There have been many instances of men throughout history who ruled the world as an antichrist. They epitomized the devil so much that men worshipped them as gods. The pharaohs of Egypt fell into that category. Not only did they rule the known world at the time, but they were worshipped as one of the many gods. A devil incarnate, if you will. Cain in his city, Nimrod in Babel, and Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon are men of that “calibre.”
Therefore, God, in his encounter with each of these men, replicated the prophetic degeneration the devil is bound to experience. It all began with how great these men became, encapsulated with self and pride. These men of evil were able to drive away the spirit of good and fight against the people of God with success. However, all were miscalculated by the evil one. A grievous miscalculation. God knows how to preserve His own.
It’s amazing that the God of justice still finds an unexplainable way to show grace. Evil deserves justice, but evil will be destroyed with grace and justice. For God’s Wrath is an exhibition of His Glory. They are not different; only distinct. In His Wrath, He administers grace. In His justice, He shows mercy. The more sin abounds, the more grace abounds. What is happening is a compounding of sin for the revelation of His Wrath. Selah!
God has never been in a hurry to punish evil. He is slow to anger. He exercises divine forbearance in punishing evil. No matter who evil is found in, God, first of all, gives a long rope of grace. What evil wants to do is for God to destroy everything. God rather chose to separate us from evil to pour out His full Wrath on evil. However, when one stays in evil for a long time, one gradually becomes one with evil until both entities are indistinguishable. On the broadway to becoming one with evil, God pours out His judgments as acts of love.
Pay close attention and make sure you understand! When you sin and God disciplines you, He loves you. He doesn’t want you to become one with sin. Oh yes, it is more susceptible to becoming one with evil in this world and age. God uses the inside-out approach. Evil uses the outside-in approach. Once evil makes its way into your heart, it begins to grow. God will discipline you out of love. He will punish you as a sign of mercy. For the first 5 plagues, God told Moses that Pharoah would harden his heart. For the last 5, God said He will harden Pharoah’s heart.
When you become one with evil and begin to multiply and deploy evil, God will arrest your heart. This is why the devil cannot repent even though God has the heart to forgive Him. What has happened is that God is the one who has hardened his heart so that he cannot repent. He is in the category of vessels prepared for destruction. Whether you are on the Lord’s side or not, at the end of the day, everything will become an avenue for His Glory.
Romans 9:22 TPT
And in the same way, although God has every right to unleash his anger and demonstrate his power, yet he is extremely patient with those who deserve wrath—vessels prepared for destruction.
The question now is, are there men that God has intentionally hardened their hearts? God hardens the hearts of men who have hardened their hearts. Once you exhaust the long rope He has given you and you have become one with evil, He will harden your heart to give Him the moral justification to pour out His full Wrath on you. If He doesn’t harden your heart and you cry out to Him for mercy amid His unleashed Wrath, He is so faithful that He will lavish you with Mercy. He will never overlook a contrite heart. He will never turn away a repented soul. Therefore, for you to serve the full measure of His Wrath, He hardens your heart beyond redemption.
Yes, He turned the Nile into blood to remind you of the injustice you caused when you shed innocent blood by commanding all Hebrew boys to be thrown into the river. You asked for forgiveness, and He took it away. In 9 plagues, God demonstrated that He is the One who controls the elements of nature, not the principalities of Egypt at the peak of their witchery. The presence of evil caused the degeneration of nature while still revealing the power of an Eternal God, the One who the devil thought he had shut out of the earth because there was no man to perceive God. 9 times Pharoah asked that the Wrath be taken away. 9 times He promised to obey God. 5 times He hardened his heart. 5 times God hardened his. When the final justice was administered, it was irreversible. For Pharoah, He bruised His son. In our case if we continue to live willingly in sin till we become one with evil, we bruise the Son again.
Romans 9:15-22 GNT
For he said to Moses, “I will have mercy on anyone I wish; I will take pity on anyone I wish.” So then, everything depends, not on what we humans want or do, but only on God’s mercy. For the scripture says to the king of Egypt, “I made you king in order to use you to show my power and to spread my fame over the whole world.” So then, God has mercy on anyone he wishes, and he makes stubborn anyone he wishes.
But one of you will say to me, “If this is so, how can God find fault with anyone? Who can resist God’s will?” But who are you, my friend, to talk back to God? A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, “Why did you make me like this?” After all, the man who makes the pots has the right to use the clay as he wishes, and to make two pots from the same lump of clay, one for special occasions and the other for ordinary use.
And in the same way, although God has every right to unleash his anger and demonstrate his power, yet he is extremely patient with those who deserve wrath—vessels prepared for destruction.
