Numbers 18–19

Would you all stand with me? I want to welcome all of you online and all of you here at Calvary Chapel this evening as we worship in song and study God's Word. Would you join me in prayer? Father, we ask for your blessing now in our service as we come to worship you in song, corporately together, worship, sing as unto you, and then together study your Word, Lord.

We lift up all the activities, Lord, in our fellowship this evening, the children's church, the youth group, the nursery, and all that's going on in here as we worship and as Ryan teaches your Word, just anoint our time, anoint Ryan by the power of your Holy Spirit to bring forth your Word, and we give you thanks, Lord, for the cross for us, raising from the dead, ascended up into the right hand of the Father, making intercession for us, as was promised by Him, would not leave us comfortless as orphans, but would send the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us, to convince us of sin, righteousness, and judgment, and so, Lord, just fill us afresh tonight with your Holy Spirit as we worship and as we study together.

Father, we need your strength, we need your help to live in this world.

Resurrection power, you raised Christ from the dead, you made us alive in you.

Seeing Christ from the dead like that would indicate you could take care of any situation we're facing. You would be there for us at any time, no matter what, which those of us who are nothing without you need that promise. We thank you for that.

You have chosen. You have chosen to use us as servants to be witnesses to those around us, Lord. And so, we ask that you would strengthen us in that area, that you give us the boldness, the freedom to do that. It's tough. We can get intimidated at different times, but, oh, we thank you also that your Word says, greater are you who is in us than he who is in the world.

It soon will cry your mercy, your grace, your sovereignty. And now, as Ryan comes up, Lord, anointed by the power of your Holy Spirit, to bring forth your Word and give listening ears, Lord, and hearts to perceive that which you have tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. Lord bless you all.

Well, there it is. Glad you could be here tonight. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Numbers, chapter 18.

Numbers, chapter 18. The last time that we were together looking at the book of Numbers, the children of Israel were going through a little bit of difficulty. The difficulty that they were going through is that they were really challenging the authority of Moses and Aaron. They said, hey, listen, God speaks through all of us. You guys have taken too much on yourselves, and we think we can do just as good as you.

And so God dealt with it ultimately through a great deal of judgment that ended with a lot of people dying. And as God dealt with that, the children of Israel found themselves going, oh, man, who can even approach the tabernacle? Because it seems like anybody that approaches, anybody that gets close, it's almost like there's no hope for us. And so as we move into chapters 18 and 19, God begins to discuss with them the regulations that they need to follow in order to maintain a right walk with God as they go through the wilderness.

He will first of all deal with the Levitical priesthood and what the rules, regulations, and restrictions are for that priesthood. And then he will talk about the cleansing and the consecration. The children of Israel for the common man. And so we pick up in chapter 18, verse 1, and this is what it says. So the Lord said to Aaron, you and your sons and your father's household with you shall bear the guilt in connection with the sanctuary.

And you and your sons with you shall bear the guilt in connection with your priesthood. But bring with you also your brothers, the tribe of Levi, the tribe of your father, that they may be joined with you and serve you. While you and your sons with you are before the tent of the testimony. And they shall thus attend to your obligation and the obligation of all the tent.

But they shall not come near to the furnishings of the sanctuary and the altar, or both they and you will die. They shall be joined with you and attend to the obligations of the tent of meeting for all the service of the tent. But an outsider shall not come near. So you shall attend to the obligations of the sanctuary and the obligations of the altar. So that there will no longer be wrath on the sons of Israel.

Behold, I myself have taken your fellow Levites from among the sons of Israel. They are a gift to you dedicated to the Lord to perform the service for the tent of meeting. But you and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood for everything concerning the altar and inside the veil. And you are to perform the service. I am giving you the priesthood as a bestowed service.

But the outsider. Who comes near shall be put to death. Now, there's three aspects of this that I see. First of all, I see God gives sort of an overarching responsibility to both Aaron and the Levites. Did you take note of what he said? He said, first of all, Aaron, you and your sons and all of the Levites. He said, we'll bear the iniquity of the sanctuary.

What he means by that is you have the responsibility of everything that takes place in the sanctuary. Now, what we're going to find out later is that this is ultimately a blessing to them. Because when God puts. Us into service. When God gives us some aspect of service. It's actually a blessing to us. Because through that service, we ultimately are drawn closer to the Lord.

But he said, ultimately, you will bear the responsibility for that. And that's a really important responsibility. Because with blessing and with privilege comes great accountability. And so these Levitical priests, the priesthood along with Aaron was held responsible for all of the things that took place. In the sanctuary. But then as he gave the overall responsibility, he got down to Aaron and his sons.

He said, but Aaron, you and your sons, meaning the actual priests themselves, not the entire tribe of Levi, but just Aaron's family. He said, you shall bear the iniquity of the priesthood. In other words, you bear all of the responsibility of the priesthood. And it was a heavy responsibility that they had on them. Now, you're probably asking yourself, Ryan, why does God go into all of this?

Well, because if we remember what happened in the two previous chapters, there was some question about who was in charge. There was some question about who was responsible for what. Because the Levites began to say, Aaron, your family's taken on too much in the priesthood. That's not yours to bear. We're just as good as you are. And so God lays out for them specifically.

He says, I have specific responsibilities for both of you. And you each need to hold on to your responsibility. It's kind of an interesting thought, isn't it? Kind of what God lays out for us in the New Testament for what it's supposed to look like in the church. That God has laid out that certain people would have certain responsibilities. That certain people would be held accountable for certain things.

And if you will fall in line with your responsibility, if I will fall in line with my responsibility, then everything flows the way that it's supposed to. But if people don't hold up their end of the responsibility that God has given them, first of all, things go undone. And second of all, things get out of order. I have found that when people try to fill positions that they were never intended to fill by God, that they were never intended to be in, there's a great deal of insecurity in that.

There is a great deal of life being out of order and things just don't happen the way that they're supposed to. And so God takes time after this potential rebellion that rose up in the last two chapters to say, these are the responsibilities that you need to pay attention to. He then begins to go into detail. He first of all, talks to Aaron and his sons and he tells them, here's the thing, Aaron, you and your sons, you bear all of the obligation of the altar and all of the obligation of the things that take place beyond the veil.

Now we remember, hopefully from our study in the book of Leviticus, that the altar is what dwell just outside of the tabernacle, the altar of the burnt offering. And when animals were brought to be sacrificed for the different sacrifices that they had to make, the ones responsible for placing those sacrifices, on the altar in the correct way was Aaron and his sons. But then there was also the things that took place beyond the veil. Do you remember the veil?

Remember how the tabernacle was laid out? You had the outer court where you had the laver, the bronze laver and the, and the altar, the burnt altar for sacrifice. You go inside. And when you get inside of the first layer of the tabernacle, you have the holy place. And in that first portion of the tabernacle of the holy place, you have the table of showbread.

You have the, the candlestick. And then you have the altar of incense. And then in between that and the most holy place, there was a veil. And on the other side of the veil was the Ark of the Covenant, which represented the presence of God. And once a year on the day of the, of atonement, the high priest and the high priest only would go before the tabernacle,

or go before the Ark of the Covenant and sprinkle the mercy seat with blood. He said, those are your obligations. The role, that Aaron and his sons filled was vastly important. If you will, according to Warren Wiersbe, and I wholeheartedly agree with this, the priesthood was given as a gift to the nation of Israel. And it was given as a gift to the nation of Israel,

because what did the priesthood represent? Well, first of all, the priesthood represented the people to God, because when the people brought their sacrifice to God, they brought the sacrifice and said, this is what I want to offer for my sin. This is what I want to offer for my shortcomings. This is what I want to offer. This is what I want to offer as a thanksgiving to the Lord.

And so the priest would take that offering to the Lord, and he represented the people to God. But also the priest played a second role because the priest represented God to the people, because as God gave down his commands, as God made clear to the priesthood, exactly what he expected of the people, the priesthood made sure to deliver that message to the people. And so this priesthood because their obligation was the altar and the things that took place, behind the veil, they were a gift to the people. Why?

Because they were the intermediary between God and them. Kind of sounds familiar, doesn't it? Because as New Testament believers, we know that the priesthood is given to us as a gift to only the priesthood that's given to us is not the priesthood of Aaron. It is the priesthood of none other than Jesus Christ himself who represents all of those things to us.

And so he says, that's your responsibility, Aaron and your sons to do that work. But then he lays out the responsibility for the Levites. Hopefully you took note. He said, the Levites will join with you to serve with you. In other words, your job, Aaron and your sons is to the altar and to the things that take place behind the veil. But all of the other things that you don't have time to cover,

all of the other things that you don't have time to do because you're busy dealing with the altar and the things that take place behind the veil, the Levites will come alongside you and they will deal with the thing, the things that still need to be done. But since you're busy offering sacrifices, you can't get to them. Let me give you a New Testament picture of exactly what's being spoken of here. You see, it was in the early church.

The disciples were busy doing the work of the ministry and a group of widows of the Hellenists came and said, we are being ignored in the daily distribution. And so Peter said, here's what we need to do. We need to set up seven men who can deal with serving, tables so that we can give ourselves to the preaching of the word and praying for the people. He said, if you will, we need to give ourselves to the altar and the things behind the veil.

You guys handle the things that we don't have time to get to because we're busy doing this other aspect of ministry. If you will, the Levites were some of the early deacons for the priesthood. So they were to join with Aaron and his sons in the service that they were doing. So they were to join with Aaron and his sons in the service that they were doing. So they were to join with Aaron and his sons in the service that they were doing.

But I thought it was kind of interesting that even in the joining with of the sons of Aaron for the priesthood, they still had an important job because look down at verse six, middle of verse six, notice what it says. They are a gift from you dedicated to the Lord. You see, it was easy and we saw that this happened with Korah and the rebellion that took place there, that some of these Levites started saying, our job's not as important as yours. Our job's not as important as yours because our job looks more menial because all we do is carry things.

We wish we had more of an important job. You see what they missed out on is the fact that just because they did the heavy lifting that the priests were not doing, it did not mean that their service was not dedicated to the Lord because it was absolutely dedicated to the Lord. And brother or sister, you may have a role within the church, a function within the church, a body of Christ that in your mind is not quite as important. But may I say there is no such thing in the body of Christ as an unimportant role.

There is no such thing in the body of Christ as someone who is not dedicated to the Lord because the person serving in children's ministry, the person cleaning the toilets, the person running the sound, the person working in the nursery, I don't care what it is. All of those aspects of service are dedicated to the Lord. And they, they all play a vitally important role in the body of Christ. And so he says, these are your roles.

And then I love the fact that that while the priesthood itself was a gift to the nation, the Levites were God's gift to Aaron and his sons. They were God's gift to the priesthood. And Aaron and his sons listen, must always treat the Levites as if they are a gift from God and not just the ones that do all of the menial tasks. And so we go on from there because that's the, the responsibility that, that is laid out.

But after we see this responsibility that's laid out, we also see the blessings and the compensation both for the priests and for the Levites. Notice what it says. Then the Lord spoke to Aaron. Now behold, I myself have given you charge of my offerings, even all the holy gifts of the sons of Israel. I have given them to you as a portion and to your sons as a perpetual,

a lot meant this shall be yours from the most holy gifts reserved from the fire. Every offering of theirs, every grain offering, every sin offering, every guilt offering, which they shall render to me shall be most holy for you and for your sons as the most holy gifts. You shall eat it. Every male shall eat it. It shall be holy to you. This also is yours. The offering of their gift,

even all the wave offerings of the sons of Israel. I have given them to you and to your sons and daughters with you as a perpetual allotment. Every one of your household who was clean may eat it. All the best of the fresh oil and all the best of the fresh wine and the grain, the first fruits of those which they gave the Lord. I give them to you. The first ripe fruits of all that is in their land,

which they bring to the Lord shall be yours. Every one of your household who was clean may eat it. Every devoted thing in Israel shall be yours. Every. First issue of the womb of all flesh, whether man or animal, which they offer to the Lord shall be yours. Nevertheless, the firstborn of man, you shall surely redeem and the firstborn of unclean animals. You shall redeem as to their redemption price from a month old.

You shall redeem them by your valuation, five shekels and silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, which is 20 Geras, but the firstborn of an ox or the firstborn of a sheep or the firstborn of a goat, you shall not redeem their holy. You shall. Sprinkle their blood on the altar shall offer up their fat and smoke as an offering by fire for a soothing aroma to the Lord. Their meat shall be yours.

It shall be yours like the breast of a wave offering and like the right thigh. All the offerings of the holy gifts which the sons of Israel offer to the Lord I have given to you and your sons and your daughters with you as a perpetual allotment. It is an everlasting covenant of salt before the Lord to you and your descendants. Then the Lord said to Aaron, you shall have no inheritance in the land nor own any portion among them.

I am your portion and your inheritance among the sons of Israel. And so since God has a desire that those who serve in the ministry of the Lord would be supported by the ministry of the Lord, he says, these are the things as the priesthood that you deserve. Basically, he goes through all of the offerings and says, each of those offerings you are to have a portion of so that you've always got something to eat. And, and then all of the first fruits that come from the land and all of the firstborn that come of the animals, the meat of that shall be yours for you to eat.

So the priest would always be taken care of because take note of the fact that the priesthood was to have no allotment in the land. As far as the land of Canaan that they were coming into, they would not have a portion that they could say, this is ours. Therefore, they had to be taken care of by the service of God. They had to be taken care of by the service of the people.

But may I say this? I think that the allotment that the priest had was probably one of the greatest because while on this earth, it may not have looked like they had a great deal of inheritance while on this earth, it may not have looked like they had a lot to show for themselves. They had something much more than that. They knew that their allotment was the fact that they had the truth of the Lord.

That God was ultimately their inheritance. We could put it this way as New Testament believers. This place was not their home. They knew that something beyond here was awaiting them. They knew that something greater was waiting for them beyond this earth. And I think that as we view the things that are happening in our world right now, and as we look at things now and go,

I saw somebody post this on social media the other day, they said, I'll always refer to 2022 as the year of the beast. I'll always refer to 2022 as the year of the beast. I'll always refer to 2022 as the year of the beast. I'll always refer to 2022 as the year of the beast. I lost my retirement, right? Because that's what's happening right now. As things continue to improve and we build back better,

people are losing all of their money and they're losing all of their things. And it would be easy for us to say, but I'm losing everything as far as this world is concerned while I'm building back better. And we just have to look and say, but my inheritance was never in this earth anyway, right? Because, because I'll never take any of it with me anyway. My goal is not to build back better in America.

My goal is not to build my inheritance on earth. My goal is to lay up my treasures that are in heaven. And believer in Jesus Christ, we are told in the book of first Peter that we are a holy nation, a royal priesthood. Therefore, your inheritance is not in the land. Your inheritance is, with the Lord. Well, he goes on from there. That was the inheritance for Aaron and his sons.

But now we have the exterior group of the entire tribe of Levi. And so notice what it says in verse 21. It says to the sons of Levi, behold, I have given all the tithe in Israel for an inheritance in return for their service, which they perform the service of the tent of meeting. The sons of Israel shall not come near the tent of meeting again, or. They will bear sin and die.

Only the Levites shall perform the service of the tent of meeting, and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout their generation. And among the sons of Israel, they shall have no inheritance for the tithe of the sons of Israel, which they offer as an offering to the Lord. I have given to the Levites for an inheritance. Therefore,

I have said concerning them, they shall have no inheritance among the sons of Israel. The, and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, moreover, you shall speak to the Levites and say to them when you take from the sons of Israel, the tithe, which I have given you from them for your inheritance, you shall present an offering from it to the Lord, a tithe of the tithe. Your offering shall be reckoned to you as the grain from the threshing floor or the full produce from the wine vat. Show.

So you shall also present an offering to the Lord from your tithes, which you receive. From the sons of Israel and from it, you shall give the Lord's offering to Aaron, the priest out of all your gifts. You shall present every offering due to the Lord, all the best of them, the sacred part from them. You shall say to them when you have offered from it, the best of it, then the rest shall be reckoned to the Levites as the product of the threshing floor.

And as the product of the wine that you may eat it anywhere you in your household, it's for compensation in return for your service in the tent of meeting. You shall bear no sin by reason, of it when you have offered the best of it, but you shall not profane the sacred gifts of the sons of Israel or you will die. Now, as we come to the compensation for the Levites, their compensation was the tithe. There were several different offerings that the nation of Israel was supposed to give.

A portion of it was a temple tax or a tithe to the, uh, to the tabernacle, to the work of the Lord. That tithe, that 10th went to the Levites. It was their portion. It was how they could continue to support their family. While they spent their time in the service to the Lord there in the tabernacle, because no one else was to come near the tabernacle to do the work.

Only the Levites because they were the ones set apart. They also had no inheritance in the land, just like the Aaronic priesthood. So how were they to care for themselves? They cared for themselves with the temple tithe. Now they were not exempted from giving themselves because they were to give a tithe. In other words, a 10th, of the 10th that they were given because you see,

it doesn't matter who it is. God wants a heart of giving to come from everyone, even those who are living off of the gifts of the people. And so, uh, so God says, you need to make sure that you do the same thing that you give of that tithe as well and live in that way. And so, uh, so God made sure that both the Aaronic priesthood and the Levites were taken care of.

Now, as we end chapter 18, we should ask ourselves, why do we care about this chapter? Why is it important to us? Well, I think that there's a handful of things that we pay attention to. Number one, God has a really specific way that he wants things done. I don't think we can ever overlook this because some were trying to usurp the God given authority. And as they usurped the God given authority,

it caused all sorts of issues within the nation of Israel. God's very specific about his chain of authority or his chain of command. And if it wasn't kept, it usually meant something bad because God's not a God of confusion. God is very specific about the way that he wants things done. I'm finding that more and more people are starting to find themselves set free from the truth of God's word by saying,

well, you know, I think in this modern world we're not bound by all of those cultural things that scripture talks about. And, and so I think that we can look at it a little bit differently. And I always think to myself, every time God's people have said, we don't need to follow what God's word has to say. We need to get more modern in our thinking. God usually handles it in a pretty strict way.

And we, as the 21st century church are no different. We can't think to ourselves, but we've learned more than all of the people that have gone before. We think we really know the right way to do things. No, we should always consult the way God wants things to be done because God's very specific about it. And his, his word number two, we must serve in our God given roles.

I think one of the greatest things that a person can do is they can start praying, Lord, what role do you want me to serve in? What role, what function do you want me to perform in? And once you have determined by the leading of the Holy spirit, what that role is, throw yourself wholeheartedly into it. Now that's going to take a little bit of surrender on your part, as it took a little bit of surrender on my part.

I think I've shared with you before that after I came out of Bible college and went through some things in life, I had decided I could not be used by God in the way that I had originally thought that I was going to be used by God ever again. I didn't think I would ever be able to teach God's word because I thought I was too flawed as a human being. I thought I was too damaged as a servant of the Lord. And I remember the first time anybody ever asked me to teach for them.

I told them, no, they said, would you come do a Sunday morning service? For me. And I said, that seems like a terrible idea. There's about a million other people you should have do this besides me. And they said, I want you to pray about it because I really feel like God laid you on my heart. And finally I said, fine, I'll do it. And now here I am today, but I came here kicking and screaming because I didn't want to have to be somebody that stood up in front of people

because it's a scary thing to do to stand up in front of people and give out the truth of God's word. But when I finally surrendered, to what God wanted me to do, it seems as though maybe he's kind of blessing it, but it took me surrendering to what role God wanted me to fill. I'd much rather be in the background. God has a role that he wants us to fill. And once we know that we need to do it.

I forgot what my last point was. Okay, those two things, two important lessons to be learned. Now, as we move into chapter 19, we come to kind of an interesting chapter. Perhaps if you have a Bible with headings, that has something to do with the Bible, that has something to do with the Bible, that has something to do with the Bible, that has something to do with the Bible, that has something about the red heifer in it.

Right? Okay. First of all, can I just say how happy I am that I get to use the word heifer from the pulpit? It's a fun word to say, and you just can't call anybody that. Okay. So as we use this word, we know that this is for what's taking place in scripture, not now what we call anybody else. Okay. So as we come to this though, we're like, what is this ordinance of the red heifer all about?

It's an interesting thing that we come to. Do you remember what God had told the children of Israel was going to take place? God had told the children of Israel that over the next 40 years, what was going to happen is that every individual 20 years old and older would die. Now, if you remember at the beginning of the book of Numbers, they numbered all of the men from 20 years old and older.

We know that there was roughly 600,000 men from 20 years old and older in the nation of Israel. Brothers and sisters, that's a lot of death. As a matter of fact, if I remember this statistic correctly, they said that over that amount of time, it would have to be, I think it was somewhere between 30 and 40 people a day that would have to die for all of those people to be wiped out. By the time the children of Israel were ready to go into the land 40 years later, they were going to be surrounded by a lot of death.

Now we know because we studied the book of Leviticus, that death equals death. Death equals uncleanness. But in fact, there were several things that meant being unclean. There was leprosy, death, discharge. We won't go through that whole thing again. There was all kinds of things that caused a person to be unclean. But death seems to be the one that we're dealing with the most in this chapter,

because we're going to find that as the children of Israel are walking through the wilderness, as they're wandering through this wilderness, it's almost inescapable that at some point in time, they won't end up coming across the land. They won't end up coming across death, which will bring about uncleanness in their lives. How were they to become a people who could continue to walk in purity, to walk in cleanliness with a holy God dwelling among them if they were constantly surrounded by death? Well, this is what God provides for them as we look at chapter 19.

Notice what it says. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, this is the statute of the law. Which the Lord has commanded, saying, speak to the sons of Israel that they bring an unblemished red heifer in which is no defect and on which a yoke has never been placed. Now the first thing that I take note of as we start talking about this aspect of sacrifice and cleansing is I see the description of the actual sacrifice itself.

It's described in three ways. First of all, an unblemished red heifer, which is incredibly rare. It's a hard thing to come across. Number two, it was to have no defect. And number three, it was to have had no yoke upon it at all. Now what's interesting to us that we pay attention to, I read a lot of commentators and they all tried to really just go crazy trying to find all of the spiritual parallels.

But there was one guy that I read that I thought, now that makes sense. That feels like we're not reaching into the clouds to pull something out that was never intended to be here. This one particular commentator said this meant three things. Number one, it was valuable. Number two, it was rare. Number three, it was pure. It was valuable, it was rare, and it was pure.

Now as we think about this, we can think of that one and only sacrifice that was made for us, and that's Jesus Christ, who was valuable, he was rare, and he was pure. So this sacrifice is described for them. And so as this sacrifice is described... What it was to look like, now we're to see what's to take place in the process of this sacrifice. Notice what it says in verse three.

You shall give it to Eliezer the priest, and it shall be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence. Next Eliezer the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight. Its hide and its flesh and its blood. And the heifer shall be burned in his sight, its hide and its flesh and its blood.

And the heifer shall be burned in his sight, its hide and its flesh and its blood. And its blood with its refuse shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer. The priest shall then wash his clothes, bathe his body, and afterward come into the camp. But the priest shall be unclean until evening.

The one who burns it also shall wash his clothes in water, bathe his body in water, and shall be unclean until evening. Verse 13 says, Verse 13 says, Verse 13 says, up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity. It is purification from sin. Now, everything about this sacrifice seems to be just a little bit different than some of the other sacrifices. First of all, did you take note of the fact that this sacrifice

was female? It's one of the only ones that has the female be the sacrifice, but that's part of its purity and part of its value. The second thing that you'll take note of that's just a little bit different is this particular time it's presented to Eliezer, the priest. He's not the one that slaughters it. A common man slaughters it, but he slaughters it in front of Eliezer, the

priest. The third thing that I take note of that's different from all of the other sacrifices is all of the other sacrifices, the blood was then taken and either sprinkled on the altar or rubbed on the horns of the altar. Some way, shape, or form, the blood is offered on the altar, this time it's not. He takes just a little bit of it and sprinkles it seven times towards the tabernacle, not even said towards the altar. So this sacrifice is much different in nature than

all of the other sacrifices, and we'll talk about why that's important towards the end. But after this sacrifice is made, after it's slaughtered and a little bit of the blood is sprinkled, the entire animal, the hide and all, is taken and it is burned completely, much like a whole burnt offering. And as this sacrifice is burned completely outside the camp, we find that the two people involved in the both slaughter and burning of the animal were to cleanse themselves and to be considered unclean until evening, and then all of the ashes were collected and held on to. Now there's one thing that I left out that's really significant about this sacrifice. Did

you take note of it? There were three things that were to be added while the sacrifice was burning. Did you take note of what those were? It was to be cedarwood, scarlet, and hyssop. Now again, I read several people that tried to pull in all kinds of spiritual things, but I think there's only one spiritual thing that we need to pay attention to. Those are the three things that are involved in the sacrifice for a cleansed leper.

Each of those three things, when a leper was cleansed, those three things were involved. Why is that important? Because these ashes were to be kept, this one-time sacrifice, all of the ashes were to be kept from, for a continual purification of the people. That's why it's important that the cedarwood, the scarlet, and the hyssop are involved there. Because in the same way that those are used in

the purification of a leper, they'll also be used in the purification of those who come across a dead body. So this sacrifice is much different than the others. Now, verse 10, the one who gathers the ashes shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening, and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sacrifice of the leper. Now, as we move to verse 11 through verse 16, he's going to describe different instances in which a person is made unclean by a dead body. The one who touches, verse 11, the corpse of any

person shall be unclean for seven days. That one shall purify himself from uncleanness with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean. Anyone who touches a corpse, the body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for

impurity was not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him. This is the law when a man dies in a tent. Everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days. Every open vessel which has no covering tied down on it shall be unclean. Also anyone who in the open field touches one who has been slain with a sword or who has died

naturally or a human bone or a grave shall be unclean for seven days. He describes for us several different instances in which someone would either come in contact with a dead body in the same tent that a dead body is in, you name it, different aspects of the way that somebody can come in contact with death causing them to be unclean. Now there's nothing overtly sinful about what's taken place. Because it's simply a ceremonial lack of cleanliness. It can be dealt with by being

purified both on the third and the seventh day. However, there's only one thing that can cause you to be living in sin. And that's that if you choose to not cleanse yourself on the third and seventh day, then you have to be cut off. You can't do anything about the fact that you come in contact with a dead body. You simply have to go through the purification process. But if you come in

contact with death, you can't do anything about the fact that you come in contact with a dead body. And choose not to purify yourself, then you're cut off from the people. Does that make sense? The impurity has to be dealt with. Well, now as we move into verse 17, he gives us the process for what it is to cleanse someone. And this is where these ashes come in handy.

Then for the unclean person, verse 17, they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt purification from sin and flowing water shall be added to them in a vessel. A clean person shall not be purified from sin, but shall be purified from sin. He shall take hyssop, dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on the one who touched the bone or the one slain or the one dying naturally or the grave. Then the person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. And on the seventh day, he shall purify him from his uncleanness

and he shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and shall be clean by evening. So, you're living life. One of the 30 to 40 people that's going to die per day, you come in contact with. You say, unclean because I've come in contact with death. So, when you become that way, somebody takes some hyssop. Look at those grasses over there. Look at the bottom side of the grasses. See those? Real stiff on the bottom side.

That would be a really good picture of what hyssop would look like. It's almost like a grassy sort of material. So, they would take that stiff end of it and they would dip it in the mixture. The mixture would be both some of the ashes from the red heifer and some water. They would dip that in there, stir that up, and they would take it on the third day. They would sprinkle that mixture on them. And then on the seventh day, they

would do the same thing. Take the exact same mixture, sprinkle it on them, and then they would take their clothes. They would wash them. They would take a bath themselves. And then they would be considered unclean or they would be considered cleansed from their ceremonial impurity. That came about from touching the dead body. Everybody with me? Everything makes sense

about what we're talking about so far? And then in verse 20, it says, But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself from uncleanness, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him. He is unclean. So, it shall be a perpetual statute for them.

He who sprinkles the water on them shall be purified from the midst of the assembly. He who touches the water for impurity shall wash his clothes. He who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening. Furthermore, anything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening. From a medical standpoint, it's interesting to know that up to this point in time, they

didn't know the importance of cleansing themselves when coming in contact with a dead body. As a matter of fact, it will be a very long time in history before the rest of the world catches up. With what God tells them right here in the book of Numbers about being cleansed from touching a dead body. And so, what God tells them is really important from a health standpoint, but it's also important from a purity standpoint, because what brings about death? What are we told in Scripture?

What are the wages of sin? Death, right? So, when you come in contact with death, you're coming in contact with the consequences of sin. That's why you're unclean. You see, God was to dwell among the people, but He was to dwell among the people, and He was to dwell among the people, and He was to dwell among the people, and He was to dwell among the people, and He was to dwell among the people.

So many things that we see, both in the book of Leviticus and the book of Numbers, are because God was walking among the people, and if He's going to walk among the people, He wants to walk amongst a people who are clean. They can't help the fact that death dwells around them every day, because every day, that's what would take place. But what they could help is what they do with the death that they come in contact with. They could be purified, both ceremonially through the sprinkling of that mixture, and sanitarily by taking the bath and washing their clothes.

They could control what they did with the death that they came in contact with. Ryan, why on earth do I care about this entire thing? Let's get to the point. First of all, every day, you and I come in contact with death. Every day, you and I are in contact with it. We can't help it. Some of us are in contact with it because it's part of our job, because we're actually around physical death. But most of us,

are simply around it because the world that we live in is dying every day. All of the sinful things that we come in contact with with our eyes, the sinful things we come in contact with with our minds, the sinful things we come in contact with because we live in a fallen world, is all of the death that is around us. And brothers and sisters, whether we want to admit it or not, the death that is around us defiles us. It defiles the way that we think. It defiles the way that we see. It defiles the way that

we act if it's not dealt with. But you and I are around this every day. I always use the example of camping, right? Anybody ever been camping? You know that after you go camping for two or three days, you kind of stop smelling what you really smell like, right? You're kind of like, well, I've been around it every day for the past three days. I think I smell

pretty good right now. So you go into town and you go to like a restaurant or you go to a gas station and everybody does the same thing when you walk by, right? Because you don't realize how you smell. You don't realize you smell like death, but everybody else around you does, right? Same thing when we're around death every day. We kind of start to smell like it if we're not careful. And

if we don't deal with it, then we really start smelling like it, and then we don't notice it anymore. Every day we're in contact with death. You know, Jesus gave the perfect example of death. He gave the perfect example of death. He gave the perfect example of what we're to do with this when he washed his disciples' feet, right? Usually we use the washing of the disciples' feet as a picture for service,

and it absolutely is because Jesus said, do unto each other as I have done unto you. However, there's another point that's made by Jesus with the washing of the disciples' feet. Do you remember what that point is? Peter, when Jesus came to him, said, no, no, I should be washing your feet, not you washing mine. And Jesus says, you need to be washing your feet.

You need to understand, if I don't wash your feet, you have no part in me. And Peter goes, then wash the whole thing. And Jesus said, no, no, no, no. Once you've been cleansed, you only need to wash your feet. And what he said to Peter made absolute sense because before they would have come to a meal like the Passover meal that was going on at that point in time, they would have ceremonially completely given themselves a bath and been

very clean because that's what they were supposed to do. But on their way there, what would they do? They would walk on the dirt roads. And when they'd walk across those dirt roads with those brand new, freshly cleaned feet, well, you know what happens if you've got kids or if you've ever worn flip-flops before. Their feet got all dirty. They didn't need to take a whole other bath. They just simply needed to cleanse their feet. When we dwell

in the death that is around us every day, we don't need to get born again every single day, but we do need to have our feet washed. And the only one that can truly wash our feet, our feet, is Jesus. Because if he doesn't wash our feet, then he has no part in us. What do I mean? Well, you can't help the fact that you come in contact with death every day, but you can help the fact that you don't allow yourself to be cleansed from it. So

what do we do to be cleansed from death? Well, I've got a red heifer out back. I'm just kidding. Y'all would be freaking out right now, wouldn't you? Got weird on Wednesday. No, how do we do it? Well, we kind of talked about this on Sunday morning. I have found more often than not, my Sunday and my Wednesday go together. I don't plan that. I want you to know that. That is not my plan. I don't think that far in advance. But the two seem

to go together. So what do we do to continually cleanse ourselves from the filth that is around us? Number one, we need to be washed with the Word. We need to be washed with the Word. You know how you keep yourself from stinking really bad when you go camping? Don't go camping. I'm just kidding. You take a shower every day, right? The same way if you're working all the time, right? If I come home right now from the job that I have working here at the

church and I don't take a shower when I get home, nobody notices because I don't do that kind of work anymore. But when I used to work construction, I'd come home and the first thing my wife would say is, take a shower, right? She didn't want to hug me. She didn't want to kiss me. She didn't want to high-five me. She wanted me to do one thing and one thing only. She wanted me to take a shower.

Why? Because I stunk. I smelled like the work that I'd been doing all day long. It's the same way with the Word of God, brothers and sisters. Every day, whether you intentionally do anything or not, you're around death. And your mind, your body, your eyes, all of it, it all gets defiled. The only thing that you can now do, you don't need to get saved all over again,

but you need to allow the Word of God to wash you. You need to allow the Word of God to cleanse you. I was sharing with my wife right before church, I was looking through social media, and sometimes it hurts my heart to see people that I've ministered to over the years, I'm just going to say it, become crazy liberals. And the things that they say are so ungodly.

And I'm like, what happened? How did they end up in this place? How did they end up becoming ungodly in their thinking and really just pretty worldly in their philosophy? Well, they stopped washing themselves in the Word. Because I promise you what has happened, and I only know it because this is real life, is they either quit washing themselves in the Word

because they stopped being a part of it, or they stopped washing themselves in the Word because they went to a church that didn't teach it any longer. The only way you end up becoming that defiled is you stop washing yourself in the Word. And pretty soon, you don't notice the stench anymore. Every day, we have to be cleansed with what God has done for us. We have to be cleansed

with what God's Word has to say. I took my own challenge, and I'm reading through Psalm 119 this week. And I just, on Tuesday, read through the part about how can a young man cleanse his way by taking heed to your Word? And that's the only way that we can do it. Number one, we must be continually washed with the Word of God. Number two, we are cleansed with the blood

of Jesus. All right, hang tight with me, okay? I want you to go two places in Scripture, with me. One, I want you to go to Hebrews chapter 9. If you're ever reading through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, you just need to bookmark Hebrews because the two go together. Hebrews chapter 9, I want you to look at verses 13 and 14. Hebrews 9, 13, and 14 says this,

if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? If God told them in the Old Testament, by the way, hopefully some of you just went, that's why it talks about the ashes of a heifer. If that's what God prescribed for them in the Old Testament, then how much more does the blood of Jesus Christ, which has been shed for us in the New Testament, deal with all of the uncleanness that we come across every day? One more place, go over to 1 John. I want you to go to 1 John chapter 1.

If you hit Revelation, you've gone too far. 1 John chapter 1, I want you to look at verse 7. 1 John 1, 7 says this, but if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship. We have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. We say that we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. In verse 7, where it says the blood of Jesus, of his Son Jesus, cleanses us from all sin, the tense in the greek there literally means continually cleanses us from all sin it's a continual process that's the uh that's the tense that that's used in and so what it says is if we're walking in the light being washed by the word of god the word of god is also a light to us if we're walking in that light as he is in the light then the blood of jesus continually cleanses us from all sin how does it do that well because when we confess our sin when we confess the death

that we've come in contact with when we confess the death that we've been around then he is faithful and just to cleanse us from all sin he deals with all of it how does he deal with it by the blood of his son because that blood continually is in that process of cleansing us from all of the garbage of the world brothers and sisters we can't help the death that we're around but we can help what we do with it let god's word wash you and let the blood of jesus christ cleanse you from all of that sin amen i want to say one more thing i've battled with what i'm going to say about this but i do want to say this yesterday was a tragic day and today is probably even more tragic for the family because now the shock is wearing off

and as the shock is wearing off for all of the people down in texas the blaming is going to begin and the blame will always end up being put in the wrong place i don't care what your politics are you're going to be put in the wrong place and you're going to be put in the wrong place about anything but blame will always be assigned where blame does not belong because the blame needs to be put squarely where it belongs and that's on the sinful heart of man i thought yesterday was the perfect example of exactly what we talked about on sunday morning that out of the heart flow all kinds of evil things including murders and what flowed out of the heart of that young man yesterday was nothing more than murder straight from the

pit of hell and we can make every law in the world that we want to but it will never change the sinful heart of man it will never legislate righteousness in the lives of individuals and listen we can hope all that we want to that we will wholesale in violence in the world but we need to understand something as long as there is sin in the world there will be violence in the world and one of my a band i used to listen to had this song and it and the lyrics of this song were this i'm not trying to change the world i'm just trying to change your mind brothers and sisters we can't think we need to go out and change the world but what we can do is go out and change someone's mind because right now what's happening in our

world we live in a world full of people who are hopeless the reason why they're hopeless is because they've been told they happen by accident they've been told that life has no meaning they've life has no value couple that with the fact that drug abuse and mental illness is at an all-time high which so much not all so much mental illness is demonic in nature you add those things together and you have the perfect recipe for what happened yesterday and what happened the week before that and what's happened 145 times this year no no not 145 24 times this year in 145 days you have the recipe for all of those things and we can't allow ourselves to live in a place of being overwhelmed

we need to allow ourselves to live in a place where we keep giving people the hope of the gospel where we keep giving people the truth of jesus christ because while i can't change the world i can change someone's life through the power of the gospel and that's what needs to happen right now in the lives of people we don't need people out crying for gun control and we don't need people out crying for gun rights what we need is people out crying for gun rights for people to know jesus and if we find ourselves too far on either end of that spectrum we'll miss the goal of what we're supposed to be being as the church and that's spreading the truth of the gospel of jesus christ we keep our hearts cleansed from the from the death that is around us

we keep our hearts focused on giving out the truth of the gospel to a world that is desperately in need amen father we come before you and you i want to lift up all those folks that that have had to deal with this lord it just it hurts so bad to think about all of those tiny little people that whose lives were ended yesterday i can't imagine being one of their parents with the knowledge of waking up knowing they're not coming back and so lord i just lift up all the folks that are involved in that lord i want to lift up the ones who who are going to go through this summer without their little ones and they're going to have to learn what it is to always have that empty spot at the table

lord i want to lift up all the ones that had to go in and deal with that emergency workers funeral home workers pastors that are about to be doing funerals that they never want to do that will just destroy them to do lord you you you you you you you you you you you you Somebody said it best today. They said, what is wrong with our world? And all I could say is sin. And so, Lord, I pray that you would do the work that only your Holy Spirit can do, not only of convicting the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, but, Lord, that you would use us as your instruments, Lord, not to promote any kind of agenda, but to promote the truth of the gospel.

Lord, we live in a world that is so desperately in need of hope. And so I pray that they would find their hope in you. Lord, that you would reveal to these young people that they are fearfully and wonderfully made. Lord, that their life is not an accident, nor is it disposable. But, Lord, their life has been planned out by a sovereign God who whispers, trust in me.

And so, Lord, I just pray for the revival that only you can bring, Lord. Not the revival that's excitement and all the other things, Lord, but the revival that comes about through brokenheartedness. And so, Lord, I pray that you would bring that to your hearts and to your stained eyes. Lord, let it begin with us in our own hearts. Lord, bring about purity in the hearts and lives of your church

so that we can be prepared to take the message of who you are to the world that's around us. Father, keep us ever in mind of the fact that the time is short because the days are evil. And, Lord, keep us focused on you. And we just thank you, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.