Parallels Between Leprosy and Sin

I want you to help me out with this. The Bible uses a number of different items to represent sin. Items or cities or societies. What are some of those? Egypt? Yeah. Egypt, Babylon, Sodom. Gamora, too. I'll buy that. Yes. What else? Yeast. Yes. Days of unleavened bread. We have to think of leavening. Leavening agent. That's about as far as I think, except of one disease. I want leprosy. Okay. Very good. Very good. I want to talk about spiritual leprosy today. And I think as we look at this, we'll be stunned, actually, to realize how many parallels there are between the way that disease affects a body slowly but steadily corrupts it until death. And it's given to us as a type, I think, so we have an insight into how sin works in us. Because in a little while, we'll look at a couple of chapters tucked away in the middle of the book of Leviticus. And you probably don't read Leviticus 13 and 14 very often because they talk about leprosy or some translations say the plague, and there's a degree of question whether or not what those chapters were dealing with is what we know as leprosy today. Some conclude yes, some conclude no, but there's more than one type of leprosy, as it's known on Earth here today. I have at home an entire book. The title is Unclean, Unclean, written by Li Huizinga, H-U-I-Z-E-N-G-A. It was written a long time ago, 1927. He had grown up in a missionary family working in China, and then he wrote later some of the story.

I want to just read portions of, in fact, I think I'll largely paraphrase, because he comes to a point where he is talking about leprosy today and how it affects the body.

When I say today, this is written almost a century ago, but he leads to the point of saying, could any disease be more typical of the hideousness of sin?

So he starts out, again, with what his family saw in their missionary work for years in China. There are large numbers of those with leprosy today in China and in India. There are places in Malaysia, Philippines. We even have it here in our country.

A lot of times it's from those who have immigrated in from third world countries, but there is a facility in Carville, Louisiana, where they deal with... We used to know a man in the Memphis church years ago, and he would go down to Carville once in a while because he worked in prosthetics. And he would go and work with prosthetics for certain ones with this.

But he talks here about how leprosy begins with a spot of numbness somewhere on the body. Just some place. It may be one of the extremities. Fingers, toes, hands. Prick of a pen is suddenly not felt. Cut of a knife. You know, they can injure themselves without knowing.

They can burn themselves without knowing. Because the sense of feeling is being destroyed. There is a numbness in an area. There then are these sores that begin to erupt over time. And there's a glossiness, a shininess to this particular infected area. And as he said, all this is about the beginning of trouble.

The person does not appear sick. He really doesn't feel that sick. He might experience tingling in the feet or in hands. But that's just the beginning stages. In the early stages, if treated, it can perhaps be dealt with. And of course, again, he's writing many decades ago. So there's more probably that can be done now. But if it's untreated and you get the ulcerous sores, then it crosses a certain point.

And man can just help maintain it rather than take steps that might treat it. There are areas where there's a poor blood supply, poor nerve supply. Ulcers set up, and then it reaches the point where there is the smell. And as he said, the smell of the leper can never be forgotten. I don't know what that smells like. Most of us have had no reason to know what that is. Looking at the face, you start seeing areas of skin bunching up. You see wrinkles forming. In some cases, he writes about how there is this appearance of a lion face, as the skin bunches up.

So you reach a point where you can not only see it and smell it, but then you can also feel these nodular places in the skin. Over time, fingers, toes are apt to disappear. In some cases, they just drop off. In other cases, they're just absorbed into the body, as if they just disintegrate. Again, it leads to his statement. Can any disease be more typical of the hideousness of sin? And, of course, once it reaches a certain point, I believe it's true that it's still humanly impossible to cure.

Now, let's go to Exodus 6, because in Exodus 4, verse 6, this is the first place in the Bible leprosy is mentioned. And it is at the point when God is sending Moses to go to Egypt to tell Pharaoh, let my people go. And he, in the early verses, tells Moses you have this staff. Essentially, it will turn into a serpent. But then he goes to a second example, verse 6. Furthermore, the Lord said to him, Put now your hand in your bosom. And he put his hand in his bosom.

And when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Because, you know, in the type sin, we talk about the human heart. Sin, spiritual leprosy, is an issue of the heart. And he said, Put your hand in your bosom again. So he put his hand in his bosom again and drew it out of his bosom. And behold, it was restored like other flesh. And God told him, If they don't believe the first sign, they'll believe the latter sign. Because in that day and age, they would have recognized that someone has leprosy. It's a death sentence. It's just a matter of time. It may be months. It may be years.

But it's a death sentence. Now, we also know that Pharaoh, as he would have seen that, he would have recognized leprosy. And then, in seeing the cure, the healing, he would have attributed that to the God of Moses. And the Egyptian magicians and gods could never counterfeit this one. It's interesting that leprosy traced back through history appears to have first been identified in Egypt. It's interesting. Moses. Remember what is written about Moses? I think it's in Acts 7, Stephen's defense. He goes way back and he talks about Moses, who was instructed in all, how is it worded, all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

And he was a great builder. He was a great general, as history Josephus and others point out. But I think it would have included the knowledge that the Egyptians had of medical science as well. And so, Moses would have recognized, my hand comes out, it's leprosy, I'm dead. And we'll read a little later the reaction he had when Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses.

And remember how Miriam was smitten with leprosy and how he cried out to God, because you can just read the words from his heart that he knew, my sister is dead. But in that case, God healed her. And of course, healing is in the hands of God. The healing of sin is in the hands of God. So let's go to Leviticus 13. Again, I suspect if you're like me, there are a couple of chapters here that we don't turn to very often.

But let's just notice a little survey of what we find. And again, I'm just going to refer to leprosy. And we realize there are things written about it in this disease that don't quite seem to fully carry over to what we know in a modern sense as leprosy. But Leviticus 13, verse 2, When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprosaur, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests.

Because the discernment of, well, what it typified, the discernment of sin was in the realm of the priests, you know, in the way that it was set up at that time. The priest shall examine the sore on the skin of the body, and if the hair on the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be deeper than the skin, it is a leprosaur. Then the priest shall examine him and pronounce him unclean, or the margin defiled, polluted. And, of course, he was to be then, in some cases, cut off from the camp, quarantined, looked at, it goes on, talks about how you isolate him seven days, and you look at him again, and then you might determine the priest may say, well, go out another seven days, look at him again.

And, verse 8, you know, if it persists, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy. Now, let's go to chapter 14, Leviticus 14. And in verse 2, this shall be the law of the leper for the day of his cleansing. He shall be brought to the priest. The priest shall go out of the camp, and the priest shall examine him. And indeed, if it is leprosy, if the leprosy is healed in the leper, then the priest shall command to take him, who is to be cleansed to living, and clean birds.

So, say dove, pigeon, cedarwood, scarlet, and hyssop. Now, the cedar, or the juniper family, was the rosin, the turpentine, was known as a preservative against decay. It was used in their medicine at that time. The scarlet would be dyed wool, dyed red. I think the color red might refer to the color of blood, and it might refer. It is, in general, a color, a rosiness, signifies health. So, maybe health has been restored. And then hyssop, a plant known for its cleansing virtues. So, the wool was used to bind the cedar and the hyssop into a brush.

The bird is killed, verse 5, and we don't need to go through and read all of that. But the one bird is killed, and in verse 7, the living bird is let loose, and essentially typifying the fact that the disease of death has departed from that person. So, these are the purification rites. Verse 10, the eighth day, he shall take two male lambs without blemish. One eulam of the first year without blemish, three tenths of an ethol-fine flower, mixed with oil as a grain offering and one log of oil.

And, you know, it goes through different sacrifices that you're going to offer for one who has been healed, cleansed. Go to verse 18, speaks of that which offering here. Okay, at the end of verse 17, the blood of the trespass offering. Because the trespass offering spoke of, or referred to, one's transgressions and the covering of that by the blood that was shed. And then it goes to the sin offering in verse 19, which was offered because by nature the individual was sinful.

And then, at the end of verse 19, killed the burnt offering. And that was for his gratitude for having been healed. And then it goes on with the grain offering, the meal offering. And that is, that picture is being accepted by God. Now, back to chapter 13. Chapter 13. Now, let's go to the end of that chapter, or toward the end of it.

Verse 45-46. There were those who had leprosy, and they were not cleansed, and they were quarantined outside the camp. Verse 45, now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes must be torn, which demonstrated, remember how they would tear their garments with extreme sorrow, grief. His head bare, he shall cover his mustache. The Jewish practice was of covering the dead in linen, and the practice was that the leper had to cover his mouth with linen, because he was a walking dead man. And cry, unclean, unclean, which is where Lee Huizinga got the name for his book.

Unclean, unclean, because that was to warn others who might come clear that they're coming near where those with leprosy are. I went on to the web. There's an online medical dictionary, is what it's called, and looked up leprosy. Leprosy, it says, is a slowly progressing bacterial infection that affects the skin, peripheral nerves, and mucous membranes. Destruction of the nerve endings causes the affected areas to lose sensation. Occasionally, because of loss of feeling, the fingers and toes become mutilated and fall off, causing the deformities that are typically associated with the disease.

Leprosy is known as Hansen's disease, and that goes back to a man, G.A. Hansen, who in 1878 identified the bacillus mycobacterium leprey that causes the disease. And it goes through the history of it, the fear in biblical days. And let me read this part. The World Health Organization puts the number of identified leprosy cases in the world at around 600,000.

That was in the early 2000s. So, 600,000. 70% of the cases are found in three countries, Indonesia, India, and Myanmar, or Burma. You have others in China. You have other areas where you have a certain number. There are about 5,000 reported cases in the United States, reported in 2004, so a decade ago. Almost all of these involve immigrants from developing countries. It goes on talking about two different types. There's a tuberculosis leprosy, which is a milder form, and then there's a lepromatous leprosy, which is the second and more contagious form of the disease. Some of you might be familiar with the story of the Catholic priest who spent his years ministering to the lepers in the leper colony on the island of Malachi in Hawaii.

I've got a book here, The Heart of Father Damian. But Damian went there. He was sent there as a young priest to serve. He was not careful. He was not cautious. And in time, as he walked, there was this burning, tingling sensation in his feet. And then, yes, he was diagnosed with it, and he spent his last years continuing to serve among the lepers as a leper himself. In the spiritual analogy, leprosy is one of the leading diseases of our day because of what it does to the mind and the morals and the attitudes in the heart, because leprosy is a marvelous type for the working of sin.

I want to cover eight parallels between leprosy and sin. Number one, leprosy has an insignificant beginning. It has an insignificant beginning. It is so small as that the person thinks nothing of it at first. We read in Leviticus 13, verse 2, it might be this swelling, this scab, or some bright spot. It might be some area where the hair turns white. And there's no pain.

There's no discomfort. It's just something looks different on the body. And that's where the instruction was, go to the priest. Now, in Huizinga's book, he spent quite a bit of time in this chapter talking about this young woman he ran across who had leprosy. And he found her begging one night. And she said, I went walking in the country and developed a blister on a heel that would not heal. So on the heel of a foot, she, in walking, irritated it.

There was a blister that then wouldn't heal. So it starts very small. And you know sin too, as we heard in the sermon, it begins with that thought, that temptation, but then begins moving unless we deal with it when we have that initial thought. And far too often, we don't. And then we have a bigger battle later on. Easier to deal with when it's small. But there's a small problem, a small irritation that's not dealt with, and it leads down the path that an infection with leprosy does.

It ends with death. When Paul wrote about putting on the armor of God, he cautioned against the wiles of the devil. And he said that Satan fires these fiery darts at us. And he doesn't use this full frontal attack, generally. But it's subtle. It's deceptive. That's the way he went to Eve. He injected a little doubt. Has God not said thus and such? And he found an open door. And he taps us in some of these little petty weaknesses and things that get under our skin.

Well, we just started Days of Unleavened Bread. But in the days, the weeks leading up to it, we all went through the process of delivening.

And, you know, sometimes you have a can of baking powder. You have packets of yeast. Those are easy to find and get rid of. But then you start reading labels. And sometimes you find things hidden away. And you start cleaning. And there are crumbs here and there. And I took the little Toyota over the other day and washed it. And I wanted to use a vacuum that wouldn't run out in just a little bit after you... You know, some of them you plug a 75 cents or a dollar in there and you turn around before you're through. It's running out. So I got one that would go for a long time. And I vacuumed, but, you know, I'm pretty confident. There's some crumbs out there in it somewhere. And we've got yeast spores floating around in the air. And the point is that, in a human effort, we're not going to get rid of all of it. But God wants us to engage the battle and be involved in the struggle. Sin has a very insignificant beginning. Something so tiny, so petty, gets under your skin and begins the fester. It may be an attitude toward a brother or sister. It may be a hurt from something someone said. It may be a temptation we don't deal with when we should. And it begins. And the process continues. Well, number two. Number two, leprosy works with subtlety. It works imperceptibly. We don't see it working.

Early on, in other words, it's largely unnoticed. The woman that Huzenga wrote about, she went walking, and she had this blister that wouldn't heal. And then, in a little time, there was a little pain. Then she had a slight fever, and then an unexplained weakness. And the disease was working in her body, slowly but surely. But almost beyond her ability to even notice within her own body. Let's notice Hebrews 3. In fact, there's just one key phrase that I want to refer to. Hebrews 3, verses 12 and 13.

And it talks there about the deceitfulness of sin. So, in other words, as leprosy works imperceptibly within the human body, sin too is subtle. It is easy for it to work and go unnoticed, unless we're attuned to God's wavelength.

Sin comes from human nature, human reasoning. It deals with how we think, our attitude toward others.

We read in the sermonette those verses in James. And certainly Eve was an example of one who was tempted with food and with vanity and with power. And she began to reason and engaged the dialogue with the devil.

And the result was, as God had told Adam and Eve in Genesis 2, the day you eat there, you will surely die. Well, it didn't happen that day, but in essence it meant you're going to start down a path that will lead with your death, or will end with your death.

We noticed in passing back in Leviticus 11 that the leper was to have, if you go back and read it more carefully, the leper was to have oil applied. And of course, oil is emblematic for the working of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit provides within us the vision, the conviction, the ability to recognize sin in its earlier stages. And that's the key. First of all, as we heard in the sermonette, catch it when it's a temptation.

But then secondly, if we don't, be close enough to God to recognize that the earlier the better, like we read from Huzenga, if it was caught early enough, certain steps could be taken even anxiously. That would help, and might even, from his point of view, cure the person.

But the earlier we catch it, the better. The Spirit of God provides the vision so we can see things we might not normally see.

It provides the conviction and the ability to engage the battle. But again, we have to be close to God and be led of His Spirit if we're going to be able to even perceive what is working within us.

Number three, leprosy spreads. And so does sin.

Leprosy spreads. Once it gets started in the body, it rapidly diffuses throughout the person's body. The body begins to be physically corrupted more and more. Generally, it starts with hands, feet, arms, legs, face, but it spreads step by step.

It is a disease of corruption.

Now, in 1 Corinthians 5, let me just go there and read that.

Because here we look at another type for sin, and that is leaven, as we mentioned earlier, yeast.

And as Paul told the church there, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

In chapter 5, there has been an open sinning within the congregation, an unspeakable type of sin going on.

And he commands them, you need to quarantine that person, put him out. And the good news is, in 2 Corinthians, we find the man was back. And that's good.

But in verse 6, your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

Now, if you make biscuits or if you make pancakes, you know you take X amount of flour, and you take maybe almost as much milk, and you take an egg or two, depending on how much you're making.

And you'll take a little oil, and then you'll take just a little bit of baking powder.

And you're going to put it in that pancake mix, and whip it all up.

And you know, where you put that baking powder, it doesn't just stay in one area.

It spreads throughout because that batter is ready to be dropped on a hot griddle. You have all these little bubbles. I mean, all over it. It's these bubbles. You have these chemical reactions, and the carbon dioxide is being given off, and these little bubbles come to the top.

It spreads. It goes everywhere.

Verse 7, therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover will sacrifice for us.

Verse 8, let us keep the feast. So he's talking here about Passover. He's talking here about a feast where they put leaven out.

And we're 25 years down the line after the death and resurrection of Christ, or almost 25 years later. And so, that's why we still do it today. It wasn't nailed to the cross. It wasn't left behind. It wasn't rendered null and void by Christ's death.

Keep the feast not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So, leaven spreads. Leprosy spreads.

We have the story there in Genesis that led up to God deciding to destroy all humanity and starting all over through the household of Noah.

And it talked about the wickedness of man is great on the earth, and it had spread and permeated all of mankind except for Noah.

And so, God decided to start all over.

Again, Damien serving there on Malachi Island whenever it was found in him.

Dr. Moritz is the one who came occasionally to the island, and he's reporting May 1885.

There were no striking changes to Damien's face except the forehead.

August, 1985, when he came back, there was a small leprous eruption that manifested on the lobe of the right ear.

So, he went through and documented. He said that Damien has now confirmed tubercular leper.

The father has been careless. He has repeatedly eaten with lepers.

And also, he has a leper cook for himself.

And he went on with another entry later on, how he continually harangued against Damien, that you're setting a horrible example.

If nothing else, if you don't care about your own life, you're setting a terrible example for others who are not leprous.

They'll follow your bad example. Well, it cost him his life and time.

But let's go back to Numbers 5.

Numbers 5. Leviticus is not the only book that discusses leprosy, but notice what is stressed here in Numbers 5, that quarantine is absolutely mandatory.

Numbers 5, verse 2, commands the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, and then also everyone has a discharge, and whoever is defiled by a corpse, he's talking here about ceremonial uncleanliness, being ceremonially defiled.

Put them out of the camp. You shall put them out both male and female. You shall put them outside the camp, that they may not defile the camps in the midst of which I dwell.

And the children of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp.

Now, there are times when we have to take action on our own.

There are times when we have had individuals among us who are contagious.

Sometimes the church takes action, tells the person you can't come and be here among us until you repent, kind of like Paul did there in 1 Corinthians 5.

There are times when you or I might know. We might know individually of someone who is living a life of sin, and they are contagious.

And, of course, there are scriptures in the New Testament that tell us, Mark such a one, avoid them, have nothing to do with them.

We might have people we work with. We might have people in the family. We might have people in the neighborhood.

And we have to mark them, because we realize the attitude, the sin that is infecting them can get off on us as well.

And so that's something that we all have a duty as well, because the spread of sin has caused an effect.

Damien working on Malachi was careless, and it's honorable what he did to go and serve there, but he was not careful.

And then it spread. The cause has to be removed. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 33.

It simply says, Do not be deceived. Evil company corrupts good habits.

I think that's well said. It is contagious, and we have to stay close to God.

Evil corrupts. Now, number four. Leprosy disfigures. It is actually revolting what it does to the human body.

It disfigures as it eats away parts of the body. And some of the flesh deteriorates and drops off.

There comes a stench that Huizinga said can never be forgotten. There comes a raspiness to the voice where you can actually hear from the person's voice what has happened, what has taken place.

Back to the story of Father Damian. Dr. Moritz wrote that, and this is about two and a half years down the line, His face, dreadfully and distressingly disfigured by masses of leproma and general leprous infiltration, showed unmistakable signs of grief and anguish.

So, I went to, last saw him in the leper settlement, January 1888. And so this is probably three and a half, four years down the line.

And even then, Damian's death was plainly in sight. His stomach had become gravely involved. He suffered constant, gnawing pain, continuous sensation of hunger, nausea, heartburn, vomiting.

So, you know, it's just horrible what happens to the body. It disfigures. It tears apart. Let's go to 2 Peter 2, where Peter wrote about what sin left untreated, unrepentant, unforgiven, what sin ultimately does in destroying a human life.

2 Peter 2, this is a chapter where Paul, excuse me, Peter is weaving together the reality of evil spirits and of false teachers and false doctrine. And he was warning the church against both of the above.

Verse 10, especially those that walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority, they are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. And so he's telling the church, writing to them, you need to notice these people stay away from them.

Well, down to verse 12, but these, like natural beasts, made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand and will utterly perish in their own corruption. So that's where it ends. The disfiguring, the destruction ends with the complete corruption. Verse 13, in the middle, they are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you. Verse 14, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. And that's where we need to be close to God, so we are stable and we're not susceptible to these influences. They have a heart trained in covetous practices and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right and gone astray. Let's go a little further. Let's go down to verse 18. They speak great, swelling words of emptiness. They allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. I think that's as far as we need to read there. So sin is so detestable that it completely disfigures, destroys a life. Number five, leprosy is often called the state of the living dead. Leprosy is often called the state of the living dead. In other words, they want to die, but they cannot. We get a little insight into that back in 2 Kings 7. We have a story in the days of Elisha. And Elisha was going to, I believe it was the city of Samaria at any rate, he was going to the city where there were some who had leprosy outside. And notice what they said to each other. 2 Kings 7 verse 3, Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate, and they said to one another, Why are we sitting here until we die? If we say we will enter the city, the famine is in the city, and we will die there. So if we go in the city that's being besieged, being cut off from food, we're going to starve to death. We're going to die. And if we sit here, we'll die also, because armies have come. There's going to be battle. They're going to kill us. Now therefore come, let us surrender to the army of the Assyrians. If they keep us alive, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall only die. They had no hope. They realized what the head is going to kill them in a little time. If they come, if they let us live, fine. If they don't, they can only kill us. Leprosy itself is generally not what is fatal. It's just a slow corruption of the body until it moves to some of the vital organs. I want to read a few sentences. There's a commentary on Leviticus of the chapters 13 and 14 that we looked at in part a while ago. This commentary is written by F. C. Cook. Page 138, he says, The leprosy is the most terrible of all the disorders to which the body of man is subject. There is no disease in which hope of recovery is so nearly extinguished. From a commencement slight in appearance, with little pain or inconvenience, it goes on in its strong but sluggish course, generally in defiance of the efforts of medical skill, until it reduces the patient to a mutilated cripple with dull or obliterated senses. The voice turns to a croak, the features of ghastly deformity. When it reaches some vital part, vital organ, it generally occasions what seems like the symptoms of a distant disease, and so puts an end to the life of the sufferer. And so, hence, a leper, we could say, from death row terminology is dead man walking. He's got a death sentence. Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2. Again, the parallels are so obvious between leprosy and then the working of sin, unchecked sin in human lives. Once upon a time, we had a death sentence over us. There was no hope of recovery. Ephesians 2, we'll read verses 1 through 8.

And we're by nature children of wrath, just as others. Verse 4, though, the good news is, But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved, raised us up together, and we ultimately look to the time we sit with Christ in heavenly places. Verse 8, For by grace you have been saved through faith, that not of yourselves that is the gift of God. And so, the Passover sacrifice we just celebrated, and through what was provided that day, long ago, we were allowed through the blood of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ, to become a part of the living, no longer under the death penalty, and to choose, then allowed to choose to live the unliving life. Number 6, leprosy, as we have seen, was dealt with by quarantine. Leprosy was dealt with by quarantine. If there was a diagnosis, they weren't sure, the person was put outside the camp seven days. He came back, the priest inspected again. If they could make a determination one way or the other, fine. If not, you're outside seven days. If they came back and he just continually got worse, then finally the quarantine was permanent. Or, you know, then they moved to the purification rites to see what God had in mind. But it was dealt with by quarantine. There was time allowed for a change in state. Time was followed, or time was given, with the banishment to see what might happen. Let's go to Numbers 12 now. Numbers 12, you'll probably remember, is the chapter where Aaron and Miriam spoke against Moses. Verse 10, God has strongly spoken to Aaron and Miriam, rather. God was angry, obviously. Verse 10, When the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper. So Aaron said to Moses, Oh, my Lord, please do not lay this sin on us, in which we have done foolishly, and in which we have sinned. Please do not let her be as one dead, whose flesh is half consumed when she comes out of his mother's womb. So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, Please heal her, O God, I pray. Then the Lord said to Moses, If her father had but spit in her face, she would be ashamed seven days. Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and afterward she may be received again. So Miriam was shut out of the camp seven days. The people did not journey until Miriam was brought in again. But here we see that even with Miriam, she was smitten with leprosy, and God had them abide by the law. In the law that we read in Leviticus, you're out of the camp seven days. You come back, if you're pronounced clean, then we can continue in the fellowship of the camp. But during that time, there was a deprivation of any rights as an Israelite. Number seven. Leprosy made the victim an object of shame.

Leprosy made the victim an object of shame. They were outcast from society. Those with leprosy were pariahs. They often would band together, live in caves. Many of you may remember the old movie, Ben Hur. Charleston Heston, that fantastic chariot race in there. But toward the end of the movie, his mother and sister had come down with leprosy, and he didn't know it. They were hiding it from him. Then he found out he went to the leper cave, and he brought them out.

Of course, they were devastated that he might catch it. But then, isn't that where they went? They had Christ in his ministry, and I think they were cleansed. A little fuzzy. But it was a great movie. But anyhow, you remember, he went down into that cave where they would, by ropes from above, let food and water down for those who were in that place where the lepers were banished. Francis Germain, writing here about Damien, said that back in the old days when they established Malachi, not the whole island, but there was this huge cliff that came down, and then this flat area up against the Pacific, and that's where they had the leper colony.

In some cases, the ship's captains, who were to transport lepers to the colony, would just get as close as their ship could to the coast, and they just forced them to jump off. And of course, these are sick people, and maybe their hands and feet don't work like they did.

A lot of them drowned that way. Some of them made it to shore and then lived the rest of their life in that colony. But we read a while ago there, toward the end of Leviticus 13, where he had to cover the mouth with linen, and then if someone came near, yell, unclean, unclean. Because again, they were cast out of society. They were cut off from, in this case, the congregation of Israel. And sin does the same thing. For any one of us, if sin gets its hold, takes root, it can, if unchecked, if unrepentant, if unforgiven, it can lead toward a point where we too just cut ourselves off from family, from church, from everything, until God works in our lives and we wake up and come to the point of repentance.

Alright, number eight. Number eight. Leprosy is humanly incurable. Even today, there is not a cure. There's not a shot. There's not a pill that can be taken. There are things that can be done to help alleviate some of the effects. But the Israelites did not attempt to cure it. There was a right of purification they went through. But the main part of Leviticus 13 and 14 was dealt with detection. It could even get in clothing. It could get in a house, as with the leprosy that they were speaking of and dealing with at that time.

But it was humanly impossible to cure. However, there were times when a person was healed. Naaman the Syrian was told, go to the Jordan and wash seven times. And of course, water is one of the beautiful emblems for the Holy Spirit. And he came back and he was healed. God made the decision and pronounced Miriam healed. There was a penalty. She was outside the camp seven days. But like Jeremiah wrote in one place that the Ethiopian cannot change the color of his skin. The leopard can't change its own spots. And he's talking about the fact that human beings can't change the fact that we're sinful by nature. We cannot change ourselves.

We have to rely upon God. We have to go to God and cry out to God for forgiveness and for wiping clean the past and using the body and blood of Jesus Christ to wipe us clean. Let's go to Matthew 8. It's interesting during the ministry of Christ that one of the more common healings identified is that of those who had leprosy.

Many times it just says that they healed all who were brought to him. It doesn't really specifically tell us, but a number of times we have miracles Jesus performed and it was the healing of someone who had leprosy. Matthew 8 and verse 1, when he had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.

He said to him, See that you tell no one, but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded as a testimony to them. This man had probably gone to that priest. He had probably been put out and then looked at seven days later and maybe seven days later, but eventually he was put completely outside the community. Jesus came along and he did the unthinkable. He touched the man. Damien did that and it led to costing him his life. He cleansed the man because healing of sin is in the realm of God. He forgave the man. He said, I am willing. But then, we still had Old Testament law in effect. He told the man, Go back to the priest, show yourself, and it will be a testimony, a witness to them. Because that priest would have known that this man had a death sentence, and now he comes back and he is clean. I think that's why in Acts it says, A great company of the priests believed. It makes you wonder, did that leper go back to a priest? He is one of them who later on came and recognized something about this Jesus of Nazareth and the work that he had. But this is a miracle, an example, a type for us. We've all been touched by and infected by the sin of spiritual leprosy, and forgiveness is in the hands of God. Psalm 51. Let's go back to David's Psalm of Repentance. And I think you'll see, woven into this psalm, we have a picture of David crying to God as one who is spiritually leprous, and some of the words that he chooses will remind us of what we read back in Leviticus. You take the hyssop, you take the blood, you take...well, let's just read what we see here. Psalm 51, verse 2, Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. I think I left off reading back in Leviticus about the taking of the two birds. One, you kill what you do with the blood, and it was also the washing with water. And of course, Elisha told Maman's Syrian, Go wash in water those seven times, and you'll be cleansed. So this speaks to that. Verse 7, Purge me with hyssop. And that was the plant they were to take. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean, as it was tied with the scarlet wool, with the juniper or the cedar, and dipped in the blood and used. So purge me with hyssop. He realized I am spiritually as one who has leprosy, and he cried out for healing. Wash me, and I'll be whiter than snow.

Then verse 11, Do not cast me from your presence. You see, that speaks of leprosy as well, because one who had that disease was quarantined. And David didn't want to be cast off from God's presence. Do not take your Holy Spirit from me. So we go to God, and as that physical leper did in Matthew 8, we go and we cry, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.

And as a forgiven of God, we've been given a power of choice. And ideally, we use our mind to think through temptation, and to look down the line and see what direction sin always leads. It always leads to death and destruction, and to choose to walk the unleavened life, and to stay close to God, to recognize sin in the earlier stages, and to stop it from spreading and infecting anyone else, to keep it from disfiguring us, as it will over time.

We read in the Passover ceremony, 1 John 1, verse 7, about the blood of Jesus that cleanses us from all sin. Let's go to one more example in the Gospels, and that's Luke 17. We'll wrap it up here, because in this story we have 10 who had leprosy, who came to Jesus, crying, Master, have mercy. Luke 17, beginning in verse 11. And the reason for ending with this story is, let us be like the 10th. Let us be like the one who was healed, who came back to say, Thank you, God, for what you have done for me.

Verse 11, now it happened as he went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then, as he entered a certain village, there met him 10 men who were lepers. See, it reads like they were at the outskirts of the city. Who stood afar off? Well, as the law required, they were to stand afar off, and to cry even unclean, unclean, if someone got too close. And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. So when he saw them, he said to them, Go, show yourself to the priests. See, he always was perfectly in harmony with what the Old Testament law said. And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed.

It reads as though they didn't even get to the priests, but as they're obediently doing what he said, the disease is lifted off of them. They're given their life back. And one of them, now, wait a minute, there were 10. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned and with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks, and he was a Samaritan.

One of the people that any respectable Jew of that day would look down his nose at, the Samaritan, kind of like the story of the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan was the one whose heart got honored and God holds it up to this day as an example. So Jesus answered and said, Were there not 10 cleansed, but where are the 9? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?

And he said to him, Arise, go your way, your faith has made you well. So let us be like this lepros Samaritan who was cleansed and return daily to give thanks to an all-wise, merciful God who has given us forgiveness, brought us back from death so many times. The greatest sacrifice we can give, remember how the leper of old who was cleansed, there was a trespass offering, a sin offering, a grain offering, the log of oil. The greatest sacrifice we can offer back to God is our own life. And thank God continually for what He has given us. Put our hand, put our shoulder into the plow, continue pushing.

And at the same time, as we have looked at this topic, like the story I referred to at the beginning, let us, in a spiritual sense, keep a close watch on ourselves, lest there be any little tiny irritation, spot, scab, numb area that begins a process that can lead us away from eternal life in the family of God. God gave us a choice long ago, life or death, and then He told us, choose life.