Valentine’s Day is coming up and I wanted to do something about love or relationships, but I settled on the topic of “hearts,” instead. After all, hearts are a common motif on the occasion of Valentine’s Day. I happened to think of a lesson on hearts that I may have used many years ago in my adult Sunday School class (and) which would be as relevant today as back then. The scripture passage is from the Old Testament of the Bible.

The shorthand

So, the Jews are slaves in Egypt around 1391–1271 B.C. and someone named Moses appears and God chooses Moses to be His messenger in the deliverance of the Israelis from bondage in Eqypt. Several centuries earlier, another Jew named Joseph had saved Egypt from starvation by warning them about a coming famine, but by the time of Moses, very few in that country slaves or free even knew who Joseph was, and if the Egyptians knew, they didn’t care. The key verse is Exodus 4:21, but I want to include the first twenty verses as well for context. Verse one, ties directly into the end of Chapter 3 and makes little sense on it’s own. But the gist of it is that God is telling Moses he is being sent to speak with pharaoh mano a mano. Moses is also told to let the Israelites in captivity know what’s up and to be prepared to leave Egypt on a moment’s notice. Moses’ response is to try to persuade God that He has the wrong man.

The passage

¹Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”

² Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,” he replied.

³ The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. ⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ⁵ “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

⁶ Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.

⁷ “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

⁸ Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. ⁹ But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”

¹⁰ Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

¹¹ The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ¹² Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

¹³ But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

¹⁴ Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. ¹⁵ You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. ¹⁶ He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. ¹⁷ But take this staffin your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”

¹⁸ Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.”

Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”

¹⁹ Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” ²⁰ So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

²¹ The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

Notice in verse 10 where Moses says to God “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” He sounds like Snug, the Joiner in Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Moses is saying to God “You got the wrong man. I can’t even speak well.” He’s probably thinking that pharaoh will have him for lunch. Centuries later, the apostle Paul will make this same argument. The apostle Luke in Acts 17:18 tells us about Paul in Athens as Paul attempts to speak to a crowd of people about Jesus. Luke reports that people in the crowd started to ask among themselves “What is this guy babbling about?” The word for “babble,” that the crowd uses is “σπερμολόγος” or spermologos. The word was used back then to refer to crows as they chattered noisily, annoyingly and indecipherably back and forth. Sometimes, the word could be used to refer to small pieces of food scraps or observations and ideas that someone would ignorantly try to piece together into a cogent meal or thought as the case may be. In II Corinthians 10:10, Paul admits that people do talk negatively about him, saying he hears that his “letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is unimpressive and his speaking amounts to nothing.” In I Corinthians 2:1 he further admits “I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” In other words, he seems to be saying he had stage fright or an anxiety attack. Yet, in that same passage he reminds the Corinthians that God saved the day by a “demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” Before his death, Paul had the dubious privilege to speak to the Emperor of Rome. As far as we know, it did not go well. Paul was returned to prison and eventually beheaded.

There are a few important “take-aways” here. One is that God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8.) What’s more, in I Samuel 16:7 we learn “. . . the LORD sees not as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

More than just speech

Isaiah (53:2), speaking of Jesus not yet born says Jesus will have “no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” He goes on to say the Messiah will be the sort of person “. . . from whom people hide their faces . . . He was despised, and we held him in low esteem (53:3.) This passage reminds me of a teenager in high school who in the dining hall or library encounters someone she’d rather not be seen with, and she pretends she doesn’t see him or hopes that he doesn’t see her. She wishes perhaps that she were invisible at that moment.

Asbury as an analogy

I’m also reminded that the spiritual giants and heroes in early Judaism and the first few centuries of Christianity were people who could easily pass for peasants, fishermen and even crazy people in the case of John the Baptist. King David was a sheep herder before he rose to power. Matthew was a bureaucrat. So God does not build dynasties. He is not impressed by noble birth, wealth, physical beauty, eloquence and so on. A year or two ago when the second revival broke out at Asbury University, I logged into Youtube to watch the video feed from the chapel. People from all over the U.S. (many students) and even other countries came to spend some time there to check out what was happening (a few students from my granddaughter’s university in Nebraska went to Kentucky to see what was happening, themselves.) The people who filled the university chapel were just ordinary college kids with a number of adults scattered about. You didn’t see a lot of expensive suits, or Rolex watches, Italian shoes or designer purses. Nor were there people on the platform or among the organizers who looked like they had advanced degrees in theology, philosophy or some other prestigious liberal arts field. People from the crowd would come to the platform where at times there was an open microphone, but they were vetted before they were allowed to speak. That way, any stranger who wandered in who was high or hammered, had a political agenda or was intent on disrupting the program could be gently turned aside. As I watched, I realized that these ordinary young people with their torn jeans, t-shirts, flip flops and occasionally bad grammar were the sort of people that God historically turned to when he wanted to reach out to humanity. These people were chosen to carry the message of God’s love and forgiveness away from the chapel to other towns, cities, states (and who knows where else?) Nor did the Old Testament prophets and New Testament apostles likely smell good, either. Back in the times of Moses and Jesus, there were perfumes and colognes, mostly made from spices such as frankincense and Myrrh, but they were beyond reach and affordability. So, a logical conclusion to all of this might be that you can’t always judge a book by its cover.

Pharaoh’s heart was hardened. Huh?

When I was much younger than I am today, I could not understand verse 21. Pharaoh (Yul Brenner in the movie the “Ten Commandments”) was clearly a bad guy. It was because he had a hardened heart that he ناس مابتجيش الا بالعين الحمرا (i.e., “only did things the hard way.”) But, if God hardened pharaoh’s heart as God states he would in this verse, then how can pharaoh be blamed or punished for what follows? Isn’t it God’s fault for hardening pharaoh’s heart?

The answer eventually came to me. In some metaphorical sense, people have hearts of ice or hearts of clay. This is not explicitly in Scripture, but perhaps it is present implicitly. If someone is unfriendly, emotionless, hostile or uncaring toward human misery, we say that they are cold-hearted or they have a heart of ice (or ice in their veins.)

Other people metaphorically have hearts of clay. The same sun that melts one person’s heart hardens another. During the ’80’s a popular song by Quarterflash had the refrain:

I’m gonna harden my heart
I’m gonna swallow my tears
I’m gonna turn and leave you here.”

I’ve seen people harden their hearts. Usually, it’s in domestic situations where perhaps one person has an addiction or a bad temper. They cross the line, then the apologize and promise to let it happen again. After a person has been admitted to rehab half a dozen times, it is easy for family members to harden their hearts, not believing that the seventh time will be a charm to their husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter.

Think of God as the sunshine. Sunshine just “is.” It can heal people who have certain diseases or disorders, such as pleurisy, or Vitamin D deficiency without intending to. On the other hand, it can cause sun poisoning or melanoma without prejudice. So, the same sun showing neither animus nor favor to one person or another can be responsible for different outcomes, some good, some bad.

Somehow, because of upbringing or personality, nature or nurture or life experiences, people develop hearts of ice while others have hearts of clay. The same source of heat will melt the hearts of ice by bake (i.e. harden) the hearts of clay.

We can do something about this situation. It is very difficult for people to fundamentally reform themselves, and often it is easier for our species to hate rather than to love. It can also be difficult to control your anxiety when speaking in public. I taught a few hundred college classes (eighteen or more a year for more than thirty years) and I would always be a bit nervous on the first day of class. Moses succeeded and Paul succeeded because they allowed the Spirit of God the freedom to work through them. Before that happened, they had to surrender themselves to the Holy Spirit’s ministry. This occurs when a person invites Jesus into his or her life.

Moses and Paul could not allow negative thinking about their body image or speaking skills stop them. A friend of mine and I arrived late at a church service once when the minister was just starting his sermon. He preached a wonderful sermon that day. It as as informative as it was inspirational. On the way out after the service concluded and as he bid the members of the congregation good-bye, I could not help noticing that the minister stuttered and stammered repeatedly. I asked my friend what happened to him. Was he stroking out or something? My friend knew him well and replied “He has a speech problem. But when he preaches a sermon, the problem goes away.” You might wonder if in that case, God did not just taken that speech problem away from him? My answer is “I just don’t know.” But it was striking to see the night and day difference in this person nonetheless. Moses, a man searching for his roots found them, and Saul who persecuted and prosecuted the early Christians became on himself. Who knows what God might have in store for you?