ANOTHER NIGHT WITH THE FROGS
Some might call it “defiance”, and others may say that it is simply “hard-headedness”; psychologists and criminologists will tell you that it is “a form of denial”– that magical buzz-word – which they love to use to convince people that they are right, and you are lying to yourself. The more astute among the Hick Farmer Sigmund Freud Wannabes would use the term “reaction formation” recalling their psych 101 classes, and the various “Anonymous” organizations (AA, NA, SA, et al.) would call it “the abstinence violation effect”. Others with a methodological scientific philosophy would call it “asserted rightness”. In other words, the observations lead to the conclusion that it is the nature of Man to try to be last-ditch right, even when he is obviously dead wrong. He does this by the power of assertion, and the assertion itself quickly becomes separated from any consideration of the facts, or of what the truth might be.
In the Bible, the condition is called “stiff-necked” or “a hardened heart”. It hardly matters what name one wishes to call it, but a “hardened heart” is the main reason that crime and sin persist in the world, and it is also the cause of criminal recidivism – it brings people through “the revolving door” and back into prison after their release; it causes the offenses to get worse and worse, and criminologists fail to understand that laws and increasingly severe penalties will only make the situation worse.
The best (and the oldest) example of this, is the colloquy between the Pharaoh of Egypt and Moses in the book of Exodus (chapters 4 to 12):
“...Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. And Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go”. – Exodus 5:1, 2
In those times, and in that culture, the Pharaoh (or King) of Egypt was thought to be a god, and the people worshipped idols that were “the gods of nature”. Pharaoh, who believed himself to be a god, had absolute authority – or so he thought. And so, the true and living God; the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would now reveal Himself through nature, in order that Pharaoh would “get the message”. Pharaoh’s response to a series of plagues that God would send upon the land of Egypt is the best illustration of asserted rightness or hardened heart that I know of. In particular, there is something else that I want to call your attention to:
“And the Lord spake to Moses, Go unto Pharaoh and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs: And the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens and into thy kneading troughs...” – Exodus 8:1 - 3
The Egyptians esteemed frogs greatly, because frogs would eat bugs in their crop fields, thus acting as a natural pesticide, and the Egyptians ate frogs as a delicacy, as many other Eastern cultures do, even to this day. Now, things were about to get messy – to say the least:
“And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt”. – Exodus 8:6
Now there were frogs everywhere! You can imagine how disgusting this was, if you know a little something about frogs – the Nile River hosts a variety of them; the average, full-grown frog is six to eight inches long, and weighs several pounds. Like all other animals, frogs eat and they defecate wherever they please. That means a horrific stench would be upon the land, also.
