When the Jewish nation entered the wilderness, God told them to create an area known as outside the camp for people who were sick, who had infections, leprosy and other skin diseases.
It was a filthy, disgusting place, full of filthy disgusting people. But, it was also the site of the tent of meeting.
Exodus 33 says: ‘Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting which was outside the camp.’
And listen to what happened there.
Verse 9 says: ‘Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent; and the Lord would speak with Moses.’
So, the glorious presence of the living God appeared … outside the camp.
Jesus also spent a significant part of his ministry ‘outside the camp’.
He met an unclean woman by a well and gave her salvation to drink.
He touched a disgusting leper to heal him, and then swapped places with him – the man remained in the town and Jesus went outside the camp.
He loved a smelly, unclean woman when she touched him, he touched corpses, went into unclean gentile homes to reach sinners, and trod on cursed ground to bring freedom to a maniac.
And then, as a final insult, he was executed as an unclean criminal outside the camp.
Later, Hebrews 13:12 says: ‘Jesus suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.’
And it adds: Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.’
What? We’ve got to meet him there?
Yes. As lockdown ends, God is calling Christians to meet Jesus outside the camp to bring his miraculous love and miracle power to those who live there.
He is looking for people who will share in Jesus’ disgrace, rather than get counselling for it.
Father is scouring the land for believers who will reject the commercialised, organised, systematised and sanitised perversion of Christianity that funds affluent apostles, makes big profits for prophets, and turns pastors into hired hands who keep tithes that God intends for the poor.
God hates it, and is now putting a stop to it by sending large numbers of ‘career Christians’ back to the secular world.