Easy. When the leprosy was confirmed, The steps taken were drastic and instant. With safeguards implemented.
So, overall, diagnostics is our lesson. Diagnostics. is the objective side. that had to do with the priest, and somewhat with us also. But discernment It's the spiritual side.
Discerning spiritual things and making a decision based on what you see and you know from scripture, and not just guessing about it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Leviticus. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching.
But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Leviticus chapter 13 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Leviticus chapter 13. Beneath the skin. The law of the leper. That's what we're considering.
Hopefully. My introduction will help us better understand how Old Testament law can Help us with New Testament Christian behavior. And I I believe that very strongly when we Learn these lessons from the Old Testament. They show up. and what we do as New Testament Christians.
Leviticus thirteen and fourteen, those two chapters are devoted exclusively to the subject of skin disease. Of course there's more to it than that. But that is the physical side of it. The skin is Our outside That's attached to our inside. And spiritually That works out.
Quite wonderfully. This thirteenth chapter deals with the diagnosis of a skin disease and the determinations that go with it. Notice that I didn't say treatment. There's no treatment given. This is not a hospital.
This is a nation. Safeguarding itself, against something that can turn into something very serious, very awful. The leprosy that is being considered and the skin diseases cover. A broad scope of invasive skin conditions.
Some of them are tolerable. others are intolerable. And that is what we find with Christian behavior. There are things that Christians do that. Might not look good.
But tolerate it. Might not sin Then there are other things that are just blatant sin that have to be dealt with. In this chapter and into chapter 14. The invasive skin conditions extend. Not only On the skin, but things that will infect the skin, mold and mildew and fungi.
Even in Garments and Houses. God is being Very thorough about this. Fabrics, not only garments. and the examination and diagnosis of the priest concerning Then body of the people as a nation, as a community even. The priests were to examine and make their diagnosis and determination to protect And control The disease from spreading.
Dereliction of this duty would have been very bad.
So the priest and it appears from The records we have in scripture that They didn't With no record of them really getting any pushback. In fact, one situation where a king was smitten with leprosy. The scripture says he indeed was quick to get out of there.
So it doesn't seem as though there was any pushback on the determination of the priests when they said you're a leper. Quarantined? Isolated? Everybody understood. The leper is used in Scripture.
Two. point out those things that are contagious The skin being used, of course. And those things non-contagious? And that would trickle down to or point to The clean versus the unclean.
So I have no intention of attempting to Give a class on Hanson's disease that we presently understand is leprosy. Which Destroys one's ability to feel, to sense things by touch, and that ends up causing major problems, amputations, even, and other complications. If you want, A good recommendation on a book about leprosy and Christianity. The number one recommendation I have is Paul Doctor Paul Brandon Philip Yancey's. In his image and then the Volume 2, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.
And he gets into the body. Dr. Paul Bram was a devout Christian who. was also a surgeon. that dealt with reconstructing The limbs, face, and damage lepers would do to themselves, he was a pioneer.
And that field This is not what I'm dealing with, and it might not have been what Moses was dealing with medical science, of course, has come a long way and The physical sides of the leprosy that we're going to cover really has not much to do with us. It's the spiritual lessons. That's where the meat is. How many of you think you're going to be used in this life to examine someone to see if they have leprosy or not?
So then, why do I need to pay attention to the priests learning to do that?
Well, on the physical side, I th that physical element, again, uh n doesn't really apply to me.
However, the spiritual applications are valuable and should never be dismissed. Because they have to do with spiritual discernment, as I mentioned, the clean and the unclean, the biblical and the unbiblical. Good behavior and bad behavior. Discernment never goes away from us. It is an essential.
Facet of our Christianity.
So the parallels flow. From the restrictions and the permissions of the priest, Concerning leprosy? into real life decisions. How the nation dealt with the skin disease, and how the church deals with spiritual disease. A lot of churches don't deal with spiritual disease.
They might deal with social diseases, but What about the scripture? What about the things God has forbidden or Aloud. What about those things?
Well, again, a lot of churches don't want to deal with those things because people won't come back.
So you have to learn what God considers infectious and non infectious. And that's what the priests are examining for. Is this thing going to keep spreading? Is it going to go on to somebody else? Is this harmful for others too?
Where are we with this thing? The procedures and the protocols they were critical to them. And they should be to us.
So the main point behind leprosy in the Old Testament whatever it might have been. We're not sure it was Hanson's disease. It could have been. But it certainly is more than that. There were other conditions that weren't what we would call Hanson's disease, that were contagious, that did merit.
Quarantine or isolation Would that work? simply called leparous. The main point behind the leprosy in the Old Testament, again, whatever it was, it rendered the victim unclean to God and unclean to man. That perks up our ears of us Christians, because we care about God. And because we care about God, we care about...
Man. John in his first letter Wouldn't let that go. How can you say you love the Lord and you have this hatred for people?
So it's a safeguard, this 13th and 14th chapter, because the 14th chapter has to do with bringing the leper back in. taking them out of isolation. There's no mention of a medicine or treatment. For a leprous condition, the lepers that were cleansed were done so through God. Leviticus thirteen and fourteen are devoted exclusively to the subject of skin disease, its diagnosis and determinations.
And I'll add to that. There will be skin conditions that appear to be leprous. And the priest will get to the bottom of it. But they're not leprosy. But when there's something that fits the criteria.
of an invasive skin condition. That will be classified as leprosy. Again, whether it's what we know is Hanson's disease or not. And so serious is this. That Moses going over the law for the people when he's about to turn over the leadership to Joshua before the people enter into the promised land.
Writes this in Deuteronomy twenty four, verse eight. Take heed. in an outbreak of leprosy. that you carefully observe and do according to all that the priests, the Levites, shall teach you, just as I commanded them.
So you shall be careful to do. Remember what Yahweh your God did to Miriam on the way when you came out of Egypt? He gives them an He re brings up the sister. Who messed with him? And God dealt with her.
We're going to come back to her and him. He too was smitten with leprosy. momentarily, but he got a dose of it himself. The nation must be zealous. in safeguarding The people by order of God, as I just read from Deuteronomy 24.
The leper was to be immediately separated from the whole congregation. Do we have anything like that today? Yes, this fellowship. You can't come back to church. Your sin has separated you.
It has gotten so bad it has reached the intolerable limits. And we can't let it keep going. It will spread through the congregation.
Some Christians. They don't care for that. We don't care for it either. But we rather obey God. Then fear you.
It is wonderful when you get Christians in a congregation who can say to the pastor, we got your back. You're upholding God's word. Versus The one that what did you do? What did you say to them? Same thing I'm about to say to you.
Duck! Too late.
So we have to be Careful not careless. and dealing with things that corrupt. The law of the Jew Provided that there should be Careful distinctions between That which looks like leprosy But was not. And God is the one who who was customizing the nation. All of the law is God customizing his people, saying, I don't care what the physicians of Egypt say.
This is what I'm saying. This is my medical journal to you. This is how I want it done. When the leprosy was confirmed. The steps taken were drastic and instant.
With safeguards implemented.
So, overall, diagnostics is our lesson. Diagnostics There's the objective side. that had to do with the priest, and somewhat with us also. But discernment is the spiritual side. discerning spiritual things and making a decision based on what you see and you know from Scripture, and not just guessing about it.
Paul said to the Philippians, This I pray, This is what I'm praying for you. That your love may abound still more. In knowledge And all discernment.
Well, that's what the priests were doing, discerning. With love. Spiritual discernment is one thing. What to do with that discernment? Here's another thing.
So, you imagine someone comes and meets with a pastor and says, You know, I'm committing this sin and I really don't care about it. But I want to give the church a large amount of money. What's that pastor going to do with that? He discerns that this guy. Is sinned.
That's he's a leper in that sense, for the sake of illustration. But what's he going to do? You're going to drive him out of the church like he should? How dare you think you could buy your way out? and boast of your sin and Have an impenitent heart.
Believe it or not, There are those that pull little things not as overtly as I'm giving, but they do it nonetheless. Don't be the Christian pandering to sinners under the guise of love or growth or fruit. But be the one. But Sticks with unflinching commitment to truth. with love, with grace, with mercy.
First Corinthians CHAPTER six Speaking about love. In Corinthians, love is made secondary to truth. But of course, without love, what am I? If the love I have is not based on truth, then it's not love.
So they're tied in together. Love does not rejoice in iniquity. But rejoices in truth. It makes that distinction. This is a sin, this is nothing to be happy about.
And this is the truth. If you repent. Where sin abounded, grace did much more. That's to the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus when the leper is restored. But it's got to be God's way.
So that's the introduction, which I hope Makes a lot of the points we're going to cover.
So an overview. And I hope it's a critical, not criticizing but important Overview That's not lost on The verse is coming up. Verses one through eight, he's dealing with the scabs, the swellings, the spots. And the leprosy. Verse 1, and Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leperous sore.
Then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or One of His son's the priest. Again, leprosy was any kind of serious skin condition. That wasn't going away. that ran deeper than the skin. And that's one of the big Parts of identifying it.
It runs deeper than the skin. There's some other things there. But uh the chances of you ever being called upon to determine if this is leprosy or not. Or Zero. And so again, Lord, then why am I reading this?
Because there are spiritual lessons here. A swelling, a scab, or a bright spot. Evidence of a problem. Like a lepros sore is not in the Hebrew, however. That is it is justified.
The structure of the Hebrew and the context of where all this is going, it makes it appropriate.
So in case you're looking, you say, Why do I have italics on the word leprosy? which is an indication translators have inserted that. The root word in the Hebrew for leprosy is scourge.
So it's really not our word. It's the scourge on the skin. A leper may have any number of different diseases. But the one deeper than the skin on the flesh is the one that is going to get him to be. Isolated.
Symptoms described here. are not sufficient for us to say, well, this is the medical equivalent today. It could have been some molds and mildews and things like that that are no longer around. They've morphed into something else.
So we don't really need to get tripped up on that. When you do, as a Bible student, that's what happens. You get tripped up. You're going down a rabbit hole that has no end to it. And you end up with nothing.
But when you understand, okay, the flesh profits nothing, it's the spirit. Then you come away, I think. much better off than you would have been the other way. We notice something very important about this second verse. That it was brought to the attention of the priest.
The priest did not go out on a witch hunt. They weren't knocking on doors it was brought to them. And the church leadership is to run that way, and Christians are too. James chapter 5, is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him.
Don't think that those guys are going to read your mind.
So and so is sick today. I think I'll make a call. A lot of times they don't want you to come see them. I always ask, especially with the women, if they're in the hospital, you want me to come up? You want me to wait?
And sometimes they say, Yeah, not yet. I don't want you to see me like this. I'm going to respect that. Here I am to save the day. His sweet polyfurbeds and troubles.
As anyway. Verse 3. Yeah. The priest shall examine the The sore of the skin of the body, and if the hair on the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a lepros sore. Then the priest shall examine him and pronounce him unclean.
Now I should point out, we're not going to read every verse that's in the thirteenth chapter.
So if you've been agonizing over that. You can relax a little bit.
So again, the duty of the priests to deal with this. and not hide it. He's employing a little dermatology, epidemiology to deal with. Infectious diseases, a little mycology, he could deal with funguses because in the next chapter he deals with what's in the house. And at the end of this chapter, what's in Fabric.
So again, you've got to deal with this and make an objective. Examination into a situation Even if it's unpopular. Popularity is is not it doesn't factor into this. Sin on the surface versus sin deeper than The skin So, here are some dominant words that we're going to come across in this 13th chapter. And whenever we have this sort of this word cloud to see what stands out, it's because that's the dominant thought.
Fifty-six times we come across the word priest. One of those is in the plural, fifty-six all total. Because it is their duty to not only investigate To uphold, to discern, but to act on that discernment. It's not a philosophy. It has to Turn into something that is.
Truly beneficial for all. And when we see this dereliction of duty and leadership, We're actually quite annoyed by it. Disappointed. The word Indeed, if you have the old King James, behold. Twenty times.
So that's connected to the examination. Behold, it is. Are you dealing with facts? Skin shows up thirty four times. Our outside is attached to our inside.
'Cause when you get a cut you look to see how deep it is on the skin. The examination. 22 times. that objective investigation. In the phrase, the priest shall examine, that's sixteen times.
Unclean shows up. 23 times in this chapter. Clean shows up 19 times.
Some of the investigation will say, no, this isn't leprosy, it's a skin ailment, not a problem. Plague That's a scary word. nineteen times. Or when you're reading and your eyes hit that word plague. It's a word that strikes an alarm.
He's got to make a call. Can't be indecisive. I don't know what to do. Why not? It's right there, and God's told you what to do.
Deeper than the skin, that phrase shows up ten times. Deeper than the skin. Here is the picture of skin, inescapable, In the heart At the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. The heart is deceitful. desperately wicked.
Who can know it? Ay, the Lord. Search the heart. I test the mind.
So, the use of leprosy as a metaphor for sin is not minor, it's major. Since my first lesson on Leviticus thirteen and fourteen. I don't remember where my first exposure really came. I know it was through reading. Probably reading sermons on this.
But I've never forgotten this lesson in the world. and I have drawn from it many times. The use of leprosy as metaphor for sin. Sin is the ultimate wrong in humanity. We know that.
It damns the soul. and leprosy is deeper than the skin. But since is deeper than the leprosy. But Grace goes deeper than The sin. We're sin abounded, grace did much more.
So it's tied in. It goes deeper to uproot it. I think a dermatologist would really like what I just said. That's scientific and medical. Here's your degree.
I expected a standing ovation. I was actually hoping that would be the one. Especially humanistic man will Tout. the innate goodness of man. God never does that.
God does not find something innately good about man. He sees the good that has been corrupted. He sees what man was made to be, what man has become. Leviticus thirteen teaches the value of objective Investigation And adherence to the divine protocols.
Now we move on to verse 4. If the bright spot is white on the skin of the body, and does not appear to be deeper than the skin. And his hair is not turned white, Then the priest shall isolate the one who has the sore seven days. Verse 5. and the priest shall examine him On the seventh day.
And indeed, if the sore i appears to be as it was, and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him another seven days. If I'm the victim here, I'm waiting for lab results.
So it's not something new. He's waiting to find out. Is he going to be? sent out As A leper. unclean for the rest of their lives.
Having to cover up their face with a veil and say, unclean, unclean, stay away from me. Pretty scary, the dread of waiting. The benefit as a Christian coming to this is okay. You know, if you're going through these kind of things, uh I'm not the first one. this person would have to implement faith and as we are called to do.
Also The friends and the loved ones, they would enter into the process. It'd be out of the hands of everyone. Just a matter of time. If the condition worsened, he'd be isolated another seven days, which would bring it up to 21. Then the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day.
If the sore has faded and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean.
Now we skip to verse 7. But if the scab should at all spread over the skin after he has been seen by the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen by the priest again. Verse 8. And if the priest sees That the scab has indeed spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy.
Um Yeah. Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. Pastor Rick Gaston is currently going through the book of Leviticus. We're glad you joined us. We trust that you're gaining some valuable insights into God's Word as we go through this Old Testament book.
Cross-Reference Radio comes to you from Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. If you'd like to subscribe to our podcast, you can do so by going to your favorite app store and downloading from there. For any additional information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreference radio.com. Make sure to come back again for the upcoming edition in the book of Leviticus, as Pastor Rick has much more to share. We thank you for being with us right here on Cross Reference Radio.
Yeah.
