In Case Of Mildew Call The House Doctor

2. The treatment to restore the house

The treatment of the problem consisted of essentially four steps.

a. The first thing that the owner of the house had to do in order to treat this problem was to confess his problem of spreading mildew to the expert, to the priest. He was not to attempt to hide, cover up or ignore the problem, Rather he was

to admit that he had a problem

b. The second thing that he had to do was to empty from his house and remove from the house anything that would encourage the growth of this spreading mildew. He also had to remove these things from the house, so that they would not hide the potential problem from the priest. If these items were left in the way it would make it difficult, if not impossible for the priest to get a good look at the problem.

he had to confess the problem

AND he had to remove /he had to empty items from the house.

c. The third thing that was done to treat this problem was repair and replacement.

If the priest found that the Mildew had spread on the walls after his inspection. He ordered that the contaminated stones be tore down and taken to a spot outside of town. THEN he ordered the walls of the house to be scraped clean and the scrapings were to be taken outside of town. After this was done, new stones were to be put in place and the walls of the house needed to have new clay and plaster put on them.

d. The final step in the treatment was for the house to be purified. This is the same treatment that is mentioned earlier in chapter 14, for the purifying of a Leper. It is interesting to note here that the Hebrew word translated purify, literally means "to purify from sin". In the eyes and mind of God, Uncleanness was equivalent to sin, and whoever was unclean was contaminated, and was thereby prevented from attaining fellowship with God.

The Purification was accomplished by a ceremony preformed by the priests. It consisted of taking 2 birds. The first bird was killed over a pot of fresh water, allowing the blood to drip into the pot. Then the live bird, along with some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn was immersed into the blood and water. And "Then the live bird s released in the open fields outside the town. In this way the man made atonement for the house and it would now be clean.

Now aren’t you glad that we are under the New Covenant And that today we don’t have to go through all of that stuff to cleanse our house from mildew. So the next time you grab you Tilex (mildew cleaner) you probably won’t think that you have it so tough any more.

that was the light

II. NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT THE HEAVY

In the Bible many times the word "house" is used to describe things other than a mere physical house.

The word house is sometimes used to describe a nation; "The House of Israel"(I SAm.7:3) or the "The House of Judah"(Ezk4:6).

The word house is at times also used to describe a family;

Thus we read of "the house of Cornilius" (Acts 10:2) and of Noah saving "his house" (Hebrews 11:7)

The church is also at times referred to as a house. In I Timothy 3:14,15, we read that the church is the household of the living God. [READ I TIM 3:14,15]