Moses, led the nation of Israel for 40 years. Deuteronomy was his farewell address. He recounted for the nation what took place during this time and how God had directed them each step of the way. In the previous chapters, Moses outlined the blessings that the nation of Israel would receive if they remained obedient to the Lord’s commands and the curses that would surely come upon them if they failed to obey. In chapter 30, Moses knowing that they would eventually fail God, gives them hope of a future day when God would work in their midst once again. He would work in such a way as to bring them back to Himself. He calls this work the circumcision of their hearts.
God’s work in the circumcision of the heart is the focal point of this passage. Verse 6 describes God’s work in this way and the verses leading up to it and the verses that follow it all point to this very work in the life of a person to bring him or her into a relationship with God. Now the term “circumcision of the heart” is a metaphor. Metaphor is often well used in the Scripture because unseen spiritual events need a physical description so that we may have some idea of their meaning. We will describe just what this is in a little while but understand that heart circumcision is completely necessary for you to have a relationship with God and eternal life. No heart circumcision, no relationship with God (period).
As I have believed and believe even more as I study Scripture in greater depth that a key to unlocking the meaning of a passage is to look for repetition within it. When an author repeats a phrase or word several times within the context of a paragraph or a book he is using that word or phrase to get across one important idea. In this passage Moses uses the word “return” 7 times and he uses the word “hear” 5 times. Unfortunately, for us, these words are not translated in the same way each time. So as we go through the passage this morning look for the words that I redefine as “return” or “hear” and mark them appropriately in your Bible. This is why I have encouraged you to diligently study the words in a passage lest you miss out on the significance of the text.
But before we move on let me mention the significance of the word “hear” in this passage. Three times it is translated “obey” in verses 2, 8 and 10. And here it describes a person who is ready to listen to God’s Word and then do what God says.
In this passage we see the steps to a circumcision of the heart that leads to a relationship with God and eternal life.
1. God Causes Us to Return (This is God’s Call)
The first step to a circumcision of the heart that leads to salvation is that God causes us to return. You could say this is “God’s call.” We see this in verse 1. It says that when all of these curses (mentioned in chapter 28) have come upon the people and a person recognizes all that God had told them was true He will cause them to return. Now Moses, throughout this passage, is speaking in the singular. He is targeting the individuals in whom the Lord is working.
The word “return” is found in the middle of verse 1. Literally the verse reads, “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and He causes your heart to return.” And He causes your heart to return. What does this mean that God causes this person’s heart to return? It means that God is using the His Word to bring conviction into the life of an individual. As a person sees these curses being carried out upon them they recognize that it is because they are not following God’s Word and that their unrighteousness becomes evident to them. We might say today that their unrighteousness is staring them in the face. And Moses is describing this convicting work of God through His Word.
Jesus describes this same kind of work through the Holy Spirit in John 16. Jesus says this, And when He (the Holy Spirit) comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” They will come under conviction that they have rejected the Messiah, that they have no righteousness of their own and that judgment awaits them.
It is this God given recognition of their unrighteousness (that they are unworthy to stand before God) that causes this person’s heart to return to Him. They begin to think of God again even though their thoughts may be frightening at first because they understand that they deserve the righteous judgment of God against them. Yet their hearts have begun to be drawn to Him.
They come to recognize that, as Isaiah says in the 59th chapter of his prophecy, “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” They have recognized that as they did not desire to listen to God, God had no desire to listen to them. And because they wanted only their own will and not God’s will God would not listen to them.
Perhaps there are some here today that are in this very state that your sins have separated you from God and He will not hear you. You still need your heart circumcised. And though perhaps your heart has been caused to return to God it is not circumcised and you are still in your sins. You have no assurance that your sins have been taken away from you as far as the east is from the west. But if you recognize this and understand that your sins are separating you from God then perhaps the Lord is causing your heart to return to Him. If so, then listen to His call.
2. We Return (This is our response)
The second step to a circumcision of the heart that leads to salvation is that we return. Here you could say that this is our response to God’s call. In verse 2 Moses says, “And you return to the LORD your God and hear (obey) Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today.” In verses 2, 8 & 10 where God says that we are to return, the word “to hear” is also with it. Verse 8 says, And you shall again obey the LORD.” Literally this reads, “And you shall return and hear the Lord.” The beginning of verse 10 says, “If you hear (obey) the LORD your God” and the end of the verse says, “If you turn (return) to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.” So we can see how returning to the Lord and hearing the Lord go hand in hand. Someone who desires to return to the Lord is someone who now wants to listen to what God is saying. Its like a young man or woman who has turned away from their parents’ advice and counsel. After going their own way for a time they begin to realize that their own way wasn’t so smart after all and they decide to once again listen to what their parents have to say.
Those who are unable to hear what God says are not lacking the physical capacity to hear but are simply refusing to listen to God’s message, choosing their own way as better than God’s way. This is a dangerous position in which to be. Romans chapter 1 describes why. A person who continually rejects God’s message eventually is given over by God to a depraved mind to do those things which are morally deviant. In 1:28, Paul says, “God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper being filled with all unrighteousness.”
So those who are returning to God and hearing from Him are recognizing that God’s way is the right way. They are putting their faith in that what God has to say about them is true. And this faith or trust in the Word of God is what leads to this heart circumcision. So let’s look at this next.
3. God Circumcises Our Heart (This is God’s Work)
The third step to a circumcision of the heart that leads to salvation is the very act when God circumcises our heart. This is God’s work. In verse 6, Moses says, “the Lord your God will circumcise your heart . . . to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” What just what does it mean that God will circumcise your heart and how will this lead to salvation? What is taking place here? Let’s first look at the meaning of heart circumcision then we can look at the extent of heart circumcision. And to do that we will have to look at two other passages of Scripture. I think that after we look at these passages of Scripture it will seem a little clearer to you.
A. The meaning of heart circumcision
i. A look at Romans 10
The first passage of Scripture that we will look at is Romans 10. What does Romans 10 have to do with this passage? The apostle Paul quotes from this very section in Deuteronomy in order to describe what is taking place when God circumcises the heart. Verses 6-8 are the paraphrase of this Deuteronomy passage. There are three aspects to salvation described through the metaphor of heart circumcision (Read 10:1-3). The first aspect of salvation described through the metaphor of heart circumcision is forsaking your own attempt at righteousness. Paul said here in verses 1-3 that the Jews not recognizing the necessity of obtaining God’s righteousness sought to obtain their own. The difficulty here is that our own righteousness is never good enough. And if God is going to circumcise your heart and give you salvation then you must forsake your attempt at obtaining your own righteousness. The Jews failed to obtain God’s righteousness because they refused to forsake their own attempt at righteousness through the law. If you refuse to forsake your own righteousness you too will miss the righteousness of God.
The second aspect of salvation described through the metaphor of heart circumcision is receiving the righteousness of God by simple faith (Read 6-8). The righteousness that God supplies isn’t something that needs to be gotten by some heroic and mighty act. No one needs to climb up to heaven to get Christ or fight their way through the darkness of the land of the dead to rescue Christ from the grave in order to receive righteousness from God. No great crusade needs to be embarked upon to get righteousness for yourself.
No, Paul says here, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, – the word of faith which we are preaching.” In this way it is easy to receive the righteousness of God, give up all your attempts to claim you are righteous before God by your own effort, humble yourself and call out for the Lord to save you. This is what Paul says in verses 9-13. “If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation . . . for whoever will call on the name of the LORD will be saved.”
Those who believe in their heart that Christ died on the cross for their sins and was raised to effect (cause) the forgiveness of their sins before God they will be saved. And the proof of the heart belief will be that that person will desire to confess it with their mouth.
So this passage in Romans illustrates two of the three aspects of salvation described through the metaphor heart circumcision. In heart circumcision there is a forsaking our own attempts at righteousness and a receiving of the righteousness of God by simple faith (or trust in Christ’s work on the cross).
ii. A look at Ezekiel 36
The third aspect of salvation described through heart circumcision is found in Ezekiel 36. Here in this chapter (verses 25-27) God is again speaking to the Israelites in a context in which He will restore them to the land. But unlike the restoration of the Jews to the land of Israel that is taking place now, God is not going to accomplish His restoration without giving the Jews spiritual salvation. And in these verses we see more metaphors that God uses for this salvation, one more dealing with the heart (Read 25-27).
Here God says that he will take away their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. The third aspect of salvation described through heart circumcision is a stripping away of the wickedness of our being.
Since heart circumcision is a physical metaphor for what is really happening spiritually we have to look at what it truly means. Since the heart stands for the real person, that is who we are inside, when God says that he is going to cut away the filth of our heart He means that He is making us a new person. What takes place when someone is born again is not just turning over a new leaf, another attempt to put off the bad and put in the good, they are made a new person starting with the inside. And trusting that God has done this for you through Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection is when this salvation takes place. When you set aside your self-righteousness and by faith accept God’s righteousness and call out to Him to save you from your sin, God circumcises your heart, that is, He strips away the wickedness of our being by forgiving our sins.
B. The extent of heart circumcision
Now let’s return to the passage in Deuteronomy. Here we see in God’s work of circumcising our heart, the extent of heart circumcision. Three times in this passage God mentions the extent of the work that He does in a person’s life. When we place our faith in His work on the cross and He comes into our lives what is the extent to which He changes us? Three times Moses mentions this saying: that He will cause us to love Him with all our heart and with all our soul. When God does His saving work in an individual’s life, it causes them to worship Him and live out their love for Him on a daily basis.
God’s work is such that He begins to touch every area of our lives. And because He starts with the core of our being, He is able to little by little change our whole lifestyle so that we may love Him with all our heart and soul. Loving God with all our changed inner person allows God to work on our outer person too.
4. He Returns to Us
Finally we see the completion of this work by God in that He returns to us. In the last part of verse 9, “For the LORD will return to rejoice over you for good.” When God has given us salvation through the circumcision of our hearts, He does not just leave us on our own. But He returns to us for our good. When Jesus was leaving His disciples, He told them, “I will not leave you as orphans. But I will send you another counselor like me.” Jesus here was speaking of the Holy Spirit whom He would send upon all who believed in Him.
God returns to us. He doesn’t leave us as orphans but works in us for our good in all things. It is this Holy Spirit who desires to control your life as a believer. This is why Paul says that we must yield to the Holy Spirit of God to control our lives. We must give Him full reign in our lives to make us into the kind of people that He wants us to be. He is waiting to fall upon you in great power to change your life even as the spring showers fall to bring life to the grass. He wants nothing less than all of your life which is to what He is entitled because He owns you believer. Will you say today that you will fully yield yourself and your will to God to return upon you with that which is for your good? It may require you to finally say no to the sin to which you have been holding on for far too long. O believer, will you allow yourself to be a channel to be used by the Holy Spirit for revival and awakening in our area? The very tests to that commitment to give yourself completely to the Lord may come this very day. But when you make that decision to follow Him wherever He may lead and you fail, get back up. The Scripture says that the righteous falls seven times but rises again. Let God return to us for our good and for His glory.
You who have not yet placed your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior listen to what Moses has to say in verse 15. “See I have set before you life and prosperity, and death and adversity.” God has set before you a choice. It is a choice between receiving eternal life and eternal torment. It is a choice between receiving Jesus Christ as your Savior or rejecting Him. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. Will you forsake your own way and receive Him today? He will change your heart and allow you to live for His glory.
The Scripture also says, “Today, if you will hear his voice do not harden your hearts.” If God today has brought to mind your sin before you that separates you from God and you have heard his voice, do not harden your hearts. In Isaiah, the Lord says, “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.” Turn to the Lord today and trust Him so that, as Peter said, “your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”