CIRCUMCISE YOUR HEART

PROCLAMATION

“Circumcise yourselves to The Lord, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or My wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done; burn with no one to quench it.”  Jeremiah 4:4 (NIV)

EXPLANATION

These are the words of The Lord God which were spoken to the prophet Jeremiah and proclaimed to the people of Judah.  The Lord God had exhorted and requested that the people of Israel return to Him. (Jeremiah 4:1-2)  He warned them that if they didn’t return to Him, their enemy to the north would come down and destroy their towns and their land. (Jeremiah 4:5-9) 

APPLICATION

In days of old, parents would spank their disobedient children.  Here the disobedient children of Israel were being warned that if they continued to do wrong then they would be spanked.  The term “circumcise” refers to the removal of excess useless foreskin.  It was and old Jewish custom which is still practiced today. (Genesis 17:10-12)  The reference to “circumcise your hearts” was a request to remove “unnecessary covering around their hearts” as a token of their covenant with God.  Today, we give our hearts to so many things and people, but we don’t give our hearts to God.  One of these days we will incur the wrath of God because our heart was in the wrong place and covered with the wrong thing.