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On Apr 21, 2021: Leviticus 13-14 Deal With Uncleanness · Teachings On This Day On FerventWord

• You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2021. Leviticus chapter 13, looking at verses 1 through 8, here's what it says. And the Lord 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 leprous sore, Then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or to one of his sons the priest. The priest shall examine the sore on 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 leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him and pronounce him unclean. Verse 6, And indeed, if the sore has faded and the sore has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean. It is only a scab and he shall wash his clothes and be clean. 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. And if the priest sees that the scab has indeed spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy." Here in Leviticus chapter 13, as well as chapter 14, we are talking about and addressing the subject of leprosy. And, uh, It's probably not, you know, one of our favorite subjects and favorite things to consider. But it is an important one. And obviously you can tell it's important to God because he goes into great detail. Again, over these two chapters, it's almost 120 verses of details about handling these different kinds and various cases of leprosy. Now, as we're talking about leprosy, it's really a general term referring to various types of infectious diseases. There is what we call like modern day leprosy, which is called Hansen's disease, which is which would be included in this, but not necessarily limited to that. And you can see that demonstrated as it goes on to talk about garments getting leprosy or homes getting leprosy, that it's talking about different kinds of fungus, different kinds of corruption that comes in and begins to spread either within a person or within a material or some type of object. And so here we are talking about this idea of an infectious disease that spreads rapidly. And we know nothing about infectious diseases that spread rapidly, right? As you think about Leviticus chapter 13 and 14, you know, you could look at this and read through this and perhaps you did this past week and you thought, man, this is so much detail. Why so much detail? But if you would put ourselves back a year ago, wouldn't it be nice if we had this much detail in the Bible about COVID, right? And here's how to handle it, and here's the appropriate space apart, and the right number of days, and all the things that everybody was guessing on and arguing over and wrestling about. Wouldn't it have been nice to have this kind of detail in the pandemic that we are And so here God is taking care of his people. He's addressing the people in something that they need to learn how to deal with. The priests are primarily the ones who were involved in this. And, you know, they weren't trained physicians. And so God had to teach them and train them how to identify, how to handle, and the appropriate way to address the conditions of leprosy that would come up. Now, as we've been looking at Leviticus, we've been looking at these instructions really to the priests. And so there has been a lot of detail for the priests and for the Levites and the things that they are going to be practicing when the tabernacle is set up and all of the things that they are charged with. And so there is quite often in Leviticus a lot of detail that doesn't exactly pertain to us. And yet at the same time, Leviticus is powerful in the pictures that it paints. Leviticus is powerful in the things that it declares and the way it illustrates different concepts that we find elsewhere in the scriptures and things that God wants to speak to us. And so if you want to think about a picture, an illustration of Leviticus chapter 13 and 14, you might picture a scrub brush or maybe a nice rough sponge where we are about to do some cleaning. This is really dealing with and addressing the issue of sin. I've titled the message tonight, Deal with Uncleanness. Deal with Uncleanness. What we learn here from chapters 13 and 14 is that uncleanness has to be addressed. It can't be ignored. It's not safe to pretend that there's not an issue. It's not something that we can just avoid and put off and put off and put off and put off without causing more problems and greater issues down the line. I wonder if anyone here tonight has a part of their home that is so messy that that they avoid even trying to clean on it because it's such a big project. You have to dedicate the whole weekend to work on that project, right? I have a couple of those places in my home. We have a space in our garage that is... Kim's side of the garage is all nice and organized and shelves and things right in the right places. My side of the garage is like piles on piles and piles and piles. I had to get the WD-40 last night except for I couldn't get to it because, well, I had to climb over four piles to get to it and it was just a little bit out of reach. So one of these days, I'm going to have to get to that. But I avoid cleaning it because it's such a big project, right? I don't really want to address it. Sometimes when there is uncleanness in our lives, we approach it the same way. Sometimes we try to ignore issues of sin, issues of uncleanness that we know are there, but we're not ready to deal with them. We don't want to address them. Perhaps we don't want to let it go. Perhaps, you know, it's one of those things that we want to hold on to that sin and that, you know, is important to us. Or perhaps it's like, man, that's such a big mess. I don't even know how to address it. And so I'm just going to ignore it and pretend that it's not there. But the issue of leprosy here represented in chapters 13 and 14 teach us that you cannot deal with uncleanness that way because not dealing with sin leads to greater and greater destruction and greater and greater corruption. And so here in chapters 13 and 14, we learn some important lessons about dealing with uncleanness. There's four points we'll look at as we look at these chapters tonight. The first one found here in verse 13, here's point number one, sin is an uncleanness like leprosy. First of all, as we're looking at this, you need to understand that this picture of leprosy, it was a real disease that they faced or multiple diseases that they faced, and God was giving them very practical instructions for how to deal with that. At the same time, it illustrates for us, it paints a very good picture of what sin is like in our lives. Let's jump into verses 1, 2, and 3 again. It says, 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 leprous sore. Then the priest shall examine him and pronounce him unclean. Here again, we get a summary, an overview, an introduction to how to handle this leprosy. Now, you'll go on in the chapter, and if you want to, you can. There's a bunch of different cases, a bunch of different scenarios, but they all have this similar pattern. Something pops up, And it's recognized like, hey, that seems to be a problem. And so the priest examines it and then determines, okay, what to do, the course to take. Sometimes it's a seven-day quarantine. Sometimes it's a seven-day quarantine and then another seven-day quarantine. Sometimes it's, you know, depending on the situation and how it looks, the priest would handle it in different ways. And so here this sin that pops up or this leprosy that pops up picturing sin that comes up, the idea here is that it spreads and it infects and it corrupts the whole body. Now the picture of leprosy is a pretty gruesome picture. Without getting into all of the details, I think Pastor David Guzik sums it up perfectly. pretty well. He says, This is a... I would say, fairly nice and pleasant description of leprosy. The actual cases and, you know, the gruesome details are really more gruesome than I would want to spend time considering, but it's gruesome enough, right? It pictures for us that rotting and decaying that a person would experience with this disease and how difficult that would be how painful, how hard that would be. Not just, of course, the physical things, but then all of the emotions that would go with that, all of the social impact that would go with that. There was so much that was involved if someone had leprosy. And this description, all of these things that you're imagining in your mind, is a very vivid picture then of sin. And you could think of it generally like our sinful nature in the sense that, you know, there is this sinful nature that we have and it's like leprosy and there is a cleansing that's found in Christ. And typically when we look at chapters 13 and 14, we're thinking generally of that, you know, sinful nature and speaking generally as Jesus as the solution to that in salvation and, you know, looking to conversion, looking to being born again as the solution for the situation of leprosy that's described here. But as I was preparing to share this tonight, I really felt the Lord saying, you know, it does speak to that general condition that we have of sin, absolutely. That first encounter with Christ and being born again, absolutely. Even if we've been walking with the Lord for decades and decades and decades, it still speaks to us it still provides a powerful picture of those sins that pop up in our lives. And so this evening, I want you to consider and to be thinking about, to be asking the Lord to speak to you about more specifically issues of sin that he desires to address. Leprosy and sin are similar in many ways. Here's just a few to consider. It starts small. For leprosy, you can see there, it talked about a spot, right? There's just like a little spot. You know, hey, I got this little spot here. You take it to the priest and say, look, I got this weird spot. I'm not sure what it is. You know, is this a problem? Is this an issue? It starts small. In a similar way, sin starts small. Leprosy spreads easily so that they could quarantine for seven days and come back and see, has it spread? Has there, you know, been, uh, greater degree of the disease, you know, in the person? Is the spot not just a little spot, but has it grown a couple inches? And is it progressing then in that way? It spreads easily. It starts small and It causes numbness. This is one of the main features of leprosy is that it deadens the nerve endings so that they are unable to feel and it causes injuries because if you're next to something that's hot or sharp and you can't notice it, then there's injuries that result as the contact is not felt and experienced. And so leprosy causes numbness. Sin causes numbness. We'll see that in just a moment. Leprosy will continue until it corrupts completely. It progresses and progresses and progresses until the disease, the corruption, has infected the entire body. It is something that brings about death. And then finally, leprosy infects others. There's instruction here in these chapters to not just isolate for the seven days, but if it is determined that the person does have leprosy, that there is to be a separation from that person from society so that nobody else can be infected or impacted by the disease that they have. And so these characteristics of leprosy parallel sin to a great degree. And there's probably more that we could consider, but these were the ones that I've been thinking about as I've been considering the leprosy that is recorded here in chapter 13 and 14. It starts small and it spreads easily. Think about what James said in James chapter 1. He said that each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desire and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. Here we see James describing kind of the germination process of sin. It starts with temptation by our own evil desires, and we get enticed because of our sinful nature. And as a result of that enticement of those desires, well, conception occurs. There's opportunity for those desires to be gratified in some way. There's opportunity for those desires to be pursued. And so now the things that I want, the things that I desire, the things that I crave are beginning to develop and take form and take shape. It gives birth to sin, he says. But it doesn't just stop there. He goes on to say, and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death. And so you can see how it starts small. There's a little bit of temptation. There's a little bit of desire. There's a little bit of, you know, a craving of our sinful nature. And it begins to develop. It begins to grow. And pretty soon it becomes something that brings forth death because our hearts and our minds are consumed by sin. In the same way that leprosy starts small and spreads and covers the body and impacts every part of the body, we need to be reminded tonight and let these pictures that are painted for us here in Leviticus really cause us to understand the severity and the seriousness of sin. Sometimes we get this picture of like, it's this little bit of sin I have in this corner of my life. And it just sits there. You know, I've got, you know, the barriers set up and there's a little bit of a fence there. So, you know, nothing else is affected. It's just, you know, just me. And it's just this piece of my life. It's just this portion. It's just this time. Just this instance. That's it. And the Lord wants us to be reminded this evening that no, that's not the way that it works. Sin takes a hold of our hearts and it spreads so that all things of our life is impacted. It spreads so easily. And we don't notice it because, well, one of the other characteristics is that it causes numbness. Just like leprosy causes numbness. And so then the leper can't feel the harm that is being inflicted In a similar way, sin in our lives causes numbness. So while we think we're okay and we've got ourselves convinced and we've got it all figured out in our plan, you know, it makes sense on paper how, you know, we can continue on or allow that or keep that in our lives. The reality is we're numb to the dangers and the damage that is being caused. Think about what Paul said in Ephesians chapter 4. 417 of Ephesians, he says, Paul says, stop walking the way that you used to. Stop walking like everybody else is, the way that the Gentiles walk. They walk in the futility of their mind. They think they have things figured out. They think they understand the consequences and repercussions of their decisions and their activities, but their understanding is darkened. They don't actually understand. Listen, brilliant people who are engaged in sin are wise fools. Just like Solomon, right? He was the wisest man who ever lived, but he was also the wisest fool who ever lived. Because he allowed sin into his heart, into his life, and it corrupted. His understanding was darkened. Your understanding, my understanding, is darkened when we are engaged in sin. He goes on in there in verse 18 to talk about being alienated from the life of God. This is one of the realities of sin. It separates us from God. We are alienated from God when we are in sin. Not because God has stopped loving us. Not because God has stopped wanting to work in our lives. But because we have removed ourselves from Him by engaging in and practicing uncleanness and sin. It's a darkened understanding that happens. It's a blindness of the heart, Paul says. To the point that in verse 19, he says, now they're past feeling. They've progressed in sin to the point that they don't feel. They have a numbness to spiritual things. They don't understand. And so again, in verse 17, Paul says, therefore, I testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk. He's saying, look, all of this used to be part of you. You were right there with them. But he's saying, stop walking that way because this is the ramifications. This is what happens. In that kind of walk, like the Gentiles walk, like the unbelievers walk, it brings numbness, separation from God. It darkens our understanding and it brings complete corruption, complete corruption. A few verses down here in Ephesians chapter four, Paul says, you have not learned this in Christ. All those things he talked about with the Gentiles, that's not what you learn in Christ. That's not what you're to be involved with. Instead, he says, what you've learned is to put off concerning your form of conduct. The old man, notice, which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. The lusts of our hearts, the lusts of our flesh are deceitful. They trick us. They fool us into thinking we're okay. And notice what he says. Corruption grows. It gets bigger. That crazy, messy part of my garage doesn't get cleaner and cleaner the longer I don't deal with it. That would be nice. It doesn't, you know, get more and more organized the further I stay away from it. No, it gets messier and messier, dirty and dirtier, dustier and dustier, uglier and uglier. Corruption grows. And we need to understand, and we must not forget, the Lord wants to maybe do a little spring cleaning in our hearts and in our lives this evening. Because that corruption that we've allowed, that corruption that has persisted, hasn't just stayed there in the corner where we thought it was maintained and under control, but it has grown. We've just been blind to it. We've been numb to it. And we're not seeing the destruction that is being caused. One of the many things that we say when we're involved with sin or engaged with sin is that, you know, it's my life. It's only affecting me. But leprosy and sin have this similarity that that it affects the people around us and infects the people around us. Paul writing to the Galatians, dealing with the legalism that had cropped up, and don't make any mistakes about it, legalism is sin. Sin had popped up. It had appeared in the Galatian church. And Paul says, "'You ran well. You were doing good. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?' This persuasion does not come from him who calls you. And then he says, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. It is possible. We don't know the details, right? Here in Galatians, what happened. But it's possible that it was one guy who came into Galatia and said, hey, I've got a new doctrine for you to listen to. It was a little leaven that started showing up in the churches. And leaven, what it does is it spreads, right? Leaven also is a picture of sin for the similar reasons. Starts small, spreads, corrupts completely, infects others, right? The way that you leaven a new batch of dough is you take the piece of the old batch of dough and put it in with the new batch of dough, and then the leaven spreads completely and contaminates the whole batch of dough. Contaminates isn't the right word in baking, right? But you get the point that it spreads. It covers completely, right? And so this picture of sin is really important for us to understand that sin doesn't just affect us. It's not just my life. And so, hey, I'm the only one, you know, being damaged by this or resulting, you know, or having consequences or bad results from this. But the reality is when we're involved with sin, even if it starts really small, it's spreading. It's continually spreading. It's continually growing. causing more and more numbness, more and more blindness, more and more corruption, and overflowing to people around us. Sin defiles and affects other people, whether or not it's known. And that's an important thing to understand. If I have COVID, and you don't know, and I don't know, but we hang out together, you might get it. The fact that you don't know, and I don't know, doesn't mean it won't spread, right? In a similar way, sin defiles Even if you don't know, it doesn't mean that it won't impact you. It doesn't mean that there won't be an infection that results. Sometimes we will not address uncleanness in our lives because, first of all, it's really hard to address. But also we're thinking that it's a deception that's happened in our hearts that we think we won't be defiled if it doesn't come out. If it doesn't become known, then we won't be defiled. And we need to be very careful because let's talk about husbands and wives. Spouse involved in sin against your spouse, but you don't want to tell your spouse because you feel like, well, if they don't know, then it won't hurt them. But if I tell them, that's going to hurt them a lot. But that's bad theology. That's bad understanding of sin. The fact that you've sinned against your spouse, you're both already defiled. You're both already experiencing the isolation and separation from sin, even if the sin is not known. You're already feeling the impact, and your spouse is already feeling the impact. If there's sin in your life, your relationship with others is affected. It's impacted. It's causing problems. And the fact that it's not known, the fact that it's, you know, been hidden up to this point is doesn't mean that there's no impact. And sometimes we feel like if we could keep it hidden, then there will be no impact. But that's deception. The reality is the corruption is spreading whether or not it's known. Sin is an uncleanness like leprosy. Jump down to verse 45 here in Leviticus chapter 13. Here we see the result. If the priest examines and finds out, discovers, yes, indeed, this is leprosy. Verse 45, it says, now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare. And he shall cover his mustache and cry, unclean, unclean. He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore, he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside the camp. This result now from leprosy was a complete isolation. He would have to live outside the camp. Now it says he shall dwell alone, but in reality what would happen is the lepers would all live together. So alone in the sense that not with his family, not with his friends, not living the life that he wanted to live, but now alone. He's cast out and living with the lepers outside of the camp. He shall be unclean, the Lord says. This, again, is a vivid picture of sin. This is the result of sin. It's separation. It's isolation. It's an uncleanness. And it keeps us from When sin takes root in our hearts and corrupts our life in that way, we don't get to live the life that we wanted to live. We don't get to hang out with who we wanted to hang out with. We don't get to be with the people that we wanted to be with because sin has corrupted us completely. Commentator F.B. Meyer says, sin severs us from fellowship with God and his saints and makes us a source of contamination to all in contact with us, though they may not realize that we are defiling them. This is the reality of sin. And leprosy paints such a vivid and important picture of it. And so let's learn the lesson. Let's get the picture in our minds. Let's understand the issue of sin and how it must not be left alone, but we must deal with uncleanness. We must address it. We must pay attention to it. We must take care of those issues ourselves. that pop up. It starts small, a little spot on the skin. These issues pop up in our lives, and the sooner we address it, the better, because the less corruption that will result, the less damage and devastation that will take place. We have the cure for sin, forgiveness in Jesus Christ, not just in the general sense of become a Christian, believe in Jesus Christ and his death upon the cross, and you're forgiven of all sin, but As we've been sharing for the past few weeks, this is something the Lord's been driving home. Confess your sin, and he is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, John tells us. So there needs to be a confession. There needs to be an addressing of the sin issues that pop up in our life. Well, continuing to think about leprosy, uncleanness, and how the Lord wants us to deal with it, first of all, we need to understand that sin is an uncleanness like leprosy, Secondly, I want to encourage you this evening to get help evaluating your uncleanness. Get help evaluating the things that you're going through, the issues that pop up in your life. This law that God gives here in these chapters is specific. The diseased person is not to diagnose himself. He doesn't look and go, oh, a spot, let me examine it, and try to figure out himself if he has leprosy. Instead, verse 2 says this, So the person who has the sore, they don't examine it. I mean, obviously they noticed it, right? Obviously they saw it. There's an issue there. But they're not the ones who decide the course from there out. They take it to the priest. And the priest is the one who examines it. And this is very clear as you go through the chapter. Verse 5. And the priest shall examine him on the seventh day. Verse 6, that the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day. Verse 10, and the priest shall examine him. Verse 15, and the priest shall examine the raw flesh. Verse 17, and the priest shall examine him. Verse 21, but if the priest examines it, and indeed there's no white hairs. Verse 27, and the priest shall examine him on the seventh day. Should I keep going? You get the point, right? The priest examines, the priest examines, the priest examines, the priest examines. I think this speaks to us a very important thing for us to consider, and that is that the help that we need. Again, one of the issues of sin is the numbness that it causes in our lives, the darkness that persists in our understanding. So that I have this sin issue and now I'm trying to resolve it myself, but I'm numb and my understanding is darkened. I don't have a clear picture of what's really going on. I'm not the best place to evaluate this situation. I'm not in the best situation to understand what needs to be done from here. Listen, we are the worst at understanding our own sin. We're the worst. Because, well, the sin has corrupted our perspective and our judgment. We have a tendency to exaggerate our own sin, either too severely or too lightly. And when we consider it too light, well, that's when we just kind of like, hey, this is like this, you know, one little cool part in my garage. I just let it be a little bit messy, you know. Everybody's got to have a messy drawer, right? So it's cool, you know. Everybody's good with that. And we leave it undealt with. We leave it corrupt. Too severe, you know, sometimes we want to deal with ourselves in a manner that is not consistent with what the Lord desires. And sometimes we want legalism when God wants to give grace. We want punishment when God wants forgiveness. But we can't tell which one we're in. We can't tell if we're being too severe. We can't tell if we're not being severe enough. We can't tell if we're somewhere in the middle because we've been numbed. Our understanding has been darkened. Listen, our heart is deceitful above all things, Jeremiah tells us, right? And so we're great at deceiving ourselves. That's what we do best, tricking ourselves into thinking that we're okay even when everything is not okay. We're great at justifying ourselves because our understanding is darkened. It's interesting to consider there's many other things in the law that where God required the individual to do some work, to provide some effort to evaluate, right? Think about the tithe. The tithe was commanded for the nation of Israel. The priest didn't calculate the tithe, though. The individual did. That was up to them. You figure out what the tenth is, and you bring that. You didn't bring the whole crop, and the priest had to count one by one, you know, all of those things. No, no, no. You do that at home and bring what you need to bring, right? But when it came to this, God says, you don't examine this yourself. You come to get examined. You come to get help addressing the sin that is in your life. Think about what the Lord said in Matthew chapter 7. He said, why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye, then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Here the Lord illustrates how our understanding is darkened when we're involved in sin. How numb we are because there's a plank in our own eye, right? There's a beam in our own eye. There's this huge issue right in our face, but we think we're ready and able to deal with that little tiny speck of an issue in somebody else's face. And the Lord is saying, hypocrite, you have this huge issue right there in your face. You're blind, you're numb. Sin has corrupted your understanding. But notice that here Jesus is not completely prohibiting this idea of helping your brother with that issue, helping your brother with that speck that they have in their eye. He says in verse 5, first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. You see, Jesus here is not saying you don't need anybody else in your life to help you deal with sin. Jesus is saying you need to be careful when you're dealing with sin in other people's lives because it's very likely that you have a big issue that needs to be addressed. So address that uncleanness. Clean up that part of the garage. Deal with that issue that's going on in your heart and your mind so that then with a clean heart, with a clean mind, with the light on and great understanding, you You can help someone next to you with the speck of an issue that they're experiencing in their life. Last week, we talked about beginning the priestly ministry. And we're all encouraged by the Lord to begin our priestly ministries. We've been talking about this for a little bit here in Leviticus because it's the priestly book. And we, as believers in Jesus, are priests, not Levitical priests. But we have a priesthood that's given to us by the Lord in that he has authorized us. We are his agents to do his work, including helping others address issues of sin. And that is a big need within the body of Christ. Notice in verse 2, Again, it says, 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 leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons, the priest. This was an issue that any priest could handle. And you're any priest, except for maybe you have a plink in your eye. So you need to deal with that because there's other people around you with specks in their eyes or maybe plinks in their eyes too. They need help. We as the body of Christ are Sometimes we deal so poorly with sin that it's the opposite of what God wants us to do. Instead of helping someone remove the speck, we pile on and we kick and we beat and we mock and we scorn and we gossip and we come against and we express our own sin in different ways in addressing the sin of others. But God's called us to a priestly ministry. To help people deal with issues of sin in their lives. And don't think, well, that's just for Jerry to deal with. Don't think you're talking to someone and it becomes clear, it becomes apparent, hey, there's an issue of sin here. You got to go talk to Jerry right away. I'm not saying don't talk to me. But I'm saying don't automatically think that's the route. God says he could be brought to Aaron or to any other priest, including you. And so perhaps the Lord wants to use you. Listen, mature Christians are authorized to deal with sin situations. It's a priestly duty that is given to mature believers. Galatians chapter 6 tells us, And so you who are spiritual, and you ought to be spiritual, if you're not spiritual, that's your own fault. It's your own choice. You ought to be spiritual, you ought to be mature, and you ought to be able to help others deal with their sin issues. You who are spiritual, restore such a one. Bring healing, bring restoration in that person's life. And so for you and I, as we're addressing issues of sin in our own lives, we need to understand we can't evaluate this ourselves. We need others in the body of Christ. And it doesn't have to be the high priest. It could be any of the priests. We need people in our lives that we could interact with in this way, that can pray with us and help us and encourage us and lead us in the path forward for addressing the sin that pops up, that creeps up. We're all going to have these issues. We're all going to have these things that happen because of our sinful nature. And so no matter how long we walk with the Lord, There's going to be different seasons where something pops up and we need people in our lives. We need to get help. We can't try to address all of these things on our own, all by ourselves. We need spiritual people around us who can restore us. This idea of being overtaken in a trespass, it's the idea of being caught by surprise. Now, sometimes we're involved in sin and it's not a surprise. It's just, I knew it was wrong, but I wanted to do it and that's what I did. And the more rebellious my heart is in that way, the more I need help from others to address my heart and my condition of sin. Sometimes it just pops up. It's a total surprise. I did not see this coming. I've been doing this. I've been thinking this way. I've been involved in this. And I didn't even realize it was sin at the time. I didn't even realize it was uncleanness. I didn't realize it was so bad. I didn't realize those words were so hurtful. I didn't realize that. Whatever type of sin that might creep up in our lives. We need spiritual people around us so we can get help. James talks about praying for one another, confessing our sins, that we might be healed, that there needs to be this kind of fellowship. You know, sometimes we talk about fellowship and it's, you know, watching a football game together or having a good meal together and all of that part of fellowship is great. But there also needs to be the aspect of fellowship in your life where you are able to get help with issues of uncleanness. Where you're able to get help with the things that you are facing. And you, believer, are authorized to offer that help to others around you. An interesting thing happens in Leviticus chapter 14. There's the process of cleansing the leper, which we'll touch on in just a moment. But near the end of that process, verse 14 of Leviticus 14, check it out. It says this, the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering and the priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed on the thumb of his right hand and on the big toe of his right foot. Does that sound familiar? Because, well, in the consecration of the priests, the beginning of the priestly ministry, this same process was followed. This didn't happen with other sacrifices. This happened in the beginning of a priest's ministry, and it happened at the cleansing of a leper. And in a sense, you could think about it this way. We're all lepers, cleansed, called to help other lepers be cleansed. And when we're cleansed, the Lord, he grabs our ear, our thumb, our big toe, and he says, all right, now go help other people cleanse their leprosy. I'm enlisting you in the service. the service of the Lord. And so we're cleansed lepers, helping other lepers be cleansed because we need help evaluating our uncleanness. We don't have the accurate picture of our own uncleanness. And that's why there can be a huge plank in our eye. And maybe we do actually see that speck in somebody else's eye. We have an accurate picture of that, but it's our own uncleanness we don't get. We don't understand. It doesn't make sense to us. We think we have it figured out and we so do not. Get help evaluating your uncleanness. And if you don't have someone that you can get help from in this regard, Harvey's right there. You can talk to him after the service. All right. The third thing to consider now as we talk about dealing with uncleanness is that incurable uncleanness can be cleansed. Chapter 14 brings great encouragement. After the ugliness of chapter 13, the isolation, the desperation of chapter 13, and all the devastating effects of sin, here God provides the process for a leper who is cleansed to become part of society again. Let's check out the first few verses here of Leviticus chapter 14, verse 1. It says, "'Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "'This shall be the law of the leper "'for the day of his cleansing. "'He shall be brought to the priest.'" Now the following verses describe this really cool ritual. And we're not going to get into those details. But if you want to dig into those, there's some really cool imagery here. Totally pictures. Jesus, his death, his resurrection, and these two birds that are offered at the cleansing of the leper. It's incredible, the picture that it paints of the gospel message. But what I want to highlight here is just the fact that leprosy, as far as they were concerned, was an incurable disease. The Lord didn't write Leviticus chapter 13 and 14 to give them a prescription for how to cure leprosy. He wrote this so that they could deal with it in a way that it wouldn't affect everybody else. So they could accurately identify it and then how cruel would it be to be misdiagnosed with leprosy and cast out of society, right? And so God said, no, no, you need to have all the details and you need to be able to understand when it's leprosy and when it's not. So, you know, that was the point, right? But it wasn't a cure. There's no prescription. There's no medicine here in chapter 13 and 14 to heal the leper. It's just how to address, how to deal with the uncleanness that becomes known. And they didn't know how to deal with leprosy. And there's many diseases today that are similar. Still, we don't know how to deal with them. Many diseases like, again, Hansen's disease, which is usually referred to as leprosy, It can't be cured. It can be slowed down or kind of halted, but it never actually goes away. And yet the Lord here provides an opportunity for when the leprosy goes away. He really made a way here for himself to work miraculously. Where man is helpless, God is still able to work. We don't know if they ever had to... use these instructions, if they ever had the opportunity to use these instructions before Jesus came on the scene. Jesus talks about lepers being in Israel, but none of them were cleansed except for Naaman the Syrian, and he didn't go through this because he wasn't from Israel. So we don't know if there were lepers who got to experience this until Jesus comes. And throughout his ministry, he is cleansing lepers. In Mark chapter 1, verse 40, a leper came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, I am willing, be cleansed. As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. He's willing. The leper says, if you're willing, you can make me clean. Jesus, you have the power. You can cleanse me. You can do it if you're willing. And Jesus says, yes, I'm willing. And then as the leper is cleansed, it goes on in verse 43 and 44. He says, now, go show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded as a testimony to them. A direct reference to Leviticus chapter 14. And it's possible, it's likely, the priests hadn't opened that part of the scroll in decades because that was not something that they had to do very often. It's possible they never had to do it until Jesus was there. But Jesus is willing, and he can cleanse even the things that are incurable. Sometimes we think about sin, and we think, man, it's incurable. And maybe it's sin in our own lives, and we think, I'm never going to be free of this. I've had this sin issue for 45 years. I've had this sin issue my whole life. I've had this sin issue. I'm never going to be cleansed from it. It's been so long. I've been so bad. I knew what I was doing. I full on outright rebelled against God. But the Lord wants you to know incurable uncleanness can be cleansed. The Apostle Paul is a great example of that. God reaching the unreachable and turning things around as he was against the Lord and persecuting the church, committing abominations against the Lord. And yet by God's grace, his incurable uncleanness was cleansed and he received from the Lord forgiveness. There's a show that you can find. You can find it on YouTube. You can find it a few different places called The Chosen. And it's a show with, I think, eight episodes in the first season. They just started the next season. But it's a show about the life and ministry of Jesus a little bit. It's different than any other show or movie or anything about Jesus that I've ever seen. It's really cool. And it really paints it from a different light and kind of shows some different perspectives. And so one of the characters introduced, character but real-life person, was Mary Magdalene. And it really does a great job illustrating how she was beyond help She was demon-possessed with seven demons, the scriptures tell us. And yet, she encountered Jesus. Nobody else could help her. In the show, Nicodemus tries to help her. We don't know that part. You know, that's not necessarily in the Bible. But nobody else could help her. Her uncleanness was incurable. But Jesus could cleanse her. Whatever sin you find yourself in, you're not beyond the forgiveness of God, the grace of God, the mercy of God. Whatever sin issue you're helping someone else address as part of your priestly ministry, they're not beyond God's ability to heal, to restore, and to cleanse. That doesn't mean that everything gets resolved overnight, of course, but we must always understand God is able and He's willing to say to us, be cleansed. Well, I want to finish up with the latter part of Leviticus chapter 14. Here's point number four this evening, and that is deal with uncleanness in the home. All the things that we've been talking about, sin and leprosy, and speaking about the individual, now take that and put it smack dab in the center of the home. Leviticus 14.33, Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes into it to examine the plague, that all that is in the house may not be made unclean. And afterward, the priest shall go in to examine the house. Here the Lord goes on to address the situation where there's a house that has some kind of contamination in it. Now again, this word leprosy that's used here, it's probably some kind of fungus that is specifically being referred to. It's not leprosy exactly that, it's a general term for an infectious disease or a spreading corruption, right? And so here there's leprosy in the house, something that's in the walls, right? something that's present there and is spreading and doing damage. And so maybe some mold, some mildew, some type of issue like that within the house. And again, painting the picture for us, sometimes in our homes, there's issues of sin and uncleanness. Now, if I have an issue of uncleanness and sin, then there's an issue of uncleanness and sin in my home, right? So the two are linked and And yet at the same time, it's really an encouragement to deal with the uncleanness that's in the home. Sometimes we allow, as a family, we allow, we kind of come to agreement, this side of the garage, that's going to be a mess, it's going to be ugly, and we're just going to be okay with that. And we kind of make deals with each other. I won't deal with your sin if you don't deal with my sin, right? The Lord wants us to know that's not the right way to handle it. More destruction, more corruption, more darkness, more numbness, it's going to result in great damage. If there is uncleanness in the home, clean house. Address it. Don't leave it for another time. Don't leave it for another situation. It's spreading. It's corrupting. And it's not just perhaps, you know, the individual that's involved that is being affected, but the home, the whole family, it's all being impacted. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 5 addressed the church and said, look, there's this sin situation that's going on, this immorality that is taking place, and you're not addressing it. You're not dealing with it. Instead, they were celebrating how tolerant they were. Look at how we allow, you know, for this to go on. And, you know, we can still have fellowship even though, you know, there is this sin that is happening. And, you know, we're so gracious and tolerant and merciful in this situation. And Paul says, no, that's not gracious and merciful to allow that to continue. 1 Corinthians 5, he says, your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? There we see that phrase again. Therefore, purge out the old leaven. that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Your glorying is not good. That sin that you're tolerating, it's corrupting you. Stop tolerating it. Stop putting up with it. Address it. Cleanse it. Deal with it. It's not pleasant. It's not desirable. Nobody wants to get their hands dirty in the muck and the mire. But it doesn't get better. It doesn't resolve on its own. It needs to be addressed. And so this evening, I encourage you, deal with uncleanness. Don't leave it for later because sin is an uncleanness like leprosy. It spreads and it corrupts more and more. And if it's uncleanness in your own heart, in your own life, you need to get some help. You can't address this on your own. You can't see clearly the situation that's happening. You need to get help evaluating the situation and what needs to be done as a result. You're not beyond reach and there's nobody around you that's beyond reach. God is willing and he's able to cleanse. So deal with uncleanness. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this evening, Lord, and it's an unpleasant subject and yet one that we need so much. I pray, God, that you would help us to see those spots as they pop up in our lives, to address them quickly. Lord, would you fill us with your Holy Spirit, Lord, that we might be moved by you. to not allow sin, to not permit sin to continue, to have a safe harbor in our hearts and minds. God, I pray that you would help us to address it, to deal with it, to bring it to you and allow you to bring about the cleansing that you desire. And God, I pray as we are lepers cleansed, Lord, that you would put us to work in helping others, Lord, that we would be effective and helpful in ministering to and restoring others around us who need that healing as well. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.