Num 19:2, "This is the statute of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel that they bring you an unblemished red heifer in which is no defect, and on which a yoke has never been placed. 
	We are looking at the means by which the Lord God made it abundantly evident that His grace and His mercy was overflowing upon His people. Through the means of the red heifer, God provided the avenue for His people to deal with those daily issues that would otherwise side-track and prevent them from continuing fellowship with Him through no fault of their own. They still needed to obey Him fully in this, as we noted last time, but this was the means whereby they could deal with the regular uncleanness of life without losing their ability to honor Him and to please Him and to have fellowship with Him.
	The beauty of this sacrifice and the reason that we are spending the extra time on it is the fact that it shows that the Lord's grace and mercy and love extends far beyond those elements that we would normally consider as sin. The power of the blood covering of Christ is much, much, much more effective and glorious when seen in the provision of God toward such as ourselves!
	God knew the corruptness of humanity and the vile choices and the sin that would be part of our lives on this earth. He knew our propensity to give into temptations and wickedness and evil desires. The fact that we needed a Savior from that fallen and devastating nature of humanity was immense. 
But God also knew that we would be encountering the daily elements of this fallen creation in our practical dealings with physical life and death. We needed some avenue to wash away the grime and the dirt and the acid rain covering of our sojourn in this defiled realm. His love and His mercy and His grace was manifested in the provision of the means to deal with those earthly, physical issues which require cleansing.
	In the Old Testament it was the ashes of the red heifer, as we are seeing. In the New Testament, it is by the Omnipotent power of the blood of Christ. His covering is not just for the sin and transgressions. It is also wonderfully shed upon us for even the most mundane cleansing required in our lives. This in no wise minimizes or belittles the immeasurably cherished blood of the Lamb of God. Rather it adds another unspeakably praiseworthy estimation of how the mercy and the grace and the love of God was so fully lavished upon such as you and me. He covered every single detail and aspect of our lives and our needs on this earth through such an inestimable gift of God. 
	In amplification of these details, this chapter contains elements that may need more emphasis for our greater understanding. We continue to use Dr. Ronald B. Allen’s expertise contained in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. 
	In accordance then, it is necessary to deal with those elements that were deemed to be clean or unclean by God. The reality of what is clean and unclean by the determination of God is set in that simple truth. It is God Who establishes what is clean and what is unclean. We pick up with Dr. Allen in this course of deliberation. 
	Quote, Ultimately, the ideas of clean and unclean have to do with appropriateness and inappropriateness for participation in the cultus of Israel. The ideas go all the way back to the time of Noah but are constantly being developed and refined through the biblical period. Finally, the idea of clean and unclean has to do with the basic idea of holiness, which is separation and distinction. Animals are clean and unclean, not because they necessarily will or will not make a person sick if they are used as food: they are clean and unclean primarily because God desired His people to live in a world of discrimination…. We may look back from the twentieth-century understanding of infection and disease and remark, “How kind it was of God that some of the animals He declared to be unclean to Israel are foods that might be conveyers of disease.” But the principal issue is distinction, discrimination, the marking out of that which is different from something else. End quote.
    	As we read in Lev 11:44-47, the fact is that the people were to keep themselves from those things that were unclean, not necessarily because of any harm that might result, not because the taste was bad, not because of possible parasitic issues, or anything else that might be very true, but not critical. The essential reality was that because God was holy they were to be holy. Because God had declared something unclean, it was to be treated as unclean. Because God, in His infinite wisdom and essential Being demanded complete obedience to His holiness, the people were to honor Him and willingly act in full accordance with His every requirement. They were expected to acknowledge His distinction and His call to separation from those things that He deemed unclean. 
	Lev 11:44-47, I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy. "'These are the regulations concerning animals, birds, every living thing that moves in the water and every creature that moves about on the ground. You must distinguish between the unclean and the clean, between living creatures that may be eaten and those that may not be eaten.'" 
	The next aspect of this matter of common issues of being clean in the sight of God is recounted in verses 6-10 of this 19th Chapter of Numbers. It deals with the fact that the priest would oversee the slaughter and the burning of the red heifer in order to create the ashes required for the incidental cleansing of the people. All those associated were from the congregation of the sons of Israel, not just the priestly order. Each would need to bath and wash his clothing before reentering the camp with the rest of the people, being unclean until evening. 
 Num 19:6-10, 'And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material, and cast it into the midst of the burning heifer. 'The priest shall then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening. 'The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water, and shall be unclean until evening. 'Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as water to remove impurity; it is purification from sin. 'And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the alien who sojourns among them.
The whole reason for the need of this intense action is held in the following quote. Herein, we recognize the necessity for a means of becoming clean again after physically handling a body, or bones, or the grace of a dead person. 
Quote, The Lord is the Great Teacher. He is the One Who uses teaching aids. Inadvertent contact with a dead person is a time for a reminder of the ultimate, life and death, sin and forgiveness, cleanness and uncleanness.
There is an issue of responsibility here. The person who was contaminated had to initiate the action. But there is also a sense of consequences. For the community the individual’s state of uncleanness will pollute the dwelling place. This means that one person’s sinful state may endanger God’s continuing presence in the midst of His people. A holy God demands a holy people. The second danger is for himself. Such a one who refuses the provision of cleansing is to be a cast-off. To protect the whole, such a one is to be consigned outside the camp….
In this passage we have the ideas of corporate solidarity and individual responsibility seen together. Yahweh condescends to dwell with His people, but He is not constrained to do so in the event of unrestrained contempt for the demands of His presence. See, especially Ezekiel 8-10 for a portrait of His gradual removal from the people as the symbol of His presence gradually moves from the people who have rejected His glory. End quote.
For God to condescend to dwell in the presence of a people requires those people to willingly offer their obedience and their allegiance to the every requirement that He establishes. It is not enough to simply call oneself a Child of God. There is the commitment and the dedication necessary to show oneself resplendent in that truth. 
To honor God is to honor His holiness. To honor His holiness is to be holy in all our actions and our thoughts and our interactions with others, and most especially with Him. While our salvation is not based on our actions or our worthiness or anything other than our placement into the redemption of Jesus Christ as Our Savior and Our Lord, it is still imperative that our actions reflect the truth of who we now are in Jesus Christ! 
God reinforces that in Isa 1:18 as He proclaims the truth that He is the One Who will cleanse away the sin and the shame of who we used to be in our natural state of sin. Isa 1:18, "Come now, and let us reason together," Says the Lord, "Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool. It is God who will cleanse us through the precious blood of His Only Begotten Son. 
As we read in Heb 7:25-28, all that we see in both the casual cleansing necessary in the Old Testament by the ashes of the red heifer, as well as that complete removal of the sinful nature of our birth is fully accomplished in our lives by God, Himself. Heb 7:25-28, Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever. 
       It was the perfect obedience and perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, as He so honored the complete holiness of God, as none of us could ever do on our own, that has opened the door for our eternal cleansing by His blood. God has washed away all the stain of sin and death in our being made holy through the death and resurrection of Jesus, His Only Begotten Son.
	Again, in Heb 9:13+14, hear the Writer to the Hebrews proclaim this as he highlights how the blood of Jesus is far more excellent than all the sacrifices of the priests and the cleansing ashes of the red heifer. Heb 9:13+14, For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 
	In 1 Peter 1:17-19, the Apostle Peter picked up the theme of the limitless and unfathomable value of the blood of Jesus Christ as the cleansing agent for those who will call upon His name. There is the same responsibility before God to honor His essential Being of holiness. We must be very careful in the manner in which we regard the perfect work done on our behalf by the Son of God.
	1 Peter 1:17-19, And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth; knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 
    	As the Apostle further encourages us in 1 Peter 2:21-24, we are to live our lives in full accordance with His just requirements, constantly showing forth the awe of the great love with which He has so loved us unto Himself. 1 Peter 2:21-24, For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. 
 	Our final passage of this consideration is Rev 1:4-6. In it, John reinforced the truth that who we are and how we are now made purely clean before God is all set in the lifeblood of Christ poured out for our sakes. His blood is so much greater than any blood of animals or the ashes of the red heifer to cleanse us completely and perfectly from the every stain of this realm’s dirt as well as our sin and trespasses.
Rev 1:4-6, John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
For that so great sacrifice on our behalf, for that so great love of God poured out freely upon us, for the fact that we are now made to be holy unto God, His chosen people, a holy priesthood with no more need of animal blood or the ashes of a red heifer, for the eternal life that we have been given, God deserves all praise and worship and adoration and thanksgiving - today, tomorrow, this week, this year, next year, and forevermore. So be it!
"This is the statute of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying, 'Speak to the sons of Israel that they bring you an unblemished red heifer in which is no defect, and on which a yoke has never been placed. Amen.

						
This morning’s benediction is Ps 9:7+8. But the Lord abides forever; He has established His throne for judgment, And He will judge the world in righteousness; He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity. Amen.