Full sermon outline follows the handout version. Make It Count, #2
KEEP A CLEAN CAMP
=================
Numbers 5:1-8
I. Dirty camps can get you into trouble.
II. Handling uncleanness. 5:2-4
A. Three criteria of spiritual impurity are given.
B. The rules applied to everyone.
C. The solution was exclusion.
III. Sometimes impurity isn't obvious. 5:6-8
A. The above criteria are visible but some impurity is not.
B. How to deal with sin.
IV. What does all this mean for the 21st century?
A. Many people see these rules as silly and petty.
B. The purity rules teach us about sin.
V. We need salvation.
A. Our own effort cannot do this - we need God.
B. The impure can get right with God only by atonement.
C. None of us are so good we don't need it.
VI. Your purity matters to God.
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Rev. David Holwick U Make It Count, #2
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
June 19, 2011
Numbers 5:1-8
KEEP A CLEAN CAMP
I. Dirty camps can get you into trouble.
A. The Holwick vacation plan for July.
We will be backpacking in Glacier National Park in northern
Montana on the Canadian border.
Glacier has one of the highest concentrations of grizzly
bears in the contiguous United States.
A backpacker's chances of getting attacked by a bear are
less than 1 in 2500 - per day.
Simple precautions can minimize that risk.
You don't throw rocks at a bear or try to pet him.
You store your food properly.
Some people just can't figure this out.
In 1972, Harry Walker and Phillip Bradberry hitchhiked into
Yellowstone National Park, which is south of Glacier.
Instead of going to a regular campground, they hiked half
a mile from Old Faithful and set up their tent in the woods.
Two days later, they returned to their camp at midnight.
They heard something, then saw a bear coming at them fast.
Phillip dove to his left and rolled down an embankment.
He heard Harry cry for help.
Then there was silence.
Harry's body was found the next morning.
The park ranger who investigated the site said it was the
dirtiest he had ever seen.
A putrid-smelling pot of stew was hung on a tree branch.
Next to the tent was more cooked food in pots and pans.
The bear that killed Harry had a history of garbage feeding.
A cleaner camp would have saved the man.
#63442
B. Does cleanness matter any more?
1) Our society is certainly filled with garbage.
a) Rep. Weiner resigned - finally - after one of the most
tawndry episodes in recent political history.
And that is something when you think of how many
politicians have gotten caught in scandals.
He never really broke a law, and he might not have lost
his job if he lived in France, but Americans still
have some standards.
b) The church is not immune either.
Two weeks ago, Bishop Eddie Long, the megachurch pastor
in Atlanta, reached an out-of-court settlement with
four young men who accused him of sexual coercion.
2) Cleanness matters to God and it should matter to us.
a) It is a major theme in the book of Numbers, which I am
preaching from.
II. Handling uncleanness. 5:2-4
A. Three criteria of spiritual impurity are given.
1) Skin diseases.
a) Not necessarily leprosy or even contagious, despite
how the NIV translates it.
b) Focus is on symptoms rather than exact diagnosis.
c) Does the person next to you have some flaky skin?
2) Oozing discharges.
a) Other passages highlight discharges from reproductive
organs, which was always a focus of purity.
b) Perhaps the person had an STD.
3) Contact with dead bodies.
a) This was the ultimate tangible sign of uncleanness.
b) Uncleanness could be spiritual as well as medical.
B. The rules applied to everyone.
1) No distinction was to be made between males and females.
a) The Israelites made lots of distinctions between the
sexes, but not here.
b) There was to be no double standard.
2) The people were to be living object lessons of the
necessity to be "clean" in approaching God.
C. The solution was exclusion.
1) It may seem harsh but it was necessary.
a) Physical infections can spread rapidly.
b) Spiritual infections can spread even faster.
2) Sometimes surgery - exclusion - is the only safe option.
a) The New Testament has a related concept we call church
discipline.
b) If a believer leads an impure life and refuses to
repent, they are to be kicked out of the church.
c) For both Testaments, if you want God to be close to
you and bless you, you have to be a pure people.
III. Sometimes impurity isn't obvious. 5:6-8
A. The above criteria are visible but some impurity is not.
1) Moses next focuses on sins committed against people,
with an emphasis on stealing their stuff.
2) But sins are never committed against just people.
a) In verse 6, Moses says hurting people makes you
unfaithful to God.
1> Ultimately, all sin is against God.
b) Example of King David.
He committed adultery with Bathsheba and got her
pregnant.
Then he conspired to get her husband killed.
Yet when he wrote Psalm 51 about his repentance, he
says to God in verse 4, "against you, you only,
have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight."
B. How to deal with sin.
1) Sin makes us guilty (5:6).
2) Confession is required.
a) To God, community, person, or all?
b) It was probably a public confession.
c) Sometimes confessions is the hardest thing you can do.
In 2005, the chief ethical policy advisor to President Bush
was Claude Allen.
Allen was a staunch conservative and an Evangelical Christian.
In January 2006, Claude resigned his position.
He said it was so he could spend more time with his family.
But a short time later it was revealed that he had been
arrested for shoplifting at Target.
He stole various stuff and then returned it for refunds.
People were incredulous - Claude had a salary of $160,000 a
year.
He went to his pastor and was put through a process of
repentance.
When he stood before the judge, much to his lawyers’ chagrin,
he confessed in detail to what he had done.
He made no plea with the government, except to ask for mercy.
The judge was flabbergasted.
He said, "You know, in some thirty years on the bench, I have
never heard someone confess to a crime like this."
It was only because Claude Allen knew he would one day answer
to a Higher Judge.
#63443
3) But saying you are sorry is not enough.
a) The stolen material had to be returned to the owner.
b) And you had to pay a 20% penalty on top of that.
c) Restitution still makes sense.
1> It is good for the victim.
2> It makes the sinner "count the cost" in a concrete
way.
3> But it does have its limitations.
Michael Graham, an executive from a bank in West Virginia,
pleaded guilty to embezzlement and money laundering
that led to his bank's failure.
He was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison and
ordered to pay $515 million in restitution, at the
rate of $300 per month.
At that rate, and assuming no interest accrues, it will
take him more than 143,000 years to pay off the debt.
#22100
4) To seal the deal, atonement had to be made. 5:8
a) You must provide an animal to the priest for a sacrifice.
IV. What does all this mean for the 21st century?
A. Many people see these rules as silly and petty.
1) What does psoriasis have to do with good and evil?
2) But it is really our society that is superficial.
a) We are very concerned about personal hygiene.
1> No one here would admit to not having a bath
for two weeks.
2> (On our hike, Celeste and I won't bathe for 4 days)
b) Yet we tolerate a lot of morally filthy behavior.
B. The purity rules teach us about sin.
1) These petty circumstances were just about unavoidable.
a) They deal with ordinary aspects of human life.
b) Things like sex and illness and death.
2) The rules communicated to the Jews that they were dirty.
a) Human life cannot avoid impurity.
b) We are sinners by nature.
c) The prophet Isaiah wrote: Isa 64:6
"All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags."
V. We need salvation.
A. Our own effort cannot do this - we need God.
1) Note that Jesus dealt with uncleanness in his ministry.
a) He encountered lepers, and a woman who suffered from
discharges for 18 years, and even dead people.
b) All of them had been separated from society, even their
own families.
2) Jesus healed them, ending their exclusion from people,
and from God.
B. The impure can get right with God only by atonement.
1) You can say you are sorry for your sin.
2) You can even try to make it right with those you have
hurt.
3) But none of these are enough to clear your debt to God.
a) You need atonement, the paying of a price.
b) The Jews would use a ram.
1> You have something better - Jesus.
2> Only Jesus can make the impure, pure.
VI. Purity still matters.
A. Could you be an infection?
1) Perhaps you have wronged someone and it has never been
resolved.
2) Is there impurity in your life you have not repented of?
a) Impure relationships.
b) Impure habits on the internet.
B. God's heavenly city is clean. Rev 21:27
"Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does
what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names
are written in the Lamb's book of life.
1) Is your name in the book?
2) Have you been cleaned by Jesus?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#22100 “$515 Million In Restitution,” Associated Press, January 8, 2006.
#63442 “A Dirty Camp Did Him In,” by David Holwick, adapted from “Bear
Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance," by Stephen Herrero
(Nick Lyons Books, New York: 1985), 54-55.
#63443 “The Chief Ethical Advisor Pleads Guilty,” by David Holwick,
adapted from the sermon "Defiled" by Dr. Ligon Duncan III,
First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi; Kerux
Sermon #63147, dated February 7, 2007. Additional details
were gathered from "Claude Allen" at Wikipedia.org.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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Draft outline and application
I. Sending away.
A. Criteria.
B. Both male and female.
C. Send outside camp.
1) They are defiling.
2) God is present in camp.
D. The Israelites do this.
II. Guilt and confession.
A. Wronging other people wrongs the Lord.
1) Guilt results from it.
B. Confession is required.
1) To God, community, person, or all?
C. Restitution plus one-fifth.
1) Goes to wronged person.
2) If unavailable (relative?), goes to Lord.
a) Priest also offers ram for atonement.
III. Applications.
A. Defilement, uncleanness, infection.
1) Infections that are medical.
a) AIDS, polio...
2) Defilement that is spiritual/ceremonial (death).
3) Place of sin in defilement...
B. Defilement must be removed.
1) quarantine.
a) Provision for healing?
b) outside the camp (where Jesus was sent)
2) forgiveness, making clean.
C. Sin > guilt > confession > payback (to people and God).
Expositor's Commentary
I. Expulsion of the impure from the camp.
A. Three main factors for uncleanness:
1) Skin diseases.
a) Not necessarily leprosy or even contagious, despite
how the NIV translates it.
b) Focus is on symptoms rather than exact diagnosis.
2) Oozing discharges.
a) Chronic conditions are in view.
b) Sexual discharges.
c) The people were to be living object lessons of the
necessity to be "clean" in approaching God.
3) Contact with dead bodies.
a) This was the ultimate tangible sign of uncleanness.
b) Uncleanness could be spiritual as well as medical.
B. Uncleanness is an alien concept to modern Westerners.
1) Unfit in the realm of the purity of God's rule.
2) Focus is on tangible issues.
3) Priests were the arbiters.
C. It applied to both male and female.
1) The rules cut across sexual lines.
D. The essential issue of uncleanness.
1) Not magic or health or superstition.
2) Spirituality is the key.
a) The greatest reality is the presence of God in the camp.
b) There can be no uncleanness where God dwells.
E. The Jews were fully compliant.
1) Later on, they tended to be disobedient.
F. Expulsion for uncleanness is an expression of mercy.
1) Uncleanness is infectious.
2) Their continuing presence may bring God's wrath.
3) Pervasive spread may demand God's withdrawal.
a) Jesus dramatically extended God's mercy.
b) He reached out to each category of the unclean, of
both sexes.
c) He acted as both healer and priest, cleansing them
and making them pure (and bringing them back into
the camp.)
II. Restitution for personal wrongs.
A. Unresolved personal injury leads to impurity in the camp.
1) Harder to diagnose than skin diseases or discharges.
2) However, they can be just as disruptive to the community.
a) They are examples of "corporate solidarity."
b) The health of the community depends on the health
of individuals.
B. First situation - one person wrongs another.
1) Uncleanness moves from visible to inward and secret.
2) More insidious if they think they can continue to function
as if they have done nothing wrong.
a) Applies to females as well as males.
3) The gravity of personal sin.
a) Our sins are not slight offenses between people only but
are acts of treachery against God.
b) Compare David's confession of sinning against God in
relation to adultery with Bathsheba. 2 Sam 12:13
C. Steps in restitution.
1) A condition of guilt.
2) Public confession of sin.
3) Full restitution plus one-fifth.
4) A sacrifice to God for atonement.
a) Each of these steps is listed in Lev 6:1-7.
b) Numbers 5 adds provision for situation where victim
of sin has died. Restitution goes to priest.
James Philip, "Mastering the Old Testament: Numbers"
I. Exclusion of the unclean.
A. More strict than Lev 13-15 where only lepers are cast out.
1) Military rules here?
2) No, women are explicitly included.
B. Less compassionate than New Testament?
1) Both Testaments have mercy and judgment.
2) This passage deals with God's discipline of his people.
a) Best corresponds not to Jesus healing lepers, but
judgment on Ananias and Sapphira.
b) Viruses must be checked.
1> There must be exclusion before there can be
inclusion.
2> Israel was most powerful when she was most pure.
3> In same way, churches must practice separation.
II. Misappropriated property.
A. Trespass involves injury to another, whether God or man.
1) Sin in the camp must be dealt with.
2) Achan is an example.
B. Confession: putting things right with God.
1) More than an admission of wrongdoing.
a) Responsibility must also be accepted.
b) Adam and Eve admitted their sin but neither took
responsibility.
1> Adam blamed Eve.
2> Eve blamed the snake.
2) True confession says the same thing about it that God does.
a) Accept full responsibility.
3) True confession does not have to be indiscriminate.
a) Confess to the one affected: God or a person or your
church fellowship.
b) Do not become preoccupied with sins, especially other
people's.
C. Restitution: putting things right with people.
1) Mosaic law is more advanced in this area than our law.
a) Only recently has restitution been considered.
2) Restitution may be necessary to experience God's peace.
a) Sometimes confession alone is not enough.
b) But sometimes restitution is not possible.
1> Stealing someone's reputation (good name) instead
of their goods.
3) God promises to forgive if we confess. 1 John 1:9
