So turn with me again this morning. To the book of Leviticus, this time to chapter 12. Leviticus chapter 12. Our study resumes at verse one. Here we find the Lord's instructions concerning the ceremonial purification of a mother following the birth of her child. Read it with me. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, When a woman gives birth and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean for seven days. As in the days of her menstruation she shall be unclean. On the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall remain in the blood of her purification for 33 days. She shall not touch any consecrated thing nor enter the sanctuary until the days of her purification are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean for two weeks, as in her menstruation, and she shall remain in the blood of her purification for 66 days. When the days of her purification are completed for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the doorway of the tent of meeting a one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtle dove for a scent offering. Then he shall offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her, and she shall be cleansed from the flow of her blood. This is the law for her who bears a child, whether male or female. But if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtle doves or two young pigeons, the one for a burnt offering and the one for a sin offering, and the priest shall make atonement for her, and she will be clean." Now, if we're not careful here, we might walk away from this text believing that childbirth is intended to be a completely negative and unclean proposition, at least from the mother's perspective. I mean, think about it. In the case of the mother who bears a son, the mother's to be considered ceremonially unclean for seven days. That means not only is she not allowed to participate in the religious ceremonial observances by the Israelites, but no one would be allowed to come into contact with her either, lest they too become ceremonially unclean. You might wonder about those who would be responsible for tending to the woman during her time before, during, and after childbirth. This also applied to them. Anyone, even the servants who were given the task of ministering to the woman who has just born a child, even they would be ceremonially unclean for the prescribed amount of time. Now, I think I covered this before, but if I did, it certainly bears repeating. There's nothing in the process of childbirth that is actually unclean or filthy. There's nothing that, humanly speaking, would warrant such provisions. There's nothing really that gives us pause. in coming into contact with women who have just had children. Once all the mess is cleaned up, and it is a messy affair in most cases, once all that's cleaned up, generally there's nothing to worry about. So you might be wondering, why does the Lord make these provisions in the way that he does? And once again, we can only appeal to the Lord's detail-oriented behavior. The Lord himself is very detail-oriented. And remember, most of the things that the Lord prescribes by way of His ceremonial law is intended to promote other things in the minds of the Israelites other than what it appears to be on the surface. Given that there was really nothing unclean about it, the Lord's trying to promote the idea that According to his thrice-holy righteous standard, coming into contact with anything dealing with the aftermath of the birth would make one ceremonially unclean for the simple reason that they are ceremonially unclean. The Lord says it, the Lord directs it, and it is so. And that's the case. We've seen this throughout, actually from Exodus 20 onward, when the laws of God and God's ordinances regarding various things began to become more known among the people. We've seen a lot of times God prescribes things simply because He's God. And there's another reason, of course. He prescribes these things as a means of foreshadowing or typifying things which wouldn't come about until much, much later. And we're seeing things like that unfold here as well. One of the biggest lessons behind this idea of the woman being ceremonially unclean is that to pronounce her so on the basis of this new birth of this child was to be a reminder that every child born was born into sin. It's a reminder of original sin. It's a reminder of the truth that all of us come into this world naked and destitute of anything that might commend us to our thrice holy God. We are sinners, according to Romans 5.12, we're sinners by virtue of the sin of our father Adam, who as our federal head has passed down that sin nature to subsequent generations. We are all born in sin. Not only that, we're not only born in sin, we're conceived in sin. This is something that David himself actually said in Psalm 51 5 remember he said surely I was sinful at birth Sinful from the time my mother conceived me Psalm 58 3 David wrote the wicked are estranged from the womb they go astray as soon as they're born speaking lies and And it's for this reason that as soon as the seven days of uncleanness had passed, the mother was to have the male child circumcised on the eighth day. Remember what circumcision itself foreshadowed. Circumcision, the removal of the foreskin on the male's body part was a way of signifying that God's intention was to remove their sin from them. He was cutting away the sinful aspect of man in this foreshadowing ritual. And that's really all it was, a foreshadowing ritual. It was a sign or symbol of the covenant that God initially made with Abraham. Now, let me just ask you, we've learned via the sacrificial system and our study of the sacrificial system, we learned in Hebrews 10, 4 that despite all the bloodshed, despite all the sacrifices that were offered, despite all the animals that died, despite all the good intentions of the hearts of those who made these sacrifices, in Hebrews 10, 4, we are told categorically that it was never possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Those sacrifices made year after year by the high priest at that particularly appointed time, those animals in that particular fashion, none of them were efficacious. Why? Because they pointed to the one sacrifice that would be made in Christ. They were efficacious to the one who saw them as foreshadowings, to the one who saw them as types of the one who was to come. They were efficacious for the one who was able to recognize that in this sacrifice of this lamb of mine is actually foreshadowed the ultimate sacrifice that is yet to come that will be efficacious once and for all. But in and of themselves, these sacrifices had no effect in terms of removing sin. The same thing is true of circumcision. Circumcision did not remove sin. It was a picture of God's intention and His ability to remove sin from sinful humankind. Now, let's take this a little further. These things are all reminders that man needs to be cleansed, not physically, but spiritually. Now, how long was circumcision to continue? Well, it's the same as any foreshadowing type of ritual. Circumcision was to continue until the thing that it pictured or foreshadowed was fulfilled. Now, what did Old Testament circumcision foreshadow? Well, the Presbyterians and others insist that Whereas circumcision was the sign and seal of the covenant of grace in the Old Testament, it's been replaced under the new covenant by baptism. You ever wondered why Presbyterians baptized their babies? This is why. I say just as Old Testament children were circumcised, males only, but we'll not deal with that at this point. But just as they were circumcised as a foreshadowing of the removal of sin, babies today are baptized for the same reason. It places them in the covenant family of God. Now, is that true? Well, first of all, let me just say categorically the answer is no. It's not true. Now, what makes it untrue? Well, the first thing, and this should be fairly obvious, even to the staunchest Paedo-Baptist, it's a work. Is it not? It's a work that has to be performed. Spiritual work? No, it's very physical. Anybody ever witness a baby being baptized? It's a very physical affair. Just ask the baby. I mean, if the baby could answer you, all it does to the baby is make them angry most of the time, if it even wakes them up at all, right? But it's still a work done with hands. What did Old Testament circumcision actually prefigure or foreshadow. It foreshadowed that work done without hands, which by the way is also called circumcision. Romans 2. It's the circumcision of the heart. It's the spiritual circumcision of the heart that is made in regeneration for all who believe. So if you're Presbyterian you have a big hill to climb just with that Number one infant baptism is a work done with hands the fulfillment of Old Testament circumcision though is Not a work done with hands, but without hands and it doesn't involve body parts physical parts it involves spiritual activity and Pedo-baptism is done by men, mortals. The fulfillment of Old Testament circumcision, the circumcision of the heart is performed entirely by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. So there again, they've got a big problem right from the get-go. Now what passage do they use to make their case. Well, most of them use Colossians 2. You can go ahead and turn there. Colossians 2, 11 and 12. In the end, as you'll see, this really does more harm to their argument than provide help, but let's read it together and I'll try to explain very briefly. Colossians 2 verse 11 Paul says to the Colossians in him that is in Christ you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands there it is okay you want a direct correlation between the circumcision of the old and the circumcision of the new there it is it's a circumcision made without hands and the removal of the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ having been buried with him in baptism which you were also raised up with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead." Now, after circumcision of Christ and before having been buried with him in baptism, you should see a semicolon. That semicolon is there to indicate that we're dealing with two independent clauses. It's not joining the two thoughts. In other words, Paul's not saying that in the removal of the body of flesh by the circumcision of Christ, that this was done in baptism. He's saying that having been buried with him in baptism as a result of what? As a result of the newness of life that's been imparted to you by Christ in this circumcision made without hands, you were raised up with him. through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. What Paul's saying here is, look, you came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This was that circumcision of the heart made without hands. You came to faith in Jesus Christ. As a result, you were baptized as a testimony, public testimony to what had been done internally This is why we believe what we do about baptism. And in the process, you're signifying that you have been raised to newness of life in much the same way that God raised Christ himself to newness of life. That's all he's saying. That's all he's saying. The problem among Pato Baptists is that they want to connect verses 11 and 12 as a continuation of the same thought, and that really wasn't Paul's intention at all. If one's completely honest with the text, there's really only one suitable understanding, and that again is that Old Testament circumcision, that physical, very brutal, I might add, act carried out on male Hebrew children, that has been fulfilled in the removal of our fleshy hearts the flesh of our hearts, the sinful component of our hearts, having been replaced in regeneration by the Holy Spirit in the grace of God. And so we have a correlation. The correlation to Old Testament baptism is new life in Christ. And guess what? It applies to all of us, not just males. Not just males can be saved. How do we know that this is the case? Well, again, Paul goes on to say here that this was through faith in the working of God. How do we get faith? Where does faith come from? Does everybody have faith? Some people believe that. Everybody has faith and all you have to do is point it in the right direction. And once you point it in the right direction, God says, good for you. You're smart enough to point it in the right direction. I believe I'll save you. Is that how it happens? No, according to Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, well, actually, you have to read the whole of Ephesians 2. But according to Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, we're saved by grace through faith. And what is that? It's the gift of God. Now, why is it a gift of God and not something that we can innately choose to put into action? Well, it's the gift of God, lest anyone should boast. It's the gift of God because none of us can boast of having saved ourselves. None of us can boast of having anything within us that would enable us or commend us to God in such a way that He might be inclined to save us. It's very important that we understand that. Paul says here, through faith, in the working of who? In the working of God. Let me just ask you, Even if we could draw a correlation between verses 11 and 12 here and connect the two, do newborn babies have faith in God? No, they don't. Newborn babies have no faith in God, much less the working of God in salvation. They have no awareness of their need for salvation. You know? Now, you might argue, some people love to argue, well, you know, not until they reach an age of accountability. The sad part about that, the scripture doesn't speak to an age of accountability. There is no magical age at which someone is no longer born in sin. You know, well, what about newborns who die in infancy. What about babies who die as a result of abortion and things like that? I've told you before what I believe about that. I tend to believe what Spurgeon believed. I tend to believe what MacArthur has written a nice little book about. It's a book called Safe in the Arms of God. If you've never read it, I would encourage you to read that. It's very encouraging, but I believe the same thing David believed about where babies who die in infancy go, and I believe it's heaven. I simply choose to believe that. Is that a denial of their inherent sinfulness? No. No, it's a magnification, though, of what I believe to be the goodness and the glory of God. Now, if I get to heaven and find out, no, Tim, you were wrong. You should have just stuck with the facts as they were in the scriptures, right? I'll be OK with that. I'm OK with that. Whatever my God ordains is right. It's just that for my own well-being, for my own ability to process who God is, at least in my own finite pea-sized brain, I have to be able to reconcile certain things that I'm not comfortable reconciling otherwise. Believe the opposite of that if you want, that's fine, right? It's just a conviction that I share, but we do have enough information to understand that babies don't have regenerative faith innately. Babies have no kind of faith except the faith perhaps that their mother will feed them again, that their diaper will be changed again, that when they cry they get certain responses from their parents and so on and so forth. But saving faith? No. So what are you doing, actually, when you insist that baptism today is the fulfillment of Old Testament circumcision back then, and you baptize all of these young babies, what are you actually doing to them? Nothing. In fact, you might be doing something really sinister to them. You might be giving them this false assurance that they belong to Christ, that they belong to the covenant family of God when they don't. And that's dangerous. Much better to start giving our children the gospel at an early age, hoping that the Lord will cause them to believe through the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit. So again, I didn't really intend to go down that path of circumcision versus baptism again this morning. But I thought, you know, since the text does speak to it again, it's it's always good that we be on the same page when it comes to the Old Testament rituals under discussion, as well as the fulfillment of those things in God's opening of his plan of redemption. The fulfillment of circumcision is not in baptism. The fulfillment of circumcision is in the circumcision of the heart made without hands, God saying to you, you're mine and drawing you to himself as only he can and saving you from certain death and an eternity of wrath. Now, let's go back to this idea of childbirth not being a negative thing. There are far too many passages in scripture that speak to the blessedness of having children as opposed to it being some kind of curse. In fact, there's no place in scripture where it's ever pronounced a curse for a woman to have a child. Now, some of you women here this morning have been in labor. And for the moment, it can appear to be very much a curse. And in that way of thinking, it is very much a curse because God said it would be a curse. Remember in Genesis chapter 3, one of the penalties placed on Eve and all who would come after her would be pain and childbirth. And you'll just have to take that up with Eve when you get there. But how many of you women who have had children will admit that even as bad as labor has been, even as unpleasant as your circumstances may have indeed been, after it's all over, it's very soon that you begin to experience the joy of motherhood. I've had women immediately, when the baby's placed into their arms after 30 hours of labor, I've even asked women, so how was it? And they're like, it was great. Because the reward is so much worth the travail. And it's a real blessing of God, I think, that God is able to. And you know, I've heard that there are also chemical things going on in the body. The brain starts creating and secreting different chemicals that actually transform the mind from the memory of what has just happened to giving you this kind of joy that you have at holding the byproduct in your arms, right? Now again, it's all of God and it's all of grace, but it's a wonderful thing. Let me give you just a few examples of what the Bible says about this. Psalm 113, 9. He makes the barren woman abide in the house as a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord. Joyful mother. Mothers are often described in scripture as being full of joy, pride. Not sinful pride, but pride at the children that the Lord has blessed them with. Psalm 127, three through five. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. Proverbs 17, six. Children's children are the crown of old men and the glory of children is their father. And there's other places we can go that speak to the excellencies of raising children, having children. So giving birth is not this negative thing, as you might be inclined to think, studying passages like Leviticus 12. It's just that, again, as much a blessing as having one's own children can be, as wonderful as children are, God still considered it necessary to remind His people that every baby born enters the world totally depraved and would render the mother ceremonially unclean. In the case of a male child, if you add up all the days of uncleanness, you're looking at a total of 40 days. The first period of seven days, and this is followed by 33 more days. In the case of a female child, the two periods are doubled. Hmm. I wonder why that might be. Could it be because little baby girls are double the trouble? No, it's not what it is. But you have a total of 80 days. 14 days followed by 66 days for 80 days. In all seriousness, why the difference between the two? Nobody knows. We just don't know. I did a lot of study on this. I believe it was on Wednesday or Thursday. And I was looking up all the rabbinical sources I could find. Surely there's some rabbi out there who has a clever answer. You know somebody that everybody's looked back to over the years somebody like Gamaliel or Hillel or some of the greats That people have looked back to and say yep. This is why it's double for females You know it being misogynistic as they were and they were Surely somebody would have some kind of clever rationale for why the time is doubled You know there's no real suggestions offered And when they are offered, you'll go to 10 rabbis and you'll have 10 different opinions for why this might be. We just don't know. And sometimes, as we've said countless times in our studies throughout the Word of God, sometimes we just have to resign ourselves to not knowing. And this is one of those cases. Rather than launch out on any number of speculative reasons, I try to stay away from speculation. If the Word doesn't tell us, or if those closest to the Word, historians, commentators, if they can't be in unison about something, it's best just to leave that thing alone. And so that's what I've chosen to do here. Now that said, there is something I need to clarify with regard to the wording of this passage. When the Lord says that the woman who has been given birth shall remain in the blood of her purification for whatever time period was prescribed, What does that mean? I mean, that's what kind of gives this passage a negative tinge, doesn't it? The woman is to remain in the blood of her purification. That means she has the baby in this horrendously bloody ordeal and she's just supposed to sit there and remain in her blood for this whole time? Is that what that means? No, that's not what that means. They would have had servants. They would have been very hygienic. They would have come along and cleaned up after her. This is another little-known Hebraism, that is, Hebrew language way of saying something that doesn't come across quite as clear as we might like in the English language. In this case, it simply means that she is to maintain the status quo, having had her child, she's to just sit still during this purification period. That's it. And there's a lot of health reasons for that as well. We've come to find out. She's not to overexert herself. She's not to do things that would be out of the ordinary. She's actually to be catered to and to be looked after and so on and so forth so that the baby might be raised, get the best possible start, especially in the environments in which these children were being born. And so that's all this means. She's simply to remain isolated for the prescribed period of time And during that isolation, she becomes more and more ready to return back to her previous life or her new life, embark on her new life with her baby. In that way, she's becoming more and more purified throughout the process. Continuing on in our text, though, we read, when the days of her purification are completed, for a son or for a daughter, she shall bring to the priest at the doorway of the tent of meeting a one-year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a turtle dove for a scent offering. And we've discussed this a few times now, but the sacrifices brought by the mother were meant to convey the mother's understanding that she was in need of cleansing herself, which was evident by the fact that she had just given birth to another sinner. This was still another reminder Once you pass through this period of purification, you're not out of the woods yet, you still have to make the required sacrifice, which would be made for you. Notice the sacrifice is not made for the child. The sacrifice is made for the mother. She's to offer a burnt offering. And she's to offer a sin offering. And we're not going to go over what all that means. Again, we covered those things at great length in the previous book, as well as in the previous chapters of this book. The main takeaway from this, though, as I said earlier, is what we read in Hebrews 10, 4. This is just another of God's requirements that would point the woman of faith to the reality of the coming sacrifice, whose name would be Jesus Christ. This was intended to remember what we said about the law as a whole, the Old Testament ceremonial law. We're not talking about the moral law, maybe in a tangential way. But more often than not, when we talk about the law having a built-in sense of futility, We are talking about the moral law because nobody can keep the law of God perfectly as is demanded by God, but we're more than anything talking about the futility that was bound up in this ceremonial law. Can you imagine having this awareness every time you brought a sacrifice to the Lord? That immediately when you committed a sin after having offered your sacrifice, you were no longer clean. You were guilty again. And having to do this over and over and over and over, the built-in sense of futility would have been enormous, especially for the person of faith. And what does that sense of futility point that person to? The sense of futility causes the heart to cry out, Lord, I can't do this. Lord, it's obvious because I still have this reminder from Your Holy Spirit that I'm sinning at every turn. It's obvious that this system that You have set up is not working. Not to mean, Lord, that You're not perfect because You are, but there's something I'm missing. There's a piece to this puzzle that I'm obviously missing. And then if you had the like faith of Abraham, you were able to put that piece of puzzle into the puzzle and have at least a small understanding of saving faith. When Abraham's faith was reckoned to him as righteousness, where did Abraham's faith first appear? Remember, he's about to plunge his dagger into the heart of his son, and he's restrained from doing so. And he looks up and he sees a ram caught in a thicket. And what does his newfound faith inform him is the purpose of that ram caught in the thicket. God will provide a sacrifice. I don't have to do this. God's going to make a way. And because he withheld Abraham having to sacrifice his own son and provided that ram. Abraham named that place Jehovah Jireh. God provides. And his faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. Was it a perfect faith? No. Was it a faith that understood all the ins and outs of Sola Fide? No. Was it a faith that understood who Jesus was, when he would come, what he would do exactly? No. All he knew was, God, you can provide, you will provide, you have provided. And it was that little seed of faith. That was enough to render Abraham positionally righteous before a thrice holy God. And you can imagine being in this sacrificial system. If you were a person of faith, you would certainly go through the motions because you were told to do this by God. But can you imagine the relief that you would have felt knowing it's just a picture? This is just a foreshadowing of what will ultimately come. I don't know when, I don't know how, I don't know how it's all going to go down, but I do know that God will provide. How comforting that might have been in those circumstances. But as it was, the woman giving birth would have to bring these two sacrifices. And according to verse 7, she gave it to the priest. He was to offer it before the Lord and make atonement for her. She would thus be cleansed from the thing that had rendered her ceremonially unclean, the flow of her blood. According to verse 8, if the woman could not afford a lamb, she was to take two turtle doves or two young pigeons and offer those for both the burnt offering and the sin offering. This was, by the way, what Mary and Joseph had to do. right this was their status Luke chapter 2 verses 22 through 24 and when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord as it was written in the law of the Lord every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord and to offer a sacrifice according to what was said in the law of the Lord a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons So even Mary and Joseph were not able to afford the sacrifice that would be made to restore Mary to being ceremonially clean. Moving on to Leviticus chapter 13, we have another change of subject. This time, We have instructions from the Lord regarding leprosy. Now, if you're looking for a good way to outline Leviticus in the simplest way imaginable, let me just share with you something that you might not have noticed. I think it's helpful to note that chapters 1 through 17, speak primarily about how man can access God. Chapters 18-27 concern themselves with man's lifestyle or how man can walk with God. So 1-17, we're talking about access to God. We're still talking about access to God. From 18 to the end, we're going to talk about what man is to do within the bounds of that access to God. How man is to relate to God in terms of his walk with Him. Anyway, beginning here at verse 1 of chapter 13, we read as follows, and I'm just going to read the whole thing, unless you want a medical textbook sort of lecture on the ins and outs of leprosy, which I don't intend to do this morning. I'm not qualified to do that even, but even if I were, I'm not going to talk about oozing pus-filled sores all morning, especially on my stomach this morning. But let me just read this, and then I'll make a few comments at the end, and then we'll be on our way. But it is very fascinating nonetheless. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, or a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes an infection of leprosy on the skin of his body, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest, or to one of his sons the priests. The priest shall look at the mark of the skin of the body, and if the hair in the infection is turned white, and the infection appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is an infection of leprosy. When the priest has looked at him, he shall pronounce him unclean. But if the bright spot is white on the skin of his body, and it does not appear to be deeper than the skin, and the hair on it has not turned white, then the priest shall isolate him who has the infection for seven days. The priest shall look at him on the seventh day, and if in his eyes the infection has not changed and the infection has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall isolate him for seven more days. The priest shall look at him again on the seventh day, and if the infection has faded and the mark has not spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean. It is only a scab, and he shall wash his clothes and be clean. But if the scab spreads farther on the skin after he has shown himself to the priest for his cleansing, he shall appear again to the priest. The priest shall look, and if the scab is spread on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is leprosy. When the infection of leprosy is on the man, Then he shall be brought to the priest the priest shall then look and if there's a white swelling in the skin And it has turned the hair white and there's a quick raw flesh in the swelling It is a chronic leprosy on the skin of his body and the priest shall pronounce him unclean He shall not isolate him for he is unclean if the leprosy breaks out farther on the skin and the leprosy covers all of the skin of him who has infection from his head even to his feet as far as the priest can see then the priest shall look and behold if the leprosy has covered all of his body he shall pronounce clean him who has the infection it has all turned white and he is clean but when whenever raw flesh appears on him he shall be unclean the priest shall look at the raw flesh and he shall pronounce him unclean the raw flesh is unclean it is leprosy or if the raw flesh turns again and is changed to white then he shall come to the priest and the priest shall look at him And behold, if the infection is turned to white, and the priest shall pronounce him clean, who has the infection, he is clean. When the body is a boil on its skin, and it is healed, and in the place of the boil there is a white swelling, or a reddish-white bright spot, then it shall be shown to the priest, and the priest shall look, and behold, if it appears to be lower than the skin, and the hair on it has turned white, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is the infection of leprosy. It has broken out in the boil. But if the priest looks at it and behold, there are no white hairs in it, and it's not lower than the skin and is faded, then the priest shall isolate him for seven days. And if it spreads farther on the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is an infection. But if the bright spot remains in its place or does not spread, It is only the scar of the boil and the priest shall pronounce him clean. Or if the body sustains in its skin a burn by fire and the raw flesh of the burn becomes a bright spot, reddish white or white, then the priest shall look at it. And if the hair is bright in the bright spot, it turned white and it appears to be deeper than the skin. It is leprosy. It has broken out in the burn. Therefore, the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is an infection of leprosy. But if the priest looks at it, and indeed there is no white hair in the bright spot, and it is no deeper than the skin, but is dim, then the priest shall isolate him for seven days, and the priest shall look at him on the seventh day. If it spreads farther in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is an infection of leprosy. If the bright spot remains in its place and has not spread in the skin but is dim, it is the swelling from the burn, and the priest shall pronounce him clean, for it is only the scar of the burn. Now, if a man or woman has an infection on the head or on the beard, then the priest shall look at the infection, and if it appears to be deeper than the skin and there is thin yellowish hair in it, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is a scale. It is leprosy of the head or of the beard. But if the priest looks at the infection of the scale, and indeed it appears to be no deeper than the skin, and there's no black hair in it, then the priest shall isolate the person with the scaly infection for seven days. On the seventh day, the priest shall look at the infection, And if the scale is not spread with no yellowish hair, has grown in it, and the appearance of the scale is no deeper than the skin, then he shall shave himself, but he shall not shave the scale. And the priest shall isolate the person with the scale seven more days. Then on the seventh day, the priest shall look at the scale, And if the scale is not spread in the skin, and it appears to be no deeper than the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean, and he shall wash his clothes and be clean. But if the scale spreads farther in the skin after his cleansing, then the priest shall look at him. And if the scale is spread in the skin, the priest need not seek for the yellowish hair. He is unclean. If in his sight the scale has remained, however, and black hair has grown in it, the scale was has healed, he is clean. And the priest shall pronounce him clean. When a man or a woman has bright spots on the skin of the body, even white bright spots, when this priest shall look and if the bright spots on the skin of their bodies are faint white, then it is eczema that is broken out on the skin, he is clean. Now if a man loses his the hair of his head, he is bald, he is clean. If his head becomes bald at the front and sides, he is bald on the forehead, he is clean. But if on the bald head or on the bald forehead there occurs a reddish white infection, it is leprosy breaking out on his bald head or on his bald forehead. Then the priest shall look at him, and if the swelling of the infection is reddish white on his bald head or on his bald forehead, like the appearance of leprosy in the skin of the body, he is a leprous man, he is unclean. The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean, his infection is on his head. For as for the leper who has the infection is close shall be torn and the hair of his head shall be uncovered and he shall cover his mustache and cry unclean unclean He shall remain unclean all the days during which he has the infection. He is unclean He shall live alone his dwelling shall be outside the camp when a garment has a mark of leprosy on it whether it's a wool garment or a linen garment, whether in a warp or woof or linen or of wool, whether in leather or any article made of leather. If the mark is greenish or reddish in the garment or in the leather or in the warp or in the woof or any other article of leather, it's a leprous mark and shall be shown to the priest. Then the priest shall look at the mark and shall quarantine the article with the mark for seven days. He shall then look at the mark on the seventh day if the mark is spread in the garment. Whether in the warp of the wolf or in the leather, whatever the purpose for which the leather was used, the mark is a leprous malignancy, it is unclean. So he shall burn the garment, whether the warp or the wolf, in wool or in linen or in or any article of leather in which the mark occurs, for it is a leprous malignancy, it shall be burned in the fire. But if the priest shall look, and indeed the mark is not spread in the garment, either in the warp of the wolf or any article of leather, then the priest shall order them to wash the thing in which the mark occurs, and he shall quarantine it for seven more days. After the article with the mark has been washed, the priest shall look again, And if the mark has not changed its appearance, even though the mark is not spread, it is unclean, you shall burn it in the fire. Whether an eating away has produced bareness on the top or on the front of it, then if the priest looks and if the mark has faded after it has been cleaned and washed, he shall then tear it out of the garment or out of the leather, whether from the warp or from the woof. And it appears again in the garment, whether in the warp or in the woof or in any article of leather, it's an outbreak. The article with the mark should be burned in the fire of the garment, whether the warp of the wolf or any other of leather, which the mark has departed. When you washed it, it shall then be washed a second time and will be clean. This is the law for the mark of leprosy in a garment of wool or linen, whether in the warp or in the wolf or any article of leather for pronouncing it clean or unclean. Yeah. Everybody got that? In case you're not familiar with what leprosy actually is, notice I don't say was, but is. It is still a thing, even though they have found curative approaches to leprosy. We get the word leprosy itself from the word lepry, which is a Middle English word, and it was a word used to describe the scales of a fish, right? So you can kind of connect the dots. Any scaly appearance of the skin. would have to go through a rigorous examination like this and either be determined to be eczema, some other skin ailment, or in fact, leprosy. Leprosy is primarily a disease that affects the nerves. This is why lepers are required to do what's called a VSE, which is a visual survey of their extremities. having no sense of feeling. A lot of diabetics are taught this same thing for the same reason. You have no feeling, no awareness that you've injured yourself. It wasn't uncommon for people to stub their toe and then weeks later they find that their toe has fallen off or even entire appendages. They injure them. They can't heal. There's no restorative blood flow to the area. There's no sense of feeling in the area. And it's a really, really, really bad disease. Not as bad as it used to be. Some of you are familiar with the Hawaiian island of Molokai. For years, Molokai was a leper colony. Until fairly recently, Molokai has not been inhabited by anyone except lepers and the people who care for them. I think there's been a resurgence of population now that they've got the disease under control, but you can imagine just how terrifying it would be in the confines of a place like the camp that the Israelites were in. When something like this began to break out, you needed to, as Barney Fife says, you need to nip it in the bud. And that's exactly what they did by God's direction. You know, you might again be asking, why is God so specific? Well, God's so specific because this was such a dangerous situation. And God is very exacting in everything that he does, and this is certainly no exception to that. What we have here in Leviticus 13 is really just a straightforward legal prescription for how this untreatable, uncurable disease was to be managed among the Israelites by the priests. Instead of going on to chapter 14 next week, I was thinking about something that I preached years and years ago from Luke chapter 17 about how Jesus actually treated lepers. And I think Having just talked about leprosy and its devastating effects and God's purpose in all of it and his dealing with that, I think next week I'd like to use our time in the first hour to go over that message again, really kind of as a palate cleanser of sorts, to show just how the Lord cares even for those in the most detestable of circumstances, and I hope you'll be encouraged by that. So, look out for that. I think it's all the time we have this morning. Again, if you have any questions at all about anything we've talked about, put those in the box in the back. Come up to me afterwards if you dare. I'm not contagious, but some of you are still paranoid, and that's a good thing. I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.