Numbers chapter 19. I do want to thank you for your willingness and oftentimes even encouragement in our tendency to work through books. Certainly some books are more exciting than others and longer books just by nature of the book tend to require a little more attention. Some of the Pentateuch requires a little more work. It seems somewhat tedious to our ears at times, let's be honest. I think it's tedious to the Lord, but at times it is tedious to us. This is a critical book, establishing some critical concepts, and one of them, and one that is always present in the Old Testament books, is not often appreciated is the many ways in which God demonstrates His graciousness to us. It is not all law and judgment. I want to begin by praying this evening and then we'll just kind of talk about this and then we'll get into the text of Numbers chapter 19. Father, thank you that we know and understand that you have brought us to a place of faith and knowing that this is your word, that you yourself are its author, that it is therefore complete, accurate, trustworthy. Thank you, Father, for the work of your Spirit to give us grace to appreciate the value of every jot and tittle in the Word. And always, Lord, I ask for your help to deal with your Word faithfully and as helpfully as possible for these, your people. Bless our time together, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we are in the section of numbers that began in chapter 10 that we have labeled in the wilderness. The book begins in the camp and then it transitions into the wanderings in the wilderness. Then it Then it really moves from the Wanderings to a specific geographical place in Moab, which is kind of the launching pad for Wafal. There's a lot of Numbers content in Numbers after that, but in Numbers chapter 21 we will make that transition. Numbers chapter 19 fits structurally within this rebellion section. The people begin the journey, and with the beginning of the journey is the beginning of the complaining. And in Numbers 11, the people rebel, and God responds. And in Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron rebel, and God responds. And in Numbers 13, 14, and 15, the spies rebel, and God responds. And in Numbers 16, 17, 18, and 19, Korah rebels, and God responds. These rebellions are met with two things. One, God's judgment, but secondly, God's grace. And it is grace, folks, and because this is just hard for us in our depravity because God could have talked about what had been justified in totally eradicating everybody but Moses, and had he done so that would have been a righteous thing, not a temper tantrum. And the fact that he didn't is an act of grace and an act of mercy, not an act of folly. And so when God tends to not do something we sometimes think that perhaps what we have done is not as serious as God might have led us to believe, but that is not the case at all. So Korah's rebellion is of course met with this threefold judgment. the earth opens, there's a quake, and then there is fire, and then there is a plague. And then what follows is God's validation both of Moses and of Aaron and of the entire priestly system. And having brought the people to a place of spiritual panic by his judgment upon Korah, God now assures them that there is a buffer, a protection between themselves and him in the form of the Levites on the tabernacle, and that's the argument that's being made there. This is a necessary system to keep the people from being consumed by the wrath of God. And so chapter 18 is the demonstration of the priestly system as a protection from the righteous judgment of God. Chapter 19, I think, is kind of the flip side of that coin, and of course we have to be very careful, I want to be very careful and not disrespectful in the way that I present it, but chapter 19 is reminding us that not only do we need to be distanced from God and protected by a righteous layer, but that God to some extent wants to be protected from us, and I don't mean in the physical threat sense of the word, but You know, at the risk of just being absolutely chauvinistic, ladies, your husband spends a Saturday in the garage cleaning and, you know, it's 90 degrees and he is sweating and dirty and dust smeared and then he wants to come in and he wants a big hug. And you go, I don't want that hug. I don't want to smell like you and I don't want all that sweat all over me. and you want to be protected not because he's going to do you harm but because he stinks and God does not live in physical fear of us but we are dirty and we are impure and our very humanity our very humanity is an offensive thing to him I mean it's something that God has to consciously work to be on good terms with. The things that are part and parcel of being humans. And that's kind of the way that this chapter unfolds. Let's begin in chapter 19, and I'm just going to pause as we work down through here and try and get you to see the emphasis of the chapter. I don't think it's very hard, you will see it very easily. Verse number 1, 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." Now, I just want, before we go any farther, this is not some spectacle of nature red heifer. This is not like some, the equivalent of some albino. It's not like Bigfoot. It is what we would call a roan. It is a reddish hue. There's nothing we would argue and we think that the red color is symbolic of blood, but this isn't like some kind of a unicorn cow, mystical that you can't find. These are relatively common colors. It's a roan. It's a reddish-hued cow. And it's an ordinary cow. ordinary as a cow can be with some unique, not unique, but some important qualities to it, okay? It is without spot, verse 2, no blemish, no yoke, and of course since it is a heifer, no calf, it has never been bred. Verses 3, 4, 5, and 6, and I'm going to read them since we're trying to read through the chapter, but verses 3, 4, 5, and 6 are an explanation of what happens to this cow. He shall give her 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 and 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." So that's what happens to the cow. The cow is completely incinerated. Let's move down to verse number 7. So we have in verse number 1 God says tell the Jews to do this, and then he says I want a spotless heifer. Then verse 7, 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 even. And a 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 of the children of Israel for a water of separation. It is a purification for sin. And he that gathereth the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the even. And it shall be under the children of Israel and under the stranger that sojourneth among them for a statute forever. He that toucheth 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 touches the dead body of any man that is dead and purifies 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. And 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 of purification for sin, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel. And a 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 touched 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 and 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 his clothes and he that toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean until even. And whatsoever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even. I think it's pretty easy to see folks that the entire passage is at some level about purity. God keeps talking about that which is clean and that which is unclean. There is some reference to purity, cleanliness, uncleanliness in every verse except the first one in which God says tell Jews to do this and verses 3, 4, 5, and 6 when we're butchering the cow. Every other verse in the chapter says, now there's an issue of cleanness here that has to be addressed. Human defilement may not be ignored. Human defilement may not be ignored. Secondly, this is a passage that is not just about purity, it is about process. How will this happen? Now, I don't want to get too far afield, folks, I just want to make this comment, but I've made it several, recently several times, but No matter how much human beings resist the fact that they are created, and no matter how much they profess to believe that once they were nothing and then miraculously without it being a religious miracle they came into existence as men, they have an unquenchable desire to be right. and to be, to have what they do viewed as righteous. This we demand, and this is one of the reasons that as society moves farther and farther away from God and becomes more and more corrupt, Christianity will become more and more unacceptable because we refuse to call what other people are doing righteous. We call it unrighteous. People have a desire to be pure. God has a desire for you to be pure. But the question will be whose process will reign? Will I impose my own forms of purification upon myself? I know what I'll do. I will pass a law that makes my conduct moral. even if God decrees it despicable, and then see I'm righteous and you can't call me unrighteous. For most of us at some level, much of the time, our process of purification is by finding somebody whose conduct is more reprehensible and defending ourselves by their bad behavior. But of course to God, only His process is an acceptable form of purification. And so this is what must be done. First of all, God identifies who is unclean. And who is unclean? Anyone who comes into contact with or comes in proximity to a dead body is unclean versus 11, 13, 14, 15, 16. In this instance, the primary form of uncleanness is contact with or proximity to a dead body. Now, in light of the fact that we're living in a desert climate and burying somewhere in the vicinity of 100 people a day on average, There's a lot of contact with dead people. In verses 14 and 15, anybody who is in the tent, if somebody dies in the tent, becomes ritually defiled. And if you happen to have a jar laying around and you didn't put the lid on the jar and somebody dies, the jar and the contents become ritually defiled. any opened bottle, any opened container in that situation. And when this kind of thing happens, there is this community-wide provision that is mandated upon them. We're going to take a red heifer, we're going to take a young cow, that is red in color, that is physically perfect, that has not worked. This is not a laboring animal. It is not breeding stock. And we are going to slaughter this animal. We're going to take her outside of the camp, get her far away from everybody, and we're going to slaughter her, and we're going to take that blood, and we're going to throw it back towards the tabernacle. And to us, sprinkle is really kind of a delicate word, but the Hebrew word is not really a delicate word. It doesn't just mean get a few drops. You could, within the context of the Hebrew word, you could take a bucket and throw it and you would have sprinkled the blood. Thrown it about rather indiscriminately is the idea, not direct placement of individual drops. Then we're going to completely burn this heifer and then we're going to take some of the instruments of worship and we're going to burn them in there too. We're going to take some wood and we're going to add that. We're going to add some other ingredients. And we're going to create an ash pile. And of course this is all done outside of the camp. There is no altar involved. There is nothing left for anyone to eat or to use. When we are finished, if we have done this properly, right, I mean just put it in your minds folks, if we were the congregation of Israel, we would take that cow as far away as we could from the church building and still be on our property. We would slaughter it. We would take the blood of that animal that we had caught in a bucket, we would throw it back towards the building We would light a bonfire and we would burn that animal until there was absolutely nothing left but a pile of ashes. And from that pile of ashes, we would periodically add water to make a kind of paste or a mixture that we are going to use to smear on people. And we're going to do that because they are unclean. They are defiled. Now all of this in verse number eight is going to be done by the priest. So again if you'll just indulge me to take that role as the pastor, I am not unclean in this instance. I get up in the morning and I have gone through the process of cleansing myself and I am clean. But you have a death in the tent, and you're unclean. And so you come to me and you go, Pastor Priest, I'm unclean. And I go, well, we'll go out to the ash heap, and we'll get some of the ashes from the red heifer, and we'll add some water, and we'll make our paste, and we'll anoint you because you're unclean. And when I've done that, that's all I've done, now I'm unclean. I'm unclean because you're unclean and I've anointed you. Verse number eight. And he that burneth her shall wash his clothes in water, bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the evening. I became unclean just burning the cow. Impurity oozes from every verse. Human beings dying, dirty, defiling, God is gracious, but human beings are what human beings are. They are not something different. Verse number 9, a man will take those ashes and he will store them in a clean place for use by the congregation, but then verse number 10, then he becomes unclean by having touched that. Everybody who comes into contact not only with the dead, but with the dead cow becomes unclean. And verses 16 through 20 remind us that this is the same thing whether you die of natural causes or you die as a battle casualty. This uncleanness lasts seven days, a full religious cycle, verse number 11. And on the third of those days you purify yourself, and then on the seventh day you will become clean. But if you do not purify yourself on the third day, then you will not be clean and you will be thrown out of the congregation. That's verse number 13. Verse number 14 just simply reminds us that this is the law. This is the process, right? We have the steps to take. You're going to do this, and you're going to do this, and when this happens, this is going to be the condition in which you find yourself, and this is how we're going to remediate it, and there's no flexibility to this. What if it's inconvenient to be purified on the third day? It's the third day or nothing. Verses 21 and 22 remind us that this is a perpetual statute. So this is a passage about purity and it is a passage about process. What are we going to do when somebody becomes defiled by contact with the dead body, which is almost certainly going to happen to everybody at some course in their life in that world. People don't die in hospitals, and their dead bodies are not handled by mortuaries. Everybody's going to become unclean by virtue of death. Finally, this passage is a preview, and I think that we can pretty easily pick up the key concepts and the key words. Two things that may escape our attention, I would point out to you. Number one, we've already talked about at length. This is a passage about purification. And it's about purification because if this purification doesn't happen, it isn't that the man is just unclean. If a man doesn't do this, the temple is defiled. There's more at stake here than just the guy. The dwelling place of God is defiled. The other thing we want to make sure that we understand is that nothing is ever entirely clean. That in the process of helping someone else to be clean, the person who is helping becomes themselves unclean. Again, not an accident, not an unfortunate circumstance, a function of the design of human beings. To go back to the analogy of me being the priest, How could I make you clean when I myself am unclean? Or put it in New Testament terms, how could I save your soul when I myself need that salvation? One sinner cannot purify another sinner. Turn if you would to Hebrews chapter 9. The previews are pretty easy folks, there's not an accident that the cleansing takes place on the third day. It's not an accident that this is a heifer that has never been bred and never been worked and has no blemish. You see really in a small picture, right, what New Testament Christianity looks like. Our cleanness is accomplished by the work on the third day, but it doesn't become finalized until whatever the seventh day is. You have an interval of time in which there is this work of purification that has been done, but it has not yet been accomplished. Hebrews chapter 9, verse number 11, But Christ being come, and high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building, neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies to the purifying of the flesh, See the only thing that ever happened in all of that was an external cleanliness. Verse number 14, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament. that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. So the ordinance of the red heifer is not this mystery animal like looking for Bigfoot. It is simply a preview of a portion of the work of Christ. He who died for us as a burned sacrifice gave himself completely for our cleansing. And just think, folks, of how many of these red heifers they must have gone through. There's not one cow that's going to provide enough ashes to deal with the uncleanliness of the nation over and over and over and over. Perpetually, this animal had to be butchered to make this symbolic gesture.