Purifying The Camp, Health, God's Voice & The Nazarite Vow (The Book of Numbers Chapters 5-8)

Tonight, we are continuing our study of the book of Numbers. Last week, we did an overview of chapters one through four. So let's pick up in chapter five. I think we're gonna cover chapters five through eight.

Purification, Cleanliness, and Quarantine in Numbers 5

Basically, these chapters deal, maybe up to chapter 10 deal with the purification of the camp. All right, so this is the camp of the Israelites. So Numbers five starts with these instructions regarding lepers.

And then it goes on to talk about some other issues the Lord was concerned about. He was concerned about cleanliness. Does anyone know why the Lord might be concerned about cleanliness?

It's next to godliness.

It's next to godliness, good. But he is, you know, there's some spiritual applications we're gonna get into, but he was concerned with cleanliness and health. And those things are still important today.

And there's also the spiritual cleanliness, obviously, that that points ahead to. So look at Numbers five, one through four. It says, and the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "'Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper, everyone who has a discharge and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse.

You shall put out both male and female. You shall put them outside the camp that they may not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell.'. And the children of Israel did so and put them outside the camp as the Lord spoke to Moses.

So the children of Israel did.". So just thinking about this whole topic of cleanliness and sanitation, I think it's true that since March of 2020, one thing that people have been more aware of is cleanliness and those topics and the importance of, you know, when you're sick, stay home, right?

This is stuff we've heard a million times. And it's always kind of been common sense that you don't wanna spread illness and disease. And the Lord here, he's making sure the Israelites were careful about this as well.

So leprosy was that big threat back in these days. So if somebody came down with leprosy or they had this disease, obviously you don't want them sitting next to people and spreading leprosy throughout the camp.

So over the past two years, we've had people sanitizing their hands, washing their hands more than ever. And whatever your personal views are on that whole subject, one thing we can all agree on, I think, when we read through the books of Moses, the Lord is concerned with cleanliness and sanitation.

So, and it kind of speaks to that when we come before the Lord, he wanted the priests clean. He wanted the people clean as they approached the Lord. And today we want to approach the Lord with what? Clean hearts, right?

So there's the obvious health benefits to all of this. And, you know, God still cares about our body. He still cares about our health. He cares about our physical wellbeing, not just our spiritual wellbeing.

So, but making spiritual application to the church, it's obviously something we are concerned about, the spiritual health of the camp or of the body of Christ. I thought of Psalm 51, verse 10, where David writes, "'Create in me a clean heart, O God.'".

Well, that's true, but he wants the camp clean too. Matthew Henry writes this. He said, the camp was to be cleansed. And now that's talking about physically. But the purity of the church must be kept as carefully as the peace and order of it.

Every polluted Israelite, he said, must be separated. What's another word for what was going on here? You take someone on leprosy and you remove them. You put them outside the camp. What's the word?

Leprosy.

Right, right.

We could say that they were being quarantined. I remember we were meeting downstairs, going through Genesis. It must've been early on, Genesis chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, when all this stuff started. And yeah, I just pointed out, you know, the Bible says you quarantine the sick, not the healthy.

You can think what you want, but that's biblical. You quarantine the sick. More from Matthew Henry, he writes, every polluted Israelite must be separated. So you were to put them outside of the camp. So in the church, what happens when someone becomes spiritually unclean or spiritually polluted?

What happens? Okay, Israelite, leprosy, they're polluted outside the camp. Church, someone's spiritually polluted. What happens? Put them outside, outside the camp, outside the church, church discipline.

This is what Paul talked about in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, when he rebuked the church at Corinth because they weren't doing this. There was someone who was polluted. Everyone knew about it. Nothing was being done about it.

It was pretended like this is all just fine. So obviously these are relevant issues always have been. Now there's something that stood out to me, something else, I think modern Christians, I think we can learn from this.

Look at verses five through seven. Says, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel. When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit an unfaithfulness against the Lord and that person is guilty, then he shall confess the sin which he has committed and he shall make what?

Restitution.

Restitution for his trespass in full. Plus one fifth of it and give it to the one he has wrong. So we're gonna talk about this in just a moment, but just going back to that whole idea of putting the leper outside the camp or the spiritually polluted outside the, what's the purpose?

Restoration.

Well, that's the ultimate goal, right?

People inside the camp.

What?

People inside the camp.

Right, exactly. Paul said that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. So just like leprosy would spread when somebody's doing something that's clearly wrong, nothing's being done about it, it sends a signal, hey, this is fine, anyone can do this, and yeah, it just spreads.

So here's the idea now of verses five through seven. When there's a wrong committed, not only do you seek forgiveness and try to deal with it that way, you're supposed to make restitution. So what might that look like?

Can someone give an example?

Today?

Yeah.

Today's church?

Sure.

Confessing it to not only God, but to God's something in the book.

Okay.

We covered this back in Exodus, how when someone was guilty of theft, and they were caught, depending on the circumstances, they were to pay it back and then pay it back.

Fourfold.

Yeah, and then some. Twofold or fourfold, whatever the situation determined. So not only does that serve as a deterrent that you have to pay it back and then some, it actually helps the offended party.

They get their possessions back. There's restoration that's made. This is another example, I think, of God being wiser than men. If somebody steals today and they're caught, what happens?

Nothing, they're free.

Well, yeah. Now, in many cities, you can steal up to $1 ,000 and they're told don't do anything about it.

They get to go to jail and work out and get a college education and get pension beyond social security disability.

Sure, sure.

Free dental and free healthcare.

But when a fine is paid, it's paid to the system. You pay a fine to the government and to the system. The person who actually was harmed, they usually don't get anything. Now, maybe I'm just dense and you can explain to me how that's justice, but to me, that doesn't seem like justice.

There's no restitution. God says there's supposed to be restitution. So, obviously, if we do something wrong, we should apologize. We should seek forgiveness. But if we can make that thing right and give restitution, we should do that.

Just an example. Let's say I borrowed someone's DVD from 10 years ago and then I never gave it back. Then all of a sudden, one afternoon, it kind of dawns on me, oh, wait, I still have that on my shelf.

I never gave it back to them. Or maybe I lost it. What should I do? If I lost it and never gave it back, well, I should go to that person. I should apologize. Let's say the DVD costs $20. I should probably give them like $25.

Account for inflation. That's what it would cost today or whatever. And I should say, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. But then actually give them what it costs. Is that a radical concept? It's very basic.

But sometimes you think like an apology, well, that's good enough. No, that should be restoration. All right, any questions or comments?

I was just thinking in some countries, if you steal, you lose your hand.

Right.

Cutting off your hand. You know, I mean, that's not really justice. That's not an eye for an eye. That's a biblical concept. That's a little extreme, I would say.

But.

Especially they don't have much time.

Yeah, well, that's definitely a deterrent, I think. I think we can say that. Now, what about spiritually with the Lord? When we sin against God, I don't want to go down the road of penances. What is penance?

You know, it's the idea of when you sin against God that you have to do X, Y, and Z. Not only confess your sin, Lord, please forgive me. You have to do a bunch of things in order to get forgiven.

Yeah.

Light a candle, pay a little money. Say 40 Our Fathers and 10 Hail Marys, which you shouldn't be praying to Mary to begin with, but that's another story. So I don't want to go down that road of penance, but I'm just going to speak for myself.

Let's say I do something and sin against God. Let's say one Sunday morning, I wake up with just a really bad attitude. And I say, you know what? Forget that. I'm not going to church today. And I just have this bad attitude.

And then later on in the afternoon, I start feeling bad about it. And I pray, Lord, sorry, I shouldn't have had that bad attitude. And I shouldn't have stayed home and all the rest. Well, what I might do is I might make that up by going to a Wednesday night or a Sunday nights, or I might do something, not because I have to do something in order to be forgiven, but to show God.

And again, I'm just speaking for myself, just to show God, hey, you know what? I'm serious. It's not just words. Hey, I'm sorry. Or maybe I mean it, maybe I don't, but just to show God that I'm serious.

And maybe to show myself. But I think this whole concept of when we do wrong to someone else, words are good, but if there's something you can actually do to make it right, if that's possible, we should do it.

Any questions or comments? Yes, Jim.

Well, let me go back to Psalm 51. David says, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sins that are before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. That thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clean when thou appear, when thou judgest.

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be, this is verse seven, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken have made me joyous.

Hide thy face from my sin and blot out all my iniquities. And also it says that renew a right spirit within me for the wrong of that. I think you quoted verse 10. And verse, it says, for I know I'm a hungry offerer.

Well, go on to the wrong chapter.

All right, well, we'll come back to you. Barb, did you have something?

No, I'm on the wrong chapter.

In schools that have responsive classroom teachers, they, that's a behavior modification program. And actually, it's based on the character of Jesus Christ. But most of the teachers don't know that. Anyway, it's called mythology of action so that the kids don't whack each other and then just say, oh, sorry, because then they're gonna just whack them again.

They have to actually do something. Like in kindergarten, we would say, draw a picture for you or I'll sit with you at snack time. You have to actually do something. So apology of action is what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that kind of thing goes a long way. All right, any other comments? All right, well, let's now turn to chapter six. Chapter six is the first time in the Bible we see the Nazirite vow mentioned.

So what is a Nazirite? Someone might say, well, yeah, yeah, Jesus was a Nazirite. No, Jesus was a Nazarene. What's the difference between a Nazirite and a Nazarene?

Nazarene is a location.

Right.

Yeah, Jesus.

An oath or a vow that you may commit for a period of time or for a lifetime.

Yeah, the Nazirite vow, yeah, it's a vow. A Nazarene is someone, as Jesus was, from the city of Nazareth. So the Nazarite vow, as Jim said, could either be temporary for a short period of time. There were a few people in the Bible that were lifelong Nazarites.

Who were those men?

Samuel, John, David, and John the Baptist.

Samuel.

Samuel. Paul was.

Samson.

Samson.

Yep.

I was thinking Samson and John the Baptist.

Yeah.

Well, also Paul, because in Acts, I think it's Acts 18, where he takes and he has that Nazarite.

For like a lifelong, though.

Right, I think that was just for a period of time.

Just could be a Jew with the Jews, I think, or something.

Yeah.

So John the Baptist and Samson were lifelong Nazarites. Okay, look at number six, one through eight. Basically, this was a vow, a way to separate someone to the service of God. The Hebrew word Nazir means separate, or to be separate.

Number six, one through eight, it says, then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to the children of Israel and say to them, when either a man or woman consecrates an offering to take the vow of a Nazarite to separate himself to the Lord.

So there's the definition. He shall separate himself from wine and similar drink. He shall drink neither vinegar made from wine nor vinegar made from similar drink. Neither shall he drink any grape juice nor eat fresh grapes or raisins.

All the days of his separation, he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grape vine, from seed to skin. All the days of the vow of the separation, no razor shall come upon his head. That's often the thing you think of where they would just never cut their hair, right?

Until the days are fulfilled for which he separated himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. Then he shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow. All the days that he separates himself to the Lord, he shall not go near a dead body.

He shall not make himself unclean even for his father or his mother, for his brother or his sister when they die because his separation to God is on his head. All the days of the separation, he shall be holy to the Lord.

So you see these things? Don't cut your hair. You can't touch a dead body. You can't partake of any of the fruit of the vine. So these are the things that they were to avoid, yes.

Just add one verse. It tells you that all the days of his separation is he is holy unto the Lord. That's what it was all about. It was his commitment to serve the Lord for that period of time or for a lifetime.

Okay.

All right, Matthew Henry has some interesting things to say about this. You may have noticed there's a distinction made between wine and grape juice. I mean, depending on your Bible translation, it may say wine or strong drink.

Sometimes in the Bible, when it says wine, it's talking about fruit juice. Other times when it's talking about wine, it's an alcoholic wine. So Matthew Henry writes this. So I'll get your reaction. He says, they must not drink wine or strong drink nor eat grapes.

Those who separate themselves to God must not gratify the desires of the body, but keep it under. Let all Christians be very moderate in the use of wine and strong drink. For if the love of these once gets the mastery of a man, he becomes an easy prey to Satan.

So if you hadn't figured it out by now, Matthew Henry was not a Baptist. If you could tell by that statement. Why do I say that? Yeah, he didn't say you must completely abstain. He says Christians should be very moderate in their use of wine.

So obviously you're gonna have some Christians who would disagree on this whole discussion. One thing we can agree on, every believer should be able to agree with this. Drunkenness is most certainly wrong.

And if a person really begins to love the taste of alcohol, basically, what is he saying? You become easy pickings for the devil, right?

But he told Timothy to have some wine for his health.

Right, and if you're of the opinion that Christians should never touch it, then you say, well, he was talking about grape juice. Of course, not everyone holds to that opinion. And I don't wanna open up a whole can of worms here.

But this same principle applies to drug use as well,.

Doesn't it?

A few years ago, somebody asked me because things were changing in this country, and they said, well, what do you think about marijuana use? What's the Christian or biblical position on, or I think they asked, what's the church's position on marijuana use?

And they said, because there's no verse in the Bible that says anything about smoking marijuana. Well, that's true, but there's no verse in the Bible that says anything about crack cocaine either.

Yeah.

But there is a principle about intoxication, right? So drunkenness, it's wrong, it's a sin. So therefore, any form of intoxication where you're doing something to get drunk or get high, it all comes under the same cat.

Well, why bring this up? Well, I mean, it's important. Going back to the beginning, God cares about our health,.

Right?

And not only can some of this stuff, the harder stuff especially, not only can it destroy a person's soul in some ways, it definitely can destroy a person's health. So this is as good of a time to bring it up as any.

Yes, but the Nazarites are not supposed to drink alcohol or non-alcoholic fruit of the vine. Yeah, did your hand go up?

Well, yeah, I mean, but that's as foolish as saying, Ephesians 5, 18 says, be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. So it's saying don't use alcohol or alcoholic beverages.

I mean, it's as foolish as saying, oh, be not drunk with wine. You say, oh, well, whiskey would be all right then. That's how foolish it'd be. Then you have to say, well, come, let us reason together, say of the Lord, you know?

Right.

The idea is are you gonna be influenced by something fleshly or are you gonna be influenced by something spiritual? Flesh and the spirit lust against each other.

Right.

So, you know, sometimes we tend to think that the spiritual things are what matter the most, which is true, I think, right? Spiritual things do matter the most, but our body does matter. Like God does care about cleanliness.

He does care about health.

Spiritual things last forever.

Right.

All this other stuff is very temporary. Our lives are temporary.

Right.

And part of this, God wants to bless his people. And it's hard to do that when you're mixed up in all of that. Speaking of blessing, let's go on to verse 22. We see the priestly blessing. This is a good passage.

Verse 22, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, this is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. This blessing has a name. What is it called? The what?

The Aaronic Blessing.

Okay.

The Aaronic Blessing. So this has also been used in Christian churches as a common benediction. What's a benediction?

At the end.

Right.

It's a blessing or a word that is said at the end to close a service. One thing Christian commentators have noticed, I never heard this up until this week. I found it interesting. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

But they noticed that the Lord's name is repeated. How many times? Three times. The idea is one for every member of the Trinity. So the Lord bless you and keep you. That's the idea that this is what the Father does.

The Lord be gracious to you. This is what the Son does. And the giving of peace is what the Holy Spirit does. So three mentions of the Lord, one for each member of the Trinity. I don't know. Is that what the Lord had in mind?

Maybe.

Sounds good to me.

Amen.

What's the original context though? This is a blessing given, not to New Testament Christians, but it is a blessing. And I think it's completely legitimate. But it's for who in the original context?

Right.

This is a blessing for the children of Israel. And under the covenant of the law, if they obeyed, the Lord promised to bless them. And not just spiritually, but He promised to bless them with physical things as well.

It's something you'll pick up on if you listen, and I definitely don't recommend this. But if you listen to the prosperity preachers who are always preaching about health and wealth, usually they have to go back to the Old Testament to find their illustrations.

Because that, and that's not even legitimate what they're doing in that context either. But there was something about the old covenant that there were earthly blessings for obedience. That's part of the old covenant.

So God promised them that He would bless them if they obeyed. So He would keep them from their enemies. He would keep them safe from the bitter effects of sin. And I just want to spend a moment talking about this statement, the Lord's countenance.

Right, what does He say? The Lord lift up His countenance upon you. When you hear the word countenance, what is that referring to?

All that He is.

Okay, all that He is. Any other? The word countenance usually refers to a, right, a facial expression, right? You can tell a lot about the way someone's feeling. Not always, some people just have the same look.

They're stoic and they look the same way all the time. But often you can tell how someone's feeling or how their day is going by just the expression on their face, right? Their countenance.

Their body language.

That too. So Aaron was to say to them, the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. So there's countenance, the Lord make His face shine upon you. Part of this, we could maybe go way ahead to eternity or the new heavens and the new earth where there's the idea of the beatific vision where man will dwell with God or God will dwell with men and they shall see His face.

We've talked about that in the past. But what's being said here? May God, basically may God look upon you. May His face shine upon you. This is the idea that God is going to bless you, right? God is going to look upon you and visit you with these blessings that are part of the Mosaic covenant.

As opposed to His face being turned away, which that would bring a curse, right? So there's blessing and cursing. Any comments so far?

Dennis.

The Hebrew word,.

I think it's in Psalm 16 where it says,.

In thy presence is fullness of joy.

And the very same Hebrew word for the presence of God is down here twice, face and countenance. And so as we understand God's presence, the Hebrew wants us to understand it's His face, it's His countenance, it's His presence.

This person is here.

Good.

If I quoted this in Hebrew, would you know which word it was?

Doubt it.

Yeah.

This was the first Hebrew I ever learned. And it's been set to music. And I find it great blessing in listening to it.

I know the segment from WLPV, right? Doesn't one of the programs start out with this?

Yes.

In Hebrew and then it goes to the English.

Yeah, he does it. That's on. Shime, Jesus Shime, but he does it. To begin with, not when I was doing mine, I would do it at the end.

Adonai, I know that part.

Yeah. I don't know the rest of it.

But this whole idea of God's face, right? When people become estranged, or if someone is angry with someone else, you might hear someone say, I don't even wanna see this person. I don't even wanna look at them, right?

If you're angry with somebody, you don't even wanna look at them. I think it's often a sign of disrespect. Just to refuse to look at someone or to refuse to make even eye contact, because there's something about looking at someone face to face or making eye contact, where there's a connection.

That may be good or bad, but I mean, you understand there's a connection looking at someone. Just going back to the past two years, it is difficult, again, no matter what side of it you're on, having something over your face, it is kind of a barrier in society.

So the Lord making his face shine upon you, there's this intimacy that's being communicated between God and his people. And he wants to bless his people. And just one last point about these blessings, which are part of the old covenant.

The old covenant was what? Conditional or unconditional? Conditional, right? When we get to Deuteronomy, we're gonna see this in chapter 28. It talks about, if you obey, there's the condition. If you obey God's law, then you'll be blessed.

You'll be blessed in the city. You'll be blessed in the country. You'll be blessed when you come in, when you go out. You'll be blessed in all that you do. Basically, if you keep God's commandments. And it says, talking about when, if you obey God's voice, he says, if you obey the voice of the Lord, you will be blessed in the city.

What does it mean to obey the voice of the Lord? Right, you simply do what he says. I've been going through John chapter 10, where the Lord talks about, you know, my sheep hear my voice. And I'm convinced what that means is, you know, the people who believe in me, people who follow me, when they hear my word, or today, when they hear the preaching, or when they read the word, they react, right?

As a shepherd would call to his sheep, and the sheep would come. They would respond to the voice of God. So hearing the Lord's voice is reacting, it's obeying. So you open the Bible, read it, preach it.

The unbeliever, ah, we don't need to listen to that. Believers hear the voice of the Lord, they obey. Moving on to Numbers chapter seven, we're almost done. It says, now it came to pass when Moses had finished setting up the tabernacle, that he anointed it and consecrated it, and all its furnishings, and the altar, and all its utensils.

So he anointed them and consecrated them. Did anyone read through chapter seven this week?

I did, I did read those.

Okay.

I thought it was from six to seven, but I did read five.

Okay.

And I don't mean to put you on the spot. Chapter seven's kind of a difficult, I felt like I was reading Leviticus again. Chapter seven has 89 verses, and it's going over the details of the offerings that were to be made for the leaders of the 12 tribes.

So, you know, we're not gonna go through chapter seven. But through the week, you know, I might recommend do one chapter a day. Whatever your Bible reading plan is, if you wanna follow along in Numbers, just read one chapter per day.

It's doable, and it keeps us moving. Look at verse 89. This verse is interesting. Number 789. Now, when Moses went into the tabernacle of meeting to speak with him, that's the Lord, he, that is Moses, heard the voice of one speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark and the testimony from between the two cherubims.

Thus, he, that is God, spoke to him. So just to piggyback on what I said a moment ago, hearing God's voice, right? When we hear God's voice, we're hearing him speak through the scripture. With Moses, Moses literally heard God's voice.

What does it say? He heard the voice of one speaking. Many books have been written, and sermons have been preached on how to hear the voice of God. I listened to a sermon by Rick Warren, and he said, in order to hear God's voice, he said, you know, because we're supposed to pray, and what kind of relationship is it if you speak to God and he doesn't speak back?

He said, you need to hear God's voice. And he said, it's like tuning into the, it's like a radio. You need to tune into the right frequency. I have no idea what he's talking about. I don't know what that means.

I know we can get the voice of God through the scripture, but hearing the voice of God, here's what Moses didn't do. He didn't go into the tabernacle, pray, get real quiet, and just try to listen to hear what God, and then maybe a thought or a feeling came to mind, and then he left the tabernacle, and he spoke to the people.

Here's what I think God was saying to me. That's not what happened. He literally heard the audible voice of God. So, and I like this expression. You guys have heard it before. If you wanna hear God speak, do what?

Read the Bible.

Read the Bible. If you wanna hear God speak audibly, read the Bible out loud. If you're hearing God speak audibly, come talk to me afterwards, okay? All right, chapter eight.

I can't say, I can't say God told me.

Well, and if you can figure out how to tune into the right frequency, and you can teach me that, come and talk to me. And of course, you know I'm kidding. Look at verses 23 through 26. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, this is what pertains to the Levites.

From 25 years old and above, one may enter to perform service in the work of the tabernacle of meeting. And at the age of 50 years old, they must do what? Cease performing this work, and they shall work no more.

Does that mean pastors and deacons need to retire at age 50? Well, let's keep reading. They may minister with their brethren in the tabernacle of meeting to attend to needs, but they themselves shall do no work.

Thus, you shall do to the Levites regarding their duties. We always need to rightly divide the word of God. Who's he speaking to? Pastors and deacons? No, he's speaking to the Levites. This is part of the old covenant.

So we don't need to quit serving the Lord or quit the ministry at age 50. Amen?

Amen. Okay.

The Nazirite Vow and Christian Self-Discipline

So Lord willing, we'll pick up next week in Numbers chapter nine, where we will look at the section titled the second Passo.