Heavenly Father, bless our gathering.
Open our minds that we can understand the scriptures to see Christ
and his salvation in it. And it's in that name we pray,
amen. Now, the people have entered the land.
They have gone across the Jordan miraculously. They have done
so with their eyes fixed upon the Ark of the Covenant as it
was held up on the shoulders of the priests, picturing Christ
and Him crucified, not only that, but Christ as the sovereign God
ruling all things. The people had entered the promised
land and after they had entered the promised land and in preparation
for going to battle, Four things were done. All the males were
circumcised. They observed the Passover. They
observed the Feast of Unleavened Bread. And then the manna quit
falling. Remember, the manna had been
their provision throughout the wilderness. But now they're in
the Promised Land, and the manna quit falling. Now, last week,
we'd began to discuss that part about the circumcision of the
males and had dealt with the question of why they had not
circumcised their young all during that time that they were in the
wilderness. After all, it had been commanded
to them early on. And we went through some possible
reasons why. But the more important question
is not the question of why they didn't, but why at this point
do they perform that ritual of circumcision. Now when it comes
to circumcision, I don't know exactly why God chose this way
of marking out his people under the old covenant. this way of
distinguishing them from the nations. However, and you can
be turning over to Romans chapter two. Just hold your place in Joshua. Go over to Romans chapter two. Now in the church, there was
a lot of disagreement. about the significance of the
rite of circumcision within the church, so much so that some of them
even insisted that a person, well, a man could not be saved
apart from circumcision. And Paul dealt with that head
on in the book of Galatians. But here he says, And verse 25
of Romans 2, circumcision has value if you observe the law. That is, if you're someone who
trusts in the law, if you're someone who is diligent to obey
the law, thinking that by that obedience to the law, you'll
gain something, he says, if you observe the law, circumcision
has value, if you can keep it. But if you break the law, you
have become as though you had not been circumcised. Now Paul's
dealing with the legal aspects now, because there were people
who trusted in their circumcision even though they were lawbreakers. And he's pointing out circumcision
only has value if you're a law keeper. If those who are not
circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as
though they were circumcised? And his point there is that circumcision
was an outward right, but even it did not actually qualify as
any act of obedience that qualified you for God's favor. Because
he said, if someone who were not circumcised, a Gentile or
whatever, if he were to keep the law, that is, keep God's
demands for how a person ought to live, would he not be considered
as though he were circumcised, meaning by this that he were
part of God's covenant people? In other words, doing what is
right was way more important than observing a ritual. So he's
already diminished the value of circumcision in the eyes. Of course, he's,
in a sense, arguing with Jews at this point in the book of
Romans. And he's saying it has so little value that if you are
circumcised, but you're not perfect under the law, your circumcision
is going to be useless. But if you're not circumcised,
however, you too always do what God expects of humans to do,
then you will be counted as though you had been circumcised. And
later on, actually, in the book of Galatians, he says, for neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything. Now this teaches
us something about ceremonies and rituals. The church has two
ceremonies or two rituals, baptism and the Lord's table. And they
have some importance, but they have no value in saving anyone,
none whatsoever. And even if a person, if he were
a believer in the Lord, a true and honest believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and either through ignorance or lack of opportunity
or whatever, he had never been baptized, that's not going to
make a difference. There was never any observance
of the Lord's table. That would not hinder his salvation,
nor if he participated in it, would it help his salvation.
Rituals are designed to show a reality. They are visible,
physical representation of spiritual realities. Now, verse 27 of Romans 2, the
one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn
you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision,
are a lawbreaker. Now, Paul is not saying that
there's anybody who actually keeps the law. I mean, you know,
he's already, or here in just a little bit, he's going to say
there's none righteous. So he's speaking hypothetically, and
sometimes we have to, when we're trying to deal with a particular
issue that comes up. And he's just saying, if there
were somebody, an uncircumcised somebody, who actually kept the
law, who did all that God demanded of men, then he said, the law
will condemn you, even though you have the written code and
circumcision, but you are a lawbreaker. So, see how he's demoted circumcision
because the Jews of that day, well actually you can find it
even through the Old Testament, they just trusted in that. Now,
then he says, verse 28, a man is not a Jew if he is only one
outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one
inwardly. And circumcision is circumcision
of the heart by the spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's
praise is not from men, but from God. Now, Paul, as is common
with Jews and the way they talk, he's got some puns going there. That is, he's using some words
that have similar meaning. The word Jew comes from the name
Judah. which means praise. And so he
says, a Jew is not one who's a Jew outwardly, but is a Jew
inwardly, and his praise is from God. So here, as we're going back
to Joshua now, the Jews, they've crossed. But for all that time
wandering in the wilderness, they had not obeyed the law,
and therefore you had a whole lot of men. They had never had
that ritual performed on them. And so now that they're a cross,
what's that indicate? They're already in the promised
land. They already possess that. It's already been given to them.
But now this ritual is to be performed on them. Why now? Well, it is preparation for the battles that
they're going into. I think that this is an important
point to note. Circumcision of the heart that
we read about is a matter that's invisible to men. If God has
saved somebody, Paul refers to that act of God, invading a person's
life, his heart, his inner being, and saving him. I know that salvation
encompasses a lot more than just that one moment, but sometimes
one part of salvation is used for the entirety of it. But it's
described as the circumcision of the heart, not the one done
with hands, but the circumcision done in the heart by the Holy
Spirit of God. Now, that cannot be seen by anybody
else. You know, religion, as men practice
it, they love what can be seen. The Lord said of the religious
leaders of his day that what they do, they do for men's eyes
to see. Now, we want to maintain a decent
reputation, don't we? We don't wanna bring unnecessary
dishonor on the name of Christ because of the way we conduct
our lives. But we don't live as we do in order to make men
praise us. And this business of being saved,
quite frankly, folks, there's nothing I could do that would
prove to you that indeed I have been saved by the grace of God. And to my knowledge, there's
nothing I could do that would prove that I hadn't. Because
while man looks on the outward appearance, because that's all
he can see, God looks on the heart. And he sees whether or
not that which is professed with the mouth is true in the heart. And he's the only one capable
of doing that. Now, if someone comes up to me
and says they're Christian, I'm going to take their word for
it. I have no choice unless they begin to profess that which is
obviously contrary to the gospel. More importantly, John says,
he that is born of God listens to us, or hears us. And by that,
he means as we preach, those who are born of God are going
to recognize that what we say is the truth. Well, if someone
came to hear me preach and then said, well, that's not the truth, well, that means one of two things.
I'm not preaching the gospel, or they've not yet been born
of God. Nonetheless, I cannot 100% ever judge the
heart of another man. And I've said this before. People
come here, and this is the way it's been from the very beginning
when we started. And as long as people come here
and sit and listen in peace, they are free to be among us
and count themselves among us. Why? If they listen, if they,
you know, goats just can't, they can't stand to listen to the
gospel very long. It eventually gets under their
skin. Sheep love it, and they'll stick
around. And even if they have some odd
doctrines, maybe odd doctrines, they got some error in their
doctrine. That doesn't mean that they don't believe the essence
of the gospel. Paul said, if any man is in error,
he didn't say kick them out of the church, he said instruct
them, and that's what we do. But this work of God in the heart
is invisible to men. Now, circumcision in the flesh
theoretically would be visible, but think of it this way. If
a man were to boast that he was of the circumcision, then someone
were to challenge him, prove it, he would likely respond with,
you're just gonna have to take my word for it. Why? It's rather private. Salvation's a private thing.
It's a one-on-one experience with God. And there is no way
that you can prove to anyone else that you have been saved. It's a matter of the heart. Circumcision
was reinstituted as a reminder that they are in the land and
will be victorious in battle because of the covenant of promise. Now, here's maybe the most important
thing to note here. Yes, circumcision was commanded
in the law, but it did not begin in the law, did it? Circumcision was a right given
to Abraham as a symbol of the covenant of promise, not a covenant
of works. Now that covenant of promise is a covenant in which the full
weight and accomplishment of the covenant fell solely in the
hands of God. Now that's what a promise is.
Now if I make a contract with you, and the old covenant was
a contract, you do this, I'll do that, that's what God said.
Well then the burden of human side of the covenant rests upon
the humans. But in this covenant of promise,
when simply God makes a promise, the entire burden of the covenant
is upon him. Now, if you'll turn back here
to Genesis chapter 15, I believe it is, No, wait. I can. Okay, yeah, Genesis 15. And it says in verse six, and
we're going to be looking at this in the regular morning worship,
so I'll just briefly I mentioned it here in verse 6, it says,
Abraham believed the Lord and he credited to him as righteousness. And then on verse 8, he says,
oh sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of
it? That is, gain possession of the land that the Lord had
promised him. Now, the rest of the verses in this chapter are
a description of a sacrifice, and a kind of ritual that people
would go through in making covenants. In fact, they called it cutting
a covenant. And so the Lord told Abram, you
go get a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old,
along with a dove and young pigeon. And he was to cut those animals
in half. and separate them, kind of making
a passageway between the halves of their bodies. And that was
the way they would ratify these covenants. But notice here, it's
about time for, everything's in order, and it's time now for
the ratification of the covenant. And it says in verse 12, as the
sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and
dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, no
for certain, and then he repeats his promise. And then verse 17,
when the sun had set, and darkness had fallen, a smoking fire pot
with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.
Now, it was normal that both parties to a covenant would pass
between the pieces, but notice this, it's just one. On that
day, the Lord made a covenant with Abraham and said, and then
repeats the promise. The point to notice here, this
covenant of promise, when it was ratified, By the cutting
of the covenant, Abram was asleep. He had absolutely nothing to
do with the fulfillment, the ratification of this covenant. It was God and God alone. He passed between the pieces
while Abraham's over here out cold. And that's what a covenant
of promise is. And it was not until a couple
of chapters later that circumcision was given to Abraham as a symbol
of that covenant. Nonetheless, we see that this
covenant of promise, the whole weight, whole weight of the covenant
fell upon God himself. And so now that they're already
in the land, they already are in that land that God had promised.
It was then that this right of circumcision was given to them. And what that showed them is
they were not in the land because they were circumcised. Because
they weren't circumcised until they were in the land. And you
know, this business of of our salvation. We do not enter salvation
because we have, by our own selves, circumcised our hearts. No. We enter in, and there is nothing
to distinguish us Naturally speaking, nothing to distinguish us from
anybody else in the rest of the world. It's not until after we've
entered that this spiritual sign, so to speak, is made evident. This circumcision, again, was
an outward ritual. that pictures an inward principle. In one respect, it can be said
to picture the cutting or the pricking
of the heart by grace through the gospel.
You know, people like to say that, well, before you're saved,
you begin to feel bad about your sin. Well, there's a lot of people
that feel bad about their sin, but it's what Paul calls the
worldly sorrow that leads to death. You know, man has a moral conscience,
so of course he feels bad about the bad things he does. He also
has an understanding of judgment to come, therefore his sins may
strike fear into him, and he can put on a kind of repentance,
a kind of sorrow over sin, but it's the sorrow of the world.
But godly sorrow, says the Scriptures, it's something that's never repented
of, this godly sorrow and repentance, and the reason it's never repented
of, that is, anybody who repents after this fashion never really
repents of their repentance, is because it is something done
by God. It's something accomplished by
God, not by us. It was commonly held, and it's
not the worst of errors in the world, but you preach the law
to convince people they're sinners and then preach the gospel, you
know, to get them to believe. There is nothing that will convince
you of your sin more completely than the preaching of Christ
and Him crucified. The Jews had the law preached
to them continually. And they didn't repent. But when the gospel was preached
to them on the day of Pentecost, it pricked their heart. It says
in John that this is the verdict. Light has come into the world.
But men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds
were evil. Now, the light that came into
the world was the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, he came
there among the Jews. So who was it that didn't like
the light, and rejected it. I think that John had in mind,
particularly the religious leaders of the Jews, the Pharisees, Sadducees,
and all that, they trusted in their own righteousness. And
so long as they lived under the shadowy types of the law, it
was a darkness, they could hide their sin in there. And people
thought they were righteous. But when Christ, the light, comes
on the scene, they are revealed for what they actually are. sinners
without hope apart from the mercy of God. And one of the most convincing
arguments for the sinfulness of men is the fact that it takes
nothing less than the brutal slaughter of the Son of God,
both physically and spiritually, to put away their sins. The Jews
of old, they'd see a sheep or Heifer, something like that,
whatever they were sacrificing. And they said, OK, we've done
that, and that put away our sin, which shows that they don't think
that their sin's very bad. An animal can be given as a payment
for it. But when, through the preaching
of the gospel, you come to the realization that nothing less
than Jesus Christ being made a sin offering for us, of God
pouring out, doing to Christ everything that God can do in
response to sin, you say, that's what it took to save me? It took
that much? You know, the seriousness of
a disease can be measured by the power of the medicine needed
to cure it. You say, well, Jesus had to suffer
so much because he was bearing the sins of so many. If it had
only been your sin, he would have suffered just as much. Because the suffering for sin
is infinite. Because it's sin against an infinite
God. One sin can ignite an entire
hell. It's at the cross we learn our
sin. Circumcision involves flesh and
blood. And Jesus Christ took hold of the seed of Abraham and
was made into the likeness of sinful flesh for the suffering
of death as the executor of the covenant of promise. And then, trying to find the
text I wanted to go to here. I thought I wrote it down. Okay.
No, that's not yet. That's why it wasn't right here.
Now, this rite, this ritual, means simply an illustration.
This ritual of circumcision, it was just an illustration.
Therefore, it was discontinued when the substance came on the
scene. Christ fulfilled the law, being
circumcised under the law and fulfilling every meaning of the
law, and in particular circumcision, in his crucifixion. And he set
aside that ritual. It's not needed. Therefore, as Paul says, neither
circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything. As they prepare for battle, let's
look here at beginning in verse 8. This whole business of their
circumcision led to the language of accomplishment. That is, not
that they had accomplished something, but God had accomplished something
for them. Verse 8, and after the whole
nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were
in camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua,
today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. So
the place has been called Gilgal to this day. Now what's he saying? He's saying the circumcision
thing. What it pictures, he said, I
have rolled away from you the reproach of Egypt. All that remembrance of their paganism in Egypt and
their continued idolatry as they were in the wilderness, the humiliation
of their slavery, the penalty of sin, all of that rolled away. It's gone. And when we, because
of the work of Christ, and then that inward work of the Spirit
when we are circumcised in heart, all of that for us is rolled
away. That's why it says in Romans
6, sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under
law, but under grace. Now this doesn't mean that sin
doesn't have power with us, it certainly does, doesn't it? Dominion
is about authority. Sin no longer has authority to
do anything to us. It can't even kill us. Why? Because we're not under law.
And it's under law that sin has the power to kill. We're under
grace. So all of our sin has been rolled away. All the reproach
has been rolled away. All the slavery has been rolled
away. And all, and catch this, all
that useless self-righteous form of religion is rolled off of
the people. Of all the sins that men commit,
well unbelief's at the root of all of it, but The most notable
expression of unbelief is self-righteousness. Because when you are righteous
in yourself, you are not believing God. You're believing yourself. And when God circumcises the
heart, that reproach-worthy self-righteousness just rolled off of us. And not
only You know, a lot of people have said things like, you know,
well, when God saves you, he forgives all your sins past.
But from then on, you got to live a righteous life. Well,
then what good is it to be saved? Because you know this, you're
not going to walk 10 seconds down the road without doing something
that a perfectly holy God would not be able to accept and would
have to punish you for. So when it says all the reproach
of Egypt is rolled off of us, It means all the Egyptness of
our entire lives, from conception until death, all of it is rolled
off. And it's only when we understand
that, that we are properly prepared to go into battle. Just a little personal note that
may explain that, son. Whenever I stand to preach, which
is in a sense pictured by the battles that Joshua and the people
engaged in, do you know what the strongest hindrance to my
ability to do that is? The awareness of my sin. And virtually every time I try
to preach, the accuser comes and accuses. And everything he
accuses me of, it's true. I've done those things. I've
thought those things. I've wanted those things. Then how can I stand here and
preach? Because the Lord, having circumcised my heart through
the gospel, The reproach is rolled away, and I am prepared for battle. And I would say, if not 100%
of the time, nearly 100% of the time, I have to go through that
whole process again, for the accuser comes, and then I've
got to be reminded, yes, what he says is true, but it's irrelevant,
because the reproach of what I am by birth, what I've done,
it's all been rolled away. And so as you go out and do your
battle, remember this, don't try to enter any battle until
you have been convinced in your heart the reproach has been rolled
off of you. All right.