Our sermon text this morning is Leviticus chapter 13 verses 18 through 28. If the body develops a boil in the skin and it is healed, and in the place of the boil there comes a white swelling or a bright spot, reddish white, then it shall be shown to the priest. And if, when the priest sees it, it indeed appears deeper than the skin and its hair has turned white, the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a leprous sore, which has broken out of the boil. But if the priest examines it, and indeed there are no white hairs in it, and it is not deeper than the skin, but is faded, then the priest shall isolate him seven days. And if it should at all spread over the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a leprous sore. But if the bright spot stays in one place and has not spread, it is the scar of the boil. and the priest shall pronounce him clean. Or if the body receives a burn on its skin by fire, and the raw flesh of the burn becomes a bright spot, reddish white or white, then the priest shall examine it. And indeed, if the hair of the bright spot has turned white, and it appears deeper than the skin, it is leprosy broken out in the burn. Therefore the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it is a leprous sore. But if the priest examines it, and indeed there are no white hairs in the bright spot, and it is not deeper than the skin, but is faded, then the priest shall isolate him seven days. And the priest shall examine him on the seventh day, if it has at all spread over the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it is a leprous sore. But if the bright spot stays in one place and has not spread on the skin but is faded, it is a swelling from the burn. The priest shall pronounce him clean, for it is the scar from the burn. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, dear God, as we come to this passage, as we come to these These pictures that are so very close and so real because they deal with things in our skin, they deal with things in our flesh, they deal with things that many of us have had to deal with in different ways and we can understand how these relate to sin in the world and sin in our lives. People are affected by sin. There is sin in us. There is sin that we're affected by. There's sin where God allows us to be struck, where God allows us to be affected in these ways, dear Lord. These things are so close to us, dear God. I pray, dear Lord, that we would listen to your word, dear God, for you You speak to your church about how we are to deal with sin. You speak with us about how we are to think about these things. You speak with us so that the church can say what is holy and unholy in the world. For this was not just given to Aaron, but it was given to Aaron and to Moses, dear Lord. For these things, they even relate to the world. They even relate to how the world thinks about sin. And when the church refuses to say that there are things that are leprous things, when the church refuses to say there are things that cannot be tolerated, when the church says that sin does not matter, that it is all the same, the world does not know what to do, dear Lord. The world does not know how to handle sin, and they go mad, and they make foolish decisions. May you help your church, dear Lord. May you help us to understand this so that we may deal with our own sin, that we may deal with sin that is in the church, but that we may also speak so that the world can hear, that the world can understand that you are holy, that you are righteous, and that Jesus Christ came to put away sin and destroy the work of the devil. May we be your people. May we do your work. Amen. So as we continue our, hopefully you'll be able to hear me. My voice isn't its best. But as we continue our study of leprosy, it's important to understand that there's different types of leprosy. And even the ancient people recognized this. Some leprosy was very contagious. And they would create leper colonies for that contagion. That's been known for many, many years. But there's other leprosies that were not contagious and that were not seen to spread. For instance, with Naaman, the Syrian, when he was cleansed, he says this to Elisha, in 2nd Kings 5.18, Yet in this thing, may the Lord pardon your servant. When my master goes into the temple of Rimon to worship there, and he leans on my hand, and I bow down in the temple of Rimon, when I bow down in the temple of Rimon, may the Lord please pardon your servant in this thing. He doesn't say, when I start this again. He says, this is what I did. He was the commander of all the armies of Syria. He wasn't separate. He was leprous. He was a leper. But yet, they weren't afraid to be around him. They allowed him to be their commander. The king of the country didn't go, oh, if I touch this leper, I'll become leprous. Instead, he leaned on his hand when he went in to worship at the Temple of Ramon. The king would not have leaned on his hand if he thought that that leprosy would cling to him and would spread to him. You know, and this theory is supported by Gehazi. After Gehazi lies and gets wealth from Naaman, it says in 2 Kings 2.27 that Elisha curses him, right? He says, therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever. And he went out from his presence leprous, as white as snow. Yet years later, where's Gehazi in 2 Kings 8, 4, and 5? Then the king talked with Gehazi, the servant of the man of God, saying, Tell me, please, all the great things that Elisha has done. He's not going, Stay away from me. Don't come into my courtroom. You're contagious. He knew that that leprosy wasn't contagious. He didn't need to be afraid to be near Gehazi. The servant of the man of God said, tell me, please, all the great things that Elisha has done. Now, it happens as he was telling the king how he had restored the dead to life, that there was a woman whose son he had restored to life, appealing to the king for her house and for her land. And Gehazi said, my lord, O king, this is the woman and this is her son whom Elisha restored to life. So when we think of leprosy, God is telling them to deal with leprosy in certain ways that wasn't how all leprosy needed to be dealt with. There was like Hansen's disease, which we call leprosy now. did require you to be barred because it was so contagious. But there was other leprosy that wasn't contagious. But God is still saying you bar it. God is still saying you don't accept it because it has to do with the holiness of God. It doesn't have to do with contagion. And so as we read this, it's important for us to recognize all this is about the holiness of God's people. It is not protecting them from disease. It's about them being holy. So even if, because there's some sins that you can allow to remain in the midst of you, and everybody's not going to start doing that sin, right? The proud jerk that walks around and boasts about everything. It doesn't mean everybody else is going to start boasting. That sin isn't contagious, but yet you still put him out because it's about the holiness of the people of God. It's not about the contagiousness of the disease. And it's important to recognize that as we go through this and we see leprosy as a type of sin. The reason you put it out is not just to protect yourself. Certain sins are very contagious. Sexual sins are incredibly contagious in a congregation. You allow sexual sin and it will flow through your congregation. That's the way it works. But other sins aren't that contagious. But God still says, put them out because you're to be a holy people. And it's a testimony to them that they are unholy, which is why they should not be part. So now it could be that he was white as snow, was saying that he was covered with leprosy from the top of his head to the sole of his foot. That term was used for both Naaman and Gehazi. But the issue isn't that. The issue is God is saying there's different kinds of leprosy. The sin is not because you're afraid of the sin. It's to put it out because you want to represent the holiness of God. So as we consider leprosy as a picture of sin, we should recognize that these things can be complicated. But as we see like the boils and the burns that we'll talk about this week, we should recognize it's also God's mercy. Because God is revealing what was already there. He's not causing leprosy to be upon the person. He's causing the leprosy that is in the person to be seen, to be exposed, to break out in the midst of the sore. So in this week's passage we're dealing with a very particular type of sin. The sin that arises from dealing with a trial. Dealing with a trial and the pressures that God puts on us. And that instead of responding in a righteous manner, when we respond in sin, that's what all these things are a picture of. Remember when we were in Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10, you know, ends with this picture. In Hebrews 10, 32 through 35. But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings, partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companion of those who were so treated. For you had compassion on me and my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward." That's what this passage is about. This passage is when trials come upon you, when difficulties come upon you, and you see how you react to that, that is what testifies to your faith. That is why you have scars from this leprosy, so you can look back at the scar and say, I held on to my faith through my goods being plundered, through my accepting the reproach of man, through being put out of the synagogue, to use the example from Hebrew. But in our examples, there's trials, there's sufferings that God puts us through. And those sufferings sometimes, they do cause sin to rise up. They do cause a rising in the flesh, like is described here. But how do you deal with it? Does it explode into sin or does it explode into repentance and shrinking down and becoming a scar? That's what this passage is all about. How do we respond to trials? How do we respond to suffering? In seeing the sinful nature of a person through suffering. So just like in Jerusalem, the Jews were not to count their suffering, they're having their goods plundered, they're being separated from the people around them and being ostracized by their community, they weren't supposed to see that as a curse of God. They were supposed to see that as a great blessing, because in that blessing, they received the confidence that they knew where they were headed. They knew they were headed to heaven. And that confidence is a great reward. And so as we think of these sufferings and as we think of these leprosies, the people who are counted clean, they are blessed as much as the people who are counted unclean are cursed. They're blessed because they go, I went through a trial and through that trial, my faith was perfected. Through that trial, I could see my faith. I could know that it's real because in that trial, it proved my result was not to curse God and die. It's the picture of Job, where he loses everything and then his wife says to him, why don't you just curse God and die? And Job goes, I can't do that. That's what the picture is here, in a lower level, in a level that's more common to us, a level where we have sufferings that are not on the level of Job. But all those sufferings, all those trials, they're so we can see where we stand with God. That's why it says in James 1 that we're supposed to count it all joy. Because God's not doing it out of punishment. He's not doing it out of vindictiveness. He's doing it because He's trying to give us a great reward. To know where we're actually headed. To know where our confidence is. To know that we have eternal life securely hidden in Christ Jesus. Because our response to the things that God does that we don't like is not to curse God and die, but to turn from sin, to turn from thinking we know better than God, and turning and walking in righteousness. So with that, verses 18 through 20, the body develops a boil in the skin. and it has healed. And in the place of the boil there comes a white swelling or a bright spot, reddish-white. Then it shall be shown to the priest. And when the priest sees it, it indeed appears deeper than the skin, and its hair has turned white. The priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a leprous sore, which is broken out of the boil." So it starts with if the body develops a boil. The most common use of that word boil is in this chapter. But the next most common use of this boil is in Exodus 9, which is one of the plagues, the plagues of boils. And if you remember in the plague of boils that Moses goes to a lime kiln and he takes, which is a picture of hell, and he takes the ashes from the lime kiln and he blows them in the air and this spreads throughout Egypt and everybody gets boils on them. A boil is not what we think of a boil. A boil is like a response to a burn. That's what a boil means. It's a response to a burn. So it's when your body like scabs up or your body responds by blistering from a burn. And so that's what this word boil means. And it can be as broad as inflammation, that there's inflammation because of a blow, is what people usually think. But it's where your body doesn't just, you know, you aren't just hurt by the blow, but you start to get infected because of the blow. And so that heating from an infection, right, because when you get infected and your blood goes more to that spot, there's actually a heating, an inflammation that occurs there. So that's the picture here. This is that you receive a blow, that you have a trial, and from that you respond in certain ways. You respond in inflammation. And so, it's in the skin, a boil in the skin. Again, this is something that can be seen in the skin. It's not an inward inflammation. It's not a sore throat, right? It's not an infected throat. It's on the skin. So this is also about how we're to deal with one another. What it looks like to exhort one another to love and good works. This is about the visible things that you can see. And because they're visible, because God has made them visible, it gives us a responsibility. And it's about the responsibility that we have. So we can only see what God has made visible to us. We cannot know each other's hearts. But what he has made visible to us, we now have responsibility for it. And then it's healed. So this is immediate reaction to the burning or the blow as there's inflammation. But that inflammation goes down. but it has an ongoing effect on that person. The initial trial took place, where they changed, the trial exposed reality in their lives that were not seen before, but it's healed. The trial's over. And then the place of the boil, so out of the trial, the person doesn't completely heal, It doesn't turn to the right things, but it could be that they change into bitterness or they lack trust in God instead of the normal healing after a trial. During the trial, there can be bad reactions. There can be swelling and pain. But when those things go away, what's left? Do things go back to normal? Do things go back to that you're walking in sanctification? Are you walking in holiness? Are you being sanctified by the trial? is the trial a testimony of where you really are with God, which is that you are not trusting in God, even though you're professing to trust in God. So if in place of the boil, there comes a white swelling. So instead of the skin coming back to normal, maybe with a superficial scar, it's not saying that there aren't scars, that there aren't effects because of the trial. But if the skin is puffed up, and I think that's probably what it's representing, There's a person who goes through a trial and comes out of the trial thinking that somehow he's better, and so the trial humbling him. He goes, look at me, I made it through the trial. Or he thinks that he sustained the trial himself by his own strength rather than trusting in God. If he comes out of it with greater trust in himself rather than trust in God, I think that's the picture of the swelling. That's not the right response to a trial. It's not to look at yourself and say, look, I have power to overcome this trial. It's to look at God and say, God gave me the power to overcome the trial. The trial is about humbling yourself before the mighty hand of God so that your faith is protected or is perfected, as it says in James 1, and not to go through the trial and say, look at me. So it's that or a bright spot. The bright spot is indicating that it's obvious, that it's glaring, that it's noticeable. When looking for sin, we're not supposed to be looking at each other for every possible sin that we can find. We all have sins. You know, it says in 1 John that if you say you have no sin, the truth does not abide in you. So this isn't saying let's find each other's sin. This is saying when the sin makes itself manifest, when it's obvious, when you can see it, That's when we have a duty to do something about it. When God makes us so that we see the sin. And it doesn't mean everybody sees the sin. If you're a priest of God, if you're a brother to that person and you see the sin, it is now your responsibility. Not necessarily the church's responsibility. Because sometimes God just reveals the sin to one person, and that one person then has the responsibility to deal with the sin. This doesn't say all the priests gather together to deal with the sin. It says a priest deals with the sin. And a priest is the picture of every believer, because of the priesthood of all believers. If it's a bright spot, reddish-white, it's not distinctly different than the skin around it. Still, but it has less of the color of the skin, of the blood under the skin. That's a picture of healing when it turns redder because that's the blood coming to it to try to heal it. But if it swells with pus and it becomes reddish white, if it doesn't have the picture like the rest of the skin, that's the picture of it being infected. And then it shall be shown to the priest. The duty, recognize this, the duty of seeing the sin is not just for Christians. When we look at our world, everybody thinks that the world gets to define sin, but that's because of the sin of the church, because that's not how it's supposed to work. How it's supposed to work is the world is supposed to fear God enough so that when it sees something as possible sin, it comes to the church and says, is this sin? We have to understand how the faithlessness of the people of God have turned Christianity in this country completely upside down. This is how it's supposed to work, is people are supposed to come to the church for answers rather than abusing the church because it won't accept the answers of the world. And so the way, and we should recognize whose fault this is, this is because the church is failing to do what the church should do. Since we don't treat sin seriously, why would the world come to us to ask us how to deal with sin? We don't know how. as the visible church in America. We don't know how to deal with sin, so why would the world ever ask us? If we dealt with sin faithfully, then the world would ask. The problem is with the church, not with the world. The world is darkness. The church is supposed to be shining forth light. So we have the duty of seeing sin is the world's duty. The duty of dealing with sin is the church's duty. The duty of the priest is to deal with the sin. It's the duty of everyone to expose the sin. The priest then, through the knowledge given by God, is the one who is to determine if it's really sin or not. So, in if, when the priest sees it, the priest is to examine it, to examine the reaction to the blow, to examine how it's healed. And if indeed it appears deeper than the skin, Looking at a sore, it can be hard to tell how deep it goes, whether it's just superficial or not. It can be hard to tell, but there is a standard given. The standard given is that it's hair turned white. So if you understand how hair works, hair follicles go the whole way through the skin, and the root, what's called the bulb of the hair follicle, it's on the other side of the skin. And what produces the melanin, which is what produces the color, is like the whole way through the skin. And so that's what has to be damaged for the skin to turn white. So this is saying it goes beyond the skin. It's not just a skin-deep effect. It's actually an effect that goes deeper than the skin, or to the, just barely deeper than the skin, but deeper than the skin. Because that's why the hair turns white. Because the hair follicle turns white at the opposite side of the skin, if that makes sense. And so, it's saying that you look at it and you say, is this beyond just the skin? Is this just beyond something that's superficial? And by looking at the hair follicle and seeing it turn white, you know the damage goes deeper than just the skin. Or at least it goes the whole way through the skin. So as priests, what is the equivalent of us examining and seeing if the hair is being white? I think it's that you see other effects of the sin. You see it's not just the reaction to the trial that was not perfect, but that the bad reaction is affecting other things. It's not limited to the trial. The effect is continuing for a while. It's springing out in other ways. Because it does take a while for that hair to grow out without any color. And so we're supposed to look and say if their response to their trial is that they're short-tempered with everybody, that would be the equivalent of having a white hair. It's that your attitude has changed towards the world. It's that you can see that it is not just related to the trial, that it goes beyond the trial. So then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. Then the sin, they have not dealt with the sin. They have not dealt with their sinful response to the burning. And so because of that, because they already had the leprosy, it just broke out because of the trial. They were to be declared unclean. It doesn't mean that their response to the trial is to be ignored. Instead, it's God's mercy that the trial shows them where they stand with Him. It shows them their heart. This is a blessing of God to be called unclean. When they're called unclean, spiritually, the picture, when somebody's called unclean, it's not a curse to them. The curse to them is to leave them in the church when they're not holy. To leave them in the church when they're in sin, that is not a blessing, that is hatred. That is to say, I don't care if you go to hell. And so the priest is supposed to tell them, no, you are unclean. You have this sin that you're not dealing with properly, so you should have no belief that you're right with God. So it's a leprosaur. It's a blow that means God has revealed the uncleanness that was already there. that through that trial, you can now see where their heart really is. And again, we should look at that and say that's a blessing. Being deceived about going to hell is not a blessing, it's a curse. So it broke out of the boil. Because of the boil, because of the trial, uncleanness is shown in the man. Verses 21 through 23. But if the priest examines it, and indeed there are no white hairs in it, and it is not deeper than the skin, but is faded, then the priest shall isolate him seven days. And if it should at all spread over the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a leprous sore. But if the bright spot stays in one place and has not spread, it is a scar of the boil, and the priest shall pronounce him clean. So now the priest is to examine, you know, if when he examines it, again, it's the responsibility of the people of God to determine what is sin, based on the Word of God, based on the righteous standard that God set, based on the right application of the Word of God. It's to determine who's really in rebellion to God and who is not. People detect it, but the church is supposed to say, no, this is sin, this is rebellion. This is evil. So if the priest examined it and indeed there's no white hairs in it, if there's not that evidence that it is gone, more than superficial. So that even the bulb of that hair follicle wasn't affected. It's not deeper than the skin. And again, these are two ways to check what is essentially the same thing. How much is this sin really affecting their life? Is this just a bad response? They got angry because of a trial, but that anger doesn't spread out to other things? They're just angry at God for the trial and they'll repent of that? Or is it spreading out that they show their anger in other ways? That's the picture. Is it deeper than just because of the difficulty, just because of the boil? So if it's not deeper than the skin, then the leprosy hasn't gone in deeper. It hasn't gone into the flesh of the person itself. But if it's faded. So this is the picture that God does something to them and they get angry. They get angry at God for what He has done. But then they repent. And it's a bright spot. You can see that they were angry. It was sin that they were angry. But it's fading. Their anger doesn't continue. So often when God brings a trial, the purpose of the trial is not just to test our faith. The purpose of the trial is to prove our faith, meaning to remove dross from our faith. And so in that moment where somebody is struggling with anger, God might give them a trial that makes them angry. And then they repent of that anger and they actually are better off than they were at the beginning. You're not supposed to pronounce them unclean for that. Instead, that's the healing of the scar. God scourges us in the scourging of God to drive away our sin and to cleanse us of sin. It doesn't mean that the sin won't appear. It means the sin will appear. So just because in the midst of a trial there is sin, that could be because you're seeing that the nature of the person is that they're an angry person. Or it could be that God is turning them from anger by exposing their anger so they repent of it. So if you see that that anger is bursting out in other places, you go, well, clearly they're unclean. They're not saved. They should be excommunicated. But if instead you see that, yes, they got angry, but now their anger is fading, it's disappearing. It's showing that God used it to heal them. It's not about them being unclean, it's about God cleansing them. But the fading also could be temporary. Because people can pretend like they've repented of the sin, but in their heart they really haven't repented. Because there is godly sorrow and there is worldly sorrow. So then the priest shall isolate him seven days. And that isolation for seven days is to see, did he really repent? Did that trial that brought forth that sin, has he turned away from that sin or is he just covering it because he wants to get back into the good graces of people around him? He wants to remain in the community. He wants to remain connected to the church. because that's what is expected of you. But if you isolate them for seven days, it's amazing how often you find out way before seven days. Because yes, there is the picture that seven days is completeness, so at times it could be that you give them longer, but seven days, in my experience, seven days is almost always more than enough time. You usually know within a day or two. If that person has worldly sorrow and their mourning of it, not because they actually hate the sin against God, but because they're upset that they got caught, their slavery to sin will explode way before seven days. I keep using the term worldly sorrow versus godly sorrow, and that's from 2 Corinthians 7, 9-12. Now rejoice, not that you were made sorry, This is Paul writing to the church of Corinth, obviously, because he had rebuked them for not putting out the man who had his father's wife. And he rebuked them for their sin. Now I rejoice not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted. But the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner. What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication, in all things you proved yourself to be clear in this matter. Therefore, although I wrote to you, I did not do it for the sake of him who has done the wrong, nor for the sake of him who suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear to you. And so he's saying, look, people can pretend to repent. This is really common, to pretend to repent. And they don't really have godly sorrow. And if somebody pretends to repent, and you put them under discipline, I'm not saying excommunication. I'm saying isolation. I'm saying you cut them off from the Lord's table, or you do any kind of discipline to them, depending on the nature of their sin. And if it's godly sorrow, they will work to clear their name. they will humbly submit to the discipline. If it's worldly sorrow, they get angry and they start to attack the church. They start to fight against it any way they can. They go, this is unfair. How dare they do this to me? That isolation, that minor church discipline, the person who is out of their self-righteousness is saying that, no, I saw it over this, but I'm fine. They will not handle the isolation well. And I can't think of a case where I've been involved with this in church discipline where it took nearly seven days for this to be seen. And so, yes, there might be cases where it should be longer than seven days, but in most cases, seven days, the people who are slaves of sin, when the church separates them, when they say, oh, you're not allowed to speak in church anymore because of your sin, their response to that will be rapid because their slavery to sin will say, how dare you suggest that? How dare you treat me that way? So this is a picture of that isolation is a picture of church discipline, not excommunication. but other discipline, ways that the church speaks to them and says, you're separated somewhat from the body, like 2 Thessalonians 3, where they're still allowed to take the Lord, or they're not allowed to take the Lord's Supper, but they're still considered to be a brother. That would be isolation that the church should do for the case of somebody who's not willing to work, that's a busy body. But when the person is isolated, who understands the seriousness of his sin, then he'll respond by dealing with his sin. The person who's isolated because of worldly sorrow, he'll get angry. He'll fight against it. He'll say, this is unfair. I've repented of this. How dare you hold it against me? God doesn't hold it against me. I've repented of this. No, no, no. This is how God says to deal with it. Because you are supposed to expose evil. So again, you know, we read seven days and sometimes maybe it takes longer than seven days. But sin is a terrible taskmaster. It is a terrible slave master. And it's rare that somebody can resist that slave master for that long. It says, and if it should spread at all, it should at all spread over the skin. So if instead of continuing to fade after you isolate them, if it starts to come back, if it starts to expand, And it shows it wasn't really healed. It wasn't really God sanctifying them. It's not a picture of sanctification. It's a picture of them thinking that it's healed, but it bursts out again. And then the priest shall pronounce them unclean. The priest is to declare them unclean, that they're separated from the people of God. Remember the seriousness of being called unclean. You're separated from your family. You're put outside the camp. You're treated as not being part of the people of God. You're commanded to warn people who come by and you say, unclean, unclean. So it's a leprosaur. It's a picture of the revealing of a false heart. The person who says they've repented, the person who pretends like it, but when their repentance is tried, it cannot stand the test. But if the bright spot stays in one place, if it doesn't grow, if it's still visible, people can still see the sin. They can still see the effects of the sin, but it has not spread. It's not continuing. It's not growing. Then it's the scar of the boil. Remember what God does. Remember the picture here. There could be real effects of sin. Again, say a trial comes and you get angry. That anger might cause people to be hesitant around you because you got so angry. Well, God's saying that's the scar of the boil. You're not still angry, but don't think that God doesn't keep reminders around you that there aren't still effects around you because of your sin. Just because God granted you repentance doesn't mean that he doesn't keep a bright spot that people can still see and remind you of. And your answer should be when they remind you of that is, I'm not like that anymore. Why do you keep bringing it up? Instead, it should be, By God's grace, he's reminding me not to be like that anymore. So that the repentance stays real. So God does produce scars with his scourging. He does produce scars with his blows. And he does it so we can remember, so we can see that scar and say, that scar is because I got angry. So I remember not to get angry. It's a picture of Jesus Christ, what he promises Paul. in Acts 9, 13 through 16. Well, he promises to Ananias, but he promises about Paul. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, go, for he has chosen a vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. Every time Paul was in a shipwreck, every time he was scourged, every time that he was stoned and left for dead, he was supposed to remember the grace of God to deliver him from being a murderer of God's people. God made the spot remain bright. And he did it so that Paul would remember and that Paul would continue to walk in righteousness even when he got scourged, even when he got shipwrecked, even when he got left for dead. Because God leaves the scars so we can remember what God delivered us from. So the scars can have real ongoing effects. Not because of present sin, but to remind us of what God has done and to remind us of how easily without the power of God, without the mercy and grace of God, we can slip back into exactly the same thing. But it's a scar of the boil and the priest shall pronounce him clean. He's cleansed of the sin, even though there are still ongoing effects because of the sin. Verses 24-28. Or if the body receives a burn on its skin by fire, and the raw flesh of the burn becomes a bright spot, reddish-white or white, Then the priest shall examine it, and indeed if the hair of the bright spot has turned white, and it appears deeper than the skin, it is leprosy broken out in the burn. Therefore the priest shall pronounce him unclean, it is a leprosaur. But if the priest examines it, and indeed there are no white hairs in the bright spot, And it is not deeper than the skin, but has faded. Then the priest shall isolate him seven days, and the priest shall examine him on the seventh day. If it is at all spread over the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a leprous sore. But if the bright spot stays in one place and is not spread on the skin, but has faded, it is a swelling from the burn. The priest shall pronounce him clean, for it is the scar from the burn. So now, the first one was talking about boils, where it's the skin reacted to the burn and then it blistered up and it got a scab over it. And what happens after that? Now this is talking about when the burn itself happens. What's the response, the immediate response to the trial? When one receives a burn on the skin by fire, before your body even reacts to it, what do you do? The previous inflammation was from a burn or from a blow, but this is a situation where you're actually being burned. The initial response to that burn. So this isn't where the body is responding to the wound by becoming infected and heating, but this is when the blow is more intense than that, when they're feeling the blow right then. And so in the raw flesh of the burn, even when the burn is happening, the response to the burn indicates whether the person is clean or unclean. If it becomes a bright spot, reddish white or white, if their response to the burning is noticeable, and it was different than what would be expected by a burn, then the priest is still supposed to examine it. Even in the midst of a difficult trial, even in the midst of something that's happening that's intense and difficult, God says He will carry us through those things. He will preserve us through those things. And that's no excuse to be able to sin. That's no excuse that, oh, but look at what I'm going through. That's why I sinned in this way. And God goes, no. In the midst of that sin, I can think of a specific example where a woman found out that her husband committed adultery against her, so she went out and committed adultery. Sorry, it doesn't matter. There is no excuse. She is unclean. That's kind of the picture. Yes, it was his fault. Yes, he committed adultery, but she still chose to sit in a way that proved she was not saved in the midst of that. And that's the picture here. If something comes out, then you go, clearly this is not a godly response. This is not a response that is allowed. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6, 9, that no adulterer will inherit the kingdom of God. It's plain as day. And so, even if that happens because of a trial, that is not to be excused. So, when the raw flesh of the burn comes, a bright and reddish white, and the priest shall examine it, the people of God are to look at it and to say, you don't know God, you are not, you are unclean. And indeed, if the hair of the bright spot is turned white, again, a sign that it's not that it's not just skin deep, and it appears deeper than the skin, then it's leprosy broken out in the burn. Even in the midst of the burn, the sinfulness of the person can be seen. Just because it's an intense trial, doesn't mean that God doesn't send intense trials so that you can see your sins, so that you can see your heart, so that you can see your nature. God, who is present in all believers through the Holy Spirit, He constrains even in the midst of the worst kind of trials. So if that results, that intense trial results in exposing sin that was already present, and the sin is made known, therefore the priest shall pronounce him unclean. You don't give him an excuse to say, well, I did these things. I stole because I was under so much intense pressure because I lost my job. So I responded by stealing. No thief will enter the kingdom of God. We don't just look at the trial and say, well, because they sinned, we'll excuse it because of the trial. The trial, regardless of how intense it is, is not an excuse for a for you to respond with intense sin. It's one thing to respond in anger, it's another thing to respond by killing somebody. It's one thing to respond by going, oh God, why will you not take care of me? And it's another thing to go and steal. And we need to recognize that there are different kinds of sins. And those kinds of sins that are such that God says, this just, His Holy Spirit will not allow these things to happen. that that means you're unclean, even if it happens in the midst of an intense trial. It's a leprous sore. Even in the midst of being burned, it's still a sore that was caused because of underlying leprosy. Too often people see a very sinful response in an intense trial, and they just excuse it. Well, it's caused by the trial. No, God did not tempt you. It was not His sin. It was your sin. as it says in James 1. But, on the other hand, if the priest examines it, so if it's just a burn and the spot is not deep, and it's just a bad reaction to the situation, there's no white hairs in the bright spot, and it doesn't go deeper than the skin, it's only a superficial thing, and it's starting to fade, then that doesn't prove that the person is unclean, that they don't know God. If there's professed repentance, if there's truly a turning away and it is truly fading, then again you do the same thing, you isolate them. You don't just assume repentance is real. Most church discipline documents in America today all say if the person claims to repent, that you assume it's real. That is completely against scripture. You don't assume that it's real. You don't assume that it's real, you prove that it's real. Now sometimes you can prove it's real because they confess the sin, they turn from the sin, they dealt with it, and you find out about it, and you go, okay, it's scabbed over, it's clearly, they're clean. But if you catch them in it, and you see the unclean spot, and they go, oh yes, it's fading away, the church isn't supposed to believe that. It's supposed to isolate them, and let it be tested, let it be proven. If they're a slave of sin, it will become obvious. If they're not a slave of sin, it will become obvious. you let time do the work, and you don't just say, because people said things with their mouth, that it means that they were repentant. People lie all the time. If they're unclean, their father is Satan, who is the father of lies. You can't just hear somebody say, I repented, and think that it means anything, unless they're bearing fruits worthy of repentance. So if he examines it, and there are no white hairs in the bright spot, and it doesn't go the whole way through the skin, if it's not deeper than the skin, if it's only superficial, if it's faded, then you just isolate them. You isolate them to see if the repentance is real. Because think when you isolate somebody, everybody knows about it. This is what you hear, and I see this a lot in church discipline, where people, the discipline is between the elders and the members. and the members don't find out about it. They're not following what is prescribed here. They're not following what's prescribed here at all. Because the reality is the exposure of the sin is what causes the person to have to deal with it. And if you isolate them, if you say, you're no longer allowed to talk to Let me make up a name. I'm trying to think of a name that's nobody in the church. Let me use my name. You say, we have to put Dan out of the church and isolate him. He has to be separated and treated separately. Then everybody right away knows there's a problem with me. And so, you're testifying to it. To isolate is to expose. And the reason you expose sin is because there's not the pressure for the person to actually see if their repentance is real. There's not the pressure to say, how dare they do this to me? Isolation only works if you let people know that they're being isolated. And so often in church discipline, even in documents about church discipline, where they have good structures, a lot of times they'll do discipline and they won't tell anybody that the person's under discipline. That's just simply wrong. You isolate them because it's part of the pressure to test, is their repentance real or is it false? And then after that seven days, the priest shall examine him. And because it manifests itself quickly on the seventh day, After that week of isolation, if their response to it was to sin, you count them unclean. You say, even if the sin isn't that great, but if they respond to it, not with repentance, but by the sin spreading, it shows that they don't know who God is, that God did not use it to cleanse them. He did not use that to produce repentance. He used it instead to cause the sin to spread so they could see who they were standing before Him. Then the priest shall pronounce them unclean. It wasn't true repentance. It wasn't truly conviction from the work of the Holy Spirit. It's the work of the Holy Spirit to expose their sin, to cleanse them of their sin. The Bible says, you know, if you confess your sin, God is just and faithful to forgive you your sin and cleanse you from unrighteousness. That's what the Bible says. So if that's what you have done, He is cleansing you. But if your response to isolation, if your response to the exposure to your sin is, how could God do this to me? How can the church do this to me? Then it shows where your heart is. You weren't cleansed by the Holy Spirit. It's a leprosaur. It's a blow that revealed the uncleanness that was already there. But if the bright spot stays in one place, again, the sin's still visible, the effects are still there. But it doesn't break out in another place. You know? And this is worth noting. It's important to recognize that it can break out in another place. This is Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous, this is their whole technique. You say, stop being a drunkard, instead become an idolater. And so their whole technique is to shift people from being a drunkard to saying, you can make your own God and put your faith and trust in that God that you made and he will cleanse you of drunkenness. That is, you put down the sin in one place and it explodes in another. It's a technique that works. It's caused a lot of people to turn from alcohol and still go to hell. It's a technique that works. That is not a technique for the church. The church is supposed to say, if you suppress that sin in one place and it pops out in another, it shows that they're a sinner. And so it's saying, if you see it comes out in another place, that just shows that they're unclean. But if it stays in one place, and it's not spread at all in the skin, but it's faded, there's a real diminishing of the sin itself. Because, again, 2 Corinthians 7 says that those who have godly repentance, they really want to clear their name. They really have indignation towards the sin. They have a vehement desire to not have their sin be negatively affecting the church. And so the scab fades. The response fades. If there's a swelling from the burn, there was immediate reaction to the trial. It doesn't have an ongoing effect. It means that God is using it for sanctification. Then the priest shall pronounce him clean. The wound shall not be held against him. It's not a picture that he's defiling the camp. It's just a means that it's a picture of the normal means that God uses to sanctify his people and to sanctify the church. It is a scar from the burn. The result of the trial that God uses for good is that it can be seen and the lesson can be remembered. It's not that it disappears, it's that it's handled properly. Let me give you a few applications. When we read these passages, it's important that we recognize the holiness of God in them. The modern church thinks things have to be really bad for someone to be removed from the church, for them to be excommunicated. That's not the picture here. Often in the picture of leprosy, probably it's more a picture of trajectory than leprosy. It's not that you go, oh, that scab, it grew a little bit. If it didn't grow at all, they're clean. But if it grew a little bit, it means that they're unclean, and you put them out. It's not saying, look how terrible their sin is. Look, it finally reached a level that nobody can put up with it. That's when you're supposed to put them out. It's that person who got angry in the midst of the trial, and then you They say they repent of the anger, so you isolate them. And they just go around going, I can't believe they did that to me. Isn't that so unfair that they did that to me? They may not even be that expressive in their anger, but that shows that it's expanding. That shows they're unclean. You put them out because of God's holiness. You put them out because God wants a holy people. He says, my church is an unleavened lump. That's why you put them out. Not because of the degree of their sin, but in a lot of ways because of the trajectory of their sin. If they're not willing to repent, if they're not willing to turn from their sin, if their sin keeps expanding, even if it's just expanding slowly, you're supposed to declare them unclean. You're supposed to do the equivalent of excommunication. This passage should be a reminder that the holiness of God demands him to have a holy people. That's why he put Israel out. That's why he put the Jews out, because they were not a holy people. saved us so that there would be a holy people. And so church discipline, first and foremost, is about the holiness of God and the holiness of His people, and not about the salvation of the people or the repentance of the people. It is about His people or a holy people. And the passage should be a reminder of the power of the Holy Spirit, that He will cause us to walk in the commandments and statutes of God. That's the promise of the New Covenant. Another application, we should treat sin differently depending on how contagious it is. You know, in Jude 22 and 23 it says, and on some have compassion making a distinction, but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Some sin we have to be really careful around because it's very contagious. It's like what we consider modern leprosy. and there's other sin that's not as contagious. All of it should be considered as serious because all of it is an attack on the holiness of God. But how we deal with sin is different because it's different based on the nature of the sin and the nature of our own temptation towards the sin. If you're tempted by a sin, you still have to deal with that sin, but you better treat it like it's It's a garment that can easily catch you into the fire, that it can easily drag you into the fire that that garment is burned in. So we always have a duty to confront sin, to love our neighbor by rebuking them, by not letting their sin rest upon us. But we need to be careful about dealing with the sin, just how contagious it is. Another application, God gives trials so we can know where we stand with Him. How we react when things do not go the way we want, that's how our faith is tested and proven. In James we're commanded to count it all joy. That's the response should be to a trial, because we can see our faith. When we persevere in the trial, we can see our faith, we can see the perfection of that faith, we can see the repentance from sin. Trials are a means that we can see our faith, whether it is real or whether it is false. And in this passage, the boils, the burning, all these are pictures of trials that come upon people. And in that trial, how do you respond? It tells you where you stand with God. James 1, 13 and 14 says, No one should say when he is tempted, I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. When in the midst of that boil, in the midst of that burn, when the leprosy breaks out, it's not because of the trial. It's because you're a leper. It's not because God tested you. It's not produced by that temptation. It's produced by your nature. That's what he's saying in James 1. That when we're tested by God, He's not tempting us. He's not putting that sin in us. He's revealing the sin that is already in us. So we're not to ignore responses to trials. We should hold ourselves accountable. How do you deal with trials in your life? Do you deal with them by turning to God or by turning away from God? But the church is not just supposed to ignore trials. We're supposed to look at trials and we're supposed to say, is that person turning towards God or is he turning from God? God puts trials in people's lives so that other people can say, why are you responding this way? Are you not trusting God? Because God uses trials not just to reveal your heart to you. He uses trials to reveal your heart to the church. While it is going on, we need to recognize that if there's a certain level of sin in that response, It means that it's a leprosy breaking out and we're just supposed to put them out. We're supposed to say they're unclean. But at the same time there is this balance because sometimes it's God's means of bringing the sin to the surface so that he can cleanse it and cause repentance. And so we're supposed to, these passages give us an understanding of how we're to balance those two things. We need to deal with sin. God, Jesus Christ, the new covenant is about taking away sin as we talked about repeatedly in Hebrews 10. It's not like the old covenant. It's an effectual covenant. It actually takes away sin. And so these laws about leprosy become real because they become the means that God uses to take away sin and the responsibility that God gives to the church to fulfill what Christ came to do. Another application, understand the level of judgment we're under as a nation and as the church in that nation. It's a responsibility of the church to declare what is sin and what is not. But right now the United States is dictating to the church, close down or you're in sin. Stop the worship of God if you're in sin was the message of COVID. The message right now, there's a church who's refusing to pay for health care for their employees because if they pay for health care, they have to pay for abortions and they refuse to pay for abortions. So the government is calling them evil. The government is deciding for the church what is good and evil. And understand the only reason they can do that is because the church has lost the gospel. The church has lost the reality. And the gospel starts with, we are all under the wrath of God. And when the church goes, Jesus loves you, rather than we're all under the wrath of God, why wouldn't the United States government decide that it gets to determine what is good and evil? When the church stops preaching the fear of God, it will always become a puppet of the state. And that's where we are, and that is our sin. when we say instead that God judges and God will destroy and God's wrath is upon us as a nation. That's the only healing for the nation is for people to see who God is that they flee to the church and say, well, what is good? What is evil? Instead of looking inward and saying the church has to submit to our definition of good, our definition of evil. When the church preach God is love without describing what love is. Love is destroying wickedness, destroying evil. That is what love is. So yes, God is love. But it's not loving to just not destroy evil. Otherwise, it would be love to spare the rod. But it's not. It's hatred to spare the rod. But the church doesn't say this, which makes when the church loses the message of why it is more powerful than God, because it has a God who judges and the state cannot stop the judgment of God. When instead it says God is love, then the state goes, well, we're the most powerful thing around then, which is where we are as a nation. We need to recognize that sin and repent of it and start to describe the God of the Bible instead of the God of fantasy of the modern church. Another application. Church discipline must include more than excommunication. Most churches, if they practice discipline at all, they only practice the most extreme type of discipline. This passage, as with other passages about leprosy, indicate that it's proper to isolate. Isolation is a form of discipline. When there's visible sin, it doesn't start with excommunication unless you see that visible sin spreading or the sin is so obvious and so deep and has so many roots, like adultery, right? You have to lie to commit adultery. You're breaking covenant to commit adultery, so you're breaking an oath. I mean, there's so many sins in adultery that you just put an adulterer out. But lots of other sins, like anger. If the person says he repented of being angry, It doesn't mean he hasn't get under church discipline, he just doesn't get excommunicated. And the church needs to do other levels of discipline so they can actually test and not just go, oh, it's fine, but actually put people under pressure so that you find out what is inside. You find out if they're actually filled with leprosy or they're filled with righteousness. This is a picture of church discipline in Matthew 18. Matthew 18, 15 through 18. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." You know, if it was an obviously excommunicable sin from the beginning, the man committed adultery, this process has nothing to do with it. This is the process where where it's not a clear sin against God. It's not murder. It's not theft. It's not covetousness. It's not lying. This is where it's a sin against you. Maybe somebody was unkind to you. Maybe somebody was rude to you. And you feel like you were sinned against. Then you increase the pressure on him. You take two or three people with you. Well, at first you try to resolve it with yourself or with them just between yourselves. But if that fails, you bring two witnesses. Well, the witnesses cannot witness to his rudeness. Nobody has ever excommunicated for that first sin, because it was just between them. That's not what they're excommunicated for. It's that you put pressure on them, and their response to that pressure is to sin. And then the two or three witnesses see that sin, and that's what they get excommunicated for. I've never seen any place that this process went that their original sin was what they were excommunicated for. That's not what they get excommunicated for. When you put pressure on somebody who you have an indication of their sin and you put pressure on them, being a slave of sin, that sin will manifest itself. And it will become worse and worse. And so then you bring it again, it's that isolation. First you bring it so two or three people know about it, but they'll be upset that two or three people know about it and they'll start to sin worse. And then you bring it to the church and it's that picture of isolation and the response of a sinner to that picture of isolation. When you're separating them from the body, they'll get worse and worse until the body goes, clearly this is a leper, spiritually a leper, that they don't know God, they haven't been born again. So that process of isolation, I think, is very tied to the Matthew 18 process about putting pressure on a person to see if sin comes out. And that's what isolation is for. It's to put pressure on the person to see if the sin breaks out. Another application. Look, this is a picture, so much of this passage is a picture of what we could kind of call understandable sin. Somebody loses their job, they don't know how to feed their family, and they get angry at God, and you go, well, that's kind of understandable. But it doesn't mean that you overlook understandable sin. It doesn't mean that just because it's in the midst of a trial, the midst of a difficulty, that the church just closes its eyes to the sin. That's not. That's not what this passage is about. This passage is, you still deal with the sin. And hopefully God's using the trial to deal with their sin. But if not, the church still has a role. And the role of the church is to watch it. The role of the church is to see what their response is. And not just say, well, that's understandable. They're going through a hard time. It's important that the church not dismiss it as acceptable. but see it as an indication that God is revealing the nature of their heart, whether they're faithful to God or not. And in that, we have a real role to play. Last application. Having dealt with many discipline issues over the years, I think as I was reading this, I could name a situation that matched every one of these situations. I could put names to these and say, yes, these are very obvious. Both where people were rightly called clean and more so where the church sinned by not being willing to call them unclean. And we need to understand the importance of removing the unholy from among the church. This is a verse the last two weeks I've probably said 40 times in the last two weeks. Because in Nigeria they don't get this. But in America we don't get it either. This is why God in Ezekiel 36 says He enters into the New Covenant, why He sends His Holy Spirit. "'I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst,' speaking to the Jews. "'And the nations shall know I am the Lord,' says the Lord God, "'when I am hallowed in you before their eyes.'" Israel was not hallowed, so the nations mocked God. God, the church in America is not hallowed, which is why the United States says that they can order the church around, that they can order it to close, they can order it to stop worshiping, that they can order it to do whatever they want it to do. Because we're mocked by the nations because we're not hallowed in the eyes of God. When the church sees us as a holy people, That is when they see who God is. And God sent His Spirit so that the world would see us as a holy people, so that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord would fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. When we don't put people out for being unholy, we hate God, we are against the Holy Spirit, and we are fighting everything that the Holy Spirit was sent to do. We want to make the whole, the verse before this goes, it's not for your sakes that I'm doing this. It's not for your sakes that I'm entering into the new covenant. I'm doing this for my great name's sake. We should be putting unholiness out of the church because that's why Christ came. That's why He died. That's why He sent His Spirit, to produce a holy people, so people would see the holiness of God. Let me close in prayer. Oh Lord God, we do thank You for this passage. We thank You for these things in Leviticus that can be hard to wrestle with, hard to understand. We pray that You help us to understand them, help us to see how they apply to us now. For they are very important. You spent many words on them so that we think about these things, that we meditate on them, we ask ourselves, how do they apply now? For you did not write it to the Levites, you did not write it to the Jews, you did not write it to Israel. All these words were written for us so that we would apply them after the time of Reformation. We pray that you use your spirit, the spirit of truth, to open our understanding and to give us a greater zeal to obey these words, not in type and shadow, but in substance, so that people see the glory of your name. They see the holiness of God. and that they see it by saying, we are your body, and we are an unloving lump, and we deal with sin, is to not deal with sin, is to bring shame on your name. Help us be a people that do not bring shame on your name, but be a people where people can see your glory in us. We ask this in your precious name, amen.