sermonette: Quarantine Principles (2002)

The Principles of Physical and Spiritual Quarantine
Martin G. Collins
Given 24-Aug-02; Sermon #573s; 19 minutes

Description: (show)

Well, good afternoon, everyone. It looks like some of our numbers are suffering from sickness. I guess they have quarantined themselves.

During the 14th century, bubonic plagues struck Asia and spread to Russia, Persia, Turkey, North Africa, and Europe. It is estimated that as many as one-third of the European population died during that time. The plague relentlessly devastated cities and villages. Panic and confusion were rampant, and death was everywhere. The toll was so great that bodies were thrown into huge pits as mass graves.

(And just on a personal note, I remember when I was visiting Westminster Abbey several years ago, that as you walk through it, all the stones have engravings on them. Because what they did was the bishops, ministers, priests, and some of the well-to-do in society wanted to be buried in Westminster Abbey. And so, there are many graves, just so many people that were buried in the floors and walls of Westminster Abbey during this time that they just are unaccounted for. They do not know who they are.)

The Jewish physician, Balavignus, lived in those times, and saw that miserable sanitation was the major factor in the spread of disease. So he instituted a clean-up movement among the Jews and as a result, the rats left the Jewish ghettos, and moved to the non-Jewish sectors of the city. And because of this decisive action, the Jews mortality rate from the plague was only 5% of what it was among the non-Jewish neighbors. So there is a substantial difference in taking the right measures.

The general population soon saw the difference, but instead of emulating the Jewish hygienic measures, the non-Jewish people began accusing the Jews of causing the plague and poisoning the wells. Because of this mass superstitious hysteria fueled by the Catholic priests, a general massacre of the Jews began, and Balavignus himself was persecuted and tortured, and finally was “convinced,” and “confessed” that he and others were responsible for the disease.

Now another plague that overcame the Europeans in the 13th and 14th centuries was leprosy. England, Sweden, Iceland, and Norway also showed alarming increases in the numbers of leprosy cases in the 15th and 16th centuries. The plague was brought under control when authorities began to quarantine leprosy cases.

In Norway, rigid national quarantine was introduced in 1856 because of the widespread severity of leprosy. Ninety years later, the health authorities reported that Norway had only 5% of the number of lepers that were there before segregation. And Finland and Sweden also had success because of enforced segregation of lepers.

D. T. Atkinson, the author of Magic, Myth, and Medicine, writes on page 64,

It is most singular that a description of leprosy as found in the 13th chapter of Leviticus could have been written so long before our time. It is to be noticed that such an accurate description of this dreaded malady as it appears in the Bible narrative is not to be found in the literature of any nation for the next 1,700 years.

Speaking of the biblical laws regarding leprosy, Dr. Atkinson states on page 58,

The laws of health laid down in Leviticus are the basis of modern sanitary science. Moses ordered that cases of leprosy should be segregated; that dwellings from which infected Jews had gone should be inspected before being occupied again, and that persons recovering from contagious diseases were not to be allowed to go abroad until examined. The modern quarantine harks back to the sanitary regulations of the Old Testament.

Similarly, Arturo Castiglione in A History of Medicine, states on page 71,

The laws against leprosy in Leviticus 13 may be regarded as the first model of a sanitary legislation.

Now, strictly speaking, the Bible is not a health textbook or medical manual. But it does lay the foundation of knowledge, and reveals many health laws which mankind has required thousands of years to rediscover. God gave it to mankind several thousand years ago, but because of the rejection of God's truth, man has had to find out the hard way through the ages of what works and what does not.

Now the United States Center for Disease Control, otherwise known as CDC, defines quarantine in this way:

To isolate an individual who has or is suspected of having a disease, in order to prevent spreading the disease to others. Alternately, to isolate a person who does not have a disease during a disease outbreak in order to prevent that person from catching the disease. Quarantine can be voluntary or ordered by public health officials in times of emergency.

A quarantine has been an effective way of isolating and stopping the spread of contagious sickness and disease for millennia among the descendants of Israel. Today, however, it is a lost principle of health in that it is not regularly practiced among the general populace, although the health officials know that it is a workable solution to disease and sickness. The rest of the populace ignores that fact. Although the authorities of this nation understand the concept of quarantine, individual citizens generally think it applies to everyone else, so its effectiveness is limited at best. This shows a lack of genuine love for one's neighbors, and is the result of willfully ignoring Christ's commands to love your neighbor as yourself.

Sometimes people think they are so indispensable at work that they feel justified in going to work when they have a contagious sickness, but they must realize that they need to stay home when they have an infectious disease.

AIDS is a modern-day example of how even such a horrible disease can be so politicized that even the obvious logic of quarantine is ignored.

Now taking it one step farther, parents sometimes say, “I'm not sure if my child was exposed, and I don’t want him to miss school.” This is an inadequate rationalization. The God-given principle is that contagious individuals must be kept away from others.

Come with me to Leviticus 13. God lovingly gave the Israelites the principles of quarantining the sick in Leviticus 13 and Number 5, where He uses the examples of leprosy to represent any contagious disease or sickness. Leviticus 13 records the health law God gave to Moses to combat the spread of disease.

Leviticus 13:1-2 And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: "When a man has on the skin of his body a swelling, a scab, or a bright spot, and it becomes on the skin of his body like a leprous sore, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests.

Now the disease translated leprosy was not limited to Hansen's Disease, which is what is called leprosy today. [They are not the same.] A close reading of Leviticus 13 and 14 reveals that the sick were expected to recover, unlike the incurable disease that Hanson's disease is. Quarantine periods were temporary. A priest would inspect the illness and impose the quarantine. Then he would reinspect the sick at regular seven-day intervals to look for any improvement.

The priest's responsibility and power was not only as a worship leader (so to speak), he was also a civil leader. He was a judge and a medical practitioner. This all-encompassing role gave the Levitical priesthood extraordinary authority within society.

Continuing on in Leviticus 13, we will read verses 43 to 46.

Leviticus 13:43-46 Then the priest shall examine it; and indeed if the swelling of the sore is reddish-white on his bald head or on his bald forehead, as the appearance of leprosy on the skin of the body, he is a leprous man. He is unclean. The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean; his sore is on his head. Now the leper on whom the sore is, his clothes shall be torn and his head bare; and he shall cover his mustache, and cry, 'Unclean! Unclean!' He shall be unclean. All the days he has the sore he shall be unclean. He is unclean, and he shall dwell alone; his dwelling shall be outside the camp.

So we see there the extent of the quarantine, removing a person from society.

Now notice here that the infected person was to take on mannerisms that warned others of the disease, for example, torn clothing, covering over his mouth, and the call, ‘Unclean, Unclean!’, which was meant to separate the community from those in quarantine.

The infected were expected to live outside the community. And Luke records in Luke 17:12-19, the incident where Jesus healed the 10 lepers, and only one was thankful and came back and glorified God. The account mentions that they stood afar off. That was an example of their quarantine; that even though the crowds were gathered around Jesus Christ, they stood way off away from the people.

To the contemporaries of Jesus, the ruling of leprosy by a priest was like an unjust prison sentence, isolated lifestyle by infection. And they felt not only segregated and isolated, but also they felt inadequate, sinful, and that sort of thing.

There is a stigma attached to the idea of being quarantined for a sickness. At Sabbath services and at God's feasts, we often see ‘the living dead’ (those who even though they are suffering from infectious disease stagger into church), spreading their illnesses to others. They should stay away from church services and call for an elder to come and anoint them. There is no shame, no disgrace, and no dishonor in doing this. It is the right thing to do according to God's truth, and it shows love.

Now, last year at the Feast of Tabernacles, I anointed more than 25 people for sicknesses, and I know that Richard anointed close to that himself. Not all, but much of that was because the quarantine laws of God were ignored. We are looking at over 50 people who were sick at one Feast, and that is a large percentage of our overall numbers.

So here are some points to remember regarding quarantine, just four, and they are very simple.

The first one is take precaution to quarantine first. Do not wait to have the infection confirmed because it is too late by then, since you will already have spread it.

Second: quarantine is not a stigma. It is one of God's health laws. Sometimes we feel that if we separate ourselves, it will somehow make us look bad. There is no reason for this attitude whatsoever because we are doing the right thing by quarantining ourselves.

Third: Do not make your own uneducated home diagnosis as some of us sometimes do. If we do not have experience with the serious symptoms that the sick person is showing, we need to learn exactly what the problem is so we can properly treat and quarantine, or not quarantine a person if it is not needed.

And then the fourth: keep an eye open for rashes, sores, itches, and temperatures (fevers) both in yourself and your children.

Now as God's people, we should be a model community in terms of cleanliness and hygiene and exercising these quarantine laws. We can practice giving in the right way by not giving our illnesses to others, instead giving a healthful environment to everyone around us. Again, it all shows the proper love for one another. Any man, woman, or child who is sick should not attend services, or fellowship with other members so as to not infect anyone else. This is an important way to give, to sacrifice, and also to show love to our fellow brethren.

Turn to Numbers 5. The principles of quarantine are more far reaching than just contagious diseases. They also relate to infectious ideas. Nothing that contradicts God can be allowed to remain in our minds to cause spiritual illness.

Purity in body and mind is important for God's people to maintain. Spiritual impurity is a sinful state. And we know that sin separates us from God. So we have to guard our minds from such things as heresy and false doctrine, which is the same thing said in two different ways.

Now here in Numbers 5, we are going to read verses 1 through 3, and it will reiterate what was said in Leviticus 13. These verses give us God's command in this regard.

Numbers 5:1-3 And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: "Command the children of Israel that they put out of the camp every leper [every carrier of an infectious illness], everyone who has a discharge, and whoever becomes defiled by a corpse. You shall put out both male and female; you shall put them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camps in the midst of which I dwell."

God says that it is impure for us to be sick, and it is also impure spiritually for us to have heresy thoughts in our minds, or listen to it.

Regarding Numbers 5:2, Barnes' Notes says:

The general purpose of the directions given in this and the next chapter is to attest to and to vindicate by modes in harmony with the spirit of the theocratical law, the sanctity of the people of God. Thus, the congregation of Israel was made to typify the Church of God within which its perfection nothing that offends [and I might add: or infects or contaminates] can be allowed to remain.

And we saw in Numbers 5 the physical representation for the spiritual quarantine of false doctrine. As defiling diseases are destroyers of physical lives, so also are those defilers who spread false doctrine, destroyers of spiritual lives. They should be removed from the fellowship of the church, spiritually quarantined.

The apostle Paul wrote in Titus 1, verse 15,

Titus 1:15 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.

Turn to Romans 16 as we conclude this sermonette.

We must guard against being deceived by flattering words that become infectious perverted ideas with the fervor and commitment we would against the deadly disease. We spiritually quarantine such people by avoiding fellowship with them. This is talking about deceivers whose minds are defiled, who look to defile others in a similar way that leprosy does. Heresy defiles a person spiritually.

Romans 16:17-20 Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. [We see there are spiritual quarantine.] For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience has become known to all. Therefore I am glad on your behalf; but I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

So we are to be simple concerning evil, and we do this by avoiding it, by not being familiar with it, and really in a short sentence, by quarantining it.

By quarantining evil we avoid evil.