Welcome to cold and flu season. That time of year where our Texas weather whips back and forth like a yo-yo and as a result the sneezes and runny noses follow suit. There’s no gift quite like somebody getting you good and sick. In your home you know it’s coming. The kid or spouse comes home from school or work hacking one day and you know it’s inevitable. Unless you move into a plastic bubble and live for a few weeks, your gonna be duplicating that cough pretty soon. But when it comes to the common cold have you ever thought about the direction of it? I mean if someone has the germ, they can give it to others. The sick affect the un-sick. But unfortunately, it cannot go the other way. The healthy cannot get the sick well. No matter how much I might try, if Margie comes home sick, my wellness and health cannot ever affect her sickness, but her sickness can sure affect my wellness.
This morning we’ll drag that thought along with us into Leviticus chapter 11. Most would simply call it “the food chapter.” Here God takes a fine tooth comb and pulls it through the phylum and genus of the animal kingdom thereby carefully telling the Israelites what they can eat and what they can’t. The detail is tremendous, God is very careful to instruct them of a good diet. The reasoning does have great practicality, reasoning that is, in fact, very simple, health. You are what you eat and the same goes for animals. God excludes animals that are bottom-feeders, scavengers, parasitical and just plain dirty. In doing so he outlined a purer and cleaner source of food for His people. In fact, Did you know that at one time the Israelites had a life expectancy that far surpassed the non-Jew? Huh, God, also the perfect dietitian. But what spoke to me in the chapter was, well, actually very hard to miss. The words clean and unclean were mentioned an amazing 32 times. It seems God has something to say to us about this topic.
A very important principle is set before us here. Clean and unclean. Pure versus unpure. Holy versus unholy. Good versus bad. The specific principle is contamination. The transmission of one thing to another. The flow of good and bad within this world and exactly how it affects the believer and follower of Jesus Christ.
You see, cleanness or holiness is not transferred by contact. In other words, it is impossible to make something clean that is unclean. But on the contrary, unholiness can easily and quickly affect purity. Here’s an example. Say I have two, 2 gallon pitchers. In one is 1 gallon of crystal clear, uber clean, triple filtered water directly from a Colorado mountain spring. In the other is 1 gallon of gross, dirty water I pulled out of a long-stagnant mud hole. If I put one single drop of the dirty water into the clean what happens? Yep, the whole gallon is now polluted. Dirty by contact. Contaminated by filth. But what about the other way? What if I put a drop of the sparkling clean spring water into the dirty? Does it make it clean? Of course not. What if I dump all of the spring water in? No matter, the dirty water cannot be made pure.
Now let’s bring this principle home. We are to be clean and holy before God. Twice in this chapter God tells us “Be holy, for I am Holy.” Twice. God commands us to be holy, that is, to be set aside for Him and His use in this world. And to be set aside for God’s use means we are to be clean and possess a clean heart. We are to be clean from the inside out. To do that you must not allow your clean spring water to even get a drop of dirty water in it. You see, as a child of God, the sin of this world will quickly contaminate your water. We are forced to walk in this world, but we have to be ever vigilant against sin. Sin that hopes to contaminate our holiness and usability to God. We need to be clean before the Lord.
“Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Heb 10:22
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts” James 4:8-9a
So how do we steer clear of sin that will contaminate our daily walk with Christ? Folks, God has given us an arsenal. His Word will cleanse us, advise us and equip us to deal with sin. His Holy Spirit will convict us of sin in our lives, moving us to confess it and repent to God, thereby protecting blessed communion with Him. Holy brothers and sisters in Christ can help us in our struggles to keep our water clean. Through helping others we can invest in other’s lives and therefore alleviate our own struggles. And folks, the real big gun in this arsenal, prayer. As you see that dirty water nearing your clean water, cry out to God to remove it. Use the power of prayer along with His Holy Words to resist the filth and contamination of this world. As Jesus was tempted by the dirty water of the devil three times in the wilderness, He used the power of God’s Words to repel satan each time. Use the power of prayer and God’s Words as many times as necessary to resist the dirty water of the devil today.
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” James 4:7
But on the flip side of that coin, recall that all the clean water in the world can’t purify the unclean. Don’t assume that you are so holy that you can purify others. I have seen people that sought out ministries in bars and clubs, hoping to somehow let their limited clean water purify the world’s oceans of dirty. Remember, you can get the cold, but you can’t in your health cure someone that has the cold. It makes me think of the safety drill on an airplane. In the case of an emergency, the oxygen masks will deploy, put on your own mask before attempting to assist anyone else. The point is simple and clear. You can’t help anybody else if you are dead. Preserve your life first in order that you can then help others.
Folks, you are in a battle today. A war. Don’t kid yourself, the dirty water of this world today wants nothing more than to dump right into your sparkling pitcher. Filthy TV, sex, alcohol, profane movies, pornography, materialism, the love of money and the lure of personal gratification bombard us from every direction. Satan and this world he controls wants nothing more than to make you just another wandering, lost sinner in a dark world, a slave to your flesh and the desires of your old nature. But resist. Fight ferociously. Put on the full armor of God, take up His Word and yield prayer as a weapon against the evil one and His temptations.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, fiercely protect your heart today from contamination by the unclean.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” Proverbs 4:23-27
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