The reading is from Leviticus chapter 13, commencing
at verse 1.
Reading from verse 1, And the Lord spake
unto Moses and Aaron, saying, When a man
shall have in the skin of his flesh
a rising, a scab, or bright spot, and
it be in the skin of his flesh
like the plague of leprosy, then he shall
be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto
one of his sons, the priests.
And the priest shall look on the plague
in the skin of the flesh.
And when the hair in the plague is
turned white, and the plague in sight be
deeper than the skin of his flesh, it
is a plague of leprosy, and the priest
shall look on him and pronounce him unclean.
If the bright spot be white in the
skin of his flesh, and in sight be
not deeper than the skin, and the hair
thereof be not turned white, then the priest
shall shut him up that hath the plague
seven days, and the priest shall look on
him the seventh day.
And if the plague in his sight be
at a stay, and the plague spread not
in the skin, then the priest shall shut
him up seven days more, and the priest
shall look on him again the seventh day.
And behold, if the plague be somewhat dim
or dark, not so inflamed, and the plague
spread not in the skin, the priest shall
pronounce him clean.
It is but a scab, and he shall
wash his clothes and be clean.
But if the scab spread much abroad in
the skin, after that he hath been seen
of the priest for his cleansing, he shall
be seen of the priest again.
And if the priest see that, behold, the
scab spreadeth in the skin, then the priest
shall pronounce him unclean.
It is a leprosy.
And when the plague of leprosy is in
a man, then he shall be brought unto
the priest, and the priest shall see him.
And behold, if the rising be white in
the skin, and if it have turned the
hair white, and there be quick raw flesh
in the rising, it is an old leprosy
in the skin of his flesh.
And the priest shall pronounce him unclean, and
shall shut him up, for he is unclean.
And then it goes on to speak of
how leprosy can be not only in a
man's skin, but in verse 29, he can
have leprosy upon the head, or the beard.
And later, leprosy can even be in a
garment.
Quite what sort of leprosy or disease this
was, nobody is quite sure, I think.
But apparently, a garment could have some horrid
spreading growth in it, and there are instructions
later in this chapter as to how you
are to deal with that.
And in chapter 14, even a house can
have some such infection.
Not an infection as we know, which is
invisible, but some growth.
And also there are instructions as to how
that is to be dealt with.
But going back to the individual man who
has been found to be a leper, you
have in verse 44 the sad lot of
such a man.
Verse 44, he is a leprous man, he
is unclean.
The priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean.
His plague is in his head.
And here is his plight.
And the leper in whom the plague is,
his clothes shall be rent, and his head
bare.
And he shall put a covering upon his
upper lip, and shall cry unclean, unclean.
All the days wherein the plague shall be
in him, he shall be defiled, he is
unclean.
He shall dwell alone without the camp, shall
his habitation be.
And so that chapter deals with the diagnosis
of the leper, of leprosy, and the sad
exclusion of the leper from his fellows.
And then in 14 we have the bright
prospect of that leper being healed, and what
is to take place as a ceremony with
regard to him in the day of his
healing.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This
shall be the law of the leper in
the day of his cleansing.
He shall be brought unto the priest, and
the priest shall go forth out of the
camp, and the priest shall look, and behold,
if the plague of leprosy be healed in
the leper, then shall the priest command to
take for him that is to be cleansed,
two birds, alive and clean, and cedarwood, and
scarlet, and hyssop.
And the priest shall command that one of
the birds be killed in an earthen vessel
over running water.
As for the living bird, he shall take
it, and the cedarwood, and the scarlet, and
the hyssop, and shall dip them and the
living bird in the blood of the bird
that was killed over the running water.
And he shall sprinkle upon him that is
to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times,
and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let
the living bird loose into the open field.
And he that is to be cleansed shall
wash his clothes, and shave off his hair,
and wash himself in water, that he may
be clean.
And after that he shall come into the
camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his
tent seven days.
But it shall be on the seventh day
that he shall shave all his hair off
his head, and his beard, and his eyebrows,
even all his hair he shall shave off.
And he shall wash his clothes, also he
shall wash his flesh in water, and he
shall be clean.
And on the eighth day he shall take
two he-lambs without blemish, and one ewe
-lamb of the first year without blemish, and
three-tenth deals of fine flour for a
meal offering, mingled with oil, and one log
of oil.
And the priest that maketh him clean shall
present the man that is to be made
clean and those things before the Lord at
the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
And the priest shall take one he-lamb
and offer him for a trespass offering, and
the log of oil, and wave them for
a wave offering before the Lord.
And he shall slay the lamb in the
place where he shall kill the sin offering,
and the burnt offering in the holy place.
For as the sin offering is the priest's,
so is the trespass offering, it is most
holy.
And the priest shall take some of the
blood of the trespass offering, and the priest
shall put it upon the tip of the
right ear of him that is to be
cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right
hand, and upon the great toe of his
right foot.
And the priest shall take some of the
log of oil, and pour it into the
palm of his own left hand.
And the priest shall dip his right finger
in the oil that is in the left
hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with
his finger seven times before the Lord.
And of the rest of the oil that
is in his hand, shall the priest put
upon the tip of the right ear of
him that is to be cleansed, upon the
thumb of his right hand, upon the great
toe of his right foot, upon the blood
of the trespass offering.
And the remnant of the oil that is
in the priest's hand, he shall pour upon
the head of him that is to be
cleansed, and the priest shall make an atonement
for him before the Lord.
And the priest shall offer the sin offering,
and make an atonement for him that is
to be cleansed from his uncleanness.
And afterward he shall kill the burnt offering.
There you have the sin offering and the
burnt offering.
First the sin offering, but not left until
the burnt offering has also been offered.
And the priest shall offer the burnt offering,
and the meal offering upon the altar, and
so on.
That more or less completes that piece of
ritual.
Now here we come this morning to the
solemn matter of the presence of leprosy among
the people of God, among the congregation of
God.
We've read of how this disease was to
be diagnosed by the priest, of the exclusion
of the leper from his tent, and from
the privileges of the congregation, as long as
he had this disease.
We've read too the possibility of grace healing
that leper, and of the ritual of restoration,
which was to be performed on his behalf
by the priest, when he was healed.
Now here we have again another case of
what we may call God creating an artificial
uncleanness, in order to picture for us the
real uncleanness caused by sin.
There was nothing really unclean as such, or
defining about leprosy.
I think you don't regard measles as unclean,
it's infectious.
But not unclean, not shameful.
But here leprosy is regarded as unclean and
shameful.
It's only artificially so, because God is picturing
something bigger.
And actually this matter of leprosy is an
embarrassing thing, especially in countries where it exists.
We can talk about leprosy as a type
of sin, and nobody has a shock in
their heart.
But in Africa and elsewhere it's difficult, because
there may be some lepers in your congregation.
And in any case, there's always the fear
of anybody there contracting it.
Supposing in the Bible cancer was given as
a picture of leprosy.
Would you like your preachers to be always
talking about the cancer of sin, when maybe
someone in your family is suffering from it?
Would you like it to be put out
that the cancer is a picture of sin,
which renders the sinner unclean?
Would somehow not that conception get over to
the actual disease?
It would.
We wouldn't appreciate it.
And a cancer patient would feel very terrible.
And I have sometimes taken leprosy as a
picture of sin, and had someone who suffered
from leprosy come up to me and said,
Brother, you mustn't do it.
I'm thinking of a doctor from East Africa,
who in his work among lepers himself contracted
leprosy.
And he finds it very difficult to hear
people talk about leprosy in these terms, as
a defiling thing.
And the trouble is it gets over into
people's thinking.
But actually it is not defiling in itself
at all, save medically.
But then lots of other things are so.
The common cold.
But we don't think there's anything very defiling
about it.
But God here has elected to take this
particular disease and call it rendering a man
unclean.
It's only artificially so, because he's picturing something
else.
And if perhaps you think, well, it's certainly
contagious, all right.
But then there are other things in the
book of Leviticus, which are said to be
defiling, about which there's no medical suggestion of
a thing being contagious at all.
And so here you have in this book
one of the several things which are said
to render a man ceremonially unclean, only because
it's picturing a greater uncleanness.
And it pictures, too, a greater cleansing than
anything that was performed over the leper.
And the reason, as I say for this,
is that this is really a handbook on
holiness.
And God was teaching the people in those
days, in picture form, what holiness was.
And they got some sort of conception, I'm
sure.
We may have a fuller conception.
And God wants us to see what holiness
is, as we see this that made a
man unclean and unfit for living in his
tent among the people.
Well, now, what are we, do you think,
is to, what are we to take leprosy
as a picture of?
Now, we don't want to be superficial.
We want to try and get the whole
message of these two chapters.
Well, I'm going to suggest to you, and
I've given this thought and have been helped
by one or two writers on the subject,
that leprosy is a picture to us of
the breaking out of the will of the
flesh in a deliberate way, in a persistent
way, in words, actions and attitudes.
Now, let's define what the flesh is.
The flesh in the New Testament isn't merely
the worst part of you.
Someone has said, if you drop off the
last H and spell it backwards, you've got
it.
S-E-L-F.
It's human nature with self as its centre.
And that, of course, is the normal condition
of human nature.
And we have various definitions of human nature
in the New Testament, of the flesh in
the New Testament.
Turn to Romans 8 for a definition of
the flesh.
Romans 8, verse 7.
There we have the carnal mind is enmity
against God.
Well, now, the revised versions all make that
a little clearer.
And they put it, the mind of the
flesh.
The carnal mind is literally the mind of
the flesh.
And the mind of the flesh means the
disposition of the flesh.
The disposition of that nature that you've inherited
from Adam.
What is its disposition?
The disposition of the flesh is enmity against
God.
It is not subject to the law of
God.
Neither, indeed, can be.
Though sometimes it tries, but it never succeeds.
Now, that is the fallen nature with which
you and I are born.
Now, I think to get the full message
of this passage, one doesn't regard leprosy merely
as a picture of the flesh.
We all have that.
And there are other pictures that tell us
of the sacrifices, of the judgment of self,
which is necessary.
But I suggest to you that leprosy is
the breaking out, in ostensible ways, in determined
ways, of the will of that flesh.
The coming out into evidence in a pronounced
way of the will of the flesh.
They had to discern whether it was leprosy
or whether it wasn't.
They had to be very careful they didn't
make a mistake.
That a man was not excluded just for
a scab.
It had to be the real thing.
And so it was, they had to discern,
was this leprosy, was this a case where
it made his continued dwelling among their midst
impossible?
Did he have to be excluded?
Now, in the Old Testament there are three
cases, terrible cases where men became lepers consequent
upon their sin as an act of judgment.
Of course, within that dim period before grace
has been fully revealed, it's so lovely that
under grace Jesus Christ never made a man
a leper.
He healed them.
He never struck anybody dead.
He never made anybody blind.
His miracles are all consistent and illustrative of
the purpose of his coming was to set
captives free and to save sinners.
But here in the period before grace was
fully revealed you have these terribly solemn acts
of judgment and we've got to learn from
this to what God thinks of us and
our sin.
There are three such cases of people who
were struck with leprosy because of their sin.
You can remember them, can you not?
You have Miriam and she became a leper
as a chastening on her for her sin.
Her sin of being jealous of Moses and
criticizing him.
She criticized him because of the wife he
married.
He married a colored woman and she criticized
him as his elder sister.
But if you look at the story again
you see the real reason was jealousy.
Has the Lord only spoken by Moses?
Has he not spoken by Arian and by
me, said Miriam?
And the Lord spoke on Moses' behalf and
Miriam became a leper.
And I can think we can regard leprosy
as the breaking out of jealousy in a
persistent, a pronounced, and a determined way.
And you can.
I've had problems with that myself.
It isn't just the passing thing, it's the
thing cherished, the thing indulged in, the thing
that even determines your actions and attitudes.
Of course we don't call it jealousy, we
have other reasons, but that's the basic thing
and it's something persistent which makes our continued
fellowship with the other saints virtually impossible.
Something's got to be done about that and
done very often by the saints.
There was Gehazi who corrupted the free grace
of God by asking for those gifts from
Naaman.
Elisha wouldn't touch them.
He wanted Naaman to be obligated entirely to
God and grace obligated to God in a
way that law never does.
Grace asks nothing as an obligation from you
but you find you've got to give yourself
and you want to.
And Gehazi spoiled the whole thing by covetousness,
wanting that gold and those garments.
And he was struck down with leprosy.
And perhaps we can regard that as another
way in which the will of the flesh
may break out in a deliberate way.
We set ourselves upon courses which are prompted
by covetousness.
We find ourselves doing wrong things, not always
utterly honest, compromising because we want gain, we
want money, we want advancement.
And though people have told us of the
danger of the course we're on, we persist
in it, that's leprosy.
And then there was the third case of
King Uzziah who presumed to go into the
holy place to offer incense which was permitted
only by the priest but he said, why
shouldn't I?
And he pushed himself into the priest's office
and he was arguing with them when suddenly
they saw the spot of Piraeus horrid and
he went out a leper to the day
of his death.
And there was pride that pushed itself.
I'm going to suggest to you that the
leprosy spoken of here is not those movements
of pride that we do have, we can
go to Jesus with.
But that which is cherished, that which is
persisted in, that which becomes a motive, that
which makes us so difficult, that which sometimes
causes parties and factions among the saints, it's
really what we call a personality problem which
is really a sin problem.
It's the breaking out of the flesh in
persistent courses.
And something's got to be done about it
by the man himself and if he won't
then what's to happen?
And sometimes as I say the priest says,
we shall see who they are in a
moment, have to do something.
Now while we are expressing the will of
our fallen natures in persistent ways along various
lines, there are three things that happen.
First, the whole man is characterized by it.
That becomes his characteristic.
It isn't just an incursion, an occasional thing.
When you think of that man you think,
well that's him.
There may be other features about him but
they're lost sight of in this, which now
characterizes the whole man in other people's eyes
and in God's.
This man wasn't just a little scab, he
was a leper.
Secondly, he was unclean with regard to God.
Ceremonially in the case of the leper but
with us actually so.
Unable to hold communion with that holy God,
whose eyes are as a flame of fire.
We may kid ourselves we're all right.
We may get those backing us up in
whatever course it is.
We get those agreeing with us.
But that man is unclean, a persistent expression
of the will of that flesh in various
ways and we lose that sweet fellowship with
the one who dwells with those that are
of a contrite and broken spirit.
But that's not ours.
And then we are rendered unfit for fellowship
with God's people.
We become a trouble to them, concern to
them, sometimes a source of division.
Any of us may find ourselves responsible for
that.
Don't think of the other man who's a
source of division in your church or in
your fellowship.
You, I, we can very soon attract to
us.
Birds of a feather flock together.
And talking on a rather wider line, I've
been amazed how birds of a feather do
flock together.
You know in one day a rebellious person,
fighting against the gospel there in this house
party, is attracted to the other rebellious person
they've hardly met by an extraordinary attraction.
You reveal yourself by the very people that
you attract to yourself.
And if you've got a rebellious spirit, you'll
find somebody else will start talking about it.
They'll dump their rubbish on you and you
say, yes, yes, yes, I feel the same.
And we find we're spoiling the fellowship of
God's people.
And we've rendered ourselves unfit for our place
in the congregation of the Lord.
And it was expressed by the fact that
that man had to leave his tent outside
the camp.
We read, shall his habitation be.
I'm not building up a doctrine of excommunication
on this.
We excommunicate ourselves.
It's patent and obvious.
Though we aren't actually going around saying unclean,
unclean.
It's going out to my lives and it's
patent to other people too.
Unclean.
Outside the sweet fellowship of those that love
the Lord.
There has been manifested in us a persistent,
rebellious, determined will of the flesh along one
line or another.
And you're outside the congregation of the Lord.
Not by anybody's action other than our own.
Now the interesting thing is that the priests
had to take action.
First of all, their real purpose was to
be the friend of this leper.
Not his foe.
And if they were called into diagnosis, it
wasn't merely to say it was leprosy.
But more often to say that it wasn't.
They were there, one of the kindly laws
of God, lest injustice should be done.
Lest a man might lose his place in
the congregation for what wasn't leprosy at all
in your superficial scab.
And then of course their ministry came into
its own as it never did in any
other way when the leprosy was healed.
They were the friend of the leper.
They went outside the camp.
They were the ones who loved him.
They were the ones who were the first
to rejoice at the signs of healing.
And they were the ones who brought him
in and performed on his behalf the ritual
that symbolized his complete restoration to God and
the people of God.
The priesthood of all believers is a phrase
among us.
It's been coined against the wrong doctrine that
there's a special class of priests.
In Rome or in certain parts of even
the Protestant church there's an exaltation of the
ordained ministry and slowly, slowly you get the
idea that they're priests and they really act.
They come between us and God.
And rightly and properly, those who have rediscovered
the gospel from the Reformation onwards have refused
all such vain pretensions.
No priest but Christ, no altar but Calvary,
and no confessional but the throne of grace.
And the man who believes the Bible must
absolutely refuse every such vain pretension.
There is nothing unique about ordination.
We're all sheep among sheep.
And so it's come to be coined this
phrase the priesthood of all believers.
But I'm afraid the priesthood of all has
degenerated to the priesthood of none.
If there is such a thing as the
priesthood of all believers, what am I doing
about it?
And I have to confess very little.
Here's a sphere which I know I've experienced
and know very little of.
We're meant to do for one another as
priests what these priests did for the poor
leper.
There are times when, alas, we must discern
leprosy.
There are other times when we say, no,
no, that's not leprosy.
Let's go on tearing with him.
Let's encourage him.
It's no good taking any other line.
And then there are times when grace has
worked in a man's life as priests.
We're to be his friend and to encourage
him on the way back to God as
never before.
And so those were the two great works
that the priest had to do to diagnose
what really was leprosy, but always as his
friend.
And then to help the restored, healed leper
back to his place.
Now, I haven't had time to count up
the number of times that a phrase comes
here, the priest shall look.
The priest shall look.
And in the revised versions even more, the
priest shall see in some places.
But in every such case, it's a repetition
of the same word, the priest shall look.
The priest shall look.
And here is emphasized for us the need
for discernment.
Because every one of us has some measure
of leadership given to us.
The moment you become a Christian, you have
a sphere.
You become in some measure your brother's keeper.
We are responsible for one another.
You ought to grieve us when a brother
gets wrong with God.
But if we don't look, if we haven't
eyes to see, we'll say, oh no, no,
that's nothing, nothing to be worried about, we
didn't pray about that, he's all right.
We've got to be people.
The priest shall look.
I remember Joe Church recognizing in me this
terrible lack of discernment.
He said, Roy, he said, pray for x
-ray vision.
And as believers, we need to pray for
x-ray vision.
We need to be able to look.
Does it discern?
What isn't a lawless breaking out of the
will of the flesh?
But something not so deep as that.
On our occasion, we need to be able
to discern what is.
Please turn the cassette over now.
Do not fast wind it in either direction.
Does it discern?
What isn't a lawless breaking out of the
will of the flesh?
But something not so deep as that.
On our occasion, we need to be able
to discern what is.
And then the discernment to see the signs
of grace working in a man's heart, the
softening of his heart, and then the encouraging
of that.
Well, I thank God that I've been the
subject of the priesthood of some believers.
I thank God for their loving discernment of
me in my hour of need, how they've
rallied round, how they sought to help me,
how they've been faithful with me, and how
they were the first to rejoice when my
heart began to be softened, I began to
repent and judge myself.
And they encouraged me back to the cross.
So, there's quite a lot here about the
part played by the priests.
Now, we're told here the symptoms by which
they were to discern leprosy.
And we've only read part of it.
You could read it more carefully sometime.
There seem to be three symptoms, evidences of
leprosy.
The first was, the basic thing was there
was an inflammation.
That was the thing.
Well, what is that inflammation?
It could be anything.
But that's the thing.
It's an inflammation when the flesh gets inflamed.
Do you know what an inflammation is?
Do you know something that's stewing inside?
It's a bright spot, a red spot.
Your feelings against another, your feelings are up
in arms, you're wanting the things of the
world, being attracted to a path of compromise.
Well, there's an inflammation.
But what is it?
And leprosy was discerned if the inflammation had
three things about it.
First, if there were white hairs in it.
Normally a man's hair, especially among the Jews,
would be dark.
But if in the midst of that inflammation
the hairs were white, that was a telltale
sign.
And white hairs was, of course, a picture
of death coming in.
The color was dying out from those hairs.
And I would suggest to you that picture's
the fact that this inflammation may be something
much more serious if there's death in it,
if I'm unresponsive to grace.
I imagine, it is a fact, doctors will
bear me out, I know so little of
it medically, that one of the great dangers
of leprosy is insensitiveness.
And I'm unresponsive to the grace of God.
I'm not touched by the sweetness of that
message.
There's a death in my heart, an insensitiveness.
I'm going on with that attitude.
And the sweet message of grace does nothing
to touch me.
There's an unresponsiveness, I suggest, to grace pictured
by this.
And then you will notice that the second
thing was if, verse four, if in sight,
verse three, when the hair in the plague
is turned white, and secondly, the plague in
sight be deeper than the skin of its
flesh.
When it's deeper than the skin.
You see, we have to discern, is this
just an infirmity of manner?
Is this the giving way to irritability along
certain lines?
It's sin, we're not excusing it.
But it doesn't partake of that character of
leprosy, I suggest.
The determined persistence in this is not deeper
than the skin.
Now, if it didn't seem deeper than the
skin, then they would shut the man up
to see if there was some improvement.
And under grace, there is a working of
God all the time toward healing.
You may get worked up.
You may be up in arms.
You may feel bitter.
But normally the grace of God is at
work and you begin to say, well, perhaps
I am a bit wrong.
And after all, I'm as bad as he
is.
I've done the same thing that he is.
And after all, he is my brother.
And after seven days, or perhaps we trust
seven hours, or better still, seven minutes, or
best of all, seven seconds, grace is softening
your heart.
And the thing doesn't spread.
And it really is something on the surface.
And you take it to Jesus and you're
reconciled.
Ah, but there can be some things that
are deeper than the skin.
There's will behind it.
I will hold it against him.
I will regard myself as wrong.
I will take it out of him.
I will go the way of the world.
I'm not going to.
It isn't just a young person's passing fascination
with some of the things that perhaps they
ought not to be fascinated with, but there's
will that's deeper than the skin.
This is leprosy.
This is what's going to make that man
unclean.
And he's going to excommunicate himself outside the
congregation of the Lord.
And then a third, where is it?
Raw flesh.
Verse 10.
And behold, if the rising be white in
the skin, and it hath turned the hair
white, and there be quick raw flesh in
the rising, it is an old leprosy.
And sometimes the flesh is real raw, isn't
it?
My goodness, you touch them.
They're up in arms.
There's no doubt about the persistence of it
and their intentions.
They're going to persist in that course.
Well, now this is it.
What a terrible thing.
A man persists in treating his wife in
a certain way.
A man persists in sticking to his guns
over a thing that's causing trouble.
A person persists in going the way of
compromise in spite of all the loving entreaties
of those that love him or her best.
It's the breaking out of the will of
the flesh in a determined way, I suggest.
And the only thing was, he had to
be excluded.
Once again, I'm not suggesting there's any doctrine
of excommunication, but the very fact that we're
in that state, we do communicate to ourselves.
And yet, there is a part for brethren
to play even here.
Look at Matthew 17, 15.
Matthew 17, 15.
Matthew 18, 15.
If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go
and tell him his fault between thee and
him alone.
And if he shall hear thee, thou hast
gained thy brother.
But if he will not hear thee, then
take with thee one or two more, that
in the mouth of two or three witnesses
every word may be established.
Here is priestly action.
The priesthood of all believers.
And the purpose is not to kick that
man off.
Thou hast gained thy brother.
We've lost him.
We want to get him back.
We love him.
But if he won't be won back, then
let another person come.
And if he shall neglect to hear them,
tell it unto the church, the assembly, the
fellowship, whatever the wider group may be.
And if he neglect to hear the church,
let him be unto thee as an heathen
man in the public.
And sometimes, breaking fellowship, it needn't be done
in any official way, it's just there in
the spirit, is essential for the purity of
the general testimony.
We've got to disassociate ourselves sometimes with something.
And how terrible if I'm the man occasioning
all this sorrow of heart, all this exercise
of heart because of my persistence and unwillingness
to break.
It's leprosy.
You see, I'm not trying to put onto
this passage the old, old message.
You say, well, whatever these fellows take, the
old, old message, any old scripture, put the
old message on it.
No, I'm trying to find for myself.
It's as much a discovery for me as
for you what really is meant to be.
The teaching, the emphasis from this passage.
Well, now we come to the restoration of
the leper.
Leviticus chapter 14.
Now, will you please notice that the ceremony
of cleansing in chapter 14 only takes place
after the leper has been healed.
That cleansing not even pictorially produced any healing
in the man.
The man had to be healed by the
grace of God.
Now, of course, until modern drugs came, we
thought leprosy was incurable.
Well, it's possible that the leprosy mentioned here
may not be the leprosy that we talk
about leprosy.
So say those writers.
I mean, how could leprosy be in a
garment or in a house?
It was something else maybe.
You could say that here was a ceremony
that was only used when Jesus came, when
the first leper was healed.
But it is possible there were things that
they generally classified as leprosy which weren't of
the same incurable disease that we know it.
There was doubt it was the incurable sort
then.
But maybe this word includes a much wider
range of diseases.
I don't know.
But this much is clear.
This man's been healed.
And he's been healed by the grace of
God.
There outside the camp, a miracle takes place.
And it is to that place outside the
camp when the news comes that the priest
hastens with joy to bring his brother in.
And the cleansing of the blood of Jesus
is effective only after you've been healed.
Now healing in this sense I take to
be when grace is so worked in our
hearts that we've judged ourselves.
You see this in Isaiah 6.
When at last he said, I am a
man of unclean lips and I dwell in
a people of unclean lips.
Woe is me for I've seen the Lord.
He's healed.
In the sense that he's judged it.
He's repented.
Now there can be cleansing afterwards.
Then through one of the seraphim.
And let's get it clear.
This matter of cleansing is something that happens
after grace has worked in our hearts, softened
our hearts, and we've judged ourselves, and we've
repented.
Oh, you say, that's all right when I've
repented.
Oh, no, no.
As much has got to happen afterwards.
But first, grace has got to help us
to repent.
And only grace can.
When we've been persisting in some course, justifying
ourselves, thinking everybody's wrong, we're the only ones
that are right.
It's grace that does this work.
It's a wonderful thing.
Not rightly do we sing, glory, glory, hallelujah.
Thank God for the ways and the times
when grace has worked in your life and
grace has worked in mine.
I've been outside the camp, feeling out of
touch with my brothers.
Everybody's wrong except me.
And you know, we get so miserable that
in our misery, oh, God, do something for
me.
Do you really mean that?
Yes, Lord.
And he does it.
And we don't know how it happens.
We reverse our attitude.
We who were so right, now we see
to be wrong.
And grace has reached the leper.
Do you remember what happened when a leper
was healed by Jesus when he said, Right,
now the first thing you've got to do
is go show yourself to the priests.
And isn't that true to experience?
When there's been something wrong and God's softened
your heart, you know the first thing you've
got to do is go and tell your
brothers, Brethren, I'm sorry.
God's made me.
But don't be surprised if the priests want
to go deeper with you.
Sometimes I put something right and thought they'd
all praise, etc.
But they said, Yes, brother, that's very good.
Praise God.
But now, did you see this?
Oh, I said, Wait a minute.
I don't want to be dissected.
I don't want you to.
Now, have you really seen what it costs
Jesus?
You see?
Oh, no.
You go show yourself to the priests and
the priests may take a rather deeper view
of it than even we have.
Thank God for the healing.
But it's all to our completest restoration.
And so we have here, have when they
saw when the priest looked and discerned that
the grace had worked this miracle, then they
performed the restoring ritual upon him.
Well, now, this is more familiar to us
perhaps than the other.
Perhaps it isn't familiar to any of us,
to some of us at all.
But we've often heard messages on this part.
But I like to see all this with
the background, this rather solemn background.
Well, praise God.
Grace has reached this man.
And so the priest commands to take for
him that it is to be cleansed two
birds alive and clean with cedarwood, scarlet and
hyssop.
And one of the birds is killed in
an earthen in an earthen vessel over running
water.
There's the running water in the vessel and
the blood drips into it.
And then that blood and water mixed is
sprinkled on him that is to be made
clean.
And then the living bird is dipped into
the blood and water and allowed to escape
in the sky.
Well, there you have the two sides of
the work of our Lord Jesus.
Two sides of it.
First of all, the shedding of that precious
blood for my sin.
Oh, I've repented.
But I've yet to come to the cross.
I've yet to get this really right with
God.
I've really yet to see the blood of
the Lord Jesus.
And will you notice it's mingled with water.
Water is ever a picture of the Holy
Spirit.
It's the Holy Spirit that witnesses to the
blood.
It's the Holy Spirit that reveals the finished
work of Jesus.
He has shed his blood.
The work's been done to put me right
with God.
But until the Spirit reveals that to me,
I'm still mourning.
I'm still chastening myself.
Oh, how many times the Holy Spirit has
pointed me to Jesus and the blood.
It's the Spirit that applies the precious blood
to me.
And then I see that other bird, that
other side of the work taking my sins
far away.
Living, he loved me.
Dying, he saved me.
Buried, he carried my sins far away.
Rising, he justified freely forever.
One day he's coming.
Oh, glorious day.
And having done that ceremony upon him.
Of course, no other man can do it
for me.
He can encourage me, counsel me.
I, who'm now feeling so sad and down
about myself, he can point me to Jesus
and pray with me, maybe.
But it's something the Spirit has to do.
Then, this man was pronounced clean.
But I want you to notice I've underlined
two words.
Verse seven, and shall pronounce him clean.
Verse nine, he shall be clean.
There was a period between being pronounced clean
and actually being clean.
Ten to eight, seven days.
And in that period, he who had been
pronounced clean was, in verse eight, required to
wash his clothes and shave off all his
hair and wash himself in water.
And I believe the washing of the clothes
means that the man who has repented and
come for cleansing to the Lord Jesus must
then be willing to deal with his habits
and his associations.
If you and I have been in a
persistent act of self-will and rebellion, it's
bound to affect lots of things, courses of
action, things I'm involved in, habits, associations.
And I've got to be willing for God
to show me and quit them and cleanse
myself by repentance and restitution or putting things
right or giving up or writing letters.
This is the other side.
It wasn't only the blood sprinkled and the
conscience given peace, but the outer life had
to be dealt with.
That's what you get in Hebrews 10, having
your conscience cleansed from an evil conscience and
your body washed with pure water.
It's this washing of the clothes.
And then there had to be the sharp
razor shaving off all the hair, even the
eyebrows, which might have been affected.
The razor of self-judgment on this, on
that.
And then, on the eighth day, he shall
be clean.
It doesn't mean to say that our restoration
to God has got to take seven or
eight days.
I think seven means the job's got to
be complete.
Seven is a perfect number.
But please don't talk to yourself saying, I
don't think it'll ever be complete.
He wants it in the realm of your...
Lord, I'm willing for you to show me
everything that's got contaminated in this period when
I've been a leper.
We wash our clothes and we're to use
the razor of self-judgment upon ourselves.
This, that and the other.
Oh, my dear friend, the ramifications.
God had to show me how certain things,
things I'd written, were all shot through with
jealousy.
I had an awful...
just to trace it all back.
That's it, washing the clothes, using the razor.
All had been cleansed.
But this was an essential part for my
fullest restoration to God.
Even then it wasn't over.
Oh, you say, not more.
Are you still talking to me?
Still trying to counsel me?
Isn't it all over?
There was then the trespass offering.
That's the fifth of the offerings, a variant
of the sin offering.
And if there was any difference between the
trespass offering and the sin offering, it was
the trespass offering dealt with more specific acts
of sin.
Anyway, there comes the trespass offering and the
oil.
We can't go into too many details for
the time is nearly gone.
But the trespass offering, the lamb or the
kid of the goats is offered, and the
blood sprinkled before God, as ever.
And then here's an interesting thing.
Part of that blood was put on the
ear and the right thumb and the right
big toe of the leper.
In other words, this man who'd been outside
the camp is claimed for God, claimed for
the will of God.
This man is going to be a saint.
He's not going to be just restored and
get in by the back door.
He's going to be made as right with
God as the blood can make him, and
more than that, his whole capacities are going
to be claimed for God in a way
they never were before.
And other people didn't have this ceremony.
It was lepers.
Why, lepers seem to be more separated from
God after they were healed, separated to God
after they were healed than anybody else.
And oh, how wonderful grace is.
You seem to be brought to a place
further on than you ever were before things
went wrong.
In fact, that man knows the grace of
God now more than other people do who've
never failed as he has, and he's characterized
by devotion.
His heart's been won by the grace of
God that perhaps other people don't, but more
than that, than the oil.
Oil was put on the same place, ear,
thumb, and toe.
And will you notice verse 17, last phrase,
upon the blood of the trespass offering was
put the oil.
If water is a picture of the Holy
Spirit, so also is oil.
And the oil was not put upon his
flesh direct.
First the blood, then the oil.
The blood speaks of cleansing upon repentance.
Then comes the Holy Spirit.
This man is not merely going to be
cleansed.
He's not merely going to be devoted to
God.
He's going to become Spirit-filled.
Think of Peter.
No one failed more than he, but no
one was more conspicuous to be filled more
than he on the day of Pentecost.
My dear friends, the gift of fullness of
the Spirit isn't for super saints.
It isn't for people fulfilled a lot of
conditions.
It's a gift of grace for failures who
confess their failure.
They come to the cross and such is
the value of the Holy Spirit, the value
of the precious blood, that there's nothing to
impede God filling that poor old heart with
the Holy Spirit, lighting up the page, filling
his heart with visions of Christ, empowering him
for service.
First the blood, then the oil.
Will you notice?
The water had blood in it and the
oil had blood under it.
Water and oil were associated with blood.
And I think this is so important.
I believe we must be very careful that
in any experiences that we seek from the
Holy Spirit is based on the precious blood
of Jesus and on the repentance of sin
that that blood implies.
I don't think we need worry too much
about unusual gifts and experiences of the Holy
Spirit, some may have, provided the oil is
placed upon the blood.
I think we need to worry a great
deal when people seem to have experience of
the Holy Spirit which isn't based on a
new repentance and a new cleansing of sin.
But I believe if we're going to be
those that be what anything else God may
give us I'm going to go on this
old way of the blood.
God will see to those experiences and where
they are psychic or partly psychic as I
go on repenting that will vanish away.
If they're wholly psychic they will wholly vanish
away.
If they're partly psychic that which is partly
psychic will vanish away.
And if they're not psychic at all that
which is the spirit will remain.
What a wonderful safeguard.
If I'm seeing when I get proud, when
I think perhaps I have a spirit of
one-upmanship because I have something that other
people don't do.
When I see that I'm tempted to display
things I think the possession of any gift
is a very dangerous thing.
Happy the man who's willing to walk in
the light with Jesus and let Jesus show
him.
And anything that may be extraneous will quietly
drop off and that which is of him
will remain.
I'm not saying for a moment necessarily that
all such charismatic experiences are psychic.
They may be.
They may partly be.
I don't know.
But I know this is a safe way.
When the oil is all the time placed
upon the blood and so often the flesh
does get in I know if I had
some spectacular gift I might be awfully difficult
because I think I'd have something something someone
hasn't got.
It's really quite good not to have some
special gift.
To have nothing to glory in but Jesus.
On the other hand he does give all
sorts of wonderful experiences.
And if we do glory we know what
to do.
There's the precious blood.
I can go to the cross.
And what could have gone astray?
What could have become difficult to other people?
Nothing.
And so this is our centre.
The oil all the time upon the blood.
We need the oil.
Oh let's not be content with anything less
than the spirit revealing Christ which is powerful
to my soul and powerful to other people.
All I say, this seems to be the
emphasis here the blood upon the oil and
then we're safe.
And will you notice one last thing?
And it's this.
The remnant of the oil was put upon
the fellow's head.
He was anointed with the oil.
And you know apart from the leper there
were only three people who were anointed with
the oil.
Prophets they were anointed to their place by
the pouring of oil on their heads.
Priests were anointed to their office by being
anointed on their heads and kings and then
along with them lepers.
Prophets, priests, kings and poor old lepers were
given this wonderful anointing.
It means two things.
Spiritual understanding.
Oh my dear friends no matter what failures
you and I may have grace is such
they can all be swallowed up.
And a man who is in such dire
straits is now anointed.
He's been given an understanding.
He's been in the ministry.
He's got something for other people.
If he's in ordinary secular work he's got
something for people.
He isn't only a minister.
He's anointed.
But it also means commissioned.
Commissioned.
As never before to be God's man.
And this is what grace does.
For those who at one time or another
manifested such terrible traits of the flesh and
wouldn't give in but grace has won and
the blood of Jesus has brought us back
to God and we're anointed and filled with
the Holy Spirit.
And the whole ceremony ends up the sin
offering and the burnt offering just to culminate
it.
Nothing but what comes from Calvary.
And we saw the significance of those two
offerings that so often go together.
So praise God for this grace to let
us.
One last sentence from a hymn.
He maketh the rebel a priest and a
king.
He hath taught us and bought us this
new song to sing.
Let us pray.
Dear Lord Jesus thou knowest all we've tried
to think about.
We ask thee pardon all that's been ineffective
and even muddling if such it has been.
And fasten in our hearts that only which
you want us to meditate upon.
And make us those that see when the
will of the flesh is becoming dominant on
an issue.
Work in our hearts by grace and lead
us again and again to Calvary to thine
own dear self.
How we thank thee for what grace does
for people like us.
We give thee praise in the name of
the Lord Jesus.
And now may the grace of our Lord
Jesus and the love of God and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us
all evermore.
Amen.