Evening. If you would, turn with
me to Leviticus chapter 14. Leviticus 14. So the title of
my message tonight is The Law of the Leper. And in order for
us to understand something about the laws concerning the leper,
we need to know a little bit about the leper. The Lord in
His wisdom has taken a passage of Scripture to devote just to
creating a law regarding the leper. So let's look at a little
bit about the leper. So turn back one chapter to Leviticus
13. We'll look at verses 9 through 11. When the plague of leprosy
is in a man, then he shall be brought unto the priest, and
the priest shall see him. And behold, if the rising be
white in the skin, and it turned the hair white, and there be
quick raw flesh in the rising, it is an old leprosy in the skin
of his flesh. And the priest shall pronounce
him unclean, and shall not shut him up, for he is unclean. Go over to verse 43. Then the priest shall look upon
it, and behold, if the rising of the sore be white, reddish
in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth
in the skin of the flesh, he is a leprous man, he is unclean,
and the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean, his plague
is in his head, And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes
shall be rent and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon
his upper lip and cry, unclean, unclean. And all the days wherein
the plague shall be in him, he shall be defiled. He is unclean,
and he shall dwell alone. Without the camp shall his habitation
be. This chapter goes on to tell
us that any of his garments that he wore were unclean and that
the only thing they could do with them is burn them. And it
even goes on to say that the habitation where he lived, his
house, if it had the plague of leprosy in it, that they'd shut
it up for a few days and if it was still there, all they could
do was tear the house down. So this was a horrible plague
and a horrible disease in this day. And so I had to ask the
question, If I'm one of the ones who's been declared unclean,
how can I be made clean? Well, there was only one person
that could make me clean, and it was the same person that declared
me unclean, and that was the priest. And when the priest declared
you as a leper to be unclean, there was no time limitation.
So it's not that you're unclean for 60 days or 6 months or 6
years. You're unclean forever once declared
unclean. Revelation 22 11 says, He that
is unjust, let him be unjust still. And he that is filthy,
let him be filthy still. There's no time limitation to
these things and they go on. And so this thing of being unclean
is a state of being. So when the leper was declared
unclean, he's unclean or unclean. So to understand a little bit
about leprosy and why it was so bad, I looked it up and tried
to get a little better understanding of what what I thought it was
and what I learned about it. So, leprosy, obviously, we know
and can read in the scriptures, is a very horrible disease. We
read of lepers coming to the Lord. It started with red and
white spots, kind of splotches in your skin. You might think
it's a rash, and it develops over time. It said it would spread. As a disease, it's not something
that just isolated itself, it would spread all through your
skin. And it would end up killing your skin, killing your muscle,
killing your nerves. So that when we maybe have seen
pictures or have some idea of what leprosy is, you think of
people losing their fingers, losing their toes, their nose.
These things, the nerves are killed. They can't even feel
the pain. This is how bad this disease is. and it scarred the
flesh, you're never the same. So you can get really sick from
some things and then recover over time and you can't really
tell that I've been sick. But with this, you're permanently
changed. And so, the lepers were cast
out, they were put outside the city, so much that they made
a law to say, you're not even allowed to come in the city.
You have to dwell out here alone, away from your family, away from
your job, away from everyone. We're putting you outside. You
can't be around anyone. You cover your face and you cry
unclean when anyone else comes around because you don't want
to get anybody else sick. Unclean is also translated as
polluted, saying stay away. If you touched anything, it became
unclean and it was unclean because you touched it. Life as you knew
it was over if you were declared as unclean and had leprosy. So
this thing of leprosy, the physical manifestation of it, what a picture
that is of sin before God and how he sees it in us. That's
what I believe leprosy is given as this picture in the scripture.
It's described by the prophet Isaiah as the way God sees sin
on us as wounds, bruises, putrefying sores, rotting. It's not bound
up, it's left open. You bind it up when it's gonna
heal, but these aren't bound up sores, they're open, rotting,
getting worse. Sin is the transgression of the
law, and the wages of sin are death. So where does that leave
you, and where does that leave me? Well, Romans 3.23 says, all
have sinned and have come short of the glory of God. What's that
mean? All means all. That means everybody.
No one is excluded. John 1.8 says, if we have no
sin, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us. So I see that I sin by deed,
by what I do, and I sin by my birth. It's what I am. I'm my
sinful nature. So I can't get around this thing
of sin. This is what I am. And a sinful nature can only
produce sin. You cannot have some good works
and some sinful works. It's only sin. And the way we
can understand some of that, I'll give you a couple examples.
One would be, James said, can a fountain put forth both salt
and fresh water? If you have a fountain of salt
water, you'd know that's, take a taste, okay, that's salt water.
You have one over here that has fresh water. You take a taste
and you say, okay, that's fresh water. What if you mix the two?
What comes out? You still taste salt water. It
may be a little more diluted with something else, but it's
still salt water. And what he's saying here is the fountain can
only derive the source of that water from its source. And so
if it puts forth salt water, it can only be salt. as a source. So that's what our sinful nature
is. We sin because we have a sinful
nature. So I can put a tiger in a cage
up here. I could bring it down and put
it in a cage and you could sit here and say, okay, that's a
pretty well behaved animal. It's not running around eating
people and mauling people. It's just kind of laying there
and looking at us. Well, that's because it's in a cage. His nature
is that he's a wild animal and you can't change that. Men try
to take these animals and train them in the circus and they walk
them around, but then again we see people on the news that sometimes
these animals turn on them. It's because it's their nature.
And that's what false religion is trying to do to men. It's
trying to tell them that they don't have this sinful nature,
and that they're not sinners, and that you try to be like Christ,
you try to do these good things so you can be more like Christ.
But the problem is, you have a sinful nature. You can put
that animal in a cage for a while, but eventually he's going to
get out. And you're only able to restrain him while he's in
that cage and under those bonds. Just as the leper is condemned
to being unclean, and that all that he touches is unclean, the
sinner is condemned to a sinful nature, and he can only sin.
And that's despite our supposed intentions. See, as men, we try
to explain our sin away. We try to say, well, you've maybe
gone into somebody's house and they have some image of what
they say the Lord is and what He looks like. And they say this
graven image, it's a graven image. The Bible clearly commands and
forbids that. But yet they say, well, this
reminds me of thinking about the Lord, or this reminds me
of... They try to justify it, but sin is still sin. And we
don't ever excuse or justify sin. So if all I do is sin, there's
nothing I can offer to God that will be accepted. He will not
hear me and he will not accept me. I'm cast out. I'm just like the leper. I've
said, you have to go outside the city. This is what he told
Adam and Eve when Adam was found with sin on him. He put Adam
and Eve out of the garden and he put two angels there with
flaming swords that guarded the entrance that no more can you
come in here. It's not that you can have access
to me, you can come in here and sleep at night, but then in the
morning you have to go back out. No, you're put out. So we've
been estranged from God because of our sin. Then what hope is
there for an unclean man or woman who is cast out and is a sinner?
Well, our only hope is found in this, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners, of whom I'm chief. You see, if
I cannot reckon myself as utterly sinful, how then can I have any
hope in the salvation of Jesus Christ that's in this gospel?
Because it says that he came to save sinners. Not part-time
sinners, people who are bad sometimes, but not all that bad, and they,
you know, over here, these things, I guess these things are good,
I had good intentions. It's not for part-time sinners. And it's
not for past-time sinners, people that would say that, well, I've
quit doing this or that sin, you know, I've put that away
from my life, I've put that out. No. Jesus Christ came to save
sinners, the worst kind, people like me. It's painful to consider
how lost we really are. As men and women, we don't really
like to think about that and to dwell on that, but the Lord
wept over Jerusalem. When he stood outside the city,
he wept over it. It takes no pleasure in the death
of the wicked. It's painful to see if we really
understood how sinful we are to God in his eyes. He said,
I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners unto repentance.
So I can't make myself clean, so I need someone to do it for
me. So how can the unclean be made clean? Well, the only way
is through the priest, as we looked at earlier. The priest
is going to do three things for me. First, he has to come to
the place where I am. You see, I couldn't go into the
city as a leper. The priest had to come to me.
The second thing is the priest had to provide all that God required
in order for him to put a sacrifice. God will provide himself a sacrifice,
a lamb. And the third thing that the
priest does for me is the priest will perform that which is all
God requires in order for me to be accepted. So what a picture
of this priest is of our Lord. Only the priest could declare
the leper clean and only Christ can make me clean. So if we look
at our text here in Leviticus 14, read the first seven verses. And the Lord spake unto Moses
saying, this shall be the law of the leper in the day of his
cleansing. He shall be brought unto the
priest. And the priest shall go forth out of the camp. And
the priest shall look, and behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed
in the leper, then shall the priest command to take for him
that is to be cleansed two birds, alive and clean, and cedarwood,
and scarlet, and hyssop. And the priest shall command
that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running
water. And 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 living bird, in the blood
of the bird that was killed over 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. So my question first is, what
did the leper do in this whole process of his cleansing? So
if we look at it, did he go to the priest? No. He was put out
of town. If he even came into town, I'm
pretty sure they would have run him right back out because they
didn't want the lepers walking in and around where the people
were. So he was put out. So the priest had to go outside
the camp. He couldn't just come in, let
alone go to the temple. just as you and I cannot go to
the Father because of our sin. I can't come myself to the Father.
You see, I have sin on me, just like this leper couldn't come
to the temple. And so the priest had to come to me, just like
the Lord Jesus Christ has to come to me in this thing of salvation. I can't go to the Father because
of my sin. And does this offend you? Men
and women get offended when someone tells them they can't do something.
I know when somebody says, you can't do this, well, Yes, I can. Well, not in this thing. Not
in this thing of salvation we can't. So the Lord asked this
question to his disciples when they murmured at his words. He
said, does this offend you? Because there's some of you that
believe not. Therefore I said unto you that no man can come
unto me except it were given unto him of my father. And from
that time many of his disciples walked no more with him. You
see, we can't come unto God, not by our own will, not by our
merits, not by anything. He has to come to us and he has
to seek us. It's not us seeking him. He sought
us. The leper was totally dependent
upon the priest coming to him outside the camp in a place where
he was. The sinner is totally dependent
on Christ to come outside the camp. Christ has to come outside
the camp. He had to be made in the form
of a man. He had to leave heaven, where
He and His Father dwelt, to come down here into this sin-filled
world that we're in. To leave outside the camp to
seek out His people. To seek out and save that which
was lost. You see, if I'm to be found by
Christ, I first have to be lost. And the Lord has to show me and
give me some understanding of what my sin is. This leper was
also vile to the people. They didn't want him around.
He was sick, contagious, rotting. He was useless. He couldn't work.
They just put him out. So really probably all they did
is they sat by the wayside begging most of the time. Their families
were estranged from them. They were put out. How much more
am I estranged, sick, rotting as the sinner being vile before
God? How then can I be made clean?
Well, were all the lepers made clean? No, because it talks about
many lepers not being cleansed. The scripture does, but only
the ones to whom the Lord was sent. No, but I must examine
what the requirements were in this thing of being a leper and
being made clean. What were the requirements to
be made clean and do I fit those requirements? Well, if you turn
back one page again to Leviticus 13, In verse 12 it says, and if the
leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all
the skin of him that hath the plague, from his head even to
his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh, Then the priests shall
consider, and behold, if the leprosy have covered all his
flesh, and he shall pronounce him clean at half the plague,
it is all turned white, and he is clean." So we see here only
the lepers who were completely covered in leprosy. The priest
looked him over, he looked at his hands, he looked at his arms,
his legs, looked under his clothes, looked everywhere to see, is
there anywhere on his skin that there's any good flesh? He says,
no, it's only leprosy. Only leprosy from head to foot,
no good flesh. Then, and only then, can he be
made clean. So this story is given to show
us that most vile of sinners, only the most vile, the chief
of sinners, are the ones to whom the Lord says that Christ is
sent and to make them clean. Turn with me over to Ephesians
2 if you will. Hold your finger in the chapter
we're at though. So Ephesians 2 verse 1, and you
hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein
in times past you walked according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience, among whom we
all had our conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature the children of wrath, even as in others. But God, who
is rich in mercy, and for his great love were with he loved
us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ. By grace you're saved. How is
the sinner described here? dead in sins, the children of
disobedience, the children of wrath. So this includes all sinners
who don't fit that bill. It's only those who are dead
in sins. It's only the leper who's completely covered in leprosy.
The sinner who is dead in sins has nothing to offer. I have
nothing to offer God to come to do anything for me. And I
can do nothing about my state. I'm a sinner and that's all I
can be. That's all I can produce is sin. And so that is the sinner. In verse 4 it said that God will
have mercy on. It's only the sinner that's dead
in sins. So if you turn back to Leviticus
chapter 13, where we were, so we can see that this is the leper.
The only one that has any business or has any right to be cleansed
is the one who is completely covered in leprosy. But the Scripture
goes on to point out one thing here that I think is interesting.
In verse 14, Well, let's read verse 13. The priest shall consider
and behold that the leprosy hath covered all his flesh. He shall
pronounce him clean that hath the plague. It is all turned
white and he is cleaned. But when raw flesh appeareth
in him, he shall be unclean. So what is this raw flesh? Well,
if I'm the chief of sinners and I'm dead in sin, My leprosy is
a representation of what my sin is. If I then find good spots
of flesh in me, This is us puffed up with pride, somehow gives
me the right to look down on someone else, and that's not
what being saved by grace is. Being saved by grace is you're
the sinner that is only covered in leprosy, and that I can do
nothing other than sin, and I have no good in me. And anything good
in me, that good flesh, it's saying, if you find any good
flesh in him later, then that's unclean. And so only the most
vile and only the most full of leprosy are the ones that can
be made clean. So before I believed, when I
believe, and what will continue to get me to Christ the Lord
is salvation by grace. So thanks be to God for his long
suffering with his people. Because those, I mean, we're
men, and we, men and women that are sinners, and we think and
do horrible, awful things, even professing to believe the gospel.
And thank God, God is long-suffering with his people, despite what
we are. How then can the unclean be made clean? The priest must
first come to the place where the leper was. He couldn't come
to him. And secondly, the priest must provide all that God requires
to make me clean. And so that's what all these
things in chapter 14, it talks about in verse 4. The priest
shall command to take for him that is to be cleansed. First,
two birds, alive and clean. This, we'll see, is a picture
of substitution. And secondly, what was provided
was cedar wood. When we think of cedar wood,
what's the significance of that? Well, cedar wood, we read about
the Cedars of Lebanon, which indicates strong and firm and
enduring. It doesn't go away. They built
the temple with cedars. And so the sure, firm, enduring,
which is pointing to the work on the cross. So, the Lord's
work on the cross in accomplishing salvation for His people, it's
not something that's going to fade away, or that's going to
rot, or that's not going to be sure. It's something that is
sure, firm, and enduring. His covenant with His people.
And so the third thing that was provided was scarlet. It was
scarlet wool. And the one thing that, first,
the other thing that this is referred to in scripture is the
Lord actually wore a scarlet robe right before He was crucified.
When they took His garment and they beat Him and they put the
crown of thorns, they gave Him the scarlet robe. And the fourth
thing that was provided was hyssop. Hyssop was what applied the blood
over the door. It was also on the sponge with
vinegar when they gave it to the Lord on the cross. So this
was the hyssop. So the four things, the two birds,
the cedar wood, the scarlet, and the hyssop. So all the leper
needed was provided for him by the priest. How do we know this?
How do we know this? It doesn't outright say that,
but we know this because it says, two birds, alive and clean. You see, if that leper provided
those birds, they would be unclean, because he provided them. And
you see, this is the message of the gospel, that the leper
provided nothing, and the sinner provides nothing, just as Christ
has provided all that will ever be required. And this is Christ,
my high priest, providing all for me. So in verse five, it
says, one of these birds must be killed in an earthen vessel.
This represents the sin payment, the killing of the bird. The
law demands payment for sin. The only wages for sin are death.
And so the bird had to be killed. Justice. The two birds, one was
killed that the other might be free. Here is the love of God. that the Lord came in the form
of an earthen vessel. He was born of a woman. He was
all God and all man. They shall call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. How? As the
substitute. He bore God's wrath for sin for
his people that the Father had given him. The substitute took
my sins and my sorrows, and he made them his very own. He bore
the burden to Calvary, and he suffered, and he died alone.
If you are I, and to be saved from our sins, it took God himself,
the spotless Lamb of God, being made flesh, coming to this earth
as a man, living perfectly before God. We say that, but do we really
consider what that is? Having not one sin. We sin every
second and don't think anything of it. We can't even sin, can't
ever stop sinning. Living perfectly, bearing our
sin, and then God making it justly the Lord's, making it his. The
reproaches of them that reproach thee, the Father, have fallen
upon me. the Son. He suffered and died,
and He was found guilty before His Father, all to pay for our
sins, even if I was the only one. And may God give me the
ability to remember this, that even if I was the only one and
everyone else didn't have to have someone save them, if I
was the only one, that it took the Son of God to die for me
in order for me to be saved. In verse five it says, he was
killed over running water and out of the Lord's side when he
was killed flowed blood and water. The water washes away sin and
guilt, my filthiness. The blood gives me his righteousness,
his holy nature, which cannot sin. In verse 6, as for the living
bird, I like how it says that, as for the living bird, it may
as well say, as for the sinner, saved by grace. If I am to live
with Christ, then I must die with Him as well, because my
life must be His life. And when He died, I die with
Him. that I might be raised with him unto eternal life, unto perfection,
the resurrection. And this is what we symbolize
and confess through Believer's Baptism. So the next thing that
was provided was this cedar pole. So I read a little bit about
this as far as the history of this and it is interesting the
way they described it. So they say that this cedar was
a pole. And this living bird was bound
to this pole. So they stretched his wings out
and they would bind his wings with that scarlet wool, bound
him to the pole. And on the end, they would attach
that hyssop at the end of that pole. Our Lord wore a scarlet
robe and He was also bound to a pole by nails. He was bound
by obedience to His Father. He was bound to fulfill the law
to redeem all his people. He was bound to crush the serpent's
head, and he was bound to accomplish our salvation in full. And this
bird was then, as he's been bound, armed wing to wing, spread out
on this pole, he's dipped down into the blood and the water.
What a picture of baptism this is. The death of one for another
in substitution, the atonement found in the blood and the water,
the washing away of sin, and through the blood, the giving
of righteousness, and then raised out of the water unto perfection.
He's made clean. So the priest performed all that
God required in order for this leper to be made clean, just
like the priest performed, as Christ performed, all that I
required to be made clean. This hyssop, in verse 7, was
blood-soaked, so it had been dipped down in this blood and
water, and then it was sprinkled on the leper. And then they pronounced
him clean, and they let the living bird loose into the open field. You see, the hyssop with the
blood on it, when he sprinkled it on it and made him clean,
this is the same hyssop that put the blood over the door that
said, pass by this house. Pass by. The blood on the leper
said, pass me by. His sins are covered. They're
covered underneath the blood. And so this living bird was then
let loose. He's not bound anymore. They
cut the scarlet, they bound him to that pole and they cut him
loose. You can imagine how quickly he flew away and how high and
he was free. Just as we, when we're made clean,
when Christ made me clean, I was no more bound to sin. I'm no
more bound to what I was bound to before. I've been baptized
in His blood. He's washed away all my sins,
and now I'm no more bound to sin. I've been made free in Christ,
clean, faultless, such that I cannot sin. When? Is that gonna happen
when I die? That's kinda what we think, because,
you know, I look at myself now, no, it's right now. As he is,
so are we in this world. But, we have our old man. We
still have this flesh. You see, you tell me that. You tell me that I cannot sin
and that I'm holy and blameless and unreprovable before God the
Father and Christ, but all I see is sin and all I do. But, well,
that leper who was pronounced clean, what did he look like
before he went in? To the priest, did he made clean?
He looked like a leper. And after the priest had performed
all those things and made him clean, what did he look like
when he came out? He looked like a leper. And that's
all we see. All we see is the old effects,
the old scars from our leprosy. with the leprosy were scarred
and were maimed. The leper lost a hand, he lost
a foot. It scarred him. No matter what
he did for the rest of his life, he was always seen and known
as a leper because of the scars and what it did to him. Just
as we see and identify ourselves as sinners because of the scars
and things that we have to look to every day. affected his walk,
affected everything he could see, still looked leprous. And
this is our experience in the gospel and the experience of
the believer. We rejoice in the gospel, we
have a love for Christ, we believe the gospel, but we see we're
still sinning. We have unbelief, doubts, walking
contradiction, that's me. The cleansed leper would forever
bear the scars of leprosy. The redeemed in Christ, while
in this world, will bear the scars of sin in their flesh.
And all we see in both the leper and the sinner are the old effects,
but both are still clean. In one glorious day, there's
gonna be no more scars, there's gonna be no more hint of sin,
that it was even ever present. And I love that example of the
men that were thrown in the fiery furnace. You know what it's like
if you've been camping, you know, you smell like smoke when you
come back and your clothes stink and all the burnt, I mean, everything
you've got stinks, like fire and smoke. And these men that
were thrown in the fiery furnace, see, when they were brought out,
there was not even the hint of smoke on their clothes. So you
see, when we're regenerated and the Lord gives us our new bodies,
we'll be without sin and there will be no hint that it ever
even existed. I won't have to feel bad about anything. I won't
have to worry that somebody's going to see sin on me, that
I'll be exposed. No, it's gone. So we can rejoice
now. We can believe and rest in Christ.
We're accepted and we can approach unto God through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Just like this leper. He was
made clean. He no longer was put outside
the camp once he was made clean. They welcomed him back in. You
can go home to your family. You can go home to your life.
You're no longer an outcast. You're no longer put out. You've
been made clean. He could go where he wanted to be and do
what he wanted to do. And that's what we're able to
do with the freedom that we have in Christ without sin. To those
that may know or aren't sure if they believe or trust Christ,
the gospel is simple. Either Christ saved his people
or he didn't. So you have to ask yourself this
question. Are you a sinner? If you're a sinner, do you have
a need for being saved? Do you have a need of salvation?
Salvation where He comes to the place where you are. A salvation
where He provides everything that you'll need. And a salvation
where He performs everything that God will require for you
to be saved without any help from you, making you perfectly
clean without sin. How foolish is the leper who
would wait to be made clean? The leper that could be made
clean, and he would wait. Why would he not be made clean?
How foolish would we be to not trust Christ to be made clean? He's the only way. He's the only
way. were to bow the knee to Christ
and to trust in Him, looking to what He did, not my leprous
scars, not this flesh, everything that resides in me. If He makes
me clean, if He says I'm saved and He says I'm holy and I'm
blameless and I'm approvable in His sight, can I be anything
but that? He's God. How can I be anything
but that? Ask the Lord to save you despite
yourself, looking to His accomplished work as all you'll ever need.
How can one be made clean that's unclean? By casting everything
upon Christ, trusting Him to come to the place where you're
at, to provide all you'll need, and to perform all that God will
require from salvation without any help from you. That's all. Let's bow our heads.