This morning we come to chapter 19. We come to a passage that deals with the water of separation as we find it called in verse 9. It is said to be a purification for sin. It's clearly a type of a cleansing of the conscience by the blood of Christ as we see Paul referring to it in Hebrews 9 verses 13 and 14. We have in verses 1-10 the preparation of the ashes for the making of this water of separation. And then we have the actual application of this water of separation in verses 11-22. Let us hear the Word of our God. And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot wherein is no blemish and upon which never came yoke. And ye shall give unto Eleazar the priest that he may bring her forth without the camp, and one shall slay her before his face. And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times. And one shall burn the heifer in his sight, Her skin, and her flesh, and her blood. With her dung shall he burn. And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer. Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water. And afterward, he shall come into the camp. And the priest shall be unclean until the even. And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the evening. And the man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up without the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation, the children of Israel, for a water of separation. It is a purification for sin. But he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even, and it shall be unto the children of Israel and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them for a statute forever. He that touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean. Whosoever toucheth the dead body of a man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of the Lord. And that soul shall be cut off from Israel, because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him. He shall be unclean. His uncleanness is yet upon him. This is the law when a man dieth in a tent. All that come into the tent and all that is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. Every open vessel which hath no covering bound upon it is unclean. And whosoever toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer a purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereunto in a vessel. The clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that toucheth a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave. And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even. But the man that shall be unclean and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him, he is unclean. And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them, that he that sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash the water of separation shall wash his clothes, and he that toucheth the water of the separation shall be unclean until even. Whatsoever be unclean, person toucheth shall be unclean, and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even." Thus ends the reading of God's holy and infallible Word. Just a few comments on this text. As I mentioned, verses 1-10 give us the preparation of these ashes for this mixture of the water of preparation. Notice that the choice of the heifer in verse 2 is one that is without blemish. A picture of the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. We also see that it is a red heifer. It is unique. animal. And it is also one that's red. I think it's a reference likely to the word that we get the word Adam from that comes from the redness of the ground or clay of which Adam was formed. So we see the Lord Jesus being holy, harmless and undefiled and yet being man as well. God and man. We also see the ceremony. The slaying takes place without the camp. We see that referred to in Hebrews 13.12, Christ slain outside the camp. We also see that there's a sprinkling of the blood that takes place at the door of the tabernacle. And so we see that the sprinkling of the blood actually puts the virtue upon these ashes. We also see that the heifer was wholly burnt, completely annihilated, and we see that as a picture of the extreme sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. We also see the ashes gathered up for the congregations, and there we see it's a fit emblem of the everlasting efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ. We also note in verses 7, 8, and 10, that all those employed in this ceremony become ceremonially unclean themselves. Reminds us of Paul's picture of double imputation in 2 Corinthians 5.21 where we see Christ made sin for us, but our sins passing on to Him judicially. So we have the preparation for the ashes in verses 1-10. Then the application of them in verses 11 through 22. We see the case for which it's needed in verses 11, 14 through 16, the contact with the dead. I think what we learned there is that no one was exempt from ceremonial uncleanness. Living in that day, you would have been exposed to people that died. We also see that our services of mercy are still mixed. You see, it was a mercy to go in and to deal with a dead body, and yet doing that deed of mercy still made oneself unclean ceremonially for a time. You might ask, well, why was that the case? I think it reminds us of the fact that death is the wages of sins. Death is, as Professor Murray said, an anomaly because it's only because of the fall that death takes place, and we also see In this, I believe that the law itself could not conquer sin, but it is through the blood of Christ that sin is ultimately conquered. We also see how the ashes were to be used and applied. We see the water of separation being made, the ashes being but part of it. I believe it's a picture of the work of the Spirit by which Christ's merits are applied to the believer. So it's Christ's work applied. Sanctification accomplished, sanctification applied. We also see it applied by a branch of hyssop. Some of us probably, when we saw that, are reminded of Psalm 51, where the psalmist says, purge me with hyssop. Matthew Henry, commenting on this, says, faith is that branch of hyssop, wherewith the conscience is sprinkled and the heart purified. We also see that the sprinkling takes place on the third and seventh day. I'm not convinced of what the implications are there, but I think it reminds us that even though we might confess our sin and acknowledge that we've been forgiven for a particular sin, we don't completely forget that sin. And sins of the past, even those that we've confessed and been forgiven of, are still fruit for our being ashamed about them and still add to our humility and being reminded of them still can be useful to us for the purpose of our humility. We also see that the neglect of using this ceremony made people culpable and they were then cut off from the people of God. So we see the failure to use the ceremonies that were applied becomes a moral issue itself. Again, Matthew Henry said it's a dangerous thing to contend divine institutions, though they may seem minute. It might seem like you can blow it off because this is pretty minor. This is only dealing with ceremonial uncleanness. But yet, if it's God's Word, we are called to carry it out. And we also see again in verse 21 and 22 that the person administering this distribution of the water of purification again finds themselves unclean. And it reminds us of the imperfection of our services. It reminds us that we, as the Puritan said, have to repent of our repentance. Even our good works are but filthy rags in the sight of God and require the cleansing blood of Christ to be accepted before Him. We will all sin in this worship service. We will imperfectly worship our God, but praise be to Him that He washes the worship of His true people in the blood of Christ and accepts it on that basis.