WALLS MUST FALL

Pastor MF Blume
February 1, 1998 pm

Levi 14:34-53

When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession; And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house: Then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean: and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house: And he shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall; Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days: And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look: and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house; Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city: And he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place: And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other morter, and shall plaister the house. And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, after that he hath taken away the stones, and after he hath scraped the house, and after it is plaistered; Then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house: it is unclean. And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place. Moreover he that goeth into the house all the while that it is shut up shall be unclean until the even. And he that lieth in the house shall wash his clothes; and he that eateth in the house shall wash his clothes. And if the priest shall come in, and look upon it, and, behold, the plague hath not spread in the house, after the house was plaistered: then the priest shall pronounce the house clean, because the plague is healed. And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop: And he shall kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water: And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times: And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet: But he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields, and make an atonement for the house: and it shall be clean.

The house of the person in the land of Canaan represents the heart of a person.
Often leprosy was found in houses in Israel.
Certain rituals were performed in order to deal with this leprous house.
Of course these rituals foreshadow and symbolize a work that God does about SIN in the heart.
LEPROSY represents SIN.
But as we read, the situation will be one of two things.

Once leprosy is found in the house, the house is shut up for seven days.
After the seven days lapse, the house is checked.
If the house has signs of leprosy spreading, it was called a "fretting leprosy" and the house had to be totally torn down.
But if the leprosy in the walls did not spread, the house was healed.
And if it was healed, the priest would take two live birds, cedar, hyssop, scarlet and running water from a river.
The one bird was killed over the basin of water and the cedar, hyssop and living bird were dipped into that water, and the house was sprinkled with that water.
And then the living bird was set free.

Jews cannot figure out why this was carried on, but we, who know about the Law symbolizing the New Testament work of God, can understand it.

Why was there not a law concerning goats who get tumors, or budgie birds that get stomach flu?
Why this particular situation out of thousands that could exist?
Well, it is a perfect picture of a problem with mankind.

When your house, your heart, has sin inside, walls are of sin keep out anything that is of God.
And God cannot work in your heart.
Sin must be dealt with.
Sin gets into the walls of your house and keep out anything to do with righteousness.
Your heart becomes so walled up that the Bible calls it a hard heart.

Roma 2:5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

And a heart that refuses to stop spreading sin throughout itself, and remain walled, and hardened, is a heart that is storing up wrath for the day of wrath.
The seventh day represents the END.
All is complete and over.

Prov 29:1 He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

Hard hearts are representative of people who do not believe.

Mark 16:14 Afterward he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen.

That soul shall be detroyed and removed.
The walls shall be torn down.
It is much easier to remove our barriers now, rather than see them fall anyway, along with our souls being lost.
But the heart with sin in it that repents and removes the walls of sin, is a heart that will experience a wonderful thing!
The priest took one bird and slew it.
That bird represents Jesus Christ.
And he took cedar and hyssop and scarlet.

1Kin 4:33 And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.

From cedar to the hyssop.
Represents the greatest person to the least person.
And the scarlet represents the BLOOD that BOTH people need, great or small.

These are all dipped in the water that contained the blood of the slain bird.
Blood is life of the flesh, so water with blood is LIVING WATER.
And when the house is sprinkled seven times with that water and the living bird is released we see that we are the living bird who has allowed Jesus' blood to forgive us of our sins and remove sin and TOTALLY (7 times means complete) cleanse us from all of it.

We are like a bird set free!
The house is either torn down, or cleansed with a captive bird flying away into freedom.

The bird dipped in the LIVING WATER represents our water baptism in Christ's death, which Paul said, washes our sins away.

Cleanses our walls and our houses.

In the LAND, this was accomplished.

And another picture of a house in the LAND, with walls is given to us in the book of Joshua....
And this house represents the instance when a heart and it walls of sin is not cleansed.

JERICHO

Josh 6:1 Now Jericho was straitly shut up because of the children of Israel: none went out, and none came in. And the LORD said unto Joshua, See, I have given into thine hand Jericho, and the king thereof, and the mighty men of valour. And ye shall compass the city, all ye men of war, and go round about the city once. Thus shalt thou do six days. And seven priests shall bear before the ark seven trumpets of rams' horns: and the seventh day ye shall compass the city seven times, and the priests shall blow with the trumpets. And it shall come to pass, that when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall ascend up every man straight before him.

The city was SHUT UP because of Israel.
The house was shut up for seven days if it had walls of leprosy to symbolize how a heart will shut itself off from any truth getting in, and any change.
JERICHO means MOON CITY.
But the New Jerusalem will shine like the SUN.
It was the first city conquered when Israel marched by faith into the Land of Canaan.
The Moon ruled the night.
Darkness and evil.

People close up their hearts with walls of sin .

Seven priests took seven trumpets made from ram's horns and were to blow them on the seventh day.
Jesus is the lamb with seven horns!
Horns represent power.
And blowing seven horns from a ram represents the preaching of the power of Jesus Christ, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
If a heart will keep up its sinful walls in the midst of preaching the power of Jesus' sacrifice, then that heart and it walls will fall!

God said the wall of the city will fall flat.

Let us go broader with this thought.....

The Bible speaks of another city with broad walls and very sinful .

Jere 51:58

Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.

The end of the world in the book of Revelation speaks of BABYLON THE GREAT, mother of harlots, versus the NEW JERUSALEM, the Bride of the Lamb.

Two houses. One with walls of sin, and one made of people whose hearts were cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

We read of Jesus the lamb with seven horns.
And when we read of seven trumpets, we see the seven horns of the power of Jesus' sacrifice being declared.
God's Word is preached.

Rev 8:5 says the angel threw live coals of fire upon the earth, and we see a picture of God's wrath scattered upon the world.

Then seven trumpets sound

The seventh day is the LAST day.
In the "last days" the seven angels shall sound their trumpets.

Reve 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.

Babylon fell
All hearts with their broad walls of sin.

Reve 14:1 And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads

Reve 14:6-8 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

When the storm of wrath comes, one house will stand and never fall.
The house built on the ROCK called MOUNT ZION.
And the house of fools, built on sand, BABYLON, will fall.
John saw a new heaven and a new earth

This is similar to the WORLD OF YOUR HEART.
If you are like the world, you have a hard heart that will not fear God and give glory to Him.
And the walls of the worldly heart will fall down.

We read that if green or reddish colour be in the walls it is a sign of leprosy.
In Rev 6 we read of a white horse, a black and RED AND PALE, or GREEN horse.
WE FIND THAT RED REPRESENTS WAR AND TAKING PEACE.

- And GREEN/PALE represents death

Jesus came....

Luke 1:79 To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Enemy would like to take away peace and put you in shadow of walls of death.

Sin is described as doing this to a person...

Eccl 8:8 There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness SIN deliver those that are given to it.

DEATH and WAR, taking peace, are the walls sin uses to keep you bound up.
Thank God that Jesus died and we can be immersed into His death, cleansing our hearts and setting us free.
Wickedness will not deliver us, but God will!