Let me welcome you this morning.
It's good to see you out in the house of the Lord. May He bless
us in the preaching of the gospel as He's already blessed us in
the singing of these praises to Him. You can see my text today
is going to be Joshua chapter 5, and the title will be God
Removes the Reproach. I think that title will become
evident to you as we go through these verses, but the main concentration
I'm going to have here is going to be on verse 9. We'll go right
to the text and I'll introduce my lesson from the first verse
here. So look at Joshua chapter five in verse one. It says, and
it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites, which
were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites,
which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the
waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel until
we were passed over, that their heart, the heart of these kings,
melted Neither was their spirit in them anymore because of the
children of Israel. Now the last verse in chapter
4, you remember that God dried up the waters of the Jordan River
and his people had passed into Canaan, the land of promise,
on dry land. And that last verse said God
did this, this tremendous miracle. that all the people of the earth
might know the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty. Verse 1 of
chapter 5 tells us that he's accomplished his goal there.
These kings, these kings inside the promised land who now possess
this land, They're terrified. They don't know what to do. They're
not coming out to attack Israel because their God has demonstrated
such power. Look on at Joshua 5 and 3. We're
going to read on down through these verses here pretty quickly
to verse 9. Joshua 5, verse 2. At that time the Lord said to
Joshua, Make these sharp knives and circumcise again the children
of Israel the second time. And Joshua made him sharp knives
and circumcised the children of Israel at the heel of their
foreskins. Now, as we heard in the 10 o'clock
hour, circumcision was commanded, begun with Abraham. And God commanded
every male child to be circumcised on the eighth day. It says, circumcise
again. This is not a redoing of something
that's already been done. We'll see in our context these
children that will be circumcised. Not children, not all of them.
Some of them are grown men. Some of them near 39 years of
age. And I'll explain that in just
a second. But they had never been circumcised. Those that
were born in the wilderness were not circumcised. Now, why was
this circumcision necessary? Let's go on to Joshua 5 and verse
4. It says, and this is the cause
why Joshua did circumcise, all the people that came out of Egypt
that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness
by the way after they came out of Egypt. Now all the people
that came out were circumcised, but all the people that were
born in the wilderness, by the way, as they came forth out of
Egypt, them, they had not circumcised. They had been circumcised in
Egypt. All the males had been circumcised. And so they were
already circumcised. They're not going to be circumcised
again. But the children who were born in the wilderness, these
men had not circumcised these children. So they're the ones
that Joshua was being commanded to have circumcised here. Look
at Joshua 5 and verse 6. For the children of Israel walked
forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were
men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because
they obeyed not the voice of the Lord. These are those rebellious
fathers that refused to go into the land of Canaan on God's command.
He says they were consumed because they obeyed not the voice of
the Lord, unto whom the Lord sware that he would not show
them the land, which the Lord sware unto their fathers, that
he would give us a land that floweth with milk and honey.
When they rebelled, God said, you're not going to enter in.
I'll bring your children in, whom you say will be a prey,
but you're not going to enter in. And they didn't. All of them
were consumed, died in the wilderness in their unbelief. Look at Joshua
5, 7. It says, and their children,
this is the children of these rebellious fathers, whom he raised
up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised,
because they, the unbelieving fathers, had not circumcised
them by the way. Now look on to Joshua 5, 8, and
9. And it came to pass, when they
had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their
places in the camp till all were whole. And the Lord said unto
Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from
off you. Wherefore the name of the place
is called Gilgal unto this day. That word Gilgal means a rolling. God rolled the reproach off,
so it's called that until this day. Now we're seeing our lesson
here today that God did a remarkable thing here for this generation
of Israel. He rolled off them the reproach
of Egypt, it says. And our lesson is going to be
trying to understand exactly what God did here. The root of
this word reproach means to defy. It's used to describe the Philistine
Giant's attitude toward Israel. Look at 1 Samuel 17 and verse
10. And this Philistine Giant said,
I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may
fight. You can see in him a defiant,
a scornful attitude, one of contempt, one of reproach toward God. Before
the giant, Pharaoh was the supreme example of one who defied God.
He hardened his heart against God's command to let my people
go, and you remember God had to send ten plagues before he
would finally let Israel go and worship their God. Pharaoh's
defiance of Israel is renowned. I mean, everybody knows about
Pharaoh. Everybody's heard of what happened to him. It's easy
to see how the Philistine giant and Pharaoh resisted God, how
they scorned God, how they reproached God. And Pharaoh's reproach of
God was Egypt's reproach, and that's why God calls it here
the reproach of Egypt. But we need to see that this
reproach, it's not confined just to Egypt. all are partakers of
the reproach of Egypt, all without exception. Israel, God's elect
and chosen nation, also defied, they also scorned, they also
reproached God. How did they do this? Although
Israel had been delivered from physical bondage in Egypt, their
hearts were still in Egypt. Every turn, every time something
went wrong, every time there was no water, no food, no, well,
there was always manna, but they got tired of manna. So every
time something went wrong, what did they do? They wanted to appoint
them a captain and go back to Egypt. So their hearts were still
in Egypt. The allegiance of Israel as a nation remained with Egypt. As Egypt had acted towards God,
so had the nation Israel. Israel also defied God. They
scorned God. They reproached God. We're going
to look at a verse here in Nehemiah 9, verses 16 and 17. We could
look at a lot of verses here that would tell us this, but
let's look here. Nehemiah 9, 16 and 17. But they and our fathers
dealt proudly and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy
commandments, and refused to obey, neither were mindful of
thy wonders that thou did amongst them, but hardened their necks,
and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to bondage.
But thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to
anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not." That
last part talks of God's great mercy to remove the reproach
of Egypt. from some, not from all. Egypt's reproach was blatant.
They refused to enter the promised land, which is tantamount to
rejecting God's provision. God had promised this land and
given it to Abraham and this nation in a promise some 470
years before this. Their rejection of it is equivalent
to rejecting Christ, because that promised land, see, is a
picture of rest It's a picture of God's people resting in Christ
in His work alone. Israel's 40 years of wandering
in the wilderness was a journey of idolatry, of scorn, of reproach
toward God. As we saw back in verse 7, they
hadn't circumcised their children, they hadn't kept that command
that God gave Abraham. They had not observed the Passover.
They had not kept the laws that were given to them through Moses. In other words, what Israel did
for 40 years was demonstrate that as far as the true and living
God was concerned, their attitude toward him and Egypt's attitude
toward him was one and the same. They were no different. And this
generation, this generation that God has graciously brought into
this promised land, they were a part of this defiance. Just
like their fathers, they were willing participants in the reproach
of Egypt. But though they were idolaters,
though they scorned God and reproached God, God did something for them. He did something for this generation
of Israel that He hadn't done for their fathers. Look back
at Joshua chapter 5 and verse 9. And the Lord said unto Joshua,
This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.
Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal until this day."
God rolled away. He took from off these their
idolatry, their scorn, their defiance of God. He made them
willing to do what their fathers had refused to do. They entered
into and took possession of the land of Canaan. They submitted
to circumcision. They declared their participation
in the covenant of Abraham and in the covenant of Moses. Now,
he did this for a nation. He did this for a particular
people. But we know there's a bigger
picture here. All are partakers in the reproach of Egypt, as
I've already said. This is a picture of God eternally
rolling the reproach of Egypt from off His elect, His chosen
people. None are exempt from idolatry. None are exempt from defying
God. None are exempt from scorning
God. None are exempt from our participation
in the reproach of Egypt. The people of God, His elect
and chosen, have already been delivered from the legal guilt
and the condemnation of sin. Christ took care of that when
he went to the cross. That's already been done. The death
of Christ, their substitute, delivered them from this legal
bondage. But we're still in bondage. We're
born in bondage. We're born spiritually dead.
Our minds are bound in legalism and idolatry. There's yet a bondage
God's people must be delivered from. And even God's elect are
by nature in league with Satan. Now we heard this in the 10 o'clock
hour, but look at, I'm going to prove it here from Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 1 through 3. We're spiritually dead in league
with Satan. Paul writes here, and you hath
he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein
in time past you walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom also
we all had our conversation in time past in the lust of our
flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath." We were dead in trespasses
and sins, spiritually dead, that's what that means. We weren't spiritually
alive. And we walked according to the
course of this world. What's that? Well, as far as
the world was concerned, you can look now at one of God's
elect who's not been regenerated, who's not been brought to Christ,
and they're doing the same things that the world's doing. They're
sitting in a church, they're observing a worship service,
they're trusting something in themselves for their salvation. Walking according to the course
of this world. According to the prince of the
power there, that's Satan. The spirit that is still working
in the children of disobedience. And he'd be working in us, and
is, if God hasn't delivered us. Paul says, among whom also we
all, in other words, he includes himself here. He includes everybody
here. He doesn't exclude anyone here. We all had our conversation. in times past, and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others." This is bondage. This
is spiritual bondage, which all are in by nature, and all need
to be delivered from. To be in league with Satan is
this bondage, and all of us are in it. The problem is we don't
see this bondage. We don't realize this bondage.
We don't see ourselves in it. We don't know this is bondage.
But it's real and we are in it and we'll stay in it until Christ
delivers us from it. Let's look at a context in John
chapter 8 that tells us Jesus describes this bondage to a group
of people in his generation. John 8 and verse 31, Jesus then
said to those Jews which believed on him. Now these are Jews that
believe that he is the Messiah. They're those that have seen
his miracles, they've heard his words, they know what he's done,
they believe that he's the Messiah. But Jesus said to them, if you
continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed. Now,
I'll address you, my listening audience, like Christ addressed
those listening to Him. I would say to everyone listening
here who thinks that you are looking to Christ alone, trusting
the blood of Christ, looking to the cross of Christ, If you,
I'm talking to me too, if you continue in my word, then are
you my disciples. You are Christ's disciples indeed.
And look on at John 8, 32. And you shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free. The truth is the gospel.
The truth is what declares Christ and his finished work and his
accomplished salvation and what he's done for the people God
has given him. You learn the truth from the Gospel. If you
continue in Christ's Word, in other words, under the Gospel,
you'll know the truth and the truth will deliver you. It'll
set you free. Set you free from a bondage you
don't even know you're in. You don't even know you need
to be set free from. If you hadn't been set free,
your reaction might be exactly what the Jews had in this discourse.
Look at John 8, 33. These Jews answered him, we be
Abraham's seed, and we're never in bondage to any man. How sayest
thou thou you shall be made free? Now, none of us are Abraham's
natural seed. I don't think we are, but it
wouldn't matter if you were. But these were Abraham's natural
seed. But this would be the equivalent
to one of us saying, well, we're saved. We've given our hearts
to Christ. We know Christ is our Savior.
We've done all that's required, all that I know a sinner can
do, to be in God's favor, to be removed from God's wrath.
Nevertheless, look on in this discourse, look at Christ's response
in John 8 and verse 34. Jesus answered them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant
of sin. Now he's not talking about immorality
here or lawlessness. He's addressing a spiritual problem.
And these men are thinking physically, but he's addressing a spiritual
problem. Committing sin involves what a sinner thinks is making
you or me acceptable to God. What's putting me in God's favor? What's keeping me in God's favor?
That's what he's talking about. The sinner thinking that who
they are is making some contribution to their salvation, they're committing
sin. They said, we're Abraham's seed.
You might say, well, I've I've joined the church, I've given
my heart to Christ, I've walked an aisle, I've done everything
that I know I can do. What do you mean I need to be
delivered from a bondage? The sinner thinking that what
they've done has something to do with their acceptance is committing
sin. Don't look at this, let me tell you what it says. In
Matthew 7, you remember that discourse where those are standing
at the judgment and they said, Lord, haven't I preached in your
name, prophesied? Haven't I cast out demons in
your name? Haven't I done many wonderful
works in your name? Well, those were committing sin,
standing there before the Lord of glory at the judgment, because
they thought those things, which they did, which they gave God
credit for them doing, but they thought those things were what
was recommended unto God. Bottom line, any sinner not finding
their acceptance with God, in Christ's work alone, worked out
that righteousness. He worked out, charged to them,
imputed to them. Any sinner doing that is committing
sin. That sinner is defying God's salvation. They're scorning God's
Savior. They're demonstrating their participation
in the reproach of Egypt. Their servants slaves to whatever
they think is recommending them to God, other than the righteousness
of Christ. That's the sinner who's committing
sin. Look on at John 8 and verse 35. It says, and the servant
abides not in the house forever, but the son abideth ever. If
the Son, therefore, shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. For those of you who heard Bill
in the 10 o'clock hour, now we didn't get together on these
lessons. He didn't know I was using these verses. I didn't
know he was using these verses. So you've already heard him explain,
but let me give you an explanation, my explanation. The servant is
the one who abides in the house because of his continued contributions
to the household. He works to stay there. That's
why the servant can be in the household. If he stops contributing,
He'll be removed from the household. To remain, he has to keep doing.
He has to keep doing what the master requires him to do. He
has to serve. That's the position of a servant.
And that's bondage. Spiritual bondage is to think
that salvation at any stage, at any time, depends on anything
in the center. It's to think that your acceptance
with God has got something to do with your doing. It's not
seeing that the only way a sinner can be accepted by God is based
on what Christ has done, the righteousness that he's worked
out. To be free is to abide in the
house to have a permanent place in the household of God, not
by your doing. but by the Son's doing. Christ
came to save His sheep from their legal guilt and condemnation,
and He accomplished that by His death on the cross. But He also
came to save His sheep from their spiritual bondage. He came to
change their thinking about what makes sinners acceptable to God.
He came to deliver them from committing sin, from this bondage
that we're in that we don't know anything about. Look at 1 John
3 and verse 9. This is John's epistle. Whosoever
is born of God doth not commit sin. See, the answer to committing
sin is the new birth. It's a work in the heart by the
Spirit. Whoever is born of God does not commit sin for His seed,
that's Christ's seed, remains in Him. They remain in Christ. They abide in Christ. They're
not looking within for any hope of salvation. They're looking
to Christ alone. And the one born of God cannot
sin. They cannot commit sin. They
can't go on committing sin because they're born of God. God has
convinced them, persuaded them that their only hope is in Christ.
So they can't go back, they can't go out from Christ. They remain
in Him and their hope is found in Him alone. God rolled from
off this generation of Israel. He rolled off their idolatry,
their defiance, their scorn. He rolled off them their participation
in the reproach of Egypt. He changed their thinking from
that of their fathers. He delivered them from the bondage
that held their fathers and them in this mindset for 40 years.
He made them willing to enter in and possess the land of Canaan,
the land that he'd given them 470 years earlier through a promise
to Abraham. And he did this in order to picture
his rolling off from his elect their idolatry and bondage to
sin that deceived them and kept them looking at something other
than Christ for all of salvation. How does God roll off the reproaches,
the sins of his people? How does he do that? Well, he
rolls them on to Christ. That's how it's done. He has
imputed them to Christ who bore them away to the cross and put
them away in a just satisfaction. Look at Psalm 64, verses 6 through
9. Let not them that wait on thee,
O Lord God of hosts, be ashamed for my sake. Let not those that
seek thee be confounded for my sake, O God of Israel, because
for thy sake I have borne reproach. Shame hath covered my face. I
am become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien unto my
mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are
fallen on me. Christ bore the reproaches of
all men, all who reproached Him while He was on this earth. They
rejected Him as a Savior. They scorned Him. They buffeted
Him. They spat on Him. They crucified
Him. And he bore, he endured those
reproaches from all men. But God does not roll the reproach
of Egypt from off all men. Some are left in their sins. He didn't roll the reproach of
Egypt from off Pharaoh. Pharaoh pursued after Israel
and drowned in the sea, still defying God, still scorning God. He didn't roll them off Egypt.
Egypt continued in idolatry. And he didn't roll this reproach
off the fathers of this generation of Israel. They all died in their
unbelief, wandering in the wilderness. But he rolled them off this generation
of Israel in this temporal sense. He made them willing to enter
in and possess the land of promise. He made them willing to submit
to circumcision. In other words, to declare their
participation in the covenant of Abraham and the covenant of
Moses. And he rolls the reproaches off
his elect, not in a temporal sense, but in an internal sense.
Christ bore the reproaches of his sheep. The reproaches of
them that reproach thee are falling on me in an eternal way, he's
talking about, at the cross. Those reproaches were imputed
to Christ, and he took them out of the way, nailing them to his
cross. He answered all the charges,
suffered all the punishment his sheep deserved because of their
reproaches, because of their sin. Christ's sheep are not facing
any wrath from God because of their participation in the reproach
of Egypt, because all that wrath, all that they deserved, fell
on Christ, and he bore it away. That's how God rolls the reproach
of Egypt from off His elect. He rolled them on to Christ and
Christ bore them away. Next, let's look at what is the
evidence that God has rolled away from off His people the
reproach of Egypt. Look back at Joshua chapter 5
and verse 9. And the Lord said unto Joshua,
This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.
What is significant about this day? Well, it's the day that
Israel's mind was changed, changed dramatically, changed radically. God made them willing to enter
in and possess the land that their fathers refused to enter
in and take possession of. God made a radical change here. And to prove that change, Israel
submitted to circumcision. Physical circumcision was the
evidence of that radical change of mind. And as I told you before,
these are not all children. Some of them are young youngsters,
but some of them are near 39 years of age. You see, they wandered
40 years in the wilderness. God said of those that would
not enter into that land because of unbelief, everybody above
the age of 20, that would be the fighting men. They were circumcised,
but they wandered in the wilderness till they died. Now if you were
39 and a half years old and a male child in Israel, you're still
here. You're almost 60 years old, 59
and a half years old. So these are not all children. Some of these are grown men.
So this is not a small thing is what I'm saying. This is a
radical change of mind is what I'm talking about. For a 39 and
a half year old man to submit to circumcision, this is a radical
thing. They really want to be a part of something or they wouldn't
do it. And here's what he's saying. This day through circumcision,
Israel declared their radically changed minds. This day through
circumcision, Israel declared their allegiance to the covenant
God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. This day through circumcision,
they declared that God was their God and that they were his people. They've left the idolatry of
Egypt and come to the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.
Circumcision has always been what distinguished Israel from
other people. Now this distinction started
with a covenant God made with Abraham. Like Bill said, it didn't
start with Moses. This started all the way back
with Abraham. Look at Genesis 17 and verse 4. This is God speaking
to Abraham. He says, As for me, behold, my
covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.
Look on to Genesis 17, 9, and 10. And God said to Abraham,
thou shalt keep my covenant therefore thou and thy seed after thee
and their generations. This is my covenant which you
shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee. Every
man shall among you shall be circumcised. Physical circumcision
distinguished national Israel from the rest of the world, the
nations, the Gentiles. Paul said of Abraham in Romans
4 that that Abraham received the sign of circumcision. To the natural descendants of
Abraham, circumcision was a sign. It was an evidence that they
were participants in the covenant that God made with Abraham and
in the covenant he made through Moses. God changed the minds
of this generation of national Israel. He made them willing
to enter in and possess the promised land, and the evidence of their
changed mind was physical circumcision. But spiritual Israel doesn't
submit to physical circumcision, not as an evidence of salvation. If you do that, according to
Paul in Galatians 5 and verse 1, if you be circumcised thinking
that that physical circumcision recommends you to God, Christ
will prophet you nothing. You've fallen from grace, he
goes on to say in that chapter. Spiritual circumcision is what
distinguishes spiritual Israel from the rest of the religious
world. Look at Romans 2 and verse 28. Paul writes, For he is not a
Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is
outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly,
and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not
in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. Like
Bill said, Physical circumcision was just a testimony that we
stand in, that they stood, still stood in need of spiritual circumcision. You see, there's two Israels
mentioned in the scriptures, national and spiritual. And the
evidence that you were a spiritual Israel, I mean a national Israelite
was physical circumcision. But the evidence that you're
a spiritual Israelite, is spiritual circumcision. Circumcision of
the heart by the Spirit of God under the gospel. It's a changed
mind. It's a mind that's liberated
from the bondage of committing sin to the freedom of resting
in Christ alone. It's a mind that's changed from
casting shame and reproach upon the person and work of Christ
by thinking that something in you recommends you to God or
has a part in your acceptance. It's a mind change to resting
that Christ's work alone recommends you to God and gives you acceptance.
It's a mind change from one that's scorned, one that reproach God,
to one that truly worships God. Look at Psalm 1. This is the beginning of the
psalm, so he's setting the stage here for it, and he said, Blessed
is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the
scornful. Now, the blessed man is not the man that never walked
in the counsel of the ungodly. We all walked As I've already
shown you, according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. We were all in league with Satan,
nor is the blessed man, the man that never stood in the way of
sinners. We all start out on a broad way. We all start out on a way that
seems right to man, but the end of that way is death. Nor is
the blessed man the man that never sat in the seat of the
scornful. As I hope you've seen in this lesson, we all defied
God. We all scorned God. We all were participants in the
reproach of Egypt. The blessed man is the man whose
mind has been changed. The blessed man is the man whom
God delivers from these things, walking in the counsel of the
ungodly, standing in the way of sinners, sitting in the seat
of the scornful. Look at Psalm 1-2. The delight
of the blessed man, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and
in his law does he meditate day and night. That law includes
the gospel. That law includes how Christ
has come and fulfilled that law and satisfied it in every jot
and tittle. in precept and in penalty and brought in a righteousness,
how could I rejoice in something that only condemned me? I rejoice
in the law because I see Christ's fulfillment of it and the righteousness
he brought forth and my standing forever in God based on that
righteousness imputed. The blessed man is the man delivered
from the bondage of serving sin to the liberty of serving righteousness.
Look at Romans 6, 17, and 18. Paul writes, but God bethanked
that you were the servants of sin, but you've obeyed from the
heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you. Being then
made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.
He's talking about the same thing here that John was writing about
in John 8, from committing sin to serving righteousness. Nobody
starts out serving righteousness. We all start out serving sin.
We all start out committing sin. We all start out thinking that
something in us is making up some part of our salvation and
acceptance with God. And this is something that all
need to be delivered from. And it's something that Christ
delivers all his sheep from. Our deliverance from this sin,
this committing sin, is one of the greatest evidences that we
are born of God, that we've been spiritually circumcised, circumcised
in the heart. Can a sinner rightly claim to
be born of God who has not seen and been delivered from that
bondage of sin that had us deceived by nature? Well, not according
to this context, Romans 6, 17, and 18, E.K. You were the servants
of sin. You're now the servants of righteousness
because you've been delivered from being a servant of sin.
Moses was a blessed man. He experienced this spiritual
circumcision. How do we know that? We know
because his mind was changed. Look at Hebrews 11, 24 through
26. It says, By faith, Moses, when
he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's
daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people
of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. esteeming
the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in
Egypt, for he had respect and to the recompense of the reward."
Moses was in line for Pharaoh's job. He could have been the leader
of Egypt, but he gave all that up to be a part of Israel, the
people of God, and to lead them out of the Promised Land, and
to bear the reproach of Christ. The blessed man is the man who
rather than reproaching Christ, as we all do by nature, it's
the man whose mind is changed to bear his reproach. Look at
Hebrews 13, 10 through 13. Now, this is written to Hebrews. It says, those who still look
to that altar, that Jewish altar, that altar in the commandment
of Moses, it says, we have an altar. whereof they who still
look to that altar have no right to eat who serve that tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts
whose blood was brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned without the camp." They burned the bodies.
They took them outside the camp to burn them. Wherefore Jesus
also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, he
didn't suffer inside the gates of Jerusalem. He suffered outside
the gate. Calvary was outside the gates
of Jerusalem. It says, let us go forth therefore
unto him without the count, bearing his reproach. That's what those
who circumcised in the heart do. Rather than reproaching God,
they bear the reproach of Christ. God rolled the reproach of Egypt
from off this generation of Israel. He changed their minds. They
entered the land of promise and were circumcised, thus declaring
God to be their God and them to be his people. He rolls that
same reproach off of his elect. He circumcises our hearts and
changes our minds for participating in the reproach of Egypt to bearing
the reproach of Christ. Let me close with this verse
that Bill dealt with in detail in the back, and I'll just talk
about it briefly. Philippians chapter 3 and verse
3. From whom has God removed the
reproach of Egypt? I'd like to know that he's removed
it from me. I'd like to know that I'm not
still a part, a participant in the reproach of Egypt in defying
and scorning the living God. It says, for we are the circumcision
which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. We are the circumcision. We are
the spiritually born of God, which worship God in the spirit.
We worship God in the truth of his word and in the spirit that
continually points us to Christ. And we rejoice in Christ Jesus. We are persuaded that all our
salvation is in Christ and Christ alone. Any contribution from
us, totally excluded. and we have no confidence in
the flesh. We've been delivered from committing
sin. That's where we found confidence
in the flesh. And we've been delivered to having
no confidence there because our confidence is in Christ alone.
May God enable us to see this reproach of Egypt, to remove
it from us and enable us instead to bear the reproach of Christ.