Circumcision of the Heart
At that time the LORD said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again." (Joshua 5:2—NIV)
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. (Romans 2:28,29—NIV)
It is time for the new generation to be circumcised in heart.
I have been pastoring the same church for more than a quarter of a century. During that time I have not talked much about holiness—a great deal about righteousness but not much about holiness.
Righteousness is our behavior toward people. Holiness is our behavior toward God.
Having come from a Pentecostal background we have seen the swing from "don't go to the movies; don't wear cosmetics; don't go to the beach"; and so forth to "anything goes because God looks on the heart and not on the outside."
It is time to bring the situation back into balance. God indeed does care whether we sit and watch movies in which there is profanity and references to sexual activity; whether we lie on the beach while all around us are exhibitions of near-nudity.
The catalyst in my thinking was the motion picture "The Titanic." It was pointed out to me that several of our young people had gone to watch this performance.
When I heard this I was upset. I went to the Lord. I said, "Is this an Ezra thing?"
The Lord answered, "Yes, it is an Ezra thing."
I asked, "How do you feel about this?"
The Lord responded, "If you are outraged, what do you think I am?"
Then the Lord added, "Tell the people that they can come and be cleansed, washing the dirt from their robes. If they do not repent, there is a price to pay."
Which I did, the following Sunday. You can get the tape (March 29, AM, 1998) by writing or calling our church office.
The response was excellent. The people came to the altar and we prayed a prayer of confession, asking for forgiveness and renouncing profanity and the rest of the activity that fills the movies and the television.
Before the morning service I asked one of our older young people if there really were profanity, nudity, and allusions to sexual activity in the picture.
She said, "Yes."
I asked, "How did you feel about this?
She responded, "It wasn't necessary. It didn't add anything to the picture."
I felt this was an excellent, intelligent response.
As I thought about it later I realized that Satan had employed an interesting subject to draw in Christian people so he could imprint their personalities with the profanity and other moral filth that are the delight of the demons. Whether we know it or not, the personalities of the children are being imprinted by what they see and hear by audio-visual techniques. The images may not persist in the mind but they are present in the subconscious. They will show themselves at some point.
The same Sunday evening the young people presented a film about the conversion of a tribe in Papua, New Guinea, made by the New Tribes Missions. As I watched this film I realized that the children and young people were being imprinted with pictures and sounds that would make the Lord Jesus rejoice. How different from "The Titanic"!
The enemy got past us on this one.
From what I hear the prophetic ministries from various places saying, I believe we are entering an era of intense spiritual conflict. In time past God may have winked at Christian people going to such entertainment. There is a price to pay for partaking of the moral filth of the American culture.
"The Titanic," although milder indeed than some of the depravity being shown today in America, is definitely what John meant when he spoke of the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life. When we are comfortable with entertainment of this kind, the love of the Father is not in us. At least this is what the Scripture states.
I understand thoroughly that we cannot force such abstinence on young people. They have to make their own decisions. But we who are watching on the wall must sound the alarm when we see the enemy. And we can explain to our young people the holy requirements of the Lord. We owe them that.
Does such entertainment redeem the time by bringing us closer to God? While watching are we setting our affections on things above? Is our participation in such exhibitions of the flesh and soul compatible with the Christians in the arenas of Rome or living in the catacombs with their children? What about the Christians being tortured in China while we are watching worldly films? Is such behavior on our part godly and right or not?
While watching the moral filth that proceeds from Hollywood, California are we preparing ourselves to return with Jesus Christ and drive sin from the world?
Can you picture the Lord Jesus enjoying "The Titanic" while the cries of the Christians being crucified in Sudan are ringing in His ears?
If you can, you and I are not serving the same Lord Jesus Christ.
All the moral filth you have seen and heard, and have permitted your children to see and hear while you had control over them, you are going to meet in the Day of Resurrection. Please don't wait to find out if I am correct. You can wash your robes today in the blood of the Lamb, and then you are clean and will not have to answer for your behavior. Sin must be confessed, renounced, turned away from.
The old-time holiness preachers would not permit attendance at the movies even though the stars were Shirley Temple and Roy Rogers. They said we were to come out of the world. What would they say about today where Charismatic people go to X-rated movies, bleating about how to the pure all things are pure.
We have gotten away from the standards of holiness. We must return today. If we do not, "there is a price to pay"!
When you die you will be gathered to your people. Do you want to be with those who love the Lord's holiness or with the X-rated movies crowd? You are making your decision as you read these words.
There are no mixtures in the world where you are going. The holy will remain holy and the filthy will remain filthy.
I realize that while we are attempting to maintain wholesome family life there may be children or a spouse whose calling in God is different from ours, whose election may not be of the same rank in the Kingdom. In such instances we have to weigh each decision we make, not being arbitrary, not attempting to force everyone, called of God or not, to live at the same level of holiness. We will alienate them if we do.
God gives us wisdom, not to compromise but to draw the line only at behaviors that absolutely are not to be condoned. The wife can attend "The Titanic" with her husband if it makes for love and peace in the home. The older young people may desire to do things that displease their parents but are not of the same level of moral destruction as drugs or fornication. The adult (or child) called of God to holiness will easily be taught to shun the filthiness of the flesh.
The Christian must draw the line, but not so tightly that the unsaved or the less consecrated, who are partaking of the world but not destroying themselves with moral filth, are driven from the church or the home.
These can be very difficult decisions in the present hour but there is no way of avoiding them without harming people unnecessarily. God will help if we pray and do not become angry or unreasonable.
The generation that had left Egypt had been circumcised. The new generation ready to attack Jericho had not been circumcised.
We have found that many of the newer generation of today are fairly well learned in the revelations of the end time. But they may not have been circumcised in heart as yet. God will not work with those who have not been circumcised in heart.
Circumcision has to do with holiness. The term "saint" means holy one.
Holiness is not the same as righteousness, although the two interact. Righteousness is revealed in uprightness, honesty, integrity, truthfulness—with the way we deal with other people.
Holiness has to do with our nearness to God, with our covenant with God.
The Lord Jesus is both holy and righteous.
Our nation may look kindly on a righteous person but it understands nothing of holiness. This is because the secular population is not of the royal priesthood. When we criticize such a film as "The Titanic" the man on the street will have no idea what we are speaking of. Neither will many Christian churches because they no longer are separate from the world.
The Nazarenes, the Methodists, the Baptists of past generations understood holiness and preached holiness. Old-time Pentecost was a holiness movement. From our point of view the Charismatic movement, with all its knowledge of spiritual gifts, is lacking in holiness. In fact, holiness sometimes is scorned as being "legalism."
Divine grace, however, does not make up for our lack of holiness. We have to be holy if we are to see the Lord. God is a holy God and we have to be holy as He is holy.
The observance of the Sabbath and of circumcision were not matters of righteousness but of holiness. They were not directed toward our dealing with people but with God. They were the property of Israel, the royal priesthood.
The priests of God must be more holy than other people because they stand in the Presence of the Fire of Israel. All the works of the flesh and soul must be burned out of them. Unclean spirits cannot abide in the Presence of the Lord!
Behavior that God may overlook in the people of the world will never be overlooked in His priesthood.
When Christian people refuse to smoke, drink, watch and listen to moral filth at the theater or on television, it is because they are members of Jesus Christ and He does not do these things because He is holy. Neither do those who are seeking to live with Him in God's Presence.
I know modern Charismatic preachers say the Lord doesn't care if we do these things but He does. I know they say all things are clean to us and we can take part in any kind of worldliness but they are wrong.
I know today's preachers say we can swear and use four-letter words if we want to but we cannot and keep the Presence of Christ. When we use gutter language it is because there are demons in our mouth and we need to be delivered from them. I know the teachers of our time say we can watch anything we want to, listen to anything we want to, but we cannot and remain holy.
All that we see, all that we hear, all that we touch becomes a permanent part of our personality whether we like it or not. Until we get down before God and confess our sins and turn away from them they remain in us. They become a permanent part of us and our children. We will receive them in the Day of Resurrection.
If you are called to be a member of the royal priesthood, and you are partaking of today's American culture, you will be chastened until you are free from such spiritual uncleanness and bondage. O God send the fire! Send the fire! Send the fire!
May God develop in each of us such a hunger and thirst for holiness that we are consumed with the thought of dwelling in the everlasting Fire.
To be circumcised in heart is to have the world, sin, and self-will cut away. These three areas of our personality should be renounced at the time we receive Christ so the remainder of our discipleship is a working out of that which we acknowledged from the first.
When we come to Christ we should be taught first of all that we are received of God because the blood of Jesus Christ has made an atonement for our sins. We cannot save ourselves, we must come to God for the protection and forgiveness of the blood.
Next, we are to repent. This is to say, we are to turn away in our heart from the world, from sin, and from our personal ambition.
God has given us water baptism as a sign, a drama by which we can demonstrate that we have been circumcised in heart. In water baptism we by faith take our place with Christ on the cross, counting that our first personality indeed has died. Now we are free from the Law of Moses so we may walk in newness of life with the Lord Jesus Christ.
We have turned away in our heart from the ways of the world, from sin, and from our own personal ambition and self-centeredness.
Until we take this step of renunciation of the world, sin, and disobedience, we are not circumcised in heart. We can talk about Joel's army, the latter rain, and the Kingdom of God all we want to. But we will never bear witness as we should or rule with Jesus Christ until we have been circumcised.
As for cutting away the world:
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. (I John 2:15,16—NIV)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1,2—NIV)
As for cutting away the lusts of the flesh:
Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. (II Corinthians 7:1—NIV)
Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24—NIV)
And as for cutting away our own will and way:
Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it." (Mark 8:34,35—NIV)
The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. (I John 2:17—NIV)
Whenever the Lord gets ready to use someone in a major change in His Kingdom He first checks to see if the individual has been circumcised.
After Moses had seen the burning bush the Lord directed him to go to Egypt. On his way with his wife and son he stopped for a night's lodging.
Then God tried to kill him. Why? Because his son had not been circumcised.
This gives you some idea of how seriously the Lord views holiness.
It was not possible for the army of the Lord to invade Canaan until every soldier without exception had been circumcised. It is not possible for the army of witnesses of today to go throughout the earth bearing witness of the Kingdom except as the witnesses are circumcised.
It will not be possible for any uncircumcised believer to follow Jesus Christ in the attack of Armageddon.
The saints who went before us knew of the need to have a circumcised heart. It is time now for the present generation to return to the Lord and get right with Him, for there will be no protection during the age of moral horrors that is upon us if we have not been circumcised in heart. (Exodus 4:24,25)
The reproach of Egypt, the world, remains on us until we are circumcised in heart. The reproach is rolled away at Gilgal (rolling).
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