1 Our Father, we receive Your Words and hide Your commandments with us; 2 we incline our ear unto wisdom, and apply our hearts to understanding; 3 We cry after knowledge and lift up our voices for understanding; 4 we seek it as silver; and search for it as for hidden treasures; 5 We declare that we shall understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. Declaration of Proverbs 2:1-5
Leviticus 15:1-12 (NASB) 1
1 The LORD also spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 "Speak to the sons of Israel, and say to them, 'When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean. 3 'This, moreover, shall be his uncleanness in his discharge: it is his uncleanness whether his body allows its discharge to flow or whether his body obstructs its discharge. 4 'Every bed on which the person with the discharge lies becomes unclean, and everything on which he sits becomes unclean. 5 'Anyone, moreover, who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening; 6 and whoever sits on the thing on which the man with the discharge has been sitting, shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening.
7 'Also whoever touches the person with the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 8 'Or if the man with the discharge spits on one who is clean, he too shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 9 'Every saddle on which the person with the discharge rides becomes unclean. 10 'Whoever then touches any of the things which were under him shall be unclean until evening, and he who carries them shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 11 'Likewise, whomever the one with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 12 'However, an earthenware vessel which the person with the discharge touches shall be broken, and every wooden vessel shall be rinsed in water.
7 'Also whoever touches the person with the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 8 'Or if the man with the discharge spits on one who is clean, he too shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 9 'Every saddle on which the person with the discharge rides becomes unclean. 10 'Whoever then touches any of the things which were under him shall be unclean until evening, and he who carries them shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 11 'Likewise, whomever the one with the discharge touches without having rinsed his hands in water shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening. 12 'However, an earthenware vessel which the person with the discharge touches shall be broken, and every wooden vessel shall be rinsed in water.
What a gorgeous day it was yesterday. We almost got up to sixty degrees F. I got some in-house clean out done and boxed up some 'things' that really needed to be 'gone'. It looks like it might be another sunny day that will make four days of sunshine in a row! (It takes so little to make me happy.) Today is what I respectfully call our “midweek marathon” with sewing from ten to three and then a fellowship dinner at 5:30 followed by a group Bible study. So, it means from ten to between eight thirty in the evening, I'm tied-up... 'and', as Maxwell Smart in TVLAND used to say, “loving it!” It's been such a blessing to see the chickens out and about in their run. I'm hoping that if it stays 'dry' with no rain, I'll get out near the end of the week for another walk-about and some outside chores. Add to that it's a pleasure to be able to open the windows a bit. There's some noisy crow activity out there, but also infrequent musical interludes of the smaller song birds. I also noted that the frogs have begun their annual croaking exhibition in the evenings, looking for the next 'Mrs.' The days of spring are such a tonic!
Now, we move along in our Torah journey we've left the unclean state of Biblical leprosy behind and will now enter into the very personal sort of uncleanness. The Creator God Who is The LIVING God is also concerned about the most personal conditions that we might find ourselves in. And why wouldn't He be since He created our human species? He is here to deal with every problem or situation that His creation, that's us, finds ourselves in. He discussed a way of living; I like to call it a standard, with Israel long ago. He planned that they would bring this standard of living to the world. Think about this: If there was no Israel, there would be no Christianity.
The LIVING God started with one man, Abraham. Then He worked through the family of that one man. God maintained a generational line rather than go willy-nilly through different men and different blood-lines. He started with a family and that family branched out and multiplied into a nation. Israel was to show the rest of the nations that there IS a Creator God and that He is not created by men, nor does He engender ritual and tradition that is base and occult, like the rest of the nations did and still do. Then He made it possible that this family should have a book of ancestry to show their very beginning and their progress through the generations. Blood-lines are very important to The Creator. That is likely one reason why the enemy seeks so diligently to break up the family. One woman can have children from many fathers. One woman can have children from men she doesn't even know. To Creator God, the life is in the blood. To the enemy, there is only death in the blood.
1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, 2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Matthew 15:1.
You might be wondering if it’s snowing here because the verse I’ve included this morning seems to be so disconnected with the Torah that’s on the page today! But it will become apparent by and by today.
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean. 3 And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness. Leviticus 15:1-3.
A bodily discharge from a possibly infectious wound is nothing to treat in a cavalier fashion. In modern medical parlance it’s called “contamination by contact”. One might say that washing the body and the linen and controlling the spread of such a thing is ‘common sense’ and yet, sense of this nature doesn’t appear to be so common anymore. And I suppose that it would be easy to mildly dismiss the importance of this practice described above by relegating it to the realm “where God commanded practices that looked a lot like ritual to protect the people of Israel from disease”.
Nobody knew about bacteria and microbes in those days and so God framed the health guards “right into the spiritual mindset.” And perhaps that was indeed one of the benefits of why He did, but if we leave it at that, we again miss the entire point of Israel being a ‘holy’ nation that surrounded the very ‘sacred space’ of The God Most High, The Ancient of Days. Israel was within walking distance of Yahweh and so, being ‘ritually’ clean became of prime importance. Perhaps we don't consider enough that this people were living with the very Creator right in their very midst in the first part of the Bible. Then take this notion to the second part of the Bible where our God is not just in our midst, but He is IN US! Think of how Sha'ul/Paul went over his life in the middle of a sleepless night when he might have considered his own past of being “a Jew of Jews”, who met Messiah in a supernatural experience and made his covenant with THE Son of God. He even spoke the Galatians about his past in the daylight.
13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: 14 And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, 16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen... Galatians 1:13-16.
The Greek for 'in' is ἐν en, en: a primary preposition denoting (fixed) position (in place, time or state), and (by implication) instrumentality (medially or constructively), i.e. a relation of rest. Imagine how Paul, with such a violent past, who worked against and persecuted Christians to the death, admitting this after his own conversion.
20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20.
How this man made a “180 degree” turn of heart and life is awesome! The point being, (besides considering how Sha'ul/Paul changed his entire life), that the transition from living 'with' His people to 'in' His people was made by Yeshua/Jesus because He went to the stake of execution and then by the Almighty power of The Father God, He rose again. How much more shall we keep our own bodies 'clean' and avoid 'unclean' when He lives IN us? Now we await His next arrival to sort all things and rule the earth as KING!
There is no other earthly, small 'g' god that has ever made that kind of promise or engaged in that type of fellowship with their devotees. There are no other types of 'relationships' such as there is with the Father God Creator. All the rest on this planet are 'religious'. The very definition of religion, from which religious is derived, from dictionary.com is this:
“A a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs, and/or:
a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.”
All the mystery religion that came out of the Shinar region in Mesopotamia was and still is, based on beliefs and practices agreed upon by MEN. The RELATIONSHIP that we experience with The Creator was primarily based on practices as given by The Creator and NOT men. The beliefs and practices came down directly from Yahweh through Adam, teaching it to all his children. In the generations from Adam, a segment turned away, as early as Adam's son, Cain.
SIDEBAR: Just for kicks, I look up the names of Cain, Abel and Seth, the first three sons of Adam.
Cain = קַיִן Qayin, kah'-yin: the same as H7013 (with a play upon the affinity to H7069); Kajin, the name of the first child. H7013 is from H6969 in the original sense of fixity; a lance (as striking fast):—spear. H6969 has the meaning of a chant or wail of mourning (a mourning woman).
Abel = הֶבֶל Hebel, heh'-bel the same as H1892; Hebel, the son of Adam. H1892 is emptiness or vanity; figuratively, something transitory and unsatisfactory; often used as an adverb:—× altogether, vain, vanity.
Seth = שֵׁת Shêth, shayth from H7896; put, i.e. substituted; Sheth, third son of Adam. H7896 is to place (in a very wide application):—apply, appoint, array, bring, consider.
It might be a stretch from the Hebrew to the English, but we could say that Cain/Qayin was indeed like a spear in that he killed his brother. Abel/ Hebel was indeed transitory on this earth. He wasn't alive long enough. Only God knows what he would have become in his later years. Seth/Sheth was the substituted for Abel. It was through Seth, that the bloodline was continued to Noach, then Abraham, then Jacob and then from the descendants of Judah, Messiah rose up in the passage of time. END OF SIDEBAR.
Even pagan nations have rules and regulations about how they enter the personal space of their presidents and monarchs. Don’t speak to the Queen of England until she addresses you first and do the requisite bow to show deference to her position. So why would God’s people that He chose as His inheritance, and who address Him as Lord our God, King of the universe, treat His personal space any differently than one might as a citizen of the Commonwealth of England? If one is to be standing in or near that ‘sacred space’ of The Ancient of Days, then a bodily discharge is considered unclean all the more because an infection can carry death and that is totally opposite to the life and purity of The Creator. God is LIFE. It is the enemy of God who revels in the realm of DEATH. The two kingdoms of God and Satan (Lucifer, Old Nick, the dragon or any other name by which he is known) are totally opposite and they do not mix in any way.
By the time that Messiah came to the earth on His mission, this pure Torah was not as pure as it had been given to Moses on Sinai. The Pharisees, whose stress on ‘the law’ of HaShem /The Name (they revered Him so much that they wouldn’t pronounce His name for fear of using it in vain or carelessly), who might have started out as the ‘good guys’, morphed Torah into an almost endless set of rules and regulations that squeezed God and the original intents almost entirely out of ‘the law’. This is why Messiah struggled with these Pharisees and scribes who knew the law inside out. They had fenced up the instructions to such a degree that they lost the intent of it that was meant in the first place. It became ‘legalistic’ which means that the rules themselves became more important than the reason why they were given. The Pharisees introduced many more systems of ‘washings’ than what is actually depicted in Torah and the washings themselves were more important than God.
3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. 5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; 6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. 7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, 8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Matthew 15:2-9. (Underline is my emphasis.)
By this Messiah was convicting them of breaking the commandment to honor parents. These high and lofty rule-makers would give the synagogue money that should have gone to the help and upkeep of their aged parents. “Sorry, Ima (Mom) and Abba (Dad), but I can’t give you money for bread; what I’ve set aside must be ‘holy to the Lord’. These types of Pharisees missed the intent of the instruction in the first place. They were citing their version of the ‘law’ or instruction of Torah to neglect another command of the original Torah. Therefore, they were teaching for Torah the commandments that they’d added to Torah. They preached the commandment to honor parents but broke it themselves by their ‘legalism’. Washing the hands became more important than the command to honor parents. If we walk away from this offering of Torah today with a new understanding and interest in looking into the differences between ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’, then God has been served.
Now, we move along in our Torah journey we've left the unclean state of Biblical leprosy behind and will now enter into the very personal sort of uncleanness. The Creator God Who is The LIVING God is also concerned about the most personal conditions that we might find ourselves in. And why wouldn't He be since He created our human species? He is here to deal with every problem or situation that His creation, that's us, finds ourselves in. He discussed a way of living; I like to call it a standard, with Israel long ago. He planned that they would bring this standard of living to the world. Think about this: If there was no Israel, there would be no Christianity.
The LIVING God started with one man, Abraham. Then He worked through the family of that one man. God maintained a generational line rather than go willy-nilly through different men and different blood-lines. He started with a family and that family branched out and multiplied into a nation. Israel was to show the rest of the nations that there IS a Creator God and that He is not created by men, nor does He engender ritual and tradition that is base and occult, like the rest of the nations did and still do. Then He made it possible that this family should have a book of ancestry to show their very beginning and their progress through the generations. Blood-lines are very important to The Creator. That is likely one reason why the enemy seeks so diligently to break up the family. One woman can have children from many fathers. One woman can have children from men she doesn't even know. To Creator God, the life is in the blood. To the enemy, there is only death in the blood.
1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, 2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. Matthew 15:1.
You might be wondering if it’s snowing here because the verse I’ve included this morning seems to be so disconnected with the Torah that’s on the page today! But it will become apparent by and by today.
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When any man hath a running issue out of his flesh, because of his issue he is unclean. 3 And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness. Leviticus 15:1-3.
A bodily discharge from a possibly infectious wound is nothing to treat in a cavalier fashion. In modern medical parlance it’s called “contamination by contact”. One might say that washing the body and the linen and controlling the spread of such a thing is ‘common sense’ and yet, sense of this nature doesn’t appear to be so common anymore. And I suppose that it would be easy to mildly dismiss the importance of this practice described above by relegating it to the realm “where God commanded practices that looked a lot like ritual to protect the people of Israel from disease”.
Nobody knew about bacteria and microbes in those days and so God framed the health guards “right into the spiritual mindset.” And perhaps that was indeed one of the benefits of why He did, but if we leave it at that, we again miss the entire point of Israel being a ‘holy’ nation that surrounded the very ‘sacred space’ of The God Most High, The Ancient of Days. Israel was within walking distance of Yahweh and so, being ‘ritually’ clean became of prime importance. Perhaps we don't consider enough that this people were living with the very Creator right in their very midst in the first part of the Bible. Then take this notion to the second part of the Bible where our God is not just in our midst, but He is IN US! Think of how Sha'ul/Paul went over his life in the middle of a sleepless night when he might have considered his own past of being “a Jew of Jews”, who met Messiah in a supernatural experience and made his covenant with THE Son of God. He even spoke the Galatians about his past in the daylight.
13 For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: 14 And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, 16 To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen... Galatians 1:13-16.
The Greek for 'in' is ἐν en, en: a primary preposition denoting (fixed) position (in place, time or state), and (by implication) instrumentality (medially or constructively), i.e. a relation of rest. Imagine how Paul, with such a violent past, who worked against and persecuted Christians to the death, admitting this after his own conversion.
20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20.
How this man made a “180 degree” turn of heart and life is awesome! The point being, (besides considering how Sha'ul/Paul changed his entire life), that the transition from living 'with' His people to 'in' His people was made by Yeshua/Jesus because He went to the stake of execution and then by the Almighty power of The Father God, He rose again. How much more shall we keep our own bodies 'clean' and avoid 'unclean' when He lives IN us? Now we await His next arrival to sort all things and rule the earth as KING!
There is no other earthly, small 'g' god that has ever made that kind of promise or engaged in that type of fellowship with their devotees. There are no other types of 'relationships' such as there is with the Father God Creator. All the rest on this planet are 'religious'. The very definition of religion, from which religious is derived, from dictionary.com is this:
“A a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs, and/or:
a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.”
All the mystery religion that came out of the Shinar region in Mesopotamia was and still is, based on beliefs and practices agreed upon by MEN. The RELATIONSHIP that we experience with The Creator was primarily based on practices as given by The Creator and NOT men. The beliefs and practices came down directly from Yahweh through Adam, teaching it to all his children. In the generations from Adam, a segment turned away, as early as Adam's son, Cain.
SIDEBAR: Just for kicks, I look up the names of Cain, Abel and Seth, the first three sons of Adam.
Cain = קַיִן Qayin, kah'-yin: the same as H7013 (with a play upon the affinity to H7069); Kajin, the name of the first child. H7013 is from H6969 in the original sense of fixity; a lance (as striking fast):—spear. H6969 has the meaning of a chant or wail of mourning (a mourning woman).
Abel = הֶבֶל Hebel, heh'-bel the same as H1892; Hebel, the son of Adam. H1892 is emptiness or vanity; figuratively, something transitory and unsatisfactory; often used as an adverb:—× altogether, vain, vanity.
Seth = שֵׁת Shêth, shayth from H7896; put, i.e. substituted; Sheth, third son of Adam. H7896 is to place (in a very wide application):—apply, appoint, array, bring, consider.
It might be a stretch from the Hebrew to the English, but we could say that Cain/Qayin was indeed like a spear in that he killed his brother. Abel/ Hebel was indeed transitory on this earth. He wasn't alive long enough. Only God knows what he would have become in his later years. Seth/Sheth was the substituted for Abel. It was through Seth, that the bloodline was continued to Noach, then Abraham, then Jacob and then from the descendants of Judah, Messiah rose up in the passage of time. END OF SIDEBAR.
Even pagan nations have rules and regulations about how they enter the personal space of their presidents and monarchs. Don’t speak to the Queen of England until she addresses you first and do the requisite bow to show deference to her position. So why would God’s people that He chose as His inheritance, and who address Him as Lord our God, King of the universe, treat His personal space any differently than one might as a citizen of the Commonwealth of England? If one is to be standing in or near that ‘sacred space’ of The Ancient of Days, then a bodily discharge is considered unclean all the more because an infection can carry death and that is totally opposite to the life and purity of The Creator. God is LIFE. It is the enemy of God who revels in the realm of DEATH. The two kingdoms of God and Satan (Lucifer, Old Nick, the dragon or any other name by which he is known) are totally opposite and they do not mix in any way.
By the time that Messiah came to the earth on His mission, this pure Torah was not as pure as it had been given to Moses on Sinai. The Pharisees, whose stress on ‘the law’ of HaShem /The Name (they revered Him so much that they wouldn’t pronounce His name for fear of using it in vain or carelessly), who might have started out as the ‘good guys’, morphed Torah into an almost endless set of rules and regulations that squeezed God and the original intents almost entirely out of ‘the law’. This is why Messiah struggled with these Pharisees and scribes who knew the law inside out. They had fenced up the instructions to such a degree that they lost the intent of it that was meant in the first place. It became ‘legalistic’ which means that the rules themselves became more important than the reason why they were given. The Pharisees introduced many more systems of ‘washings’ than what is actually depicted in Torah and the washings themselves were more important than God.
3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. 5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; 6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. 7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, 8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Matthew 15:2-9. (Underline is my emphasis.)
By this Messiah was convicting them of breaking the commandment to honor parents. These high and lofty rule-makers would give the synagogue money that should have gone to the help and upkeep of their aged parents. “Sorry, Ima (Mom) and Abba (Dad), but I can’t give you money for bread; what I’ve set aside must be ‘holy to the Lord’. These types of Pharisees missed the intent of the instruction in the first place. They were citing their version of the ‘law’ or instruction of Torah to neglect another command of the original Torah. Therefore, they were teaching for Torah the commandments that they’d added to Torah. They preached the commandment to honor parents but broke it themselves by their ‘legalism’. Washing the hands became more important than the command to honor parents. If we walk away from this offering of Torah today with a new understanding and interest in looking into the differences between ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’, then God has been served.
11 And whomsoever he toucheth that hath the issue, and hath not rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. 12 And the vessel of earth, that he toucheth which hath the issue, shall be broken: and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water. Leviticus 15:11-12.
1 NASB www.lockman.org for daily reading and KJV in commentary unless otherwise specified
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