Gillespie, J Stewart: Gospel Message-Hebrews 9:22-The Cleansing Power Of The Blood

The, uh, book of Hebrews, please. The book of Hebrews, chapter nine. The, um, last couple of times we've spoken on a Sunday night, we've been thinking about the Lord Jesus Christ. In particular, we've been thinking about the death of the Lord Jesus, and, uh, we thought it might just be helpful and profitable to us to think about some aspects of the death of the Lord Jesus, but really the power of the gospel and the power of Christian living and the power of the message of the Bible, it lies there, uh, it lies there in the death and in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, in the cross work of the Lord Jesus. So you might just remember that we've thought already a little about the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ and a little bit about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. These were things that are linked with his death at Calvary, and tonight I want to think about the cleansing, the cleansing. That is one of the things that comes from Calvary, the cleansing from sin. And, uh, tonight we want to think about that, and in particular, there is a, a very important picture that the Bible paints of the sinner, uh, being cleansed of his sin, and we find it in the Old Testament, and we'll look at it, uh, in a wee while. It's a picture of a leper. Before we read our Bibles, I just want to read this to you, and it's an extract that I found in a book, and it was written about a hundred years ago by a man named William Thomson, and he was on a journey, and he was traveling to, to, to Jerusalem. William Thomson. Here's what he says. As I was approaching Jerusalem, I was startled by the sudden apparition of a crowd of beggars. No eyes, no nose, no hair, no everything. They he- they held up their handless arms. They gargled through, uh, they made unearthly sounds, uh, and gargled through throats without palates. In a word, I was horrified. That was a picture that that man, eh, recorded as he had gone to Jerusalem, and the group of men that he'd met were men with leprosy. Now, the reason I had to get it out of a book a hundred years ago is that whilst I've seen leprosy, I've never seen it untreated, and today it's it's treated. But in the Bible, eh, there is a picture of man in his sin, and the Bible, eh, uses the picture of the leper. It was a slow disease, and it spread through the body. It started sometimes just as a little spot, almost, eh, not much more than maybe a pimple, a little piece of acne. You might look, look at it and think it harmless and insignificant, but gradually it spread through the body, and as Mr. Thompson correctly observed, it resulted in the destruction of limbs, and so you would have people without hands and without feet. It could result in the destruction of the eyes and the destruction of the palate, so they couldn't speak and they couldn't swallow and they couldn't eat properly, and in fact it could re- result in destruction of much of the face and the ears. It was a disgusting disease, and the man who observed it was correct, it was quite horrifying. And the picture that the Bible paints of God's attitude to sin is the picture of the leper. In other words, as God looks down and he sees man without a savior, God is horrified. And there is something about sin that absolutely, eh, eh, it pushes God away, it repulses. The Bible says it separates us v- v- from God, and there is something horrendous and awful and ugly to the sight of a holy God. And we want to think about, eh, sin and the leper, and most importantly, about the strange thing that happens in the book of Leviticus, where you have the impossible happening, you have the leper cleansed, and that is very interesting indeed. Now, just a verse or two in the New Testament then, Hebrews chapter nine and verse twenty two, and it says this. Hebrews nine verse twenty two: And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood is no remission. Now, that really would be a- an excellent text just for tonight. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood is no remission. In other words, if I'm going to be clean, if I'm going to be purified of my sin, if my sin is going to be taken away, it all lies in the power of blood, the power of blood. Not just any blood, of course, but when we're thinking about my sin being taken away and we're thinking about me being ready for heaven, then it is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's a little verse I want to read as well on the same theme in First John, before we go into the Old Testament. First John chapter one and verse seven, just in case you th- thought I was making something up there. Here it is, First John chapter one verse seven. just at the end of that little verse, I pick out half of it, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanseth us from all sin. And so the, the, uh, almost all things by the law are purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no removal, there is no forgiveness of sin, and here is the blood that has the power to take away my sin. It is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, a verse or two first then in the book of Psalms before we go into Leviticus. Psalm fifty one, an interesting little, eh, eh, verse here. Psalm fifty one, written by a man called David who's very burdened by his sin. Psalm 51. Psalm m fifty one, verse one says, have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, that's my sins. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. Verse five, behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Verse seven, purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Remember that little nest there, verse seven? Perch me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Hyssop was a, was a little, eh, a little plant, a little herb, a bit of herb, and it was used sometimes as a sponge. Eh, you know, we, we, we can get sponges from the seaside, but in those days they couldn't get sponges, so they would use a piece of hyssop, and it was just a little, a little herb, and you could dip it into things. Uh, and for some reason, uh, this writer says, purge me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Now into the book of Leviticus. Leviticus fourteen. Leviticus fourteen. Reading from verse one. We're really at the beginning of our Bibles here. Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus. Leviticus 14. It says this, and the Lord, verse one, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, this shall be the law of the leper. In the day of his cleansing, he shall be brought unto the priest, and the priest shall go forth out of the camp, and the priest shall look, and behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper, then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood and scarlet and hyssop. Remember that verse I told you to remember? Uh, verse four, there it is again. Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed, that's a leper, two birds alive, clean, and cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop. And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water. As for a living bird, he shall take it and the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop, there it is again, and shall dip them, and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water, and he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field. And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes and shave off all his hair and wash himself in water that, eh, he may be clean. And after that he shall come into the camp and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days. But it shall be on the seventh day that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off, and he shall wash his clothes also, and he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean. And we look to God to help as we think about these things. So this, uh, passage here in Leviticus chapter fourteen, it deals with the cleansing of a leper, someone who has been diagnosed with leprosy, and for some, uh, by some miraculous means, they have now been cured. It's interesting, you know, that the previous chapter to this, we don't have time to look at it, but the previous chapter to it, uh, tells us all about the leper and his leprosy. It tells us a little bit of, of, of what we we've already mentioned earlier on, but it just began, uh, by something, uh, that could, well, there might just be a tiny wee spot, a tiny wee mark, and then gradually, as we read about the leprosy in chapter thirteen, gradually it takes a grip of the person and it spreads through the person, and sometimes even it would, it would bury itself deep into the person, and then the flesh is opened up and the flesh comes to the surface of the skin, and it's all there, and it's a disgusting, uh, and it's a terrible affliction, and it's detailed for us in Leviticus chapter number thirteen. The interesting thing is this, though, that having described leprosy, which up until about nineteen fifty was incurable, uh, then in nineteen fifty they found a drug called dapsone, and one or two other things have happened since then, and now leprosy is generally curable. But up until about nineteen fifty, leprosy was incurable, and in Leviticus chapter thirteen, you read, you read all about leprosy, and then in chapter number fourteen, you read something very interesting and quite remarkable. Verse number two of Leviticus fourteen, we read it, this shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. So in the book of Leviticus, whilst God is at pains to stress that this leper is defiled, that he's to be put outside of the camp and away from the people, whilst the the word of God is at pains to stress that this affliction is serious and that it spreads and that it corrupts and it destroys, I want you to see that there is provision here in the word of God for a leper being cleansed. And after describing all of the bad things and all of the repulsive things about the leper, God now tells us that he expects one day that the leper would be cleaned and he would be purified. It's interesting, very interesting. Something else of interest for those of you who read your Bible, I just mention it in passing. In Leviticus chapter thirteen, whilst it was written somewhere around about fifteen hundred two thousand BC, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll read a very interesting thing that, that God instructed that had to be done to the leper. You will read that the leper had to take some kind of bandage or some kind of mask and put it across his face. I just say that in passing for those who study their Bible. That's very interesting because it was generally agreed amongst people for at least the past three thousand years that leprosy was passed by touch. Now, leprosy is not passed by touch, and it was only towards the, um, uh, beginning of the nineteen hundreds, in fact, that it was discovered that leprosy, in fact, is spread by, uh, uh, spread by respiratory deposits. It's spread from the nose, it grows in the nose, and it's as you breathe out through your mouth and your nose that you pass leprosy onto other people. And very interestingly, in Leviticus chapter thirteen, you'll find one of the instructions that God left regarding the leper is that he had to cover up his face. Now, that didn't make any sense to anyone, but it was there in Leviticus thirteen. and the reason, of course, was because God knew how lepers would spread. It spread through the breath and through the deposits in the air. But anyway, the important thing is this, that in Leviticus thirteen we read about the repulsiveness of the leper, a picture of man and his sin. And as God looks down upon you and upon me, and as he sees a sinner, it is repulsive to God. And God doesn't just take sin and categorize it and say, well, that's that doesn't really matter because it never harmed anyone with that sin. Or, or that wee sin there, well, ach, that was just, eh, that was a wee sin against the tax man, so that doesn't bother, actually, you know, it doesn't matter. God looks upon sin, and sin is always an affrontment. It's a rebellion against God. In fact, the Bible says this, sin is lawlessness. Sin is the rebellion against God's law. Sin is taking God's law and breaking it. It's disobedience. And it doesn't matter, you know, what, what it might be that your child disobeys you about, there is always an affrontment to your dignity when you, when you, when you're disobeyed. And God is disobeyed by sin. And so sin is serious, and sin is ugly, and God is angry with sin. It always resulted in the leper being put out, just as the sinner is put out from the presence of God, so the leper. But the tremendous thing here in Leviticus chapter fourteen is this, that God fully expects, and God made provision that one day the leper would be clean, he would be cleansed. You see, it doesn't, it doesn't matter how much we sin, and it doesn't matter how great a grip of sin has of our life. There is sufficiency in Christ that that sin might be cleansed. Do you remember the wee verse that we read? Almost all things by the law are purged with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no remission. The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses me from all sin. And there was power, there is power in the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, in his shed blood, to cleanse from sin. Now, I want to draw your attention to one or two interesting things here in this book of, of, of Leviticus and in chapter fourteen that might just help us to come to an understanding of what Christ has done for us. Did you notice, first of all, how it was, verse two and verse three, did you notice, first of all, how it was that the leper came to be cleansed? This is important. How did he come to be cleansed? Now, here it is here, verse two: This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing, he shall be brought unto the priest. And verse three: and the priest shall go forth out of the camp. Two things there I draw your attention to. The first is this, here's a man, and he he he's a leper, and he believes now that he is cleansed and he can come to the, he he he he's going to be able to draw near into the camp. And the first thing, the first thing that has to happen is, number one, the man has to move towards the priest, verse two. And and number two, the priest has to go to the man. The man is going to be brought to the priest, and the priest is going to go out to the man, and they're going to meet, they're going to have an encounter. The man is going to have an encounter with the priest, both of them. You see, if it is the case, we'll think about it in a minute, if it is a case that you have your burden, a burden about your sin, we read about a man in Psalm fifty one, and he had a great burden about his sin. He knew there was something that wasn't right about w- with his soul. He knew that there was sin in his soul, and it gave him a deep sense of emptiness and a deep burden of guilt, and it was weighing him down, and and he knew that that God was displeased with him. And if God has touched your life, and he's touched your heart, and you're burdened about your sin, the first thing you're going to have to do is you're going to have to come to him about it. You're going to have to come to him. You'll find that, you know, as the Lord Jesus Christ moved amongst people in, in the, the books of the gospel, there's a wee saying that we, we often use, and the wee saying is this: a seeking sinner will find a seeking savior. Mm. And you know, as you go through the gospels and you look at how the Lord Jesus Christ worked, you find that the Savior is willing to, to raise a man up from his bed, but someday lowers the man down from the ceiling to, to meet the Savior. And there's the man coming to the Savior, and there's the Savior coming to the man. And then you remember that wee man, Zacchaeus, the wee man that was, eh, ever so busy diddling everybody's taxes. Oh, the Savior's going to have time for the man. Come down, Zacchaeus, uh, I'm going to eat at your house today. Now there's Zacchaeus, though he's made an effort, hasn't he? He- he's got, he's got a burden, and he wants to meet the Savior, and he's climbed up the sycamore tree just to get a sight of the Lord Jesus. So the first lesson I want to draw your attention to is this: if you're burdened with your sin, you're going to have to do something about it. You're going to have to come to Christ. Uh, here it is, of course, in chapter fourteen, it's the priest. Today, it is the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who is able to cleanse me from my sin. Now, I draw your attention to as to just exactly what it was that happened, and it's very interesting indeed. Verse four, if you've still got your Bible open, uh, Leviticus fourteen and verse number four. Did you see that? Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop, and the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water. Verse seven. And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field. Did you notice? The first thing that happened was that the priest came and he took two birds. He was going to take a sacrifice, you see. Sin has to be cleansed by a sacrifice. We've thought about that previously. And as the priest comes and he picks two little birds, what kind of birds does he choose? A couple of wee grubby ones. A wee dead one that he found at the front of his window. I, I came home the other week, you know, and I found a dead bird at the front of my window. The boys were fighting over the dead bird, you know, there's nothing more the boys like than a dead bird. Could be a dead frog is maybe more impressive. No, no, he couldn't just find a dead bird that was lying a wee bit scabby by the side of the road. That wouldn't do. And he couldn't he find a a bird that was a bit mothy, the kind of things that you see in the pet shop with all the feathers missing. Did you notice, very importantly, the that this sacrifice that the priest was going to bring, it had to be everything that the man wasn't. It had to be alive, and it had to be clean, alive and clean. And there was going to be some kind of power associated with this sacrifice, and part of the power lay in this, this little bird was something that the man wasn't. It was clean, and he was unclean. And the guilt, the sin of the man was going to be taken and put on the clean bird. Interesting. You see, you'll never pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. You never do it. You'll never ever reach God by trying off a hand, never managing. You'll never ever be good enough for God by trying to clean up your act a wee bit. If you're going to be right with God, then you are going to have to have someone that is everything you aren't. Someone that is as, that is as perfect as you are imperfect. Someone that is pure and that is holy and that is harmless and that is undefiled. Someone who is acceptable to God, even as I am. As you come into the New Testament scriptures, we meet a man, a lovely man. A man who will be a sacrifice for sin. A man who will take the burden of guilt of my sin, and his name is the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is said of the Lord Jesus Christ that God made to, God took the sin of the world and put it upon him. It is said of the Lord Jesus Christ that he was wounded for my transgressions. He was bruised for mine iniquities. And the very punishment of my peace that was placed upon him. And he who was perfect, his my sin was put upon him, uh, he who was everything that I wasn't. And so the first thing the priest has to do here in Leviticus fourteen is he has to choose a perfect bird, a bird that is everything that the leper is. The second thing I'd draw your attention to is this. You notice that there were two birds, two birds. Verse number four, verse number five. And the priest shall command one of the birds to be killed in an earthen vessel over running water. As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood and the scarlet and the hyssop, and shall dip them in the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water. And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living blood loose into a pool. You see, where was the power of this sacrifice? The power of this sacrifice, it lay in the blood, it lay in the blood. And the blood was taken, and a little brush was made, um, just a bit like a sponge and a stick. And the little sponge and a stick was taken, and it was dipped into the mixture of the blood and the water, and it was put upon the leper. And the power for cleansing, it came from the blood. That's the important thing. It came from the blood. As we come into God's plan of salvation, and as we look at Calvary tonight, and as we see the Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross at Calvary, and we remember some of the things that he suffered. We remember the nails that went through his hands and his feet, and the crown of thorns upon his head. We remember, uh, the, the stripes upon his back. We remember the fact that the hair was pulled from his face, and we remember there at Calvary that God put the sin upon him and that he bore away the sin of the world, says the Bible. The power that comes from that cross, it comes from his blood, it comes from his death, and it is when I, a sinner, come to him and I put my trust in his death and in the power of his shed blood that my sin is taken away. There is the power of God. It lay in the power of the blood. Now, I want you to notice something else that happens. Verse number eight. Not only is the blood taken and it is applied to this man in his life, but verse number eight, after that has happened, and he that is to be cleansed, he shall wash his clothes and shave off all of his hair and wash himself in water that he may be clean. And after that he shall come into the camp and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days, for it shall be in the seventh day that he shall sha- shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off, and he shall wash his clothes. You see, there was a lovely picture there, a lovely picture of the sinner, and he's come into the benefit of the sacrifice, and the blood has been taken and has been put upon his life, and the sin has been cleansed. But here's the proof of it. Here's the proof of it. He's not going to go back, you know, he's not going to go and put all those old clothes on that he used to wear as a leper, the old, the old rags. And he's not going to go back to where he used to live. He had to live at a distance from everybody else. He's taking off the old clothes, just in case there's any wee bugs in the hair, you know, he's going to shave it all off. You see, you're halfway there, Stuart, yourself, or maybe I am. And he's, he's going to get rid of the old hair and the old clothes, and he's going to wash the clean. Here's the proof of it. This man's a changed man, you see. All of that old sin is all gone now. And you look at him, you see a different person. You wouldn't recognize him. He's all shaved, and he's all clean, and he's, he's different, you see. Not only, not only do we have something that has happened to this man that, that takes away his sin, but it's changed his life. And you would just need to look at him. You wouldn't need to know anything about the wee bub and about the blood and about the sacrifice, but just if you looked at that man, you looked at him today and you compared that to him to to to that man to him yesterday, you would know just by looking at this man there's something different. And when Christ, you see, comes into my life, there has to be a change, and there has to be something different, and God is looking for. Now, you remember the wee verse or two that we read in Psalm? L- l- let me take you back to it, Psalm fifty one. Would it make more sense to us now? Psalm 51. Psalm number fifty one. Here's a man and he sinned. His, his sin was a very serious sin, as we would judge, all sin is serious with God, but this man, David, he... He had had a number of sins. He had looked on a woman and he wasn't married to the woman. He had lusted after her, and then he had committed adultery. And then he had come up with a plan as to how he might cover up adultery. He would get her husband and have him put to death. So there was lust, there was murder, there was adultery, and as a result of it all, there was the death of a child as well. Not only that, but he tried to cover it all up, and eh, because of it all, eh, the name of God was brought, brought in the dispute. It was a serious, serious sin. But he's burdened by his sin, and as you look down through these verses, you get a sense of what is going on in this man's heart, and that is where God begins, you see, where God begins to work when, when we come to know his son. Verse two, you see, he's burdened about the sins that he's done. Wash me truly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. He's burdened about the sin he's done. Verse five, he's burdened about the sin that is part and parcel of his person, the sin that he is. Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Oh, and there's that little verse, verse seven. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. You say, what does that mean, Stuart? Well, here's this man, David, and he's thinking about his sin, and he's looking back to that chapter that we've read tonight in the book of Leviticus, and as he thinks about his sin, he sees, you know, that he's just like that leper. He's just like that leper. And how was the leper cleansed? Oh, here it is. The leper was cleansed when the priest took a stick, and he put some hyssop upon it, and he sprinkled him with the blood. And then the man that went out and he got washed, he says, you know, sin. It's just like the leper. It's a sin, you know. I need it cleansed. I need it taken away. How is it that I'm going to have it taken away? Going to have it taken away by the blood, isn't he? And he's going to have it washed away, and he's going to be clean. Oh, it's good, you know. It's good when God burdens us about our sin. Means he's working with us. And it's good when we see the seriousness of our sin, that sin keeps me out of heaven. And it's good when we begin to see the truth of the word of God, that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But if I was just to stop there, you see, all that that would leave you with would would be with with your heads down looking at the ground tonight, and totally discouraged and disheartened and and and and and with absolutely no hope. But remember, remember that the God that speaks about the leper and his sin is the God that that looks forward to that leper being cleansed and being made right. And no matter how big my sin, God is bigger than my sin, and the sacrifice of Christ is greater than my sin, and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ is able to cleanse me from all sin. You know this man here in in Psalm fifty one? Now, we're not making excuses for him. We must never ever do that. But Psalm fifty one, that man who committed adultery, who had lust in his heart, who moved deceitfully and, and, and caused the murder of the woman's husband. You know that the, the word of God describes him as a man after God's own heart. Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? A man after God's own heart. You say, how, how's that possible? It's possible, you see, because the blood has been applied to his heart, and that God is greater than his sin, and God is able to bring somebody out of those experiences and cleanse them from those experiences and fit them again for his service. I say this, don't, don't, don't just pretend that your sin isn't important. See it as a serious thing, but realize this, that my savior, he can be your savior too, and he's able to cleanse you from that sin. He's able to purify you, and that comes from Calvary. It comes from his blood. It's because of what he did at Calvary. It's because that Christ suffered the just for the unjust. It's because that God made to meet upon him the iniquities of us all, all those who are willing just to receive him as their savior. All of those sins taken and paid for at Calvary, and tonight God asks us to put our trust in the savior. He asks us to be like the leper. Oh, you see, you've got a problem. You're wanting to do something about it. You come to the savior, and the blood is applied to your heart, and you're brought back indeed, uh, into the presence of God. Shall we? Our Father, we do give thanks indeed for thy work. We think, our Father, of the solemn and the serious subject tonight, that of of sin and of cleansing. How we thank thee, our Father, for these little pictures and the Old Testament scriptures that help us perhaps just to grasp a little of, of what the Savior has done. Our Father, we do just confess our failures and our faults in thy presence, and how we thank thee, our Father, for our Savior in all of his perfection and all of his beauty who died for the ungodly. How we ask our Father tonight that that would help us indeed just to know him. We know, our Father, that there are some here who have known the Lord Jesus for many years, and we thank thee for them, and we pray that thou would encourage each of us to go on for him. And we ask our Father tonight that if there's anyone here and they're burdened, they're worried, there is that barrier between thee, and they've never got their sin sorted out, they've never come to know thee, they've never put their trust in the Savior, that tonight, our Father, that they might find a Savior who is greater than their problems and a Savior who is able to cleanse from sin. And we pray, our Father, tonight that they might put their trust in Christ. So bless us, our Father, and we do pray that thou would part us with a blessing, uh, as we return Christ.