October 14, 2025 • 44 mins
An ongoing study of the book of Numbers. This week’s lesson is presented by Jesse Bonner.
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
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All right.
Everyone doing good?
Yeah.
Starting to feel like fall. We got some cool weather. I broke out my jacket. I'm pretty excited.
Yeah, pretty cold tonight. Got some leaves going.
I always love the fall. October's a big month. My son was born in October. Our anniversary's in October. What's up, Danny? How's it going, man?
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Usually, did you think you were teaching tonight? No, I'm just kidding. Just messing with you. I'd do the same thing.
But yeah, so October's always a good month. Actually, we just celebrated 10 years married on October 3rd, so we were down in Florida.
It was pretty awesome. It was weird coming back, though, to this from, like, having 80s and tons of sun.
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And Beau was born on our anniversary, too, so we share the day with him. His birthday now is over our anniversary, so we always celebrate on, like, the 5th or 6th, because we just feel too bad to take his day.
But it was a good time. And to start off the whole trip, we really started on a high note.
I left one of our crucial bags of luggage in the family room when we went to the airport, and I realized once we got to security, so we had to buy a lot of extra stuff when we got down there at Walmart.
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I'm just glad it wasn't Maria's wardrobe. She probably would have been excited to replace all of it, but yeah, we made it through.
It was the white noises and cameras for the babies and all, so yeah, we made it, but it was a good time. It's good to be back.
We're going to be hitting numbers 19 tonight. You guys can turn there. We're going to pray in a sec, but numbers 19.
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Let's see here. All right. And this is laws for the purification. I titled the message cleansed because it's just so powerful to see Jesus in this and how we've been cleansed from our sins, from this purification water.
So before we get into it, let's pray and just ask the Lord to be here and speak through his word, which you know he will. Jesus, just thank you, Lord, that you have cleansed us, God.
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Thank you that when we are in you, Lord, the old is gone and the new is here, Lord. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And I pray, Lord, that tonight, God, that your spirit would pour out into our hearts, Lord. I pray that you would open our eyes and our minds and our hearts, Lord, to see you in this passage and just to better understand your sacrifice in your life and your resurrection and what it means for us, God.
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I just pray for, yeah, my words and just spider web of notes all over the place. God, I pray that you would just speak beyond all that, Lord, and that you would reveal yourself to us tonight in Jesus name. Amen.
So I have three goals for tonight. One is that you would see Jesus in this passage, that you would see his love, what he did for us.
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And honestly, you know, Jesus says that the law and the prophets speak of me. So if we're going to the Bible and we're not looking for Jesus, we're actually missing the point because Jesus says all of this points to me.
So if we go and just look at it as some random ceremony, we missed it. If we go and just try to see ourselves in it, we missed it. But if we go and we try and see Jesus in it, we will see the truth of the word and it will change us.
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So I want us to see Jesus in this passage tonight. I also want just to better understand the truth that we're cleansed. We're cleansed from our sin. And then what does it mean now that we are cleansed?
So let's jump into it. Chapter 19 again in Numbers. And I read in some commentaries that this was actually possibly a ceremony that was brought about that the Lord brought about after chapter 17 when Aaron's bud at the very budding at his bud.
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Aaron's budding staff, if you guys remember right at the end, all the people like the rebellious people were like, oh, who can even go near the temple or the or the tabernacle? We should all die.
And they said, like, we're going to die all this stuff like 10 times in one sentence. It was very death focused. And so now, like, you know, two chapters later, he, the Lord is bringing about this way to cleanse specifically from dead bodies because there's a lot of death in the last few chapters.
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So a way that they can approach God again. So let's read. Chapter 19, verse one. Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, this is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying, speak to the children of Israel that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.
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You shall give it to Eleazar the priest that he may take it outside the camp and it shall be slaughtered before him. And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood seven times directly in front of the tabernacle of meeting.
And the heifer shall be burned in his sight, its hide, its flesh, its blood, and its oafel shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet and cast them into the midst of the fire burning the heifer.
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There's a lot here, guys. There is a lot going on. And I want to set up these verses with a verse in Hebrews. Hebrews 9, if you want to write it down, 13 to 14.
It says, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, speaking directly of this chapter right here, the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh.
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How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
So we see here this whole ceremony that's taking place. It's a picture of Jesus. And that was for a purifying and cleansing of the flesh, basically like the outward appearance and the things that could defile them.
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But the true cleansing needs to take place in the conscience, in our soul. And our conscience is our ability of our soul to distinguish right from wrong.
And so when you are aware of your sin, you are judging right and wrong correctly, and you can be weighed down by that. You can feel guilty, you can feel shame, all those things.
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But Jesus wants to cleanse your conscience. He wants to free you from it, and he wants to free your conscience to be able to tell what is truly right and wrong, so that what? We can serve the living God.
So we're going to read this, and like I said, the goal is to see Jesus. He said, all of this speaks of him, so if we're going to this passage and we're not looking for him, we are missing the point.
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So, red heifer. A red heifer is a female cow that's never been pregnant, and so it's a young cow, it's red, and I was thinking about, like, this is interesting, what's with the red? Like, why does it have to be red? It's the only sacrifice that talks about the color. Like, why red?
And as I was thinking about it, and reading up on it, I actually saw that, you know how Jesus always calls himself the son of man, right? I'm the son of man. He's identifying, like, yes, I'm the son of God, but I'm also the son of man. That means he was born in the flesh. He's one of us.
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And he's also called, in 1 Corinthians, the last Adam. So he's the son of man, and he's the last Adam. The first Adam brought sin and death, and it says in 1 Corinthians, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
And you know what Adam means? Like, literally, the word Adam, it means red.
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Isn't that interesting? The actual, like, straightforward definition of Adam is red, and it's linked through the etymology to the word Adama, which means red clay or red ground, because he came from the earth.
So here, I'm immediately, you know, I feel like the Lord's purpose in choosing a red heifer is to say, just like the red of Adam, that he's man, so is Jesus, he came in the flesh, and he was a man to pay for the sin and death, so that you can truly be alive.
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So if he's one of us, isn't it amazing that he's without blemish? Isn't it amazing that he never sinned once?
Like, he did what we couldn't. It says this red heifer has to be free from every single blemish.
The Israelites took this so seriously that if they found more than one black hair on the entire red heifer, it was disqualified from being sacrificed.
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If they found more than one white hair, it was disqualified. Could you imagine the job of that, like, sitting there? You probably took three months to re-inspect each hair. You get to the end, you're going back again, because if you get it wrong, like, who knows what's going to happen, right?
And so the purity of this animal, and also that it was never pregnant, just showing that it's, in all ways, there was nothing else in it. It was truly and wholly all the way through this pure animal.
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That is our Jesus, undefiled, perfect in every single way, but he was one of us. That is his power, and his glory, and the Holy Spirit that could, that as a holy God living in our flesh, he never once gave in to temptation.
And that is so encouraging, because, one, he's obviously the perfect sacrifice to pay for all of our sin, but in addition to that, he knows the way out of every single temptation.
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And the way out is directly through him. That's why he says, when you're in the midst of any temptation, turn to him, because he has a way out for you.
Because he was in, it says, he was tempted likewise and always as we are, yet without sin. He is our forgiveness of sin. He is also our power and our victory over it.
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And I noticed, too, it says, never yoked. That's kind of interesting. Right? Yoked. You know, I had a friend, he never, he grew up going to church, and it's so funny.
We were in church, like, two years ago, and the pastor started talking about the yoke, you know, on the oxen.
And he's like, my whole life, I always thought when the Bible talked about yokes, I thought it was like an egg. I never really took the time.
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And they, like, explained, it's just this thing that goes over the animal, and he's like, that's pretty crazy.
I'm like, so what did you think when Jesus said, come to me, my burden is easy, and my yoke is light. Or my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
He's like, yeah, I just, you know, I didn't know, I just kind of thought it was an egg. I'm like, what are you doing? Take the time to think, you know?
But here is this animal never once yoked by the things of this world. Right? Never once was the under bondage. Never once was he in slavery to do this work.
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And I see Jesus who does say, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. And why is that? Because he was only ever in submission to the Father.
He never became entangled and pulled down by the things of this earth, and he never had to strive to be good enough because he is purely holy.
And that's why in him we have rest. And we see this animal never once yoked, and so Jesus was never once held down by sin, or the things of this earth.
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And that's why we can truly have rest in him. It says, enter the rest of Christ.
And also I see in this, you know, it is grace through faith that we receive forgiveness, right?
It's not through working and striving and doing all the things of the law anymore, but it's completely in this resting place of grace through faith.
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And this sacrifice here, which says it was for purification and cleansing of sin, was through an animal that never strived before.
And that's us. Once we come to Christ, we don't strive anymore to be holy, but we live and we desire and we strive to live for him.
We don't just stop trying, right? We want to become like him, but it's through submission to the Father, just like it was for Jesus.
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And then outside the camp, are you guys seeing Jesus yet in this? Are we getting there?
And outside the camp, that's where this animal sacrificed.
Hebrews 13-12, therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate.
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This is the gate of Jerusalem, crucified outside of the actual people of God. He was on the outside.
This animal is brought outside the people of God, to the far, you know, out into the wilderness away from everyone, and was killed there, and so was Jesus.
And if there's not enough pointing to Jesus, we have cedar, hyssop, and scarlet.
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All three parts, if you guys were here for the cleansing of the leper, which, that's Leviticus 14, read it.
You know, tonight, tomorrow, this week, just read Leviticus 14, and then, you know, Google some stuff, Google Jesus and scarlet worm, all these things are going to blow your mind.
But there's three things that are used here, as well as in this cleansing ceremony for the leper, which is an amazing picture of us being cleansed from sin, and now being welcomed back into God's presence.
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But cedar is used in this, as we see it's thrown in the fire, and cedar is resistant to disease and rot.
It's resistant to disease and rot, and this sacrifice of God, and God's character, Jesus, who he is, is 100% resistant to any contamination, rot, or disease.
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He will never, the power of his death on the cross will never lose its strength. 100% it is preserved forever.
The blood of Jesus is always as powerful as the day he shed it till the day before he comes. His forgiveness is always for you.
And many people actually believe that the wood of the cedar in this, that Jesus' cross was also made of cedar.
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A lot of people, because there's so many things that point to Jesus, like verbatim, they never say what his cross was made of, but many people think it was actually cedar.
And then hyssop, it was used for purging the leper after they're healed, and so Jesus, John 19 29, was offered a drink on the cross with a branch of hyssop.
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And then scarlet was used in all the holy fabrics, we see it's thrown in this fire, so it's used for the priestly garments, everything in the temple had the scarlet in it.
And then Jesus, when he was being tortured by the soldiers, they threw a scarlet robe on him.
And here scarlet is used in the sacrifice for purification from sin, and so Jesus clothed in scarlet when he's about to shed his own blood for us.
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So we see the everlasting perfection of Jesus and his work on the cross, and what it means for us, that it never loses its power, it's never defiled.
And also that the hyssop is the purging of sin, and that it was there at his crucifixion, and also that the scarlet was used in the holy things of God, and was there wrapped around the holiest of all, Jesus himself right before his death.
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And the blood, we see, it's sprinkled seven times, and it's sprinkled not just anywhere, not on the outside, but right in front of the tabernacle.
Seven times right in front of the tabernacle, and does anyone know what seven is always used for in the Bible? It's not just like a random number, was it?
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It's completion, wholeness, perfection, like all those things in one. It is God's number.
So it's saying that the blood for the purification of the sin is whole, it's completion, it's perfection, that 100%, this has been dealt with.
And it's not just dealt with anywhere, it's not dealt with the family members that they may have sinned against, it's not dealt with this man or woman's spouse, or it's not dealt with, you know, your friends, it's dealt with right in front of God, right in front of the tabernacle.
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And it's saying that through the sacrifice you're justified before the one who truly matters, and that is God.
And so Jesus, like aren't you glad you are justified? Just as if you never sinned. Justified in front of him who truly matters, the judge of the world, God, by the true blood of Jesus.
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And that's just, that's the truth. Like we, when we're in Christ, when we receive salvation, no matter what we've done, no matter how recent it was, no matter what we're currently doing or what we will do, 100%, we have been forgiven by Jesus.
We have been forgiven by the judge of the world. And yes, like sometimes forgiveness takes longer with people on this earth, but just know you are forgiven with God, and that's who truly matters.
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You will not have any of your sins counted against you, and when you get to heaven, he will see you like he sees his son, and will welcome you in openly and with joy.
And we see that too, the sacrifice of Jesus is so much more powerful because when the blood was sprinkled in front of the tabernacle, yes, it gave this cleansing from sin, but when Jesus built his own blood, what happened?
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The very holy of holies inside the temple was ripped in half. We didn't see that from the sacrifice, but we see it in the death of Jesus.
The very holy of holies, as soon as he died and breathed his last, there was an earthquake, the rocks broke, and the tabernacle, holy of holy curtain was torn.
Man, like that's saying we can come directly into his presence any time. Even if we've messed up just today, an hour ago, we have forgiveness through Jesus, and we can come to him boldly.
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We can come directly to him, and it's also saying that no longer is his presence only in this religious system of having to go to this place, but his presence is coming out, and he wants to fill us.
Everywhere we go, his spirit is inside of us.
I don't know about you, but people sometimes get weirded out by this endless grace kind of thing, and they think it will allow people to, I guess, abuse the grace of God, right?
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But when you truly see what it costs, if you lose focus and you start looking at the world and just giving into your flesh, yeah, you will start to not live for God, and you'll start to sin again.
But when you realize how much his grace costs, you won't want to sin. You won't. Like literally Jesus, who was perfect, it says he became sin.
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Do you know what that might feel like? All the sin of the world, the most horrible things you can possibly think of, he became on the cross.
He was actually aware of all those things that were done.
Like when we know the things that are done in some of these like around the world, and we hear about how sick this is, like it weighs me down for days.
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Jesus became it on the cross, and it says that...
Yeah. He actually got, he's got himself, and he actually experienced the separation that sin calls us.
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But the love of God, he did that for us. And even while he was betrayed by his best friends and he was actively being tortured, he said,
Father forgive them for they know not what they do. That's the love of God for us.
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He was beaten beyond recognition. You couldn't even tell it was him anymore.
Thank you, Jesus. Thank you.
And so when you realize what it costs, people aren't going to want to abuse the grace of God.
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I don't want to when I really think about it.
I don't want to grieve the spirit of God. It says when we sin and we grieve him. It's not like, like, yes, we are forgiven, but it still grieves him if we're walking in sin.
And so when we realize the cost of grace, though it's free to us, it wasn't free to him, and you will want to live holy.
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Like, it makes me want to live holy, and it makes me want to live as that living sacrifice like the word talks about.
Thank you, Lord. I just want to pray for a second.
Lord Jesus, I just pray, God. I pray for my own heart, Lord. I pray for everyone here, Lord. I pray for our church, the global church, God.
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I just pray, Lord, that we would be reminded of the cost of this grace that we get to enjoy, the cost of forgiveness, Lord, that it was you.
You, you paid the price. And Lord, we thank you for this gift freely given, which is your son.
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Lord, we receive him with so much humility, Lord, so much gratitude, and we love you, in Jesus' name, amen.
Okay. So, let's read in, yeah, at the end of that, it says that the blood, this animal was burned with the blood.
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Every other sacrifice had the blood poured fully out of it before his sacrifice, but this animal, for the cleansing of sin, had the blood in it when it was burned, and that blood would be in the ashes for application.
And that just speaks of the eternal forgiveness that is in the application of his death.
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It wasn't a one-time thing. Your sins were forgiven that time, but sins after this won't be. It speaks that every time we have sinned, the blood is applied on it. It doesn't run out.
That's why his mercy is new every single morning.
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Now, I want to talk about this grace and this condemnation and the difference between, like, when we are in grace, condemnation and correction.
Because, yeah, we will mess up still. We desire not to. We will sin, even though we don't want to.
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Thankfully, the Spirit of God enables us to walk in his ways, but we may not always walk in his ways.
And the fact that Jesus cleanses us can give us confidence. Our sins, past, present, future, are forgiven.
But when we sin, there's a difference between condemnation and correction.
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Because condemnation pushes you down to focus and dwell and spiral and go into anxiety and depression over what you've done.
The correction of God lifts you up. It pulls you back up to the standard, and it empowers you to do it.
We know the Word of God is here to empower us, and it's here to sharpen us, and it's spirit-breathed, and it gives us correction so that we can actually live out the things of God.
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So, I know I shared this before, but for an image of this, we haven't had the best success with animals in my family.
And if you are facing—I know, Mom, you're already cringing. This is something we learned, so don't judge my parents, okay?
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This is what we were told to do. We're just going by what we know.
So, our pets would poop on the ground, right? And so, you know, we're trying to potty train them.
We've got a bunch of light carpets. You don't want to be doing pee and poop all the time and cleaning it up.
And so, we were told, what you got to do is when it poops on the ground, you take the animal's head and you put it right there in front of it and be like,
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No, poop. No, pee. You just got to shove its face right near it. We're not shoving it in it, but right in front of it, right?
And then they learn their lesson. Sometimes we think that the correction of God is like that, right?
And our dogs turned out fine. They learned. They still liked us, I think, you know?
But that's not what God does. Like I said, the love of God draws people to repentance.
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It draws us to wanting to turn from our ways. Repentance means change your mind 180 degrees.
Like, I have been corrected all the time by God. Like, even this week, it's a good thing because he wants to raise us up.
And so, when I am aware of sin or I'm aware of areas that I'm failing or need him more, God lifts me up to the standard.
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He says, hey, you're doing this. You're struggling. It's there. Whatever it is. But look, like you're called a man of God.
You are called to walk in faith and walk in the spirit. And you can have victory over this. Like, let's do this.
This is very, like, progress. This is very hopeful. Like, God's correction is filled with hope.
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So, when you are aware of your sin, that's a good thing, but you need to pivot immediately into repentance
and into receiving God's correction and walk away from the condemnation of the enemy.
Because it says in the Word that the enemy is the accuser of the brethren.
He will do every single thing he can to, yes, use the facts of your sin to then disqualify you from walking with God
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and make you just spiral and not walk out all the plans God has for you.
So, don't give into condemnation, but completely surrender to God's correction. Amen.
Alright, verse 9. It's there and then we're going to jump to 17.
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It's all surrounding dead bodies because you're not allowed to touch a dead body, which we'll talk about shortly.
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Then the clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, wash his clothes, and bathe in water.
And that evening he shall be clean. But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the assembly,
because he has to file the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him.
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He is unclean. So we see this water. It says running water. I believe some versions say living water, but it's maybe not.
But it's running water. It's from a spring. It's clean and active.
And we know that Jesus in the Gospels speaks of this living water, and this is pointing directly to this.
And he calls this living water, he calls the Holy Spirit living water.
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And we see in Matthew, yeah, Matthew Henry, I think it's his name, the commentary.
He says that the ashes that we see in this heifer is the righteousness or the merit of God,
and the water is the power and grace of his Holy Spirit.
And this application, you can't have one without the other. You're not going to get the Spirit of God without his righteousness,
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and you're not going to just get the righteousness of God without his Holy Spirit.
They are not two separate people. They're one. The trying God. They are all part of the same.
And it shows us that as believers, we are purified from sin, and we are filled and empowered with the Holy Spirit.
That's what you get. Like this old covenant, it was kind of just a cleansing,
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and it didn't really do much past that, but the Gospel of Jesus is both a true cleansing
from all past, present, and future sins, as well as an empowerment of the Holy Spirit inside of you.
And this water is cleansing. We see John 13, right, the Last Supper.
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What does Jesus say? He says, actually, let's turn there. John 13, verse 5.
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I just love hearing the flipping pages. That is nice.
Okay, I'll start reading. Verse 5.
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If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.
Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus said to him, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean,
and you are clean, but not all of you. Speaking of Judas.
So, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean, and you are clean.
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So, we see something here, as a disciple of God, we are cleansed, and we are completely clean,
but there is a washing of our feet.
And you know, the picture, and I believe what Jesus is saying is, as we go through this life,
you know, we are clean. We are clean by his death and resurrection.
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But we can get, in some ways, weighed down by the things of this life, right?
Your feet are going through the dirt. It's picking up all types of stuff.
And so, there's a washing that happens, that should continue to happen.
We are continually supposed to be washed in the Word, and washed in the Holy Spirit.
So, the things of this life don't start to contaminate us in any way,
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that we don't slowly become like the world.
And so, this is a constant dependence on him that we need to have.
This is, like I said, the Gospel is not just a one-time thing,
that you have the altar call, and then you're saved.
Like, that is true, but the whole walk of the Christian is the Gospel.
The Bible says, you were saved by the Gospel, and you stand in the Gospel.
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Like, it needs to be everything.
Like, to even live the Christian life, we need to be continually washed in the Word,
continually formed to look like him, continually empowered by the Holy Spirit,
every single day. And the Gospel, what Jesus has done for us,
is the day we were saved, and every single day until he comes back.
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And even in glory, we're going to be there because of the Gospel. Amen.
So then, from here, we see how all of this, what this is all related to.
It's interesting, because the whole verse says that it's for the purifying
and cleansing of sin, but then all the application is just around
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cleansing for the death, like dead bodies.
And a lot of people are saying that, like commentaries, a lot of theologians are saying,
this was here, and then it didn't have any other practical applications
for cleansing of sin, because it was actually pointing to Jesus,
and that when he came as the true sacrifice, there would be cleansing of sins.
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And so death, we know the wages of sin is death.
We know Adam and Eve in the garden, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
So immediately death came in because of sin.
And so the reason there's cleansing when you touch a dead body,
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is because it's basically saying the end result of sin is death.
If you sin, you die, and we've all sinned, and we all deserve to die,
physically and both spiritually as well.
But Jesus, or the Lord in this passage, is saying that I want to cleanse you from the death.
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So what he's saying here is, I want to cleanse you from the effects and the results of sin.
So yes, sin is forgiven and cleansed, but all of its effects can as well.
And there are so many stories of people that when they come to Jesus,
the memories of things are gone.
Like all the trauma is healed.
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All the memories, all the guilt, the shame,
like the ways of thinking that were just messed up.
All the spiritual and emotional trauma because of sin done to you or sin you've done,
can actually be completely restored and done away with by what Jesus has done.
And in addition to that, the best thing is, is like all the effects of sin is gone,
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and because of that, we can actually have full assurance of faith.
Is anyone happy for full assurance of the fact that we are forgiven and going to heaven?
Like we get to go to heaven and we get to experience the heavenly kingdom of God right now,
that the things that are messed up inside of us have been paid for and are being dealt with by His Holy Spirit.
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He doesn't want us to be double-minded, full of condemnation and all,
but He wants us to have His Spirit, which is the Spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.
And I don't think anything pulls us together like Hebrews 10.22.
It says, let us draw near.
Let us draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
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having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
And at the end of this chapter, we see that we just read that the man who is unclean and does not purify himself,
that person shall be cut off from the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord.
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The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him. He is unclean.
There is no way to get clean apart from God.
Has anyone seen the ways of the world to try to self-help make yourself better?
It never truly works, and it is always a rip-off of the Word of God.
They take the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus, the beatitudes, all this stuff,
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and they just rip Jesus out of it and try to apply it,
and people get a little bit of change in their life.
But it doesn't really do anything deep unless you have Jesus.
Because God created us, God knows how to fix and heal what he has created,
and man only makes things worse, right?
And it's saying right here that you can't become clean in any other way,
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and you're actually cut off from the people of God
if you have not had the water of purification sprinkled on you.
So I just want to give some time.
I believe everyone is here, is saved.
But I just want to give a moment that if, let's close our eyes,
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if there is someone here that either has never given their life to the Lord
and wants to have what we've been talking about,
cleansing from sin, assurance of salvation,
a relationship with God and his Holy Spirit in them.
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You can raise your hand right now.
And now I just want to pray.
If anyone is just feeling the effects of sin still and they want to be freed,
we're not going to raise hands, but I just want to pray.
Lord Jesus, we just thank you so much for what you've done,
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that all things have been forgiven.
The old is here, and the old is gone, and the new is here.
There is now no condemnation in Christ.
And I thank you for all the people in the Bible, Lord, that messed up.
And so many really, really bad ways, God.
And yet you call them friends because you've forgiven them, Lord.
And I just pray, Lord, to end the condemnation that weighs them down, Lord,
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and that they would just receive your correction and joy, God,
and repent and walk with you.
And I pray that the effects of sin and what it's done to their conscience, Lord,
or their mind, or their emotions, Lord,
that you would heal it like you say you will.
Lord, we know you can do anything,
and I just pray, Jesus, that you would minister to their hearts tonight, God.
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I pray for joy and for hope and for peace, Lord, in the sound mind,
in Jesus' name, amen.
I want to finish with a verse from Ephesians 2.
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Verse 4,
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of his great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ,
by grace you have been saved,
and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Jesus,
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and in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works,
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which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Isn't that amazing?
We were dead in trespasses, but then it says he had good works prepared in advance for us.
While we were dead, he died for us and raised us up,
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and wants to show his exceeding grace and kindness and mercy towards us.
And so you have been cleansed, if you've trusted in him, believe the truth,
and you've been cleansed not just for one day in salvation, but here today and now,
and you've been cleansed to be able to walk into the good works that he is playing for you.
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And he has really, really great things for us.
So Lord, we just thank you, God, for your work.
We thank you for your word, that we could see how amazing you are
and what your sacrifice really did for us, God.
And I pray, Lord, that we would just meditate on who you are every day, God,
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that we'd be reminded of your grace and how abundant it is towards us, Lord,
but also how much it cost you.
And I pray, God, I would just encourage us to have confidence in you, Lord,
and the desire to walk with you in a more powerful and deeper way.
We love you so much. In Jesus' name, amen.
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All right, so I got some questions.
You can take a picture.
Does this feel like a three-group night or two?
A three-year?
Okay, I'll let you guys figure that out.
But here's the questions.
What does Jesus cleanse you from?
I mean, if you don't feel comfortable getting into deep details, you don't have to.
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But just some testimonies.
How do you walk in victory and in repentance?
You know, sometimes we can go too far to each side.
You're always focused on sin.
Or maybe you're just always like, hey, we have victory.
But there's place for repentance and confession and all that in our walk.
So just talk about how you walk in both.
And then how do you differentiate God's correction and his voice
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and the enemy's condemnation?
So that is what I got. Thank you, guys.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church as we praise God and discuss His Word.
Don't forget to join us for Worship Lives Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
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Be blessed and have a great day!
Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
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All right.
Everyone doing good?
Yeah.
Starting to feel like fall. We got some cool weather. I broke out my jacket. I'm pretty excited.
Yeah, pretty cold tonight. Got some leaves going.
I always love the fall. October's a big month. My son was born in October. Our anniversary's in October. What's up, Danny? How's it going, man?
(01:03):
Usually, did you think you were teaching tonight? No, I'm just kidding. Just messing with you. I'd do the same thing.
But yeah, so October's always a good month. Actually, we just celebrated 10 years married on October 3rd, so we were down in Florida.
It was pretty awesome. It was weird coming back, though, to this from, like, having 80s and tons of sun.
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And Beau was born on our anniversary, too, so we share the day with him. His birthday now is over our anniversary, so we always celebrate on, like, the 5th or 6th, because we just feel too bad to take his day.
But it was a good time. And to start off the whole trip, we really started on a high note.
I left one of our crucial bags of luggage in the family room when we went to the airport, and I realized once we got to security, so we had to buy a lot of extra stuff when we got down there at Walmart.
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I'm just glad it wasn't Maria's wardrobe. She probably would have been excited to replace all of it, but yeah, we made it through.
It was the white noises and cameras for the babies and all, so yeah, we made it, but it was a good time. It's good to be back.
We're going to be hitting numbers 19 tonight. You guys can turn there. We're going to pray in a sec, but numbers 19.
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Let's see here. All right. And this is laws for the purification. I titled the message cleansed because it's just so powerful to see Jesus in this and how we've been cleansed from our sins, from this purification water.
So before we get into it, let's pray and just ask the Lord to be here and speak through his word, which you know he will. Jesus, just thank you, Lord, that you have cleansed us, God.
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Thank you that when we are in you, Lord, the old is gone and the new is here, Lord. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And I pray, Lord, that tonight, God, that your spirit would pour out into our hearts, Lord. I pray that you would open our eyes and our minds and our hearts, Lord, to see you in this passage and just to better understand your sacrifice in your life and your resurrection and what it means for us, God.
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I just pray for, yeah, my words and just spider web of notes all over the place. God, I pray that you would just speak beyond all that, Lord, and that you would reveal yourself to us tonight in Jesus name. Amen.
So I have three goals for tonight. One is that you would see Jesus in this passage, that you would see his love, what he did for us.
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And honestly, you know, Jesus says that the law and the prophets speak of me. So if we're going to the Bible and we're not looking for Jesus, we're actually missing the point because Jesus says all of this points to me.
So if we go and just look at it as some random ceremony, we missed it. If we go and just try to see ourselves in it, we missed it. But if we go and we try and see Jesus in it, we will see the truth of the word and it will change us.
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So I want us to see Jesus in this passage tonight. I also want just to better understand the truth that we're cleansed. We're cleansed from our sin. And then what does it mean now that we are cleansed?
So let's jump into it. Chapter 19 again in Numbers. And I read in some commentaries that this was actually possibly a ceremony that was brought about that the Lord brought about after chapter 17 when Aaron's bud at the very budding at his bud.
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Aaron's budding staff, if you guys remember right at the end, all the people like the rebellious people were like, oh, who can even go near the temple or the or the tabernacle? We should all die.
And they said, like, we're going to die all this stuff like 10 times in one sentence. It was very death focused. And so now, like, you know, two chapters later, he, the Lord is bringing about this way to cleanse specifically from dead bodies because there's a lot of death in the last few chapters.
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So a way that they can approach God again. So let's read. Chapter 19, verse one. Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, this is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying, speak to the children of Israel that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.
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You shall give it to Eleazar the priest that he may take it outside the camp and it shall be slaughtered before him. And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle some of its blood seven times directly in front of the tabernacle of meeting.
And the heifer shall be burned in his sight, its hide, its flesh, its blood, and its oafel shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet and cast them into the midst of the fire burning the heifer.
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There's a lot here, guys. There is a lot going on. And I want to set up these verses with a verse in Hebrews. Hebrews 9, if you want to write it down, 13 to 14.
It says, for if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, speaking directly of this chapter right here, the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh.
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How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
So we see here this whole ceremony that's taking place. It's a picture of Jesus. And that was for a purifying and cleansing of the flesh, basically like the outward appearance and the things that could defile them.
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But the true cleansing needs to take place in the conscience, in our soul. And our conscience is our ability of our soul to distinguish right from wrong.
And so when you are aware of your sin, you are judging right and wrong correctly, and you can be weighed down by that. You can feel guilty, you can feel shame, all those things.
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But Jesus wants to cleanse your conscience. He wants to free you from it, and he wants to free your conscience to be able to tell what is truly right and wrong, so that what? We can serve the living God.
So we're going to read this, and like I said, the goal is to see Jesus. He said, all of this speaks of him, so if we're going to this passage and we're not looking for him, we are missing the point.
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So, red heifer. A red heifer is a female cow that's never been pregnant, and so it's a young cow, it's red, and I was thinking about, like, this is interesting, what's with the red? Like, why does it have to be red? It's the only sacrifice that talks about the color. Like, why red?
And as I was thinking about it, and reading up on it, I actually saw that, you know how Jesus always calls himself the son of man, right? I'm the son of man. He's identifying, like, yes, I'm the son of God, but I'm also the son of man. That means he was born in the flesh. He's one of us.
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And he's also called, in 1 Corinthians, the last Adam. So he's the son of man, and he's the last Adam. The first Adam brought sin and death, and it says in 1 Corinthians, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
And you know what Adam means? Like, literally, the word Adam, it means red.
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Isn't that interesting? The actual, like, straightforward definition of Adam is red, and it's linked through the etymology to the word Adama, which means red clay or red ground, because he came from the earth.
So here, I'm immediately, you know, I feel like the Lord's purpose in choosing a red heifer is to say, just like the red of Adam, that he's man, so is Jesus, he came in the flesh, and he was a man to pay for the sin and death, so that you can truly be alive.
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So if he's one of us, isn't it amazing that he's without blemish? Isn't it amazing that he never sinned once?
Like, he did what we couldn't. It says this red heifer has to be free from every single blemish.
The Israelites took this so seriously that if they found more than one black hair on the entire red heifer, it was disqualified from being sacrificed.
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If they found more than one white hair, it was disqualified. Could you imagine the job of that, like, sitting there? You probably took three months to re-inspect each hair. You get to the end, you're going back again, because if you get it wrong, like, who knows what's going to happen, right?
And so the purity of this animal, and also that it was never pregnant, just showing that it's, in all ways, there was nothing else in it. It was truly and wholly all the way through this pure animal.
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That is our Jesus, undefiled, perfect in every single way, but he was one of us. That is his power, and his glory, and the Holy Spirit that could, that as a holy God living in our flesh, he never once gave in to temptation.
And that is so encouraging, because, one, he's obviously the perfect sacrifice to pay for all of our sin, but in addition to that, he knows the way out of every single temptation.
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And the way out is directly through him. That's why he says, when you're in the midst of any temptation, turn to him, because he has a way out for you.
Because he was in, it says, he was tempted likewise and always as we are, yet without sin. He is our forgiveness of sin. He is also our power and our victory over it.
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And I noticed, too, it says, never yoked. That's kind of interesting. Right? Yoked. You know, I had a friend, he never, he grew up going to church, and it's so funny.
We were in church, like, two years ago, and the pastor started talking about the yoke, you know, on the oxen.
And he's like, my whole life, I always thought when the Bible talked about yokes, I thought it was like an egg. I never really took the time.
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And they, like, explained, it's just this thing that goes over the animal, and he's like, that's pretty crazy.
I'm like, so what did you think when Jesus said, come to me, my burden is easy, and my yoke is light. Or my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
He's like, yeah, I just, you know, I didn't know, I just kind of thought it was an egg. I'm like, what are you doing? Take the time to think, you know?
But here is this animal never once yoked by the things of this world. Right? Never once was the under bondage. Never once was he in slavery to do this work.
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And I see Jesus who does say, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. And why is that? Because he was only ever in submission to the Father.
He never became entangled and pulled down by the things of this earth, and he never had to strive to be good enough because he is purely holy.
And that's why in him we have rest. And we see this animal never once yoked, and so Jesus was never once held down by sin, or the things of this earth.
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And that's why we can truly have rest in him. It says, enter the rest of Christ.
And also I see in this, you know, it is grace through faith that we receive forgiveness, right?
It's not through working and striving and doing all the things of the law anymore, but it's completely in this resting place of grace through faith.
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And this sacrifice here, which says it was for purification and cleansing of sin, was through an animal that never strived before.
And that's us. Once we come to Christ, we don't strive anymore to be holy, but we live and we desire and we strive to live for him.
We don't just stop trying, right? We want to become like him, but it's through submission to the Father, just like it was for Jesus.
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And then outside the camp, are you guys seeing Jesus yet in this? Are we getting there?
And outside the camp, that's where this animal sacrificed.
Hebrews 13-12, therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate.
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This is the gate of Jerusalem, crucified outside of the actual people of God. He was on the outside.
This animal is brought outside the people of God, to the far, you know, out into the wilderness away from everyone, and was killed there, and so was Jesus.
And if there's not enough pointing to Jesus, we have cedar, hyssop, and scarlet.
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All three parts, if you guys were here for the cleansing of the leper, which, that's Leviticus 14, read it.
You know, tonight, tomorrow, this week, just read Leviticus 14, and then, you know, Google some stuff, Google Jesus and scarlet worm, all these things are going to blow your mind.
But there's three things that are used here, as well as in this cleansing ceremony for the leper, which is an amazing picture of us being cleansed from sin, and now being welcomed back into God's presence.
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But cedar is used in this, as we see it's thrown in the fire, and cedar is resistant to disease and rot.
It's resistant to disease and rot, and this sacrifice of God, and God's character, Jesus, who he is, is 100% resistant to any contamination, rot, or disease.
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He will never, the power of his death on the cross will never lose its strength. 100% it is preserved forever.
The blood of Jesus is always as powerful as the day he shed it till the day before he comes. His forgiveness is always for you.
And many people actually believe that the wood of the cedar in this, that Jesus' cross was also made of cedar.
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A lot of people, because there's so many things that point to Jesus, like verbatim, they never say what his cross was made of, but many people think it was actually cedar.
And then hyssop, it was used for purging the leper after they're healed, and so Jesus, John 19 29, was offered a drink on the cross with a branch of hyssop.
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And then scarlet was used in all the holy fabrics, we see it's thrown in this fire, so it's used for the priestly garments, everything in the temple had the scarlet in it.
And then Jesus, when he was being tortured by the soldiers, they threw a scarlet robe on him.
And here scarlet is used in the sacrifice for purification from sin, and so Jesus clothed in scarlet when he's about to shed his own blood for us.
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So we see the everlasting perfection of Jesus and his work on the cross, and what it means for us, that it never loses its power, it's never defiled.
And also that the hyssop is the purging of sin, and that it was there at his crucifixion, and also that the scarlet was used in the holy things of God, and was there wrapped around the holiest of all, Jesus himself right before his death.
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And the blood, we see, it's sprinkled seven times, and it's sprinkled not just anywhere, not on the outside, but right in front of the tabernacle.
Seven times right in front of the tabernacle, and does anyone know what seven is always used for in the Bible? It's not just like a random number, was it?
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It's completion, wholeness, perfection, like all those things in one. It is God's number.
So it's saying that the blood for the purification of the sin is whole, it's completion, it's perfection, that 100%, this has been dealt with.
And it's not just dealt with anywhere, it's not dealt with the family members that they may have sinned against, it's not dealt with this man or woman's spouse, or it's not dealt with, you know, your friends, it's dealt with right in front of God, right in front of the tabernacle.
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And it's saying that through the sacrifice you're justified before the one who truly matters, and that is God.
And so Jesus, like aren't you glad you are justified? Just as if you never sinned. Justified in front of him who truly matters, the judge of the world, God, by the true blood of Jesus.
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And that's just, that's the truth. Like we, when we're in Christ, when we receive salvation, no matter what we've done, no matter how recent it was, no matter what we're currently doing or what we will do, 100%, we have been forgiven by Jesus.
We have been forgiven by the judge of the world. And yes, like sometimes forgiveness takes longer with people on this earth, but just know you are forgiven with God, and that's who truly matters.
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You will not have any of your sins counted against you, and when you get to heaven, he will see you like he sees his son, and will welcome you in openly and with joy.
And we see that too, the sacrifice of Jesus is so much more powerful because when the blood was sprinkled in front of the tabernacle, yes, it gave this cleansing from sin, but when Jesus built his own blood, what happened?
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The very holy of holies inside the temple was ripped in half. We didn't see that from the sacrifice, but we see it in the death of Jesus.
The very holy of holies, as soon as he died and breathed his last, there was an earthquake, the rocks broke, and the tabernacle, holy of holy curtain was torn.
Man, like that's saying we can come directly into his presence any time. Even if we've messed up just today, an hour ago, we have forgiveness through Jesus, and we can come to him boldly.
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We can come directly to him, and it's also saying that no longer is his presence only in this religious system of having to go to this place, but his presence is coming out, and he wants to fill us.
Everywhere we go, his spirit is inside of us.
I don't know about you, but people sometimes get weirded out by this endless grace kind of thing, and they think it will allow people to, I guess, abuse the grace of God, right?
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But when you truly see what it costs, if you lose focus and you start looking at the world and just giving into your flesh, yeah, you will start to not live for God, and you'll start to sin again.
But when you realize how much his grace costs, you won't want to sin. You won't. Like literally Jesus, who was perfect, it says he became sin.
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Do you know what that might feel like? All the sin of the world, the most horrible things you can possibly think of, he became on the cross.
He was actually aware of all those things that were done.
Like when we know the things that are done in some of these like around the world, and we hear about how sick this is, like it weighs me down for days.
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Jesus became it on the cross, and it says that...
Yeah. He actually got, he's got himself, and he actually experienced the separation that sin calls us.
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But the love of God, he did that for us. And even while he was betrayed by his best friends and he was actively being tortured, he said,
Father forgive them for they know not what they do. That's the love of God for us.
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He was beaten beyond recognition. You couldn't even tell it was him anymore.
Thank you, Jesus. Thank you.
And so when you realize what it costs, people aren't going to want to abuse the grace of God.
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I don't want to when I really think about it.
I don't want to grieve the spirit of God. It says when we sin and we grieve him. It's not like, like, yes, we are forgiven, but it still grieves him if we're walking in sin.
And so when we realize the cost of grace, though it's free to us, it wasn't free to him, and you will want to live holy.
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Like, it makes me want to live holy, and it makes me want to live as that living sacrifice like the word talks about.
Thank you, Lord. I just want to pray for a second.
Lord Jesus, I just pray, God. I pray for my own heart, Lord. I pray for everyone here, Lord. I pray for our church, the global church, God.
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I just pray, Lord, that we would be reminded of the cost of this grace that we get to enjoy, the cost of forgiveness, Lord, that it was you.
You, you paid the price. And Lord, we thank you for this gift freely given, which is your son.
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Lord, we receive him with so much humility, Lord, so much gratitude, and we love you, in Jesus' name, amen.
Okay. So, let's read in, yeah, at the end of that, it says that the blood, this animal was burned with the blood.
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Every other sacrifice had the blood poured fully out of it before his sacrifice, but this animal, for the cleansing of sin, had the blood in it when it was burned, and that blood would be in the ashes for application.
And that just speaks of the eternal forgiveness that is in the application of his death.
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It wasn't a one-time thing. Your sins were forgiven that time, but sins after this won't be. It speaks that every time we have sinned, the blood is applied on it. It doesn't run out.
That's why his mercy is new every single morning.
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Now, I want to talk about this grace and this condemnation and the difference between, like, when we are in grace, condemnation and correction.
Because, yeah, we will mess up still. We desire not to. We will sin, even though we don't want to.
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Thankfully, the Spirit of God enables us to walk in his ways, but we may not always walk in his ways.
And the fact that Jesus cleanses us can give us confidence. Our sins, past, present, future, are forgiven.
But when we sin, there's a difference between condemnation and correction.
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Because condemnation pushes you down to focus and dwell and spiral and go into anxiety and depression over what you've done.
The correction of God lifts you up. It pulls you back up to the standard, and it empowers you to do it.
We know the Word of God is here to empower us, and it's here to sharpen us, and it's spirit-breathed, and it gives us correction so that we can actually live out the things of God.
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So, I know I shared this before, but for an image of this, we haven't had the best success with animals in my family.
And if you are facing—I know, Mom, you're already cringing. This is something we learned, so don't judge my parents, okay?
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This is what we were told to do. We're just going by what we know.
So, our pets would poop on the ground, right? And so, you know, we're trying to potty train them.
We've got a bunch of light carpets. You don't want to be doing pee and poop all the time and cleaning it up.
And so, we were told, what you got to do is when it poops on the ground, you take the animal's head and you put it right there in front of it and be like,
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No, poop. No, pee. You just got to shove its face right near it. We're not shoving it in it, but right in front of it, right?
And then they learn their lesson. Sometimes we think that the correction of God is like that, right?
And our dogs turned out fine. They learned. They still liked us, I think, you know?
But that's not what God does. Like I said, the love of God draws people to repentance.
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It draws us to wanting to turn from our ways. Repentance means change your mind 180 degrees.
Like, I have been corrected all the time by God. Like, even this week, it's a good thing because he wants to raise us up.
And so, when I am aware of sin or I'm aware of areas that I'm failing or need him more, God lifts me up to the standard.
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He says, hey, you're doing this. You're struggling. It's there. Whatever it is. But look, like you're called a man of God.
You are called to walk in faith and walk in the spirit. And you can have victory over this. Like, let's do this.
This is very, like, progress. This is very hopeful. Like, God's correction is filled with hope.
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So, when you are aware of your sin, that's a good thing, but you need to pivot immediately into repentance
and into receiving God's correction and walk away from the condemnation of the enemy.
Because it says in the Word that the enemy is the accuser of the brethren.
He will do every single thing he can to, yes, use the facts of your sin to then disqualify you from walking with God
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and make you just spiral and not walk out all the plans God has for you.
So, don't give into condemnation, but completely surrender to God's correction. Amen.
Alright, verse 9. It's there and then we're going to jump to 17.
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It's all surrounding dead bodies because you're not allowed to touch a dead body, which we'll talk about shortly.
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Then the clean person shall sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, wash his clothes, and bathe in water.
And that evening he shall be clean. But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the assembly,
because he has to file the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him.
(30:35):
He is unclean. So we see this water. It says running water. I believe some versions say living water, but it's maybe not.
But it's running water. It's from a spring. It's clean and active.
And we know that Jesus in the Gospels speaks of this living water, and this is pointing directly to this.
And he calls this living water, he calls the Holy Spirit living water.
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And we see in Matthew, yeah, Matthew Henry, I think it's his name, the commentary.
He says that the ashes that we see in this heifer is the righteousness or the merit of God,
and the water is the power and grace of his Holy Spirit.
And this application, you can't have one without the other. You're not going to get the Spirit of God without his righteousness,
(31:26):
and you're not going to just get the righteousness of God without his Holy Spirit.
They are not two separate people. They're one. The trying God. They are all part of the same.
And it shows us that as believers, we are purified from sin, and we are filled and empowered with the Holy Spirit.
That's what you get. Like this old covenant, it was kind of just a cleansing,
(31:50):
and it didn't really do much past that, but the Gospel of Jesus is both a true cleansing
from all past, present, and future sins, as well as an empowerment of the Holy Spirit inside of you.
And this water is cleansing. We see John 13, right, the Last Supper.
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What does Jesus say? He says, actually, let's turn there. John 13, verse 5.
(32:32):
I just love hearing the flipping pages. That is nice.
Okay, I'll start reading. Verse 5.
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If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.
Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.
Jesus said to him, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean,
and you are clean, but not all of you. Speaking of Judas.
So, he who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean, and you are clean.
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So, we see something here, as a disciple of God, we are cleansed, and we are completely clean,
but there is a washing of our feet.
And you know, the picture, and I believe what Jesus is saying is, as we go through this life,
you know, we are clean. We are clean by his death and resurrection.
(33:52):
But we can get, in some ways, weighed down by the things of this life, right?
Your feet are going through the dirt. It's picking up all types of stuff.
And so, there's a washing that happens, that should continue to happen.
We are continually supposed to be washed in the Word, and washed in the Holy Spirit.
So, the things of this life don't start to contaminate us in any way,
(34:14):
that we don't slowly become like the world.
And so, this is a constant dependence on him that we need to have.
This is, like I said, the Gospel is not just a one-time thing,
that you have the altar call, and then you're saved.
Like, that is true, but the whole walk of the Christian is the Gospel.
The Bible says, you were saved by the Gospel, and you stand in the Gospel.
(34:38):
Like, it needs to be everything.
Like, to even live the Christian life, we need to be continually washed in the Word,
continually formed to look like him, continually empowered by the Holy Spirit,
every single day. And the Gospel, what Jesus has done for us,
is the day we were saved, and every single day until he comes back.
(34:59):
And even in glory, we're going to be there because of the Gospel. Amen.
So then, from here, we see how all of this, what this is all related to.
It's interesting, because the whole verse says that it's for the purifying
and cleansing of sin, but then all the application is just around
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cleansing for the death, like dead bodies.
And a lot of people are saying that, like commentaries, a lot of theologians are saying,
this was here, and then it didn't have any other practical applications
for cleansing of sin, because it was actually pointing to Jesus,
and that when he came as the true sacrifice, there would be cleansing of sins.
(35:44):
And so death, we know the wages of sin is death.
We know Adam and Eve in the garden, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
In the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.
So immediately death came in because of sin.
And so the reason there's cleansing when you touch a dead body,
(36:05):
is because it's basically saying the end result of sin is death.
If you sin, you die, and we've all sinned, and we all deserve to die,
physically and both spiritually as well.
But Jesus, or the Lord in this passage, is saying that I want to cleanse you from the death.
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So what he's saying here is, I want to cleanse you from the effects and the results of sin.
So yes, sin is forgiven and cleansed, but all of its effects can as well.
And there are so many stories of people that when they come to Jesus,
the memories of things are gone.
Like all the trauma is healed.
(36:47):
All the memories, all the guilt, the shame,
like the ways of thinking that were just messed up.
All the spiritual and emotional trauma because of sin done to you or sin you've done,
can actually be completely restored and done away with by what Jesus has done.
And in addition to that, the best thing is, is like all the effects of sin is gone,
(37:13):
and because of that, we can actually have full assurance of faith.
Is anyone happy for full assurance of the fact that we are forgiven and going to heaven?
Like we get to go to heaven and we get to experience the heavenly kingdom of God right now,
that the things that are messed up inside of us have been paid for and are being dealt with by His Holy Spirit.
(37:37):
He doesn't want us to be double-minded, full of condemnation and all,
but He wants us to have His Spirit, which is the Spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.
And I don't think anything pulls us together like Hebrews 10.22.
It says, let us draw near.
Let us draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith,
(37:59):
having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
And at the end of this chapter, we see that we just read that the man who is unclean and does not purify himself,
that person shall be cut off from the assembly because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord.
(38:19):
The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him. He is unclean.
There is no way to get clean apart from God.
Has anyone seen the ways of the world to try to self-help make yourself better?
It never truly works, and it is always a rip-off of the Word of God.
They take the Gospel and the teachings of Jesus, the beatitudes, all this stuff,
(38:42):
and they just rip Jesus out of it and try to apply it,
and people get a little bit of change in their life.
But it doesn't really do anything deep unless you have Jesus.
Because God created us, God knows how to fix and heal what he has created,
and man only makes things worse, right?
And it's saying right here that you can't become clean in any other way,
(39:06):
and you're actually cut off from the people of God
if you have not had the water of purification sprinkled on you.
So I just want to give some time.
I believe everyone is here, is saved.
But I just want to give a moment that if, let's close our eyes,
(39:30):
if there is someone here that either has never given their life to the Lord
and wants to have what we've been talking about,
cleansing from sin, assurance of salvation,
a relationship with God and his Holy Spirit in them.
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You can raise your hand right now.
And now I just want to pray.
If anyone is just feeling the effects of sin still and they want to be freed,
we're not going to raise hands, but I just want to pray.
Lord Jesus, we just thank you so much for what you've done,
(40:14):
that all things have been forgiven.
The old is here, and the old is gone, and the new is here.
There is now no condemnation in Christ.
And I thank you for all the people in the Bible, Lord, that messed up.
And so many really, really bad ways, God.
And yet you call them friends because you've forgiven them, Lord.
And I just pray, Lord, to end the condemnation that weighs them down, Lord,
(40:40):
and that they would just receive your correction and joy, God,
and repent and walk with you.
And I pray that the effects of sin and what it's done to their conscience, Lord,
or their mind, or their emotions, Lord,
that you would heal it like you say you will.
Lord, we know you can do anything,
and I just pray, Jesus, that you would minister to their hearts tonight, God.
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I pray for joy and for hope and for peace, Lord, in the sound mind,
in Jesus' name, amen.
I want to finish with a verse from Ephesians 2.
(41:25):
Verse 4,
But God, who is rich in mercy,
because of his great love with which he loved us,
even when we were dead in trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ,
by grace you have been saved,
and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Jesus,
(41:50):
and in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace
in his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
For by grace you have been saved through faith,
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,
not of works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works,
(42:14):
which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Isn't that amazing?
We were dead in trespasses, but then it says he had good works prepared in advance for us.
While we were dead, he died for us and raised us up,
(42:34):
and wants to show his exceeding grace and kindness and mercy towards us.
And so you have been cleansed, if you've trusted in him, believe the truth,
and you've been cleansed not just for one day in salvation, but here today and now,
and you've been cleansed to be able to walk into the good works that he is playing for you.
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And he has really, really great things for us.
So Lord, we just thank you, God, for your work.
We thank you for your word, that we could see how amazing you are
and what your sacrifice really did for us, God.
And I pray, Lord, that we would just meditate on who you are every day, God,
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that we'd be reminded of your grace and how abundant it is towards us, Lord,
but also how much it cost you.
And I pray, God, I would just encourage us to have confidence in you, Lord,
and the desire to walk with you in a more powerful and deeper way.
We love you so much. In Jesus' name, amen.
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All right, so I got some questions.
You can take a picture.
Does this feel like a three-group night or two?
A three-year?
Okay, I'll let you guys figure that out.
But here's the questions.
What does Jesus cleanse you from?
I mean, if you don't feel comfortable getting into deep details, you don't have to.
(44:00):
But just some testimonies.
How do you walk in victory and in repentance?
You know, sometimes we can go too far to each side.
You're always focused on sin.
Or maybe you're just always like, hey, we have victory.
But there's place for repentance and confession and all that in our walk.
So just talk about how you walk in both.
And then how do you differentiate God's correction and his voice
(44:24):
and the enemy's condemnation?
So that is what I got. Thank you, guys.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church as we praise God and discuss His Word.
Don't forget to join us for Worship Lives Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
(44:45):
Be blessed and have a great day!
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