United Church of God

Letter From Dan Dowd - April 17, 2020

Letter From Dan Dowd

April 17, 2020

Sabbath Thought - Go Forward

This past Wednesday, God's people observed the Last Day of Unleavened Bread.  The week of Unleavened Bread is an object lesson in being reminded to come out of sin.  Egypt typifies sin - a nation that fully embraced rejecting God's instruction in spite of Him showing Himself to them in very powerful ways.

As God moved to fulfill His statement and promise to Abraham (Genesis 15:13-14), Egypt experienced the power of God as no other nation has.  God knew Pharaoh's heart, but nonetheless gave him the opportunity to obey His directives.  Repeatedly, Pharaoh relented and then hardened his heart even more.  It finally came to God breaking the power of the Pharaoh and all of Egypt's false gods.

The culmination of the plagues God brought on Egypt was the death of all of the firstborn in the land.  This was devastating to the nation.  We are told that there was not a single Egyptian house without at least one dead (Exodus 12:30).  There was no more resistance left in Pharaoh, and so the whole nation pleaded with the Israelites to leave (verse 33).  Israel was spared this grief since they obeyed God's instruction and placed the lamb blood on their doorposts and stayed in their homes the night of Passover.

The next day (the daylight portion of Abib 14) the Israelites spent "spoiling" the Egyptians (actually it was payment for 400 years of slavery) and then began to leave Egypt in the very early morning hours of the first Day of Unleavened Bread.  They began to leave "sin".  A "new" nation of Israel traveled for the next five days to the eastern border of Egypt where God was going to give them one more powerful lesson about coming out of sin.  On the sixth day of Unleavened Bread, Israel found themselves "stuck" with the un-crossable Red Sea in front of them, mountains on either side, and Egypt (having changed their minds about letting Israel leave) now behind them.

As they cried out to God for deliverance, He told them He would take them across the Red Sea on dry land (Exodus 14:16).  As Moses stretched out his staff, God parted the waters and sent a wind to dry out the seabed.  By the next morning the crossing was ready.  Pharaoh foolishly followed, having already forgotten the power (and protection) of God for the Israelites.  Pharaoh remembered all too late as God closed the waters in over the army of Egypt.  On that last day of Unleavened Bread, God delivered Israel completely from Egypt - a symbol of sin.

We are surrounded by a world very much like ancient Egypt - full of sin, disrespectful toward God, and believing their power and strength is unmatched to deliver themselves.  God has called each of us to Him, and in doing so has shown us our sins, washed them from us through repentance and baptism (pictured in the Passover) and walked beside us as we continue to come out of sin.  The putting away of leavening last week was a reminder of Israel's example and the work we still have in our lives to "come out of her" (the world and the carnal way of thinking - 2 Corinthians 6:17).

After God dried the seabed of the Red Sea, He told Israel to "Go forward!" (Exodus 14:15).  The Days of Unleavened Bread are past for this calendar year, but we are to go forward!  We are not done yet in coming out of sin, there is more we can learn, more we can grow in, and more to do in becoming like God. 

Let us remember the lessons of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread and go forward!

I wish you a wonderful Sabbath,

Dan Dowd

17 April, 2020