The Red Heifer — Paris Reidhead

The Red Heifer and God's Provision for Cleansing

You return these to Numbers chapter 19. I trust that today as we consider this important chapter having to do with the red heifer, we will realize that this is the provision that God made for the people of the congregation that is parallel to and a counterpart of the provision made in the labor.

Now, I feel that the truth concerning the labor as being an indispensable point in our progress into the full revelation of God's presence in our lives cannot be too strongly held and understood by us.

So tonight we propose to deal with that. But this that we have before us this morning is God's provision for the people of the congregation. Now, let's have two or three things clear at the outset. First, this whole matter of salvation is of God.

Salvation is of the Lord. He it is that has known our need and he it is that has anticipated all that we would need and has provided fully for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you can at this juncture understand that God is on your side, that God is for you, that God's concern is for your well-being and your joy and blessing, then you will have succeeded in casting off one of the chains that's held many a Christian in defeat and in failure and kept them from blessing.

Somehow the God of this world, Satan, our archenemy, seems to delight in deluding dear children of God into thinking that God is either indifferent to sin, unconcerned about it after they're Christians, or he is impossible to please, and that there's a tremendous weight and burden pressing upon them that they feel that he's held a standard that they can't achieve, a walk into which they can never fit, a life they can never live, and that the Christian life is going to be just one continuous series of spiritual disappointments until finally they're finished and they'll be taken into his presence.

Both of these are incorrect. God is just as holy now as he was in the Old Testament. He hasn't changed in any way. He hates sin today as much as he did before the Lord Jesus died, and he must deal with it as he did before he died.

There's no change in regard to God's attitude toward sin. But certainly, if we rightly understood his grace manifest in the Lord Jesus, it was to enable you to live a joyful, happy, fruitful, victorious Christian life.

And I think every Christian ought to buy and have and read, if for no other reason, the sheer delight of the title, this book by Hannah Whitehall Smith, The Christian Secret of a Happy Life. Now, you just ought to have that.

You ought to have it handy, because in life there's so much that's unhappy and distressing that you ought to have the testimony of someone who had such a view of God and such a relationship with him that with a full, singing, joyous heart, she could say, The Christian Secret of a Happy Life.

And I hope if you don't have it, you'll get it soon, because you need it. Now, if God is holy, and he is, and he hates sin, and he does, and we are unable to walk the Christian life as he's prescribed, and we can't, then what are we going to do?

What's the answer? What's the answer? Well, the answer is twofold. There are two problems. First, we must understand what to do in the case we fail. And secondly, we must understand how to avail of ourselves of his grace so that we won't have to keep on failing.

Now, we're dealing with the first problem today. What did the Christian, the Old Testament believer, for such we deal, what did he do when he discovered that he had displeased the one whose name is holy?

He couldn't go into the court of the tabernacle to the labor. You, as a believer priest, can, but the Israelite couldn't. And so God made provision for the people of the congregation here in the red heifer.

And you must see this, then, as God's means of providing for the cleansing cleansing from that failure and disobedience and sin that comes into the heart of a child of God after they've been born into his family.

But we must make one other thing clear. A child of God wants to please his father. The characteristic of those that have been into the father's family is that they love the children of God, as we saw in the Bible study this morning.

We love the children of God, and we know that we love the children of God because we love God and keep his commandments. You see, if you're a child of God, you have a new heart. God gave it to you. When you came in repentance and in faith, he not only pardoned your past, but he gave you a new heart.

That is a new purpose. Purpose to please him. Purpose to glorify him, to obey him. And this is the new heart. It's not new tissue, the old tissue, but there's a new life, a new purpose, a new reason for being when you've been born of God.

And it is that Jesus Christ be praised, that he be glorified, that he be exalted. And this characterizes that new heart. Now, if you're a counterfeit Christian, you have theology without God, you have the plan of salvation without the presence of the Savior, and you're looking for some way that you can ensure yourself against being caught and continue to go on in disobedience to the Lord, then there's nothing for you here.

The only one that has any part in what we're considering is the one who wants to please God. The person whose desire is to please God, and he's concerned about what he should do when he fails. And this is what we find set forth in the red heifer.

The Red Heifer Ordinance and Self-Judgment

Now, the ordinance is this. God commanded Moses that a heifer, a red heifer, the color scarlet, always symbolizing sacrifice, the heifer being itself a clean animal and worthy for sacrifice, that a red heifer should without spot, no blemish upon which the yoke has never come, should be brought to the priest, in this case Eleazar, taken outside the camp and be killed.

There should be a pile of wood sufficient so that without adding wood, the entire beast could be burned. However, into this burning pyre upon which the body of the heifer would be placed, he would cast small pieces of cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet, throw it into the midst of the fire.

Then the priest would retire into the camp, but he would be unclean until evening. Another man, one clean, would come after the fire had burned down and the ashes had cooled and would scrape the ashes together and probably put them in a container of some sort so that they wouldn't be dissolved by the rain and set them in a convenient place outside the camp so that when the Israelites touched that which God forbade, did that which was contrary to his will, there would be the means whereby they could be restored to fellowship again.

They would be necessary for the person himself to recognize that he was unclean. He would have to judge himself. He would be walking in the field and stumble on a dead body. Now, if he wished, he could have turned around and pretended he hadn't been there, but he knew that God knew.

He would see a bone and think it was just a bone of a beast, pick it up only to discover it was a human bone. Or in the field, he would touch one slain by the sword, or he would step on a grave where the dead body was considerably below the surface of the ground.

Now, he would know this. There might at occasions be someone with him who could tell on him, but if his only concern was that he'd be protected from exposure by his friends, there would have been many opportunities when he would have been unclean and could have hidden it from his friends.

So there had to be within this Israelite a desire to be accepted not only by the brethren, but by God. Not only to be approved by his friends, but to be approved by the Lord. And thus he would have to judge himself.

He would have to come to someone that was clean and say, today I touched a dead body, I stepped on a grave, I touched a bone. Then he would have to ask this person to help him. And there would be three days that he would be unclean from the time he requested help.

And then he would be sprinkled. And then on fourth day, he would purify himself. But you must understand that there was something else. If he refused to do as God provided and prescribed, he knew that God knew.

Now there were two ways that he could be cut off from the congregation. The first was that the people knowing that he had touched that body or stepped on that grave or kicked that bone would say, what are you going to do about it?

And he could arrogantly say nothing, it's my business, not yours, and gone on. And then they could have said, we will not have fellowship with you. But you see this cutting off from the congregation wasn't just what the congregation did to the individual.

There was someone else that was involved. The Lord was concerned. And so he had a way of cutting off their lives and all that was dear and precious to them. If you'd like to read something of what would take place, read Deuteronomy 28 and see, not now, but sometime in the future, today perhaps, what was involved when God began to deal with those that were unclean and hadn't dealt with it in the prescribed way.

The Five Consequences of Sin

I've told you in the past, and I remind you now, just in passing, the five things that happen to us when we sin. Five things that take place and you ought to keep them before you. You ought to have these things written down on one of the white pages of your Bible that you might refer to them.

Your memories are good, mine is. I can remember an amazing amount for about two or three minutes. And then I began to lose them. And it begins to dissipate. And I am confident that your memory is somewhat similar.

And so I do trust that you'll write down these five things and have them before you, and that you'll realize what's involved in what we're studying. Because we're not simply interested in experience in the Old Testament.

We want it to be relevant to our lives in the 20th century, and especially to our walk between today and next Lord's day. Now, there are five things that happen when a child of God sins. First, fellowship with God is broken.

We've seen that. He said, cut them off from the assembly. Cut them off from the congregation. Allow them not to come. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.

Now, all you need to have written down is fellowship with God is broken. This is what happens when a child of God sins. Because our fellowship is based upon not our intrinsic righteousness, but the brokenness of our heart and the obedience of our minds and lives.

So sin breaks fellowship with God. Now, if you haven't known fellowship with God, then you don't know when it's broken. And so you have to ask the question, when have you had fellowship with God? When was the last time that God spoke to your heart?

When was the last time the warmth of his presence engulfed your heart? You were beneath the warm sunshine of the Spirit's smile. Do you have, do you know fellowship with God so that you would know when it's broken?

You see, if you haven't known it, how can you know when it's broken? But if you've known fellowship with him, then you know that when he's grieved, your grief, there's an inner distress. When you're walking in fellowship with him, there's a rest, there's a joy, there's a peace, there's a contentment, even in the midst of difficulty.

But when something's wrong, when you've said something, when you've thought something, when you've done something, when you've wanted something, he's grieved and you're grieved and that warm fellowship is broken.

Does fellowship doesn't necessarily mean constant talking. It's wonderful to see a mother and her little daughter, you know, they can, little daughter can take care of her family of dolls and dishes on the floor in the corner.

The mother can take care of her family of children and dishes and duties, food. Mother's working there and little daughter's over here and for 30 minutes and 45 minutes and an hour, nobody says anything, but they don't need to say anything because they're having fellowship.

Daughter's very busy with her responsibilities. At four years old, your responsibilities can be pressing. And mother is very busy with her responsibilities and so minutes go by and extend and there's no conversation.

But there's warm fellowship because each understands the interest of the other. And so fellowship with God doesn't mean you're on your knees. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're reading hymns or that you're reading the Bible or even particularly thinking about God, but you just know everything's right.

Just know it's right. And then when something comes in and you know it's wrong, you, if you're in fellowship with him, you know when you've grieved him. Now, what do you do? Wait for the next revival meeting nine months hence so that you can go forward on the third night and deal with it?

Do you know what's going to happen? In other words, we saw last week that if you do, then every day for the next nine months, you're going to find greater sin, greater estrangement, greater difficulty, greater problems.

No, no. The time to deal with it is at the moment that you grieve the Spirit of God. Lord, what is it? And he'll show you. And then you deal with it then. Fellowship with God is broken. The second thing that happens when a child of God sins, God doesn't use him.

He's cut off from the congregation. Oh, the Sunday school teacher that rides in the car with her husband in the morning, you know, and they fuss all the way. She brought the wrong meat and didn't fix things right.

And so they just argue with one another across the car and children sit in the backseat sort of cowering, wondering who's going to strike first. And then she comes in and bows her head and says, now, Lord, bless the children.

The blessed lesson. She's wasting her time, you know. The place where the blessing was lost wasn't there. It was when the first word was spoken in the kitchen that morning when they were getting breakfast.

And instead of saying, I'm sorry, honey, forgive me, they just let it grow from one thing to another. And it's gone on to just poison the day. They've, he's going through the motions. He's going through the work, but the Lord's not in it.

Because he's not using her and she's trying to use him, but he isn't using her. So with preachers, so with everyone. You see, God is very sensitive and he says, be clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.

And this is the kind that he uses. And so the second thing that happens is God doesn't use us anymore. The third thing that happens when a child of God sins is our prayers go unanswered. Prayers are unanswered.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, perhaps the Lord will not hear me. And you say, well, it isn't too important. You know, we've got things pretty well controlled now. No, just wait a little while. Mark Twain said about New England weather, he said, if you don't like the weather in New England, just wait a minute.

And we found that to be true. I'm sure you have. You think everything's peaceful and pleasant now? Just wait a minute. If you think that you can get by without needing to pray, just wait a minute. God loves you too much to let that kind of an attitude continue.

You're going to find that very, very shortly you're on the place where you need prayer. Very quickly, it's terribly important that we should be able to pray. And prayer goes unanswered. Now, the fourth thing that happens when a child of God sins is that he's exposed to the ravaging attacks of Satan.

The Bible says, give no place to the devil. And so if you do, then you know full well the devil's going to take it. I've often used the analogy, and you've probably heard it, that the devil sends his hunting dogs up around the Christian's life.

If we're walking in obedience to the Lord, there's a picket fence, a board fence, that surrounds us. For the spirit of the Lord, and the angel of the Lord, rather, encampeth about them that fear him. And he becomes a wall of defense.

We're down in Missouri, in Hannibal, Missouri, Tom Sawyer country. They had these high board fences, as you recall, Tom hired, done, by allowing the children to pay him for the privilege. But the nails would rust out, and the board would get loose.

And it might be some little time until Mother realized that when she sent her little son out into the backyard, he didn't stay in the backyard, because the nails had rusted back into one board out behind the chicken coop.

And he could lift that board, and scoot out to the neighbors, and lift it, and scoot in. And Mother didn't even know he was gone. Well, if he can scoot out, then something else can scoot in. And it's the devil that has his hunting dogs sniffing around the fence of your life.

And when you allow sin, that beagle of the pit comes up and smells it, and he sends up a baying, and it echoes down in the caverns of darkness. And the prince of darkness dispatches the particular pact that's going to hurt you.

And they come into business, they come into body, they come into family. This, that, and the other is touched. Why? Fence is broken. Fence is broken. And that which was there, the fear of the Lord, the fear of the angel of the Lord encampeth about them that fear him.

Now it's been broken. Oh, it's a terrible thing. Terrible thing, you know, to give place to the devil, because there's a roaring lion, he goes about seeking whom he may devour. Poor people that haven't been in Africa think that the lion goes roaring up and down the jungle, hunting for some prey.

Do you know what would happen if he let out one blast? Every gazelle in the whole woods is going to scamper just as fast as he can, so in any direction from the sound that he heard. No, no, the lion doesn't roar until he's had lunch.

Then he can boast of it. And if you think the devil's going about roaring, trying to catch you, oh no. No, he's subtly creeping in, trying to get you to do anything that will grieve him whose name is holy so that he can get a hold of you.

Then when he has a hold of you, then he'll shake his black mane and make you rattle in his teeth and say, see what I've done to him, see what I've done to her. Then he'll boast of it. But right now it's all so quiet, so subtle.

Wait until he's got his teeth in you and watch the roar that comes. Then the best thing that happens when a child of God sins, he falls into the chastening hands of God, into the chastening hands of God.

Now, dear Christian, if you don't stay away from sin because of any of the other four, if I had eloquent words enough to do it, I would like to prove to you that we'd better stay away from sin because of this fifth one.

The apostle Paul said it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Have you? I have some scars to prove it, if any, and maybe you'd like to do it. And I'm sure the rest of you have scars as well.

It's a fearful thing. You see, God chastens every child and he scourges every son. I know some people, says someone, that are living in sin and they're seeming to get by with it, they're in the church, they're just seemingly going on quite nicely.

Nothing's happened to them. Oh, but do you realize what's happened to them? Don't you see what's happened to them? God has taken a banner and spread it across the street in front of their house and he said to angels and to men and to devils, the person that lives here and claims to be mine and says they're mine isn't mine at all.

They have a spurious testimony and a counterfeit claim because God never touches the devil's children, never lays a finger on them. He knows this is all the heaven they're going to have and when they die, it'll be hell forever and he's not going to cheat them out of the little thing for which they've sold their souls.

But God knows that this is all the hell that his child is going to have and it'll be heaven forever until he's perfectly willing to deal with his children and get us ready. And so if you can live in sin and not be chastened, simply had God clearly disclaim you as his own, you don't belong to him.

He scourges his own children but he doesn't touch those at all. So this is the consequence, this is what it means to be cut off. Now let's go back for a moment. What does this sacrifice of which we read mean?

Christ as the Spotless Sacrifice and Faithful Priest

Oh, can't you see the beautiful picture of our Lord Jesus Christ? Without spa was the first prescription. This red heifer must not have any blotches on it, any spots on it. Speaking of our Lord Jesus in his sinless purity, can you not realize that here is the one person in history whose life has been scrutinized more diligently than any other one?

For he's the only one of whom it was said he was without sin. And to the day there's never been charged leveled against him. In fact, his worst enemy said, this man has done no sin. I have betrayed innocent blood.

There is no evil in him. And God the Father said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Notice also it said it should have no yoke. Our Lord Jesus never had the yoke of sin. You've had it. You know what happens.

You know what's happened in your heart. You know how that you've been yoked to habits and yoked to attitudes and yoked to traits of which you had no choosing and from which you find in yourself no losing.

You've borne a yoke, a yoke of failure, a yoke of disobedience, a yoke of sin. But there was no yoke on him. He was without yoke. He'd never been harnessed. The only yoke he knew was the yoke of total submission to the Father's will.

He said, my yoke. What is his yoke? I do always those things that please the Father. I came not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. This was his yoke. And so our Lord Jesus perfectly fulfills the time.

He's the only one that could be without spot wherein there is no blemish and upon which yoke never came. But you see something else here. Our Lord Jesus is pictured not only by the red heifer, the sacrifice, but he's also pictured by the priest as well.

He began for us by being the victim. He went to the cross in our place instead. Our Lord Jesus died the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God. He was made to be sin for us. He who knew no sin.

Into that fire where he died was cast the cedar wood of our iniquity and the hyssop of our rebellion and the scarlet of all of our crimes against the righteousness of God. Into the place where he died was cast all of our sin in type and in picture.

It wasn't his, but it was cast upon him, was cast toward him. He bore it in and of himself. He died for us. But you see it doesn't stop there. It isn't just that the Lord Jesus died, but he lives again.

And the testimony of the word is he is able to save unto the uttermost all them that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. And so here he is not only the victim, but he's also the priest.

And he it is now that witnessed that sacrifice and he it is that's acquainted with us. And so you have a high priest that's touched with the feelings of your infirmity. He knows you. He knows me. And we've been tempted in all points like as we are and yet without sin.

He's known the pressure. He's known the test. You say, oh, if he only knew my life, he'd knew your life. What is the problem in your life? You say need? Poverty? Well, our Lord had no place to lay his head.

One garment that given to him and bread that only came from the kindness of the people. For when he left the carpenter's shop, he left all behind. And so you'll say, but he's no never known loneliness like mine.

Oh, I'm so alone in this city. Don't you realize that out of loneliness is why I fail the Lord. Out of loneliness is why I've sinned. Yes, I realize it. I recognize that probably a great proportion of the crimes that are committed in this city are committed out of loneliness.

But don't tell me my Lord didn't know loneliness. For there was one night in Gethsemane's garden when all the men got up after they'd been listening to him speak. And they said, well, time to go home, go to bed.

They'd go off two or three here, two or three there. And when they'd all gone, the Lord Jesus was alone in Gethsemane's garden. You know why? Because nobody asked him to go to their home. Oh, I think that there's everyone that has a home in this city ought to realize that God wants to make that home a mission station for lonely hearts.

I hope if you're going home to dinner that you take somebody home with you. Oh, you know, dear friend, if you'd stand at the door and ask God to guide you and take someone home and share the crust of bread with you, you know that there might be that you could save someone from a crime today just because you've extended a hand of human love.

You realize that? Or as I speak and say, our Lord knew loneliness, I do not for a moment condone the fact that we've often become so indifferent to the plight of others that we've closed our hearts to their needs.

Thou seest thy brother have need and shut up thy bowels of compassion. How dwelleth the love of God in that man? But our Lord knew what it was to see his disciples dispersed to their home. And no one invited him.

And so he took the long robe that covered him and lay him down and slept upon the rock. A long, lonely night. He knew what it was when his disciples went to sleep and left him wrestle alone. And he knew what it was to say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Listen, there's nothing that you'll ever know but what our Lord Jesus has tasted it for you. Never fear, he's a priest that made full provision by his death, went without the camp and died just for the unjust that he might bring us to God.

Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without the gate. And so the entreaty comes to us today. Let us go forth therefore to unto him without the camp bearing his reproach.

Remembrance, Cleansing, and the Christian's Daily Walk

Though it was without the camp he died. He died as a sacrifice having cast in upon him all of our sin and failure and iniquity. And then he's the priest that lives to intercede for us doing all our needs.

The priest put his finger into the blood as the lamb, as the heifer was killed. Seven times he sprinkled it before the tabernacle. Speaking of that perfect presentation of the blood of God's eternal son, there is, this is the only place where God and the sinner can meet.

Here where the blood is atoned and the conscience of the sinner now can rest in the fact that God has accepted the death of his son. When you understand this then you realize that the blood sprinkled seven times before the door of the tabernacle speaks to us of the fact that God has completely judged sin in his son.

And that when you come to that place where he judged sin and see yourself worthy of that death, repent of your sin and receive Christ, then your sins are washed away by the blood. The blood is sprinkled once.

Sin has been put away once. Once offered was the blood of the Lord Jesus. But now we find that the red heifer is killed and burned in order that there might be provision made. This red heifer, the ashes of which were so tenderly and carefully gathered, was that there might be remembrance made of Christ's death.

For when they came to that clay pot containing the ashes, of what were they thinking? The heifer died, its blood was sprinkled. It brought them back to the place of remembrance of sacrifice. Now the purpose of the ashes is to provide for the removal of the defilement that's acquired in our daily walk.

God didn't take his people and put them inside the court of the tabernacle and refuse to allow them to go out lest they should touch a dead bone, lest they should step on a grave. He didn't do that. And my friend, God loves you too much to do it with you.

He's going to allow you to go back perhaps in someday in your lifetime square with the source and snare of your temptation. The Lord Jesus isn't going to put you in a little box and ship you out to Seattle so that you can't be in Times Square.

He may let you go to Seattle, but it's after he's dealt with you and shown you the provision of his grace to keep you when you walk through Times Square. And so he didn't take his people and confine them.

What he did was to let them go. But you see, he did something within them so that they didn't want to step on the grave. They didn't want to touch the dead body. They wanted to be clean. They wanted to please him.

Has God done that to you? Has God given you a passionate desire to please him? A consuming longing to please him? Is this true? Do you want to please God? Is it? Well, then look at it for a moment. Scarlet speaks of your sins, your glory and your plight.

Cedar and hyssop speak of your nature, what you've done, what you are. I am crucified with Christ. There the priest cast in the scarlet of our sins and the cedar and hyssop of our nature, and it was burned there.

I am crucified with Christ, said Paul. But notice for just a moment. It's a very solemn thing to walk with God in such a world as this. God knew your nature and God knew the possibility of your sin, even after you were forgiven and pardoned, after you were under the blood.

God knew that if you walked down the path that he was going to be able to deal with you. You see, God can cleanse from sin, but my dear, he can't condone sin. He can cleanse, but he can't condone. There is a difference, there's a tremendous difference.

And God can't condone it, but he can cleanse from it. Let me ask you, as you look at it today, as you think about it today, what were the bones in your past? What were the graves in your past? What were the dead bodies in your past?

And I look at some of you and know that perhaps the bone of your past was self-pity, feeling sorry for yourself. And out of self-pity, you would do things which were wrong. You felt so sorry for yourself.

And so here was a dead bone out of your past. And God wants you to walk in a straight way, but as you walk back there, you kick that dead bone. And again, you begin to feel sorry for yourself. Have you come to the place that you deal with self-pity as a sin instead of a weakness?

For sin it is. Perhaps I look at someone that says, you know, the dead bone of my past was jealousy. I was so terribly jealous of people. Has anybody got something I didn't have? My heart just rose within me with rage that I should be deprived and they should be honored.

Jealousy. Dead bone. Dead body. Perhaps someone says, you know, the dead bone of my past was immoral thought. And so you'd walk along the way and you'd see something pictured here. You see a book, you see this, is that?

And you kick it. And like a little child that sees a stone and kicks it from school all the way home, you just keep on kicking it. Keep on letting it go in front of you. And when you get home, you're grief gone.

But I don't know what it is, but you know. You know what those dead bones scattered around in the path you take are. You know what those graves of shame are upon which you've stepped. You know where those dead bodies of grief and heartache are.

You know. I know. You know. And do you know something? The evidence that you have a new heart is when you touch the bone. When you touch, when you touch, when you kick, your heart is grieved. You're burdened.

You're filled with heartache. Oh, dear one today, I plead with you in the name of Jesus Christ to realize what was needed. I hope that when you think of it, you'll recognize that the results of sin, this broken communion and separation that began on the first day, the beginning of conviction on the third day, and confession and cleansing as it's pictured on the seventh day, is what God wants.