And look at the closing part of that chapter, Leviticus 14. Let me turn it on here. Leviticus 14, and this morning I'll be reading verses 33 to 54. 33 to 54. And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, When you 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, and he who owns the house comes and tells the priest, saying, it seems to me that there is some plague in my house, then the priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes in to examine the plague. And all that is in the house may not 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 a 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 indeed, if the plague is 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 the city. And he shall cause the house to be scraped inside all around. And the dust they shall scrape off, they shall pour out in an unclean place outside the city. Then they shall take other stones and put them in place of those stones. And he shall take other mortar and plaster the house. Now, if the plague come back and breaks out in the house after he's taken away the stones, after he has scraped the house, after it is plastered, then the priest shall come and look. And indeed, if the plague is spread in the house, it is an active leprosy in the house. It is unclean. And he shall break down the house, the stone, its timbers, and 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. 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. And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, Cedarwood, Scarlet and Hyssop, Then he shall kill one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water, 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. 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. This is the law for any leprosaur in scale, for the leprosy of a garment in a house, for a swelling in a scab in a bright spot, to teach when it is unclean and when it is clean. This is the law of leprosy. This morning I want us to return once more to this 14th chapter of Genesis and consider what it teaches us about what the Bible calls a leprous house. Now, you'll remember that some weeks ago we looked at the ritual of cleansing for a leper who had been healed of his leprosy and God had a provision whereby he could be restored to the covenant people of God. He could become once again part of the community. But here we see instructions for dealing with a house that has become infected with leprosy. Now obviously this is not talking about the disease of leprosy that human beings get. What this is referring to is some type of spreading fungus or mildew that can get into the walls of a house and produce a foul and repulsive appearance. that makes it resemble an infectious skin disease in human beings. We don't know the exact type of mildew or fungus this was. But it's interesting to note that even today in modern times in the nation of Israel during Israel's rainy season which is from October to March both along the Mediterranean coast and also by the Sea of Galilee there is a mildew problem that mildew tends to grow quite readily on the walls of houses in that area. And of course we're not unfamiliar are we with certain problems that can arise. Like that, here in the Arklatex, there are houses that become unlivable due to what's called black mold. In fact, black mold has been called killer mold because of the health hazards it creates. I read an article, it said black mold across the country is causing people to abandon buildings, close schools, and leave beautiful homes still vacant. So even in our own day and age, we still at times have to confront this problem of what the Bible calls a leprous house. And yet this passage seems so removed from our experience, doesn't it? Because we don't go through any rituals like this when we have a problem with mold in the house. But what we have to remember is this, that this problem of mold or fungus or mildew, whatever it was, The reason it had to be dealt with in this manner is because this was not just a health hazard. That's really not the emphasis here. This was a problem with ceremonial defilement. See, God was teaching through physical realities the nation of Israel. And He was teaching them spiritual principles, trying to show them the difference between things that are clean and unclean, things that are holy and things that are corrupt, so that they would apply these principles in the moral sphere. And it is in that sphere that this passage still has tremendous relevance for us. Let us not think because it was written thousands of years ago and it deals with a situation other than the one we're facing today, that it has no relevance to our lives. Remember what the Apostle Paul told Timothy. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." So we must believe that even a passage like this has much instruction for us to equip us to better live our Christian lives. And the question is how? How can we apply this passage to our life? Well, we have to understand its spiritual significance, because the principles that are set down here really do apply in the spiritual realm, as we'll see today. But to do that, I want us first to consider the character of the instructions God is giving to His people here, and then the content of these instructions. By the character of the instructions, I mean the broad general features of these instructions. And one of the first things we can say in that regard is that these instructions are prospective. Prospective. By that I mean they look to the future. When God gave these instructions to the nation of Israel, they were not yet in the land of promise. They were still camped out perhaps by the by Mount Sinai. You know they were camped by Mount Sinai for about a year. And it's at that time that God gave the book of Leviticus and He gave these instructions. So these are instructions that apply to a future state of affairs that they were not facing at the time. In fact, it would be many years before they would be settled in the land and these instructions would become applicable. This time they were living in tents. They weren't in houses. But one day they would be in houses. And therefore, God wanted to instruct them ahead of time. And I think we learn from that a principle. And it's this that teaching, biblical teaching, which may not seem relevant to our present circumstances, is nevertheless important. And indeed, it may be quite necessary to prepare us for future circumstances that we're going to face. We should never think to ourselves, well, I don't see the relevance of that right now. Well, maybe it's not for right now. Maybe God is bringing these truths, bringing this passage into your life right now to prepare you for something around the corner or something years into the future. Consider the Bible's teaching on marriage and the relationship between husbands and wives. Let me ask you, is that only of relevance to married couples? What about to young people who are single but who want to marry someday? Is it not important for them while they are young, while they are single, to be learning all about marriage, all about what God's pattern is for the home and for the husband and the wife? Of course it is. I think that's a good argument. for expository preaching, for preaching through books. Because you see, a lot of times you get the criticism saying, no, no, you need to pick out only that which is relevant right now. I'm not sure that's the case. See, when you preach through books of the Bible, you touch on a wide range of subjects that you might overlook. But God is thereby laying the foundation for His people's lives by teaching them the whole counsel of God and building them up in the whole truth of God. Not just for today, but for tomorrow and the day after that. So that's the first thing we can say about the character of the teaching here. It's forward looking. It's perspective. Second, it's pious teaching. Pious. By that I mean it is aimed at instilling in us reverence toward God. by making us aware of the fact that He is in control of all the circumstances of our life, of blessed circumstances, but He's also in control of afflictions and distresses that have come into our lives. Now, if you doubt that, look at verse 34 and what God says there. 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." Who's going to put that plague there? God. God is the one who will bring the Jews into their own land, but God is also the one who's going to put a plague in certain houses. And what this is saying is this, God is not denying here the reality of secondary causes or natural causes of natural disasters. But what He's saying here is that He is the first cause of all things. There is nothing that comes into our life, for good or ill, but the sovereign will of God is behind it. And we need to remember that. When calamity strikes a community, has not the Lord done it? Now, we can explain it on one level in terms of natural forces, but if that's all we do, we're missing something. Consider the terrible tornado that went through Little Rock recently with loss of homes and even loss of life. What caused that? Well, ultimately, we have to say the Lord. One writer says, all that is done is, in a sense, done by God inasmuch as His providence rules over all. And therefore, by whatever secondary cause a thing may be brought about, it is He that does it. It is God that feeds the birds. God that clothes the grass. Nor does one sparrow fall to the ground without Him. It is He, therefore, that puts the plague in a house as the Lord of all things. You say, well, that seems severe. No, no. That is a source of great comfort. It is a source of great comfort to know that nothing is going to come into your life, no adversity, no sickness, no illness, but that over which God has total and complete control. And if He allows it to come into your life, it's because there is a divine purpose. And in the case of His people, we can say that is a good purpose. God is going to use this in your life for good. This is our comfort. That every joy or trial falleth from above, traced upon our dial by the Son of Love. We may trust Him fully. All for us to do. They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true. And then the third word that describes the general character of this teaching is the word preventive. God gave this teaching in order to prevent, if at all possible, the total loss of property. If the children of Israel would pay heed to God's instructions, and if they would act promptly at the first sign of some problem in their house, there was a possibility that the house could be saved. If only they would act. If only they would do what God said. The leprous plague could be stopped before it spread and the house became a total ruin. And then fourthly, these words are prophetic. And when I say they're prophetic, I don't just mean that they're inspired by God. Obviously, they are. These are the very words of God. But because they are God's words, they have a meaning and a significance and a relevance that goes far beyond what might be immediately apparent. This is not just talking about something on a literal, physical level. Of course, that was the immediate application to Israel, to whom the law of Moses was given. But as I said, there was a spiritual application and a spiritual meaning ultimately. to the things we read here that still applies. That's why this book is our book. That's why Leviticus is a book for Christians. Not to apply literally, of course, but to apply spiritually to our lives. And that brings us now to the content of these instructions. What does God say to do here? As I said, these instructions give us a series of steps by which a homeowner who spotted a suspicious looking fungus or mildew on his wall could take action in order to prevent the loss of his property. And the problem, as I said, was ceremonial here. This mildew could defile the house. It could make it unclean. And so the question is, How are we to understand this passage from a spiritual standpoint? Well, keep in mind, as I said several weeks ago, leprosy in the Bible is a symbol of sin. That's certainly true in the case of the leper who's healed at the beginning of this chapter. If that's true, then it must be a symbol of sin here as well. But what is the house symbolized? You see, the word house and the image of a house has a symbolic meaning in Scripture. It has a metaphorical meaning. And that is that it is used to symbolize a community of people who live in close relationship with each other. Any community of people who are living in close relationship to each other constitute a house. And in fact, there's three different types of communities that are often referred to in the Bible as a house. First, there is the family, or the household. In fact, it's interesting, both the Old Testament and New Testament words for house, it's in Hebrew, it's baim, and in Greek, it's oikos. Those words can refer either to the physical structure in which people live, Or it can refer to the group of people who live in that structure. Thus, we read, for example, in the book of Acts, we read of the house of Cornelius or the house of Lydia or the house of the Philippian jailer. You can also say household. It's referring to all the people living under that roof, the family, in other words. And of course, In biblical times, the family included even the servants who were a part of that household. So the family is considered a house. But what about families? Families grow, don't they? And as they grow and multiply and the children grow up, they move away and they start their own households. And as they do, what happens? That family grows into a nation. And so the word house also in the Bible can refer to a nation. The house of Jacob became the nation of Israel. God told the prophet Ezekiel, Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Jesus told His disciples, don't go into the way of the Gentiles, don't enter the city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. The Apostle Peter on the day of Pentecost said to his fellow Jews, therefore, let all the house of Israel know that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. So house can be a family. A house can also be a nation. Thirdly, a house can refer to a church. What is the church? It is the family of God, is it not? And the Bible also uses the word house in this way. Paul, when he was writing to Timothy and giving him instructions about the local church, he says, I'm writing you so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. So the local church is a house. The universal church made up of all true Christians in all the world is one house. Peter says that in coming to Christ, we as living stones are being built up in Him as a spiritual house. So do you see, the word house has multiple applications. It can refer to a family. It can refer to a nation. It can refer to a church. And if that's so, then when we read Leviticus 14 in that light, what is it saying? What are we confronted with here? We're confronted with the image of a house that has been infected with leprosy. And this is teaching us something very important about sin. Sin can not only contaminate individual lives, Glaring, flagrant, un-mortified sin can contaminate entire communities and bring them under the threat of God's judgment. It can contaminate families. It can contaminate churches and nations. And unless flagrant, glaring sin is dealt with, that community is doomed. It is doomed to being destroyed. So how ought we to respond when we see flagrant sin breaking out in a community to which we belong, whether it be our family, whether it be our local church, whether it be our nation? How are we to respond? Well, we see three distinct stages here set forth for dealing with sin in a community. And I call them the diagnosis stage, The disinfection stage. And if that doesn't work, the demolition stage. The diagnosis stage. That's the first thing that had to happen. When a homeowner was walking through his house and he noticed some very suspicious looking spot on the wall, some stain, ugly, repulsive, what was the first thing he had to do? He had to go tell the priest. He had to tell the priest, Verse 35, he comes to the priest and says, it seems to me that there is some plague in the house. That's the first thing the priest must be notified. Now, we know exactly what that means, don't we, from a New Testament perspective. In other words, whenever we become aware of some leprous plague that is entering the community to which we belong, we need to go to our great High Priest and tell Him about it. We need to talk to the Lord Jesus Christ and we need to say, Lord, only You can accurately diagnose what is going on here. Give wisdom, Lord. Give insight that we may deal with this problem. Now, if we take house First of all, to mean a family, I want you to notice something else. Who has responsibility to go to that priest? What does it say there? He who owns the house comes and tells the priest. In other words, the first responsibility for dealing with sin that is coming into the home, whose responsibility is it to take charge? the head of the house, the man. He is the one who has been given supreme responsibility for dealing with sin in his own family. That's part of what it means to be a spiritual leader in your home. Do we realize, men, how gravely we sin against the Lord as the spiritual leaders of our home? We turn a blind eye to or ignore any developing sin problem in our home. The Lord will hold us especially accountable. Don't think that you'll be able to shift the blame to other people. God has appointed you, man, as the head of your home. The husband is the head of the wife. Now, I'm not saying the wife does not have her share of responsibility. Of course, both husband and wife have to watch out for sin in the home. But what I am saying is this, because the husband is the head of the home, the buck stops with him. Supreme responsibility is there to be the watchman on the wall of his own house. He must look out for problems in the home and he must respond to them promptly when they arise. And what sort of problems do I mean? What are some of the things that can bring defilement into a home? Well, marital problems for one thing. A breakdown in communication between husbands and wives which lead to alienation and bitterness. Parent-child conflicts can bring defilement into a home. For various reasons, maybe the father or the mother are failing to discipline rebellious children. Or on the other extreme, maybe they're being too harsh. They're exasperating their children through being overly harsh, through not showing any forbearance or patience with them in their youthful folly. You see, it's a fine line between being discipline, disciplinarians and being tyrants. We don't want to be tyrants in our house, but we do want to respond as disciplinarians. And then, of course, there are all sorts of defilements that can come through the media. You know, the Internet, the television can be fountains of pollution streaming into our homes. We need to be aware of what our children are watching, what websites they're going to. We are responsible to watch over what enters into our home and into the lives of our children. And here's where it really gets convicting, if you're not convicted already. It's not only sins of commission that can defile, but sins of omission as well. In other words, defilement can enter the home not only because of the bad things we're doing as parents, but because of the good things we're leaving undone. Because we're not leading our families in family worship. We're not praying with our children. We're not seeking to model before them a consistent life of Christian discipleship. We're not spending time with them. These areas of neglect will take their toll on a family. Just as a house can develop mold and mildew on the walls through neglect, the same thing is true with sin in the home. And yet, the fact is, we are imperfect. And in fact, we're so imperfect, we're not even sure sometimes how to diagnose what the problem is. We sense something's wrong in our house, but we're not sure what the root source of it is. What do we have to do? We have to go get the priest. We have to go get our Lord Jesus Christ. We have to say, Lord, only You can shed light on the problem here. Only You can help me see what is the root problem. How I have to deal with this leprous plague that's entered into the home. And under the Old Covenant, when the householder would go and get the priest, that diagnostic process could take a whole week. In fact, it did take a whole week. The priest would come. He'd examine the walls of the house. And if that spreading mildew appeared to be really serious, and by that I mean it didn't look just like something on the surface, but it appeared to go deep into the wall. You say, well, how do you know that? Well, for example, if there were indentations or hollow places or ruts forming in the wall, then it's a deep problem. And in that case, the priest had to clear out the house. Everybody had to get out. The house had to be shut up for a whole week. And then after a week, the priest would go back. And if the problem had vanished, well and good. But if not, we move into stage two, the disinfection stage. He's diagnosed the problem. Now it has to be disinfected. The problem had to be surgically removed. And it was done in this way. The priest would give orders for the stones that had this spreading mildew to be taken out of the wall. They had to be completely removed. And all the surrounding stones had to be scraped thoroughly. And then both the stones that were infected and even the scrapings, the dust from these stones had to be carried outside the city to an unclean place and deposited there. Now an unclean place probably means a dump, a garbage dump, where refuse was taken and burned. That's where they had to take all this uncleanness. And then new stones, fresh stones, clean stones had to be put in to fill up the gaping hole in the wall. You know, that reminds me, really, as I was thinking about that, this radical measure that was taken reminds me of what they had to do during the war between the states when a soldier would be hit maybe in the leg and a musket ball would lodge there. And if it became infected, about the only thing they could do was take off the leg. They had to amputate it. And you hear all sorts of horror stories about how they had to saw off these legs during that terrible war. But it was absolutely necessary because had they left the leg on, what would happen? The infection would spread throughout the whole body and the person would die. And that's the situation here. In order to preserve the spiritual life in a home, in a church, in a nation, radical measures must be taken in dealing with sin. Stumbling blocks must be removed. Perhaps your child has fallen in with the wrong crowd. Maybe certain shady characters are coming over to the house and they're not a good influence. You need to sit down with your child. You need to talk to them. Look, I don't like that person. He's not welcome over here. Perhaps you'll need to deal with your Internet or with your television. You may even have to unplug or get rid of some gizmo. Now, I'm not telling you what to do. Because you see, there is no list of rules here. Rather, you have to take these matters before the Lord. You have to ask Him what radical measures need to be undertaken in order to cut off this problem, in order to remove the leprous plague from the house. Only the Lord can show you the steps you need to take to set things right in your home when things have gone wrong. Only He has the authority to diagnose the problem and to show its cure. So we must seek Him earnestly. And here's the temptation. Whenever trouble enters the home in the form of some sin problem, the temptation is to ignore it. To look the other way. To turn a blind eye. To pretend it's not there. to minimize it, to justify it. How many Christian parents have turned a blind eye to things happening in the lives of their children which they ought to have known and they ought to have addressed? How many churches have turned a blind eye to flagrant sin in a church member? And they just turned away, turned a blind eye Out of a desire to avoid controversy, out of a desire to avoid provoking hurt feelings, or maybe even provoking a church split, it's better just to look the other way. And you know, the excuses are so common. You know, I just don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to get involved in things that aren't of any concern to me. The guarding of the purity of Christ's church is the concern of every Christian. We have to be involved. We cannot look away. You remember the Corinthian church and how a member in their midst got into an illicit sexual relationship with his stepmother. And what did the church do? It looked the other way. And not only did it do that, but it patted itself on the back for its tolerance. That it was just such a tolerant church. And just being kind and loving to that individual, surely the problem would just go away. that Paul had to rebuke them. He said, your glorying is not good. They were glorying in their own tolerance. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you are unleavened. In other words, he's saying you have to take decisive action to deal with sin in your midst. You have to cut out the gangrenous leg. or else the infection will spread to the whole body. That's the reason for church discipline, brethren. That's why church discipline is not an optional extra that churches can opt to perform or not. It is an essential practice of a disciplined church. It's one of the marks of a church. The preaching of God's Word, the right administration of the ordinances, and the exercise of discipline. Otherwise, you just have a social club. But that's exactly what we see happening. That's the biggest problem perhaps in America right now. You know what the biggest problem in America is? This is my opinion now, but I'm going to tell you what it is. The problem is the churches. It's not just the fact that we have lawless judges overruling the will of the people and passing laws to rewrite marriage. That's horrible. The problem is so many people are tolerating that because our churches are full of unbelievers. And the reason they're full of unbelievers is because discipline was abandoned long ago. Churches stopped being disciplined bodies of disciples. I was reading about a denomination, a well-known denomination, that is just letting these things slide. Officially, the denomination still says, Marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and we only recognize that. That is what our pastors must practice. But in that denomination, one pastor defied the teaching of the church by performing a so-called same-sex wedding ceremony. And guess what he received? A slap on the wrist. And then he was allowed to go right on in his office, retaining his credentials, carrying on his ministry. And the leaders just looked the other way. In that same denomination, a woman preacher has come out now and declared herself a, quote, proud, active, self-avowed lesbian married to another woman. And guess what? The leadership is looking the other way. Fine. See, now there's a lot of problems with that picture to begin with. But what I'm saying is, this is exactly the sort of thing that leads to the downfall of any organization that claims to be Christian. Tolerating sin in its midst. Looking the other way. Not dealing radically with these problems that come up. Flagrant refusal to deal with sin is the thing that brings down any professing church Under the Old Covenant, if a house resisted all efforts at disinfection, there was only one thing that could be done. The priest had to come again. And we read here that after all this disinfecting work had taken place, and they'd taken out the old stones, they'd put in new ones, and the priest comes back, and that leprous plague just keeps reappearing, reappearing, reappearing. There's only one thing that could be done. he had to pronounce a sentence of condemnation upon it. And he had to pull it down stone by stone, timber by timber. And every piece of that edifice had to be carried off and thrown away in an unclean place. That's the third stage, the demolition stage. And what this is telling us is this, that if flagrant, visible sin in a community is not dealt with, That community, whether it be a family, a church or a nation, will reach a point of no return in which it is essentially doomed. It will move into a terminal stage in which death is inevitable and nothing can be done. Just as cancer, left untreated, will eventually metastasize throughout the whole body so that it cannot be removed, the same thing is true with sin. At that point, the only thing that can be done is for the house to be demolished. Matthew Henry says, the leprosy of sin, if it be obstinate under the methods of cure, will at last be the ruin of families and churches. If Babylon will not be healed, she shall be forsaken and abandoned. And we can think of biblical examples of this happening to families, can't we? We think of the household of Eli. And Eli, as a priest in many ways, he seemed to have certain good characteristics, but he looked the other way with respect to the sin, the flagrant, glaring sin in his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. They were committing abominations in the doorway of the tabernacle. And yes, He did weakly rebuke them. And He did tell them, Hey, sons, what you're doing is not good. But He left them in their office. He left them where they were. He did not take radical measures, invasive measures to cut out the leprous leg, to get rid of the gangrene. And so God eventually came to him and he pronounced a judgment on his house. All the descendants of your house, God said to Eli, will die in the flower of their age. And what is true of families is true of churches. If churches refuse to deal with glaring sins in their community, heresies, false doctrines, immorality, if they tolerate those things, they turn a blind eye to them. The day will come when God will remove their lampstand. They will no longer be upon the face of the earth. We see that in the book of Revelation, don't we, with the church of Ephesus. God had some commendable things to say about the Ephesian Christians. But He said this, you've left your first love. And that's the most important thing of all. To go on loving the Lord Jesus. If your Christianity turns into simply a form And it loses its heart. It loses its passion. It loses its zeal for the Lord. What does the Lord say? Remember from where you've fallen. Repent and do the first works. Or else I will come quickly and remove your lampstand from its place. Unless you repent, the Lord can bring down churches just as He brings down families, just as He brings down nations. And so the message of this passage is clear. Flagrant sin in any community must be dealt with or that community's days are numbered. But I want to conclude by saying that this chapter does not end on a negative note. Because the flip side is also true. When communities do wake up, and when they do see a leprous plague growing in their midst, and they deal with it, they take it to Jesus, they take those radical measures to eradicate the problem, then they can be restored. And so we see at the end of this chapter a beautiful picture of the cleansing ritual that was performed to cleanse the house. When the priest came and he saw that the leprosy was no longer there, that the problem had been dealt with, he performed a ritual to cleanse the house ceremonially. And it's the very same ritual by which the leper was cleansed, involving the two birds, the one live bird, the one sacrificed. Everything's the same. And what a happy scene that is. That instead of being demolished, instead of ending up a ruin, a house that is in trouble can be restored. It can be redeemed. It can be delivered from the plague that is infecting it and cleansed thoroughly of its defilement. What good news that is. May the Lord be pleased to give us homes that are responsive to His cleansing Word. May He be pleased to show mercy to our church that we might never turn a blind eye to heresy, to immorality, to any creeping leprous plague that may enter our midst. May we always be willing to deal with those things as a church. May He be pleased to show mercy to our nation by granting spiritual awakening. You know, I have to admit, sometimes I wonder, if our nation has reached that point of no return. Sometimes I think it has. That the cancer of unbelief and false pagan religion has now metastasized to such a degree throughout our society that God has already pronounced this nation unclean and He has already called for its demolition. I pray that's not so. Let us pray that God will be pleased for the sake of His people who cry out to Him day and night, His elect, who intercede for this nation, that He will be pleased to spare our nation, that He will be pleased to send us revival. But until and unless that day comes, brethren, let us pray for God's grace to be magnified in our own homes and in our churches. That we might shine like stars in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. That we may, as a community, be free of the leprous plague of flagrant sin. Amen. Lord, we thank You for a passage like this which really has so much to teach us even though it addresses a situation that is so far removed from our present circumstances. But the principles here are instructive. And they're certainly applicable to the way that we are to deal with sin in our own houses, in our own communities. Help us to hear what You're saying, Lord. And help us to put it into practice. We ask through Jesus' name, Amen. We're going to conclude our worship now with the hymn, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. And that is 324. 324 in your hymnal. Let's stand as we sing. We'll sing the whole hymn. Whaaaaaaat?