THE CIRCUMCISED HEART

THE CIRCUMCISED HEART

Romans 2:17-29 (KJV)

Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God,

And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law;

And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,

An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.

Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal?

Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?

Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?

For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.

For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a breaker of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision.

Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?

And shall not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law?

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.

I want to return today to the theme I had established or this year, a theme that was interrupted by our missions emphasis, but not by some superbug.

Our theme, Where Is Your Heart?

I began by reading in Romans 2, a New Testament demonstration of the continuity of the Old and New Testaments.

But the first mention of our subject this morning is found in,

Deuteronomy 10:12-16 (KJV)

And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,

To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?

Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.

Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

And even previous to that we find its contrast in, 

Leviticus 26:13-41 (KJV)

I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;

And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:

I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.

And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;

Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;

Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.

And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.

And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth: and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

And ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;

And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:

Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

The reason I chose to read so much Scripture is because it has bearing on the meaning and then application of our subject.

Both the passage in Leviticus and later, the passage in Deuteronomy, were given to us by the Holy Spirit through Moses.

Israel had come out of the land of Egypt and, by the time we come to Deuteronomy, had nearly 40 years of wilderness wanderings behind them

·   Things really had not gone very well for them.

·   They had panicked when they saw Egypt come after them at the shore of the Red Sea

·   They had murmured when they thought they had no food and water.

·   They had pined for the leaks and unions and garlics of Egypt

·   They had refused to trust God and take the Promised Land at Kadesh Barnea.

Now, here they were in Deuteronomy with a second opportunity to move forward, into the life and land God had for them.

The passage in Leviticus is a promise and a prophecy

If when they had disobeyed God and been judged for it, would humble their uncircumcised hearts, and remember His covenant with Abraham.

The passage in Deuteronomy is an invitation

This passage assumes that the children of Israel, just prior to crossing the Jordan River, had uncircumcised hearts.

The passage in Romans is a definition

We discover in it that the blood of a person is not the issue, but the heart. Jew or Gentile may be the seed of Abraham if either has a circumcised heart.

The children of Israel, while they were in the wilderness had uncircumcised hearts.

All of us but the children listening know what circumcision is.

I wanted to know what it meant.

My Ancient Hebrew Lexicon tells me that the word has to do with something in the front or before other things, like a long series of words in a sentence.[1]

I’m going to just has to trust the Lexicon for this.

It says, “The past is seen as "in front" in ancient Hebrew thought because the past can be seen while the future is unseen...”

The thing you can see is in front of you. It is before your eyes.

To circumcise, then, is to “cut off”: 

·   What is before you

·   What you have already seen 

·   What is your past

Israel in the wilderness was still uncircumcised in their hearts.

They were focused on their past.

They were focused on:

The protection Egypt gave them

Exodus 14:10-12 (KJV)

And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.

And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?

Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.

There at the edge of the Red Sea, when they saw the armies coming O, Israel cried, we were better off serving the Egytians!

They were focused on:

The provision Egypt gave them

Exodus 16:1-3 (KJV)

And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt.

And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness:

And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

In the book of Numbers the Bible says, Numbers 11:5 (KJV)

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:

·   The remembered

·   They coveted

They clung to 

·   What was past

·   What they had already experienced

·   What they knew

And they trembled at what God promised them.

They were focused on:

The peculiarity Egypt gave them

Genesis 46:31-34 (KJV)

And Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his father's house, I will go up, and shew Pharaoh, and say unto him, My brethren, and my father's house, which were in the land of Canaan, are come unto me;

And the men are shepherds, for their trade hath been to feed cattle; and they have brought their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have.

And it shall come to pass, when Pharaoh shall call you, and shall say, What is your occupation?

That ye shall say, Thy servants' trade hath been about cattle from our youth even until now, both we, and also our fathers: that ye may dwell in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians.

You would think being an abomination would be a bad thing.

It wasn’t.

·   It meant that Egypt would always see them as different

·   It meant that Egypt would always keep their distance and

·   It meant that Egypt gave them some very good land in Egypt

Suddenly, they found themselves out in the wilderness.

Their decision to follow the LORD, it seemed to them, HAD NOT improved their situation.

So, there they were, at the edge of the Promised Land

God offered them:

·   Protection

·   Provision

·   Peculiarity as His own children and

·   Property (a land flowing with milk and honey)

The only trouble was, in order to lay hold of God’s promises, they had to let go of, cut off, circumcise, everything they had ever known and trusted in the past.

So how does that apply to you and me?

And I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 5:7 (KJV)

(For we walk by faith, not by sight)

We who are Christians are not supposed to live on 

·   What we know 

·   what we have already experienced

·   What we have seen

We are to step into the unknown promises and plan of God.

I gave to 2 Corinthians 5:7.

Let me read to you just a bit more of the context.

2 Corinthians 5:6-8 (KJV)

Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

You see, 

·   Our confidence is not supposed to be on what is before us, what we can see.

·   Our confidence is supposed to be on what God has promised.

This home – this body – this thing we can see and remember all the events of the past, pleasant and not so pleasant…

…Holding on to it is what keeps us from having a heart that is laid up in heaven.

Let me give you some specifics

·   As long as you won’t forgive what happened in your past, you won’t have a heart for heaven.

·   As long as you are proud of what you have accomplished in your past, you won’t have a heart for heaven.

·   As long as you are comfortable with where you have gotten so far, you won’t have a heart for heaven.

·   As long as you still trust in you ideas from the past, you won’t have a heart for heaven.

Before us is our own Jordan River

Behind us is all of our history.

The good things we have experienced. The hardships we have endured. The things that have made us who we are today.

We would all admit that we would not want to walk through every valley again, but we have some pride in knowing we survived them.

They have made us who we are.

Or it could be that your history is so bitter that you are determined never to walk through those valleys again. You will not let go of them because you want to make sure you never have to go there again.

Across the river exists all the promises of God

·   We do not know what all of them are.

·   We do not know when we will receive them.

·   We do not know what awaits us until we get hold of them.

But we do know they are from God and we do know we cannot get them if we stay where we are.

The river is faith

Before we can ever reach the promises of God, we have to step by faith into hat we cannot see and cannot control.

We have to submit to God. Trust Him. And let Him use us as He pleases.

Conclusion

Philippians 3:2-3 (KJV)

Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.

For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

God called Israel in the passage “the concision”

God obviously contrasts the believer today as the circumcision and the unredeemed Jews and “the concision.”

Because they refused to cut off their past and trust in Jesus Christ, the Bible says they were “cut off” from God.

Where is your heart?

Have you trusted Christ as your Saviour?

Do you know that your sins are forgiven and that there is peace between you and God?

Please, please, if you have not done so, get in touch with us. Allow us to show you from the Word of God how to know without question that heaven is your promised home.

Christian, where is your heart?

·   Have you let go of all of that grief and bitterness of the past?

·   Have you cut off all of that pride and self-assurance of your past?

God says, James 4:10 (KJV)

Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

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[1] J) Lfm% (Lfm% MWL) ac: ? co: Front ab: ?: The front of a long series of the same. The past is seen as "in front" in ancient Hebrew thought because the past can be seen while the future is unseen and therefore behind.