Exodus 9:34,35

He sinned yet more.

Lessons

1. Sense of judgment and mercy without faith worketh more evil in sinners against God.

2. Mercies may prove occasions of hardening unto wicked souls; but no causes of their sin.

3. Wicked powers by unbelief harden themselves and others (Exodus 9:34).

4. God sets on hardening when sinners choose to be stubborn against God.

5. Breach of promise with God is nothing with sinners.

6. God’s foretelling of sinners ways aggravates that sin abundantly (Exodus 9:35). (G. Hughes, B. D.)

Pharaoh’s conduct after the storm

I. Pharaoh’s conduct is often resembled by men of our day. Men’s views of themselves and life change as the dark clouds roll away, and the sun breaks forth to gild their path again. This has become proverbial.

II. Pharaoh’s conduct reveals that his heart had been unchanged. Afflictions do change some sinners into saints. They have come out of the storm new men. But it often produces no radical change. It does not change the heart. Love only awakens permanent resistance to sin.

III. Pharaoh’s conduct manifested the basest ingratitude. Sin is always lamentable, but more so in the face of Divine mercy. Such insensibility to mercy is sure to bring another judgment.

IV. Pharaoh’s conduct was most peesumptuous.

V. Pharaoh’s conduct shows the amount of depravity that may lurk in a human heart. Our only safety is in humiliating ourselves before the Lord, and seeking for His grace to overcome our own stubbornness and sins. (W. Lilley.)

The cessation of penitential sorrow

1. When calamity removed.

2. When mercy bestowed.

3. When gratitude expected. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)

Repentance under judgments

One day, visiting a prison chaplain, the Rev. W. Harness asked him whether his ministry had been attended with success. “With very little, I grieve to say,” was the reply. “A short time since I thought I had brought to a better state of mind a man who had attempted to murder a woman and had been condemned to death, he showed great signs of contrition after the sentence was passed upon him, and I thought I could observe the dawnings of grace upon the soul. I gave him a Bible, and he was most assiduous in the study of it, frequently quoting passages from it which he said convinced him of the heinousness of his offence. The man gave altogether such a promise of reformation, and of a change of heart and life, that I exerted myself to the utmost, and obtained for him such a commutation of his sentence as would enable him soon to begin the world again, and, as I hoped, with a happier result. I called to inform him of my success. His gratitude knew no bounds; he said I was his preserver--his deliverer. ‘And here,’ he added, as he grasped my hand in parting, ‘here is your Bible; I may as well return it to you, for I hope I shall never want it again.’”.