May 23, 2023
Big Idea
God's instruction can always be trusted.
"And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening."
1 Now the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 “This is the statute of the law that the LORD has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come. 3 And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him. 4 And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. 5 And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. 6 And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the heifer. 7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. But the priest shall be unclean until evening. 8 The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening. 9 And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering. 10 And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.
11 Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days. 12 He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean. 13 Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him.
14 This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean seven days. 15 And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean. 16 Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. 17 For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh 1 19:17 Hebrew living water shall be added in a vessel. 18 Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone, or the slain or the dead or the grave. 19 And the clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day. Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be clean.
20 If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. Because the water for impurity has not been thrown on him, he is unclean. 21 And it shall be a statute forever for them. The one who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening. 22 And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.”
Do you remember in spring 2020 that you quarantined when you found out you had been near someone for 15 minutes who tested positive for COVID? And then people you were recently near would learn that you were quarantining, so they figured they should quarantine, too. Before you knew it, the whole world was sheltered in place for weeks.
We took COVID seriously in 2020, but our Holy God takes impurity even more seriously. Numbers 19 explains that any small encounter with death makes a person unclean AND whatever that person touches becomes unclean, like a never-ending quarantine. He demands that all be made clean before Him, then He supplies a way for that to happen.
If Texas bluebonnets had an Israelite cousin, it might be hyssop. However, if you saw a bunch of hyssop in Moses' time, you wouldn't find families taking Christmas card photos. Instead, you would see priests gathering it for a very specific purpose. As the tenth plague hit Egypt in Exodus 12, the Israelites were instructed to use hyssop to spread the Lamb's blood over their doorposts, saving them from death. Now, in their wanderings, hyssop reappears, this time to purify Israel from death around them.
Numbers 19:18-19 instructs the clean person to dip hyssop in water and sprinkle it on whatever and whoever touched anything that was dead, so that they can be clean. Hyssop was a temporary method of purification meant to foreshadow the permanent method of purification through the blood of Christ. In fact, fast-forward to when Jesus is on the cross and you'll see that Jesus receives sour wine from a hyssop branch immediately before taking His last breath and declaring, "It is finished" (John 19:28-30).
God saved the Israelites from death in Egypt, purified them from death in the wilderness, and has now set us free from death forever through Christ's life, death, and resurrection!
When the Israelites drew near to the dead, they became unclean. Yet, when Jesus draws near to the spiritually dead, the dead become alive. Our "uncleanness" shouldn't drive us away from Jesus, but directly to Him to be made new! (Hebrews 4:15-16)
This month's memory verse
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
1. Has there ever been a season when you felt like you couldn't draw near to God because of your "uncleanness"? How does Jesus' life, death, and resurrection dispel that lie?
2. Just as the unclean person makes those around them unclean by association, our sin can have an impact on the people around us. Are there ways you are compromising with sin and unintentionally leading others to compromise as well?
3. Conversely, is there anyone in your close circle who is compromising with sin, tempting you to drift away as a result? How can you help that person make recovery from the sin?
4. What is one area of your life that you can ask God to purify right now?
As we gear up to release even more features for Join The Journey in 2025, our staff team, unfortunately, no longer has the margin to continue to support the comment functionality. We have big things in store for Join The Journey 2025. Stay tuned!
Hugh Stephenson
Hugh Stephenson
Michael Sisson
Michael Scaman
Sue Bohlin
Tonni Shook
Amy Lowther
Kathy Hempel Cox