ON THE VANGUARD

MILDEW
“If the mildew reappears in the house after the stones have been torn out and the house scraped and plastered, the priest is to go and examine it and, if the mildew has spread in the house, it is destructive mildew; the house is unclean. It must be torn down – its stones, timbers and all the plaster – and taken out of the town to an unclean place.”
Leviticus 14:43-45

I know that mildew isn’t a topic you may have thought would ever make it into a devotional, and I assure you the topic was not thought of as I was taking a shower this morning and looking at the walls of my tub. No, this devotional is actually inspired by a lesson God showed me while taking the time to study the book of Zechariah. In fact, although the text I want to share with you comes from Leviticus, I will be going back and forth between the two books, much the same way God brought this to light for me. With that said, allow me to introduce the key point of today’s thoughts. God will not tolerate sin in His land.
In Leviticus 14:33-57, God speaks with Moses and Aaron concerning the topic of mildew. Once the people enter into the Promise Land, and if they spotted mildew in their homes, they were to follow these guidelines. First, the priest was to order the house be emptied before he would enter the house to examine it. If in the examination he found a mildew of greenish or reddish depressions appearing to be deeper than the surface, the priest was to exit and leave the house untouched for seven days. Seven days later on his return, if the inspection of the mildew showed the mass had spread, the infected area was to be removed and the pieces thrown into a place deemed unclean. All the inside walls of the house were then to be scraped off and also dumped into the unclean place. The vacant place caused by this action was then rebuilt, re-patching the spot where mildew once was with new clay and plaster. Now if the mildew reappeared again, the priest was to once more look at the area. Seeing a spread of mildew once more, the priest was then to declare the house unclean. The end result if this was the case was to have the entire house, all the stones, timbers, and plaster, taken out of the town to the unclean place.
Now with this understanding, we jump over to Zechariah 5:1-4. It is in this section that Zechariah has a vision of a flying scroll. This scroll is the curse that is going out over the whole land declaring that every thief be banished, as well as any who swear falsely. The Almighty One then states, “’I will send [the scroll] out, and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. It will remain in his house and destroy it, both its timbers and its stones.’” Basically what is being said here is that there is a curse on the one who steals and this sin causes the thief banishment. But forgiveness is available. If the thief owned up to his sin and repented, forgiveness could be found. However, if instead of honesty the thief lied about his actions, the sin committed would reside in his house and eventually be his downfall, destroying everything including the timbers and stones of his being.
Now let us look at the two together because the end result for both is the total destruction of the home, including the timbers and stones as named in both passages. Sin is like mildew. Sin has the chance to be forgiven of or to increase in size based on the effects of the sin-snowball. The same is true of mildew. The priest came to inspect and witness if the size of the blotch on the wall grew or not. If not, then there was no danger. This is the case of forgiveness. In forgiveness God cleanses us and we are able to go forward. But if the priest found the size of the mildew to grow or to reoccur after the cleansing, much like un-confessed sin, then the end result was more than banishment. The end result was total destruction.
As I said before, and as I see in grander scale each time I really study God’s Word as opposed to skimming it, God does not play games when it comes to sin. He simply will not tolerate it. Why then do we continue to assume we are held to a different standard than God’s Word? Why do we continue to assume the rules and words of the Old Testament were overridden with the writings of the New Testament? Why do we believe that just because we have the ability to ask God for forgiveness that we are able to sin still? God does not tolerate it! Sin results in banishment, or death as said in Romans. So then, would it not be the wiser action to learn what pleases God and do it? I do not want to have my spiritual eyes opened only to see that I have caused total destruction of my home because of my sin.