Well, I hope you have your Bibles ready as we will continue teaching. Lord willing, I hope to pick up where I left off last week. If you are visiting today or you've missed a few Sundays, May the Lord have mercy on your soul. No, I'm just kidding. If you have missed a few Sundays, I returned to preaching from the book of Genesis, and we currently find ourselves in chapter 17. We were introduced to this great figure by the name of Abraham, and we learn from Abraham really the foundation or rather the basis upon which a person becomes right with God. Now let me just say here to try to catch you guys up again if you're visiting or if you missed a few Sundays. One of the greatest questions or the thing that is of the utmost importance for any person is where you stand with the Lord Jesus Christ. That is of the utmost importance. That will be more important than any decision you will ever make in life, because if you get that one wrong, then nothing else matters. But of course, people everywhere think that there is a general admitting that everyone is a sinner. And of course, everyone thinks they're going to make it to heaven. Daniel and I used to go house to door in Robstown for a few years, week after week. Remember that, Daniel and Leti and some others from this church? And we used to joke about it, and we used to say, well, we didn't find any lost people today. Despite week after week, knocking on doors, visiting with people, sharing the gospel, year after year, it was sort of a joke. We would say, well, we didn't find anyone who was lost. Everyone knows the Lord, and everyone is saved. Now, why do you think we would say something like that? Because you know, as well as I do, that whether a person is religious or is familiar with the Bible or they're not at all, they always maintain two things. Number one, that everyone is a sinner, that no one is perfect, and the rationale goes something like this. And because of that, God cannot really send anyone to hell because then everyone would go to hell, and so it just seems a bit unfair. And so therefore, as long as you are a good person, and you try to do good in life, as long as you don't kill anyone, they still try to... impose some kind of standard that as long as you meet that standard at a minimal, like don't kill anyone, then you and God should be good to go. Like, you know, don't have to really worry about anything, but of course that is absolutely not true. People are self-deceived. So then someone may ask, okay, Chris, well then, then how does a person become right with God? And what Abraham teaches us is that before God ever introduced his holy law, His standard of perfection, this law that embodies and reflects God's holiness and moral purity. Before God handed down the Ten Commandments, we meet Abraham in the first book of the Bible. And the Bible says that God called him His friend. and God called him righteous. And it seems a bit confusing because if you read about Abraham and where he was and where God called him, you find that he himself was a pagan when God called him. He had been worshiping other gods along with his family. The Bible says that pagan gods are essentially demons behind these pagan deities. And he didn't know the Lord, but the Lord appeared to Abraham and demonstrated to him that if Abraham would just trust him to fulfill promises that he had made, then on that basis, justification, which means to be in right standing with God, and salvation would be a gift from God that cannot be earned. So if you're here this morning and you have any thoughts in mind that if you so desire to be right with God and you desire to know him and you even want God to call you his friend, you're gonna have to cast aside any sense of self-righteousness or that you are good enough to earn God's favor. It doesn't work that way. The Bible says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And if you want to be made right with God, the Bible says that God will freely give you justification. God will freely forgive you because Jesus paid the price. Amen. So that's where we are. That's in summary what we learned from Abraham, of course, drawing upon the New Testament, which is the complete story. But that's where we started. But God divided people into two categories. We'll start with the earthly category. And last week, I began to talk about circumcision, which was the seal or the sign that God gave Abraham to provide a visible symbol, at least for Abraham's reminder, that God had made covenant with Abraham. And Abraham is the father of the Jewish people, God's people. Leti is over there telling me to slow down. Raise your hand one more time. Just kidding. Am I going too fast? Okay, no, it's for Leti's translation. So let's turn to Genesis chapter 17. Now where I left off last week, Where I left off last week is, how do we apply this principle of circumcision? Because we already know that the Bible does not require men, Christian men, or parents to circumcise their male children on the eighth day. We already know this, yes? All of us, and none of us have practiced this for religious reasons. You may have practiced circumcision with your children, but you didn't do it for religious reasons. You did it for medical reasons that the doctor may have provided, but you most certainly didn't do it for religious reasons, and if I, If you did, then again, like I said last week, or if you do practice that for religious reasons, you're in the wrong church. You belong in a synagogue or in a, God forbid, a mosque, because Muslims practice circumcision as well. So let's just read for the sake of refreshing our minds in Genesis chapter 17. Ready? Verse one. And this is what the word of God says. When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty. Walk before me and be blameless that I may make my covenant between me and you and may multiply you greatly. Then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be called Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. God changes his name from Abram to Abraham because the meaning of the name Abraham means exactly that, the father of a multitude of nations. Verse six. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make you into nations and kings shall come from you and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenants to be God to you and to you. to be God to you and to your offspring after you, and I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God. And God said to Abraham, as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant which you shall keep between me and you and your offspring after you. Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money, from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who was born in your house and he who was bought with your money shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. So any person from Abraham on down through his lineage Any parent who would fail, the responsibility fell primarily on the father. Any father who would fail to circumcise his children according to the dictates of God, then they would be cut off, meaning they would be excluded or excommunicated from among the people of God. Now, Brother Lynn said something during Sunday school that there are many things, and I share the sentiment that there are many things in the Old Testament that don't make a lot of sense. I know, I have asked myself, why circumcision in particular? I don't know if you've asked yourself that. There are some theories that theologians have offered throughout the years. I don't care to go into them at best. I think it's speculation because I don't know that the Bible ever says God implemented this particular practice because of the following reasons. He doesn't bother to explain himself. And how many of you know that When God commands something, he doesn't need to explain himself because he's God and he can command and he can be trusted that he's doing the right things for the right reasons. We don't posture ourselves to the Lord and say something to the effect, well, until I understand why you're asking, I'm not willing to do it. That's more in keeping with children and their parents. But that attitude should never be towards the Lord. If he commands, he's right to command because he is God. And of course, we have trouble, at times, understanding, and that will fight against us, but at the end of the day, we really do need to obey. And I did say that last week, if you came away from last week's message believing that you need to circumcise your kids, you are not getting it. We're not getting it. Let me tell you that this idea develops in the Old Testament. The idea of circumcision takes on an ethical significance. And as you see that it does, it nicely goes into the New Testament. Now, every church era presents a big problem. Years from now, I don't know in how long, and I don't know whether things will change, and I don't know whether the Lord will come before then, but the church in every era has encountered some difficulty within itself and difficulties that are being imposed upon the church. The Christians in early Rome, the issue was how early Christians saw Caesar, the Roman emperor. He was seen by the culture as a god on earth. I mean, that's a foreign idea to us, right? I mean, how could anyone, how can any earthly citizen look upon a political figure and elevate him almost to the level of deity? That would never happen in the United States, right? I mean, it's hard to imagine how anyone would look to an earthly figure to bring salvation in a here and now sense, whether it's the laws of the nation. Now, of course, God does use people to better society, but it's never lasting because as long as we live in a fallen world, it's never gonna have a lasting effect until God brings in the new heavens and the new earth and ultimately divides people, sheep from goats, light from darkness, lost from saved, people of God, people of the devil, until that great divide and that great split is made forever, then not until then will the kingdom of God be reigning in its fullest sense. So here's what I'm saying, that the church in every era has encountered some difficulty. In early Rome, the Christians were being pressured and pressured to the point of death, do not say that Jesus, this figure whom Rome crucified as an enemy of the state, As a rebel, even though the Roman politicians at the time didn't really believe that, they just simply gave way to the Jewish leaders and accepted that as the official charge. But Pontius Pilate didn't really believe that. He really did not believe that Jesus was a political threat and was seeking to overthrow Caesar in the earthly sense. But the religious leaders in Rome got together and they arrested and they crucified Jesus. And after that, they put him in a cave, and lo and behold, three days later, the tomb is empty, the body of Jesus cannot be found, because there is no corpse. And the reason there's no corpse is because Christ had returned from the dead in His full physicality, yet in a glorified state, and then He ascended to the right hand of God the Father. And for that reason, Jesus could no longer be physically found, but he didn't ascend until he appeared to his disciples and further elaborated on the good news. But from that time forward, Rome did not like the proclamation, Jesus is Lord, because they perceived it as a direct threat, as a direct threat to Roman authority. And so Christians were persecuted by the worldly culture. fed to the lions, they were burned at the stake and so forth. And as you examine church history down through the ages, there's always going to be some worldly value, some teaching, some idea that the world loves and embraces, but it runs contrary to what the Bible teaches. And so in our day, it's this confusion about gender. Today we look back and we say, how in the world could people in the 1800s and even further back, how in the world could people who claim to be Christian, it is inconceivable, how in the world could they engage in kidnapping people just because of the color of their skin? How could they engage and support this system where you go, according to the Bible, kidnapping people was punishable by death. If you would have found kidnapping people and forcing them into slavery, then the punishment was death. But people back then, I'm not saying they really were, but people who identified as Christians supported this system, and there were even preachers who owned other people, slaves. And they used the Bible to justify. Now, in hindsight, we look back and we think, That's insane. I mean, that is a clear-cut issue. It's so simple. Kidnapping people and oppressing them and forcing them to be your personal property is immoral and unethical and worthy of death. Yes? And yet they practiced it. And we look back and we scratch our heads and we think, that is insane. Well, today, that's not the issue anymore. Today is gender confusion. and confusion about what it means to be a male, what it means to be a female. And I wonder, maybe things will get better. Maybe the world, maybe the, well, yeah, Lord willing, the world, but maybe our nation will experience revival, and we'll go back to the Bible, and we will no longer be confused about what it means to be a man, and what it means to be a woman, and what marriage means, but our culture is saturated with all kinds of confusion, sexual immorality, and it has seeped into the church. And the church has compromised across all denominations. And what I'm saying is that future generations will look back and they'll think, what in the world were they thinking? What's the matter with those people? My point is down through every age, you will find the church battling some pressing issue, either from the inside or from the outside, but oftentimes it's at the same time. They're not only fighting the world's pressure on the church to cave in to worldly ideals, but you'll find Christians within its walls also fighting in the early church as soon as the church was born, and Brother Raul brought this up at a study a few weeks ago, he made the observation that the church, from the day it was born, even all the way into the Old Testament, it has always fought and it has always struggled with dealing with false teachers within the church, and the church has always fought and resisted efforts to corrupt the gospel. I said all that to say that the most pressing issue in the early church, because the first church was Jewish, what do you think it was? What am I preaching about today? The practice of circumcision. It was a big deal. It absolutely was a big, it was such a big deal that if you really catch Paul's tone in Galatians, I mean, he's talking about if you circumcise yourself as a Christian, you sever yourself from Christ. You're not even a believer anymore. And you might think, just because you cut off some skin, now all of a sudden I'm not a believer and I cannot be saved? The answer is yeah. Why? Because it's not the cutting of the flesh, it's what it signifies. Again, I use the marriage analogy, and Brother Lynn used it earlier, because it's a great analogy, because again, God describes himself as a husband in the Old Testament, Christ describes himself as the husband of the bride of Christ, and so marriage is a great analogy. Think of it this way. The mere taking off of your wedding ring is an act of significance. It is saying something about your status. When you take off that wedding ring, you're saying, I no longer want to be married, and I no longer want to be seen as married. I want to show myself as a single person, or in the reverse, when you put on the wedding ring, you're saying, I am no longer, I am off, the market, do you understand? So it's not the mere act of cutting flesh, it's what it signified to the early believers. And when the early believers, under the false teaching of the Judaizers, who did not believe that trust in Christ and in Christ alone was sufficient to be right before God, something else needed to be introduced. Paul was saying, if you trust Christ 50%, and receive circumcision so as to submit yourself to the law of Moses, you're combining the two and you're going to fall short of both. Number one, you won't even obey the law because you can't, and salvation is by trusting Christ alone, so you don't get either. And that's what he means, you sever yourself from Christ, you cut off yourself from Christ. So this was not a peripheral issue. This was not a secondary issue in the church. It was so important that to get it wrong was to get it wrong concerning salvation. There are issues in the church that you can get wrong and you're not a heretic. There are issues in the church that you can get wrong and you're still very much a believer and trusting Christ, but this was an issue that if you got it wrong, you were lost. This is a salvation issue. This idea that circumcision begins to get understood as a symbol that is indicative of a bigger reality, you'll see it. So the Bible talks about uncircumcised hearts. So it begins with the literal flesh, But then it becomes a, I forgot what the word is. It becomes a, I'm not gonna try to remember the word. It becomes this idea that reflected a person's spiritual condition. For example, both Moses and Jeremiah, when preaching to the people of Israel, he appealed to them to circumcise their hearts. For example, Jeremiah 4.4, Leti. I forgot I need to give Leti a minute. You don't need to turn there, but well, since Leti's turning there, you can turn there so you could be like Leti. Jeremiah 4.4, when Jeremiah the prophet, they call him the weeping prophet because Israel would not turn during his time It would not occur until some decades later. And he had a message of what the Jews at the time believed was doom, because he was calling them to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, who would soon enslave them, because God was punishing them for having broken his law and continued breaking it. And God was doing as he had promised. He was sending them into exile. But in Jeremiah 4.4, listen to what he says to Israel. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. Now he's speaking to a people who are already circumcised, at least according to the flesh. This is what he means. He says, remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah. and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it because of the evil of your deeds. Remove the foreskin of your hearts. Now, the Jews would have understood what that meant. It meant to render to God an obedient heart. And then Jeremiah speaks about uncircumcised ears. Jeremiah chapter six, verse 10. Uncircumcised ears, Jeremiah chapter six, verse 10. He says, to whom shall I speak? and give warning that they may hear. Behold, again, speaking of the spiritual condition of Israel at the time, behold, their ears are uncircumcised. They cannot listen. See, remember how I say the Bible explains itself? You may ask, what does uncircumcised ears mean? They cannot listen. Real easy hermeneutics, real easy Bible interpretation. To whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Behold, their ears are uncircumcised. They cannot listen. Behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn. They take no pleasure in it. Church, for good reason, we say that one of the distinguishing marks between a believer and an unbeliever, those who are uncircumcised in heart, and those who are circumcised in heart, is how they feel about the word of God. If the word of God bores you to death, you're spiritually dead. If when someone starts reading the Bible and you yawn, you are dead. If you have no desire to eat of the word of God, you're dead, because dead people don't eat. Have you ever tried to feed food to a corpse? Of course not, because it's dead. It doesn't have the ability to neither desire, nor taste, nor to digest food. The spiritually dead person does not care for the things of God, has no desire for them. He yawns. In fact, if he doesn't yawn, he might actually be hostile to the things of God. Where do we get this idea? We get it from the Bible itself. Because for those who hate God, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn. It's an object of scorn. They take no pleasure in it. Jeremiah 9.25. So you see this idea then. You see this idea where the idea of circumcision is being applied spiritually or ethically to different parts of the body. Not literally the heart as in cut off muscle from your heart or cut off your ears. It's speaking about the spiritual counterpart to it. In Jeremiah 9, that's what I said, right? Here's an acknowledgement, 925, here's an acknowledgement that God acknowledges that, of course, you can obey Abraham and literally cut off skin, but if the spiritual counterpart doesn't accompany it, then it's useless. All it is is nothing but mutilating. The flesh. Now look at verse 25 of coming judgment that Jeremiah preached at that time. He says in verse 25, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh. You see that? Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert, who cut the corners of their hair. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in hearts." So the issue for the early church then, what role does circumcision play among new believers? The reason for this because, The first believers were Jewish. Jesus is Jewish, the apostles are Jewish, and the first church was Jewish. And at some point, the gospel spread to Gentiles by God's design, and they begin to get, as Paul says, grafted in, or included among the people of God. And the church divided early on because they rightly understood that the circumcising of the flesh and obeying the law of Moses was so important that to not do this, God would cut you off. So they had a hard time figuring out what role does circumcision play? Now let's turn to the book of Romans. Man, I'm running out of time again. Happens every Sunday. Now, sometimes we forget that the first believers, the very first believers, the Jewish believers, they worshiped Jesus as the Messiah. and they still engaged in corporate prayer, but where do you think they went? In Jerusalem, specifically, where do you think they went to preach the gospel, to offer prayers, and offer alms, and all of these things? Where do you think? Take a guess. Huh? The synagogue, but the temple of God, the temple of God that was still standing. We read in Acts, in places like Acts chapter three, 521 verse 42, you don't need to turn there, but we have Peter going up to the temple to pray. We have the apostle Paul shaving his head under a vow, still going to the temple. The early believers, as long as the temple remained standing, they still very much functioned as Jews, but Jewish believers mingled among the unbelieving Jews. Now, at some point, they eventually separated, the temple gets destroyed, but we forget that it wasn't a quick turning, there was a transition period, and this is why this issue was extremely important. Look at Romans 2, verse 17, because of time. I really thought I was going to have time to expand on the role of circumcision and the law and all of that, but we may just need to continue that next week. Paul here is talking to Jews. He's addressing Jews who take pride. They take pride in their Jewish heritage. They take pride that they are the people to whom God entrusted the oracles of God, that they are descendants of Abraham. So they take pride. Circumcision is a symbol of pride for them. And they somehow believe that because they possess this sign, that they perhaps are better off than Gentiles. But Paul addresses this issue in verse 17. He says, but if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on the law and boast in God and know His will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law. Let me give you the equivalent of this today. There are people who say, I believe, no, I believe in God. I read the Bible, I pray every day. And they will give you a list of spiritual activities they engage in so asked to prove that they are indeed right before God. Can you relate to that? But you see, religious activity, such as praying, reading the Bible, and all these other things, religious activity is distinct from obeying the specific commands of God. You can actually teach the Bible, and teach it accurately, and not live by what you teach. Happens all the time. Verse 17, but if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law and boast in God and know his will and approve what is excellent because you are instructed from the law. And if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness. an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth. You see that? That sounds like a person who has a high view of their spirituality affirming. These are all good things. There's nothing wrong with being an instructor to the blind. There's nothing wrong with recognizing that some people are in darkness and you yourself are in the light because of your knowledge of the scriptures. Nothing wrong with boasting in God, nothing wrong with being familiar with the law of God, but here's what matters at the end of the day. Verse 21, you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? You say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. See, it's one thing to teach the law, it's another thing to obey the law. And Paul is saying, sure, you can be circumcised, you can even be knowledgeable of the Bible, you can even be an instructor of the Bible, you can teach all day, all day, all day, but if you do not obey the very thing that you teach, your circumcision is worthless. It's again, I don't mean to be repetitive here, your wedding ring is worthless if you continue cheating on your spouse. It is directly contrary to the very thing it represents. That's what circumcision. Circumcision is a symbol that says, I am in covenant with God. He is my Lord, and I submit to the law of God. But Paul is saying, but you don't. You really don't. You say that you should not commit adultery, but then you look at women and lust after them. You are an adulterer at heart. You say you're not a pagan, that you do not worship idols, but the way you spend your time and the way you spend your money says that there are other things that you love more than you love God. Yes, you're an idolater. And here is the most unfortunate thing that happens between people who profess faith in God, they affirm good things like the Bible, God's word, Onlookers look at this kind of life, and here's what they do in verse 24. For as it is written, the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. There are many Christians on social media to whom the name of God is blasphemed because of their social media activity. I hear it from coworkers. They say, hey, look, Chris, this guy, he goes to this church. Mira, look at that. And it's like they get a joy of showing me what other people, I mean, it is amazing. One moment they'll post a scripture and all this, and the next minute they'll post something. I can't even tell you what they post. Even an unbeliever recognizes there's something wrong with that. Do you understand? The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you. Now, going back to the issue of circumcision, verse 25, he says, for circumcision indeed is of value because God gave circumcision. For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law. But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? What do you think, church? Then he who is physically uncircumcised, then he who is physically uncircumcised, but keeps the law, will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly. Now there's a counterpart. There's a lot of people who named themselves Christians, but they are Christians only outwardly. That's our application today. The application in the early church is identifying as a Jew who had the scriptures that they were privileged. They were the people of God. But Paul says, you're only a Jew on the outside internally. You're not. You're uncircumcised in ears. You're uncircumcised in heart. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a Jew is one inwardly. Circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man, but from God." The easy answer. You already know it. You must be born again. That's what it means to be circumcised in heart. You ask, Chris, but okay, how do I become circumcised in heart? That's not something that I can do. I don't even know where you get some kind of spiritual knife to, well, the word of God is the knife. And the spirit of God is the one who does it. And how do you do it? You do it by this simple command from God, repent, from sin and trust Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and God will circumcise your heart. That's what it means. The Bible says that Jesus was circumcised according to the law, that he grew up before the Lord in perfect obedience to the law, and Jesus became a holy, perfect, and righteous Jew, obedient Jew, sinless Jew, but most Importantly, he is the son of God who lived a perfectly obedient and righteous life. There was no fault found in him, no deceit found in his mouth, a spotless lamb of God, whom God testified, this is my son and whom I am well pleased. And the Bible says that as a lamb without spot or blemish, he offered himself to God the Father in your place. And the Bible says that he died on the cross, but on the third day, because he had done nothing wrong, he had not sinned, the Bible says that God vindicated him. by raising him from the dead. And because Jesus is alive now in full physical glorified flesh, sitting at the right hand of God the Father, his prerogative is to give the Holy Spirit, to give the Holy Spirit to all who would repent and trust him. God did all of this to save us because we were uncircumcised in heart, no desire for the things of God. uncircumcised in years, but the Bible says that we have been brought near. And so the good news is that Christ has done all the work for you. You, like Abraham, simply need to receive it by faith and as a gift from God. Amen? Let's stand.