This post is part of my ongoing series of writing down my thoughts on the Bible passages I read each day. Some days I hope to have great insight that the Lord gives me, and many days, I will likely struggle through the text and not know what to write down based on what I read. My hope and prayer is that as I make this a habit, just as I did daily writing for so long, that I will improve on my ability to read and understand the passages I’m reading. Please keep in mind that many of these posts may be published late at night or with little time studying and simply be my first thoughts after reading. This is in no way a commentary that one should use to discern the Bible, but my own personal thoughts.
God’s power is clearly seen through this passage. It also seems to be a pretty clear passage showing God’s predestination. It wasn’t that God didn’t know what Pharoh would do. In fact, God himself was the one who continued to harden Pharoh’s heart. One might say, then, that since God is the one who hardened Pharoh’s heart, that God is the one who made Pharoh’s firstborn die in the final plague.
In a sense, you’d be correct. It was through what God did that cause Pharoh’s firstborn to die, but it was also through what Pharoh did. In this story, we see the heavenly perspective. We see that God planned for this all along, but in our life, we don’t see that. We only see from our perspective.
To Pharoh, he had that choice. He could have chosen to let God’s people go, but he didn’t? Why did he not? Because God hardened his heart. But you might ask the same question of yourself. You always have the option and choice to do the right thing. You could disobey your parents or you could obey them, but you don’t know what God has predestined to happen.
In fact, it reminds me of the big hyped movie that recently came out called Tenet. Without giving too much of the movie away, we find out part way through the movie that there is this whole other “side” to life, where people are able to go through time backward.
One scene, in particular, shows a machine of sorts that you walk through and it takes you to the side that’s going backward. You can see through a window the side that’s going backward. If you’re about to go through the machine, you would see yourself on the other side, moving backward. It’s something that’s hard for the mind to grasp, but what’s interesting to realize is that if you were actually in this room, and you could see what was happening on the other side, it’s easy to think that we could have control over what we see on the other side
I could tell myself that I’m going to walk through the machine, and then I think that I’m going to see myself on the other side, but if I don’t actually walk through the machine, I’m not going to see myself. It’s hard even to explain what I’m picturing in my mind, but it’s one of those odd things that if you think through it enough, you realize that even if you do know what’s happening, you aren’t able to control what happens on the other side. It will simply happen as you do it, and that’s that.
Back to our original subject, I see the way God moves in our lives to be a similar phenomenon. You will hear extreme “Calvinists” say that “since God has pre-destined everything, there’s no reason to do anything, even get up off our bed, because we have no control over who’s going to go to Heaven or Hell.
What is not taken into account when this is said though is how God can use us to accomplish His purposes. It’s true that God’s plan is already set, but you don’t know what that plan will be. You don’t know if you’re a part of the huge plan or a small plan. How you choose to act is how God has predestined you to act. If you choose to disobey God, that is what he has determined for you to do, but if you follow Him, that is what he has predestined.
To us it still is a choice because we don’t know what he has arranged to happen. Therefore, all we can go on is to be obedient to the calling he has given us as Christians. To glorify His name and spread the gospel to the end of the earth.