Outside the Camp

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Alright, not seeing any questions. I'll go ahead and jump into Numbers chapter 5.

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Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge, everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead, you shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp in the midst of which

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I dwell. And the people of Israel did so, and put them outside the camp, as Yahweh said to Moses, so the people of Israel did.

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Now, these opening verses, these first four verses of the book of Numbers, just consider the impact here.

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When we talk about leper colonies, right? Leper colonies in the ancient world, you know, the people who are unclean are outside the camp, and outside the camp you would have the lepers.

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Anybody who has a discharge, anybody who's unclean through contact with the dead, you would be put outside of the camp.

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Now, the lepers were the ones who would stay the longest, especially if they were never healed.

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And then you think of the woman with an issue of blood, and you're going to note there, they are, what's the reason why they're outside the camp?

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Why are they outside the camp? Because they are to be put outside of the camp because they are not to be in the presence of God.

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God will not permit these degrading effects of sin on the human body, these imperfections created by sin, to be in His presence.

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And you sit there and go, that's crazy. But that's the consequences of our sinful and fallen world.

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In many of these cases people are put outside of the camp not for anything that they did via their volition, you know, a sin that they committed, you know, of their own will, but an effect of sin within the world.

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This is why we confess we are by nature sinful and unclean. And so these then become, you know, kind of symbolic of, in the types and shadows, symbolic of our sinful flesh and the consequences of sin in mass.

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And then, you know, so that creates the backdrop then for, you know, amazing texts like the woman with the issue of blood.

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Let me find that real quick. And then I did see that Bruce asked a question. Bruce, I'll get to your question in a moment. Let me finish my thought here.

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So Gospel of Mark chapter 5.

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Mark chapter 5. In the Greek here is, I pointed this out before, it's always good to review this as far as the

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Greek, because the Greek is so much stronger than the English. Our English translations sometimes suffer because of a lack of really good vocabulary.

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That's the only way I can put it. Although the English language is kind of like a snowball, you know, that rolled down a hill and picked up a little bit of German, a little bit of Latin, a little bit of Celtic, a little bit of kind of a lot of things.

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But still, sometimes still pulling things over into English is not easy. So here's what it says. Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side.

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So he came back from the Gentile portion of the Sea of Galilee back to the side where Capernaum is, and where the

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Jews had settled in the, you know, the northwest quadrant of the

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Sea of Galilee. And it says, a great crowd gathered around about him, and he was beside the sea.

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Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet.

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And he implored him earnestly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.

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And he went with them. So, very fascinating bits going on here.

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So, you know, I always like to point out, put yourself in Jairus' shoes here. You know, those of us who are parents know exactly what it's like when you have a sick child.

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I mean, your whole life comes to a grinding halt. So here you've got a sick child. She's got something here, and you can tell by what happens at the end.

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She was throwing up. She's getting sicker. She's probably running a fever, and it's just not turning.

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It's getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And Jesus isn't in town. You know, so when things were a little easier to manage, you know,

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Jesus wasn't readily available. And now, you know, Jesus lands, and there's not much time here.

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Not much time at all. And so you could just tell it, you know, as soon as Jairus gets word, Jesus has just landed.

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You know, he's hoofing it off to, you know, down to the sea to see

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Jesus, tells him the situation. Jesus immediately starts following him. And this is the next part. And see if I can work out the

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Greek on this with you. So, and a great crowd followed him and thronged about him, and there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years.

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So what we just read in Numbers 5, this woman is not permitted.

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To be in the general population in town. She is on the outskirts.

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She is, she's not permitted to participate in the worship life of Israel.

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She's kept outside of the synagogue, and she's had a discharge of blood.

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And this has gone on for 12 years. And consider the implications of Numbers 5 here, is that why are they being put outside?

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They are not to be in the presence of God. And so there's a bit of all of this where what she's going through, this is a medical condition.

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God doesn't want to see her in his presence or his anger would burn against her.

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What do you do in a situation where you feel like God doesn't even want you in church? God doesn't want you even participating.

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I mean, this is the consequences of our sin. You know, we commit sins of volition, we are by nature sinners, and so this shows us something of the magnitude of sin.

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But also then, this is the perfect setup, because Moses gives us the law. And so through the law, we see the law telling us that we are guilty, and we are guilty in ways that we don't even know.

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And as a result of it, we cannot be in the presence of God and live. And so this woman, for 12 years, has suffered much under many physicians, has spent all that she had.

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So every time she gets a little bit of money, she saves it up. She has a medical procedure that she hopes is going to fix her so that she can be part of the community again.

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But with every effort, everything that she does, it doesn't get any better.

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It only gets worse. And she had heard reports about Jesus, and so now she's completely disobeying

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Torah at this point. She comes up behind him in the crowd. Now, she doesn't want to touch him because she doesn't want to make him unclean, because that's kind of how that works.

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But there's this weird thing that happens in Scripture, and that is that we sinners when we touch something unclean, we become unclean.

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But Jesus, when somebody unclean touches him, they become clean. It's a complete reversal here.

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But she's absolutely terrified. She doesn't want to make Jesus unclean. For she said, if I touch even his garments,

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I will be made well. So here's our word.

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Made well is sozo, which means to be saved. And then the next part is kind of fascinating in the

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Greek. Immediately, so she says, if I touch his garment, I know I'll be made well. It literally says,

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I know I will be saved. And this is where the Greek word sozo has kind of an interesting thing.

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It can, in context, mean healed. It can, in context, mean saved.

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And so the context is going to dictate one or the other, but it's fascinating. It's almost as if you can work on some wordplay here, because to be healed is to be saved.

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To be saved is to be healed. They're one and the same. There's a sense in which healing is salvation.

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You know, for instance, if I were to say to you, you know, if your doctor were to say to you, you have stage four cancer, right?

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But we have an experimental treatment, and we want to see you tomorrow at 5 a .m.

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to begin the experimental treatment, which we think will cure your cancer.

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So you go through the experimental treatment, and in six weeks your cancer is in remission.

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You're healed. You could say, I was saved. Because disease seeks to kill you, right?

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So you kind of get the idea. Sometimes it kills you quickly. Sometimes it kills you slowly.

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I prefer the quick death myself, but that's a different story. But anyway, so she says, even

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I touch his garment, and she's not going to be touching his robe. I always like to point this out, that the thing that she's going to be touching, in the book of Numbers you're going to see that there's a commandment given to the men of Israel that they are to make what are called tzitzio, the tzitzi.

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These are leather tassels coming off the corners of their shirts. Orthodox Jews still wear them to this day.

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And so Jesus, obeying Torah perfectly, he would have had tzitzio on his on his shirt, on his garments.

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So that's what she's touching. She's touching the tiniest part that isn't even technically connected to him, you know, in order that he doesn't become unclean.

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And so she says, if I touch his garments, I'll be made well. And immediately the flow of blood dried up.

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And she felt in her body that she was, and this is where it gets really weird, that she was, so how do

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I put this, that hati iatai, that she was healed apates mastigas, that she, and here's kind of the important phrase, apates mastigas.

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Mastigas is a scourging. It's so, it's such a strong word.

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In fact, let me pull this up in my BDAG here. Let me see if I can pull this up for everybody to see.

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Mastigas, mastiques, here we go. So, so mastiques, and we're off in this far right corner here, is on horses or laborers, it's a whip or a lash.

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It's a flexible instrument used for lashing, a whip, a lash, a condition of great distress or torment or suffering.

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It's referred to in ways of being this whip, this, you know, this, so what she went through was a, was a, then you'll note that one of the, one of the texts talks about examine somebody by scourging, by whip, mastiques.

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So, you know, it's a scourging, it's a whip. So what she went through with this discharge is described in the text in, in whipping, scourging terms, which means this is absolute, not only physical, not only psychological, but also spiritual torment and suffering that she went through.

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And so when you pull all of that together, it's just absolutely fascinating. And again, what sets up the groundwork for this, the commands in the

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Torah that people with a discharge are to be put out, they cannot be in the presence of God. So here she is in the presence of the

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Son of God. She touches his tzitzioth, and here a, she snuck a healing.

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I mean, she snuck her salvation. She stole it, man, you know? And so I'm sure there's got to be hell to pay if you steal your salvation.

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Notice the play on words. Right? So Jesus, so she fell to her body, she was healed of her disease.

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Again, that doesn't even come close to what the text really says. And so Jesus perceiving himself, the power had gone out from him immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garments?

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I always like to put myself in the shoes of the woman at this point. Could you imagine if Jesus turns around and says, who touched my garments and you know that you're the one who did it?

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I mean, you ever had a moment in your life where like the blood, you can feel the blood run cold in your body and maybe even like draining from your head down to your feet.

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It's got to be one of those kinds of moments and you can tell this is what's going on because of what happened.

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So his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say, who touched me? Come on, Jesus. I mean, that's like 10 ,000 people touching you right now.

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So he looked around, he's not going to be dissuaded. He looked around to see who had done it. And so the woman knowing what had happened to her, she came in fear and trembling.

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And so, but the woman febethesah kai tremusah, very big trembling.

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She fell down before him. So she's, you can tell it, you know, with fear and trembling like this, I mean, you're involuntarily shaking at this point.

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It's highly likely she's probably at this point crying or weeping or whatever. And it's just, it's going to be terrible to look at if you saw it.

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And so she falls down before him and she just lays it all out, tells him the whole truth.

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She holds nothing back. She tells him of her condition. She tells him of, she had heard of him.

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She tells her how she disobeyed Torah, how she came into the crowd, snuck the healing, and she was healed.

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And you can tell that what she's expecting based upon what's happening here, she's expecting to be given a tongue lashing.

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She's now going to have to face consequences for her breaking of Torah. And so for just a moment, her mastix has been removed, but now it's come back with even more force.

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And you can tell this is what she expects. And what Jesus says is completely out of the ordinary, not what you would expect in light of what we read in Numbers 5.

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They have to be put out of my presence. They cannot be in my presence. But Jesus says to her, and he is so,

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I mean, right off the bat, first word, thugater, daughter. I mean, you could preach a whole sermon just on that word and that rather than being punished for being in the presence of the

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Holy son of God with a discharge. God has mercy on her and Christ comforts her.

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The reason he stopped wasn't to chastise her. The reason he stopped was to comfort her. And the first word is so strong, so compassionate that, you know, you just, this tells you something about just the nature of Christ, the love of Christ, the grace of Christ, you know?

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And so he says, and again, this is going to be just not even close.

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Your faith has saved you. So Hephistosou Sesokon is going to be from Sozo.

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Your faith has saved you. If you kind of let it, if you just let it sit there for a second here, is he talking about physical healing or is he talking about salvation?

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He just called her daughter. I think it's a little bit deeper than her physical healing, you know? And then the next words just show that he is fully aware of the torment that she's gone through because he not only calls her daughter, not only says your faith has saved you, then he says to her, go in peace.

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So he's going to be saying to her, shalom, you know, shalom. And then the last words, he basically says,

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Kai isthi hugies apates mastigasu. And he says, he doesn't say be healed from your disease.

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He literally is saying, be healed from your scourging, from your whip. You are free from, be whole, be healthy from your whip.

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Again, the Greek is so much stronger here, you know, and this gives you just this beautiful picture of who

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Christ is. But again, the whole setup, if you don't understand just how strong the imperative is in Numbers 5, that those who have a discharge, those who are leprous, those who are unclean because of their contact with the dead, they are forced out of the camp because they cannot be in God's presence.

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That's the reason. If you don't get that, then you don't know the backstory to this and you do not know how radical this is of what's going on in this text.

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And then, you know, so by the way, note then contact with the dead puts somebody outside of the camp.

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Let me review again, Numbers 5, first four verses, command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp.

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Everyone who's leprous has a discharge. Everyone who's unclean through what? Contact with the dead.

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Okay. I mean, Numbers 5 verses 1 to 4 is the perfect setup for what we're reading in Mark 5.

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So come back to this. No, you're not supposed to be in contact with the dead. So while all of this is going on, you know,

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Jairus' time is running out regarding saving his daughter. He knew his daughter didn't have long to live. And so verse 35 says, while he was still speaking, there came from the ruler's house, some who said, your daughter's dead.

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Why trouble the teacher any further? It's terrible that parents have to hear words like these, but this is, these are the words that were spoken to Jairus.

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These are awful words. But at this point, you're going to note something here.

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The Mosaic covenant commands regarding who, who is allowed to be in the presence of a dead body.

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If Jairus is a synagogue ruler, there's a pretty good chance he's a Levite. And now certain rules are going to be in play as to who can be in contact, who is allowed, who's permitted to make themselves unclean in the presence of a dead body, if you're a

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Levite. And then Jesus, of course, if he's going to be in the presence of a dead body, he's supposed to be put out of the camp too.

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I mean, if you know the backstory to this, you know all the tensions here that the

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Mosaic covenant, the law has put into play and what they're going to do.

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So because Jesus is not, he shouldn't be permitted to touch a dead body because he would make himself unclean.

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So what happens next, again, numbers five, one to four, gives us, you know, how a

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Jew in that time would have seen these things and how we should be seeing them and through careful study of God's word.

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So while he was still speaking there came from the rules has someone who said, your daughter's dead. Why trouble the teacher further?

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Okay. So why trouble the teacher further kind of has these implications. We don't expect

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Jesus to come at this point because he shouldn't be making himself unclean by being in the presence of your dead daughter.

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That's part of what's going on here. It's not just, yeah, well, we, you know, if Jesus had gotten here sooner, he could have healed her.

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Part of this is, yeah, we, he, he, well he's not allowed to make himself unclean by being in the presence of a dead body.

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So overhearing what they said, and I love this, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue and oh man, these are great words.

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Mephobu, do not fear. Do not fear.

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Manan pistiwa, only believe, only believe.

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Do not fear. Only believe. See that could, that could, that could preach in a lot of things too.

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I mean, you know, isn't it fascinating that so much of what we deal with in life, it boils down to fear.

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Just lost my job. How am I going to pay my bills? Fear is the overriding thing. I just heard the doctor say that I have a terrible disease.

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What, what overcomes you? Fear. Somebody I love dear to me just died.

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Grief and fear. What am I going to do now? Fear. Jesus says, do not fear.

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Only believe. So he allowed no one to follow him except for Peter, James, and John, the brother of James.

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So we got the requirement, by the way, to establish a fact. You have to have two witnesses. Jesus takes two plus one.

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He has got three. And he dismisses the crowd at this point. So they came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly.

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This is a day when you hire professional mourners. Weird human practice.

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I culturally, I do not understand it. This is still practiced in certain parts of the world to this day.

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But so in ancient Israel, this was a thing. So when he entered, he said to them, why are you making a commotion and weeping?

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The child is not dead, but sleeping. I always like to point out that Jesus is the only guy who gets to talk about death this way.

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Luther likes to point out that death is like falling asleep. It's as simple as that. It's as simple as falling asleep.

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So when they laughed at him, he put them all outside, took the child's mother and father and those who were with him, and he went in where the child was.

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And this is the part where Jesus at this point, he shouldn't be doing this.

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And the reason, and not only, because at this point he's not only risking him being ceremonially unclean and him being put out of the camp until the proper cleansing takes place and the proper sacrifices are offered regarding what's needed to cleanse yourself after being in the presence of and touching a dead body.

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But now he's risking this for Peter, James, and John as well. Now the parents, it's to be expected that they would make themselves unclean.

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And you know the girl's body is in a room separated from the rest of the crowd. The rest of the crowd is mourning, and they're not going in to look at the body because they would make themselves unclean.

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So now Jesus does the unthinkable, taking her by the hand. Now Jesus could have said without touching her,

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Talitha Kumi, you know, which means little girl, I say to you, arise. He could have done that, but no, Jesus goes the extra step here.

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And I always like to point this out, that every time Jesus is going to touch a dead body, just as his hand is reaching out to touch that dead body, you can almost see every

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Jew in the vicinity going, no, Jesus don't, you know, almost in slow motion because to touch a dead body makes you unclean.

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Taking her by the hand, he said to her, Talitha Kumi, which means little girl, I say to you arise. And immediately the girl got up and began walking for she was 12 years of age and they were immediately overcome.

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Yeah. I mean, it's just overcome with amazement. And then he strictly charged them that no one should know this and told them to give her something to eat.

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Great little touch here at the end, by the way, give her something to eat. Poor girl's been so sick. She couldn't keep anything down.

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And now that she's healed, she's going to be hungry and her body needs help. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

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When you read the book, when you read the new and the old Testament together like this, when you get the old Testament background, the tension, the drama of the new

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Testament really, really, really, really starts to just magnify to a point where you can see the love, the grace, the mercy, the kindness of Christ in stark relief to the commands and the punishments and the verdicts of the law.

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Again, the law always accuses and it accuses people whose condition is sinful.

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And if you don't know that your condition is sinful, you are not going to seek the solution.

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You're not going to seek the cure. The cure is a crucified and risen son of God.

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Who bled and died for your sins came to save you. He came to raise you from the dead, to purify you, to make you holy, to make you clean, to heal and to save you.

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And here Jesus is demonstrating that in spades. You kind of get the idea. Now let me come back here.

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I promised Bruce that I would. So Bruce has confessed that he's not capable of being good for long periods of time, only short ones.

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Do you know a good book that talks about the medical aspects of the purity laws, communicable diseases, et cetera? You know, no,

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I don't. That would be an interesting book. And I got to tell you, Bruce, off the top of my head,

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I almost want to say that I ran across something like that in a

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Jewish library a few years ago, but I can't even begin to remember it.

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And I don't have it in my library. Definitely not in mine.

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Yeah, I hate to say this. I would send you, I would definitely send you for something like that.

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That's the type of book that you would expect to see, and I'm pretty sure

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I've seen one, that would be more in line of kind of rabbinic teaching, or as something that would be a logical follow on to a

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Jewish approach to the Torah. So because Christians for whatever reason are not really interested in pushing all of that, you wouldn't know.

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My wife quickly looked up something here. I don't know if this is a good book, but see, this looks like it's

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Jewish. Abraham Bloch's book, B -L -O -C -H, the Biblical and Historical Background of Jewish Customs and Ceremonies.

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I don't know if that's going to deal with the medical aspects of it. But again, what you're talking about, what you're asking for,

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Bruce, seems like it would be, you would find it in a Jewish library rather than a Christian one.

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Okay. All right, coming back then to, coming back then to Numbers 5.

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So I'll reread our text and then we'll keep plowing through. Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp, everyone who's leprous or who has a discharge, everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead, perfect cross -reference with Mark 5 then, you shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp.

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Note their presence in the camp causes the camp to be defiled. In the midst of which

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I dwell and the people of Israel did so, they put them all outside the camp, as Yahweh said to Moses, so the people of Israel did.

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Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel, when a man or a woman commits any of the sins that the people commit by breaking faith with Yahweh, and that person realizes his guilt, he shall confess his sin that he has committed, and he shall make full restitution for his wrong, adding a fifth to it.

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So note the laws of restitution regarding actual sins that you commit. So if you rob a neighbor and you steal 10 sheep of his, which

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I think would be pretty, that'd be a lot of sheep to steal. But when you come to your senses and realize that you've stolen, you know, and you've broken one of the commandments and stealing somebody's sheep, not only are you to give, okay, you say, all right,

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I'll give you your sheep back. You know, in this particular case, it's you give them their sheep back plus a fifth.

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So, you know, I don't know what a fifth of a sheep is, but you get the idea. I'm not good at math.

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So, but yeah, so I get the feeling that there's going to be at least one or two extra sheep here along for the ride.

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You know, so rather than 10 he's going to get 12 back. But if the man has no next of kin to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution for wrong shall go to Yahweh for the priest in addition to the ram of atonement, which atonement is made for him.

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Every contribution, all the holy donations of the people of Israel, which they bring to the priest shall be his.

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Each one shall keep his holy donations. Whatever anyone gives to the priest shall be his. So in this particular case, you're going to note then that sin has a detrimental impact between us and God, but also has a detrimental impact between us and others.

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And the expectation then in Scripture is when you have sinned against your brother, that you are reconciled to him.

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So you are reconciled to God and reconciled to your brother. And so Scripture seeks for you to have that reconciliation and for restitution to take place as well.

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And so, you know, very interesting. So Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel.

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If any man's wife goes astray, breaks faith with him, if a man lies with her sexually and is hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she is undetected though she has defiled herself and there is no witness against her since she was not taken in the act.

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And if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife who has defiled herself, or if the spirit of jealousy comes over him and he's jealous of his wife, though she has not defiled herself, then the man shall bring his wife to the priest and bring the offering required of her, a tenth of an ephah of barley, a flower.

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He shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it. For it's a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance, bringing iniquity to remembrance.

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And the priest shall bring her near, set her before Yahweh. Then the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel, take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle, put it into the water.

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And the priest shall set the woman before Yahweh and unbind the hair of the woman's head and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy.

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And in his hand the priest shall have the water of bitterness that brings the curse. And the priest shall make her take an oath saying, if no man has lain with you, if you have not turned aside to uncleanness while you were under your husband's authority, be free from this water of bitterness that brings the curse.

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But if you have gone astray, though you are under your husband's authority, and if you have defiled yourself and some man other than your husband has lain with you, then let the priest make the woman take the oath of curse, of the curse and say to the woman,

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Yahweh, make you a curse and an oath among your people. When the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell, may this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your womb swell and your thigh fall away.

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And the woman shall say, amen. Amen. Now a little bit of a note here. What is going on here?

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All right. Now I would note historically a passage like this has, you know, passages like this, and there's not many at all, became the impetus for what became known as trial by ordeal.

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Okay. Trial by ordeal. If you want a satirical look at what trial by ordeal looks like, you look at Monty Python's The Holy Grail and the woman who's being accused of being a witch.

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And how do we know if she's a witch? Well, if she floats in water, then she's lighter than a duck, which means she's a witch.

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I think that's how that works. Yeah. Anyway, you get the idea.

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So if you look it up, but the idea here is that in this particular case, in this particular case, what we're talking about is something akin to a sacrament.

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So what God has done here has established something within Israel under the

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Mosaic Covenant that this particular water and this particular ritual, ceremonial ritual according to the

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Mosaic Covenant, is for the purposes of uncovering sexual sin.

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But we're going to note something. This is a ritual that can cut two different ways, and we'll see that out.

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So there's a fellow who thinks his wife has the hots for the town butcher.

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And every time she goes to the meat market, she comes back with a spring in her step and a sparkle in her eye or whatever.

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And he's detecting that her love for him is falling away, but her interest in this fellow is increasing.

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And so he's feeling jealousy every time she goes out to the market and comes back and all she can talk about is this fellow.

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And at some point he detects but can't prove it that he thinks that they've come in contact with each other sexually, and he can't prove it.

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And in a situation like this, there is a kind of a sacrament then set up that in the

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Mosaic Covenant, following these offerings with this water, with these ingredients, with this oath, then what

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God will do is going to either vindicate the husband or vindicate the wife.

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Because here's the other scenario, all right? The other scenario is you have a controlling and abusive husband who takes normal human interactions and interprets it as nefarious deeds on the part of his wife.

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And he's constantly accusing her of sexual impropriety, of not being faithful to him, and this is all part of his psychosis, all right?

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And so this ritual then is designed to vindicate one or the other.

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I mean, this is a ritual of last resort.

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And because drinking this water brings a curse, the curse comes from God.

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But if the woman's innocent, she's going to be vindicated. If she's guilty, she's going to be found out.

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And so it's fascinating how this all works out. So that's the setup for all of this.

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So you follow all of these things. Now this does not then justify trial by ordeal.

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We don't have any promises from God in any of our government systems that you can find out somebody's misdeeds by following a ritual like this or by trial by ordeal.

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That's not how that works. So then what happens then is the priest shall write these curses in a book, wash them off into the water of bitterness.

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He shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause her bitter pain.

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And the priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy out of the woman's hand and shall wave the grain offering before the

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Lord and bring it to the altar. And the priest shall take a handful of the grain offering in its memorial portion, burn it on the altar.

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Afterwards, shall make the woman drink the water. And when he has made her drink the water, then if she has defiled herself and has broken faith with her husband, the water that brings the curse shall enter into her and cause bitter pain, and her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people.

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But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children.

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So this is the law in cases of jealousy when a wife, though under a husband's authority, goes astray and defiles herself.

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Or when the spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he's jealous of his wife, then he shall set the woman before Yahweh and the priest shall carry out for her all of this law.

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The man shall be free from iniquity, but the woman shall bear the iniquity. Get the idea. Okay.

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So Marilyn says a good overview article, a good overview article on the medical science between purity laws, medical science and the laws of Moses by Stephen Caesar, found by a

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Google search of the title. He affirms that purity laws of the Old Testament were contrary to the local cultural practices of the day and supports divine inspiration.

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Interesting. Now Bruce says he disagrees regarding the origins of divine ordeal. I would say that, hopefully

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I wasn't saying where the origins were, I would say that passages like this were misused for the purpose of justifying it.

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But he says trial by ordeal began in Germanic paganism and doesn't show up in Christian history until the conversion of the

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Gothic Anglo -Saxon study medieval law at BSU. Okay, all right, very good. Okay, so my question then for you, let's see,

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Bruce says this passage got used, to be sure, to integrate it into Christianity when they convert it.

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Correct. Now, so I'm not, in fact, I'm not going to disagree with him at all. I mean, yeah, so it is a known fact that medieval history does include trial by ordeal, and passages like this are misused, misapplied to justify the practice.

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But if I said, and I have to go back and look at the tape, if I said that they were used to introduce the practice, that was not my intent and I would have spoken beyond my knowledge at that point.

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But I do know that passages like this were used to justify the practice. Okay. How are we doing on time?

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Terrible. We're literally like running to the end here.

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Yeah, I gotta make a decision. Yeah, we can do a little bit more.

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We'll do just a little bit more. We'll keep going. Numbers chapter six. Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel say to them when either a woman or a man makes a special vow, the vow of a

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Nazirite. Now this is, man, this is set up for so much.

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Okay. So the Nazirite vow is going to be your setup for the story of Samson. The Nazirite vow technically informs our understanding of John the

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Baptist. So that's part of how you have to work this out.

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So what is a Nazirite vow? It doesn't make you a Nazarene, I'm just saying.

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But I would say Nazarenes definitely didn't do the drinking of alcohol bit. And to be a

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Nazarene is not the same as a Nazirite. It's not the same etymological work.

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So Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel say to them when either a man or a woman makes a special vow, a vow of a

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Nazirite, to separate himself to Yahweh. He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink.

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And so wine and strong drink, you know, so in the ancient world they had, they had beer, which was a common thing.

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In fact, beer, there's a documentary about how beer saved the world. Drinking water could get you killed.

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And so it was a very common practice. It was a way of which that you created like a low fermentation level beer that killed everything.

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And it says you can have some, you can drink. They made wine and they also knew how to distill and to create stronger drinks, you know, through a distilling process.

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So he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink.

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And I learned the hard way, by the way, where vinegar came from. I left a really good bottle of wine out on the counter for a few weeks and it went from being a really nice wine to being vinegar.

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So it does happen. So no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried.

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And all the days of his separation, he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grape vine, not even the seeds or the skins.

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So yeah, if you've ever looked at the skin of a grape, there's this like light white kind of stuff on it.

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That's the fungus, that's the yeast that then turns the grape juice into wine.

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So all the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head until the time is completed for which he separates himself to Yahweh.

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He shall be holy. He shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long.

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He's sitting there going, ah, that's what Samson, yeah. So Samson had locks.

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It makes you wonder, are these dreadlocks? I don't know, you know, because if you're going to go, if you're going to not cut your head, your hair for a long, long, long, long, long period of time, you know, you go from looking like an eighties glam rocker to, you know, to somebody with dreadlocks over a long period of time.

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All the days that he separates himself to Yahweh, he shall not go near a dead body. So you can't do that if you're

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Nazirite, not even for his father or for his mother. It doesn't even matter the closest of kin can't do it for brother or for sister.

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If they die, they shall, if they die, shall he make himself unclean because his separation to God is on his head all the days of a separation.

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He is holy to the Lord. And if any man dies very suddenly beside him and he defiles his consecrated head, then he shall shave his head on the day of his cleansing, on the seventh day that he shall shave it.

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On the eighth day, he shall bring two turtle doves or a partridge in a pear tree. No, I'm joking about that last part.

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Or two pigeons to the priest, to the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the priest shall offer one for a sin offering, the other for a burnt offering and make atonement for him because he sinned by reason of the dead body.

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So, you know, so there you are, you know, you're in a house having a conversation with your buddy and he goes, and he falls over dead.

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What does the text say? He sinned by reason of the dead body. It's a sin. If you're in the presence of somebody and they die suddenly, you're guilty of a sin.

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That just, consider all of the different ways in which the law just nails you. Okay.

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He shall consecrate his head that same day and separate himself to Yahweh for the days of his separation and bring a male lamb, a year old for a guilt offering.

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But the previous period shall be void because his separation was defiled. And this is the law of the

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Nazarite. When the time of the separation has been completed, he shall be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting and he shall bring his gift to Yahweh.

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One male lamb, one year old without a blemish for a burnt offering. One you lamb, a year old.

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There's a lot of, there's a lot of sacrifices going on here. So it's kind of expensive to get out of your Nazarite vow, by the way.

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You're without blemish, a sin offering and one ram without blemish as a peace offering at a basket of unleavened bread, loaves of fine flour mixed with oil, unleavened wafers, smeared with oil and their grain offering and their drink offerings.

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And the priest shall bring them before Yahweh and offer his sin offering and his burnt offering.

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And he shall offer the ram as a sacrifice of peace offering to Yahweh with the basket of unleavened bread.

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The priest shall offer also its grain offering and its drink offering. And the Nazarite shall shave his consecrated head at the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall take the hair from his consecrated head, put it on the fire that is under the sacrifice of the peace offering.

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So notice his hair gets to be part of the sacrifice then in some way. And the priest shall take the shoulder of the ram when it is boiled, one unleavened loaf out of the basket, one unleavened wafer and shall put them on the hands of the

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Nazarite after he has shaved the hair of his consecration. And the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before Yahweh.

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They are a holy portion for the priest together with the breast that is waved and the thigh that is contributed.

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And after that the Nazarite may drink wine. This is the law of the Nazarite. But if he vows an offering to Yahweh above his

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Nazarite vow as he can afford in exact accordance with the vow that he takes, then he shall do in addition to the law of the

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Nazarite. Now what we're going to do, we're going to end here. We're going to end here because next week, next

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Sunday, we're going to take a look at some of the tie -ins then to how this

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Nazarite thing plays into other passages. We're going to look at the story of Samson and we're going to look at it in its context.

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And we're going to note that Samson is the worst Nazarite ever. It's scandalous how bad of a

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Nazarite Samson is. And that Samson himself is a type and shadow of Christ. There's kind of something going on there.

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But you got to get, you have to know all of the stringent requirements of a Nazarite before you can recognize what is going on with Samson.

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I mean this guy is just a complete breaking of Torah train wreck from like the word go.

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Then we'll connect it then to John the Baptist. Notice how he plays a role in this, in the concept of a

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Nazarite. But also the expense that's involved. Notice, it is not cheap to break your Nazarite vow.

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Not cheap at all. And so the breaking of Samson's Nazarite vow is quite fascinating, but he has no opportunity to pay what he owes.

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So he ends up sacrificing his life in a way that kind of references the cross.

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But then we'll take a look at the expense of breaking the Nazarite vow and how that plays into one passage in the book of Acts. So that's what we will do next week.

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All right. Peace to you brothers and sisters, and hope that you all are able to get out of your homes before too long.

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I think the roads are starting to clear up. So peace to you. We will see you at church next week.