August 23 "And this shall be his uncleanness in his issue: whether his flesh run with his issue, or his flesh be stopped from his issue, it is his uncleanness. Every bed, whereon he lieth that hath the issue, is unclean: and every thing, whereon he sitteth, shall be unclean. And whosoever toucheth his bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even." -Leviticus 15:3–5 In dealing with a chronic discharge of a disease, the key phrase is that there was to be a washing, a scrubbing, a cleansing with water. This predated medical knowledge by thousands of years, for it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that doctors understood the importance of cleanliness. Prior to that time, a clean doctor was considered to be about as effective as a clean football player. They wore blood on their clothes and hands as a sign of success. But in 1847, a Hungarian physician by the name of Ignaz Semmelweis made a correlation between the number of autopsies performed and the number of patients who, treated by the same doctors who performed the autopsies hours earlier, died from infectious disease. When he realized it was the doctors themselves who were spreading disease, he came to the revolutionary conclusion that doctors should wash after every operation. “How shall a young man cleanse his way?” David asked. “By taking heed to the word” (see Psalm 119:9). “We are washed by the water which is the word” Paul said (see Ephesians 5:26). “Now ye are clean by the word which I have spoken unto you,” Jesus declared (John 15:3). There is indeed a washing and a cleansing from spiritual disease as we drink of the Scriptures. Like the doctors in the dark ages of medicine, we mistakenly think we don’t have to wash ourselves spiritually all that often. Yet we wonder why we remain in an infected condition. God’s way is that His Word would be the cleansing agent that would purify and protect us from the infection of lustful thoughts, bad attitudes, cynical spirits, and a host of other diseases we think no one else sees. It’s amazing how much better those who take time to be in the Word personally and fellowship with the Lord intimately do than those who think they don’t need to wash. Spending time in Bible study says, “Lord, I’m trusting that something is happening miraculously, supernaturally even now, that Your Word is doing a cleansing work in me.”
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 01:21:17 +0000
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