Set Hard
By Anthony Casperson
3-14-26

The YouTuber had begun livestreaming a series where he was going to play through a video game. At first, he was laughing and enjoying himself. The game seemed easy, despite the fact that his button-pressing tactic wasn’t exactly the best method to use for this game’s play style.

Slowly, the game’s difficulty increased. But the YouTuber’s tactics remained the same. He’d hit a particularly difficult encounter every once in a while, but he’d reload and force his button-mashing to work until it finally—somehow—did. Often, it would take a handful of reloads before things happened to fall his way.

His chat—and some of the later comments—tried to explain why his tactics weren’t working. They gave advice on a few options. Provided a little bit of understanding for parts of the game he’d not paid attention to. But to no avail. At best, they were met with eye-rolling rejection. At worst, verbal vitriol for “back-seat-gaming.”

Over and over again, the guy refused to change his tactics. He complained. Blamed the game. Lowered the difficulty when things got even more challenging. And still had trouble with it. The series started getting unbearable to watch.

And to be honest, I don’t know if the reason why I can’t remember the end of the series of videos is because he quit the game, or because I quit watching. But I can tell you that nothing I saw ever proved a change of his chosen tactics.

He’d set his mind and heart on the way to do things, and refused to pay attention to everything and everyone who told him he was wrong.

This past week, my morning bible-reading time reminded me of this YouTuber’s refusal to change. I’ve been reading through Exodus 7-14, the plagues of Egypt.

For the first time I can remember, I noticed how with each successive plague not only did God raise the “difficulty” set against Pharaoh, but also Pharaoh’s tenacious “button-mashing” worsened. Each hardening of Pharaoh’s heart only made him dig deeper into refusal of obeying Yahweh’s command to let the Israelites go worship their God.

Follow with me in this quick survey of eight chapters of Exodus to see what I mean.

Before the plagues, God had sent Moses and his brother Aaron to go to Pharaoh and ask to let Israel go out for a short time of worshipping Yahweh. Pharaoh refused, even after Moses’ staff changed to a serpent as proof of God’s power. This didn’t impress Pharaoh, because his court magicians could “replicate” the effect.

This refusal is what started the plagues of Egypt. And the first—water being turned to blood—is in Exodus 7:14-25. God had allowed Pharaoh to believe he had the victory. Until the next morning when Moses went in front of Pharaoh at the Nile. And there, turned the water to blood. (This included the water already having been previously collected in their canals, pools, and drinking containers, just to give you the scope of the miraculous judgement.) But because Pharaoh’s magicians could “repeat” the effect, he continued with his refusal. And the effect lasted 7 days.

In Exodus 8:1-15, we see the second plague of frogs. This time, God sent Moses beforehand to proclaim the coming plague. Therefore it wouldn’t be possible for this to be some fluke that Moses exploited, because it had been predicted to happen the day before it did.

The frogs came. And filled everything. But Pharaoh was convinced his magicians could “repeat” the effect. Yet, despite this, he did still ask Moses to call on his God to remove the plague. Something inside of Pharaoh recognized there was an amount of truth to Moses’ words, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked for relief. But his promise to let the Israelites go and worship their God was retracted immediately after the frogs were removed.

Because of this, there was absolutely no warning for Pharaoh shown in Exodus 8:16-19, when the gnats arrived. And this plague doesn’t mention when relief came either.

Also, notice how verse 18 shows that the magicians failed to “reproduce” this effect. Did this fact change Pharaoh’s mind? No. The previous “reproductions” were just excuses for Pharaoh’s refusal to change his tactics with regard to the Israelites. And he even refused to listen to his advisors’ words about just letting the Israelites go. He wasn’t going to listen to anybody’s counsel, except his own.

The fourth plague, and its flies, struck in Ex. 8:20-32. Moses basically ambushed Pharaoh at the water’s edge to pronounce this plague. And God made clear to Pharaoh that these plagues were only meant for Egypt. The land of Goshen—where Israel dwelt—had been unaffected. Yahweh emphasized this point to showcase the purpose of this difficulty increase to Pharaoh.

But after the flies came, the king over Egypt tried to negotiate with God’s command. He told Moses that the Israelites could worship their God in the land itself. They didn’t need to leave the country, did they? Moses then explained the situation to the other man. God had commanded them to go out, so they needed to go out of the country.

Finally, Pharaoh said he’d allow the people to go, but still he tried to change the terms of the agreement as he signed on the dotted line. On top of that, he again retracted this allowance to let them go after the flies had cleared out.

With the fifth plague, in Ex. 9:1-7, God had Moses predict the very time on the next day that the livestock would die. And after this plague—which had no relief given afterward—Pharaoh went himself to check and see that the Israelite livestock had been unaffected. The words of God in the previous plague seemed to seep into the king’s mind, but didn’t change his heart. Because he refused to let them go.

There’s no relief mentioned from the sixth plague either. The boils arrive in Ex. 9:8-12 without real warning for the Egyptians. Moses comes before Pharaoh’s court with a handful of kiln soot to throw in the air. The boils immediately cover the court magicians, who were writhing in so much pain that they couldn’t even try to “reproduce” the effect.

And despite the pain of the court officials directly in front of Pharaoh, he refused to listen to their cries to just let the people go. Even the suffering of those close to Pharaoh failed to change his tactics when dealing with the God of Israel.

God showcases his grace along with his power in the seventh plague, found in Ex. 9:13-35. He promises Pharaoh that any who do listen to this warning will have their lives and livestock saved from the giant pieces of hail that were coming to crash through any who remained outside.

It’s not shown if the king told his subjects of the warning. But we do get to see that after the warning most of Egypt’s grain had been destroyed, Pharaoh calls Moses to him and actually says that he’s sinned and that Yahweh is right about all of this. He begs for Moses to have God remove this plague, once again promising to let the people go. But once again, he sends people to stop Israel from leaving, once the plague is called off.

The vast swarm of locusts is the eighth plague shown in Ex. 10:1-20. Here, God pushes on the half-second of realization that had struck Pharaoh in the previous plague. Yahweh asks how long Pharaoh will refuse to humble himself before the God of Israel? And then says that everything that the hail missed would be eaten by the locusts.

He’s pushing on the king right when Pharaoh had been trying to easy up on the difficulty.

The court advisors try to convince their king to let the Israelites go. This causes him to consider, but again try to set the terms of this agreement with God. “Only the men need to go, right?” he asks. “If you only take the men, then you can go.” But that was not God’s command. Every Israelite was to go.

So, Pharaoh refused. And was humiliated by God when he had to hastily call Moses back in to beg for forgiveness. “I have sinned against Yahweh your God, and against you.” Even Moses is getting some respect from the king. But this repentance is also short-lived, as Pharaoh continues his refusal after the locusts have gone.

Exodus 10:21-29’s ninth plague of darkness has absolutely no warning. And lasts for three days in the land of Egypt. (But Goshen is free of this plague, and in the light, for the whole time.) It lasts until Pharaoh finally calls Moses to him. But Pharaoh still tried to set the terms. Sure they’re better than his previous terms, but not what God had commanded.

With this rejection of his changes to the ways of God, Pharaoh’s anger wells. He refuses to let the people go. And promises that if he ever sees Moses again, it’ll be to sign Moses’ death warrant.

And this is where we get to the final plague of the death of every firstborn in every house that doesn’t have the blood smeared on the doorpost—as God had commanded the Israelites. There are several other things interspersed in Ex 11:1-14:31, but for the sake of our discussion, we’ll fast forward through much of it.

When Pharaoh hears the wailings of his people who have lost every firstborn from among men and animals, he drives the Israelites away. And the rest of Egypt adds their agreement.

But still, Pharaoh changes his mind, after the Israelites have left. And sends chariots after them. This is when we see the Israelites walk across the Red Sea as if on dry ground, but the army of Pharaoh—on horseback and chariot—drown as the sea crashes back down on them.

And nowhere does it seem that Pharaoh changes his tactics when it comes to dealing with God.

This is what hardness of heart does to any and all who continually refuse to accept God’s terms of action. We laugh at the consequences at first. They’re nothing but a coincidence. Yet when the difficulty rises, we refuse to change our personal tactic with him.

Clinging to our old excuses, we try to find some way to keep on button-mashing like we want to do. And when that stops working, we try to trick God with false promises. We try to buy time. And even refuse to listen to people who are just trying to help us.

We try to negotiate so that we can still maintain some aspect of what we want. We keep laying down terms, and getting angry when God doesn’t try to find some middle ground between us. “Part of negotiation,” we say, “is moving closer to each others’ side.” But God continues to remind us that this isn’t a negotiation. He’s the one in charge.

He wants to show us grace. Humility is his desire for us, but our refusal to change tactics—our desire to force our own way through the game of life—keeps us from seeing it.

We dig deeper and deeper into our own counsel. Our hearts getting so hardened from the grip of our sin that it would take a miracle to even soften it back to the one God made for us.

And in the end, death and destruction tends to be the result. If we keep on refusing to change tactic, then the suffering will be our own fault. The dry ground we charge through will have walls of water come crashing back down.

Thankfully, God is willing to continually offer the grace of Jesus’ sacrifice to any who do finally humble themselves before him. But it gets harder and harder to reach that place of true humility after so many manipulative cries for relief have crossed our lips. Our hearts callused by the numerous false repentances.

I write these words because, as I was reading these chapters of Exodus, I felt deep compassion for those who refuse to listen. The button-mashers who just want to force their way through life, hoping to get through without needing to humble themselves.

Death—spiritual death—is the only end for those who continue to harden their hearts to the ways of God. We can’t negotiate with him about his terms. He’s the Creator, and we’re the creation. There is no room on our side to set the boundaries of an agreement. We must follow his lead.

That means it is the call of all who have humbled themselves before the cross to speak warning to those heading for their own spiritual plague. We must speak forth, lest their consequences be on our heads for not letting them know.

I’m sure many will shout forth vitriol. And call me worse than a back-seat-gamer. But realization about the effects of a hardened heart has left mine in a softer place. So, I can do nothing more than be another voice, hoping to speak into others’ button-mashing tactics.

Soften your heart to the ways of God. It’s the only way that life will be found.