Circumcised Hearts, Tested Words

The Lord who rewrote the broken tablets also demands the rewriting of the heart. Moses sets mercy and commandment together: God is mighty, impartial, defender of the fatherless and widow, yet He requires Israel to circumcise the heart, love Him, and walk in His ways. Therefore obedience is not an ornament to faith, but its proof. As Tertullian says, “After the Lord your God you shall go, and fear Him, and keep His commandments, and obey His voice, and serve Him, and cleave unto Him.”

Jeremiah shows how easily men prefer lighter words. Hananiah promised swift peace; Jeremiah bore the harder truth. False prophecy is loved because it removes the yoke without removing sin. But the Lord is not served by pleasant lies. Cyprian warns with the prophet’s own words: “Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal my words every one from his neighbour, and cause my people to err by their lies and by their lightness.” The light tongue ruins souls.

Then in Acts the persecutor is struck down, humbled, baptized, and immediately begins to obey the Christ he had hated. Saul does not keep his old course and add new opinions; he enters the church, receives sight, fasts, suffers danger, and preaches the Name. The man who came to bind others is himself bound to the Lord. This is repentance: not a passing grief, but a turned life.

So let us not seek smooth speech, nor praise God with uncircumcised habits. The great and impartial Lord still sets blessing before those who hear and do. Let the heart be cut, the tongue restrained, and the life made ready for costly obedience.