Prepare
Opening Prayer
Thank God for preserving his Word in an understandable language and placing it in our hands, and ask the Holy Spirit to place it in our hearts and teach us.
Read
Scripture Passage
The Law Concerning Leprous Houses
33 And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: 34 “When you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give you as a possession, and I put the leprous plague in a house in the land of your possession, 35 and he who owns the house comes and tells the priest, saying, ‘It seems to me that there is some plague in the house,’ 36 then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest goes into it to examine the plague, that all that is in the house may not be made unclean; and afterward the priest shall go in to examine the house. 37 And he shall examine the plague; and indeed if the plague is on the walls of the house with ingrained streaks, greenish or reddish, which appear to be deep in the wall, 38 then the priest shall go out of the house, to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days. 39 And the priest shall come again on the seventh day and look; and indeed if the plague has spread on the walls of the house, 40 then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which is the plague, and they shall cast them into an unclean place outside the city. 41 And he shall cause the house to be scraped inside, all around, and the dust that they scrape off they shall pour out in an unclean place outside the city. 42 Then they shall take other stones and put them in the place of those stones, and he shall take other mortar and plaster the house.
43 “Now if the plague comes back and breaks out in the house, after he has taken away the stones, after he has scraped the house, and after it is plastered, 44 then the priest shall come and look; and indeed if the plague has spread in the house, it is an active leprosy in the house. It is unclean. 45 And he shall break down the house, its stones, its timber, and all the plaster of the house, and he shall carry them outside the city to an unclean place. 46 Moreover he who goes into the house at all while it is shut up shall be unclean until evening. 47 And he who lies down in the house shall wash his clothes, and he who eats in the house shall wash his clothes.
48 “But if the priest comes in and examines it, and indeed the plague has not spread in the house after the house was plastered, then the priest shall pronounce the house clean, because the plague is healed. 49 And he shall take, to cleanse the house, two birds, cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop. 50 Then he shall kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water; 51 and he shall take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times. 52 And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and the running water and the living bird, with the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet. 53 Then he shall let the living bird loose outside the city in the open field, and make atonement for the house, and it shall be clean.
54 “This is the law for any leprous sore and scale, 55 for the leprosy of a garment and of a house, 56 for a swelling and a scab and a bright spot, 57 to teach when it is unclean and when it is clean. This is the law of leprosy.”
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Le 14:33–57.
A — About
What Is This Passage About?
The law for a spreading plague in a house requires priestly inspection, removal of contaminated material, and, if necessary, demolition, followed by cleansing. Bryan explains that God's people were to take uncleanness seriously and that these ritual laws point beyond a cleansed building to our deeper need for holiness and inward cleansing.
B — Best Verse
Which Verse Best Summarizes the Passage?
Leviticus 14:54–57
Bryan explicitly identifies and underlines the closing summary verses, which gather the laws about leprosy in people, garments, and houses and distinguish clean from unclean.
C — Called or Christ
C — Christ Connection
Recognize that we cannot cleanse our own hearts. Ask God to wash us by his Spirit, make us holy as our Redeemer is holy, and complete the good work he began in us.
Devotional Study
Transcript of the devotion. Minor transcription errors may remain.
Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. It's so good to be with you today. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we have a little bit of coffee, we get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. In this year 2023, Lord willing, we'll make it from Genesis through Leviticus. So glad to be with you today as we wrap up Leviticus chapter 14. Let's have some coffee, we'll pray, and we'll get into God's word.
Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is to follow you. What a blessing it is to have your word in a language that we can understand. We thank you for preserving it perfectly and for putting it into our hands. Lord, we pray now that your Holy Spirit would put it into our hearts. Teach us, Lord, we need your help in Jesus's name. Amen. All right, so we are at Leviticus chapter 14. And we will begin reading at verse 33 and we'll read to the end of the chapter and we'll just kind of work through it as we go. Here we go. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, so now it's Moses and Aaron together.
When you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give you as a possession, and put the leprous plague in a house, in the land of your possession, and he who owns the house comes and tells the priest, saying, it seems to me that there is some plague in the house. Right, so, okay, we're still talking about leprosy here, but this is just pushing the point again, I'm getting nauseous at this point, right? Uh, but leprosy is a general term for some type of spreading problem, whether it's on the skin, whether it's in a fabric, whether it's on a house, right? And so this is a general term. Okay. So there's something going on with some of this house.
Verse 36, Then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes into it to examine the plague, that all that is in the house may not be made unclean. And afterward, the priest shall go in to examine the house and he shall examine the plague.
And indeed, if the plague is on the walls of the house with ingrained streaks, greenish or reddish, which appear to be deep in the wall, Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house and shut up the house seven days. And the priest shall come again on the seventh day and look. And indeed if the plague has spread on the walls of the house, then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which is the plague, and they shall cast them into an unclean place outside of the city. and he shall cause the house to be scraped inside all around and the dust that they scrape off the off shall pour out in an unclean place outside the city then should they shall take another stone and put them in the place of those stones and he shall take other mortar and plaster the house all right so you got something going on there's some reddish streaks there's green stuff going on the wall maybe it's mildew maybe it's mold maybe some type of fungus growing don't know you know take out that part that's bad, throw it out into an unclean place, scrape everything down, clean it all up, put new stuff in its place and see what happens. Now, if the plague comes back, you know what that's called? A bad day. Now, if the plague comes back and breaks out in the house after he has taken away the stones, after he has scraped the house and after it is plastered, the priest shall come and look.
And indeed, if the plague has spread in the house, it is an act of leprosy in the house. It is unclean and he shall break down the house. shall break down the house, its stones, its timber, and all the plaster of the house, and he shall carry them outside the city to an unclean place. Moreover, he who goes into the house at all while it is shut up shall be unclean until evening, and he who lies down in the house shall wash his clothes, and he who eats in the house shall wash his clothes."
Man, you gotta dismantle your entire house. Take the wrecking ball, knock it down, take it to the dump outside the city. You can't live in there. If you even sleep in there while doing the demolition, you're unclean, you gotta wash yourself, right? This is a big deal. You don't want this to spread. This is, talk about the first city zoning people coming in and checking. This is big deal, big stuff here. I mean, this would take a lot of work to build a house and you have to tear it down. That's the whole point of this.
You want people living in clean houses. There's not to be a spot or blemish on God's people, and neither even in their houses. It's supposed to be safe places for them to live, and if it's not, you gotta take it seriously. It's gonna be hard, you're not gonna like it, but this is what's gotta be done.
And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, cedarwood, scarlet, and hyssop. Interesting, only all the same things that had to be brought to make a person clean. Then he shall kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water. And he shall take the cedarwood, the hyssop, the scarlet, and the living bird, dip them in the blood of the slain bird and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times. and he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and the running water and the living bird with the cedar wood the hyssop and the scarlet then he shall let the living bird loose outside the city in the open field and make atonement for the house and it shall be clean right the same ceremony that happened for a person being made clean notice here you don't have to make the threefold sacrifice, the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, not that type of stuff. You don't have to do that, but just the two bird ceremony with the wood and the hyssop and the cedar, all that type of stuff, right? You gotta do that, but there's no sacrifices required, right?
Why? Because it's a building, not a person. And so it's easier to clean the building than it is to clean a person. And then the summary verses, what I got underlined in my Bible here, This is a law for any leprosaur in scale, for the leprosy of a garment and of a house, for swelling and a scab and a bright spot to teach when it is unclean and when it is clean. This is the law of leprosy. Right. This is I would say these are the two summary words for the two chapters, two summary verses for the two chapters that we've been looking at 14 and 15.
How do they decide what's clean and unclean? But this is where I want to go with you for calling. You can scrape a building. You can clean up the dust. You could throw all the timber outside. Renovating a house, it's hard. It's really hard work. I know a guy who has been renovating an old house for years and years now, and he's been doing a lot of hard work on that house, and it's for good reasons. It's an amazing house now. But that pales in comparison to renovating a heart. It pales in comparison to being made pure and clean inside.
That's what all of this was meant to point to. The ritual purity laws were meant to point that they needed to be holy as God is holy. You need to be holy. I need to be holy. We need to be holy as our Redeemer is holy. That was the whole point of all these laws. And the point is, it's really, really tough. It's really hard to be clean. At the end of the day, we're in constant danger of becoming unclean. At the end of the day, we know that we can't clean ourselves, but we need washed by the Spirit, by the waters of regeneration.
We need Him to do this work in our hearts and in our lives, and so this is what we come to God, asking Him to do. to cleanse us, to wash us, to make us pure. Let's pray. Father, we pray that you would do this work in our hearts and in our lives, that you would purify our lives, teach us to live lives of holiness as we eagerly groan, awaiting the day of redemption. Lord, we pray that you would please let us come to you and trust that you will not leave us undone. but you're going to finish the good work you started in us. Lord, we pray that we would be ready for that work and that we would be willing objects of that work in Jesus's name. Amen. Well, may God bless you. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus. May you be those who are washed in his blood and growing in his grace. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.