Cleansing Healed Lepers

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's Word, we grow in our love for the Lord together. This year, 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you today. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for this day, the gift from you. But Lord, we confess to you that often we will come to your word and sometimes our hearts are cold. Sometimes this is just a ritual and we know that that's not pleasing to you. So Father, we pray that your spirit would enliven us. that you would give us strength, even as we go along this discipline of being in your word. We pray that your spirit would make it alive in our hearts. We pray, Father, that you would teach us to love you.
In Jesus' name. Amen. All right, here we go. We are at Leviticus chapter 14. Where are my glasses? There they are. Leviticus chapter 14. And we start with a new section on not just how the priest were to categorize and figure out if somebody was clean or unclean, pure or unpure. But what happens if you were in Israel and you were declared unclean? Was there any hope for you? Well, chapter 14 answers that. Here we go. 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, and the priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him. And indeed, if the leprosy is healed in the leper, then the priest shall command to take for him who is to be cleansed two living and clean birds. cedarwood, 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, the cedarwood and the scarlet and the hyssop, and dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle it seven times on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose in the open field.
He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean. After that he shall come into the camp and shall stay outside his tent seven days. But on the seventh day he shall shave all the hair off his head, and his beard, and his eyebrows, all his hair he shall shave off. He shall wash his clothes and wash his body in water and he shall be clean.
So we see that there's this whole ceremony of the taking of the two birds. One of them is killed, one of them's alive, killing it under the water, letting the blood go, take the water and the blood and the sprinkling of seven times this picture of completeness. And then that second bird is taken out into the field as a symbolic action of of letting that impurity leave. needs to shave and wash and there's this whole picture of purity. Then in verse 10, And on the eighth day he shall take two male lambs without blemish, one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, three-tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil as a grain offering, and one log of oil.
Then the priest who makes him clean shall present the man who is to be made clean and those things before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. And the priest shall take one male lamb and offer it as a trespass offering, and the log of oil, and wave them as a wave offering before the Lord.
Then he shall kill the lamb in the place where he kills the sin offering and the burnt offering, in a holy place. For as the sin offering is the priest's, so is the trespass offering. It is most holy. The priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering.
The priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand on the big toe of his right foot. And the priest shall take some of the log of oil and pour it into the pan. palm of his own left hand. Then the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle some of the oil with the finger seven times before the Lord. And the rest of the oil in his hand the priest shall put some on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, on the right thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot, on the blood On the blood of the trespass offering, the rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall put on the head of him who is to be cleansed, so the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord.
Then the priest shall offer the sin offering and make atonement for him who is to be cleansed from his uncleanness. Afterward he shall kill the burnt offering and the priest shall offer the burnt offering and the grain offering on the altar. So the priest shall make atonement for him and he shall be clean.
So we find in this passage, what's this section talking about? It's talking about the man is essentially bringing three different offerings. a sin offering or purification offering, it doesn't really matter what you call that, the guilt offering as well as, or sorry, the burnt offering as well as the grain offering. So a purification offering, grain offering, and a purification offering, grain offering, and a burnt offering. So he has three different offerings he's bringing to the Lord or she's bringing to the Lord to present themselves as clean, And that blood again applied to them on their heads, on their ear, on their hand, on their foot, from head to toe, they are clean.
It's washed away from them. But what happens if you're a poor person? If you're poor and you're outside the camp, you're not allowed to come in, cut off from society, cut off from your family, cut off from your friends, but you can't afford two lambs. I mean, this is expensive stuff. Do you have any hope of being clean or are you just stuck? The Lord makes provision for that in verse 21 through 32. two turtle doves, or two young pigeons, such as he is able to afford.
One shall be a sin offering, the other a burnt offering. He shall bring them to the priest on the eighth day before his cleansing, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, before the Lord. And the priest shall take the lamb of the trespass offering and the log of oil, and the priest shall wave them as a wave offering before the Lord. Then he shall kill the lamb of the trespass offering, and the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering and 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 his big toe of his right foot. And the priest shall pour some of the oil into the palm of his own left hand, Then the priest shall sprinkle with his right finger some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the Lord. And the priest shall put some of the oil that is in his left hand on the tip of his right ear of him who is to be cleansed, on the right thumb, and on the big toe of his right foot, on the place of the blood of the trespass offering. The rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall put on the head of him who is to be cleansed, to make atonement for him before the Lord. And he shall offer one of the turtle doves, or young pigeons, such as he can afford, such as he is able to afford, the one as a sin offering, the other as a burnt offering, with the grain offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him who is to be cleansed before the Lord.
This is a law for one who had a leprous sore, who cannot afford the usual cleansing.
So see, even if you're poor, there is a way that you are brought back into the congregation from being unclean. So what's this whole section about? It's about people, after they have been declared unclean, having a way to be brought back into fellowship with God. back into the closeness of worship, back into relationship with society, back into loving relationships with their family. God was not just interested in cutting people off. This was not some type of divine eugenics, but this was the Lord saying there's impurity, but that impurity can't be removed.
This is exactly why when we talk about 1 John, it assumes that we understand these types of passages. that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. See, Jesus is our trespass offering. Jesus is our hope. Jesus is the one who brings us back into relationship with God, back into relationship with community, back into relationship of love. Through His blood, He is that sacrifice for us, that Lamb who was slain.
And so we come to this passage knowing that we have hope. That God didn't wait for us to be clean, but He cleanses us. We can't act as if we don't have any sin, that makes God a liar. But when we do sin, we know that we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And so we trust in him and love him. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for your word and for your love. We thank you for the work of Jesus Christ for us. Lord, we thank you that you have brought us back into relationship with you. You have redeemed us. and you have cared for us. Father, please, by your Holy Spirit, make us love you and follow after you. In Jesus's name, amen. Well, may you be motivated by love and gratitude and reverence as you serve the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. May you love him well today. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. we'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.