Title: Take the Power of Holiness
Contents
Everything in the world has an order of beginning, middle, and end. There are the same steps that God takes when guiding our lives. Just as things in the world can be done right when they follow the order, it is a great blessing in life to surrender yourself to the order of God's guidance.
Today's text shows what God required of the people of Israel who were walking in the wilderness for 40 years while looking at Canaan. God's request was for them to stop. The Israelites parted the Red Sea, defeated the king of Bashan, and crossed the Jordan, advancing without blockage. It was the natives of Canaan who feared this smooth advance the most. Verse 1 shows how much the Canaanite natives feared the Israelites. Situationally speaking, now was never the time to stop. If your morale is up to the sky and your enemy's morale is on the ground, if you attack and attack, you will win. But God told Israel to stop.
We usually believe that speed is success. If you do it quickly, I believe you have the power. Everyone values the speed of life, but the most important thing in life is the ability to stop rather than speed. When we have to stop, stopping leads us to a successful life. However, if you do not stop when you should, and become a slave to lust, a slave to pleasure, or a slave to material things and sin, life is bound to become infinitely unhappy. In the Bible, a man named Joseph was a man who experienced prosperity. The fact that his success came from knowing clearly when it was time to stop before God.
Then why does God make us stop? It is to make you listen to the word of God. Considering the situation in which Israel crosses the Jordan and trembles in fear of the Canaanites, now is not the time to stop. But God told Joshua to stop the Israelites in their place, and to listen and obey God's voice. God's command was twofold. One was circumcision and the other was the Passover.
Circumcision is the mark of the covenant people. As they passed through the wilderness for 40 years, all those who had been circumcised in Egypt died, and the new generation became uncircumcised. Before God gave Canaan, Israel first became God's holy people. Being circumcised was also a decision to drive out the physical way and move on to God's way and the spiritual way. God made Israel stand still and cut off the wrong shape and direction of their 40 years of life.