Numbers 19:11-22 Bible Study | Episode 783

October 9, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 19:11-22 Bible Study | Episode #783

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up.

His word to you and allow you.

To see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter 19, and we're dealing with that law of purification that deals with purifying. Well, it deals with the red heifer. And we talked about that last Bible study, and so we're gonna continue talking about this in that there's some other things in scripture that I think are important to think through. And remember when we're dealing with this, first of all, this law in numbers is gonna come up interestingly and properly, God's gonna handle this and get them to begin to do this, because, well, in the next chapter, we're going to end up in some conflict with tribes around them. Some of the tribes in the area are not going to like this giant tribe, this giant group of people that number in the millions moving through or moving near their territory. And so there's going to be some conflict. And so, obviously, if you have conflict, you're going to have people touching dead bodies. The law of purification or the use of the red heifer for purification purposes had a purpose both in the worship, but it also had a purpose for dealing with people who. Well, who dealt with dead bodies. And in fact, that's the majority. That's the majority of this chapter is talking about that. It says, he touches a dead body of anyone, shall be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with the water on the third day, and on the 7th day, then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the 7th day, he will not be clean. Verse 13, whoever touches the body of anyone who has died and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. The person shall be cut off from Israel, and he shall be unclean. Because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him. His uncleanness is still on him. And one of the things that comes to my mind when we're going through this is what about if I touch a body that was dead but is now alive? And what about the people who, after the temple was destroyed in 70 AD, and they're jewish and they're dealing with, and you're dealing with, well, 2000 years of Judaism, 2000 years of people actually studying through Judaism and being jewish, and yet they do not have the ability to go through this purification ritual in the sense of having the red for having the same ashes, having the water from those ashes, and they've dealt with dead bodies for 2000 years. Are they unclean? Are they permanently unclean? And so you see that the law can reveal to us, as we talked about, the law can reveal to us God's holiness, God's power, God's grace, but the law cannot, the law cannot keep us. The law cannot make us holy before God. Only God makes us holy before God. The law itself just reveals that to us. And so for 2000 years, jewish people, in the way this is presented, in the way this is done, now, they may have come up with systems and ways to get around this, but the way this was presented and done, any person that's jewish, that's touched a dead body, and we know that there's a lot of them, because even Israel as a nation has existed for over 70 years, and they fought multiple wars. And in those multiple wars, they not only touched the dead bodies of their foes, but they touch the dead bodies of their, of their comrades in battle. You obviously carry your friend out of battle. You take the wounded out of battle, and while they're wounded, many of them are dead. And you also remove the dead bodies from the battlefield. And so there's going to be always the touching of dead bodies that's going to take place. That's a part of Life, because we're surrounded by death. And that fact, David says, well, ye do I walk through the valley of the shadow of death are evil, because the shadow of death is all around us. Death is the natural end to The PhYSIcAl life and the beginning of the spiritual, the fullness of ThE spiritual Life, the completeness of the spiritual Life. And so there's going to be some dealing with some dead bodies, and there was a process for cleansing. But what if you've raised somebody from the Dead? And that's another question. What if you're Jesus and you're outside the tomb of Lazarus and, and you say, lazarus, come forth, and he walks out with these, with his, with his burial garment still on and they remove the garments and he's alive. But he was dead. He was dead. He was dead. And so if he's dead, then was Jesus unclean? Well, he wasn't dead when he touched him, pastor, but he was dead. And anyone who touches a body that was dead and does not go through the purification process is unclean. And you go, well, that's kind of like Jesus raising, doing miracles on the Sabbath, causing the lame to walk on the Sabbath or the blind to see on the Sabbath. He's the lord of the Sabbath. And you're right. That's exactly right. And he's the lord of purification also. And has he totally purified a dead body that he's raised from the dead? Well, I think so. It says, verse 14, this is the law when man dies in a tent and all who come into the tent and all who are in the tent shall be unclean. Seven days. Now, notice this goes beyond actually touching the dead body. This goes to actually just being in the room with the dead body in the, in the tent with the dead body because they were all intense then. But if I come into the house that is, has a dead body in it, am I unclean? Well, probably. And he says, and every open vessel which has no cover fastened on it is unclean. What, you mean if I've got a jar in my house that's not closed, it's unclean? Yeah. Whoever is in the open field and who is slain by the sword, who has died, or a bone of a man or a grave shall be unclean. Seven days. Whoever touches those things are unclean. So if I'm in a field and someone's died by the sword or a bone, I touched the bone of a man, the bone of a mandeh or a grave shall be unclean. So I can't even go to the graveyards. And by the way, this is why the Muslims have planted, have placed a graveyard outside the gate of the city of Jerusalem where Jesus is supposed to return to. They don't want him to return, so they buried dead bodies there. Knowing this is knowing numbers 19 and saying, well, he can't come into that gate because he can't go through a graveyard because he'll be unclean. Well, just like the issue of his lives is Jesus unclean after he touches Lazarus, when he raises him from the dead? This also deals with that. This also is one of those issues that people have to think through and deal with. Can jesus go through a graveyard. Well, and not be unclean? Yeah, if he raises everybody from the dead? Sure he can, just like he did with the Lazarus. And for an unclean person, they shall take some of the ashes of the heifer burnt for purification from sin. And running water shall be put on them in a vessel. And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water, sprinkling on the tent, on the vessel, on the person. Notice the tent, the vessel, the person who were there, or on the one who touched the bone, the slain, the dead, or a grave. They were in a graveyard. Then the clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the feather day, and on the 7th day, and on the 7th day he shall purify himself, wash his clothes and bathe in water. And in the evening he shall be clean. And by the way, the one who's purified becomes unclean until he's cleaned, and in the evening he becomes clean again. But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of purification has not, has not been sprinkled on him. He is unclean. Why is God, why is it, why are you not able to be in God's presence if you're dead? Because. Well, that's a good question. And the answer is, because death is a result of sin, and sin can't be into the presence of God. For the wages of sin is death. Death is the end of sin. He says, in the day you eat the fruit of this year, you shall surely die. Sin results in death, and death cannot be in the presence of God. It can't be. He is holy. Sin cannot have its fullness in his presence. And so he says, it shall be a perpetual statute for them. He who sprinkles the water of purification shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water of purification shall be unclean until evening. Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening. What he's saying is death kind of creeps. It moves from thing to thing as we touch it. It does. It does in our lives. It does in the way we live. We do live in the valley of the shadow of death. And so when you're kind of thinking through this, you know, it's good to ask these questions and kind of study through and say, okay, how does this work in the New Testament? Because that's really how you, how we learn. We learn it by knowing the Old Testament law and then seeing how Jesus deals with it in the New Testament and seeing how it. How it has its fulfillment in the New Testament. And so as you think about this Bible study, as you think about it, death kind of creeps. It takes over. In fact, the Bible says that the whole universe moans or moans or groans for the coming of the Lord. Why? Because the universe is suffering under this curse of death, which comes from sin. And. And God understood that, and he wanted them to have this picture, this picture of how. Well, how invasive death is and how invasive sin and destructive sin can be. Well, that's a great picture. It's a great picture. I got to go through all this process to clean all this stuff up in order to be okay with sin. Yeah, you do. You got to go through this whole big old process to get it done. And there's some work. It's some. Something that we got to deal with. Well, Jesus is the answer to all these things, but understanding it and how it works around you gives you a lot of insights in how the world is and who the world is. And so you think about that. Why don't you consider that in your life, that your life is Maud, by sin, but your life is also saved by grace. And so the work of Jesus Christ is even greater, more than you could ever imagine. It is really even greater, more than we could ever conceive of. And when we have a perfect human mind and we're in heaven, well, we'll be able to see it in its fullness. But today, the conception of what God's doing and the greatness of his grace and the ability for God to overcome sin in our lives and. And glorify himself with who we are is really an amazing thing, considering the depth and the breadth and depravity that comes from sin. And so I pray that you will, as you think through these things that you will, you'll begin to understand not only the power of sin over our lives, but also the power of God's grace to overcome that. And that makes you even more thankful and more grateful and more understanding and graceful toward those who struggle with sin. Because it's really awful. It's terrible. But God's grace is great.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today, in Jesus name.