Transcription
It is good to us. Good singing spirit in service, being around people that are not afraid to worship the Lord. When I came, I, I didn't know who would be here. I didn't, I didn't realize that so many old friends that I know, brother, I hadn't seen forever, brother. I didn't realize that I, I would be among friends as much as I am. And I'm grateful for that. It brings back a lot of memories from my childhood and from my raisin. I'm grateful for that. But you just remind me of the kind of men that I grew up with, my heroes, shaped me and fashioned me. I'm grateful for my heritage.
I'm grateful for preacher. Thank you again for the invitation that I will be here. I have been self-doctoring all day and, uh, don't think it has done a bit of good. All I need is about 30 minutes. If I can get 30 minutes in, then we'll just go and see what the Lord does. I'm in Leviticus 14 tonight. Leviticus 14 tonight.
Several years ago, I had a little message. I preached a few times around the country. And it seemed like the Lord used it, but you men preachers will understand when I say that you just know when it's ran its course and the Lord is done with it, it's time to set it aside. So, I had, but I was strongly impressed to preach this message to my own church Sunday morning. And I had preached about five or six years earlier, but just things that are going on in our church, family-wise, I felt impressed to preach it. And then this afternoon, it seemed like the Lord placed it on my heart again. Brother Doug, y'all heard it, but evidently I need to hear it again. I'll try not to be long. Leviticus 14. Let me just begin reading a couple of verses. I will cover more than what I read. But in verse number 33, the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying, when you may come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession. He that owneth the house shall come and tell a priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house. The priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest go into it to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean. And afterward the priest shall go in to see the house. He shall look on the plague. And behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with a hollow streak, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall. I'll stop reading there for sake of time. I'll cover more verses here in just a little bit.
I don't think anybody would say that the book of Leviticus is their favorite book of the Bible. Maybe you would, but it's the book that we bog down on our daily Bible reading because it has all of these laws for Israel in the most mundane areas of life. We do not keep these laws, nor are we expected to keep these laws. And so we struggle with application. Is this just telling us about the way of life in Old Testament Israel? Or is there something here for 21st century Christianity? Laws that deal with everything from circumcision to sanitary issues, sacrifices, a whole host of other matters. And if these laws do not go beyond just rules of living for ancient Israel, then it's fair to ask why are they here? But there's a spiritual application to these laws. There was for them and there is for us as well.
The theme of the book of Leviticus is holiness. Exodus is redemption. Leviticus is holiness. Redeemed people should be holy people. And in that there are laws that govern every aspect of their life. It tells us that holiness should touch every area of our life as well. Amen. And in Leviticus chapter 13 and chapter 14, these two chapters, we have what is called the law of the leper. Now, leprosy would be the most feared word of the day. Much like the word cancer today, if you hear the word cancer, it's almost assumed that it is a death sentence. Just hearing the doctor say that word. And so, leprosy was a particularly loathsome disease. There was no cure for it. It was a death sentence, is what it was. And so these chapters are telling us how to diagnose it, what to do when you detect it, how what kind of treatment is to be prescribed by the priest. And behind this law of cleanliness, it is to teach Israel that they lived in a cursed world. Things are not as they should be.
Now the word leprosy in the Bible is both a general word and a specific word. The image that you have in your mind is the medical disease called Hansen's disease. If you've ever seen a picture of a leper colony like in Thailand or or or somebody a leper who has had his extremities eaten off by that disease, that is certainly represented, I think, in the Bible in this chapter. But it seems that it is also a general word for other diseases and for other conditions. Medical doctors have studied 55 times that leprosy is mentioned in the Bible and they have noted that many of the symptoms in the Bible are not symptoms of what we would call Hansen's disease. And so this this this issue of leprosy, it's a general word. It is a specific word and leprosy in the Bible is a vivid illustration of sin. Leprosy started started small and often went unnoticed for a while. It always started inwardly and it worked its way outwardly.
Leprosy causes numbness and the longer that you're in sin, the conscience is numb to it. Leprosy led to isolation and separation. And for leprosy, there was no earthly cure for leprosy. That's why it's interesting to me that the Bible never speaks of leprosy being healed. It is always leprosy being cleansed because it's not treated merely as a medical condition but as a spiritual defilement. It is not a disease to be medicated or a problem to be remedied. It is a defilement that must be cleansed. And again, it's it's a general word for different types of defilement. In chapter 13 you find that leprosy is a skin disorder. But then you find out that leprosy can be in the garments. And in our passage, leprosy can be in the structure of the house. In fact, in chapter 13 and 14, leprosy works in in an expanding circle. It is first in the person, then it is in the garments, and then it is in a house. And I think that's intentional. I believe that God is showing us that sin can touch everything that a person is and everything that a person has. And whenever whenever a plague or leprosy was detected, the priest is called to the home to make an examination. Again, it is not a medical profession, but it is a spiritual leader who is charged with diagnosing the condition and setting the rules of treatment thereof. Sometimes the person has to be quarantined. Sometimes it goes away. Sometimes it grows. There is no medical treatment. There there is no cure. There is no medicine to help alleviate the condition and the only thing that they could do is to try to keep it from spreading. There is no cure. So, they're trying to keep it from spreading even further. And whenever a person had a spot that was of concern, the priest would be called. He would quarantine that person for seven days to see if it goes away. If it does, then they'd quarantine him for another seven days just to confirm. If after those two 7-day periods that spot has spread, then they know that it's gone deeper than the skin and that is when the priest would pronounce him unclean.
Now, you have to know that that is a living death sentence. If you'll back up to chapter 13 and look at verse number 44, he is a leprous man. He is unclean. The priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean. The plague is in his head. And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him. He shall be defiled. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. Without the camp shall his habitation be. Now, that is basically a death sentence. Because when a man is pronounced unclean, he is isolated outside the village or the city wherever he lives. He wears torn clothing as a sign of mourning. His hair is disheveled and in disarray. And he covers his lip with a cloth and cries unclean, unclean. And the reason for that is to warn anybody that might venture close to him to stay away. So in every practical way, he is a living dead man. He cannot embrace his children. He cannot be with his wife. He cannot worship in the tabernacle. He is physically infected. But he is also socially exiled and spiritually excluded.
And again, it is a picture of what sin does to the soul. It cuts us off from community. It cuts us off from family relations. Most devastatingly, it cuts us off from the presence of God. It would be a shameful thing to have to have that mark upon you, but it was not meant to be a shameful thing because it's not said that it's because of something that he did. Sometimes God struck somebody with leprosy as chastisement, but not always. But it's necessary to keep the disease from spreading. And when we come to our passage tonight, we have leprosy in a house. Look at verse 37. He shall look on the plague and behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house. Now, from verse 33 down to the end of the chapter, the word leprosy is found two times. The word plague is found 10 times. So it's talking about some plague. Call it mildew, mold, whatever you want to call it, but it is attacking the structure of the walls of the house. It could be contagious. It could be dangerous. There's something that has to be dealt with. But there is a problem in the home. There is a disease that has the potential of spreading. There's some kind of mold growing, or some kind of foreign substance that that has just appeared and you've got to decide what you're going to do with it. And behind the laws of dealing with this plague in the walls of the house, I believe are some practical truths for you and I in keeping the plague from spreading in our home.
I want you to notice with me first of all quickly in verse number 34, there is a realistic expectation. Look at verse 34. When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession. Now, remember that these laws were given to Israel during the wilderness wanderings. But some of them were given in anticipation of the day when they get to the promised land. They live in tents now, but one day they would move into Canaan. They would establish cities, and they would build houses. No longer would they be a nomadic people. And when they moved to Canaan and when they built houses, God wants them to know that there are going to be some challenges that's going to attack those houses. Now again, it's not attached to any sin they've committed. There is no word about disobedience in here. It is just something that is going to happen. There is no blame assigned. There is no particular cause. It's not because God is angry with them. No, the reason why is that even in the land of promise, they still live in a broken world, broken by sin and and is plagued with disease and disaster and death and and it's going to attack our homes because sin fills our world.
Did you know that even in the very best of neighborhoods, houses get termites? You can keep your kitchen just squeaky clean, but spiders and mice can still find their way in. You know, you know that good families sometimes have wayward children. Do you know that sometimes strong marriages have seasons of distance? Do you know that solid church members sometimes walk away from good churches? It is the realistic expectation that we live in a fallen world. You're not a failure because your marriage is struggling. You're not a bad parent because your teenage kid decided that he had a mind of his own. You're a family that's living in a cursed world. And the question is not who to blame. The question is what are we going to do about it? Sometimes we bring the leprosy into our own home. Sometimes it's there just because we're sinners and everything around us is infected with the curse. But the realistic expectation is that even when you're living in the will of God, serving God, doing everything that God wants you to do, there can still be an attack upon your home and your marriage and your children and things that seemingly come out of nowhere. Things that you did not cause, things that are not there because of chastisement. And though it may not be your fault, it is your responsibility to deal with it. It may be small. It may seem like nothing. It may seem harmless. But the passage is going to tell us that when you detect a problem in your home, you must address it. Amen.
I I I don't know most of the churches that you go to and and um I I know some of your people are here and uh if you're a member of White Oak Baptist Church, you you are a member of a good church. Got got a good preacher in our church. In our church, they don't have a good preacher, but we got a good church. And in our church, in in a good church, we we have marriages that are struggling. In our church, we have teenagers that are under attack. In our church, we have holes that have a plague that are starting to grow on the walls. So, there is a realistic expectation that even in the land of Canaan, even serving God, even having family devotions, even in the will of God, you're going to have something attack that home.
Notice secondly, there is a risky examination. Look at verse 35. He that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house. Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest go into it to see the plague, but that all that is in the house be not made unclean, and afterward the priest should go in to see the house. He shall look on the plague, and behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, which is sight or lower than the wall, then the priest should go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days. So when an owner detects something growing on the walls of the house, the first thing he does is he calls the priest to come and do an inspection. The priest serves as the public health official. He comes in, he examines the place of concern. And the main concern is, does it go deeper than the surface? Is it something that that can just be washed off? But if it can't be washed off, if it goes deeper than that, then it indicates something more serious is at stake. And I saw this just the other day in verse number 35. He says, "It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house." He's not even sure, right? That there there's just a suspicion that there's a coloring on the wall that just seems off, that there there's a damp spot when I put my hand on the plaster. That there there's a smell there, there's an odor here. And the law says even if you suspect something is wrong, call the preacher to see that there's something wrong. Right.
The priest comes in. He expects the suspicious place and it's not a hasty process. The first thing that the priest does is he orders everything that's in the house taken out. The reason why if that house is pronounced unclean and everything in it is going to be unclean. We're going to try to contain this as much as we can. So they take everything out and he shuts the house up for seven days. Seven days. Nobody comes in and nobody goes out. The house is quarantined. And I call this a risky examination. And here's the reason why. Suppose that you're the owner of the house and you start noticing a discoloring on the walls. Do you say something or you just let it slide? Do do you call the priest or let's give it a few days and see if it goes away? If you ignore it and hope it goes away, then you risk something growing in your house that is dangerous. But if the priest comes and says, "We've got a problem here." You risk having to make some very expensive renovations. There could be some inconvenience here. There there could be some expense. It it is even possible that if this thing continues to grow and it cannot be eradicated, it's even possible, we'll see in a minute, that the entire house has to be torn down. So, there's a risk calling for an inspection. But the greater risk is is in ignoring a potential problem and watching it grow into something bigger.
I I I think that every husband, every wife comes to that point of decision in our home. A parent notices something, an attitude in that child. There's a distancing there. There's there's a pulling away. Do I correct it now or do I just let it slide? The the marriage seems to be drifting apart. Should we sit down and should we talk about it or should we just learn to live in peace and just let it go? See what you detect right now in your home. It may just be on the surface and it can be dealt with without tearing the house down. It would be uncomfortable. It is very risky to call for an inspection. But the greater risk is that it grows and causes even more damage. Pastors live at that inflection point as well. I notice brother's missing Sunday nights he used to never miss. Yeah. I notice he's gone from the front pew to the back pew and now he's out in the foyer. Should I say something or should I just ignore it? It's going to be an uncomfortable conversation, but but even more uncomfortable if I just let things get out of hand. By the way, you can apply the same principle to your heart. Early detection of foul spirits and early detection of sinful attitudes is is key in keeping the heart clean. Don't ignore the problem. Don't just hope that it's going to go away. Call for an inspection of the word of God and root out those seeds before they become something big. Lord, I'm calling for you to come into this house and to do an inspection. It seems like there's something not right. I can't put my finger on it, but maybe you can put your finger on it. It's a risky examination.
But then there is a responsible renovation. Look at verse 39. The priest shall come again the seventh day and he shall look. Behold, if the plague be spread on the walls of the house, and the priest shall command, and they take away the stones in which the plague is, they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city. He should cause the house to be scraped within roundabout, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place. They should take other stones and put them in the place of those stones and he should take other mortar and shall plaster the house. Priest quarantines the house for seven days. And he goes back in to see if the fungus has spread. If it has spread, if it has not gone away, then they're going to have to do some renovations. They're going to take out the stones and the plaster. Everything that has that plague in it, they've got to take it out and they've got to plaster it with new stones and with new plaster. Here in the South, we're familiar with black mold, aren't we? Several years ago, a hurricane, Hurricane Ivan went right over the house and took most of the roof with it. And we had gone out of town and we came back two days after the hurricane and half the roof is gone and water has gotten in and it's in the middle of summer. It was hot and already already within two days black mold was growing everywhere. And we know that black mold you can't just paint over it. That's not the cure. Everything that has it has got the plaster, the sheetrock, the the carpet, everything has to come out. You've got to replace it. And here the prescription is remove the infected stones, scrape the entire interior, dump the material outside the city, and replace with interior in entirely new stones and fresh mortar. When God calls for us to deal with a plague in our home, it requires radical removal, not minimal maintenance. You you you you cannot just reduce the amount of a sinful habit. You have to eradicate it. You you you don't just redecorate around a broken relationship. You do the hard work of replacing the infected material with new material. You don't just domestic repair cosmetic repair. And and you don't just clean up around the edges. You tear out every stone that is infected. Amen. When you have something attacking your home, you can't just gloss over it and hope that it goes away. It's not going away. It's going to keep growing until you deal with it. And if you don't deal with it, it's just going to keep spreading. And the way that you deal with it is that there may be some plaster. There may be some stones that you have to take out. But the problem is often times we are in love with that plaster, with those stones. Are you understand what I'm saying? I wonder, I know it's camp meeting and this is cream of the crop. We're all spiritual. I understand that. But I wonder, I wonder behind the four walls of your house. I wonder if there's anything in your home tonight that is really infected with a plague and it's not helping your home spiritually at all. And really to be honest with you, it ought to go. I'm just wondering. In fact, I'm wondering tonight if you have anything in your life, personally tonight, if you have anything in your life that really needs to be carried out. If you have something or someone in your life that is infected with a plague, you can't just paint over it.
But look at verse 43. If the plague come again and break out in the house after that he has taken away the stones and after he has scraped the house and after it is plastered. The priest shall come and look and behold that the plague be spread in the house. It is a spreading leprosy in the house. It is unclean. He should break down the house the stones of it and the timber thereof and all the mortar of the house. He shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place. Moreover, he that goeth into the house all the while that is shut up shall be unclean until the evening. He that lieth in the house shall wash his clothes. He that eateth in the house shall wash his clothes. The owner calls for an inspection. Willing to do everything that the man of God says to do. They address the problem. They try to solve it. The priest goes back into the house and it has come back again. It is so pervasive that you simply can't get rid of it all. The Bible says at that point the only solution is to completely tear the house down and rebuild it from the ground up. Now, that's an extreme measure, but the plague that's growing on your walls is so serious, it could end up destroying the entire home. Everything that you worked for for all of those years destroyed by a plague that you would not address. I don't know if there was ever a case study in Israel of it actually happening, but the law was there to tell you that if you have a plague in your house that you cannot eradicate, it'll destroy everything. And remember, the law is there to teach you a spiritual truth. And the truth is that a home can be so broken and so plagued by the disease that it will destroy the home. There are relationships tonight that have been completely destroyed beyond repair because of a plague that went untreated. There are marriages tonight that have been completely destroyed and they're not going to be put back together because of a plague. There are children who are God and outside the grace of God, they're not coming back because they wouldn't deal with something growing in their heart. And I would much rather remove some plaster. I would much rather remove some stones before I see the entire structure torn down.
Several years ago, I was preaching in Southwest Pennsylvania for a preacher friend of mine. One afternoon, he took me to lunch and said, "I'm going to go show you around." Well, Southwest Pennsylvania, what are you going to show me? Not exactly a tourist destination. Right. He took me to a town called Centralia, Pennsylvania. When you go to Centralia, Pennsylvania, you go down into this hollow where the town is at. There are sidewalks, there are streets, there are street signs. There are no buildings in that town. It's almost as if somebody came in and just picked up the entire town and moved it away and left the infrastructure sitting there. It's just the town just disappeared. There are no buildings there. In the earliest 20th century, Southwest Pennsylvania and Centralia, a booming coal town. At one time, there were 14 active mines in that region. But in May of 1962, the town decided they needed to build a new landfill. So they started by setting fire to the old landfill. They let it burn for several weeks and the fire department came out and they put the fire out. And about a week later, the fire started again. So the fire department came and they put the fire out again. A couple weeks later, the fire just started again. They finally discovered that that old landfill had been built on a coal mine and the fire was actually burning beneath the ground. The city thought that the fire would eventually go out, but it kept burning. There was a web of tunnels in that coal mine underneath and the fire was spreading all over, but it was miles underneath. People started complaining of carbon monoxide. They started seeing smoke rise up out of the ground. Experts were called in. Millions of dollars were spent trying to figure out how to put out a fire that's burning underneath the ground. And eventually the town decided, we just we'll just live with it. We'll hope that one day the fire will go out on its own. Trees began to die. The ground was ash and roads and sidewalks began to buckle up. It became apparent it is no longer safe to live here. So in 1983, the federal government allotted $42 million to remove the town by everybody's property through eminent domain. They canceled the zip code, moved everybody out. There was a lawsuit. There were six families that did not want to move and they won a lawsuit. And the lawsuit was that you can live here, but when you die, you cannot sell your property. You can't will it. It comes over to the government and that's it. And today, over 60 years after the fire was started, there are six families that still live there. And the fire is still burning underneath. In fact, they've estimated that there's enough coal for the fire to burn for another 250 years. When the preacher friend drove me to the town, he didn't tell me the story. All I did is I saw the sidewalks. I saw the streets. I I I but there were no buildings. And I didn't know what had happened. I knew nothing of what was going on underground. I I could tell that something is off. This picture doesn't, something doesn't look right. That there there is a problem here. I I cannot put my finger on it. And little did I know, little did I know that for the last 60 years something had been burning underneath. And all that I could see was buckled sidewalks and empty lots where houses once stood and and a main street that had no building. I knew that there was a problem. And once I heard the story, then it all made sense. There's something burning underneath the surface. Something about this picture is not right. Something about this home doesn't seem like it's supposed to. And it becomes evident that there's something underneath the surface all the time. You can let something smolder in your home and your marriage for years and that fire is going to cause untold devastation. A fire that could not be seen literally wiped a town off the map. Responsible renovation.
But then I want you to see a redemptive celebration. Look at verse 48. The priest should come in and look upon it, and behold, the plague hath not spread in the house after the house was plastered. And the priest shall pronounce the house clean because the plague is healed. He shall take to cleanse the house two birds and cedarwood and scarlet and hyssop. He should kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water. He should take the cedarwood, the hyssop of the scarlet on the living bird and dip them in the blood of the slain lamb and in the running water and sprinkle the house seven times. He should cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and with the running water with the living bird and with the cedarwood with the hyssop of the scarlet. But he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields and make an atonement for the house and it shall be clean. A lot of law here. I won't go through it. The owner of the house has made very expensive, responsible renovations, willing to do whatever we had to do for our family to have a clean home and to be free of the plague. We've removed stones. We've removed plaster and and we brought new in. We've even taken the dust out to an unclean place. We've literally left no stone unturned, whatever it takes to have a clean house. But in the end, there is no cure for leprosy or the plague. The best that you can do is take every measure of the law and hope that God will intervene. They make all of the renovations and the priest closes the house for seven days. And in seven days, the priest is going to come back. He's going to unlock the front door. He's going to walk in. Can you imagine the angst of the family? Mom and dad, children standing in the yard. I wonder what he's going to find. I wonder if it's been cured. Priest walks in and it's gone for a little bit. And then the priest comes out and he says, "There's no plague in the house. I don't see anything. There's nothing of concern. It looks like that it is gone." Can you imagine such celebration? Can you imagine such joy? They recognize that God has done this for our home because just like sin, the only true cure is God. Took it away. I won't preach this. I won't preach this. But they have a little ceremony. It, by the way, is the same ceremony when the individual leper is healed. Because the same gospel that saves a soul is the same gospel that sanctifies a whole. What had been condemned is now cleansed. And it's important to know that the ceremony is not to get cleansing, but it's to thank the Lord for the cleansing. You have an offering, you have two birds. I'm telling you, it all points to Jesus. And can you imagine the relief of the father? Can you imagine the relief of the mother and even the children that the danger has passed and the worry has turned to calm and the house is clean and safe and there's nothing defiling and there's nothing corrupting and there's nothing polluting. Isn't that what you want for your home? Isn't that what you want for your marriage? Isn't that what you want for your children? Amen.
Verse 53 uses the word atonement. That one it is to be made whole. So the father would have this little ceremony. And here's what he's saying. Lord, thank you for cleansing our home. Amen. Thank you for taking away the plague and protecting us from further harm. Thank you Lord for helping us and we consecrate this home to you. We live in a very broken world and that brokenness affects our home. People in our church and our houses that are very broken people. Sometimes the brokenness is not even your fault. It's the world that you live in. But when you detect a problem, you must be responsible to deal with it. You can't just paint over it. The plague's not going away. And in the end when God restores the marriage, in the end when you see God dealing in the heart of your children, don't forget to say, "Lord, thank you." Lord, thank you for healing our home. Thank you for doing something in my child's life. Thank you for restoration. Thank you for cleansing. Maybe tonight, Lord, I detect a plague. but detect something and I don't know what it is, but I want you to help me to eradicate it. Lord, I don't want that bitterness and hard spirit to infect my home anymore. I don't want that anger to be a plague in the walls of our house. I don't want that to go any further. So Lord, would you please come in and would you look around to thank you for healing our home, our heavenly Father? I want to thank you for your grace and mercy. And I want to thank you for the home that you've given me. Thank you for my wife, God, this lady that I know. I pray tonight that you'd bless her. And I pray tonight that you'd bless Jacob and Anna. And Andrew and Megan, Parker. You put your hand on them tonight. And I pray tonight for JL and Paisley and Finny and Brighton and Annie and Blair and Stella. Chapel. Touch their hearts tonight. Protect them tonight. Keep your hand upon them. Obey the Lord tonight. Just obey the Lord tonight.