Give It Time

Leviticus 13:5

And the priest shall look on him the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague in his sight be at a stay, and the plague spread not in the skin; then the priest shall shut him up seven days more:

Leprosy was the dreaded disease of its time. If you had leprosy, you knew that you would be isolated from the world. When you had a spot that looked like leprosy, you were to present yourself to the priest and let him determine whether you actually had the disease. If the priest looked at you and noticed that it was leprosy, you were to be placed without the camp and considered unclean.

However, there were times when the priest looked at the spot and was unsure whether they had leprosy. God told this priest that he was to shut this person up for seven days, and after seven days, they were to be inspected again. If, after that seventh day, they were inspected and the disease had gone deeper into the skin, they were to be declared a leper and placed outside the camp. If that spot they thought was leprosy did not seem to be deeper in the skin, but it still brought question to the priest, he was to shut them up for seven more days to see if they had this dreaded disease of leprosy. God was protecting his people from this disease spreading to the rest of the congregation, which would cause them all to get this disease and kill them.

There is a fundamental principle in these instructions about leprosy. Leprosy is a type of sin. As believers, we must always be careful about spending time with someone who is living in sin. Now, there is nobody who is without sin, but there is a principle that we are not to associate with those whose sin is deep within their lives. When someone does not care about their sin, we are to separate ourselves from them so that we are not influenced by their sin.

However, there is another principle I see in this illustration about the dreaded disease of leprosy. There are times we try to see whether or not someone believes what we do. Let’s be clear, those who do not believe like us are as deadly to our faith as those who had leprosy were to those in their society. When we don't know what someone believes, instead of quickly associating with them, we ought to step back and watch for a while to see whether they believe like us or not.

Here is the key to determining whether someone's sin or doctrine should cause us to separate from them. God told the priest to see if the spot had gone deeper into the skin. In other words, God was saying to look at the direction that the leprosy was going. If the direction of the spot was going deeper, then they had the disease of leprosy. Likewise, when someone's direction is headed the wrong way, their sin or doctrine will take you the wrong way. Direction is the greatest indicator of whether we should associate with someone. Always understand that when someone's direction is headed the wrong way, it won't be long until they believe differently than you.

Let me give you one more caution. When you cannot determine someone's direction, you would be wise to step back from them until their direction is clear. Not knowing someone's direction can be just as dangerous as knowing it, because if you can't see their direction, they may expose your children to the wrong things while they are around you. The best way to keep from sin and compromise is to separate when we see someone's direction has changed.