Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore

Some people advised me not to teach Leviticus, and I understand why now. Because in doing so, the Lord touches on a very sensitive and private topic: discharges from the body for both males and females.

You may be appalled at first glance. We may all feel uncomfortable listening to this, and may even wonder why we came to church today, especially with family. You may even get angry that I am preaching this. I also initially felt that way, wondering why I started Leviticus and what this chapter was doing here. I questioned if it was appropriate for public reading and preaching with women and children present. Should I skip this? Many people are actually ashamed that this chapter is in the Bible.

But I realized, “If this chapter should not be read, the Holy Spirit should never have written this.” We should not just nominally or verbally say that Scripture is infallible and “every word of God is pure.” We should believe and practice that, so I emboldened myself and decided to preach this. I encourage you to embolden yourself to listen.

We always see that when the Bible talks about sensitive things such as sexual matters, it does not talk to us like the world does, but in a way that promotes holiness. If we avoid those passages, we will only have a wrong understanding of those things and go wrong in life. The Word of God ought to judge and correct us, and not the other way around. Remember, this is God’s word, and we should not think we are wiser than God. Oftentimes, the way we have been raised makes us overly sensitive in this area. The Bible looks at the human body with a wonderful frankness. It is never vulgar, never obscene, and never descends to disgusting bad language.

In our society, children are facing many problems because they lack sex education and age-related guidance. Children do not know how to handle their body changes and hormonal changes. They struggle with these questions, and parents do not educate them. They learn all the wrong things from friends and media and end up doing wrong things. In an age when sexual perversion and pornography are rampant, we need to have some open and frank talks about these things. Small children, you may not understand many things I speak; do not worry, your parents will explain these things to you at the proper age.

When we finally apply this passage spiritually, you will see that what was an ugly chapter is filled with wonderful spiritual truths that we can realize in no other way than for them to be expressed as they are here. So, please bear with me as I explain this most sensitive chapter in the Bible.

Let us zoom out and see from a bird’s-eye view where we are in Leviticus. After discussing personal sacrifices (chapters 1-7), God ordaining the priesthood, and temple worship (chapters 8-10), chapters 11-15 are where God is talking to his people about holiness. A sense of holiness always starts with a sense of sin, just as only when we know uncleanness will we seek purity. So, God is making his people sensitive to their native depravity and sin with many examples. He started with unclean foods, childbirth, and the disease of leprosy. Now, he is getting to the very deeply impacting bodily discharges. All of this is really preparation for the great chapter 16, the great day of atonement. All this uncleanness will make them see the glory of God’s atonement for sin in chapter 16. So, Leviticus 16:16 says the high priest “shall make atonement because of the impurities of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions.” If God had taken them directly to the day of atonement without all these chapters, they would say, “What impurities? We are so good, so holy.” So, he prepares them through chapters 11-15. These chapters show us how sinful we are and how holy God is. How difficult it is for a holy God to allow sinners with so much impurity into his presence. Food can be unclean, we are impure from birth, our bodies, garments, and houses can be impure with leprosy, and now we come to this sensitive yet important part in which God wants us to be holy. It is related to the organs of reproduction which profoundly symbolize impurity in the eyes of the living God.

There are three main headings: the impurity of male discharges in verses 1-17, the impurity of the bond between male and female in verse 18, and then the third section is the impurity of female discharges in verses 19-30.

The Impurity of Male Discharges in Verses 1-17

There are two particular flows they are speaking of here. The first would be diseased issues in verses 1-15, and then involuntary issues in verses 16 and 17.

The first, diseased issues; first, its identity. Verses 1-2: “When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge is unclean.” The Greek translation of this Hebrew word for discharge is called “gonorrhoeus.” Known in our day as a venereal disease called gonorrhea. A sexually transmitted infection. A man who engages in sexual activity or with their own sex organs before marriage and outside marriage gets this disease and a continuous discharge. Romans 1:24 says, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves.” Verse 26: “For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.” Verse 27: “Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”

They lusted for one another, fantasizing. Leaving the natural use of these organs, they use them wrongly for self-gratification through masturbation and homosexuality, men with men and women with women, and they “received in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”

You may see your friends talking about engaging in sexual acts and with sex organs at a young age. Scripture says God’s judgment comes on their secret parts, which makes them diseased and weak. Here is one discharge due to infection that flows continuously. So we see its identity.

Second, its contagiousness. There are secondary pollutions that come from the individual who has this particular disease. Verses 4-12: “Every bed is unclean on which he who has the discharge lies, and everything on which he sits shall be unclean. And whoever touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. He who sits on anything on which he who has the discharge sat shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. And he who touches the body of him who has the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. If he who has the discharge spits on him who is clean, then he shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. Any saddle (today, a bike or car seat) on which he who has the discharge rides shall be unclean. Whoever touches anything that was under him shall be unclean until evening. He who carries any of those things shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. And whomever the one who has the discharge touches, and has not rinsed his hands in water, he shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. The vessel of earth that he who has the discharge touches shall be broken, and every vessel of wood shall be rinsed in water.”

Wow! His bed, chair, and saddle are all unclean. Anyone who sits on what he sat on, even if he spits on someone, his saliva, all become unclean. The person needs to be washed, and he too is unclean until evening. Now, it’s interesting that in the case of this individual with this disease, unlike leprosy, he is not quarantined. He is allowed to continue through his daily paces in the camp. He is not banished from the people of God.

So we see its identity, its contagiousness, and thirdly, its purification in verses 13-15. We notice here that the infectious secretion stops. Generally, these diseases do not get cured like leprosy, but in case there is miraculous healing, the gonorrhea flow stops.

Verse 13: “And when he who has a discharge is cleansed of his discharge, then he shall count for himself seven days for his cleansing, wash his clothes, and bathe his body in running water; then he shall be clean.” A seven-day wait. Why a seven-day wait? Well, it seems one reason was so that there would be a certainty that the infection had indeed departed.

Then, again in verse 14: “On the eighth day he shall take for himself two turtledoves or two young pigeons, and come before the Lord, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and give them to the priest.” Verse 15: “Then the priest shall offer them, the one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord because of his discharge.”

So we have seen diseased issues: its identity, contagiousness, and then cleansing. Next, secondly, involuntary issues. Involuntary issues are in verses 16 and 17.

Verse 16: “If any man has an emission of semen, then he shall wash all his body in water, and be unclean until evening.” Verse 17: “And any garment and any leather on which there is semen, it shall be washed with water, and be unclean until evening.”

This is not related to disease or to sexual intercourse. This could be from unnatural, deviant sexual activity. This is the starting stage for him to go to the previous diseased state. Involuntary nighttime emission is due to uncontrolled wrong thoughts, lusts, fantasies, dreams, or masturbations.

“Oh Pastor, am I in church? What is this for you and us? Did you come to torment us?” This is God’s word; we cannot tell him he should not talk about our secret things. God is talking and showing that he is concerned about these sensitive, secret aspects of your life. So this is unnatural sexual activity not because of disease or a man-woman relationship. God is very concerned about that. You know how much. Deuteronomy 23:10: “If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp. He may not reenter the camp. But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may reenter the camp.” This man has defiled himself. God will not allow uncleanness in the holy camp because he walks in the midst of his people.

An emission from the bodily activity of a man, which can take place even in a semi-conscious, sleeping state. But even then, the man is considered to be responsible for it, as he himself is unclean. No atonement is needed for this. So that is the impurity of male discharges.

After male discharges, verse 18 talks about discharge that comes in the relationship between a man and a woman: “they shall bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.”

The Bible does not say sex is sinful. There is nothing sinful, there is nothing ungodly. This is happening in a fallen state, an accursed world. God then uses this as an occasion to symbolize impurity. They just need to bathe in water; both are unclean until evening, though again, there is no atonement sacrifice necessary.

The Impurity of Female Discharges in Verses 19-30

So we’ve seen the impurity of male discharges, we’ve seen the impurity of sexual intercourse, and now the third heading, the impurity of female discharges, in verses 19 through 30.

Again, there are two kinds of discharges. First of all, there are involuntary issues, things the woman cannot control, in verses 19 through 24. Then, there is a diseased flow in verses 25-27.

Involuntary issues in verses 19 to 24 describe the normal monthly menstrual blood discharge. When this takes place, a woman is unclean for seven days. During these seven days, verse 19 onwards says anything that she sat upon or lied upon was unclean. And all who touched her or anything she touched are unclean.

You may wonder, “Oh, these old rules are absolutely impossible to live in that era, under that old covenant.” Yes, these ritual rules do not apply today. However, these cleanliness rules had their great benefit in a time with no vaccination, no medical facilities, and rampant infections. I remember in old days in our villages they followed such rules. We have to recognize that God was teaching something by giving these laws to a particular people at a particular time, in a particular culture. Its relevance is not necessarily as tight as we might think it to be today. But we don’t have this today as a ritual.

Also, verse 24 says if a man has any relationship with a woman at this time, he “shall be unclean seven days; and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean.” There was no atonement sacrifice necessary, no turtle doves. During those seven days, we see there was a restriction in the woman’s movement as she was not to go near the tabernacle.

Next, verses 25 through 30 talk about a disease discharge of a continuous flow. Verse 25: “Now, if a woman has a discharge of her blood many days,” now notice this next phrase, “not at the period in her menstrual impurity.” This is not a temporary, short-term problem. This is an extended problem.

We find a woman with this same problem in Mark chapter 5, verse 25. A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years. A “many days” problem. She had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse. After hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind him and touched his cloak. And she thought, “If I just touch his garments, I shall get well.” And immediately, the flow of her blood was dried up for the first time in twelve years. And she felt in her body that she was healed of her, literally, her scourge. And immediately, Jesus perceived in himself that the power had proceeded from him. He asked, “Who touched my garments?” And the disciples said to him, “You see the multitude pressing in on you, and you say, ‘Who touched me?'” And he looked around to see the woman who had done this.

But the woman, fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has saved you. Go in peace and be healed of your scourge.”

So this is the problem that’s being identified here: a hemorrhaging woman who has an extended uterine disease or infection. Can you imagine the stigma for such a poor woman? Anything that she touched, anything she sat upon (bed, benches, clothes), she was unclean. She was, practically speaking, an outcast for twelve years. And that’s why she was so hesitant to approach Jesus in the crowd. She was not supposed to be in that crowd. She was unclean. The reason she had to come secretly to Jesus was that she was unclean. She could not enter the community, and more so, how could she explain her problem to Jesus publicly? And if Jesus touched her, he would be unclean. So she planned a strategy to secretly come and touch him. She was desperate. No physician could help her. Only this great physician could. Her desperation made her seek out her only hope.

So we see such a woman in Leviticus 15. Verse 28 talks about her cleansing if she is healed. She “shall count off for herself seven days and afterward she shall be clean.” You can imagine the euphoria. It almost makes us think of the leper. Clean! A seven-day count to ensure the reality of the cure and the end of the infection. And notice in verse 29, here it is again: on the eighth day. The eighth day, as I mentioned before, is an important day in theological symbolism. On the eighth day, then, she shall take for herself two turtledoves or two pigeons, and she is to then go to the tabernacle, offer up a sin offering and a burnt offering as the priest makes atonement, and then she shall be restored to all of her community and all of her relationship privileges.

So those are the three main headings of the passage: two man problems, a man-woman problem, and two woman problems. Oh, what rituals, what nonsense. “I will not follow all this.” The chapter ends with a terrible warning. Verse 31: “Thus you shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, lest they die in their uncleanness when they defile My tabernacle that is among them.” The phrase “my tabernacle that is among them” is key.

There’s a death warning. Notice, “lest they die because of uncleanness.” It reminds us of Nadab and Abihu, who were consumed by the fire of God’s holy presence. This really leads us to the threshold of the day of atonement just around the corner in chapter 16. God will strike not only when we worship wrongly and offer strange fire, but when we live with uncleanness. Not only a priest or pastor, but even a layman. If they were to approach the tabernacle in an unclean state, they were vulnerable to being struck dead by the living God. So this little epilogue puts a skull and crossbones warning, saying, “Don’t dare violate these regulations and approach the tabernacle in a way that I have not prescribed.”

So that’s our exposition.

Yes, these physical rules of separation and sacrifices do not apply today, though bodily cleanliness and sanitary precautions are still advised by most doctors to avoid infections. God wisely gave some of these rules thousands of years ago to people without vaccination or antibiotics to prevent diseases that were rampant in the ancient world. It is these kinds of restrictions and regulations, cleanliness rules in reproductive organs and processes, that saved the nation of Israel from many dangerous plagues that destroyed whole nations around them. These gracious rules are a major reason that Israel has been preserved as a nation through all these centuries.

Today, we do not have them as religious ritual rules. But the principles are applicable today.

The first principle for small children, young people, and even married people is that a superficial reading should make it clear that God is commanding sexual restraint and avoiding any kind of sexual deviation. Remember that the culture of the Canaanites, where they would go and live, had all kinds of abnormal sexual activities that were actually part of their worship. Sexual celebration was seen as a divine act, worshipping the fertility goddess, Asterah. They thought it was divine love. God is saying any sexual abnormal activity and any physical contact between a man and a woman outside of marriage is not divine love, but horrible uncleanness that not only separates you from God but will bring God’s judgments.

Imagine in that culture, these rules in those olden days were a great means to put a brake on youthful passions and desires for hasty sex before marriage or outside of marriage. God warns here that whether as an individual having these discharges by masturbation or that leading to some weakness and disease, if you come to the temple in that unclean condition without realizing your sin and repenting, you may face God’s judgment and die. See the threat, not that he will remove skin or break bones, but kill you.

Today’s young people, the outside world is full of filth and dirt. There are no rules for anyone. Media, pornography, and sexual perversion are everywhere, and everyone is out of control. You will face peer pressure and media influence, “Oh, everyone has a boyfriend or girlfriend. If you don’t, you’re abnormal.” And your own hormones will all make you hasty in this area. You need sex education. I do not know who will do that.

I hope parents will not get upset with me. Let me say a few things, and if I say something wrong, please correct me. Sex is a beautiful gift from God. You do not have to feel ashamed; it is a gift from God. After a certain age, you will have hormonal changes, and you will have desires and attractions toward the opposite sex. It is part of your growth. It is a gift from God. Every gift God gives, he wants his children to enjoy to the full. It is Satan who wants us to abuse that gift and destroy that gift. He is doing that with sex in many lives. You know God’s will for your sex life is that he wants you to enjoy it purely and to the fullest extent all your life. Yes, how can we enjoy sex to the fullest extent?

When you learn to control yourself, control your desires, allow your organs to mature, not play with them, save it as a precious thing for the right relationship at the right time, within the security of the marriage bond. That is why a good God commands you to control your desires temporarily, and you should not see this as burdensome, but as great love and care, so you can enjoy his gift fully.

There is nothing so joyful as sex within the intimacy of truly knowing and loving the whole person, not just their body, but their character, personality, and enjoying sex with the safety and commitment of marriage with a deeper emotional and spiritual connection. Nothing is like it.

If you allow your stupid friends to pressure you, if you do not learn to control your hormonal urges and you follow them, become hasty, play with sex and organs when they are immature before the right time within marriage, there will be terrible consequences, and you will destroy this wonderful gift for a lifetime. I have to state a few R-rated things now because we live in a pornography age.

The Bible says sex is actually a divine gift. Two shall become one flesh. Before your marriage, if you are involved, that mysterious union will haunt you all your life, even if you end the relationship. For example, playing with sex organs, fantasizing, lust, masturbation, and sex outside of marriage not only defiles the temple of God that is your body, our Lord said you commit adultery in your heart, which destroys your soul. But it also has horrible physical consequences and God’s judgments. As we saw in Romans 1, God’s judgment will come in their secret areas. Sexual energy is a powerful force designed for marital intimacy and procreation. When directed in the wrong direction, there are horrible psychological, emotional, and spiritual consequences in the soul. Such a body makes them unfit for proper married life. I read that one of the primary reasons for increasing divorce is this. No one will say this openly. Why?

Playing with sex organs before marriage leads to intensified lust, sex addiction, and isolated pleasure. It completely twists God’s design and purpose of sex. It brings invisible, secret judgments of God in your soul and body. A soul full of shame, guilt, and regret, which loses all self-respect and confidence in yourself, and a deadness of soul. A body with a secret, addictive, and compulsive habit that loses all self-control and delay gratification. It can also lead to reduced sensitivity and strength. The mind has a distorted view of sex, is addictive, and feels the wrath of God.

Such a person becomes fully unfit for God-designed sex and a satisfying married life, making it harder to experience true, selfless intimacy in marriage. It can lead to reduced interest and even impotence, and previous wrong sins can make sex a completely bitter experience in marriage. Apart from weakness and impotence, like in the passage of gonorrhea, today there are several sexually transmitted infections: Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, Trichomoniasis, Hepatitis B, HSV, and HIV. Some of them may take four to five years to show symptoms.

That is why a loving God tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:18: “Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.” Deuteronomy 22:21 says one who participates in sex before marriage will be a fool in this life and will live with shame and guilt. Hebrews 13:4: “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge.” It should be kept pure.

In reading a chapter like this, we can recognize its intense value on the physical level to prevent the contagion of infectious diseases. But it has primary significance on the spiritual level.

The second application is that this passage also teaches us sin’s ubiquity, or universality. “Ubiquity” is a new word to help you remember the meaning. It means sin is everywhere. From chapters 11-15, we see the ubiquity of sin in land animals, water animals, birds, and even flies. It starts from birth, it spreads and destroys the whole body as leprosy, and now, secret discharges. God shows us how he sees us from his holy eyes. We are nothing but full of sins and uncleanness. The prevalence of sin among Adam’s race in the eyes of God. Imagine how difficult it is for a holy God to walk among us and have a relationship with us. A rich, delicate princess who has never seen anything unclean walks among the worst slum toilet areas: “Filthy! Filthy!” So too is the three times holy God, brethren, walking among us as the prevalence of our sin is manifested in these lines.

So, depraved, we live in a defiled world, depraved from birth, lepers, full of unclean discharges that come from us. What do these discharges mean spiritually? Our Lord interpreted this passage in Mark 7. “The truly dangerous defilement that can defile a man is not from outside, but what comes out of a man is what defiles him” (Mark 7:20). Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness, and blasphemies. These things which defile the human spirit. The word “proceed” is like those discharges. These proceed from man.

Notice there are some things we avoid externally because of the police and government, but there are continuous discharges we cannot avoid. They keep coming whatever we do: covetousness, lying, pride, conceit, hurtful, sharp responses that hurt others, thoughtless foolish actions. These come without our thinking sometimes. They come without planning, unpremeditatedly. And they represent the fact that our evil, fallen nature is so subtle, so close to us, so silken that it slips out sometimes without our being aware. Daily I say things to my wife that hurt her. It automatically comes out. I had not meant to offend. How many arguments in marriage? All because of these discharges of evil thoughts. We try to justify ourselves: “All I said was…” “Yes, but how did you say it?” Thus, offenses can occur, and defiling, injurious, hurtful relationships can ensue. And these discharges from life come all the time, especially when the passions are aroused, as in anger or sex. It is these discharges from within that defile.

They not only consciously come from us, but we are so unclean from head to toe that they come from us involuntarily without us knowing, like bodily discharges. How many sins of ignorance, sins beyond the conscious purpose of the will, flow involuntarily? It is all a picture of unknown sins.

One said, “Just as physically a man or woman contracts uncleanness, during unconsciousness of sleep, in dreams, so morally we find sinful issues coming forth from the evil heart and nature even in dreams. Oh, so unclean, we sin even in our dreams.” That is why great saints like Jonathan Edwards were careful and even analyzed their own dreams and confessed for sins in their dreams. Because we have such a depraved nature. Even in our dreams, even in our subconscious and semi-conscious states, we are sinners through and through.

And you compare this uncleanness with the uncleanness of leprosy in the 14th chapter. Not only was the ancient Israelite to guard against public impurity, like leprosy, something everyone would know about, but also secret impurities seen only in private places by him. Our secret lusts, adulterous thoughts, lustful impulses, or fantasizing; envious thoughts against a neighbor’s wife, or the opposite sex; our murderous thoughts; our deep resentments against a brother or sister, only you know about it, but God sees it. And the hours or minutes we may spend brooding over our hard lot, thinking to ourselves, “Why does God bless those people with so much riches? I am so poor. He doesn’t have sense.” We are envious of this. Secret, bitter envy against the advancement or prosperity of another.

Brethren, God sees it all with this penetrating eye. How deep is our sin into the most private sections of our lives? We cannot escape, even if we go as monks or nuns, where no one is there. Because it comes from inside. The secret flow of sin does not cease. However moral the outward life may be, out of the heart will flow the secret pride, unbelief, lust, and evil thoughts, which defile the soul and burden the conscience with guilt.

Do you see the benefit of this chapter, brethren? The book of Leviticus, if all these Arminians, self-righteous religious people who do not believe in the total depravity and sovereignty of God in salvation, this “stupid Calvinism,” “the dignity of free will”… if they would just read and grasp the depth of our depravity displayed here. Do you see how in this chapter we can clearly see the distressing vileness of our cursed sinnerhood? We are an ever-flowing stream of uncleanness in the mind of God. Oh, can you imagine what a smelly and deep gutter of sin our soul lives in in God’s eye? There is a continuous flow, and the intensity increases as we grow and get more opportunities. How polluted we are.

Oh, do we understand how difficult it must be for a holy God to commune with us, slum dogs! Like a delicate England queen comes and lives in the worst-smelling slum next to a city gutter! Can you understand that verse in Genesis 6:5-6: “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”

You Arminians, how foolish to talk about free will, what occasion is there for any to glory in the flesh? To boast in the dignity of man, of human nature. But brethren, here we see through the spectacles of God the revolting side of sinful man. God shows the depth of the depravity of man, so every mouth is stopped and all become guilty before the living God.

And when we understand our sin as God would see it, the white and pristine and pure God, then we say, “What a wretched man. Who will rescue us from this body of death?” Do you see in this passage a theme of sin’s ubiquity, its everywhere-ness, how high it is, and even how deep it is into our own sinful natures?

What are we to do about them? Are we merely to ignore them? Are we to go on our way and think nothing more of them? No. If we do, we are in trouble. Do you realize why man is always miserable? Because all this gutter flow will add up against us. They will start stacking up in our subconscious. Guilt will begin to increase, and restlessness will come into our spirits. Shame, peacelessness, deadness of soul, a sense of defilement that makes us unfit to come to God, and even hide, and strangely hate God sometimes, his presence. It is this defilement.

I do not want to end with sad news, but there is good news of the gospel. For such dirty creatures, instead of throwing them into burning hell, behold the provision of spiritual purification. Blessed be God. Brethren, this melancholy view of our sin gives us a majestic view of our Savior and his work. We will see that more clearly in the next day of atonement. Atonement becomes gloriously bright for sinners who realize their vileness.

Even in this chapter, God provides a remedy. Verse 13 talks about washing in water, washing his clothes, and bathing his body in running water. To be separated from the temple for seven days, all of this talks about the process of repentance: realizing your sin against God’s word, realizing you are cut off from God’s presence because of all this defilement and sins, and realizing how sinful he is and how he is defiled. Get the sense of sin. Acknowledging sin is the first step of cleansing. All is repentance.

Then it talks about faith: “On the eighth day he shall take for himself two turtledoves or two young pigeons, and come before the Lord, to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and give them to the priest. Then the priest shall offer them, the one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. So the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord because of his discharge.”

All this points to our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God never once sets aside the requirement for the blood of an innocent substitute to be shed in the place of one who is defiled, showing that human nature needs to be dealt with by blood, by life poured out. It is a deep and complicated problem. It cannot be solved by a mere rearrangement of surface symptoms.

Those two birds suffering remind us of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, how deep and wide then is his love. Do you see the great depths that our Savior plunged into in order to bury the vastness? Think of it: he not only died for our original sin and actual conscious sins, but also for the unconscious, constant flow from our depraved hearts, an unending flow of that gutter. It goes beyond all our conceptions. It is infinite. It is infinite upon infinite. That is the vastness of the height and the depth of my sin. Oh, may God open our eyes to see the colossal depths of our Savior’s suffering on the cross to bury all those defiled oceans of discharges. Yes, our flow could have created an ocean of discharge, but his love and grace and blood covered all those oceans of gutter in the sea of his atoning love. And we are made clean. We are made clean.

Oh, who are hemorrhaging sinners? You see this bleeding from your soul, even when you sleep, just sitting, a continuous flow comes out in evil thoughts. Like the woman in Mark 5, she tried all methods and doctors, but nothing helped. Always flowing, flowing. But one day she believed that if she just touched the hem of his garment, the flow would stop. Wherever God’s word is preached, Revelation shows Jesus invisibly walks there in his church. He walks about the little flock. The Lord Jesus walks among us.

Can I tell you there is no other physician in the world who can cure you of your cursed scourge? None other. He alone. You may feel that you are so unfit, like that woman was. So unworthy to enter into his presence. There is one qualification you need that makes you fit: desperation and being fed up with your sinful flow. You want to stop it. A qualification that says there is none other, no other physician who can heal me. It is only him, the Lord Jesus Christ, who can make me clean and allow me to enter into the presence of the living God. If Christ is your last chance and your only hope, then I invite you to come to him.

Come and just touch him once with the hand of faith. You don’t need great faith to come and hug him with both hands. All you need is faith that can make you raise your small, weak index finger and touch not even his body, but the hem of his garment. That is all you need to do: make a connection between you and him through faith alone.

Through the channel of faith, you will feel his power entering your soul and body and immediately sense his healing and cleansing power. You will sense that the flow has stopped. You will sense that reigning sin is dead. Sin cannot have dominion over you. You will feel the cleansing and joy of deliverance and forgiveness. He will speak to your soul, “Sinner, don’t fear, your faith has healed you.” You don’t need great works. Come with all your uncleanness, unworthiness, and oh, hemorrhaging sinner, touch him today.

As believers, we saw today that we are not saved and gone once we come in faith. Yes, when we come, our reigning sin is cleansed and we are delivered. But we have remaining sin, so we keep coming in faith to him. We need constant cleansing and reviving from our great High Priest. Keep coming back to our Savior to be cleansed. Conscience cleansing is necessary to maintain fellowship with the God who dwells among his people. For believers with remaining sin, this idea of the flow stopping is an emblem of sanctification. This is how, when a man has become cleansed before the living God, there is not the chronic flow of the sinful symbol.