If you think, well, I gotta read up on every. Cult that's out there before I can share Christ with them. I disagree with that approach. I think a lot of Christians disagree with what I'm saying. Because if that were so Then all we would have to do is study up on a cult, go down and save them all.
And who would get the credit? I would get the credit for all the hard work I put into examining that cult, but that doesn't happen.
Sometimes people get saved without Other people learning about They're sin. 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 14 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio. Man, Leviticus chapter 14, the leper's cleansing that chapter 13 gave us. The priestly instructions. for identifying what was a contagious Skin disease. And that the person was diagnosed as having an infectious They were quarantined, they were put out to camp.
Well, chapter fourteen talks about What happens if Whatever condition they have goes away. If they're cured, Now the Hebrew word for leprosy The Hebrew word zaraat Is A scourge. And I know I've said some of this before, but I think it's important to go over. It is used. Generically, For any infectious surface affliction, In the Old Testament, and New Testament translators really should have come up with a better word.
'Cause it's inaccurate. The Greek in the New Testament leparus is the is the word they use, and we get our English word leprosy, but the Greeks did not mean to identify what we know as Hansen's disease. All of this to say that we're dealing with skin conditions. And if the ailment goes deeper than the skin, it was diagnosed as leparous. it would be short-sighted.
to use Hansen's disease as the definition whenever we come across the word Leprosy. For us, That Old Testament condition of leprosy. has to do with sin. And again, we've covered that in chapter 13. Luke's Gospel chapter twenty three verse four So Pilate said to the chief priest And the crowd I find no fault.
in this man. That's what we Hope Jesus will be saying of as many souls as we can lead into heaven. I find no fault in them. And this is what's going to happen in this chapter when the priest examines The soul that has been cured of their leprosy, they're going to pronounce them. Clean As Jews said, they're going to be presented faultless before the presence of his glory.
and that is the case of all those who come to believe. Let's look at verse 1. Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, Verse 2, This shall be the law of the leper, for the day of his cleansing, he shall be brought. To the priest. They're going to make a big deal out of this cleansing.
Rightfully so. The cleansing from whatever Lose infectious skin afflictions were. Rescuing a life From one that was cast out? stigmatized? damaged beyond human repair.
There was no cure. For these conditions, only God could restore the leper, And we're going to find a lot of this ties into the New Testament, and of course. our Lord dealing with our sin. That's why I pointed out that quotation from Jude because just as the priest would pronounce to cured leper, as faultless, so Christ will pronounce us because that metaphorically leprous sin of ours will be cured. will be cleansed.
Healing Is not usually how liqueur individual is given to us, but cleansed, that is the preferred term. healed his youth, but very seldom in connection. to leprosy. It's not a wrong term to say that they're healed, but it falls short of the symbolism. Symbolism of being cleansed implies that you were dirty.
not just sick, This is the tie-in between the skin condition. and the condition of the soul. By far the word Cleansed is used. Go through scriptures to point that out because the emphasis is critical. to evangelism.
Matthew ten It says Verse 8. To heal the sick to cleanse lepers Not cure them or heal them. Mark chapter one.
Now a leper came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him, and saying, If you are willing, you can make me clean. He did not say you can cure me or Or you can heal me. Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him, and said, I am willing. Be cleansed. As soon as he had spoken immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.
Luke chapter 4. Jesus speaking, saying, Many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, And none of them was cleansed except Naaman, The Syrian Again in Luke chapter seven, Jesus answered and said to them, Go tell John the things you have seen and heard the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed. This word leprosy, this condition, because this is the one that's tied into sin. Not that if you had leprosy, it was because of your sin, because there were many people that were worse than many of the lepers, and they didn't get leprosy. But the stigma was attached to it just in the very word the scourge.
It's a hideous condition. When we think of Hansen's disease, If we do think of it as the flesh rotting, that's wrong. What happens is the sense of feeling is so damaged that the individual does harm to themselves. It can look like the flesh is rotting, where it's just being damaged, repeatedly damaged. A leper can sleep with his hand too close to a candle.
and it burned through the skin and they don't even wake up, feel the heat. When they do wake up and look at their hand, of course it's severely damaged. The whole process of healing, the repetitive wounds that they would inflict upon themselves because they can't feel anything.
So that's how leprosy gets this, you know, it's the rotting, it rots the flesh. God uses this particular ailment. To Highlight what sin has done to us. It has made us unclean. It has made us dirty in the eyes of God.
All of our righteousness like filthy rags. Back to Luke chapter 17.
So when he saw them, he said, Go show yourselves to the priests. And so it was, as they went, they were cleansed.
So Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Guess 'cause one came back. And then Second Peter chapter 1, not talking about leprosy, but talking about sin. And he uses that word.
He says, For he who lacks these things is short sighted. Even to blindness is And he has forgotten that he was cleansed. from his old sins So it is a healing. By cleansing. And thus the twofold use of cleansing and healing, In chapter fourteen that were in in the third verse.
We will read the priest shall examine him, and indeed, if the leprosy is healed, In the leper, then it goes on to go through the protocols for restoring that person.
So, there in verse 3, healed is used because it is a healing. But that's not the dominant thought. nor the dominant word. In the middle of the city. cleanse will be used fourteen times in this fourteenth chapter.
And so to be rid of sin is to be cleansed. By God. From the sin that defiles us in the presence of a holy God, a pure God, a clean God.
Now back to the Old Testament again with the word cleanse concerning sin. Psalm 19 verse 12, cleanse me from my secret faults. Psalm 51, verse 2: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Jeremiah thirty three eight I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which They have sinned, and by which they have transgressed against me. The point is The metaphor of leprosy for sin is right on.
It's all over the scripture. Sin is associated with being unclean, and that's the very problem with leprosy. How is man healed from sin? God cleanses him. We know this verse very well, first John chapter one.
If we walk in the light, As He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Second Corinthians chapter seven. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. perfecting holiness in fear of God.
So now you're armed a little bit more when it comes to preaching to the lost. If you think, well, I got a read up on every Cult that's out there before I can share Christ with them. I disagree with that approach. I think a lot of Christians disagree with what I'm saying. Because if that were so then all we would have to do is study up on a cult, go down and save em all.
And who would get the credit? I would get the credit for all the hard work I put into examining that cult. But that doesn't happen.
Sometimes people get saved without Other people learning about Their sin, whatever their beliefs are. You don't have to. All we have to do is bear witness, as the priest bore witness. and tell em straight out, don't die dirty. It'd be too late.
And you are dirty. You're a leper before a holy God, and you know you are. Hold their feet to the fire and don't catch and release and slack off when you see that they are crumbling under the weight of it all.
Some unbelievers double down, become obnoxious, and then just not going to listen to anything. That's not for you. But others. They'll shut their mouth. And we let him know.
That you can have all the protests you want against the Bible and all the reasons why you're not a Christian, but you still know you're dirty. I know it, you know it, and God knows it, and why should a holy God let you anywhere near Him when you drop dead? These are methods that I've found Very effective. Or go spend all your time studying up on the cults and share all that knowledge about their cult and why it's wrong, and at the end of it all, they still don't believe. I've repeated the story about the man that I worked with who was a devout evolutionist and anti-Christian.
And by the time a year or so rolled by, we became good friends. He was no longer an evolutionist. But he was not a Christian. For me, it was just maybe he did later and that'd be great. But what a lesson It's not about proving what they believe is wrong.
It's about proving that Christ is right. Getting them to understand that they need a Savior because they're too dirty to clean themselves. This is the story of the leper. The cleansing of the leper comes by the hand of God, by truth, by fact, and in no getting around it. The thing is, with sin, the leprosy is on the heart.
It's deeper than the skin. You can hide it. The lepers couldn't hide it. It was there on the outside. And so now we look at verse 3, and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him.
And indeed, if the leprosy is healed, in the leper, then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be cleansed to living And clean birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop. We go back up to verse three.
Now it says here And the priest shall go out of the camp. Verse 2 said, He shall be brought to the priest. He couldn't come into the camp, he was an outcast. The priest would go to where the leper was, the leper would meet him. Where he was?
That's cleared up for us in verse 3.
Well, the spiritual significance or tie-in to all of this, and I think. More than many places in the Bible, God wants us to draw these lines and connect these dots concerning leprosy. Jesus had to go outside of heaven to restore us. for us to be cleansed. This is a faithful saying, Christ Jesus came into the world.
That was a statement the early church was seems to be a statement that the early church was fond of making. John's Gospel, Jesus said. for I have come down from heaven. not to do my own will. but the will of Him who sent me.
And there's Christ, Coming outside of Heaven's camp, to earth The law could not cleanse the leper. It could only identify. The condition And the Old Testament law has no cleansing power over sin. Thou shalt not. The penalties just flow from that.
Romans 8 for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. on account of sin He condemned sin in the flesh. The flesh is Christ coming in the flesh, leaving heaven, coming to earth to deal with sin. Because nothing else could. Our Lord classified The Mosaic law as scripture Because after he healed the lepers, Jesus said to them, Show yourself to the priests and offer the gift that Moses commanded as testimony to them.
Jesus did not go around the law. He didn't come to destroy it. but he did fulfill it, So he sent them to the priest, as Moses commanded, in such cases Of the cleansing of the leper. The cleansed soul. needed the assistance of the priest, to restore them to society.
What if you were a Jew and you were outcast and you woke up one day and your skin no longer had The condition that caused you to be Isolated. But you still couldn't go back into the congregation. You could not enter the nation. You were still an outcast. It called for a skilled priest.
to identify that the leprosy was gone. Or still present? Restoration was not possible without the Church of that day. They were dependent. upon the skill of the priest, The care of the priest.
Now, when we talk about priests, we're not talking about these priests of today or the priest of Roman Catholicism. These are. The descendants of Aaron in the tribe of Levi, so we can say Levitical priests in that sense. One could be physically healthy. but spiritually unfit.
A lot of Christians are saved. Nobody wants to be around em. They don't work, they go into a church and they cause trouble. Joel They stay home and justify it and criticize everybody else. Hopefully we can steer clear of that.
There had to be compliance to Scripture. in the presence of witnesses, Just like Jesus said, go show the priest. You're not clean yet. There's more. That has to take place.
It's not just one thing. How simple life would be if So many things were just one thing. We could fix that one thing and move on. But when we say it it's complicated or it's complex. We mean it's not just one thing.
At God's House That's where he would begin the s second and then a third process. I said it was dramatic, it was progressive. And we're going to get to why it was this way. the physical cleansing and the ritual that the leper would go through once they were cured, cleansed would be sort of shouting it from the rooftop. It was made public.
It would be the talk of town. Then the priest shall command? to take for him who is to be cleansed two living clean birds, Cedar wood. Scarlet. and hyssop, And there's going to be more.
Anything in contact with the leper Would become impure and unfit for this process.
So you notice it says, take for him Who is to be cleansed? He had to have people helping. Likely the Levites could be family members. Or the priest? doesn't specify and the translators have done a very good job here.
Because the the Hebrew leaves can leave more questions than you want. I think they just handled this very well.
So to proceed with the purification ritual. Again. Priest was essential. Jesus is our high priest. Two birds, cedar wood hussop, red yarn, a clay pot, and running water.
Those are the tools the priest would have to. used to fulfill these instructions from God, The two living clean birds. Not said what type of birds. The sacrificial birds are stated pigeons or turtle doves. But these it doesn't say.
They were clean. They couldn't be hawks or vultures. Likely not domesticated birds. Because they might fly out and come right back when one was released, escape bird. We'll get to that one in a moment.
But just bookmark it in your head that The wisdom of God saying, don't grab a turtle dub or pigeon. They'll just come back, and everybody's going to feel recursed. That happens. Cedar wood. Highly Decay resistant.
We might use the word incorruptible. As trees go, that's one of the main ones you want. For durability. to last longer than your lifetime. My house is gonna rot in five hundred years, but I won't be around to see it.
Such a tree is associated with the cleansing of this scourge. We move to the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 15. for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. It's not by accident to Solomon.
Put so much cedar into his palace and his own residence. And the scripture points it out over and over again: how much cedar wood was coming into Israel. Scarlet invokes the idea of blood from the sacrifice.
So your sins be as red as scarlet, I will make them white as snow. A fragrant Prob. first shows up at the passing over of death, on the day of Passover, In Egypt. In Exodus chapter twelve, When the Jews put blood on their doorposts, they dipped the hyssop in the blood, and they put it on the lentils and the side post. The branches of hyssop used to sprinkle blood on the doorposts was also Present at the crucifixion of Christ.
When he said, I thirst, They dipped hyssop. into the vinegar and the sour wine. and presented it to him, John's Gospel nineteen, verse twenty-nine.
So all of these things, fine Life in the New Testament. Very significant. Not easy to bypass. You look at these words and you say, Where else can I find what is the characteristic of this? item being spoken of?
And what's going on here in the context of the cleansing of The leper All of these are dealing with sin. and survival. From sin Verse 5 And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel. Overrunning water.
Well, man is made from The earth from the clay, and then a pot made of an earthen vessel, a clay pot. And The sacrificial bird was to die in a clay pot. The place of Jesus' death The centered in My carnality The clay pots that we are We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of ourselves. It tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:7. That's for the believer.
By the way, Earthen pots and crack pots are not the same thing. God is not encouraging us to be crackpots, but vessels of honor. Made in his image, a marred image because of sin, but yet. the opportunity to be Christlike is available to us. as they See the cost of the cleansing.
As far as material things go, we go beyond that. Running water is a Hebrew idiom for living water, and that would mean water from a spring or a river. Guess you could stretch it and just say if someone's pouring it out. John's Gospel chapter 7 verse 38, He who believes in me is the Scripture, has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. When we get these connections, they are superlatives.
And when you have a character such as Jesus Christ, who fulfilled everything. This has to do with him. There's nobody else that can wear these shoes. Verse four verse six as for the living bird, he shall take it. The cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop and dip them?
and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water.
Now, I know it sounds gory and all, but every time you eat meat, some of this is taking place.
Something died and got skinned and cooked. Anyhow, Here we have in verse six the communion of the blood. dipped in the blood of its own species. You have these two birds. One is killed.
The other one is going to be set free But first it's going to be dipped in the blood. John's Gospel chapter 1, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. He became one of us. He entered humanity, he took on humanity. Uh 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.
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