SCRIPTURE: Numbers 19
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” [Matthew 3:11].
Rituals for cleansing cannot change our sinful, sick hearts, we need spiritual, inward cleansing.
John the Baptist, practicing a ritual for cleansing, points beyond what he is doing to what only the Messiah can do.
He recognizes that our real problem is inside of us… we need soul surgery, soul purging.
The symbolism of the red heifer, its burned ashes kept outside the camp and mixed with water, relates to the cleansing benefit of Jesus’ death for sinners, to make them clean [1 John 1:7-9].
Once again the goriness of the ritual can distract us from the grace and blessing the Lord offers His people.
These prescriptions for cleansing protected the people from physical and spiritual impurity.
People were still able to deal with the dead and dying, but in safe, sanitary ways.
Do we appreciate the pollution that sin causes, not only moral but also social, physical, etc.
Most of us live in ignorance to the subtle, destructive power of sin among us.
All that is wrong in this world – is directly or indirectly connected to our moral, spiritual disease.
We need more than ritual purity, we need deep spiritual cleansing, purging with fire.
Few people admit this… but the Lord knows it.
You have been through cleansing water (baptism), you have repented of sin?
This is still not enough, it is but the gateway to healing, cleansing.
We need the Spirit of God to enter us, to burn like fire in us, to purge us of our old nature and give birth to a new nature.
By divine power, we need to be reborn through fire.
Like the fabled phoenix, we need to die in fire and ashes, then come back to life a new creature.
Sound complicated?
It is, but not for God; it is something He must do, we cannot.
We must repent, we must surrender, we must pray.
And as we stand in that gateway, He will come with the Spirit and with fire.
And He will change us from the inside out.
PRAYER:
Lord, I have surrendered before, but I surrender again. Send Your Spirit, Your fire, to cleanse and renew me even more.
Unclean.
The water of cleansing.
When I pray, forgive my sins, do I list them one by one? Did I sin this day? All too often, I don’t realize what I do from day to day and just go my way. But here I am reminded once again, the ritual for cleansing – to be made clean. It took effort. It took doing. It took thought – remembrance.
God through His Son has made me clean. What a price He paid! What a sacrifice! And I need to daily thank Him and become Spirit driven in all I do and say. I must live for Him. I must follow the voice saying, this is the way – walk in it – because I have been redeemed – made clean by the blood of Christ – my Saviour.
My sheep hear My voice, and the path that I take,
They follow wherever I go;
My sheep know My voice and come at my call,
But a stranger’s voice do they not know.
Refrain
My sheep know My voice, and day by day
They abide in the fold and go not astray,
They love Me because I have made them my choice,
And they follow My call for My sheep know My voice.
My sheep know My voice, and the pastures of green,
Where I lead them so often to feed;
My sheep know My voice and the cool sparkling stream
Where beside its still waters I lead.
Refrain
My sheep know My voice, and the valley of death
Through which I shall lead them some day;
But no danger nor harm can touch one of them,
For I will be with them alway.