From Shame to Freedom: Joshua 5:2-9
Hey:
Our nation is covered by a cloud of shame.
Adrian Rogers was asked the question; ¡§Will God judge America?¡¨ His response was and my response is, ¡§ Look around us, God is judging America!¡¨
We are a nation filled with national shame.
We print, ¡§In God we trust¡¨ on our coins, but we cannot teach our children to pray in our public schools.
Hour pledge allegiance says ¡§one nation under God,¡¨ but we cannot hang the ¡§Ten Commandments¡¨ on the courtroom walls.
Millions of babies die each year do to legal abortion.
State governments across this nation, including ours, encourage gambling.
Our state universities have become places that teach young people to turn away from God and turn to the idols of this world of materialism, sex, and alcohol.
It is clear that a cloud of shame covers our nation.
You:
But national shame is brought about by personal shame. Shame that each of us are responsible for. What shame are you bearing this morning?
Each of us are sinners. All of us approach God with shame because of our sin. And on this Day of Prayer and Fasting for World Evangelization, the repentance should start here.
Look:
The passage we look at this morning shows that Israel was shamed by slavery in Egypt.
Do:
God¡¦s method for removing the shame of slavery in Egypt was repentance. God¡¦s method for removing the shame of slavery in sin is repentance.
Are you going to repent today and remove the shame that is in your life?
Passage: Joshua 5:2-9
2At that time the LORD told Joshua, ¡§Use knives of flint to make the Israelites a circumcised people again.¡¨ 3So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the entire male population of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.„T
4Joshua had to circumcise them because all the men who were old enough to bear arms when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness. 5Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus, during the years in the wilderness, had been circumcised. 6The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years until all the men who were old enough to bear arms when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the LORD, and the LORD vowed he would not let them enter the land he had sworn to give us¡Xa land flowing with milk and honey. 7So Joshua circumcised their sons who had not been circumcised on the way to the Promised Land¡Xthose who had grown up to take their fathers¡¦ places. 8After all the males had been circumcised, they rested in the camp until they were healed.
9Then the LORD said to Joshua, ¡§Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt.¡¨ So that place has been called Gilgal„T to this day.
Prayer
I. God instructs the Israelites to be set apart¡KGod¡¦s Call to us
We look again at Joshua and his leadership of the Israelite people. They have just crossed the Jordan River, and erected the memorials praising God for what happened.
Verse one of chapter five says that:
1When all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings who lived along the Mediterranean coast„T heard how the LORD had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross, they lost heart and were paralyzed with fear.
The people were paralyzed in fear. But the Lord had another message for Joshua. A message that that would remove the shame of Israel.
V2
2At that time the LORD told Joshua, ¡§Use knives of flint to make the Israelites a circumcised people again.¡¨
Explanation:
God instructed them to be a circumcised people again. What does that mean? It means that they were God¡¦s chosen people and to participate in God¡¦s Covenant with Abram they would have to be identified with this covenant.
In Genesis 17: 9-14 God describes the Israelites part of the agreement, the Israelites, we know, are the decedents of Abraham.
9¡§Your part of the agreement,¡¨ God told Abraham, ¡§is to obey the terms of the covenant. You and all your descendants have this continual responsibility. 10This is the covenant that you and your descendants must keep: Each male among you must be circumcised; 11the flesh of his foreskin must be cut off. This will be a sign that you and they have accepted this covenant. 12Every male child must be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. This applies not only to members of your family, but also to the servants born in your household and the foreign-born servants whom you have purchased. 13All must be circumcised. Your bodies will thus bear the mark of my everlasting covenant. 14Anyone who refuses to be circumcised will be cut off from the covenant family for violating the covenant.¡¨
This was the sign that the people agreed to be God¡¦s people. They agreed that they would be set apart from all of the others on Earth, because they had an agreement with the one True God.
Circumcision show that they were not apart of this world but from God¡¦s world. And God wanted to make sure that they did not forget it.
This is similar to a British military officer I heard about who was stationed in an African jungle. One day when a friend was visiting and entered the officer¡¦s hut, he was startled to see him dressed in formal attire and seated at a table set with silverware and fine china. The visitor asked why he was all dressed up and seated at a table so sumptuously arrayed in the jungle. The officer explained, "Once a week I follow this routine to remind myself of who I am--a British citizen. I want to maintain the customs of my real home and live according to the codes of British conduct, no matter how those around me live. I want to avoid substituting a foreign culture for that of my homeland."
And God too was instructing the people of Israel that they were different from this world that we live in. He instructed the Israelites to be separate according to His plan.
We are in this world, but we must be reminded that we are citizens of Heaven. We are different from the world.
We are not to act like the world. We are not live in accordance to the lusts of the flesh. We are to live our lives surrendered to Christ daily.
How are you living your life? When you live your life according to your wants and desires it is sin. God wants every part of our lives.
When we live in sin¡K.we are covered with shame.
II. Israel¡¦s Response to God¡¦s Call
So how does Israel respond to God¡¦s command?
V3-8
3So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the entire male population of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.„T
4Joshua had to circumcise them because all the men who were old enough to bear arms when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness. 5Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those born after the Exodus, during the years in the wilderness, had been circumcised. 6The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years until all the men who were old enough to bear arms when they left Egypt had died. For they had disobeyed the LORD, and the LORD vowed he would not let them enter the land he had sworn to give us¡Xa land flowing with milk and honey. 7So Joshua circumcised their sons who had not been circumcised on the way to the Promised Land¡Xthose who had grown up to take their fathers¡¦ places. 8After all the males had been circumcised, they rested in the camp until they were healed.
Explanation:
We see in this passage two very important statements.
First we see in verse 4 that the Israelites were not circumcised before this time. That means that they were living in rebellion against God. God was very clear in His command to Abraham, but the Israelites were not obeying this command.
Second, in verse 7, we see that the Israelites obeyed. That sounds very simple and Sunday Schoolish. But lets put this in perspective. The men in obedience to God to a peace of their body and cut it off with a flint rock. Even the sound of that hurts. But they were obedient no matter what pain it caused.
And in that they changed direction. The Bible word for change direction is ¡§Repentance¡¨.
What is repentance?
Wabush is a town in a remote portion of Labrador, Canada. It was once completely isolated for some time. Recently a road was cut through the wilderness to reach it. Wabush now has one road leading into it, and therefore, only on one road leading out.
If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into Wabush, there is only way he or she could leave---by turning around.
Each of us, by birth, arrives in a town called Sin. There is only one way out--a road built by God himself. But in order to take that road, one must first turn around. That complete about face is what the Bible calls repentance, and without it, there’s no way out of town.
The Israelites took that road. Joshua led the people to change direction. And, likewise, we must turn from our sin and go the opposite direction.
We are to hold on to nothing.
So many times Christians want to hold on to the things of this world. But the things of this world will pass away. We need to hold on to nothing.
This means entire way of life. We have been so misled by the world that the things of this way are ¡§OK.¡¨ When they truly are not.
We see the models attracting attention on every magazine, and many women want to take their pornographic example and dress just like them. Doesn¡¦t the Bible say that we are to be modest in our appearance?
We, men, see these same women walk down the street and stare. Doesn¡¦t the Bible say something about ¡§committing adultery in our heart?¡¨
We see the advertisings that speak of the latest new car and we feel that which God has given us is not enough. Didn¡¦t God say something about coveting?
It is time that we as Christian begin to live differently. It is time that we turn from our sin, that we repent, and turn back to Christ. And that we live like it.
III. God¡¦s Response to Israel¡¦s Obedience
What was God¡¦s response to Israel¡¦s obedience.
V9
9Then the LORD said to Joshua, ¡§Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt.¡¨ So that place has been called Gilgal„T to this day.
Explanation:
Time and time again in scripture God honors those who turn back to Him. In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God says this truth another way.
14Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. 15I will listen to every prayer made in this place, 16for I have chosen this Temple and set it apart to be my home forever. My eyes and my heart will always be here.
God promises freedom for those who repent. That is His promise. We need to repent today as a nation.
Abraham Lincoln made a proclamation of repentance in 1863. We need to revisit those words today.
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, the many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
And we need that kind of proclamation for our nation today, a proclamation of repentance and humiliation.
And we need that kind of repentance in our personal lives.
It will take an entire Worldview Change. A change in the way we think and act. A change in how we conduct our lives.
God¡¦s promise is that He will remove the shame. Why are we so reluctant to take Him up on the offer?
Our Day of Fasting and Prayer for World Evangelization begins right here.
I pray that each of you will come to terms with your sin. I pray hat you will be compelled continually to forsake you sin and follow Christ.
And pray that some of you will realize that all of us are sinners from birth. And we will die and go to hell because of our sin. But Jesus Christ died in our place. But each of us must accept it.
I pray this morning that you, you who know that you have never accepted this payment, will do so today.
