Numbers 6:18-21 A True Nazirite

 18Then at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, the Nazirite is to shave his consecrated head, take the hair, and put it on the fire under the peace offering. 19And the priest is to take the boiled shoulder from the ram, one unleavened cake from the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and put them into the hands of the Nazirite who has just shaved the hair of his consecration. 20The priest shall then wave them as a wave offering before the LORD. This is a holy portion for the priest, in addition to the breast of the wave offering and the thigh that was presented. After that, the Nazirite may drink wine.

21This is the law of the Nazirite who vows his offering to the LORD for his separation, in addition to whatever else he can afford; he must fulfill whatever vow he makes, according to the law of his separation.”

“Please note here that the life of a tree is not determined by the shape of the branches, nor by the way it grows, but it is the substance. The shape of a church is not its life! In one place I see a church formed in an Episcopalian shape. In another place I see one formed in a Presbyterian shape. Then, again, I see one like ours, formed on an Independent principle. Here I see one with 16 ounces to the pound of doc- trine. There I see one with eight and some with very little clear doctrine at all! And yet I find life in all the churches, in some degree—some good men in all of them! How do I account for this? Why, just in this way—that the oak may be alive, whatever its shape, if it has got the substance. If there is but a holy seed in the church, the church will live! And it is astonishing how the church will live under a thousand

errors if there is but the vital principle in it! You will find good men among the denominations that you cannot receive as being sound in faith. You say, “What? Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” And you go through and find there are even in them some true Nazirites of the right order! The very best of men found in the worst of churches! A church lives not because of its rubrics and its canons and its articles—it lives because of the holy seed that is in it as the substance! No church can die while it has got a holy seed in it and no church can live that has not got the holy seed, for “the holy seed is the sub- stance thereof.” Spurgeon)

Are you a true Nazirite of the right order?

Blessings