You have removed the worldly shame.
Contents
♡♥♡ You have removed the worldly shame. / Joshua 5:2-9
*** Introduction
People have their own habits. Some habits are good and some are bad. Some of these bad habits have a profound effect on a person's thinking and life. One of the things that is not good for Christians is “in the old days… ’ is a strong habit of ‘past obsession’. This habit prevents us from moving forward due to nostalgia for the past. It was a spiritual disease that the Israelites in the wilderness suffered after the Exodus.
It was just before the Reformation took place.
Martin Luther was immersed in vigil prayer, reading the Bible, labor, and observance of monastic rules in the monastery. However, the question of “God’s righteousness and man’s salvation” deepened. Days of anguish deepened, but the ‘problem of sin’ continued to torment him without any satisfactory realization.
Then one day, Luther was meditating on the Bible in a small room in the tower of the Erfurt Abbey. Romans 1:17, “In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed, leading from faith to faith, just as it is written, 'The righteous will live by faith.'” It rained.
After Luther realized the Word, he wrote down the 95 major errors of the Catholic Church, posted it on the bulletin board of the Wittenberg church on October 31, 1517, and started a long and long fight for the Reformation.
The cause of the Reformation was that they wanted to break the chains that were tied to the old habits of dead spirits. The Catholic Church neglected the most important 'problem of sin' and indulged in worldly things in collusion with worldly power. Luther realized that the cross of Jesus had solved the problem of sin through the Bible. The most important things for Christians today are “the problem of sin” and “the problem of eternal life.” The cross of Jesus is the way to save the life of people who are running towards death tied to the habits of the world.
Nevertheless, many Christians today leave this important issue aside and pursue only worldly riches and comfort. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all these things will be added to you” and the words of 3 John 1:2, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in good health, as your soul prospers.” This is a message that teaches us what is more important in our lives.
The text of this time also contains God's words asking the Israelites to solve more important problems first, facing the land of Canaan.
Now the people of Israel are facing the fall of Jericho, the first city in the border of Canaan. At this point, God said to Joshua, “Circumcise the children of Israel.” Circumcision was the ‘sign of becoming a covenant people’ that God had to do when he made the covenant with Abraham. For the Israelites, it was not a problem to occupy Canaan now, but to realize that they were “God’s people.”
The reason why it is important to realize that you are God's people is that you become an identity that can determine your life in Canaan, your new home. Identity is one's present identity and worth. For example, a person who knows himself to be a beggar seeks to get something in his thoughts, words, or actions, and displays vulgar conduct. A salesman behaves like a salesman, a professor tries to teach everything, and a scientist is good at observing and analyzing. This is what people call ‘gutness’.
If the people of Israel do not know that they are God's people, they will quickly become secularized according to the environment they meet in their new place of life. Although they had been trained and educated countless times through their wilderness life, the effect was only over one generation. The nature of sin is so persistent and terrifying. So, before Canaan, we had to remind ourselves of the mark of becoming God's people again.
The reason why they had to be circumcised again is that all the people who were circumcised at the time of the Exodus died in the wilderness except for Joshua and Caleb for 40 years. The present people of Israel did not have the mark of becoming God's covenant people. So now, it is not the first thing to occupy the Promised Land, but the first thing to realize is that we are the 'Covenant People' who can occupy the Promised Land.
Let's look at verse 9. To the people who practiced circumcision according to God's command, God said, "Today I have rolled away the shame of Egypt from you." The shame of Egypt is the painful memory of slavery in Egypt and the shame of the worldly life without God. In other words, it was a sign of washing away all the sinful filth that lived apart from God. This was so that the people of Israel could live as God's people.
God wanted the Israelites to serve God from generation to generation when they settled in the land of Canaan. So, as they crossed the Jordan, He had them take one stone from the bottom of the Jordan River for each tribe, and then piled up the stones to make a monument. In Joshua 4:20-24, he explained the reason for the stone altar. Verse 24. “So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
God's interest in us who are God's people today is likewise. God wants the saints of today to live as children of God, even though they live in a turbid world. Jesus died on the cross for this. So, as the saints look at the cross of the Lord, they come to realize their identity: ‘I am a child of God.’
In this way, when believers realize their identity and value as God's people and live that way, they can enjoy God's abundant grace. Just as the Israelites took possession of Canaan after circumcision. In this way, God's grace has an order.
Let me give you an odd example.
A Buddhist temple must have three buildings: Daeungjeon, Myeongbujeon, and Samseonggak. Daeungjeon is a place where the so-called ‘Buddha’ is worshiped, Myungbujeon is a place where sacrifices are made for the dead, and Samseonggak is a place dedicated to the three gods: the Seven Holy Gods, the Mountain Gods, and the Toxic Gods. However, the most popular place among Buddhists is Samseonggak. They pray to the three gods, ‘May your business prosper, your children prosper, and may you live a long life.’ Their hands become their feet. However, there is no such thing as Samseonggak in Buddhism. Samseonggak originated from the shaman religion, but now it seems to be completely unique to Buddhism.
There is a book called ‘The New Face of Korean Buddhism’, which contains the contents of monk Huam calling for Buddhist reform while feeling sorry for this fact. Some of the content is something like this:
“Korean Buddhists who are enthralled by good fortune! Your teacher has abandoned the palace you are looking for. What do you seek from him? I want to resist the physiology of today's Buddhists. Even if Buddhism resists today's sickly blessed ideology and the number of believers decreases from 13 million to 1.3 million, it must take the lead in abolishing the corrupt ideology of materialism. Buddhists who are blessed with good fortune.”
However, there are too many Christians who are obsessed with blessings. In fact, it is not wrong to seek blessings. This is because God is the source of blessing and He wants people to live a happy life. If we want to receive blessings, we must obey and follow the will of God who gives us blessings. The problem is that we want to receive blessings but ignore God's will.
When Israel practices circumcision, that is, today's Christians believe in Jesus as the Christ and are born again and have the mark of becoming God's people, God's grace is given. Today, the mark of being God's people like circumcision is 'baptism'. Baptism means dying to the world and being born again to God. Baptism is important in form, but more important in meaning. In other words, we must live as God's people in our lives. Now, through Jesus Christ, we have washed away the shame of the world and become children of God. Therefore, it is a glory to God by living a life worthy of our status, and we pray that we may enjoy grace to the fullest.