Your Camp Must Be Holy

Deuteronomy 23:10-14 – If one of your men is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, he is to go outside the camp and stay there. But as evening approaches he is to wash himself, and at sunset he may return to the camp. Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

Exodus 3:5 – “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Leviticus 11:44 –  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 along the ground.

Application:

• ·         Your camp must be holy even as the Lord is holy.
• ·         The ground was not holy by nature but was made so by the divine presence. Holiness involves being consecrated to the Lord’s service and thus being separated from the commonplace.
• ·         Holiness is the key theme of Leviticus, ringing like a refrain in various forms throughout the book. The word “holy” appears more often in Leviticus than in any other book of the Bible. Her holiness was to be expressed in every aspect of her life, to the extent that all of life had a certain ceremonial quality. When God’s holiness is spoken of in the Bible, reference is to (1) His incomparably awesome majesty, and (2) His absolute moral virtue.

All Scripture verses taken from NIV