persons soul....as far as we are concerned..from our point of view...their eternal destiny is still on the line!!

example 2

:wavey: Pray, live Holy, and witness.....all the time

 

Think question is was Judicial hardening by God towards the jews JUST a special case for time of Christ coming, or are ALL in sin and dead to Christ until,God wakes them up?

Know that Skan has used that to try to support notion that Gospel of John does not NOT support election and salavtion as cals use it, as he states that those examples concerning the jews being blind and deaf to message of Christ "just "special case!"

 

It is actually shown how God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Look at some examples;

Exo 7:10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.
11 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.
12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.
13 And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the LORD had said.

How did God harden Pharaoh's heart here? He embarrassed and humiliated him publicly. Pharaoh must have felt as equally as powerful as the God of Moses when his magicians were able to turn their rods into serpents. But when Aaron's rod swallowed up Pharaoh's rods he was humiliated in front of all his subjects.

Exo 7:22 And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said.
23 And Pharaoh turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to this also.

Again, Pharaoh's magicians were able to imitate the miracle performed by Moses and Aaron. You can imagine Pharaoh being filled with pride, "anything you can do, I can do" attitude. He saw no reason to fear God when his servants could perform these same miracles.

I could go on, but you see a battle of wills between God and Pharaoh. Instead of humbling himself, Pharaoh got more and more angry and obstinate.

There is nothing special about this, this occurs every day in normal life. A person who is full of pride is embarrassed or humiliated. Instead of humbling themselves, they become angry and stubborn. This happens between family members at times, and folks will not speak to each other for years. Sometimes the matter that started the argument is very minor and unimportant, but there ensues a battle to see who is right and who is wrong.

One of the worst arguments I ever had with my wife was over the words to a song. I corrected her which embarrassed her. She insisted she was correct, I insisted she was wrong. It was a stupid argument, I should have overlooked her minor and unimportant error. This thing actually turned into a heated argument and we did not speak to each other for a week. We BOTH became hardened. This is how pride affects folks.

God didn't have to supernaturally cause Pharaoh to be hardened, although he certainly used supernatural miracles to do so. What hardened Pharaoh was humiliating and embarrassing him publicly, God showing his power was greater than Pharaoh's. The ancient Pharaohs believed themselves descended from the gods, so this was very insulting to Pharaoh. He had a very high opinion of himself and his pride was injured by these simple men who could perform great miracles.

 

What is interesting is that God chose this pharoah for His purposes, as he was a vessel designed for destruction, fit for wrath!

God chose him, and the pharoah did what he desired to do!