Please turn with me in a copy of God's Word to the book of Joshua 6. Joshua 6 is picking up on a couple of sermons that I had delivered earlier in the year. I believe in January. No, no, no. Oh, it's been a while. I even forget. I'm going to continue here. I said 6, but I meant 5. Forgive me. Joshua 5. We're going to read together verses 1-9. Hear God's Word. So it was when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel. At that time, the Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives for yourselves and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time. So Joshua made flint knives for himself and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them. All the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt. For all the people who came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness on the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness till all the people who were men of war who came out of Egypt were consumed because they did not obey the voice of the Lord. to whom the Lord swore that He would not show them the land which the Lord had sworn to their fathers that He would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey." Then Joshua circumcised their sons whom he raised up in their place, for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. And so it was, when they had finished circumcising all the people, that they stayed in their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, this day, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. Therefore, the name of the place is called Gilgal to this day." This is God's Word. May He bless our meditation upon it. Let's go to Him in prayer. God our Father, we have tasted already in this hour something of the sweetness of the zeal You give to Your people to worship You and to sing Your praises, to hear from You in Your Word. We ask, Father, that You might continue that work in us, that we might give attention to these words of Yours and receive instruction from You. We might see our Savior Jesus Christ. We ask these things in His name. Amen. Well, I tried to imagine as I was studying this passage how the first readers of the book of Joshua, how their experience must have been as they came to this, that they had a pretty good idea of the flow of what was about to happen. Now they knew of Joshua that like Moses, he was one of the central figures that the Lord had used in bringing the children of Israel out of the bondage of Egypt and into the land of promise. Well, they knew that Joshua was the man that the Lord had used to wage a bloody war on the inhabitants of the land of Canaan. And I'm sure that the generations following Joshua, they heard about the journey. They heard about this journey from Egypt into the land of promise. I can't help but imagine that they saw in their minds something of the fierceness of the battles. And they probably even reveled in the thought of those oppressive inhabitants that were still troubling them generations and generations later. That those pagan nations had been driven out of the land by the rolling armies of Israel under the hand of Joshua. So imagine those readers picking up this record in the book of Joshua and reading chapter 1. And they say, oh, here we go. The Lord is sending Joshua across the Jordan. The battle's about to begin in chapter 2. Oh, no battle yet. Instead, we get this story about a prostitute. In chapter 3, okay, now we're moving. It's time to cross the Jordan River. The battle is about to begin. In chapter 4, well, there's something important about these 12 stones that the Lord wanted to leave as a memorial, but we're still, now we're almost a fifth of the way through the book of conquest, and still there's no battle. No bloodshed. And then chapter 5 begins. So it was when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over that their heart melted and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel." Imagine you read that. Alright, now it's time. Sharpen your swords. The battle's about to begin, right? And indeed, the bloodshed comes. But it isn't Canaanite or Amorite blood. It is the blood of Israelite warriors. And perhaps this is one of the most unexpected turn of events in all of the Old Testament Scriptures. In chapter 4, we read of the armies of Israel crossing over armed for battle, we're told. The Jordan waters flee before the presence of the Lord. His power is put on display. Israel's courage is swelling. And the Canaanite hearts are melting. And then we read in chapter 5, verse 2. At this time, the Lord said to Joshua, make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel. Why this time? Why now? Circumcise all the men who need to fight in battle now that they've crossed over the Jordan River? But why didn't the Lord command this to be done on the other side when they were in the plains of Moab? When Moses was instructing them? He was telling them about the need for their hearts to be circumcised. And promising that the Lord would circumcise their hearts. Why not then? That would have been the perfect time. The men would need days and days to recover from this soreness. Entering the land was supposed to be about dispossessing the enemies of God. It was supposed to be about conquering everything opposed to the Lord and to His rule over His people as their King. Exactly. Exactly. In order for Israel to dwell in the land, it required the utter destruction of every one of the Lord's enemies. And that's why the Lord chose this moment. The moment when everyone expects the enemies of God to fall under the sword. And He brings the sword of circumcision on His people. The point is powerfully made, right? God's people need to know, first of all, That it's not just everyone out there who is an enemy of God and opposed to His ways. It's His own people. The ones who are doing His work. Presumably following His lead. No more than ten weeks prior to these events here in Joshua 5, Moses was still alive. And he was warning Israel. He warned them and he said to them that they would be tempted to think that it was because Israel was righteous that the Lord was driving out the inhabitants from before them. But Moses said, it is because the people of the land are wicked. And you know what? You're wicked and stiff-necked too. It's you. God's people. And that is why Joshua 5, 1-9 is here. It's here for Israel. It's here for all of God's people. It's here because it's so easy. It's so easy for us to see why the sinful world around us deserves God's judgment and wrath. And then we struggle to live day by day knowing and being intensely aware of the fact that we deserve His wrath and judgment apart from grace. So do we say first and foremost, the enemy of God that I must be most concerned with is not the one outside of me, but rather the one inside. And that's what Joshua 5 confronts us with. It says, beware of the enemy within, children of Israel. And perhaps when we read Joshua 5, we think of circumcision as the covenant sign graciously given by God to His people We don't think of it necessarily though as an act of war. But what we see as we look at this chapter that circumcision as the covenant sign is indeed, in fact, a gracious assault on everything opposed to God. So we'll see this in the passage as the Lord first of all identifies the enemy. And secondly, He subdues the enemy. So verses 2-6, the Lord identifies the first enemy to be conquered in the land. I know I've already begun to speak to this in that long introduction when I said that the first enemy is within the heart, the heart of God's people. But with this first point, I want to hone in on what specifically the Lord is pointing the sword of circumcision at. We read that at the Lord's command, that Joshua makes flint knives to circumcise the Israelite men. It's kind of shocking that this entire generation had gone all those years in the wilderness, 40 years in the wilderness, this generation, without being circumcised. It's remarkable because of what the Lord had said to Abraham regarding circumcision. He said, if any male child of My people is not circumcised in His flesh, He shall be cut off from My people." He's a covenant breaker. Well, here we have 603,550 men and none of them have been circumcised. And in verse 4-6, the passage tells us how this state of affairs came to be. That entire generation that had left Egypt had been circumcised. The generation born in the desert had not. This is because God's people, the people who had been given the covenant promises, they had been given the covenant sign, they did not, as verse 6 tells us, they did not listen to the voice of the Lord. The last part of verse 6 plainly tells us what words spoken by the Lord they did not listen to. The Lord had solemnly promised or literally sworn to give them a land flowing with milk and honey. In other words, what they failed to listen to were the promises of the covenant. Everything that God had said to them. the promises that the Lord had made to Abraham. They would have marched straight into the land of promise. They would have marched straight in from Egypt. Deuteronomy indicates this to us. They would have marched straight in if it had not been for their unbelief. So that entire generation died in the wilderness outside the land of promise. They failed to give their children the covenant sign. The promises have been neglected. So the enemy that is identified here and symbolically cut away by the flint and iron of circumcision is the enemy of unbelief. Very pointedly, I think that is what Joshua is making clear to us here. The generation that died in the wilderness died because they lived by sight and not by faith in God's Word. They saw the lack of water. They had hungry bellies. They thought about the size of the enemies that were on the other side. And all of God's promises were forgotten. Swallowed up. Like the sun that's eclipsed by a little moon. It's because living in the darkness of our own possibilities, our own imaginations. That's what marks the lives of all the sons and daughters of Adam. the seed of Adam, propagated by the male reproductive organ, it carries forward from generation to generation to generation a race of people who will not take God at His Word. Will not believe His Word. Will not take refuge in His Word. In fact, Paul says in Romans 8 that the natural man is hostile to God. Will not submit to His law. and is entirely incapable of pleasing God. So the main enemy, the armies of Israel as they prepare to battle the inhabitants of the land, the main enemy is themselves. Their wicked hearts of unbelief as the author of Hebrews describes it. Unbelief is now as natural as reproduction is. And they are the children of sinners who find it impossible to take God at His Word, trusting rather in their own lusts and desires. Or in their own inabilities. And this generation will naturally be like their parents, right? And we all know as children as we grew up, we discovered more and more that we were actually quite a lot like our parents, weren't we? Sometimes it's our eye color, our weight, our build, even our moods, our habits, our temperaments, the taste of food. When we saw a disease in our parents, the weaknesses of their body, we began to fear a little bit. Is this what's going to be following me? Is this going to be my lot? And we all know, though, that without a doubt, The one thing that we will receive and have received, each one of us, from our first parent, Adam, is the disease and sin of unbelief. The questioning and rejecting God's Word. And the inheritance Israel is pressing into is the inheritance of God's children. It's represented to us here, in the conquest, but it is the inheritance of being free from the bondage of sin and knowing the sweetness of communing with God. Remember the Lord's promise back in chapter 1 when we went over that months and months ago. The Lord said none of the enemies of the land will be able to stand before you. None of them. And indeed, the armies and the nations that were in the land were much larger than and greater than the children of Israel, they all fell before the children of Israel. They all fell. That is until they forgot that their greatest enemy was their own unbelieving hearts. Then their pagan neighbors seized opportunity, fell upon them, and took back their inheritance from them. And what a little bit of our inheritance will we begin to enjoy today when we lose sight of ourselves, first of all. That we are the chief enemy. Yes, the unbelieving world and the devil are our enemies. But how can they stand before us? How can they stand before us? It's not the lewd billboards. It's not the cable TV programming or the internet. or a certain political party or evolutionists or secularists. It's not them, it's us. It's you. It's me. But we tend to focus on what is outside of us. But the great irony is, brothers and sisters, that if we focus primarily on the world as our chief enemy, the more it will seduce us. The more it will creep into our hearts, the more it will ensnare us. Because first of all, and constantly, we need to have our eyes on our own hearts. Aware of the corruption and opposition that naturally rises up from within us. So as God's people entered the Promised Land, they needed to know that the real enemy is the sinful nature that they have inherited from their parents. which was symbolized by the male reproductive organ. And this nature is unceasingly bent on unbelief and exalting its own desires. So now that the enemy has been identified, now the Lord moves to subdue it in His grace by ordering Joshua to circumcise the sons of Israel Here the Lord communicates to them that they have received from their parents a nature that is opposed to God. That's what we've been focusing on. But He also communicates to them the solution. What belongs to them by natural reproduction must be cut away. It must die. And the passage indicates to us that this circumcision was to be understood as a kind of death. Or as a death. It is a death. Verse 8 says that after the whole nation was circumcised, they remained where they were in the camp until they were healed. Well, the clause translated as until they were healed literally. It doesn't use the Hebrew word for healing. It says literally until they were alive. Until they came to life. The syndicate's circumcision, rightly and sacramentally understood, is a death leading to resurrection. And no one can raise the dead but God alone. And the Bible teaches man's utter inability to bring his own old nature into obedience to God and to live before Him, even under the most favorable conditions. Even when you walk through dry land, across the Red Sea, or you drink water from a rock, or you ate bread from heaven. Not even that can aid our flesh in believing God's Word. The generation that left Egypt was circumcised. And they all fell dead in the wilderness. God Himself must cut it away. God Himself must do the work inwardly in us if we are to live before Him. So the circumcision of the sons of Israel was designed to humble them. To convince them not to put any confidence in the flesh. There's no good to be had there. Their fathers were circumcised in the flesh, but it didn't profit them. So what hope did they have? What hope did they have that it would be different for them? Verse 9 points the way. Beautifully put. The Lord says to Joshua, today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. And the meaning of the statement is at first a little bit unclear. I mean, after all, Israel hasn't been, they haven't been slaves in Egypt for over 40 years, for at 40 years. And actually, all 603,550 of these men have never been slaves in Egypt. So, how are they bearing the reproach or disgrace of Egypt? It's that futility that is characterized by the bondage they knew in Egypt. That's what remains. It's still with them in their flesh. That's because slavery is first of all a matter of the heart. Do you not know, Paul says, that to whom you present yourself slaves to obey, you are that one slave whom you obey. Whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness. The Lord is saying that their slavery didn't end when they left Egypt. Slavery is a matter of the heart. And the Lord alone can roll away the disgrace of it. He must roll it away. And the beauty of this passage is that as Joshua was cutting away the flesh, the Lord was at work cutting away the deadness of their hearts. Nothing in them qualified them or prepared them to enter the land of promise. Nothing. If that wasn't obvious before, it's perfectly clear now to them. As they undergo this circumcision, that there is nothing good in their flesh. Nothing good in them. It must die. As Paul said to the church in Colossae, the Father has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the Kingdom of Light. And then he goes on later, and he says, for in Christ you were also circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature. Not with the circumcision done by the hands of men. by the circumcision done by Christ. Having been buried with Him in baptism and raised with Him through your faith in the power of God who raised Him from the dead. So once we recognize that our first and greatest enemy is us. Staring us in the face. It's our sinful flesh. What then do we do? Oh, it's time to get serious. Buckle down! Well, I couldn't help but think of Jonathan Edwards. Especially after this week in class we were talking about him a great deal. And I thought of this illustration of Jonathan Edwards. This man so serious in his piety and his rigor. I frequently marvel at his 70 resolutions. 70 resolutions of holy living. that he wrote at the age of 19 and 20. You read those things and you know this man meant business. Right? But it's interesting to read what an older and more mature Edwards said about his youthful rigor. And thank you, Reverend Strange, for this quote. It's wonderful. He said, I used to be continually examining myself and studying and contriving for likely ways and means that I should live wholly. with far greater diligence and earnestness than I have ever pursued anything in my life. But yet, with a great dependence on my own strength, which afterwards proved a great damage to me. My experience had not then taught me as it has done since. My extreme feebleness and impotence, every manner of way, and the bottomless depths of secret corruption and deceit there was in my heart." I suspect that Edwards would say, if you want to deal with your sinful flesh, look to Christ. Old Covenant circumcision and New Covenant baptism mean nothing apart from Him. Think about this. In the baptism that Jesus was baptized with, He was cut off. He was cut off from the Father and died so that He might live again on our behalf. His circumcision and baptism are our circumcision and baptism. And that is why Paul says, we were baptized into His death. Our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. The truth is that there is no taming our old nature. It's hostile towards God, towards His law, towards faith. So what strategy or rigorous system of discipline could stem the tide of this bottomless depth of deceit and corruption that we find in our hearts. It must be put to death. Which is to say, we must reckon it, consider it dead because Jesus Christ has died to sin. By faith, what is His becomes ours. So in one day, In one day the Lord rolled away the reproach of our slavery to sin." That was the day of Resurrection Sunday. After Jesus died to sin once for all and was raised from the dead, Paul says, never to die again. The Lord's handling of this first generation to enter the Promised Land shows us that the life in the land is resurrection life. Of course, they wouldn't necessarily have thought of it that way or named it that. But when their flesh was cut away, they were taught the Gospel pattern of dying to the flesh and living to God. And the first verse of chapter 5 shows us, it links for us this event, this circumcision of the sons of Israel, it links it with all the battles that were ahead of them. In other words, it sets the pattern. This is the pattern for all future victories over all of their enemies. And the Christian life is resurrection life. Our life is resurrection life. In and of ourselves, we are enemies of God. We have no strength to accomplish what God has called us to. We need to get that. We have to always be coming to the end of ourselves. We cannot measure the possibility of obediently following the Lord in the journey ahead of us by our own abilities. Everything. Everything about the Christian life is beyond us. If we look at the call to repent and believe, to love, to trust and obey God, and if we think, oh, I can do that. And we don't know ourselves. And we don't know the heavenliness of the calling. Our old nature will not believe. It will not resist sin. And it will not love or obey God. It must simply die. That's it. Put no confidence in the flesh then, brothers and sisters. Know that there is nothing good that dwells in our flesh. We live because Christ lives. It's ours now simply and boldly to believe and to confess, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me." Let's pray together. Our God and our Father, what a beautiful portrait in this bloody mess. of the work that you do in rolling away our disgrace and shame of our slavery to sin. That great work that you have done through our Savior Jesus Christ. We praise and thank you for His having been cut off for us. And His rising again. His coming to life. In Him and in Him alone we would look and find our life. Oh God, to do this. To look to Him. To trust in Him. To hold and cling to Him. To put no confidence in our flesh. In Him, we have everything. We praise and thank You for our Savior Jesus. We thank You for Your Spirit which unites us to Him by faith. Working that in us. Work that in us. We ask and pray in Jesus' name and for His sake, Amen.