Physical Defilements (Num. 5:1-4)

12/7/2008 10:36 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                        Focus:  Physical defilements

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Numbers 5:1-4

            Message of the verses:  “1 ¶ Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the sons of Israel that they send away from the camp every leper and everyone having a discharge and everyone who is unclean because of a dead person.

3 “You shall send away both male and female; you shall send them outside the camp so that they will not defile their camp where I dwell in their midst."  4 The sons of Israel did so and sent them outside the camp; just as the LORD had spoken to Moses, thus the sons of Israel did.”

            I am beginning a new chapter in both the book of Numbers and also in Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary, “Be Counted.”  The title of this chapter is “Dedication and Celebration—Part One.”  There is always a clue to what Dr. Wiersbe is going to write about, and it is usually given in the last part of the ending paragraph of his introduction to the chapter, and in this case the last sentence has this to say, “What kind of people did the Lord want them to be.”  The “them” in this case is Israel. Well the answer to this question will give the different sections in his book, and the first answer is “A clean people.”  “The word defiled is used nine times in Numbers five, and thee kinds of defilement are defined.”  The first of these is physical defilement and that is the first section that will be studied.  The first four verses in Numbers five show three kinds of defilement:  Leprosy, discharging body fluids, and those who touch the dead, either animals or humans.  During their forty year wonder in the wilderness, and figuring that there were one million people that came out of Egypt, that would mean that there were a lot of funerals each day and a lot of people unclean by touching the dead bodies of their dead family members.

            While studying the book of Leviticus I learned that God wants His people to be holy, as that seems to be the theme of Leviticus, and some of the ways that taught holiness in Leviticus were the laws concerning cleanliness, for defilement pictures sin and cleanliness pictures holiness.  This is still true in the Church age, “1 ¶ Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, (2Cor. 7:1). 

            Israel was just a brand new nation, and they had been living in Egypt for four-hundred years and there was a lot of Egypt left in Israel, so God would use things like defilement and cleanliness to show them what sin and holiness were, kind of like what the writer to the Hebrews wrote when he was chastising his readers for being immature and wrote, “Heb 5:12  For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”  There are other times in the NT that this type of writing can be found, for it takes an effort to come to maturity in the faith, it does not happen by accident.

            These three groups of defilement are pretty much seen in these verses and so I will not write a lot about them in what is physically meant by them.  The main point is that “Although health and hygiene were involved in these laws, their basic purpose was to teach the Jews the meaning of separation and holiness.” 

            Jesus Christ, while on earth ignored these laws of uncleanness, for He touched lepers, and also dead people, and even people with unclean discharges and He healed them all, even those who were dead.  However when Jesus died on the cross he did become defiled by my sin and the sin of the world by becoming sin for me so that I could have His righteousness imputed to me.  Halleluiah what a Savior!

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I think that what I can take out of this is when I have become defiled because of sin that I need to confess my sin in order to receive forgiveness and cleansing for the One who died for me.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Ask the Lord to search me for unconfessed sin.
2. Give myself to the Lord for service and worship and for the renewing of my mind.
3. Learn to be content.
4. Trust the Lord to guide my path today.
5. Trust the Lord for what is about to come upon our country.

Memory verses for the week:                                  Romans 6:1-11

1. What shall we say then?  Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2. May it never be!  How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
3. Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
4. Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
5. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
6. knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves of sin,
7. for he who has died is freed from sin.
8. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
9. knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death is no longer master over Him.
10. For the death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.
11. Even so consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12/7/2008 11:25 AM