Beginning of the End: How Stubbornness Develops

 God speaks to us through His servants, rebuking sin. If a person refuses to be corrected, divine power does not step in to prevent the results of one’s own action. Such people are hardening the heart against the influence of the Holy Spirit.

Anyone who has once yielded to temptation will yield more easily the second time. Every time this is repeated it lessens the power to resist, blinds the eyes, and stifles conviction. God does not work a miracle to prevent the harvest. “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” (Galatians 6:7). This is the way that many people start listening with cold indifference to the truths that once warmed their hearts. They sowed neglect and resistance to the truth, and this is the harvest they reap.

Some people quiet a guilty conscience with the thought, “I can  change my evil course whenever I choose.” They think that after putting their influence on the side of the great rebel, they will change leaders when danger surrounds them. But this is not easily done. A life of sinful indulgence has so molded the character that they cannot then receive the image of Jesus. If no light had shone on their pathway, mercy might intervene. But after light has been despised for a long time, it will finally be taken away.

Next a plague of hail was threatened upon Pharaoh. “Therefore send now and gather your livestock ... for the hail shall come down on every man and every animal which is found in the field and is not brought home, and they shall die.” No one had ever seen such a storm as this would be. The report spread rapidly, and everyone who believed the word of the Lord gathered in their cattle, while those who despised the warning left them in the field. So in the midst of judgment the mercy of God was displayed, and it was shown how many had been led to respect God.

The storm came—thunder and hail, and fire mingled with it, “so very heavy that there was none like it in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. And the hail struck throughout the whole land of Egypt, all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail struck every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field.” Ruin and desolation marked the path of the destroying angel. The land of Goshen alone was spared.