The Days Of Unleavened Bread and Righteousness

Together, these Passover and Unleavened Bread addressed the basic problem of man and set the foundation for the whole rest of the story. We've heard that so much. There's always something else to learn and a new angle to look at it from. Perhaps this will be one, but this sets the foundation for addressing man's problem. Let's start out then as far as first scripture with a negative scripture, rather negative proverb, which says in Proverbs 14 and verse 12, repeated in chapter 16, of course. But we know this well, probably, hearing it and reading it for years. There is a way which seems right unto a man. Well, we always have an idea. You have a way. Something comes up, well, I've got an idea for it. Sometimes with experience, you come up with the right idea. But just as a general rule in how to order your life, how to get along with, you know, what God has given to us as just being human, we have the wrong idea. It's not our idea, Satan's idea. We got it from him, but we don't know it. We think it's our idea. But the end thereof are the ways of death. You can read this several ways. You can read it partially. Well, you're going to have problems if you don't recognize your human nature. True. But what it actually says, it ends in actual complete death, but just not soon.

You might live 100 years or more, but you're going to die. It's given to a man once to die, every single man, every single person is going to die. So we have to face that. That really makes you think seriously, because you're betting all the marbles on your decisions. You're not kind of figuring the angles. Well, if this deal doesn't work, I'll try something else. No, this is the only deal. We're all going to die. God was wise to do it that way. I used to think, why do you have to die? Well, because that makes you think really seriously. It makes you very, very sincere. So it's a good thing, even though it's a bad thing. There's so many things that God's are bittersweet, because it has to do with us not being perfect. Now, the end result of Proverbs 14, 12 is prophesied in Matthew 24, 22, where he says that if God didn't cut the days short and come, apparently, sooner than he would have, but cut the days short, not a single person would survive. Earth would not be able to, it would either be, the Earth so polluted it wouldn't support life, or it would be badly damaged, but it doesn't matter anyway, because man would kill himself, suicide of mankind. And so, the good news in that same verse, 24, 22, is that for the elect's sake, that that Gailen was just talking about, the people that are called out, God will shorten that time, Christ will come in the nick of time, might apply, and there's hope for the world. All that's worth it, guys, all these people aren't going to die and never be heard from again. It was a neat experiment, and all these worms and grubs down here is one famous writer, Jack London, described Captain Ahab, and he said, ah, we're just a bunch of grubs and worms, you know, and get what you can, and he was very cynical in his depiction of that attitude. But that's not the way it is. Life is glorious because it comes from God, and life is sacred because it comes from God. And every one of us is sacred. Look around, we don't necessarily like it a lot of times, and you know, humans are beautiful, but we deteriorate. It's physically less beautiful, but if you know somebody and you see them growing old, I'm thinking of a spouse or any friend, and you know them well, you know the beauty that's in their mind, in the character. Life is sacred, and it's beautiful, and it's good, and God is not going to let that just go away.

Well, I would like to kind of hurry through this point and get on some others like to make today. Man has a problem. It always goes back to the Garden of Eden, by the way. That's where our history starts. That's where our thinking started, and it's just that's the that's our root, what happened in the Garden of Eden. God addressed every problem. First of all, man was tricked, but simply walked away from God. God made his usual round, apparently. Came by in the morning ill, like normal, and man walked away from God. It's along the short of it. What's more, Adam and Eve spoke, and for all, Sim was introduced into the world by one man, it says, and then the two of them together. They chose the way of death because it looks so interesting, and it seemed like it would be wise. You know, you'd be smarter if you did that. That really seemed good. So he tricked him. But man still walked away, and every sense that day they were commanded to, but they walked away from God because of the decisions they had made. Voted by their feet, went over to the other tree, walked away from God there, and they went away ever since that time. When God pointed out, they were guilty. Man has been trying to justify himself and prove that he is right. We do it with each other all the time. Little kids do it when they first start out. Nations do this. Religion is the one of the functions or definitions, is the attempt of man to prove that he is right. Because there are always things you can do. The world religions, except a few, they're just mere philosophies, but the big religions, they have things you do. And if you do them, you're okay with a big guy upstairs who they don't know.

But we've been trying to justify ourselves, and so that's what Proverbs 14, 12 brings up. Self knows best. My idea is better than God's. Well, yes, he's got a good law. I believe it, but just this one case. It just seems better to go ahead and do the opposite. It makes no sense, but we think that way. So my idea turns out to be not my idea, but Satan's idea that he gave us a long time ago. People will die for bad ideas given to them by Satan. We're just, you know, false religions, false governments, false ideas, philosophies. They'll be so stubborn that they'll go to war and die, or just know there's going to be their end, but they're not. You know, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. And the worst thing about human nature, you can describe it in several ways. This is an aspect of just absolutely requiring that I am right. You know, you're told you're wrong, you're proved wrong, and so on, but there are several reasons that you can think of. Give me a minute. I'll think of a couple more while I was actually okay. Just, that's ridiculous. We're insane. We actually are, which is another way of saying unsound. We have different connotations, but it's the same basic words. Well, anyway, so it goes back to Eden and that idea of self-worship that Satan had, and he put into man. They first of all played the blame game. You know, Genesis 3, 11 through 12, and the whole section there. You sinned. God, you sinned. Adam, she made me. Eve, he made me, referring to the servant. And of course, there was truth in both those statements, but you just, Satan already put in that attitude where you could not admit that you actually are wrong. But that's the whole key. You know, God's way of thinking, and Passover requires that.

Man is, well, I mentioned the American experiment quickly here, and that is that we must show—I've heard this on the radio and on TV recently—the American experiment, we are proving that man does not need a king. He can govern himself. That is our way, the American way of life. That's the foundation of it. Man can do okay without outside help, and God, of course, reminded him. And even all of us, oh, by the way, you do need me—just in the resurrection, for one thing—but you need me to live your life. You need my laws so that you won't wander around and wonder what's true.

So, Representative, I believe this is James Madison or Ben Franklin, or maybe both, a bunch of them, said that you can't have a representative republic is possible, successful, representative republic is possible, only if the population is virtuous.

Otherwise, things will corrupt, which they have done for every nation and empire in all history, but we are going to prove it. Americans are better, you know, and we're wise. Why? Well, because of all the stuff we have, we're rich, and that came from God, but that shows we're wise, right? Americans can do it. But see, that's the catch.

Humans aren't virtuous by nature. Man is not righteous. Man is not innately good. And Satan feeds us the leavened bread of corruption, which tastes really good, produces crime and further corruption. The strong take.

So, everything gets out of balance because the strong, the smart, the clever, you know, the violent take, and they get on top and then just rule the others. This just happens over and over and over.

Isaiah 6 verse 11 should be mentioned. Isaiah 6 is the commission of Isaiah. It's a very short chapter, 13 verses, but just great. So, I'd like to read that, and I'll try to do that quickly too, and get on to... this is kind of building the case here.

But this is Isaiah's vision. The angel spoke.

He was vision of the temple. And the two doorposts, it says, rattled.

The post of the door moved at the voice of him, verse 4. This angel's voice was so loud. If your windows rattle, it was a pretty good-sized explosion outside. If your door frame moves, it's probably an earthquake. Pretty big thing. These doorposts weren't like hours at home. They were trees to start with, each one of them. I don't know what the dimension is. Big, huge posts for the door. And they started out, I think, cedars of Lebanon. But I'm not positive for that. But when you see a building like that with such timbers like that, and they shake around, you've got what you call a loud voice. And Isaiah was impressed. He was scared to death, and he says, was me. And I don't want to go through the whole story. But an angel came down, and because he said, man, of unclean lips, and the whole nation of people like that. And he took tongues from the altar and put a coal at his mouth. Shows it's a vision. Didn't burn him, but it cleansed his mouth what he would say in his ministry, and therefore his mind cleansed him. And then God said, he said, verse 8, I heard a voice of the Lord saying, who will I sin, and who will go for us? Plural. Us. There are two God beings, members of the Godhead now. And so Isaiah said, here am I. Sin me. He had just been cleansed, and he believed that. He had the faith to believe that. It was such an experience. Now verse 9, he said, go and tell this people, hear you indeed, but understand not, and see you indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they should see with their ears, and hear their eyes, and see with their ears. You know what it says. I read it wrong. And understand with their heart, and be converted, and be healed. It wouldn't be time yet. It was time for punishment. And Isaiah said, verse 11, made your question, how long do we do the work? How long do we preach the gospel?

He answered, until the cities be wasted, without inhabitant, the houses without man. And of course, we see some of this in pictures from Ukraine now. But he's talking about Israel at this point, but the end time picture is of all the whole world. There are houses standing in ruins, but nobody's in them. Very few people. And the land be utterly desperate. Pardon me, desolate.

I'm also getting used to new glasses, so just falling apart like everybody else. Don't pay no mind. But it's just until the land is utterly desolate, just wiped out, destroyed. That's what it's going to take for man to learn the lesson. That's what it said, or referred to in Matthew 24-22. He'll come just in the nick of time. The earth will be just torn apart. I used to think that just meant because of nuclear weapons. No, that's part of it. It's going to be torn apart bit by bit by humans fighting each other all over the globe. And little lovely little hamlets that are peaceful. Because Satan is the one that drives human nature, and his desire is to murder man, to destroy God's creation. And he is the one with that attitude, spirit of murder, or selfishness. You can soften it. But he's the one that drives our human nature.

That's frightening. But you all know, of course, it's true. It's not brand new to you. So I remind you. And so that chapter ends. I won't read further there.

So Proverbs 1412 is right. The way of man, the way we naturally think, it's just bad. It's wrong. It leads to not just serious destruction or troubles, or a lot of people dying. It leads to death, period. That is Satan's thought. His goal. And we humans don't realize the overall goal, or they'd stop in their tracks and quit fighting. But that thought and that approach to life, I have to be right, and I have to make sure that everybody knows it. And we'll go out and kill whoever we have to do to make the point. That's what is behind it. That's what we're trying to overcome. And we can't by ourselves.

Man rejects God. Even Israel spoke for all mankind. They said, Oh, don't you tell God we don't want to hear from Him. It scares death. You know, we might have to work. That's bad. We'll listen to you and everything you say we'll do. Everything the Lord said, I think three times, everything the Lord says we will do. And they promptly went out and did not follow through. They spoke for the world. They spoke for mankind. We don't want to hear from God. As Adam and Eve, say, acted for mankind, rejected God. The Jews and the Gentiles both rejected Christ separately and together. And Jesus tells us that people are going to reject us. Anybody who tries to live and really obey God and keep that relationship good and put that first, you're going to have trouble. You're going to be rejected. History has proved this true, and so on. In the end, the whole United World will be against God and will attempt suicide, and God will save us.

So that's supposed to be the introduction. I'm quite long, by the way, through here. But I have a few points, not too many. Fewer than 40 points.

I'm kidding, and that's a reference to some years ago.

Okay, what we have here is the first two Holy Days. It pictures exactly what has happened so far. The picture is God's way of thinking. And that's what I wanted to do, was show how the first two festivals pass over in Unleavened Bread. Show of contrast, and point out the problem, lay a foundation. Pointing out man's way of thinking, which he got from Satan, and God's way of thinking as the solution. So here's solution. Pictured by Passover in Unleavened Bread. Passover addresses the sin and corrupted nature problem that mankind has. That's what Passover does. We're faced with the truth, which is painful. And God opens our minds so that we say, not, I have to be right at all costs, but no, I'm wrong. But no, I'm wrong. And God is right. And we could hardly admit that, even though we knew it was true, except that we know that God's on our side. He is on my side. Quote Psalm 118. God is on my side. We know that He's all for us, and so since there is hope of being good, then we can say, this is the way our minds work, and He's so good. He does this. Then we can say, you're right. I'm wrong. Please teach me. I do need a Savior after all. I need somebody to help. So Passover shows the love of God to us, to mankind, and then the Days of Unleavened Bread, in this great plan, this solution, try to cover different aspects. The Days of Unleavened Bread supplies what is lacking, that is the love of man to God. They show our love to God. We show it through obedience and through this admission of our guilt and accepting of Jesus' sacrifice, we say, like Israel did, everything that the Lord says, we will do. They voted with their feet and went right out away from Him. But because of the New Covenant and the Holy Spirit, we, whose minds have been changed, we're the ones who follow through with God in us.

We say the same thing. We have the same emotions, have the same desires. We want to repent.

We just don't follow through. Israel just didn't follow through, and we don't naturally. But with the Holy Spirit, that's what changes. Unleavened bread shows that. It's another aspect of what Unleavened bread shows, is that we'll follow through with righteousness, not eat the polluted bread of corruption that Satan has, all the many ideas, but just the pure sweets. Unleavened bread is considered sweet bread because it doesn't have the fermentation or the sour aspect. And so for seven days, it's a no-no. But the rest of the days, it really tastes good, and it's a blessing of God. It actually makes the bread more healthful, I have heard, I've read. So we do need a Savior, and we come to realize that. And so we look at this, and we say, we will obey, and we're going to. And God, because of our response in the relationship that he sets up, gives us the power to do that. Power from on high. So Passover is man's accepting Christ's sacrifice, and God accepting man's repentance. First of all, the days of Unleavened bread follow immediately, sadness turns into joy, and the days of Unleavened bread show, I've already stated this, God's man's love returned back to God. It's a spiritual response because of the Holy Spirit.

Obedience is the key. What do we do right after Passover? We go right into Unleavened bread, and I should say, why do we don't? We don't eat Unleavened bread. So we start out by seven days, but we immediately do what we said we do at Passover, and then we start obeying God by taking the symbol. That's the symbol of our whole life. We're striving to obey God. But it's that response that is the symbol of the obedient servant striving to please God, and it is all in the striving. It has to do with the attitude of desiring and trying to grow and obey God and please Him. When we're in that mood or that attitude, then God can work with our minds and has something to cement into permanent character. Because He wouldn't have that if He just could put a right attitude in us. We just smile all the time and nothing ever bothered. We'd be perfect. We'd be called automatons or robots, and that wouldn't be God's character. He's after something that has to be your thought, that you have chosen to choose, chosen to choose, and that you have at the same time fought off other thoughts to choose. If you have that kind of an attitude, God can cement that into permanent character. Romans 5 verses. It's beautiful. It's something that Paul called by a little bit different name. Go to Philippians chapter 3. There's a key here that he brings up. We'll go to this back and forth here a couple of times. It's the major difference between man's thoughts and God's thoughts. Man's ideas, his ideas. Back to Proverbs 14 and 12. We started with... In Philippians 3, Paul talks about two kinds of righteousness.

And you know this. This is a review. So pardon me for repeating myself and many others in yourself. But let's review this. Two kinds of righteousness. They're so different, but a lot of people have read this and not really understood. And we have the opportunity to understand. So it's wonderful.

There's the old man's kind of righteousness where you do stuff. As I say, every major religion has stuff that you do. If you do that, you're okay. But it's actually in the mind that God is working with. It's not that you can ignore his laws and he's just working in the mind. No, you obey his laws, but then he has something to work with and will convert us. It's not us doing the work, as Galen just mentioned. It's God doing the work in us. And that's a hard distinction. You know, it's easy to get off the track there.

He has a... Paul's old way of righteousness. And he said, I was circumcised on the day the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews touching the law of Pharisee. And that means I was near perfect at obeying every little thing, being the Pharisee. He said, I could brag, you know, I had works. I had some good works. He also killed people for not agreeing with them, which he felt guilty about for a long time and finally put it away. And he says, finally, he wrote, I'm guilty of the blood of no man, because of how God had changed him. But it's Paul's old kind of righteousness, where you serve, people think they ought to go do good works, and they help people and take food to them, and they are good works.

But that's not all there is to it. God's new kind of righteousness is what he's talking about. So let's read verse 7. Philippians 3, by what things were gained to me. He had just told about all the great things he had done in his life. They were gained. Those I counted loss for Christ, or counted loss for Christ, and of the right inflection there. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things that he used to have, that he didn't care about in comparison. And I do count them but refuse.

This garbage, the word for garbage in general was dung, specific and generally just garbage. That I may win Christ. All the things that he had done, his righteousness, of course Isaiah also says they're like filthy rags. You know, our own righteousness. Oh, I'm so good, and that attitude sinks. You have somebody that has that. It looks down on you. They just think they're so good. Makes you feel bad. There's something wrong there, to be sure.

There's something wrong with me. But somebody goes around making other people feel that way. That's not God. That's another spirit. Verse 9, and that I may win Christ and be found of him, not having my own righteousness. That's where he, here's the contrast, verse 9.

I don't want my own righteousness, which was by the law, all that law keeping. That was good for him to keep the law. But it doesn't change your problem that you've had since, you know, Avenue, human nature, that was given to us by Satan. So, have it not not having my own righteousness, which came from the law, that is trying to keep the law perfectly and therefore be better than others, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.

So there is a situation where you have, you really believe that God is God, and he's told you to do this. You do it because of you. You show your faith and your belief because you do it God's way, and he knows, and you can know, and other people can know. If you do something for a long time and then really goof up and say, oh, it's not worth it and walk away, you didn't really believe it. We stumble and you show that you believe by getting right up and getting right back at it.

It's one of the hallmarks of a follower of Christ. If you fall down seven times and get up six times, seven is too much, it was a bad idea. Fall down seven times, get up seven times. You always come back. That Passover, we commemorate it, the baptism vow that we took. We already have forgiveness at baptism, and we commemorate it at Passover, but we remind God at all through the year, I'm in this to win this.

I'm not going away. So, this is of God by faith. Let's look at a couple of scriptures real quickly, referring to Genesis 15. No, it's 1526. I have it in my notes. I could look. Anyway, I get it mixed up because when I memorized it when I was a kid, there was Genesis 1526 and Genesis 26.5 or something. But now, and so, you're probably already there. Good for you. Well, I'm going to have to look at it in my notes because it's not the way I remembered it.

I guess I skipped ahead. Oh, I know what I did. I decided to use it later and wrote it down sometime later, and so I'm not going to do that.

It's 1526. There's a little math or numbers problem I had when I was eight years old or something. Okay, verse 6 of Genesis 15. And he believed, this is Abraham.

God had just expanded the promise way greater than before in chapter 15. And he believed in the Lord, and he counted to him Abraham for righteousness.

He believed it that God would come through.

And so God counted it for righteousness because in his mind, that faith was there, and he was going to do it. But if you plan to do something and, you know, something happens and you're knocked out and you wake up and you lost a couple of minutes and you didn't get it done, what about just the second before you got knocked out? You were intending to do that. We have that intent and personal dedication with total zeal, I'm going to do this. It can be interrupted by Satan in his work, but that's there. And that's what God is after. And that's what he's growing in us. Abraham wasn't the father of the faithful when he started out. You know, it took a long time. A process by which he became, by what God created him as and made him the father of the faithful. So he didn't start out that way. But that's important in reading Philippians 3.9. And now I'd like to go, if you want to hold your finger in Philippians, and go to Isaiah 54.17. Some really powerful scriptures here. Well, as I said, Paul, just all the way through studying for years and finally something pops through and begin to see the whole picture better. Notice this one statement here in Isaiah 54. In this, Israel is the restored wife of the Lord, and God is blessing Israel.

What's not clearly stated in the Old Testament a lot of times is that he will do this by stages. Christ's coming, it's not at least highlighted too much. There are two comings. But the restored wife, he will do that for all of Israel, starting with the church. That's the church. And then all of Israel, and then the whole resurrection, so it's by stages. So this is also referring to the church. The restored wife starts with the church. He says, for a small moment, verse 7, I have for second you, but with great mercies I gather thee. And so he's talking about how it was necessary to punish Israel so they could learn. Let's go down to the last of the chapter, verse 17.

No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper. We have spiritual weapons against us, as well as you do. It's just not going to succeed. Satan won't if we stick with God. And every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment, you shall condemn. False rumors, accusations, whatever it all can, any way that this could happen. Enemies, whatever. It just won't stand. The truth will come out and you will be shown to be right, because God is in you. I'm adding a little bit to explain, but in the judgment, you shall condemn. Now, notice the last part of this chapter. You'll find, once again, in the Old Testament, a New Testament doctrine. This is the heritage of his servants. This is what we inherit the servants of the Lord and their righteousness.

Maybe this is where Paul got it, but he says...

I'll start again. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me, or of me, says the Lord. It's a different kind of righteousness he's talking about here. Just kind of land there right in the middle of the scripture. You don't necessarily notice it. He's reading by it, but they say what Paul wrote here.

We'll get to this. Back over to Philippians and continue. In Philippians, verses 10-14, then, having said that, this new way of righteousness. Paul writes about this new kind of righteousness in Romans and several other books. It's one of his main themes. Verse 10, that I may know him. He said that I may win Christ in verse 8. Verse 10, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death. I want to die like Christ did, not necessarily on the cross, but faithful to the very end. The power of the resurrection, that means be there. That's everything. Paul was saying, that's the big thing. So everything is second to that. And the fellowship of his sufferings, don't really like it, but our sufferings are good. They produce good character. I want to be made conformable unto his death, just completely loyal to you, Father. If by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect, he made his mistakes too, as you and I do, but I follow after, hard after. If that I may apprehend or grab onto and hold on to, attain to, that for which also, so he's looking for, he's looking to attain to the resurrection, eternal life, but look how he puts it, that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. So in other words, we're striving to attain to and apprehend what God has for us, but we have already been apprehended, as it were nabbed, you know, he called a few and grabbed and put into his church and given work to do. And it's not necessarily work that anybody recognized once in a while, people, see what you're doing and so on. The work is in our head mainly, and every once in a while, God will give us an encouragement. You can see where you set an example. It's the looking back on it. There's several scriptures. I just read one that I thought was especially good, but just say, says that it's the looking back on it when in the denouement, when all things come out, that they'll say, oh, I had that neighbor, oh, that co-worker. And she wouldn't, she even lost a job one time because she wouldn't work on the Sabbath. And he lists that in the other, you know, and start, that's, so we've been apprehended. We have been taken and made special. Not that we are special of ourselves. We've gone through that many times, put in a special situation. Now let's go back to Isaiah. I'm going to come back to Philippians one more time. But this is Isaiah chapter 2. I got my, I got out of order a minute ago, and so I was trying to get back in order. I wanted next to, after what Paul said, hear about being apprehended in this new way, the...

I'm just looking at my notes, and I went too early on that one thing.

I think what I'll do is to get back on track here. Here's Genesis 15.6, by the way. I did have the computer working, of all things, this weekend, so I had to do some changes on paper. Not used to that. And so my apologies for not having that in order here. But he talks about this new kind of righteousness, and I mentioned that it's all in the striving, and it's the attitude of pressing forward, that we're just never, never going to quit. When it comes to verse 12, then, I just read verse 12. He says, I am apprehended of Christ. I have a note here, and I read this whenever I think of it, whenever I go by here. Let's go back to Psalm 118.

This is a fabulous psalm, and the significance is, well, part of it is that the traditional singing of hymns on the Passover was Psalm 113 to 118. They did 113 to 116 during the service, and then 117 and 118 as the final hymn. And so it says, when they finished this up, they sang a hymn. And actually, the word is participle. It actually is singing, or hymning. They were hymning. It's a direct translation, if you could do it that way. When they were, after they were hymning, so they were doing more than one psalm. And I read commentaries, they'll say, there's absolutely no doubt that his last psalm that he sang there was 118. I'd say he can say that because he's a scholar and wrote a commentary, and others do. And I'm saying it sure looks likely, but I'm not one to make a statement like that. I'm going to have the authority of scholarship, but let's look down here. These are the thoughts that he was singing about teaching. His disciples were running through his mind just before they went out, the last psalm of Passover. And all nations are encompassed about me. He starts out with, your mercy endures forever. And then he talks about those who are coming around after him. Some of this is definitely like Psalm 22, the demons that were trying to just distract him and accuse him. And so on. They were like bees, he said, around me. In verse 12, the Lord is my strength. Verse 14, he's talking with himself. He's talking to himself, singing to himself as much as he is the disciples, I would think. He was stealing his mind all during this evening to what was coming. And he was coming. Let's look at verse 27. Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Verse 26, we have blessed you out of the house of the Lord.

God is the Lord who has shown us light. And then he says, almost out of context, bind the sacrifice with cords tied up with rope, this animal, and then tie that to the horns of the altar. And what's the meaning of that? There is a certain kind of curse that the sacrifices went through that it had to be dedicated or cursed to death. Once that curse was placed on that animal, it couldn't be redeemed. It had that had to be used for a sacrifice. And so then it was tied to the altar. And when it was tied onto those horns, the four horns, one of them, that animal was going to die. There's no going back. And Christ was the sacrifice that he's praying as he sings this hymn, go ahead and tie that. Tie the sacrifice as me. Tie that to the altar. And doing that, and seeing that, he was saying, we're going through with this. This is going to happen. I am going to die as a blood sacrifice. And he was thinking all these many thoughts, and we have many thoughts in John 17 that he was thinking also. And so what do we do? We sang this for Passover in Omaha, because I mentioned this the week before, I think it was. And what Christ is saying is, we're finished. This is done. And we're in the final trek, final few hours that are going to lead to my death. It's going to be horrible. But God's will, and I want to do this, and all those other things. And that's what we say when we take the Passover. The psalmist for us too is for him to sing to us as it were. Every single word of the, every single word that comes out of the mouth of God. That's what we say at Passover. We're going through this. This is for life. And then we picture going our whole, whole life, seven days, worth of avoiding sin and fighting sin and striving to please God. And it's in that striving, it's lifelong. That's where God converges. When you're daydreaming and you go off on something, forget about it, and you're doing your work, and so on. And those thoughts leave you. Now, you should pay attention to what you're doing so you get the job done. But when you go off and get distracted from your goal in life, then the work stops. You're daydreaming or something else, or something comes along. It's when you're striving to please God. That's when the conversion process is going on. So the attitude of Passover, this verses 10 to 14 that we just read, is saying, we're just never, never going to quit. The resurrection, we're resurrection bound. That's what we're about. And it's just a permanent, absolute, irrevocable commitment and promise that we can never go back on in the Old Testament. The particular curse was cherom, dedicated. The life would be given to God. So back in Philippians 3 verse 3, in this case, Paul is making a point here. He can't read the whole thing. He's saying, find them of brethren, rejoice in the Lord. He talks about beware of the incision and other heresies. Verse 3, because we are the circumcision, we're the spiritual Jews, who worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We can't, that old way of being righteous, what we could do in the flesh and impress God or others or whatever. We don't have any confidence in the flesh. And that becomes actually a theme that Paul brings up ever so often as well. We don't have confidence in the flesh. Back to Isaiah one more time. And this is chapter 57. And this is encouraging for us as we keep the days of unleavened bread. Isaiah 57.

And let's read, it's famously quoted, false leaders are being rebuked in this chapter. It says in the heading there, verse 15, Isaiah 57, For this says, the high and the lofty one, one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, unlike man. I dwell in the high and lofty place. That's where he lives. That's where he is. He's in the temple, the high and lofty place. The place of, it talks about light and the color amber is mentioned, and just a lot of different light, extreme high energy at God's throne. But the place, the center of the universe. And so that's where God dwells. We know it's the temple and you know, a lot of scriptures say that. He lives there. It says a lot of things about him living there. But notice this. I live, I dwell in the high and the lofty place with him, who also, with him also, who is of a contrite and a humble spirit. To revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. This is that new kind of righteousness. That's what he's talking about. It's different than man would have ever thought of. What do you mean? Admit I'm wrong. Go and do all that kind of thing. But notice what he says about this. One of the aspects is, he's dwelling there in the heavens at the throne in his temple. The place of the source of all the energy that upholds the physical universe and whatever the spiritual universe is, too. He lives there, but he lives with those who went ahead and followed through.

My dad's one of his commonly quoted scriptures, Luke 9.62. He that puts his hands in the plow and draws back. There's no room for him in the kingdom. These are the people that he lives with in prayer. We come to God. We're there in spirit. We're connected. It's a big subject, but a little mention here. We're just connected in, right, to the center of things. We're in unity with God. We have a right attitude. We pray we're there. It's those who keep on during the days of 11 bed, all seven days. Six days, and you finally break down and have a donut on the seventh day, on purpose. That's not good enough. It's all of our lives. It's pictured.

What do you think? I think this is pretty exciting. I think this is really inspiring that he lives with us. If we have the right attitude, so many times we have a doubtful attitude coming up to pass over. Oh, I made so many mistakes this year. Boy, this is worse than last year, I think. It means you're growing because you've been able to see yourself more. That's a natural thing. It's going to happen, but we have to fight it. Examine yourselves, it says, and then take the pass over, except the sacrifice. A couple of more things about 11 bread. First of all, this shows God's love to us as children by pass over, and we show love back to God. This will happen with everybody. We get to show this as a prophecy. Our work is a prophecy, fulfilling God's commands. By keeping God's commandments and instructions, we're prophesying or preaching to similar overlapping meanings. By keeping the days of 11 bread, not just the Passover communion, a lot of people in the world keep it with water, with grape juice, with 11 bread. They keep a communion. They go through those motions of the bread and wine. But by keeping this Passover, we show the Lord's death until He comes. We're also showing Christ's work in us. His works before He died, but His continual work in us as our living Savior. He's living in us. He's doing what He would do. He's living His life in us as we keep making the right decisions and obey. And obey His will, not just the rules, as it were, but His whole will. And if we're doing that faithful obedience, we become a part of the contrite ones. Obedience includes repenting every time you stumble and getting up again and going forward. By keeping the days of 11 bread, we preach the good news of God's answer to man's bad ideas. It goes right back to the garden. By keeping the days of 11 bread on top of Passover, it's a full foundation for the rest of the plan of God. We are actually preaching. People are hearing. They see. They're just not understanding yet. They will. That's just wonderful. Fantastic. Just to reference back to Psalm 57 again. Are you contrite? Just think about yourself. Are you vain and showy? Are you contrite? For us, this is just about the most contrite period of the whole year. We've been, for weeks, examining ourselves. We didn't want to bring damnation on ourselves. It says, you know, you're condemned if you take Passover lightly and just flip it. We want the right attitude. Yeah, we are contrite. Yes. Everybody in here has problems and sins and shortcomings, mainly, at this point. You know, we fall short.

But we are contrite. We come back to the throne of grace and say, I want to keep trying. Please help me. This is a real mess. I need help. So, we've just kept the first two festivals. And we have shown the whole world God's glorious work in man. Not that they understand it yet, but it's being done. We're doing it and people are seeing, and they will see and hear and understand. And that's the great thing. We've explained, by keeping this, we've explained to the world the answer to the problem that was brought up by Satan introducing all the corruption in mankind. It's a pretty great thing to keep the days of unleavened bread, I think.

Whether you goofed or not, and it's not repenting of so much eating a donut, like the example years ago, the eating of the donut, it's the not remembering, not keeping God's laws and your purpose before God. Just for seven days, you can't remember, seven days, and you go through all those self-condemning thoughts. Well, that's our whole problem, but we've shown that to the world. And here we are keeping the holy days of God. It's just about too much to take, too much to understand all at once, but it's a fantastic opportunity. So, as the world is working feverishly to prove God is wrong, we can rule ourselves. We can get it right. The contrite ones are working feverishly to prove God is right.

You know, we want to be on his team, and we're proving that by allowing him to lead us. We are created by God's way, not man's way. Philippians 1, 6, memory scripture. God will complete the good work that he has started in you, even to the very day of Jesus Christ. He's not ever going to give up on us, and we are determined we're never going to give up on him. Tie the sacrifice to the horns of the altar for me. We say that along with Christ. This is going to go. It's going to happen. We're going to be in the kingdom of God, and we say that. But keeping the days of Unleavened Bread, God bless you for being here today, brethren. God give his rich blessings to you. Happy Holy Day. It's about gone now. But bless you for keeping the days of Unleavened Bread.