3 Rules of Holes

Thank you once again, Mr. Miller. Once again, good afternoon, everyone. It's good to be here with you all. It's good to see you all. Hopefully you all had a decent enough week, given all the circumstances and everything else. You take a look around the city. You know, God took some time to do some pruning, it turns out, you know. We had made the comment that it seemed as though, at least in certain aspects of where we were in the city, that, you know, it was kind of these... some of these were branches that needed to come down. I mean, so we looked at our tree that they came down, and some of them were ones that really needed to come down. It turns out God kind of knows what he's doing.

With regards to that, of course, I, you know, would have preferred to have brought them down in a controlled fashion, as opposed to just randomly down in the backyard in various ways, but we are certainly, once again, blessed to be in a position now where things are taken care of. I'm not sure how to emphasize the tea any further, but blessed. Yeah, there you go. It's like singing when you're singing in the choir. Like, everybody gets the tea right at the same time, right? You've got to make sure everybody gets it. Well, I know I told some of you about this, but recently my family and I managed to spend the better part of a week digging up our backyard, essentially. You know, it looked as though a large family of moles lived in it. There were piles of dirt everywhere, gravel everywhere, everything else. I have become, as many of you who have older children, very thankful for the recent development that I have of child labor. You know, for a long time we didn't really have active and effective child labor. We had me and Shannon kind of really working hard to get stuff done, and the kids would quote-unquote help, but at times help wasn't particularly helpful. Now they're helpful. Now they're actually getting loads of dirt moved and done, and we certainly did appreciate that. Aidan and Desmond got in on the work as well and took a little of the pressure off of Shannon and I, which was nice. But this time we found ourselves digging up our backyard in order to run about 50 or so feet of utility trench so that we can run electricity from the addition out to the shed, to the chicken coop, and then ultimately to the greenhouse, so that we can have electricity to those outbuildings. And as I've mentioned before and as I've written about, I don't like digging. I really don't. I don't know how many of you actually can say that you legitimately enjoy digging. Maybe there's a few of you that are out there, but I would venture a guess that most of you would much rather spend the money on heavy equipment to dig a large hole or trench or something along those lines, rather than do it by hand, do it by shovel, etc. I would say out of all of the hard labor activities that digging is quite possibly my least favorite. In fact, when I moved down to Portland from Spokane several years back, this has been almost 21-22 years now, I worked for a construction temp agency up in the Portland area and I had at that time, and still today, very little in the way of appreciable skills from a standpoint of construction.

And so that meant I was good for one thing and one thing only, and that was manual labor. In fact, my job title was literally laborer. That was my entire job title at that point. If there was ever a doubt as to my purpose or ever an opportunity for me to get any delusions of grandeur, no, no, no. Your job is material, monkey, which means you move lumber from one place to the other, or piles of dirt from one place to another, or you knock down walls, etc. So we found myself doing a lot of moving of materials, a lot of demolition, and in one three-day job that was miserable and absolutely hated every minute of digging. For three days, a small contractor decided that me and one of my compatriots was cheaper than renting equipment, and so we dug eight hours each day. Okay, more like six hours each day with the occasional, whoo, to get water. Probably wasn't a full eight hours, I guess, when it was all said and done, but the construction company we were with had rules with regards to laborers. We were not allowed to be down in trenches that could collapse on us, so thankfully that kept us out of things like massive utility trenches for the city, etc., but anything up to about three feet, a little bit, you know, more than your knee, they were okay with us going in and taking care of. So we did, at $10 an hour, we spent three days, two of us, working on that, cutting, you know, big old long trenches in this space and digging stuff down through a bunch of really, really rocky Portland soil. So that was a pretty rough set.

But as many of you are aware, if you think about digging and the times that you've dug, when you're digging a hole shovel by shovel by shovel, the dirt gets moved, ultimately, from one place to another. There's rocks, there's roots and things in the way, as in the case of this, you know, recent set of holes and trenches that we dug, we actually, the main line for the electricity went straight through the root structure of the maple tree that's in our backyard.

And so we found and ended up, about probably 20 feet of that, was cutting in and around the root structure because we didn't want to remove the tree. And it would have literally cut the whole entire side of the tree and the roots and probably killed it. But we had to work around them, once again, very thankful for child labor, as they are getting really good at using trowels to get down and around, you know, these roots and these things that we're going. But, you know, there's times when you're digging like that that you have got to get down inside of that hole and simply get the work done. There's times where you just have no other option, especially as it gets deeper and as it gets further down, for a guy like myself, I'm pretty tall.

And you get down about 18 inches or so and you're kind of in this weird digging position that involves, it's just, it's uncomfortable, it's no fun in the least bit. In that situation, we literally find ourselves in a hole of our own creation. Now, it's very possible that many of you have experienced a time in your lives where, through our own actions or perhaps our own inaction, we find ourselves in a bit of a quandary. Maybe we've opened our mouths, we've said something stupid, perhaps we've gotten ourselves into a very difficult situation, or maybe even through our inaction, we've allowed an issue that we could have kept under control to completely spin out of control.

And before we know it, ultimately we're confronted with a situation that is spinning under its own power and really has no indications whatsoever of stopping. In a way, we've created a tornado, so to speak, out of the scenario and it's just kind of the direction that it's going to go, the damage that it's going to do. There is no way of knowing at that point in time. There's times even where it doesn't seem to matter how much effort we personally put into trying to fix the situation. It seems to get worse with every attempt that we make to fix it. I put fix in quotes. Our attempts to fix it sometimes, all it does is manage to rain more dirt down in our heads.

In those circumstances, in the modern vernacular, we figuratively find ourselves in a hole. And as we kind of try again desperately to claw our way out of this hole and dig our way out, we find maybe the sides are too steep, maybe it's just too loose of soil. And with every attempt, every attempt to climb out of this thing, we are just raining more dirt down on our heads. These holes in our life, they can be relational, they can be relationship-based, they can be financial, you know, we can dig ourselves into financial holes. They can be spiritual. You know, it can take a number of different forms overall, but it doesn't seem to matter what form they take.

These holes represent times in our lives where we recognize that we have to stop doing what it is that we are doing. We have to stop doing what it is that we are doing, stop digging ourselves further into that hole, and instead take different action.

Take a different tack to be able to find our way out of that particular hole. Often, in those scenarios, it requires us to rely upon God, requires us to rely upon Him because we truly cannot do it on our own. These situations in our life give us opportunities to find times where we see the need for His intervention to get us out alive.

You know, I don't know if you've been in a hole like that, where it's like, God, I can't do this on my own. I've got to have you get me out of this. I don't know if you've been in that place in your life, but it's critical for us to recognize in those scenarios what got us into that mess in the first place and do what we can not to dig further down in that hole or to dig that hole again. Brethren, we might say, I mean, if we kind of colloquially, you know, wrap that up in a nice little package, we might say that when we find ourselves in a hole, we have to stop digging.

We have to stop digging. You know, this is oftentimes referred to as Healy's First Law. That's the term that is used here, Healy's First Law. Or some people call it the first rule of holes. Now, the rule itself doesn't really go any further than that. It doesn't talk about the shovel that we used. It doesn't discuss the size of the hole that we've dug. It doesn't talk about the composition of the soil. You know, it really keeps it pretty basic and pretty simple.

It simply says, stop digging. Stop digging. That's the first rule of holes, the first of Healy's Law.

This is an aphorism that's been attributed to a British politician named Dennis Healy. That's the guy who it's named after. And he first gave this particular of these laws in 1986 in an interview with a magazine called New Statesman. And since then, as I mean most things do on the internet these days, they take on a life of its own. And people have added additional laws now to this idea of when you see yourself or find yourself in a hole, stop digging. They are as follows. This is the package of the three rules of holes, or is what they sometimes refer to as Healy's Law.

Rule number one, when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

Rule number two, if you have an open hole, fill it in to avoid it becoming a hazard.

Rule number three, a hole not filled in will cause more damage in the future than it would have if it were filled in now. And those are the three rules of holes. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. If you have an open hole, fill it in to avoid it becoming a hazard. And then lastly, a hole that is not filled in will cause more damage in the future than it would if it were filled in now. Today, I'd like to take some time to go through these. You know, as we mentioned in the announcements today, we're a month out of Passover. You know, our Passover examination is in progress at this point in time. And if it's not in progress, it needs to be in progress. You know, we're a month away at this point from the Passover, and a month away from considering where we are in our lives spiritually. And so I'd like to examine these things beyond the kind of consider these things as we go into our Passover preparation, as we continue that. The title of the message today is the three rules of holes. And we'll start with the first, the most familiar one, which is when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. How many of you have been on the receiving end of this advice?

Okay, I have as well. How many of you have been on the giving end of this advice? You told this to somebody else? Yeah, okay. Yeah, most of the time we've either found ourselves on the receiving end or on the giving end of this particular advice. But we're going to go ahead and begin today by turning back into the Old Testament, turning back to Exodus. And we're going to recognize and look through some of the history of the assembly of Israel. And realistically, the assembly of Israel found themselves beginning their relationship with God in a hole. I mean, they found themselves beginning their relationship with God in a hole. You know, we all know the story. If you want to go ahead and turn over to Exodus 3, we'll begin there. We all know the story. You know, many years before the account of Moses and Aaron, we know Jacob and his sons came down to Egypt in order to survive a famine. We know that Jacob ultimately came down to be rejoined. You know, there's a little bit of an ulterior motive in Jacob's, yeah, he wanted food, but he also realized that his favored son was still alive and still in Egypt, and so he wanted to go down and he wanted to see Joseph. Now, Joseph was a young man who quite literally found himself in a hole, right? That's where Joseph was grabbed and ultimately sold into slavery by his brothers. We know that the Israelites remained in Egypt after Joseph's death. We know they prospered. We know they grew. But eventually, the time came when a Pharaoh came along that did not remember Jacob's son, Joseph. And ultimately, the persecution and the slavery of the Hebrew people by Pharaoh began. Bondage is exactly that. Bondage is not voluntary.

Bondage is not something that Israel could just decide, you know, hey, I've been doing this my entire life. I'm good. It's time for me to retire from my slavery now. It's been 65 years of slavery.

I've reached the point of I can get now now Pharaoh care and other, you know, whatever, not quite Medicare, I guess it'd be Pharaoh care. You know, I want my retirement plan. I'd like my slave pension, please. This wasn't something they had options for this. You worked from the moment you were old enough to work until the moment that you died and you were a slave in Egypt. They toiled their entire life. The next generation was the same and on and on and on it went. And we talked about this before that they were slaves in Egypt longer than the United States has been a country.

You know, that's a long time. That's a long time for them to be slaves in Egypt. For them, there was no end in sight. There was no getting out of this. It's not like there were unions. They weren't going to organize somehow against Pharaoh and decide, you know, we're sorry, we're going on strike. We're not going to build your pyramids today. They were slaves. They toiled. And that's what they did. They rose up. They were killed. You know, they were in a bad spot. Very difficult spot. But we see from Scripture that God had other plans. Let's go over to Exodus 3. Exodus 3, we'll go ahead and pick it up in the account in verse 7 after God has now spoken to Moses. Exodus 3 and verse 7 says, And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who were in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey to the place of the Canaanites, and again, all the otherites. Now therefore, verse 9, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. You know, and I don't know, in my head I see Moses doing one of those classic movie takes where he stops and he looks behind him like, who, me? Like me? Really? Me? But Moses' response is classic. God had planned through Moses to redeem his people. Ultimately, through Moses' actions and using him as a vessel, God had planned to work something incredible. You know, God saw Moses' potential. He saw the man that Moses would become. He saw the man who would lead them in the wilderness. He saw, you know, probably that he wasn't necessarily the man that was questioning what God was doing in him. Instead, God saw the leader ultimately that he would become.

But Israel was unable to leave on its own. For Israel to get out of that hole that they found themselves in, when their relationship with their God began, it required God to lower down a ladder.

It required God himself to provide his people with a way to climb out. There was no getting out of this on their own. They had to rely on God, and they had to allow him to provide them with their salvation.

Now, the Israelites, likely at the time, did not fully understand what exactly was happening with all of this symbology as a whole. Okay? I'm sure there were individuals who had a level of understanding and understood what God was doing here from a spiritual standpoint. We have the benefit of hindsight. We have the benefit of the New Testament. But we recognize, looking back, on what God was doing with his people at that time, that the ladder that was lowered down ultimately to Israel in that hole was a sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Now, at that time, it was pictured by a lamb without blemish that was offered on the evening of the Passover. Let's go to Exodus 12.

Go ahead and flip over to Exodus 12. We'll pick it up in verse 3. Exodus 12 and verse 3.

Exodus 12 and verse 3 says, Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of the month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons. According to each man's needs, you shall make your account for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish. A male of the first year you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Verse 6, Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month.

Then the whole assembly at the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night roasted in fire with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Verse 9, Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire, its head with its legs and its entrails. You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall ultimately burn with fire. So we see these instructions that have been provided to Israel. We see this symbology, this typology that is provided to Israel at that time. And again, very probable that there was not a full understanding among the entirety of the host of Israel as to exactly what this all entailed from a standpoint going forward.

Again, with hindsight, with the New Testament, with the understanding that God has provided with His Spirit, we can look back and we can see these things. But God instructed the Israelites to take a lamb as a type of Christ. A young male lamb, thou blemish, so not couldn't give your disfigured lamb, you couldn't give the limpy one that's out in the pasture that nobody wanted anyway, you had to give the best of your flock. You had to select the best of your flock, that without blemish. They brought it to their home on the 10th of the month. They spent time with it dwelling among them. And then on the evening of the Passover, they killed it. They killed it. They put its blood on the post and on the lentils of the doors, or on the door, rather, of their home. Now, in verse 13, it says, Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Okay, so God went through the land of Egypt on that night. We know the story, exacting judgment on the nation and ultimately on its people. The only houses that were spared the death of the firstborn were those that applied the blood of the lamb to their doorposts, and God very specifically told the Israelites that he would see the blood of that lamb applied to their house and that he would pass over them. That ultimately he would show them mercy. That he would show them mercy.

Now we know the Israelites walked out of Egypt the next day. Lord had redeemed his people. He'd brought them out of that hole that they'd found themselves in, which they could not, under their own efforts, get themselves out of. Now, brethren, spiritually, when you consider ourselves and the calling that we've been provided and the opportunity we've been given, when we were called by God, quite frankly, we were called from the depths of a hole as well. We were called from the depths of a hole as well. We had gotten ourselves into a place in our life that we were unable to get ourselves out of as a result of our own efforts. There is absolutely nothing that we as humans can do to atone for our own sin. There is nothing that we can do that ultimately provides us with eternal life and with salvation. That comes from God. That comes as a gift from God. That comes as a result of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Now, when we were called, we may not have had any idea as to the trouble that we were in. For those that are first-generation Christians, we, man, may have been going along just living life fine whistling dixie as you're digging holes. Life is good. Everything is fine. You may not have even realized the depths of the trouble that you were in.

Of course, after we've been called, after we have the opportunity to realize that it is through that sacrifice of Christ which we can receive eternal life, ultimately that grace of God, that gift of God, we understand at that point that that was the only way. You know, we may have been in a place where we know full well what we were doing. You know, we may have known full well that something in our life wasn't working. And then we have this opportunity, ultimately, that is provided to us, and God gives us a chance to now live a life which is in connection to Him, not apart from Him, but in connection to Him. You know, for those that were raised in the church, think about a life apart from God's Spirit dwelling in us. We're in the same hole until the point where we take on God's Spirit and allow it to dwell within us. We may have found ourselves in a place where we didn't fully understand God, or we understood or didn't understand, I should say, what our expectations are and what the expectations that He has for us are. And as a result, we lived a life that was us separated from Him. Now, oftentimes, frequently, we do what we can to try to make ourselves happier, right, as humans. We have this thing where we like to be comfortable. It turns out when we don't have power, we'd like to have power. You know, it turns out when we don't have heat, we would like to have heat. We like comfort as humans. And so when we find in our lives that things aren't working, we try to find ways to be happier. We try to find ways to figure out what maybe life's purpose is, or we seek the wisdom of the world. We seek various things to try to kind of help us understand why things don't seem to be working. Or perhaps we've tried to rely on our own reasoning, on our own wisdom, again, on our own efforts to be able to climb out of the hole that we find ourselves in. But when it comes down to it, more often than not, when we deal with these issues in our life, God needs us to come to an understanding of just how much we need Him. And yet as humans, again, because we like comfort and we like, we run to anything and everything else, it seems.

We run to anything and everything else. But God needed us to come to the understanding and the recognition that He is our way out, and that ultimately, only through Him could that ladder be lowered. And we actually begin to make progress climbing out of the hole in which we found ourselves. Blood of Christ applied in our lives, just like the blood on the doorposts of the homes of those Israelites in Egypt, was ultimately the ladder that was lowered into that hole to be able to get us out. Going on in Exodus 12, we take a look at the next set of instructions here beginning in verse 15. God not only tells the Israelites, stop digging, He also tells them, step away from the shovel. Don't pick it back up. It says, stop digging and step away from the shovel. Exodus 12 verse 15 says, seven days, again, getting into the meaning of these upcoming holy days, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. Verse 16, on the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat, that only may be prepared for you. Verse 17, so you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. God says, I'm getting you out of this hole, but I want you to put the shovel down.

I want you to walk away from the shovel. I want you not to pick it back up and start digging again, but to walk away from the shovel. He had them put it down. And again, while they may not have fully understood what that meant or what the ramifications of that type was at that time as it was symbolized, you know, as you look through Israel and kind of Israel's history, it's difficult at times to determine whether or not they were in some ways going through the motion or whether there was more understanding there than what you can kind of see in Scripture. But regardless, we understand in the modern era what this represents. We recognize that leaven that was being put out, the shovel that was being put down, so to speak, is representative of sin. That as we go through this upcoming period, as we go through this preparation period going into Passover, when we start thinking about de-leavening our homes, we start considering the ramifications of what that looks like in our lives, in the de-leavening of our lives, you know, what that examination period looks like and the de-leavening period looks like. We recognize that those things are to be removed from our home.

They're to be removed from our life. They're to be taken and removed. And we recognize, you know, part of the lesson in the Days of Unleavened Bread is that you don't get it all. You know, we go through and we look at every little nook and cranny and we try to find, and how many times have you found something random tucked away somewhere in some nook and cranny? I think we had a box one time—I'm looking at my wife to to nod or something—that we opened and some stuff got stuffed in it. It was crackers. They were like five years old, and they got randomly stuffed in this box, and we took it down. We're like, what is this? And so we have these scenarios where we find, you know, ourselves not always getting everything, even though that is ultimately the goal that God has for us, for us to be able to try very hard to be able to put these things away, to try to prune away the aspects of our life and to remove the aspects of our life, casting away those branches into the fire that are not fruitful, getting rid of those things, removing them from our lives, overcoming the sin which so easily ensnares us. And again, the whole process, the whole entire examination period and deleavening process looks forward to a time when God will remove that sin completely. We're not going to get there in this life, and that's part of the point. The point is that we're learning and we're growing, and we're doing what we can to do so.

But unfortunately, human nature, which we are we are full of these days, human nature looks at the ladder that's being offered, the opportunity that's being given to get out of this hole, looks at our shovel, looks back at the ladder, looks back down at our shovel, and just wants to pick that shovel back up and keep digging. Why? Why does human nature want to do that?

Because digging is comfortable. That's what we're used to. Now, it's not fun in this sense, but digging is comfortable, right? We hate digging. That's what I've decided, at least. I don't care for digging, but digging is what we're used to. And even if God necessarily takes that shovel away, we just find another shovel somewhere, wherever that shovel may be, and dig even a little bit further. The deeper we dig, the more dangerous our position becomes. Why? Why does it become more dangerous the deeper that we dig? Because with every shovel full of dirt that we dig, we put ourselves further and further and further away from God. We are now getting further from our Creator. Let's go to Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59. Isaiah 59, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1.

Isaiah 59 in verse 1. Just kind of get a perspective of iniquity. Get a perspective of sin.

Isaiah 59 in verse 1 says, Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear. In other words, God's not deaf. You know, God's not hamstrung, per se, that he just can't respond. It says verse 2, but your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear, it says. You know, we find ourselves getting further and further and further and further away from God. The distance between us becomes further and further.

You know, if we're in that hole and we're continuing to dig, we're continuing to find ourselves further and further and further from God, our continuing to dig in that hole shows God the level of our commitment. If we're not making efforts, if we're not taking the steps required to take care of the issue that we're experiencing, whatever it may be, in some ways it shows God that we would rather be doing other things, and that that is not something that is a priority for us.

So, brethren, the first rule of whole states that when we find ourselves in a hole, we must stop digging. We must stop digging. We need to do what we can to stop digging further and deeper into that particular hole. Rule number two, if you have an open hole, fill it in to avoid it becoming a hazard. Now, it's not enough that we stop digging. That's the first step. Stopping the digging is the first step. But when you stop digging, what do you have? A giant open hole.

There's a giant open hole there. You know, in order for us to be able to, you know, cause ourselves to be able to remain safe, we have to follow rule number two. We have to follow rule number two, which is the hole that has been dug has to be filled in. It has to be filled in. Because if that hole's not filled in, there's a couple things that can happen. We can just simply jump back down in there and start digging, right? Because the depth's already there. All we got to do is when nobody's looking, jump down in the hole and dig and dig away. Or we can fall back in accidentally if we become careless and find ourselves right back where we started in need of that saving ladder again. So how do we fill that hole? How do we fill that hole? How do we reach a point where that hole is ultimately filled? We know God delivered ancient Israel from the Egyptians. We know that when He went through that process of bringing them out of Egypt, He extended that ladder, so to speak. He enabled them to climb out of that hole. They crossed the waters of the Red Sea. He took them out into the wilderness. Took them out into the wilderness to lead them to the place that He'd prepared for them, to give them His law, to codify His law for them, to teach them of His ways, to train them to live His way of life. In other words, He took them out of Egypt to begin to refill that hole, to begin to help them understand who they were, that they were a special chosen people, that they were an elect people of God. But you know, as we go through, and we've mentioned this before, as we go through even a cursory reading of the Old Testament, Israel seemed to want to dig holes just as quickly as God could fill them in. I mean, it was like God got one of them filled in and put the last couple pats of the shovel and turned around, and the host had managed to dig six more. Like, this is fun! This is great! Just digging holes to their heart's content. Again, digging was comfortable. Digging was safe. Digging was something they remembered, something that they knew very, very well. First thing out in the wilderness, we see Israel jump headlong into the first hole they could find. Let's go to Exodus 32. Exodus 32.

Exodus 32, and we'll pick it up in verse 1.

Exodus 32 in verse 1. They hadn't been out all that long at this point.

They had just seen the incredible things which God had done in order to bring them out of Egypt. He'd parted the Red Sea. He'd defeated Pharaoh's armies. He had just saw 10 massive plagues be enacted on the nation of Egypt, saw the death of the firstborn, saw the protection that they'd received. I mean, the sheer amount of miracles that they had experienced at that point is unreal. It's unreal. Exodus 32 in verse 1 says, Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, Come, make us gods that shall go before us.

For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, do we do not know what has become of him? Aaron should have said, No. What did he say? He said, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. Again, comfortable. What was comfortable? What was comfortable was a nation that had more gods than they had street corners to put those gods on. Egypt, as has been stated before, it was like the 7-11 of gods. You could find anything you wanted whenever you wanted, open 24-7.

So all the people broke off their golden earrings, which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand. He fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf. Then they said, This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt, a gold calf. So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. Aaron made a proclamation that said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. They rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. And we know there's a connotation to that that is beyond what we're reading there, reading through the lines. Verse 7, And the Lord said to Moses, Go, get down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. I always kind of wonder if Moses is going, my people! Hey, wait a second! But he doesn't, you know, he says, They've turned aside quickly, verse 8, out of the way which I commanded them. They've made themselves a molded calf, and worshipped it, and sacrificed to it, and said, This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. So we see that Israel returned to that which was comfortable, to that which was safe, to that which is what they were used to. Again, they may have been out of the hole, so to speak, but that hole wasn't filled in yet. It was easy to just jump right back down in it, and keep on digging. And it wasn't just the host of Israel. This was Aaron as well. This is Aaron too. You know, the rest of the time they spent in the wilderness, we see Israel dig holes all throughout that area.

You know, it's like leaving a trail of holes all the way across the desert as they're going through the wilderness. And God, through Moses and Aaron, they worked to fill those holes in. They worked to kind of protect that congregation, but it seems at time again they dug faster than God, Moses and Aaron could fill them back in. Sometimes it was Moses and Aaron that dug a hole.

But you look at the different incidences that occurred with Israel at that time. You look at the rebellion of Korah. You know, you look at the incident that occurred at Maribah. You look at all this complaining constantly against Moses and Aaron's leadership, complaining against God.

You know, ultimately the rebellion where people tried to enact a new leader and then return to Egypt after all because we're sick of being out here after the news of the Promised Land.

The number of times that the host of Israel turned on God's anointed and ultimately on God himself is staggering. You know, God knew it wasn't enough just to keep, you know, kind of keep him from preventing digging additional holes. It would require retraining. It would require a re-education of sorts, a renewal, so to speak, to reach the point where those holes then got filled in. Let's go ahead and go to Deuteronomy 5. Deuteronomy 5, you know, recall God's words to Moses after the host's assertion that they would do everything that God had asked them to do.

Remember, God provides them with all of these things ultimately, and then Israel's response is recorded for us, and then we see God's response to what he heard. Deuteronomy 5, Deuteronomy 5, and we'll pick it up in verse 29. Deuteronomy 5, verse 29.

Deuteronomy 5 and verse 29 says, Oh, that they had such a heart in them. Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and with their children forever. That was God's response. He said, Oh, that they would have a heart like this forever. That they would follow through on what they just declared, in many ways because God knew that they wouldn't. They didn't have the necessary prerequisites, so to speak, for true obedience at that point in time. Their heart simply wasn't where it needed to be.

If you go over to Deuteronomy 30, just a few passages over here, Deuteronomy 30, we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 5. Deuteronomy 30 and verse 5.

We'll see that despite Israel's challenges, that God's plan was in place. That he had an ultimate plan for renewal. That he had a plan for filling that hole. And that plan we see kind of outlined in Deuteronomy 30 and verse 5. That God's plan is still in place. That Israel's disobedience didn't sidetrack it. It's not something where God said, Oh, no, look what they've done. I need a plan B. No, this was the plan. The latter was the plan from the beginning. Deuteronomy 30 and verse 5 says, Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.

Verse 6, The Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live.

Folks, that's in Deuteronomy. That's all the way back at the very beginning of the book.

That has been God's plan, that it would work and act upon our hearts, and that ultimately we would change from the inside out, that we would fill that hole, that we would renew ourselves in that process through God's Spirit working in us, through God working in our lives. You know, that change of heart, ultimately the giving of God's Holy Spirit, that transformation that occurs as God is writing His law on our hearts and on our minds, that gives us the foundation to begin filling in that hole permanently. It gives us the ability to go forward with the foundation in place to where now we can really begin to fill that hole in our lives. And again, not with shifting sand, not with, you know, loose dirt that's going to, you know, come back down, but with, you know, rock, with a solid, strong foundation that's not going to shift, that's not going to settle with ultimately the words and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Let's go over to Acts 4 and verse 7. Acts 4 and verse 7.

You know, some interesting accounts here in the book of Acts. I've been rereading through the book of Acts and I just, I love this book. Absolutely love this book because the energy and the desire is palpable among the people of God at this time in our history as a church.

It's just so fascinating to me. But in Acts 4 and verse 7, we'll see the account of Peter and John as their place before the high priest. They've been arrested now, you know, they've been put before the high priest and they've been ultimately asked to explain themselves. Acts 4 and verse 7, we'll go ahead and read through verse 12, says, and when they, pardon me, and when they set them in the midst, they asked by what power or by what name have you done this? Notice it says Peter, verse 8, filled with the Holy Spirit said to them, rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means has he been made well? Let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, notice he kind of takes a second to get a little jab in there, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole.

Verse 11, notice what it says, this is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Ultimately, this is the stone, this is the foundation upon which we've built on. This is the stone and the foundation upon which God's church has been built on. You know, this chief cornerstone, this stone that was rejected at that point in time, chief cornerstone is the model that all the other stones are carved from. You set the cornerstone first and then you place the rest of those stones and those are adjusted based on the positioning and the setting of the cornerstone. It's that stone which has granted us the power ultimately to do these different things and there's no salvation in any other name under heaven except Christ Jesus. Obviously, He's the foundation. That's what we build on.

You know, Christ's death and His sacrifice are a major focal point of this upcoming spring holy day season. We're ultimately commanded, again, to put sin out of our lives. We're commanded to remove 11 in our lives, which Christ's death makes possible. But it's equally important for us to consider as we come into these days, yes, we're removing 11 from our lives. We are recognizing the need for Christ's atoning blood in our life. But it's also incredibly important for us to recognize the importance of taking in and consuming unleavened bread during that same time, taking in the unleavened of sincerity and truth, as it mentions at 1 Corinthians, enabling us to then put on the teachings of Christ and ultimately letting Him and His teachings dwell in us unhindered. Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 5. Let's go over to 1 Corinthians 5, depending on whether I wanted to go there or not. I'm going to go there. I have a little bit of time since there wasn't a first message. 1 Corinthians 5, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 7. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7 says, Therefore, purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, once again, let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened, again, bread and italics, of sincerity and truth, with the unleavened of sincerity and truth, with those attitudes, with those concepts, those things taking root in our lives, filling up the hole that we've dug, taking up that space which enables us to so easily fall back in. Because again, right on the heels here in 1 Corinthians 5 of a command to purge out leaven, to remove the sin, to step away from the shovel, is an exhortation for us to take in that which is unleavened. And that is the purpose of these upcoming days. That's the purpose of what we're preparing for now, as we're going into the next month, into our spring holy day season, to really consider our lives and to see the places where we have holes, to see the places where we need to put the shovel down and stop digging, to see the places where we need to fill that hole with something else. Ultimately, that unleavened bread that we go through and we symbolize during that that time frame is Jesus Christ. It's His teachings. It's His way of life.

And through those teachings, through what we learn and through what we understand through God's Spirit and through His Word, God fills that hole a shovel full here and a shovel full there.

Just a little bit here and there. Sometimes maybe it's a whole front end loader at a time, you know, occasionally, for those of us that struggle a little more with getting the point the first time around. Sometimes it takes a little more dirt, right, to fill that hole.

But every time God fills that hole with a shovel full of dirt, He then tells us, now go out and use it. Go out and use it. Don't just learn it up here. Don't just learn it academically. Go out and use it. Go out and live it in the world around us. As we learn to apply it, as we learn to, you know, kind of work with that, that hole gets more and more shallow with every shovel that God puts in. Brethren, it's incredibly important for us to follow rule number one, to stop digging, to put down the shovel. But it is equally important that we fill the hole. And the reality is, filling that hole needs to happen sooner rather than later. Because again, our third rule, which we're going to look at next, is that a hole that is left unfilled for a long period of time can cause an incredible, incredible amount of collateral damage. And sometimes, in fact, quite frequently, it's not the individual that dug the hole that gets hurt. It's the individuals that are around that individual. Remember, rule number three, a hole not filled in will cause more damage in the future than if it were filled in now. Some of you guys might remember the story of Baby Jessica, and you probably remember that story. It was a huge media thing that occurred at the time.

I was probably, I must have been 10 or 11 when all that happened. I think it was early 90s, if I recall, as to the date when all that happened. But it was one of those deals where it was one of the first real big things where it was round-the-clock news coverage. You know, this was the first time that people could turn the television on, regardless of the time of day, and find out exactly what was going on at this well. For those that don't recall the story, for our younger people, Jessica McClure was 18 months old when she managed to fall into an 8-inch-wide well casing.

So, an 18-month-old young girl toddled her way over to an open hole out in her yard and fell down into this 8-inch-wide well casing, and she fell down to a depth of 22 feet when it was all said and done. So, gravity kind of took over once she went in and continued to kind of pull her down further and further until she finally kind of got stuck. But she was stuck in that tube for 58 hours while they worked to drill side tubes in to get her, and then one of those collapsed and it wasn't effective. And then it was actually one of the first times that water jet cutting technology was used. That's kind of how they worked their way in there. Interesting, interesting stuff. If you ever noticed, there's there, everybody's always asking the question, where's baby Jessica now? You know, and they kind of do these revisiting shows, because it was, it was a moment that many people that were alive at that time remember. The photo that, that was the, the guy that picked her up at first, the one who rescued her, the photo of that won a Pulitzer Prize, and I guess it was 88 that won the Pulitzer Prize, so it would have been late 80s.

But it was a very memorable moment in American history. Did Jessica dig that hole? No! She was 18 months old! You're kidding me? She was just wandering around in her yard, but the hole wasn't covered. The hole was open, the hole was still there, and she managed to fall down it. And as long as that hole managed to remain open, it remained a danger to anyone small enough to fall in that hole. Now, for an adult, yeah, whatever, it's no big deal. They probably didn't think about covering it, because so what? I'm not gonna fall in an, you know, eight-inch round well casing.

Maybe my foot will, but whatever. But when you're a little toddler that's this big and has bendy arms, you know, it's easy. Maybe not easy. I gotta imagine there was something else involved there, because you just think, I don't know, many kids are top-heavy where they do fall in, and it's like, they go ahead. But that's like a perf- anyway, whatever. Moral of the story, there must have been some form of collusion. I don't know what happened exactly, but I don't know.

But it's interesting. She's not the only one. Kids fall in wells all the time. In fact, I don't know how many of you saw the Statesman Journal story this last week. There was a woman in Scotts Mills, an elderly woman in Scotts Mills, that was- she must have stepped up on top of kind of a half- rotten-out wooden cover on a well, and the cover broke. And she fell down 50 feet into the bottom of that well, and ended up in water, and ended up going to the hospital with injuries and hypothermia, and everything else once they got her out of there. But, I mean, she's very blessed that someone heard her crying for help, and we're ultimately able to come and help her. This kind of stuff happens, largely because the hole is there, and it's open, and it's dangerous, and maybe the cover isn't solid, or the cover needs some work. So not only do we need to fill the hole, we have to fill it as soon as possible, because the longer that it's left open, the longer it's ignored, the longer we pretend it's not a problem, the more damage it's going to cause. And once again, it's rarely, the individuals who dig the hole, they get hurt. I mean, it happens, but more often than not, it's loved ones. Think about the story of Israel. The young people of the congregation of Israel paid for the sins of the older generation. You know, they paid for the sins of their fathers.

They didn't dig that hole, their fathers did. You know, they were little, itty-bitty kids when all that happened. You know, some of them, some of them were, you know, not even born yet when all that happened. But they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because the damage was larger and was bigger than the original group that kind of started it. As that hole got bigger and bigger and bigger, it began to encompass not just those individuals, but the entire host of Israel. Again, the bigger it was, the more it was opened, the more damage it ultimately caused. There's another example in Scripture. Let's go ahead and look over there. David in Absalom. Let's go to 2 Samuel. We just recently, Mr. Kinsella gave a sermon on David, and we touched on a little bit of Absalom's life and kind of what happened between the two of them. But let's take a look at this real quick, because this is a wonderful story of what happens if we don't solve issues quickly and if those issues remain open, if those issues remain problematic. 2 Samuel is the location where this particular story is recorded. I'll go over to 2 Samuel here.

There it is. Absalom was one of David's sons. Ultimately, you're going to go over to 2 Samuel 15. 2 Samuel 15 is where you're headed. So 2 Samuel 15 is where we see the story. Absalom was one of David's sons. He was someone who was exceedingly handsome, someone who carried a very full head of hair. In my brain, I picture Fabio when I read about Absalom. A very muy guapo man and very long flowing hair. That's what I picture. Absalom had a lot of hair. A lot of hair. He was a handsome man. Very charismatic. There are positives in Absalom's life. We know he cared deeply for his sister Tamar. Due to a situation that happened with another of David's sons, he ultimately murdered that son as a result of what that individual did to Tamar and fled Israel for a few years, ultimately after that occurred. So David didn't really deal with the problem. He kind of just let it fester. He kind of just let it stew a little bit. He didn't really deal with it. Didn't really deal with the situation with the other son either. That's why Absalom took matters into his own hands.

So there's kind of this track record, so to speak, at this point where it's like, well this thing's gonna happen, but we're just gonna kind of not really mess with it, not really worry about it. Ultimately, Joab kind of tricks David into bringing Absalom back into Israel, and David ignores him while he's there. There's some difficulties and some challenges here and some familial issues, but the situation never got resolved. The whole, so to speak, never got filled in. It was just kind of covered up and forgotten and ignored. So let's take a look at what Absalom did in the absence of David dealing with the situation. 2 Samuel, we'll pick it up in verse, or in chapter 15, 2 Samuel 15, and we'll pick it up in 2 Samuel 15 and verse 1. 2 Samuel 15 and verse 1 says, after this had happened that Absalom provided himself with chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him, and so he kind of produced a degree of status, right? Chariots and horses, you know, kind of were the king's thing. So he had a degree of status here. He had 50 men that would run before him. He had a small contingent that was running around with him at the time.

Verse 2, now Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate, and so it was, whenever anyone who had a lawsuit came to the king for a decision, Absalom just, king's over here, this is where you can go, no Absalom would call to him and say, what city are you from?

And he would say, your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel. Then Absalom would say to him, look, your case is good and right, but there's no deputy of the king to hear you.

Verse 4, moreover, Absalom would say, oh, that I were made judge in the land, and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me, and then I would give him justice. So Absalom's kind of, quite frankly, politicking in many ways, kind of positioning himself in a way to take on authority and to have authority, and in the process of doing so, turning the people away from David.

And so it was, verse 5, whenever anyone came near to bow down to him, that he would put out his hand, and he would take him, and he would kiss him. In this manner Absalom acted toward all Israel, who came to the king for judgment. And what happened? So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. Now that's serious. Verse 7, now it came to pass after 40 years that Absalom said to the king, please let me go to Hebron and pay the vow which I made to the Lord. You know, Absalom began to mutter, he began to whisper to the people at the gates of the city, he began to turn the people and their hearts, people of Israel, away from his father David. Eventually he gets permission, he leaves for Hebron with his men, he kind of sets his plan into motion, declares himself king of Israel, and because at that point he had turned so many against David, David was forced to flee to the countryside with those who remain loyal to him. There's some debate as to exact time frame on this. Some translations list 40 years, others list four. The histories are inconclusive, but regardless of the length of time, regardless of how long this took, this was a hole that was not filled in. This was an issue relationally that was not dealt with. It was left open, it became a danger to those around it, and it ultimately swallowed a whole lot more than the original occupant and the original digger.

It ended up embroiling the nation of Israel in a conflict. David didn't deal with the original situation. He didn't take care of the original situation, and because that, the situation spiraled out of control. And again, it became a hole at that point that trapped not just David and Absalom, it brought in the entire nation of Israel as well. Kind of like a sinkhole. You know, you see these things on the news sometimes where you're, you know, a whole house gets swallowed up by this sinkhole, it gets undermined, or you guy driving down the road and suddenly there's a giant sinkhole there and the car just kind of goes into the sinkhole. But you see this sort of stuff all the time on the news. Usually we're kind of interested when that happens because it's a little weird.

But the truth is, in those sinkholes, in those situations, the potential for that hole was always there. It just took some degree of undermining under the surface before that hole eventually went.

You know, this sort of thing can happen if you try to just cover the hole as well without filling it. You just cover the hole, leave the hole open, but just cover over the top of it.

Same kind of thing can happen. You cover it, you pretend it's not there. People might still walk around it, they might still walk over it, they might shift just enough dirt on the edge of it to kick that thing down in and get pulled right into that particular hole. Or in the case of the older woman out in Scotts Mills, just take a step up onto an old rotten, you know, well cover and crash through it down 50 feet into the water. Covering the hole is not enough. Simply covering it is not enough. It's the same way with our spiritual life. It's the same way with the sin that we have.

These holes in our life, if they're not dealt with promptly, can cause others to stumble. They can trip up our brethren, they can trip up our families, trip up people who are close to us, the people that we love. So it's critical for us to deal with the problems that come from these holes early on.

Not to put it off, not to ignore it, not to pretend that it'll just go away on its own, but to get the necessary help that we need. You know, we take a look at our lives during this time leading up to the Passover, leading up to the spring holy days. Again, it's a time of examination.

It's a time of looking at ourselves. It's a time of seeing where we are with regards to our faith, and coming to an understanding, and coming to a conclusion, that we still have a long ways to go.

I mean, we, every year, we take a look and we realize, hopefully I'm a little bit closer, you know, or closer to Jesus Christ than the example that he provided, but in this life, it's a challenge. In this life, it's a challenge. But when we find holes in our life, when we find places in our life that need help, they have to be filled. And brethren, it's on our shoulders to ensure that we begin the process to make that happen, to begin the process to make that happen.

You know, we find holes in our life, we go through this examination, and we find ourselves digging further and further and further away from God. We have to take the moment and stop digging.

We have to begin the process to fill that hole. We have to return to God. We have to repent and return from those things and turn to God. And we have to ensure that we fill that hole in, sooner rather than later. You know, this time of year, once again, requires that we examine ourselves before we take the symbols of the Passover service. It requires us to go through the symbology of the Days of Unleavened Bread by removing leaven from our homes, purging again the sin from our lives, and taking on that unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. But during that time frame, we take the time to examine and to analyze ourselves in the scope of what God has called us to become. And ultimately, it's very important that we follow the three rules of holes in our life. When we find ourselves in a hole, we stop digging. If we have an open hole, we fill it up to avoid that hole becoming a hazard. And then once again, a hole that's not filled in will cause a whole lot more damage in the future than it would have if it were filled in now. We need to take the time to identify these places in our lives that we would consider to be spiritual holes.

And again, along with those holes, the shovel that we're using to dig them, you know, find a way to ensure that we put that thing down and get away from it. Step away from the shovel. We have to be willing to climb that ladder, get out of that hole, working in concert with God in our lives, promptings of His Spirit, promptly and with urgency in order to ensure that the hole gets filled in. I hope that your upcoming and continuing Passover preparation, your examination period, goes well. I hope that you all have a very rewarding and ultimately enriching Passover examination period.