The Feast of Sweetness

The following message is presented by John Elliott, a minister in the United Church of God. Some 3500 years ago, God called the lowest of a society. He called slaves. They were considered to be the lowest of the low. And this was a very incredible event. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 1 and verse 26. We jump into this picture as Paul says to Corinth, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. We see what happened in Israel when they were in Egypt is the same thing that happens in the New Covenant with us. God chooses, and He has chosen, peoples who were despised by society around them, just as His Son, in fact, was despised by society around Him. We find that these who were not a people, they didn't have an identity of themselves, the slaves in Egypt, or you and me, we had no real identity. But we become the people of God. Notice this in 1 Peter 2 and verse 9. But you are a chosen generation, a holy priesthood, a holy nation. Now, we think of ourselves today as the saints, the future bride of Christ, or the current bride of Christ.

But notice that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness. We weren't always here. We didn't always understand. We weren't always walking in the light. We were in darkness, and we were called out of that into His marvelous light. You'll recall that last night, some 3,500 years ago, the Israelites were called out of darkness, and they marched in God's marvelous light, a pillar of fire. Who were once, verse 10, not a people, nothing special and really no identity, but now are the people of God. The Israelites certainly had no identity. They were sort of low slaves in their society. But now, we're called the people of God, who have not obtained mercy. They were stuck in Egypt under very dire circumstances, the things that they went through. You and I were in very dire circumstances, subject to the effects of the sins of ourselves and society around us. But they obtained mercy. They obtained a sacrifice of the firstborn of the Egyptians. We obtained a sacrifice of the firstborn of the Son of God. So, here we find we have an incredible responsibility. And in verse 11, Beloved, I beg you, as sojourners throughout this week of Unleavened Bread, Israel was journeying, moving through Egypt, moving out of Egypt, moving towards the border, and going on sojourners and pilgrims on a pilgrimage to a new country, just as you and I are on a pilgrimage to a new country, abstain from fleshly lust which wore against the soul, against the living body. So, we are to put away sin and abstain and put away those things that would be part and parcel of this world and its society. Those in Egyptian territory began a journey out of a deeply pagan culture. We see that we are offered a new culture. Let's go to Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2. You know, once again, we see the parallels here between our calling and their calling. We have a better covenant with better promises. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 2. In which you once walked according to the course of this world. Now, the thing that we tend not to think of is that when the Israelites were in Egypt, they got absorbed into that society. Gradually, over 450 years, they had lost their focus on God in any of God's ways.

You saw them, by the time they get to Mount Sinai, even making a golden calf. But we once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit which now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves and the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others. So, as part of our Exodus, the parallels there, Exodus, is the coming out being led by God. Verse 4, But God, who was rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, they were stuck in the civilization of Egypt under the Pharaoh. So, we also were living in sin under the leader, Satan. Even when we were dead in trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ. By these favors now of God, this calling, this movement we can do, this detachment from slavery to sin, and the cleanliness now of our minds, enables us to be saved. And you and I have this wonderful opportunity to be in a new godly culture and have our sights on a new country. We go to Hebrews 11 and verse 14. Hebrews 11. And notice in verse 14, For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. This morning you probably prayed for your homeland that you seek when you said, Father, bring your kingdom. Bring your kingdom. Bring it now into our hearts and minds. Bring it to this earth and your sun. Let us participate in it. We declare plainly that we seek a homeland. In verse 15, now here is the fickleness of humans. For if they had called to mind that country from which they came out, if Israel had said, Oh, I want to be in Egypt. If you and I say, Oh, you know what? I'd like to go back into society. They would have had the opportunity to return. Verse 16. But now they desire a better, that is a heavenly country. And therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. And that city, of course, for Israel was Jerusalem. And for us it's New Jerusalem. But we will cover Jerusalem in a future Bible study in the Bible study series, God's Plan of Salvation. That would be jumping to the end of the Exodus from Egypt. So let's stop for a moment and ask, why are we keeping this seven-day festival called on leavened bread? Why is wonderful, tasty, aromatic bread that we love so much today awful and representing sin? It's evil if you have leaven or leavened bread in your house. Could there be more to leaven than we really understand about it? Could we find that there is a stronger link to evil through the agent of leaven when Israel was in Egypt than we've ever known before? Well, today using information that is new, that has come from those involved in archaeology and ancient history, there is revealed knowledge now that the element of leaven has a special place as an antithesis of the mindset of God's kingdom. And we'll show that today. Part of that information will come from this book, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson. It's fascinating to see how some of the information from the past is catching up with us today, and how it really brings to greater life in our lives today what God is teaching us through this festival. The title of the sermon today is The Feast of Sweetness, and you'll find out in a little bit why we call it the Feast of Sweetness for this message.

If you go back in time, you'll find Egypt was an area that had large territories of grassland. Now today, Egypt is mostly the Sahara Desert, but in ancient Egypt, summer rains watered grasslands all across that region, and the grass was fed by these rains. And of course, as the grass grew, individuals put cattle on them.

Cattle is a generic word, meaning sheep, goats mainly, also some cows, but generally cattle. And these ancient shepherds raised their herds across Egypt in what today is now the Sahara Desert. And so he had great, vast herds by roving shepherds. Now keep that in mind here as we take a look at a map of Egypt. This map shows, obviously, the ever-present Nile River. It flows from south to north. And for that reason, southern part of Egypt was called Upper Egypt back in the day, and the northern part was called Lower Egypt. But here you see in the middle of this country depicted a lake in a town of Nabta.

And these shepherds, when the dry seasons came or the cool seasons came, they could come to Nabta around the big lake at Nabta as a central gathering place. Before 3000 BC, a couple of thousand years before Israel showed up, this area was producing great herds.

Now also we see here the Nile. The Nile was an area where people farmed. Farming, as we see in the next slide, is something that is done where the rain or the water is ever-present. And the farmers were able to grow rich, abundant crops. And as the seasons came and the Nile overflowed and brought a lot of dirt and water down from Uganda, it rushed in and would drop topsoil out in a broad plain alongside this river. And so the crops were great, and so this was the area of farming up and down that river.

But animals are always more valuable than crops and vegetables and things that you might grow. And so shepherds were the wealthier class, more wealthy than the farmers. Now let's look at the next slide here. We'll see a satellite photo of Egypt today. By 3000 BC, the climate out in the rest of Egypt was drying up, and the climate had changed by then. It had dried up the grasslands, and shepherding was no longer possible. So to survive the shepherds with a religion that they had been devising among themselves for control, moved over into the farmers' communities. They moved into the green areas here on the map.

Goshen is up near the top where the Nile River moves out into a delta before it goes into the Mediterranean Sea. And up and down this area, arriving gradually and then bunching in more and more, were the shepherds who saw themselves as superior. They saw themselves as more wealthy. They also had a religion, and they taught others that they had special knowledge from God. Now, their most effective tool was proclaiming that the gods had appointed them and their religion to be in charge. The others, of course, did not know about these gods, didn't know about this religion, but they began to teach them about creation and teach them about the gods of water and power and light and crops, and that only they had this information.

In this slide, you can see how detailed and how mysterious it all is. And only they had this information, and their leader, the pharaoh, and his priests knew or could understand these things. You also see that this is now the ruling class, and others submitted to them. The agricultural people, the farmers, they were more basic in their minds, and they just accepted that these others knew what they were talking about. But you'll find this upper class who used the power of gnosis, or a type of Gnosticism, of knowing all the spirit-world secrets and all the secrets of life and the afterlife, they then dressed, they had annual pageantry which put them more and more in power, and these pageants and these celebrations caused the locals to feel more and more inferior.

They used iconic imagery for themselves, and they made statues and monuments to themselves and their gods. They determined, or they made laws, that only they could wear the fine cloths made into clothing. They could only eat the fine foods. They were designated, we might say, for the shepherd's exclusive use, or this class of the pharaoh. Notice here that it's the power for control of the promotion of the self. That's what you see illustrated here. That's what you see throughout Egypt. And if you ever go to visit there, you'll see it everywhere.

In Mark chapter 10 and verse 42, in stark contrast to this civilization, let's listen to the words of Jesus. Mark 10, 42, But Jesus called them to himself, and said to them, You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lowered it over them, and their great ones exercised authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.

For even so, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. So notice right here that Egypt, and what we see on this papyrus, is in stark contrast to the kingdom of God, to all the individuals in the kingdom of God, to all those who are heading for the kingdom of God.

And during these days of unleavened bread, Egypt stands as a type of sin, and its leader Pharaoh as a type of Satan. When we look, for instance, at these columns at Luxor, they look kind of small in the picture, but when you walk among them, you are a very small individual. This is a temple of one of the great gods. And as you walk through there, you notice that each of the pillars is carved with symbols and mystic things, and it makes an individual who comes there feel little and worthless and submissive, and leaning on the priests for direction. Even when you come to the Great Pyramid, the largest pyramid in Egypt, the inside of this great pyramid, you can walk down this ramp that's been constructed and go through column after column, ceiling after ceiling, room after room, of the mystical descriptions of the path to the afterlife. And these things were accepted by the farmers, and they gave reverence to the mystics, and they submitted to the exploitation of the hierarchy of the shepherds.

The pharaohs were corrupt. They were merciless. They inflicted great pain on the citizens, all the citizens, whenever they chose to, and their militaries and others. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and they were merciless to everyone. We had then the farmers enslaved to build their monuments and to produce food for them and to produce the fine clothing for them, and they were dying trying to just feed themselves, plus build all the projects for the shepherds. Now, at this same time, as you look at this, you can imagine it all being in its pomp and glory, and the pyramids actually were covered red. A new invention was discovered in Egypt. First time it was ever discovered. It was leaven. From the historians, it says, Egyptian culture was the first to produce leavened bread, and leavened bread became a symbol of Egypt and the Egyptian culture. So when we see the false religion, we see the oppression, we see the lack of any humility or service, and then we find that it was the Egyptians who learned to leaven bread and then exploited it as a symbol of their religion. Why is that? Because they said it was magic. Magic created by the gods of Egypt. Now, that bread was leavened by something out of the air. You just put your bread and your water together in flour and water, and you just let it there, and magically later on it began to swell and to grow. And oh, the gods of Egypt are causing this. It became the staple food of Egypt and also the Israelites when they were living there. Bread then became the symbol of a culture which used and abused its citizens, taught false religions, had false gods, even human sacrifice.

Now, within this, we come to the story, the initial elements of the Exodus. Here is a map showing how some 1,500 years later, Abram's grandson Jacob, or Israel, would relocate the family to Egypt. You remember that Joseph came down during a famine, and ultimately the whole family came down. And then we saw that Jacob and Joseph are reunited in this next slide. And what a great reunion it was! But they never left. They stayed in Egypt. So now, as the Israelites are living in Egypt, 450 years later after they've lived there, the Bible introduces the Israelites at the bottom of Egyptian society. The farmers were the lowest class, but we find the Israelites lower than the low. They were despised. They were expendable. Pharaoh was oppressing them, even killing their children. He invented even greater stresses, because that's what that culture did to make them more miserable. They were forced to make bricks, and then without straw, so that they could be beaten. Moses said to God that Pharaoh has done evil to this people. Now, this lowest of the low people, this despised and rejected, trapped slaves, suddenly were rescued. They were rescued. They were saved from that situation. And then they were led out by a new ruler, the new ruler of a different society, a different culture. And the foundation of this new leader and his kingdom was mutual concern and love and honor for all. One who wanted to co-share top leadership, one who wanted to share a godly society with the world. And the symbol of this new leader and the new kingdom and the new society was unleavened bread, represented by the Passover, Jesus Christ, and represented by the feast of the new leader and the new people. Let's go to Galatians chapter 1. Their story of their exodus is synonymous with ours. Galatians chapter 1. Let's look at verse 3. Grace to you. In other words, God reaches out and said, oh, of people who aren't, let me give you favors, let me favor you. And peace, that's the harmony from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, for our bondage to death, that he might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. We have this wonderful calling, too, and a wonderful opportunity to be let out, let away from these horrible, horrible conditions that we have partly brought upon ourselves and that society also influences and contributes to, with its leader, Satan the Devil. Now, just like the Israelites, as they came out and would later then turn, he says in verse 6, I marvel that you are turning, turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel. It's important that we have the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover every year. This is something that puts us back on track. It re-centers our mind. It realigns us with God through Christ. It's very important that the symbol of unleavened bread becomes our symbol again. And this leaven which so easily ensnares us is put out of our life.

Promotion of self, remember, that is from the God of this age. The serpent convinced Adam and Eve to go that direction. Cain went that direction. All of humanity went that direction. Then you had the flood. Israel came out of Egypt. Satan comes up, and then Israel goes again. So, in James chapter 3 and verse 13, we find the result of that straying is this. Who is wise and understanding among you? James 3, 13. Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking, if we let that leaven back in, if that becomes our new symbol of how great I am and smart I am and how you ought to submit to me, well, if you have this self-seeking in your hearts, don't boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. And that's what existed in Egypt during the days when Israel lived there and during the Exodus when they were trying to come out.

You know, we are striving, then, to be godly and godlike. It's very important that we strive and that we accomplish that. Let's notice in verse 17. But the wisdom from above is first pure and then peaceable, harmonious. It brings harmony to all the parts. It is gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, and full of good fruits. These are wonderful. When you look at that word, peaceable, with the chaos that we used to have in our life, and then the peaceable relationships.

The word peaceable is interesting. Peaceable also means Pacific. Peaceable and Pacific. In the 1500s, Magellan was sailing, and he got across the Atlantic Ocean, went around the bottom of South America, and he had had a very tough time crossing the Atlantic. When he entered the next ocean, the new ocean, he found it calmer than the stormy Atlantic. He called it the Pacific Ocean. Now, imagine for just a moment, you are Israelites in Egypt, you're slaves, you're making mud bricks, and then the Passover comes, and now it's the night to be much observed, in the first holy days, and wow, what a contrast!

In just one day, from the Passover to the first day of unleavened bread, the night to be much observed, you're off with a new God, you're being led in a wonderful direction, everything is good and pure and truthful and right, and you're eating unleavened bread, which is different than anything that Egypt symbolized. It's something new. God established two symbols for two mindsets, leavened bread and unleavened bread. The Egyptians, remember, had a symbol of their whole system, leavening, and God now has a symbol of his whole system, unleavened bread.

Now, when we look at unleavened bread, we see something that, well, it's not something that's great. Here's a little piece of unleavened bread that I made, and let me just tell you something. It's terrible. It's the unleavened bread of affliction. My wife makes a much better version of this, but mine's tough and it doesn't taste very good. But there's another kind of leaven, another kind of bread, leavened bread. Now, you might be saying, Sinner, what are you doing with that?

And it says on the bag, bakery fresh breads. Oh, we know this one, don't we? You can just think of how it would smell hot out of the oven. Butter and maybe some olive oil and garlic. Oh, that would be so good. Compared to this, well, when you look at the ingredients on the bag, it says, Made in China, injected styrofoam with brown paint. So, okay, it's not really bread, but it does the job of reminding us of these two types of bread.

The interesting thing about these two types of bread is they have the same ingredients. Well, not this particular one, but bread that looks like this, they have the same ingredients. Salt, wheat, flour, and salt. That's pretty much it. A little bit of oil. Okay? So, that's it. What is the reason for them looking so different?

What is it about leaven that makes it a symbol of evil during the Feast of Unleavened Bread? You ever wonder about that? Well, we know that Egypt is synonymous with sin, and Egypt's symbol was leaven bread. We know that Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God is about pure bread of life. So, let's look here. In Revelation 11 and verse 7, we see an interesting statement. Revelation 11, verses 7 and 8. The two witnesses, when they finish their testimony, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them.

He overcomes them and kills them. In verse 8 of Revelation 11, and their dead bodies will lie on the street of that great city, which is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, where our Lord was crucified. So, we see here the symbol of this evil power at the end is still Egypt. And leaven is synonymous with sin. Why is leaven that symbol? Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 8 and see why leaven is used as the symbol.

What is the characteristic of leaven that makes it this way? Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. You know, this is sincerity and truth. And this is the leavened malice and wickedness. Why? What's the difference? Well, we'll see more, but you can see same ingredients, but in a sense, different composure. This is pure. It is sincere. It's the real deal.

And this, well, this has actually become something else. Throughout history, nobody knew what made bread rise. Now, you and I take for granted, if you want to make bread, well, you go to the store, you get some yeast, you throw it in your dough, and there you have bread. Well, guess what? All throughout history, in the before Christ, in the after Christ, all the way up through time to the 1800s, nobody knew what made bread rise.

Now, they knew how to make bread rise, but they didn't know what made bread rise. As you recall, the Egyptian priests claimed it. The gods produced the magic, if they were pleased.

Bakers actually never knew if bread would rise or not. Sometimes it rose, sometimes it didn't. And they didn't know why.

Around the time of the U.S. Civil War, in 1858, just before the Civil War, Frenchman Louis Pasteur surmised that the thing that made dough leavened must have something to do with yeasts.

Yeasts somehow must be involved in that. There was fermentation, and he figured that yeasts were involved.

Now, those yeasts were either airborne, which are iffy, and you think, well, the yeasts are always in the air. Well, not necessarily. After a rain, if the air is cleansed, there might not be any yeast floating around in the air to leaven your bread.

You just never knew. Depending on the conditions, the temperature, the winds, or whatever, one never knew if there were going to be yeast spores in the air to make bread leaven.

So people who were in bakeries tended to go for the dependable cream off the top of the brewer's vats.

They would take that foamy top called the brewer's barm, and they would scoop it off, and they would mix that in with their dough. They had a fairly light loaf that came from that. It was pretty dependable.

But it wasn't until the 1940s. Some of you were alive in the 1940s. The 1940s, during World War II, Fleischmann's Laboratories in New York City invented dry yeast. Until then, there was no such thing as being able to go to the store and buy dry yeast.

You could take a pinch out of an old loaf, or you could have a moist or liquid, or some sort of a cake that you had to protect from heat and light, and keep it at a certain temperature to try to keep it alive. But nobody had ever heard of dry yeast.

The point here is this.

Leaven is something external to bread. It is an agent that infects bread. It has to be brought out from somewhere else to infect the dough.

But to understand what makes bread rise, there is even more.

You know, when you think of bread that is like this versus bread that is like this, we tend to think, well, this is fluffy, this is not. All you need to do is put some air bubbles in there. And true, you could make a pancake or something using an agent that creates gas, but this is not that.

Rather, the rising of bread dough involves the destruction of the flour.

Let me say that again. The rising of bread dough involves the destruction of the flour.

So rather than thinking rising bread is a byproduct of some gas, it is actually destroying the elements of the wheat that have been ground into flour.

Leavening, then, is the process of the wholesale destruction of the host grain, of the wheat, of the barley.

The European Union yeast industry says this. Leaven is a process where enzymes break apart grain fibers, allowing bacteria and yeast spores to decimate its structure in order to expose its sugars.

I can just tell you, basically, if you were to look at a wheat kernel, it has a sheath on the outside, and then it has some layers to it. Inside it has another structure. And in order to make this into leavened bread, what has to happen is, first of all, you grind it up, but you still have the same structure.

The next thing is you put water in it, and the water causes that white part, we might call, to expand. And that pushes apart and opens up the other elements in there, and lets the yeast, then, get at the sugars.

So, as the European Union yeast industry says, aggressive microscopic bacteria systematically break down those sugars into smaller and smaller molecules, and then simpler molecules, changing the molecules, step by step. Then, aggressive yeast spores devour the sugars, and they rapidly reproduce themselves. So, these yeast spores are eating the sugars, and they're just reproducing. The expanding yeast colony excretes a liquid, which releases ethyl alcohol and carbon dioxide into the dough. So, it's actually these little things as they chomp through, they're excreting something, ethyl alcohol, carbon dioxide, into the dough, and it results in this souring, a fermentation, and also then a rising of the dough. In the Adam-Clarke commentary, it says, leaven itself is a species of corruption being produced by fermentation, which tends to putrefication.

So, when we think of bread that's leavened, it is actually something entirely different than unleavened bread. It's putrefied, it's broken apart, it's torn down.

Human slavery is a bitter life, and when the Israelites were slaves and in bondage to Egypt, it was very, very bitter. Let's go to Exodus chapter 1 and verse 14. Bread that has been through the putrefication process has a bitterness to it. Now, we don't tend to think of that, but if you were to take a sourdough or one of the older cultured breads that were used by a fermenting type of yeast pour out of the air, then you would find that that bread had a, you might call it an acquired taste. Maybe you could try regular bread on a young child, a baby, and then give them something that was sour and see which one they would like. But as we age, we tend to like more sophisticated adult-type flavors. Exodus chapter 1 and verse 14. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. And their service in which they made them serve was with rigor. So Egypt and Satan's cultures everywhere are a bitter experience.

Egyptologist Wilkinson deduces from the records that Egyptian society brimmed with deceit, despotism, brutal repression, corruption, and was rife with internal fragmentation and even civil war. And Egyptian culture became the model for all future civilizations.

Coincidentally, as I said, leavened bread has that bitter flavor. In Mark chapter 8 and verse 15, Mark chapter 8 and verse 15, Jesus said, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herod. Why was Jesus so down on the Pharisees and down on Herod? Herod represented the Roman Empire. Herod was doing everything kind of like an Egyptian Pharaoh would in their culture. And the Pharisees, the Pharisees actually were lay members 100, 200 years before, that took it upon themselves to create their own little religious hierarchy. And Jesus here is saying, beware of that leaven, of that self, that different type of a mindset, that different type of a culture.

The botany department of the University of Hawaii says this, The effect of the leavening process made the breads of antiquity slightly bitter tasting.

So it had more of a bitter flavor. So we can see yet another reason why God would use leaven bread associated with a sinful empire, a sinful way, a sinful society, and a sinful leader. The leavening process ensures that the host grain has a demise in about seven days or six days, somewhere around there. Just try it. From those old types of recipes where you inject the leaven from the air and then you let it ferment, you grow and you bake it, that resulting bread is now susceptible to mold.

And bread like that will become moldy in a short amount of time.

In fact, the mold on those original breads was so predictable that the University of South Dakota Department of Science has used moldy bread as a clock.

Put a fresh loaf of bread and time it and you can actually use it as a clock.

But you know, this bread, this is yummy.

It's like Paul said in Romans 6 and verse 19, You presented your members as slaves of unrighteousness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.

We kind of like that flavor. We got used to that.

Selfishness is tasty at times. And we have an acquired taste for some of these yummy things.

But we find, as Proverbs 14, 12 tells us, that there's an aftertaste.

And the aftertaste of sin is bitter and its end is death.

So the symbol of leaven is used in various ways in the New Testament, including the spreading of a mindset.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 6, we recall that the Apostle Paul mentions this.

Let's just see it. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 6.

Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

If we go that direction, we're delivering ourselves, as it were, to these agents of putrification and destruction that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

It seems appealing. Verse 6.

Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?

So if we let that infect us, we are just going to be chewed up.

Now notice verse 7.

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.

And then he goes on saying, therefore let us keep the feast.

So you can see then that you and I have a very, very clear symbolism in the Unleavened Bread Festival that we are to adhere to.

Don't be that. Put that away. Put that out of your life. Come out of this world.

Get away from what this symbolizes in all of its forms. And go for this.

Christ your Passover, the Unleavened Bread of sincerity and truth. This is what we are to be feasting on all this week.

From the fundamental beliefs of the United Church of God, in page 36 of the booklet, it says, During this festival, leaven symbolizes sin and is therefore removed from our homes and not eaten for seven days.

By eating unleavened bread during this time instead, we picture living a life of sincerity and truth free from sin.

The caveat, of course, is that this way of life isn't appealing to our human nature. And so, like the Apostle Paul, we might really want to have something that we've declared we're not part of anymore.

And we'll be tempted to sort of step back or fall back, as it were.

Jesus gave us the overarching goal in Matthew 5, verse 48. Rather than just quote it to you, let me turn there. Matthew 5, verse 48. You want to look at the goal that summarizes the entire Bible in one verse.

You could say it's Matthew 5, verse 48.

Therefore, you shall be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Now, this piece of unleavened bread symbolizes perfection. There's nothing putrefied. It's not going to be molding. Not this week, not next week, not next year, not in seven years.

It will always be nourishing. It will endure. It will last. It will never quit being valuable, helpful.

There's nothing bad about it, nothing harmful about it. It is pure.

And therefore, be like your Father in heaven is, and like His Son, Jesus Christ.

God wants us to use the gifts He gives us of the calling, of the faith, the repentance, the baptism, forgiveness of sin, and the Holy Spirit to then produce the character that they have.

And as we work on that character, they give us the symbol of that character, unleavened bread, and they tell us what to do with it.

We are to eat it. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

Now, God again chose unleavened bread as the name of this feast and the symbol of His feast, and we need to desire that in our lives.

And not seeing it as, oh, it's difficult, or, oh, it doesn't taste just right.

God named this feast in the Hebrew the Feast of Matzah. Not matzoh, the commercial brand, but matzah.

The Feast of Matzah in Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 6.

Now, what does that word matzah mean?

Well, it's interesting that the feast of what we call unleavened bread isn't the two Hebrew words bread that's unleavened.

We just read that it's the feast of matzah. And what is the definition of matzah?

According to Strongs, matzah means sweetness, or a desire for sweetness.

In the sense of greedily devouring something for its sweetness.

Notice the term Strong uses. Greedily devouring for its sweetness.

You and I need to see unleavened bread as something we really want.

We might call this the feast of craving sweetness. Because that's what the Hebrew word means. It's translated into the English of unleavened bread.

Sweet, pure, unleavened bread symbolizes Jesus Christ, His broken body, His people, the body of Christ, His life-giving divinity, the Church of God.

1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 16. Let's go there. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 16 and 17.

The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, unleavened bread.

Is it not the communion of the body of Christ? The communion, these two communions, means the gathering, the fellowship, the togetherness.

It's bringing together.

So the significance now of the unleavened bread is it's the bread of life, it is the symbol of God and the kingdom of God, of the nature of God.

And one of those things is that God always brings us peace or togetherness, unity, that oneness.

So this feast then symbolizes in all of its elements a new life, a cleansed life, an escape from the leaven and the corruption and that which would destroy us.

In conclusion then, by our putting leaven out before the feast of unleavened bread began, and by putting unleavened bread into our lives, into our homes, into our mouths, all during this feast, we portray the process by which God leads us to salvation.

And we declare that we are part of this and we want to be what God is.

We replace the old man with a new man.

Let's look in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 22.

Ephesians chapter 4 verses 22 through 24. That you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.

If you want to symbolize the old man corrupt deceitful lusts, you have to look no further than a loaf of leaven bread.

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness.

Notice true righteousness, the real deal, and true holiness.

Eating unleavened bread during this feast symbolizes our need for God, our need to be led by God, away from the bitterness of sin, learning to crave the sweetness of God's way, of God's Word, and God's righteous way of life.