As we continue our study of how the church will cross over and begin to possess its Promised Land, this week we will look at the first great event after crossing the Jordan, which we see in Joshua 5:2: “At that time the Lord said to Joshua, "Make for yourself flint knives and circumcise again the sons of Israel the second time."

Circumcision was a ritual performed that speaks of the removal of the flesh or carnal nature. As we read in this chapter, this was done because those born in the wilderness had not been circumcised. This was a basic ritual that distinguished God’s people from all others.

As we discussed previously, one of the ways we know the church is indeed crossing over to inherit its Promised Land will be the re-emphasis of the cross or the crucified life. Immediately after this we can expect a re-emphasis of the removal of the carnal nature or the deeds of the flesh, which is described in Galatians 5:19-21:

The children of Israel could not possess their Promised Land until this was done just as Paul wrote, “those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Think about that! We will not inherit the kingdom of God as long as we practice these things. As the Word of God is also clear, those who are indeed in the Lord’s will behave like it. They are different. They have the fruit of the Spirit, and they are devoted to living godly, righteous, holy lives. Again, those who do not walk in this way will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In our times, righteousness has often been associated with legalism or even having a religious spirit, but those who have overreacted to this have usually fallen to another evil that is just as deadly—lawlessness. There is a ditch on either side of the path of life. If we live as reactionaries, we will likely end up in one of them or going from one to the other most of our lives. Let us take a look at spiritual circumcision and how it is accomplished in our lives, as we read in Romans 2:28-29, 7:18, 8:5-9:

Recent studies have shown that those who claim to be born again, evangelical Christians are no longer distinguishable in their general behavior than with non-Christians—including basic issues of morality and integrity. This is why the heathen continue to refer to Christians as hypocrites. Certainly a good case could be made that in the church’s wilderness journey there has not been much emphasis on the spiritual circumcision that is required to inherit our promises. However, we can count on this becoming a major emphasis in the immediate future. We will not go any further until the flesh or the carnal nature has been cut away from the lives of those who will inherit the kingdom.

Like it or not, the works of the flesh are going to be exposed and cut away from all who want to be numbered with the household of faith. It is noteworthy that for Israel this was the first thing which was done immediately after they had entered the land, and it was done right in the sight of the people on the walls of Jericho. This was not something the Lord had done secretly in the wilderness, but they were humiliated and made weak, right within sight of their enemies!

One lesson we can learn from this is that the Lord is not nearly as concerned about our reputations as we tend to be. In fact, we can count on Him dealing with that pride very quickly. We think if our problems are waved in front of the world we will lose our “witness,” but the Lord cares very little about that. In fact, such a witness will not lead anyone to the Lord, but is what we try to use to lead people to us. The only thing that will truly lead people to the Lord is the conviction of their sin by the Holy Spirit, and the comprehension of the atonement that Jesus made for that sin which is the only remedy for our guilt. It is about Him, not us.

If we are indeed coming to this time, we can expect the carnal problems of the church to start being exposed very openly. This is going to be done so that they can be done away with. Of course, this has been going on for sometime now, but it is obvious that the job has not yet been completed. We can count on our enemies seeing this and probably gloating over it, but our humility in this is preparing us to be able to receive the grace of God, which He will only give to the humble. The victory over our enemies will come in due time, but for now the best thing we can do is embrace the humility and let the evil ways that we have clung to be cut away.

For this reason we will also take the next few weeks to examine these works of the flesh in a bit more detail. This is going to be painful, but we can do some things that will greatly lessen the pain. As we are told in I Corinthians 11:31, “But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged.” If we would deal with these things the Lord would not have to do it. If we will humble ourselves, He will not have to humble us.

As I have shared before, my motto is “No pain, no pain.” I do not like pain, so I want to make this as painless as I can. It is far better for us to fall on the Rock to be broken than to have to have Him fall on us and crush us into powder! So if we deal with these things ourselves now, we can in fact escape the more painful and public humiliation.

Even so, there is a more righteous motivation that we should have, and hopefully we will mature into this. We must do this for the Lord’s sake—in order to please Him. However, until the flesh or carnal nature is cut away, it is hard to have such godly motives. So even if we want to rid ourselves of the flesh or carnal nature from a selfish motive of wanting to get out of this pain as easily as possible, this reason is still better than not doing it at all. But know for sure that it will be done before we can go any further. We can also know for sure that the pain will result in gain for us.