And we'll start reading in verse
one and read down to verse nine. If we can get that far, we'll
see. Leviticus 14, verse one says, and the Lord spake unto
Moses saying, this shall be the law of the leper and the day
of his cleansing. He shall be brought unto the
priest. And the priest shall go forth out of the camp, and
the priest shall look and behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed
in the leper, then shall the priest command to take for him,
that is to be cleansed, two birds, alive and clean, and cedarwood
and scarlet and hyssop. And the priest shall command
that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running
water. As for the living bird, he shall
take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop,
and shall dip them and the bird in the blood of the bird that
was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle upon him
that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall
pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into
the open field. And he that is to be cleansed
shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself
in water that he may be clean. And after that he shall come
into the camp and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven
days. But that shall be on the seventh
day that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard
and his eyebrows." Boy, I bet you he looked strange when he
did that. People when they don't have eyebrows look pretty strange,
you know. Even all his hair he shall shave
off and he shall wash his clothes and he shall wash his flesh in
water and he shall be clean. Wanted to spend some time this
morning looking through here as we well know, and I've often
said here before in the volume of the book, It speaks of Christ,
right? If anything that you haven't
got from my preaching is that I keep going back and keep going
back and keep going back to the fact that everything in this
book from Genesis to Revelation is to speak of the glory of Christ
Jesus. God manifested in the flesh,
the redeemer of his people. That's the whole thing of this
book. It's to glorify God in the face
of Jesus Christ through the redemption that is in his blood for the
remission of sins for the people of God that he is loved with
an everlasting love. We talked about that love last
week and how that love was an effectual love that brought forth
and showed forth God's everlasting love in the fact that he sanctified
us in Christ Jesus, called us, he separated us, elected us before
the foundation of the world to be a people particular and specific
and for him and him alone and that being united into Christ
and given to him as his spiritual children being joint heirs or
joint brothers in him seed in him as it were that because God's
love for Christ that love is given to all his seed and because
we are his seed we get all the benefits that God has done for
that seed. And God sent his son to die for
us. That love was shown in a sacrificial
love by him laying down his life for us. And then that love not
only being in that sacrifice, but then by the Holy Spirit being
coming and applied to our hearts and to our minds as we are given
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, to see and understand
the depth and the breadth and the width of that love for the
people of God. And as that love is being shed
abroad in our heart, we in turn turn back and we love God and
we love those who are loved of God. And so we see how God's
love is not just this ooey gooey emotional thing that he has upon
people, you know, but that his love is a determinant thing that
he has determined to love and in determined to love, he is
brought forth something out of that love for his people. That love is demonstrated. As
we've seen last week, it is, he commendeth his love. That
word commended means demonstrate. He commendeth his love in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, for God so loved
the world. And we've seen that the word
world there, as we looked in other scriptures, that that word
world is describing or talking about those who God has given
to Christ to come to him. See, it's only through Christ
that we come to God. And Jesus said, no man coming
to the Father except by me. No man can come except for the
Father draws him. No man can come except it were
granted unto him of the Father. The Father has to grant that.
He has to give us the Holy Spirit of God to Quicken us and to give
us faith so that we will see and and believe upon the Lord
Jesus Christ and come to him so we see that the word world
in John 3 16 is Speaking of that world the world of the elect
of God the world of the children of God the world of the spiritual
people of God It's not talking about everybody head for it.
It's not talking about everybody that's ever been born So John
3 16 is not a universal salvation passage that all everybody preaches
on TV and on the radio and on most churches on every block
that's in this town and around the world. And that's been preached
by me in the past. And probably every one of us
is at one time believe that God loved everybody. God gave his
son for everybody and Jesus died for everybody. But the scriptures
just doesn't bear that out. And we must repent of our sin
of unbelief. We must repent of our misunderstanding
of righteousness. Whenever the truth is given to
us, whenever the Holy Spirit gives us to see and to believe
and to understand, we will repent, turn from the wrong thinking
about the gospel, the wrong thinking about how righteousness is obtained,
the wrong thinking about how salvation is brought forth and
given and retained. We repent of those things. We
don't continue in those things. We don't keep preaching those
things. We don't keep fellowshipping with those who are living under
that false gospel and listening to that false gospel. And, you
know, all told, you know, Jesus said, come out from among them
and be separate. So that. I remember whenever
I first come to Joplin. I passed out a few. Business
cards, I hate to call them business cards, passed out some cards
around town at some of the restaurants and different places, truck stops,
different things like that, just with our church name and the
times that we were meeting and everything like that. I wasn't
giving out a bunch of tracts or anything. I just was passing
out cards just in case the Lord had any of his people in town
that believed these truths so that they would know, hey, we're
a church that meets here in town and anybody wants to come and
meet with us, they can. And I did get a call from a gentleman
here in town who professed to believe the doctrines of grace.
And he wanted to meet for coffee and we met for coffee. And then
we met a couple more times or another time or something like
that. And then I went over and spoke to a class that he taught
at one of the churches here in town and everything. And whenever
I came, we talked, you know, we We got along really well on
a lot of things, but there was a gospel that was being preached
by him to the people that was in his class about the doctrines
of grace, about sovereign grace. But yet the church that he is
in denies that, rejects that, but yet he teaches that in his
class. And so whenever they asked me
to come over and speak to him, and at first, the first night
I was there, it just was a thousand questions about a lot of things
not pertaining to the doctrines of grace, about baptism, about
the Lord's Supper, about church membership, about all kinds of
stuff and what we believe about that. But one of the questions
that was asked to me is, why another church? Why another Baptist
church? I mean, there's 20 Baptist churches,
if not more, here in Joplin. Why another Baptist church? Why
are you guys starting this church and everything? I said, well,
I said not everyone, number one, that calls themselves a church
is really a church. Number two, not everyone that
calls themselves a Baptist church is really a Baptist church. And
number three, the reason why is the doctrines that are preached
within those churches. Do we hold to scriptural doctrines? Because if we're not, then that's
not really a church. A church is the ones who continue
steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, okay? That's the ones who are
the church of Jesus Christ, the ones who continued as they met
to meet around the faith that was once delivered to the saints.
That's how they are the pillar and the ground of truth, if they
hold to the doctrine of Christ Jesus. And if they're not holding
to the doctrine of Christ Jesus, then they are an anathema, they
are cursed, Paul said. If they don't preach or they
don't teach, or they don't come with the doctrine of Christ,
Let them be accursed. Then Jesus in Revelation says,
you know, to come out from among them and be separate. That we're
to disfellowship with those who are preaching false truths. And
we are to gather together with those who believe the truth and
where the truth of God is being taught. It isn't, you know, we're
not just another denomination on the denominational tree. OK,
we're not just another church that is preaching from just a
different viewpoint. OK, it's about the truth of Jesus
Christ. What is preached about Jesus
Christ? Is it the gospel of him? That came from him. The truth
about him, OK, and that's what it is, and so. Whenever I passed
out those cards and we met and we had all this conversation,
Then finally, throughout the next few weeks that I met with
them, the Doctrines of Grace, I did get into those and we preached
about the Doctrines of Grace and visited with them. Even after the evening study
time was together, we'd go out to McAllister's Deli and they
would drill me with a bunch of other questions about everything.
But when it was all said and done, the last night I was there,
there was another question that came up that, you know, In light
of everything that you've heard, you know, you've heard our church,
because there was a skirmish that came up among the men of
that class. Some of the men were offended
by some of the things that I had said about baptism and the Lord's
Supper and church membership. They didn't like that. And so
some of the older men who were in there stood up and said, hey,
listen, This is actually what this church was founded on, was
these doctrines. But this church has moved away
from the founding doctrines that it constituted on. And he said,
this man is only preaching the things that our church actually
believed from this very beginning. And so they began to talk amongst
themselves, well, what do we do? Our pastor don't believe
these things, our church allows all this to go on, what do we
do? And so they asked me, he said, If you were a member here
or whatever, what would you do if you believed all these things
and seeing these things were true as we are seeing these things
are true. But yet our church doesn't believe
these. Do you think we ought to confront our pastor? Do you
think we ought to? What do you think? I said, well,
I mean, yeah, I mean, I think you ought to, you know, go to
your pastor and, you know, hold him accountable to the word of
God. And I think that you ought to speak to the congregation
and see there may be other people that believe these things, too,
that are just being quiet in here. But I said, there's going
to come a time though, if that doesn't, if the Lord doesn't
bring people to repentance on that here, the Bible says, and
the only advice I can give you guys is come out from among them
and be separate. I said, you guys got 40 men here
in this room tonight that represents 40 families. That's a, that's
a pretty large congregation right there. Come out from among them
and be separate. Come to the truth. distance yourself
from false religion, from false doctrine, from false preachers,
you know. And sometimes you have to do
that even though it's people we love, you know. Sometimes it's
people that we love. Maybe a pastor we've had our
whole entire life and we have to distance ourselves for the
sake of the truth. And so we see that Everything
is about the Lord Jesus Christ and in preaching and teaching
and ministering Jesus Christ and his gospel there's going
to be division brethren I'm going to tell you just from the short
time of ministry that I've had As a preacher and a pastor there's
going to be division that's going to come and So whenever we go
to the scriptures the intent of the scriptures is let me go
to the scriptures to see what I can find That makes me feel
good A lot of times people go to this as a devotional book,
and it is. It does bring comfort to us.
Now, I'm not saying that it doesn't, but the intent of this word and
why it was written is to first and foremost bear record and
glorify God, especially in the man, Jesus Christ, as he has
come as our savior. And whenever we go to the word,
we are to look in it for him and what he has done on our behalf.
And in doing that, we find comfort. Why? Because God has given us
a spirit that has brought faith to our hearts and minds so that
whenever the truth of God is preached and the glory of Christ
is exalted, the child of grace finds comfort in that. It brings
them comfort. It brings them rest. And I can't
explain that. I can't apply that. I can't teach
you how to live in that. I can't convey it, okay? All
I can say is, that's what happens. From experience, that's all I
can say. That's what happens. And from the word of God, I can
only say that's what happens in the child of grace, because
God says that he brings his peace to us by his spirit. The Bible says that these children
enter into this rest by faith. And so whenever faith is given
and the true gospel is believed, and whenever the Holy Spirit
brings us to these things, We rest in it. We find comfort in
it. This becomes the food for our soul. I was talking with
a brother just not too long ago on the radio, and they were from
up in Ohio, and Lord willing, we're gonna get to see them in
a couple weeks. Never met them in my life. They come across
our messages on the internet, and they just so happen to be
gonna come to this meeting that we're gonna be going to here
in a couple weeks. And they mentioned that, and I said, well, Be as
it may, me and my wife are Lord willing going to be out there
too. So I look forward to seeing you. But anyway, we were talking
on the phone and this lady and her husband and they were saying,
you know, we're in a primitive Baptist church here. We've been
here for quite a while. We used to be down in Texas.
Now we live up here and said, it's just, we don't know how
to explain it. We even feel bad about saying
stuff about it, but we've been coming here now for several years
and said, It's just, we almost hate getting up and going to
church. I said, whoa, that's okay. I said, what, so what's
the deal? She said, well, the people here, they believe the
doctrines of grace. They preach the doctrines of
grace, but they preach conditionalism and they preach that you have
to maintain a certain standard of holiness and that you have
to do all these things. And it's just, everything is
speckled with sovereignty, but Sovereignty, but sovereignty,
but and she said man me and my husband and she said her husband
is kind of newer to the doctrines of grace than her And everything
they're starting to see the absolute predestination in all things,
especially her she said, you know, I pretty much believe that
it's true, but you know, my husband's struggling wants to have some
questions, but She said I just the conditional part is just
every time we come they get up and it's a just not feeding our
soul. And I said, well, I can understand.
I said, you know, there was a time whenever I was in a church that
was preaching and it was all about what man has to do and
decisions, you know, free will and all this kind of stuff. And
I said, the Lord had already in my heart had been getting
begin showing me the doctrines of grace and sovereign grace
and predestination and all that stuff. And I said, whenever I
was hearing these preachings upon law and about what we have
to do and maintaining of a righteousness of our own and all this kind
of stuff and that the submission and all this kind of stuff that
we have to keep this Lordship type salvation that was being
preached. It just it wasn't feeding my soul because I knew the depth
of my heart was not able to do that. I wasn't able to keep those
things. I wasn't able to maintain a righteousness Whenever I looked
in here and seen really what righteousness was, I was not
coming up to any level of righteousness compared to that. And it was
discouraging, and it was depressing, and it was not feeding my soul.
But whenever I began to hear preaching and listen to men that
was coming from the vantage point of sovereign grace, where Christ
has done everything on your behalf, and that we just look to him
and we believe, And we trust in Him and that whatever He does
in us, that is His business. You know, He brings us along
as He desires. He gives me the desire and the
will to do of His good pleasure. I mean, that is Him and that's
His business. And so I'm not here to preach
and tell anybody how to do God's business. And I don't think that
you ought to be telling anybody else about God's business. That's
God's business. Now we encourage one another,
surely. And we admonish one another, surely. But yet, at the end of
the day, we realize that it is God who cleanses us, not only
from our sin, but in our sin. He cleanses us in our conscience
that the gospel is there and the work of Jesus Christ was
done so that we could have a clear conscience. In the Old Testament,
all those sacrifices, the Bible says never did clear the conscience
of sin because the sin was ever going and the sacrifices just
kept on a coming. Day after day, year after year,
the sacrifices were being laid down, and it was a constant reminder,
you sinned again, you sinned again, you sinned again, you're
a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're a sinner, you're
a sinner, you sinned again, you're back again today. Oh, another
sacrifice? What'd you do? You see how that
works? But brother, can you imagine
those priests that was standing, as the Bible says, daily, offering
up those sacrifices. They'd come in and they'd cleanse
themselves. They'd put on their priestly robes. They'd come in
to do those sacrifices. Can you imagine just the blood
and the smell and the stench? Can you imagine being a priest
and every day you look forward to getting up and what do you
got to do today? I got to go kill a calf. I got to go kill
a bird. I got to go kill this. I got
to go deal in death and blood day after day after day after
day. What are you doing today, Harold?
Same thing I did yesterday. Going up there and slaughtering
animals, offering them up. Oh, OK, what are you going to
do tomorrow? Same thing as I did yesterday and today. The monotony
of it. the stench of it, the work of
it. But yet the Bible says in Hebrews
that Christ for one time offered up sacrifices and there is no
more sacrifice needed and that he went and sat down. The priest
didn't get to sit down. He was constantly working. Whenever
his time for priest work was done, to be done, he came and
he stood and did sacrifices until it was all done and his turn
was over and it was the next priest's turn to come in. Jesus came in once, laid it down
and then sat down. And that was for all time. And
so we see that just the fact of this service of sacrifice
over and over and over in this blood that was being shed and
everything over and over. But yet in the gospel, we see
that this was done one time for us. And it was done on our behalf
that it would cleanse, not only be the legal thing that takes
away and covers our sin. Listen, in the sacrificial system,
there's a few things that was done. Number one, there was the
wrath of God that was taken away, the Passover. God gives the Israelites
the Passover, and in that Passover, that represented the taking away
or the covering of God's wrath. So one thing is, in Christ's
death, the wrath of God is removed from us. Okay. Now, granted,
that's from the foundation of the world. It's accounted from
the foundation of the world. But yet Christ in time came and
manifested that the shed blood is what God looks at. And that
is why there is no wrath upon us. Okay. So the Passover is
the removal of wrath or the passing over of wrath upon the people.
But yet, even though that there is a passing over of wrath or
there is a removal of wrath, There still is this thing of
continual sin, right? And so the other thing that comes
is the cleansing. There is a cleansing that takes
place with Christ, and that is the clearing of the conscience
to know that not only has wrath been removed, But have I been
reconciled back to God? Have I been cleansed so that
I could come into the presence of a holy God? Yes, maybe God
is appeased in his wrath and the legal aspect has been taken
up, but have I been reconciled to God? Can I still come to God
because I'm still a sinner? Okay, I'm still a sinner. How am I going to come and approach
and fellowship and rejoice and experience this life with God? There has to be a cleansing.
So there is an outward cleansing that takes place. And then there
was an inward cleansing of the conscience. There is an outward
cleansing where all the filth is removed by the blood of Jesus
Christ. What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of
Jesus. The blood of Jesus is what washes away our sin. and
cleanses us on the outside. But then the Spirit of God comes
and applies that cleansing inwardly to our experience and our conscience
so that we believe that because of Christ's death, that there
is no more sin. And there is nothing that separates
us from the love of God as we spoke about last week. And that
I can come boldly before the throne of God because the Spirit
has applied the cleansing of Jesus Christ and that water that
washed my sins away has now washed the conscience of my mind from
my continual sin so that I can look unto Christ and believe
upon Christ that whenever I come to him, there is nothing that
stands in the way where he says, uh uh uh, I'm not going to listen
to you until you do three Hail Marys and five, you know, slap
jacks. Till you crawl on your knees
up the giant steps of the Vatican. Till you lash yourself on the
back with a cat-o-nine-tail. Till you give all your money
into the, uh, uh, to the, to the teal. There is nothing that's gonna
separate us from that love. And so, there is the removal
of wrath, there is the cleansing, there is the cleansing of the
conscience, all these things, that's atonement. There is atonement,
a bringing at one with God, reconciliation to God. And so we see these things
in this sacrificial system. And it all points to the Lord
Jesus Christ. And here in Leviticus chapter
14, We see a beautiful picture of Jesus Christ's death for us.
You say, well, that's really wild, preacher. All I heard you
read was about someone taking a couple of birds and doing some
weird stuff with some birds. Well, brother, if you look through
here with Christ in your mind, you'll begin to see, especially
if you know your Bible, you'll begin to see all the pictures
of what Christ has done for us. So let's look at a few things
here. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, This shall be the law
of the leper in the day of his cleansing. This shall be the
law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. This is how God
has laid down the cleansing of the leper. First and foremost,
that's what we need to understand. We're about to read. God's about
to tell us. What is the cleansing of the
leper? How is the leper cleansed? Now
we all know in Scripture, and I don't think I have to Talk
about this too much and probably won't go to any verses or anything
to prove this, but I think we all are aware enough and been
in church long enough to know that throughout scripture, the
leper is always symbolizing the sinner. Leprosy is always indicative
or is illustrative or metaphorically the picture of sin. Whenever
Jesus in the New Testament healed the leper, we see that that healing
of a leper was a a picture of, uh, the, the removal of sin. Okay. So we see that the leper
represents or pictures in the type here, the center, every
one of us are sinners before God. Therefore we are all lepers
before God. Okay. We're all lepers before
God. And so we are filled with sin.
In the Old Testament, whenever someone got leprosy, that was
almost one of the worst things that could happen to somebody
because not only was it an incurable thing for the most part, but
whenever you had leprosy, you were exiled. You had to leave
outside the city, outside the camp, and you had to pitch your
tent way far away because you were unclean. If you got amongst
everybody, someone else could get it. It would come off on
somebody else and somebody else would get it. And eventually,
leprosy would kill out a whole town or a whole city. So whenever
you were found to have leprosy, you was removed from outside
the city and nobody could visit you, nobody could mess with you.
You were exiled. You were apart from the city
and the rest of the people. Well, brethren, that's what sin
has done to us. The leprosy, the sin that we
have has separated us from God. in the natural man. It has separated
us from God. We cannot, because of our unrighteousness,
we cannot come unto God. We cannot please God. We cannot
be forgiven. We cannot be loved. We cannot
come into an experience and a relationship with God or into his presence
because of our unrighteousness. We are unclean. The Bible says
we are as an unclean thing that's representative of a leper. We
are the unclean thing. We are full of sin and cannot
approach unto God. Now, let me just think, stop and maybe
I don't mean to make this an emotional for effect. I mean
to make it emotional for maybe you to realize and understand. The greatness of our salvation,
because sometimes we don't really realize like last week, we don't
really understand the depth of love that was given for us Especially
when we just think that God is the only God of love to everybody
when we see a specific targeted love and an effect that comes
out of that love by the Demonstrating of it through his death. We see
that his true love that is love That I am a sinner undeserving
who Christ died for in my place when I was yet a sinner When
I was an enemy of him when I hated him, whenever I was against him,
whenever I was a filthy leper. And think about that. You being
that leper who had been removed from all relationship, removed
from all fellowship. I mean, we get to come here and
fellowship, see each other, talk with each other, visit with people
face to face, have some sort of an interaction with people.
But can you imagine the leper? He's secluded out here all by
himself. Left to himself. And he surely wasn't to touch
a leper. And can you imagine never feeling
the touch of anybody again? Never being hugged by somebody
again? Never having a handshake by somebody? Pat on the back?
Holding hands, you know? Me and my wife, we like to hold
hands. Whenever you grab your wife's hand and you feel that
little touch, it just kind of makes a little, you know. Whenever someone hugs you, you
know, there's just that feeling of warmth and acceptance and
love that you feel whenever somebody gives you a hug. Whenever someone
comes up and puts their arm around your shoulder and hugs your neck
or shakes you or something like that, you know, there's just
that interaction between us as humans. We desire that, we feel
for that, except for some of my boys, they don't like me to
hug them. Maybe they do, but anyway. There's the touch. And to the
leper, there was no more touch. Not to feel another person's
touch or relationship and to be exiled. And then for Christ
in the New Testament, when He came to the leper and He touched
that leper and that leper was made whole, can you imagine to
be able to be touched again? to be able to be embraced again
by somebody? Can you imagine that? That is
the love of God for us. We are unclean things and God
has come to us as lepers and on behalf of what Christ has
done is able to embrace us in his love and to bring us to himself. And so we see here this leper
removed out of the city, unclean, vile, rejected of society, outside
of the camp. And it says here, that the law
of the leper in the day of his cleansing, he shall be brought
under the priest. Now I paused there and read that
three or four times and it just jumped out of the page. Number
one, he shall. Every leper that is a leper of
God, He'll allow me that. Every child of grace who is His,
as we mentioned last week, who has been given to Christ Jesus
from the foundation of the world, who are in their sins, in their
leprosy, in their defilement, in their putridness, shall be brought unto the priest. So number one, there is the guarantee
that every child of grace, no matter how much leprosy they
have, no matter how putrid their sores have become, no matter
how vile they are, the Lord here says they shall be brought to
the priest. There is no way that they are
going to be lost. Not one leper is going to be
left outside of the camp in that leprosy camp. Not one leper is
going to be left untouched by God. unembraced by Christ Jesus,
unaffected by the work that the priest will do on his behalf.
He shall be brought. But it also tells me right there,
brethren, that he has to be brought. The leprosy can't come on his
own. The leper was told to get out of town and he or not to
come back. And where did the priest do his
work? The priest did his work inside of town. He did it inside
the temple, right? He did it inside that tabernacle
and that's where he went in and did his priestly work. But here,
the leper is put outside of town. How is the leper going to get
to the temple and be cleansed? How is he going to come before
the priest? He shall be brought unto the priest. Brethren, thank
God that we have a priest who brought us to himself by going
outside of the camp. Turn with me, if you would, to
Hebrews chapter 13. Verse 10 says, whereof they have no right to
eat which serve the tabernacle for the bodies of those beasts
whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest
for sin are burned without the camp wherefore Jesus also that
he might sanctify the people with his own blood There you
go, Christ has set us apart by his own blood, that he has purified
us, that he has cleansed us with his own blood, suffered without
the gate. So he went outside, thus therefore
unto, go forth therefore unto him without the camp bearing
his reproach. So Christ suffered outside of
the camp. So back in Leviticus, we see
that the leper must be brought to the priest. But the priest
surely ain't bringing him into that city, bringing him into
that temple without them first being cleansed. So therefore,
the priest would go outside of the camp. And our Lord came outside
of the camp so that we might be cleansed. He says, And the
priest shall go forth out of the camp, and the priest shall
look and behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper,
then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be
cleansed two birds, alive and clean, and cedarwood and scarlet
and hyssop. And the priest shall command
that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running
water. I'd rather not put forth here
that these two birds are pictures of Christ Jesus and his two-fold
nature. Christ Jesus as the divine, united
with Christ Jesus the man. That's who these two
birds are representing. If you'll notice in verse 5 it
says the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed
in an earthen vessel over running water. Christ Jesus came for
the purpose and in the likeness of man so that he might be killed
in that earthen vessel. See God the divine cannot be
killed. God is eternal life. He cannot die. But yet a body
was prepared for him, the Bible says. The reason that he came
was that he might take on the flesh or take on the likeness
of his people. And that in taking on the likeness
of his people, he stood in their stead as their substitute. So his body stood in place of
my body. His humanity stands in the place
of my humanity. So his manhood is the representative
of my manhood. And my manhood, the Bible says,
the soul that sinneth it shall surely die. If you have broken
the law, there is no acquitting the wicked. That the wages of
sin is death. So therefore, Mike is deserved
of death. And so unless Mike pays that
wage, God's justice is not satisfying. God's justice will always be
satisfied because he is a just judge he will exact all payment
for those who are owing and So Michael Smith owes a debt to
God because of his sin the wages of sin is death So death is to
come because of my sin same thing for you from the youngest all
the way to the oldest Sin has separated you from God. Sin has
given you a death sentence in the natural man. You cannot come
to God. You cannot know God. You cannot
understand God. And you surely are not going
to be acquitted by God and brought in and just winked at and said,
you did pretty good. Come on in. No, every sin will
be exacted before God. That's why Christ came in our
stead. Because we can't exact that payment except by eternal
death. So God for his people came and
was the sacrifice. So in an earthen vessel he came
so that he could be killed. Jesus said, no one takes my life. I lay it down willingly. Jesus
came to willingly give his life up to be killed so that he would
be our perfect sacrifice. He was crucified willingly. He came because that was the
purpose of God from the foundation of the world that the Lamb slain
be the redemption of all His people to show forth His glory.
That's why sin had to enter into the world. That's why Adam had
to fall. Why? So that Christ could be
glorified as the Redeemer of the people. Because the cross
was the purpose from the beginning, not the plan B because Adam messed
up. And so Christ came in the earthen
vessel so that he might be killed. And it says here, the priest
shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen
vessel over running water. So the priest would take the
bird, he would kill the bird over that bowl of water, and
he would squeeze out all the blood into the water. So now
you have blood and water mingled together. What happened on the
cross whenever Jesus died? Anybody remember? Remember whenever it was getting
towards the end of the day, the Jews came and said, Hey, it's
our custom that, you know, we can't have these men hanging
up on this, these crosses because soon as darkness, soon as the
sun goes down, it becomes the Sabbath and we can't have people
up on this cross on the Sabbath. So We need to make sure these
men are dead and taken down off these crosses before Sabbath
hits. Well, the two thieves that hung
on Jesus, both his right and his left, both those had already
died. And Jesus was still alive. And
so what did our excuse me, they hadn't died, but they said, hey,
these guys are not dying fast enough. You need to get on with
it. So what did the soldiers do whenever
they wanted to hurry up a crucifixion? The Bible says that they would
go and they would break their legs because whenever someone
hung on the cross, you know, they were holding themselves
up by their legs, nailed their hands to the wood and they would
have to push themselves up and then they'd let themselves down
and hang. Then when they couldn't catch a breath, they'd push themselves
back up. And then when their legs would
give out, they'd come down and hang until they started suffocating. Then they pushed themselves back
up. Oh, side note. Remember, Jesus had to go through
that, for you, if you're his people. He had to do that for
you. And also remember, by the way, that back that's going up
and down against that wooden tree had been beat with 39 lashes
from a cat-of-ninth's tail, whose flesh was ripped open and all
of his innards were exposed. How long was he up there? Six hours, was it? Was it six
hours? He did that. Up and down. Up and down. But what did they do? They came
over and they broke the legs so that you couldn't push yourself
up anymore and you would hang and eventually suffocate to death. So they did that to the thief
here. They did that to the thief here. They came to Jesus and
found that Jesus had already said, it is finished. The Bible says that he gave up
his spirit father into thy hand. I commit my spirit and he gave
up the spirit and he died They didn't come and break his bones
You know why they didn't break his bones two reasons Why he
didn't they didn't break his bones number one the Bible already
had prophesied and Because prophecy is only God telling us what is
his purpose that is already laid down in heaven from the foundation
of the world. The Bible said that not one of
his bones would be broken. The Bible also says that they
would not take his life, that he would give it willingly. No
man took his life. They crucified him. They beat
him. They tortured him. He bled like
no one has probably ever bled before. He endured more than
just about anyone that probably has ever endured. But yet, the Bible says that
that was not what killed him. What killed him, or how his life
ended, was he gave up the ghost. He gave it up willingly. He died
willingly. He could have easily maintained
that for generations to come. He could have spoke the word
and all of that been healed. Matter of fact, we hear that
the Bible said he could have called a legion of angels to come down
and got him off that cross. Before any of that had transpired,
he could have called a legion of angels while he was standing
in front of Pilate. But that didn't happen because he did
it willingly. And so we see here the bird that was killed over
the earthen vessel. Had blood and water mingled in
right before Christ give up the ghost and died. They were coming
around to see if these men were still alive. And that soldier
took that spear and shoved it into Jesus' side. And the Bible
says that whenever he shoved that spear into the side of Jesus
Christ, that blood and water flowed out. That was a picture
here, brethren, of what we see In this, the blood is for our
justification, but yet the water throughout Scripture signifies
our cleansing. The water is for the cleansing,
the blood is for the justification. We are justified in His blood
and we are cleansed by the water. And here we see the perfect picture
of that, not only in the bird, but whenever Christ was crucified
on the cross and that spear thrust into his side and that water
and blood flowed out separately and it came out, it signified
that not only has God justified you, but you have been cleansed. That's the parts that we were
just talking about. We have the Passover, which is
the removal of wrath. Christ died. We have the atonement. Christ has brought us to God.
How did we get brought to God? Because God has justified us
through the cleansing in His blood. Through the cleansing
that we have in Him. And we have been washed. Then
how about us? What is it that cleanses our
conscience? The Bible says that He has sanctified
us by the water of His Word. He has set us apart and has purified
our thoughts and our thinking by the water of His Word, by
the study of God's Word. It cleanses us from our conscience
of thinking. That's why we need the gospel
preached to us. That's why we need to study our Bible. That's
why we need to hear gospel preaching. It's because when we hear that
and we read that and we study this, It is the Word of God reminding
us of the gospel of what Christ has done. And that clears our
conscience. Whenever I hear, wait a minute,
you thinking that you're trying to do some righteousness on your
own. Jesus already did it for you. Rest in that. Jesus already
did that for you. Rest in that. You've sinned against
God. I understand. But that was sealed
up in a bag and God has cleansed you of that. God has removed
that sin and He is forgiving you. He no longer holds that
sin against you. Oh, and by the way, those thousands
of sins that you're going to commit tomorrow and the next
day and the next day and the next day, He still those up in
that bag, too. And He's forgiving you of all those sins as well.
See, the gospel is what cleanses our conscience that we are that
we are unworthy and unguilty and guilty before God and cannot
come to Him. But the Bible continually reiterates
that because of the gospel, because of the work of Christ Jesus,
we can come to Him. Why? Because the blood and the
water was mixed together and we were not only justified, but
we were cleansed. We can come before God. We've
been cleansed as the leper and we can come back into the camp
and we can approach under the tabernacle. And now that the
veil of God has been torn asunder forever, there is no separation
between us and God. And we can approach boldly under
the throne of God. He says here, and the priest
shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen
vessel over running water. As for the living bird, He shall
take it and the cedarwood and the scarlet and the hyssop."
They would take that cedarwood and they'd take that hyssop and
they would tie that bird with that scarlet thread or scarlet
rope around that cedarwood. And the priest would take that
in and he would dip the tail of that bird and that hyssop
into that blood and water that was in that bowl. And it says,
and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird
that was killed over the running water, and he shall sprinkle
upon him that is to be cleansed." So the priest would take that
bird, the live one, put that hyssop on the end of that stick,
tie it all together, stick it into that blood, and then come
over and he would sprinkle it on that leper's head. And he shall sprinkle upon him
that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times and shall
pronounce him clean and shall let the living bird loose in
the open field. And so what do we see pictured
here, brethren? Well, number one, we see that the human side
of Christ was the bird that was killed and whose blood was put
into the earth and into the bowl with the water. But we see the
divine side of Christ Jesus is the one who is alive, who cannot
be killed. And He takes that blood and then
now applies that blood to you. That's the Spirit of God here.
The Spirit of God working on our behalf by coming in and applying
the blood of Jesus Christ to our conscience. Now, surely before
that, That living bird is turned loose, and the Bible says that
it is loose into the open field, it's able to fly back to wherever
it comes from, right? We see the picture of Christ
Jesus in the sacrificial system here. He is the priest who has
not only made the sacrifice, he has now taken the blood of
that sacrifice and cleansed everything that was to be cleansed And then
that cleansing he takes and then he presents that blood upon the
altar. Jesus Christ, the Bible says,
that he took that blood and he went back in and he brought that
blood back into the tabernacle of God and he presented that
blood and he brought forth that sacrificed blood on our behalf.
The Bible says without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sin. And that the sprinkling of that blood refers back here
to these Old Testament times where they took that blood and
they sprinkled that blood on everything to purge it so that
it would be cleansed. The altar of God was sprinkled
with blood. Everything was sprinkled with
blood. And here we see the leper is
directly sprinkled with this blood. And it says seven times. That's that's perfection. That's
completion. Or excuse me, that's perfection. We see that he shall pronounce
him clean. So the priest is the one who
pronounces him clean, right? Why does the priest pronounce
him clean? Because the leper came to him? No, because we just
said that he shall be brought to the priest. The leper didn't
come. He had to be brought. Do you
say that he declared him clean because the leper came and said,
hey, I believe that you can make me clean. No. The leper didn't become clean
because somebody believed that the priest could make him clean. Did he do it because the leper
said, well, I tell you what, let me get up and do all these
righteous things and then I'll be clean. Now, what had to happen
to this leper for the priest to be satisfied with the cleansing
and say, you are clean? The blood had to be sprinkled. It was the blood that had to
be sprinkled, brethren. You are clean before God, not by anything
that you have done. You are the vile leper that is
there, hopeless, helpless before an almighty God. And the priest,
had you brought to him outside the camp, And the priest had
to shed the blood. The priest had to dip the bird. The priest had to apply the blood. And then the priest and the priest
alone could declare you clean. See, it was nothing on your part.
The only thing that you were a part of is the sin, the leprosy
that was being cleansed. You know, the old adage that
we hear all the time, the only thing that you brought into this salvation
was your sin or something like that, something to that effect.
The only thing that you provided for your salvation was your own
sin, something like that. Well, here it is, brethren. The
only thing that can declare you to be clean before a holy God
so that you might come back into the camp is the blood of Jesus
Christ. There are no works, there are
no conditions, there are no religious rights that you must go through
to be brought back into the camp and be declared clean. Now listen,
whenever that leper was cleansed, that leper was surely clean.
Now it says here, it says, and he that is to be cleansed shall
wash his clothes, shave off all of his hair. We need to wash
our clothes. Can you imagine? Y'all know what leprosy is, right?
Leprosy is somebody that has all these boils all over them.
open sores that just ooze with pus. And it usually covers their
whole body or at least part of their body or something like
that. But it's just putrefying sores that are oozing pus all
the time. And they would have to wrap those
people in cloth or cover them in, you know, clothes or whatever.
And here, can you imagine a leper that has had some clothes on
with his leprosy will now You have been made clean. It doesn't
stand right for you to continue walking around in those clothes
that are putrefied filled, right? Those clothes are just nasty. And all they can do is bring
more nasty onto you. But what do we hear preached
in our churches all over the place? Get out there and do your righteousness
before God. I know you've been legally saved
before God and his blood has cleansed you of all your unrighteousness
and all your sin. But now you've got to pay back
to God by living a perfect and holy life before him. The Bible
says that no man's going to see God unless he is holy. So you
got to get out there and be holy as he is holy. Jesus said, take that coat off. Take those putrefying clothes
off and do away with those clothes. Those clothes are going to do
you no good. They're only going to defile you. That leper was
only going to be defiled by the clothes that he continued to
wear that was full of leprosy pus. Whenever we come unto Jesus
Christ, Just as Adam and Eve, whenever they sinned before God
and realized they was naked and they made that suit of fig leaves
for themselves and they come before God, God said, uh uh,
that's not good enough. So what did God do? God shed
blood and gave a clothing of fur to them from that animal
and he clothed them. Whenever we come before God,
God doesn't say, come to me and now start producing all this
righteousness. You were trying to do it on your
own, now I'm going to do it in you and all of what you do is
going to be what I look at. No. Whenever he says come unto
me, he says come unto me without money. Come unto me for free. Why? Because I have a coat that
I've already bought for you. This coat is sparkling white.
This clothing is without spot and without blemish. This coat
is as clean as I am, and I'm going to robe you in my coat.
I have a coat for you. Brethren, the leper was to shut
off those dirty clothes. It says him to shave off all
of his hair and wash himself in water that he may be clean.
After that, he shall come into the camp and shall tarry abroad
out of his tent for seven days. Now, brethren, I'll be honest
with you. I don't know exactly what all that means. I've been
yet to give any light on what that talks about. But in verse
nine, it says this, but it shall be on the seventh day that he
shall shave all of his hair off of his head and his beard and
his eyebrows, even all of his hair. He shall shave off and
he shall he shall wash his clothes and he shall wash his flesh and
water and he shall be clean. There's that word shall again.
He shall be clean. The priest has declared this
to be so. The priest has declared that
this man is now clean. If God has declared something
so, no man can declare it not, right? The Bible says that it
is God who justifies because Christ is the one who
died. No man can lay any charge against
God's elect. Why? Because it's God that justified
and it's Christ who died. Christ died in our stead. His
blood was shed as our blood. His life was given as our life.
His obedience was counted as our obedience. Therefore, God
looks upon us as righteous as Christ is. So that clothing that
we wear is without leprous spots. However, robe that we want to
continue to wear of our own righteousness will always have leprosy and
will always be commanded to be outside of the camp. As long
as there is leprosy, it's not going to be. That's why Paul
said he said that when I want to be right, sin is always with
me whenever I want to do good. Evil is with me all the time.
That's why I said, oh, wretched man, that I am who shall deliver
me from this body of death. That's what a leperous body was,
was a body of death. Who shall deliver me from this
body of death? Well, the only one that can deliver us from
the body of death, brethren, is the Lord Jesus Christ, the
one who come outside of the camp and died outside of the camp
as the leper in our behalf. The one who came and died outside
of the camp for our justification. Whose body and blood was broken
and shed so that you might go free, so that you might be brought
back into the camp, so that you could be made whole. So we praise
our Lord Jesus for this, and we're thankful for the pictures
in scripture that point to his work. All right, anybody have
any questions or comments? If anybody has any light on that
shaving the head stuff, I'd be glad to hear it. Did they literally sprinkle the
blood on him? They literally sprinkled the
blood on him. They dipped that live bird, the tail down inside
that blood bowl, and then the priest took and shook that over
him, and that blood fell on him. I thought it was a metaphor or
something. Well, it is a metaphor to us
today, but it actually happened to them. All right, anybody else got anything,
questions, comments, corrections? All right, great. Father, once again, we come to
you humbly before your throne of grace, and we just thank you
for the Lord Jesus Christ, who on our behalf has made us clean. We thank you for his sacrifice
and the salvation that came through it. We thank you, Father, that
we can be brought back into the camp through the blood and the
cleansing of Jesus Christ. We thank you for the gospel that
you've given to us to cleanse us from unbelief. And Lord, we just thank you for
the Holy Spirit who applies that and intercedes on our behalf
in those things to teach us. testify of Christ Jesus to convict
us of our sin, but to bring us to the gospel of Jesus Christ
and to show us the freedom and the liberty and the life that
we have through the cross of Jesus. Thank you for all these
brethren that you've gathered here today. We continue to pray
for all of our loved ones, Lord, that are sick and have gone through
surgeries. And Lord, we just continue to
pray for all the medical people that are working with them. We
pray for all the families involved, those who are serving them and
ministering to them. Lord, we pray that you would
keep them and minister to them. Again, we are just so grateful
for all that you've given us in this life and what is wrought
on our behalf in Jesus Christ. And Lord, I pray that what has
been said today has been in accordance with the truth that you have
comforted your people and that Christ has been exalted and glorified
for it's in his name that we pray. Amen.