Follow God's Recipe for Life

Every quality product is accompanied, first of all, with research and development and then engineering that comes with a successful manufacturing formula. Whenever that manufacturing formula is followed, all of the products that are manufactured are identical. Now, this you could call a recipe, whether it's to build a building, to build a vehicle, to build a pie, or to build a cookie. And it's something that people appreciate having, but don't always follow.

Recipes that are deviated by just one element change the outcome, sometimes dramatically. Sometimes, you know, when we're cooking, we might not have this ingredient, but we'll substitute that one. Or we may see something else and say, well, I think that would taste good. And so we add that. Only to find out at the end, it's very different than the original engineered product. Now, you could apply this to many different things in life, and you have some that you're involved with, and you know how this works. But when you deviate from the prescription, or from the recipe, or from the approved process, the result is sometimes like Adam and Eve. I'll just have one bite of that apple. It's not really an apple, but the fruit isn't named, but people will say the apple. And if I were to show you the Apple computer logo, it's an apple with a bite out of it. Everybody kind of knows and even appreciates that. I mean, that's the logo of the second largest corporation that's ever existed. And people are good with that, because humanity kind of follows that mindset. I'll follow the prescription of life, but I'll just have a bite out of something I'm not supposed to. Today I'd like to examine God's recipe for life. We, at this time, are approaching the Passover. We're approaching the Days of Unleavened Bread, which really focuses on the recipe and how closely you and I want to follow it. And the Passover, how devoted are we to that recipe for life that ultimately can result in eternal life in the family of God if we are clothed properly, have followed the recipe, and are ready for entry. However, a deviation from that recipe could leave us naked or not in wedding garments. And just a little deviation, I mean, a person has clothes on, just I chose something a little different than what was prescribed. I still have religion, but my religion is a little different than the recipe. So let's look at that today. The title of the sermon is Follow God's Recipe for Life. Humans always deviate from God's recipe for life. Let's just understand that. All those humans out there deviate from God's recipe. As do all the humans in here, but listen, I'll think about that. We all did deviate. We all do deviate. And it's part of our character development to decide, do I trust God's recipe? Do I want God's recipe? Do I really apply God's recipe? Or am I a deviant from the recipe that God has prescribed for my life?

Humans always deviate. When you're a child, you deviate from your parents' commands. As you're a teen, you deviate from the school, everybody's commands. Have a little bit of fun on the side and do some pranks and deviate from local laws and deviate from God's laws. Then we come up to this thing called repentance. And we realize, wow, I've missed the mark, is what the term sin means. I've missed the mark. I didn't follow the prescription. And Jesus Christ says, you know what? I knew you wouldn't. So before I ever made you, I created a restoration for you to us and a re-application of the recipe, along with some help. So this is a wonderful time of year to look at the recipe God has given us and be re-energized to say, you know what? All the variations I put in the ingredients don't work. They haven't worked. Even though they're tempting to try it, I really need to stick to the recipe. And this coming year, I want to stick to that recipe more than ever. Abraham, righteous, Isaac, pretty good. Jacob, Rachel with her idols, and then the kids, Joseph and Egypt. And things are getting a little out of hand, but God sort of brought it all back together there and moved the house of Jacob down into Israel. Now we pick that up. The Israelites, 400 years later, are lost inside Egyptian culture. If we go to Exodus, the first chapter, notice how it begins. So we come into this first festival season of the year. Exodus is a great place to start. In Exodus 1, verse 13, it says, So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. They're so lost in Egyptian culture, they don't even know who God is. And we can see by some of the things they did shortly after leaving Egypt, they pretty much were glued to the religious, false, pagan mindset and disobedience of God's recipe. In verse 14, they made their lives better with hard bondage and mortar and brick and in all manner of service in the field. A deviation from the recipe, that's where we go. You can look at your life and my life. When we deviate from the recipe, how did that work out? It did not work out well. We did not improve somehow that recipe. We didn't add a little ingredient and just do something a little different. Woo, this worked out so much better. Nope.

Chapter 2, verse 23. Over time, it happened in the process that the king of Egypt died. And then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage. And they cried out. And their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which they had departed from. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them. So this is a wonderful time of year when we too, like sheep, have gone astray. But through the stripes of Jesus Christ, we can then be sanctified and justified and brought back into a relationship with God as God's children. And given repentance to say, here's the recipe. Want to try again? And we say, yes. Yes, we really know now. Nothing else works. We will follow you. I want to tell you a little story that's a personal story of a recipe. Like I said, everybody has your own recipe, and you can have your own story. You can think about that while I tell you mine. And mine won't be like yours, and don't ever follow it, because it's not for you. Trust me. Twenty-four years ago, a major corporation built a boat. It's the most powerful runabout ever made at the time. 310 horsepower, twin-engine jet boat. Sleek-looking, complicated, challenging. But this boat could almost stand up on itself in the water when it started out and be up to 100 kilometers an hour in about seven or eight seconds. Great boat. One issue that that company did with the XR 1800 was they tried to keep old two-stroke engines that burned oil and apply them to that boat, but meet the new EPA environmental regulations of zero pollution. And in doing so, they re-engineered the carburetor's kind of funny, and they stuck a catalytic converter in there, and they did a whole bunch of funny stuff to make this thing comply. And it did, and it ran great for about an hour. And then you could rebuild the carburetors, and after a short time, the meltdown of the catalytic converter that plugged the exhaust could be replaced at great expense. And it would run again for an hour, and then it just kind of went south. And these boats began to end up in people's yards. They didn't run. They would take them to the shops to be reworked, and various companies tried to make these boats work. But they ended up this beautiful, great potential boat, just abandoned.

Ten years later, I found one in decay in somebody's yard, and wanting the potential of that boat to be realized, I purchased it for a very small price, and spent the next 14 years trying to get it to realize its potential. Let me just say that I called it, I called it for years, the boat that doesn't bring you home. You could work on it, you could get it where it would run, and then you could take off on a lake seven miles up, but you couldn't get back. You could go out to sea in the northwest, out of Seattle, all the way up there in the Vancouver area, among the islands. You could go out in the ocean, all that stuff, but you couldn't get back. You could go in, I don't know, Baker Lake, beautiful Baker Lake, five miles out, and puddle around for a while. I remember coming back from over and over and over, sometimes with a boatload of people, trying to get the boat to idle all the way back. Sometimes it would just smoke and leave a, you know, take off and leave the smoke. Everybody at the docks kind of in a smoke cloud, because on that day it was, I don't know, burning oil or something. But it was going to work. You just had to figure out what the problem was. Okay, so it kind of reminds me of the discarded Israelites. If we go to Exodus chapter 3 and verse 16, notice here, God says, God says, Well, I can't really compare my boat experience to that, but it felt like that at times. You want to see this potential, but the boat won't help you. The engines won't help you. Nobody will help you.

We had, as boat owners, had forums, online, many forums, and we were all sharing possible fixes. And then there were shops that popped up with possible aftermarket parts that you could try out. There were all manner of rebuilds and things that you could do. I put a new engine in. I rebuilt one engine two times, and the third time bought a new one to replace it. And it's still exactly the same thing. It ran out, but not back. Very, very frustrating. We all kept doing these things. My friends always advised, get rid of the boat. One of them called it a morphodite. It's a mess. It can't work. It doesn't work. He helped me rebuild an engine on it twice. He said, get rid of this thing. Just buy a real boat. The one you see, everybody goes around the lake having fun. Get one of those. No, no, no, no. There is no boat like the XR 1800. Literally, for various reasons. Yamaha abandoned that boat after the second year of manufacturing. Never looked back. Put four strokes in all their boats, and you're stuck.

Finally, a few years ago, I believe the year was 2020, I was going back on the internet and going through threads and tried scratching my head and done everything I could. I didn't know what to do. I didn't think I could sell this boat to anybody. If I did, I'd feel so bad. I'm ten years into this stuff, and I'm no further ahead. How can you sell this to somebody and be in the church? I'm looking on this old thread, and somewhere on page 49, a guy makes a post.

His handle was Oside Bill, and he was an engineer at OSB. He had created a fix for this boat himself, and he had been selling repairs and fixing a few people's boats until he got tired of it. Everything had moved on. He published what he called the recipe. He published the recipe. Now, the recipe involved tearing out parts of your engine and, especially, all six of your carburetors and beginning to cut parts of them up. Cut parts off. And opening them up and taking a drill with various bits and drilling holes larger in all six of your carburetors. Replacing springs and needle valves and pop-off pressures and fuel lines and rerouting something and cutting off an accelerator pump with the carburetor.

Question. Would you do that? Would you? I mean, you've never seen this guy. You don't know. I mean, everybody's got an opinion out there, and he's just, page 54 in some thread, he pops out this recipe. Would you do that? You know, because when we look at God's recipe, it really... I mean, this guy had died, by the way. Am I going to follow some dead guy's recipe? I mean, when you look at this book, everybody who wrote this is dead. Remember that. All the writers have long gone, and here we are in the modern age with our life, and, you know, am I going to trust a recipe from somebody I can't talk to, I can't even see?

This is reality. This is really reality. And as we approach the Passover in the Days of Unleavened Bread, we might come in sort of like, well, you know, I'll give it another try, but I'm not sure that just, phew, doing that. I mean, tithing and, you know, cleaning on clean-mates and no work on the Sabbath and don't think about this and don't marry outside the church and, you know, all of this. I mean, I'll do some of the recipe, but I might change a few ingredients in there as needed.

You know what I'm saying? And that's where we humans come short at the judgment. That's where we come up not quite sheep, a little too goatish, not quite fruit, a little too empty shells, not quite wise, a little less oil. And God has called us with a recipe for life. And if we follow this recipe for life, it will be wonderful. In Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 1, let's notice how God presents this recipe to us. Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 1. Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey. It doesn't just say casually obey or mostly obey. It shall come to pass if you diligently obey the recipe, if you just want to put that in there.

Now think of your recipe for a minute. You've got some recipes you like. What happens when you don't quite follow them? It might be some drink that you make, and you put a little juice in that little juice, and you put a little lime in there, and then this other little thing like bitters. And you get this recipe just right. But then you say, you know, I ran out of that one.

I'll try this one. It's something different. So if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord, too, carefully observe all His commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. It's going to really work out. You're actually going to be set high above all the nations of the earth on the throne of Jesus Christ reigning over all those nations.

That's the application for us. Just like physical Israel will ultimately, in the millennial reign of Christ, be above all nations of the earth. And all these blessing shall come upon you and overtake you. And then He starts laying them out. Of course, in verse 15, if you choose to alter the recipe a bit, it's just going to fall apart.

It's just going to fall apart. There were a few people on this forum who reported back that they had followed Osaid Bill's recipe. And there weren't many comments, just a few, and said, yeah, thanks, appreciate that, whatever. But there were quite a few that said, you know, I think you can improve your recipe if you do this. And I was changing the pop-off pressure to that and putting in different springs.

And I don't think you really should drill that thing out to that size opening. You should do this and leave that return line in place. And I still have my accelerator pump on mine, and I think it works better. What does that mean? Well, they hadn't done the recipe. They had maybe done something, part of it, they acknowledged the recipe, but they did something else.

It's kind of like all humans. We acknowledge it. Everybody has a Bible, and we say, oh yeah, that's the Word of God. But we do, we tend to do something else. Osaid Bill was his handle, and he says, he expressed frustration with them. And they would say, you try this and try that. He finally came out. Here's what he said. The last words that I recall before he died. And he just suddenly went blank after saying this.

We didn't hear from him anymore. No responses. Then his wife posted that he had had a heart attack. Right after he gave the recipe. Before he died, here's what he said. If you follow the recipe, the cookies come out the same every time. And then that was it.

I thought about that statement. I've copied that statement. I've put it in my notes today. I have thought about that statement. And in thinking about it, you know, I thought we've all tried everything else. But this engineer said he's got a recipe, and if you follow it, there won't be a variation in any of the six carburetors. And those engines should work.

Very interesting. Invariably, any deviation from it ruined the carburetors. You now had done something else to them. That didn't work.

But, few people today own that boat. Few people even know about the recipe. You could say few are called. Have you ever heard of it? Because it was way back in 2015, left in a thread somewhere. Nobody knows it. Nobody sees it. And those boats, the last, I think the last time I've seen a video on YouTube with that boat, somebody driving it was maybe almost a decade ago.

And it's just it. You'll see occasionally something for sale, but I don't think people don't even try to sell them.

But one engineer gave hope for those boats. A recipe that it followed exactly brought the boat to life. Makes it a very powerful, very dependable boat. Took away all the issues. You can get in that boat, fire it up, and go all day long, all week long. But it's a specific recipe. The lesson to me is in verse 9 here of Deuteronomy 28. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself just as He has sworn to you if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. So forget my recipe a minute and go back to your physical recipe. You know what they are. Whether it's how you set up a sewing machine, or how you bake something, or how you do something. If you carefully do that, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways, you're going to maximize the potential of that endeavor, that thing, that product. The Israelites didn't do that, and they are not the holy people of God today for that reason. God has not totally abandoned them. He will bring them back, a remnant of them. But they are not the people of God today because they did not keep the commandments of the Lord. They did not keep the prescription. They have a kind of aversion, but they changed the recipe. How about you and me? Do we make variations in the recipe, or do we carefully observe the Bible? God gave the Israelites a recipe for life. We know it as the Ten Commandments, as part of it, in Exodus 19 and verse 4, leading up to the Ten Commandments. Let's notice what God says. Exodus 19 and verse 4. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. God is dependable. You saw how they got buried in the Red Sea, and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Exodus 19.

Verse 8. So Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord. And Israel followed the recipe. Well, they substituted a few ingredients. But they had all the elements. Let's look. Exodus 32 and verse 7 is the next follow on to this. Exodus 32 and verse 7.

And the Lord said to Moses up on Mount Sinai, Get down, for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. And they have made themselves. Well, they had a god, but it was a molded calf. Breaking commandment number one. And worshiped it. Breaking commandment number two. And sacrificed to it.

And said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Breaking commandment number three.

And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people. It's a stiff-necked people.

They broke these first three, then they went on. If you read the rest, they changed the annual Sabbath. Right there! They declared their own annual Sabbath day. And then they stole, and then they lied, and they committed adultery, and they coveted. Well, they had all the elements of the Ten Commandments. They just changed them a little bit, didn't they?

Who will follow God's recipe? David did. Some alterations. Some exceptions. The thing with Bathsheba, and killing a good, dependable friend, and numbering Israel. A few other things.

Kings of Judah. As we go through the Bible each year, we read about king after king. And this king did right in the sight of the Lord. Only, he didn't tear down the Astra, and he didn't tear down the foreign temples, he didn't take out the groves, etc., etc. He kept the recipe with variations. You remember Solomon. Wow, what a great opportunity Solomon had. And God leads out for Solomon.

I'm going to be with you like I was with your father, David. I'm going to make you wealthy, I'm going to give you wisdom, you know, you're just going to have all this stuff. And just follow the recipe, Solomon. Oh, yeah, I'm going to follow that recipe. Of course, Solomon had to write out the whole law, right? So he knew it. And he followed it, except for a few thousand chariots from Egypt he wasn't supposed to have in those horses.

All those four and seven hundred foreign princesses that were offered to him by other countries to marry in so that, you know, you wouldn't be attacking. And, you know, and of course he began to build altars to their gods and worship their gods. Wow! Jeroboam had a great opportunity from God. You know, sometimes we just sort of discount Reoboam, you know, who turned the taxation into really tough times for the nation.

And so the ten tribes left. But let's go to 1 Kings 11 and verse 35. 1 Kings 11, 35. You know, it's good to spend a little time in the Bible and be reminded of some of these profound examples for us, because the Bible tells us these are here for our examples. Variations on God's recipe for life don't work. 1 Kings 11, 35.

Here's God talking to Jeroboam, and he says, I will take the kingdom out of Solomon's son Reoboam's hand, and I'll give it to you. Wow! That's pretty good. Ten tribes. You get almost everything. He's just going to leave Judah because of David, and God's name is in Jerusalem. But you get the rest. Now going on to verse 37. So I will take you, and you shall reign over all your heart desires, and you shall be king over Israel. Then it shall be, if you heed all that I command you, walk in my ways and do what is right in my sight, follow my recipe, to keep my statutes and my commandments, as my servant David did.

Then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house, as I built for David, and will give Israel to you. Wow! What a great opportunity! Just follow the recipe. Chapter 12, verse 20. And sure enough, just like God had promised, now it came to pass when all Israel heard that Jeroboam had come back from Egypt.

Oh, wait a minute. Jeroboam went to Egypt. What do you think he picked up down in Egypt? Where the Israelites had been and got corrupted. Jeroboam had spent a lot of time down in Egypt, and now he came back, and they sent for him and called him to the congregation and made him king over all Israel. There was none who followed the house of David but the tribe of Judah only. Now let's go to chapter 12, verse 27, and see how he did with following that recipe of life.

Chapter 12, verse 27, he says, If these people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, then the heart of this people will turn back to their Lord, Reoboam, king of Judah. And they will kill me and go back to Reoboam. Therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold, and said to the people, Is it too much for you to go up to Jerusalem?

Here are your gods, O Israel. He went right back to Egypt and comes out with golden calves. But one up in the north and one in the south, here is your God, just like Aaron had done. Well, obviously that didn't work out very well. Verse 31, he made shrines on the high places, made priests from every class of people who were not from the sons of Levi.

Then you have the captivity, first of all, of Israel. The northern ten tribes are taken away by Assyria because they had just gone on and left God's covenant. They had left that way of life and just came up with a totally different way of life. And they've sort of been lost every since and amalgamated and pushed around.

Then Judah, who hung on for a while, did pretty well as a while. They also violated God's covenant and off they went to Babylon for 70 years. Think about it. 70 years. 70 years is what? Two, three generations came up in Babylon? They liked Babylon. They enjoyed the Babylon territory. They didn't all live in the city of Babylon. But what happened was back in those days, when you got conquered, they took you and moved you to a different area.

So you wouldn't fight back. You didn't know the area. You had to get used to the area. You had to kind of figure out where to live. But while you were doing that, you weren't organized and you didn't give them any trouble. Then they tried to also get you to marry in with the locals in the area so that you would dilute and sort of homogenize the population. And the Jews were pretty okay with that. After 70 years, a few people came back.

A few people came back. But if you look at the time, and I don't have the time to go into it, when you look at the time, a lot of time went by. You could say more generations went by and no temple was built. Nehemiah went there and tried to get them to build the temple, and they didn't want to build it. And then Babylon fell to Persia.

Persia reigned. And during this time, of course, Cyrus and Darius, the Mede, encouraged the building, and it wasn't being built. And finally Ezra, who was an administrator in the government, was assigned to get down there to Jerusalem and get that thing built, because we don't want any gods without a temple. We don't want any gods upset with us in our kingdom. And so Ezra went down and, frustratingly, began to teach this, the recipe from scratch.

He found a copy of the law, and Ezra had something that nobody else did. He had the backing of the government of Persia and instructions. They were to learn this, and they were to apply it, and they were to get in the business of temple worship and do it right. And he did. When you think of the Old Testament, this is the time the Old Testament was canonized, was when Ezra was doing this and bringing this back together.

He was pulling the books together. He was getting them taught and bringing Israel, the remnant, which was Judah, back in line with the biblical government of God. And he did a good job. And by the end of that time, let's say by the end of the fourth century, third century, somewhere in there, B.C., Judah was established and properly observing and knowing the law of God.

But then what happened? Alexander the Great conquered Persia. Well, Alexander the Great brought in a new form of society and government called Hellenism, and this Greek Hellenistic mythological culture, with the power of him coming in and conquering Palestine and the whole known world, then fragmenting into four generals.

And then those four generals consolidating the power into a north and a south kingdom, the south kingdom being Egypt, which controlled Palestine. It took a while for Palestine to come under the control, because the north kingdom in the south, the Ptolemaic and the Seleucid dynasties, were kind of squabbling there and fighting back and forth. But finally, by 301 B.C., Ptolemy had finally established power there. Now, here we are with Egypt again.

Egypt is now forcing its culture over Judah. I want to read from my Jewish learning an article from an article, The Land of Israel in the Hellenistic Age, the Greek, via Egypt, Age, that preceded Jesus Christ. The Ptolemies established control and a firm hold, and from the archives an Egyptian finance minister, comes news from the land of Israel. Israel, or Palestine, exported grain, olive oil, smoke fish, cheese, meat, dry figs, honey, dates, and was at a crossroads for that southern empire for spices.

Very important area. So they established Egyptian military units throughout Palestine, 300 years before Christ. Each of those military units with soldiers were instructed to marry into the local population. Intermarry. Marry with the Jewish women. And so that's what happened. Those who did were given a free house and free land. So they worked out pretty well. So you then began to marry in and work in, and just what God had always said, you know, don't marry outside. Let's go to Ezra chapter 9 and verse 10. Ezra chapter 9 and verse 10, they had just finally overcome this. Ezra chapter 9 verses 10 through 14. Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, You have transgressed and have taken pagan wives, adding to the guilt of Israel.

Now therefore make confession to the Lord God of your fathers and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from pagan wives. And all the answer, all the assembly said, we will do that. Verse 13, but there are many people. It is the season of heavy rain. You know, blah, blah, blah. In verse 14, let the leaders of our enemies, sorry, let the leaders of our entire assembly stand and let all those in our cities who have taken pagan wives come at appointed times and so that the fierce wrath of our God is turned away from us.

And so they did that. But you see, at the end of Ezra, now comes Alexander the Great and his generals, and they revert right back away from God's commandments. Now they're marrying into the local population.

Continuing from this article, it says, in the second century B.C. that's the 100s B.C. A rivalry between the Jewish Tobiyad family and the Oniad high priests played a part in the attempted radical Hellenization of Judea. You have Jews siding with them and radicalizing this Hellenism, Greek, Egyptian culture, and pushing it into the Jewish culture. This is important to remember because Jesus Christ is going to be born now in about 150 years.

It says here, from this Jewish society, Greek cities had been established throughout the country, and Hellenism, this Greek-Egyptian mindset, had sunk strong foundations ultimately to tear the nation of Judea apart. Jewish proponents of extreme Hellenization would welcome Antiochus Epiphanes, who would carry out their plans to Hellenize Jerusalem and its people. He's the one who stood in the temple and sacrificed a pig, and they were for it.

And then some revolted. You had the Judean revolt. And we come down to the time then of about 150 AD. Greece got overthrown by Rome, and the Jews had had some independence there for a little while, but now they're under Roman rule. There's a handout I'd like everyone to have if you would be so kind as to pass that out now. And if you're watching this online, you can go to studyyourbible.org. That's studyyourbible.org and slash tools, or go to the tools page on that website, and you can see or download this document as well.

It's the Passover timeline, Old Covenant and New Covenant. When we see this Passover that's coming up, we find there is a Passover recipe. It's found in Exodus 12 and verse 5. Let's review it briefly before we get to the handout. Exodus 12 verse 5, the recipe for the Passover is very specific. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. Twilight is the evening beginning of the day, the start of the fourteenth.

Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lentil. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted in fire, with unleavened bread. Notice, on the Passover you eat unleavened bread. We'll see in a minute more about that. In verse 10, you shall let none of the Passover remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire. You're still in the house where you ate the Passover in the morning, and if some of it remains there, you'll burn it with fire.

And thus you shall eat it with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand. So shall you eat it in haste. Why? Why do you eat it in haste? You better have eaten it before midnight. That's why. 4, verse 12, I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all the firstborn. Verse 13, Now the blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.

Just like the blood of Jesus Christ in the New Covenant is shed for us, and when he sees that blood and we've repented, we will not have to die for our own sins. He will apply Christ's death for our sin.

Now, dropping down, verse 14, So this day shall be a memorial. Remember, Jesus said, Do this in remembrance of me, a memorial. The Passover is a memorial, and you shall keep it as a feast. This is feast number one of God's seven festivals. Throughout your generations, you shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Then he goes on, verse 15, Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. What's he talking about there? Let's go down to verse 17 and see. So you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this same day, what same day?

Verse 16, On the first day there will be a holy convocation, and on this same day, first holy day of unleavened bread, night to be much, I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Now, verse 18, In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at Eve, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day.

Remember how on Passover you ate unleavened bread with the Passover meal? And it was a holy day? And you will eat unleavened bread from the fourteenth day until the twenty-first day? Let's count that. Fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twenty, twenty-one. Eight days. That's the seven-day festival of unleavened bread and the Passover. So you eat unleavened bread for eight days. Okay, let's go to Deuteronomy 16, verse 6. Deuteronomy 16, verse 1. Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God. Notice, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.

So, in the month, God brought us out from Egypt by night. Now let's go down to verse 6. And I'm going to read this from the King James Version. Verse 6 says, You shall sacrifice the Passover at even, at the going down of the sun, in the season that you came forth out of Egypt. The word there is the moed. Moed means the season or the festival. The festival that you came out of Egypt. The season you came out of Egypt, which we've already established as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. However, note this. In 1982, Thomas Nelson came out with their own copyrighted version of the Bible called the New King James. And they changed that word. They changed it from season and they changed it to the time you came out.

And that has caused confusion with people. It was correct, the season, the festival, but Thomas Nelson changed the word in verse 6 that causes confusion to came out with the time you came out from Egypt. Now, what that could mean is the broad time or the season or the festival.

But it's confusing to think that, oh, the exact time of day is when you came out of Egypt. And so some people feel that they align that with the Jewish tradition that came out of this second and third century B.C. We call it the Hellenization and Egyptianization of the people in that land. We're going to find out why.

Why 2,280 years ago did the Jews stop keeping the Passover on the 14th? And they admittedly do so. Why did they stop about 2,280 years ago? About 280 years before Christ's birth, somewhere in there. In the April 1963 Good News magazine, in an article entitled, Why the Jews Don't Observe the Passover, it says, while the Jews had the responsibility for preserving the correct calendar, only God retains the right to tell us what date on the calendar to keep his festivals.

No man has that right. And God tells us when to observe it. Leviticus 23, verse 5. Let's just turn there. Leviticus 23, verse 5. We call this the Feast Chapter.

Leviticus 23. These are the feasts of the Lord, holy proclamations, which you, the priests, the ministry today, shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the 14th day of the month at twilight is the Lord's Passover. And Passover at twilight is the beginning, the introduction of the day that begins. Notice at sunset.

It's important to note this because this is why the Jews don't keep the Passover on the day that they used to, nor on the day that Jesus Christ did and the church does. We're going to find more about this in just a moment. This is also the time that Christ kept it. Notice in Luke chapter 22 and verse 13. Luke chapter 22 and verse 13. In the New Testament, Jesus said, this is the new covenant in my blood. Here is Him also keeping it on Nice Un14, or Abib 14, just as the Old Testament commanded. Luke 22 verse 13. Then they began to question among themselves who of them would do this thing.

Well, that's not the right one. 22, 13. I've got 22, 13. Okay. Talked about eating the Passover in verse 11 with His disciples. Verse 13. So they went and found it just as He had said, and they prepared the Passover. So they had to kill the Lamb and prepare the Passover. And then in verse 14, when the hour had come, He sat down and the twelve apostles with them. And He said with fervent desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

And then He took the cup in verse 17. And then He took the bread in verse 19. And He said, He gave thanks broken and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. And likewise He took the cup in verse 20. This is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you. And so then we find that He went out in verse 39. It was still dark. In the beginning of the 14th, He went out to the Mount of Olives the next morning. He was arrested by 9 o'clock in the morning. He was being crucified at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Approximately He died, and He was buried that night. Now you notice that afternoon the Jews were killing the lambs. They were killing the lambs just like the disciples had killed the lambs at the end of the 13th.

They're now killing them on the 14th because they're going to observe the Passover on the 15th. Why? Why? Why don't the Jews keep the Passover on the 14th? Well, the article says, from 301 B.C. to 198, the Jews came under the control of the Egyptians. Remember this Ptolemaic regime? And these Gentiles imposed their philosophies and religious beliefs upon the Jews in profusion.

One of Judaism's greatest historians, Dr. Lanterbach, admits this period was one of religious anarchy among the Jews of Palestine. They accepted on a large scale outright Egyptian customs. Some examples you'll recognize from the New Testament now. Two hundred years before, here they are. Herodotus, who visited Egypt, a historian in the fifth century, before Christ, reported that the Egyptians would only drink out of pots and pans which had been scoured every day.

They would religiously bathe themselves twice a day. They shunned all foreigners. They wouldn't talk to foreigners. Especially Greeks. They would destroy any vessel or utensil which had been touched by a foreigner. Such laws were inaugurated by the thousands by the Egyptians, said Herodotus. So the Jews possessed none of these things in the days of Ezra. But following Egyptian domination, Jews began practicing with vigor these very same Egyptian laws. You can see in Matthew 5 verse 2 how they were, you know, you didn't wash your hands or you didn't do this.

In Mark 7 verses 3 through 8, you know, some of the things that they were accusing Jesus of. These came from Egypt. They didn't come from the law. But what happened to the Passover? The Jews always kept the Passover on Nisan 14. If we go to Ezra chapter 6, remember, Ezra is just before this period.

Ezra just before this period. Let's see in Ezra chapter 6 in verse 19 through 22. And the descendants of the captivity kept the Passover on the 14th day of the first month. They kept it. They had always kept it on that day whenever they were keeping it. Probably didn't keep it that often. For the priests and Levites had purified themselves. They slaughtered the Passover lambs for all the descendants of the captivity. Verse 21, then the children of Israel had returned eight together with all those who had separated themselves.

Verse 22, and they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy. So there you have eight days of unleavened bread, two separate festivals. And it was being kept. But suddenly the Jews appear in Jesus's time on the 15th. And people tend to look back at the Jews and say, oh, what did the Jews say? Oh, what did some of these Jewish leaders say in the Jewish books? Let's try to learn from them. What did the rabbis say? And they're held up to high...Jesus didn't hold them up there. Actually, the people in Jesus's day that were religious were very small. If you took all the Pharisees, all the Sadducees, all of the zealots and all of the scribes and added them up, they were small rival groups.

Most of them wouldn't let others in. And they competed against each other. Some sources say that up to 97% of the Jews in Jesus's day were also illiterate. You had a few that you read of, like Saul and others, who were very literate. When you go to Acts 4, you find that even the people who saw Peter and John said, these are unlearned men. Maybe even illiterate at that time, because they were fishermen way up north. So let's not get in our heads that somehow the New Testament is all about religious people, and everybody knew God's law, and somebody says a word or two, and instantly God's law just comes to mind.

It's ridiculous. When Jesus said, Father, Father, why have you forsaken me? Did everybody know that that was some reference to the Bible? No. He said, He's calling on Elijah to save him because his God abandoned him. He's calling on Elijah when he said, Eloi, Eloi, Lamos, Abakkani. They had no clue. And then says the whole audience then says, Oh, he's calling on Elijah. I didn't get anything.

So what happened was the Egyptian day commenced with sunrise. One thing that the Jews learned during this period of time, under the domination of the Seleucid dynasty out of Egypt, days began at sunrise. And so the day of the 14th at sunrise began halfway through the next day, you see. And so the end of that day was the 15th. And for a short period of time, it became common for them to begin a day at sunrise. According to the Jewish Quarterly Review of April 1946, this custom was adopted and persisted among Jews even down to New Testament times. Hebrew Union College has admitted this back to the ministry of the church. The proof of this is also given in the expository. So notice how diabolically clever it changes things when you just adjust the recipe by 12 hours. Now, eventually, that dynasty went away. The Romans came in, and the Jews rejected and went back to an evening beginning for a day. But even later on, when the Jews finally got back to an evening-to-evening reckoning for the day, they refused to abandon what had become the traditional way of observing Passover. The principle, what was good for my father's is good enough for me, and it was too strong for the Jews to leave it. And so that is why today the Jews still keep Passover on the 15th. And in fact, they kind of call the whole festival a Passover since the days of Unleavened Bread factor in to their calculation. So when we think then about the feast that we're about to keep, you have a chart here in front of you that I've made up. It's just to give some visual interpretation, not interpretation, but some visible backing to what we see in Scripture. You'll see every line has a Scripture. Let's just go down it on the left. On the 14th of Nysun, Passover was killed after sunset, blood placed on the doorposts, the roasting of the Passover lamb with bitter herbs. No one could go out of his house until morning. Death of Egypt's firstborn at midnight. News was gathered. They didn't have telephones. Somebody had to go find out that, hey, people around Egypt have been dying. That took some time. It was gathered from around Egypt and Pharaoh calls for Moses. It doesn't say Moses went because they were told not to leave their houses. If we go over to the New Testament, we've just seen that foot washing service was instituted, Passover symbols, all on the 14th, the beginning of the 14th, a day before Jews were beginning to celebrate it. Judas went to betray Jesus. Jesus taught the disciples, prays to his father. Judas came and betrayed him all before sunrise. Then he had the trial by the Sanhedrin, scourged by the Roman, and Peter denied him three times. All that happened in the dark. Now we come to the daylight portion the next day. In the morning, they can leave their houses, Exodus 12, 22. They have to burn the remains of their Passover meal. They ground wheat, bread dough, for their journey. Joseph's remains are collected for the trip. Now let's just remember, they're going to leave from Ramesses. They're going to leave from Ramesses that night. This is the daytime. Ramesses is not where the Israelites are. They're not all two, three million people camped right there. They're spread around making bricks, remember? So they have to move into Ramesses. Two to three million people gather their possessions and their herds. Estimate nine million animals. If there's three million people, and each person only had three animals, that's nine million.

And they prepare for travel. They view the Egyptians burying their dead in animals. Can't see that in the dark. They walk to the city of Ramesses, where they are organized into armies and orderly ranks. Now, if you know anything about marching, or if you've ever been involved in big parades, you have a starting line, and the first people start walking. The first parade floats start going. And you have this area where everything is staged, and people are released one at a time. The back people don't leave until they finally get a chance to step up to the starting line. This takes a long, long time, and they're going to go 20 miles today. Everybody's going to go 20 miles. And God has them leave in the dark, provides them with a miracle of light and cloud. So they all get out. Nobody, the clouds protect them from behind. Light guides them out. And they go out by orderly ranks. In the New Covenant, we see 6 a.m. Jesus is sentenced. This is Roman time.

9 a.m., the 3rd hour, the crucifixion process begins. Noon, we have darkness. That's Jewish time. There's two ways of... Roman time would be, you know, a certain calculation. Jewish time is what is used there in Matthew 24. Around 3 p.m., Jesus died. We have signs and miracles. Joseph attains the body, and the burial is just before sunset on Nisan 14. All happening on Nisan 14. Now we come back to the Old Covenant, the Old Testament. Day of Unleavened Bread, First Holy Day, 15th of Nisan, the twilight, the beginning of that evening. They departed from Ramses on the 15th. At sunset, the first ranks began. The 20-mile, 10-hour nighttime journey to Succath. It's a night of solemn observance, verse 42. Passover plus the seven-day feast of unleavened bread totals eight days. There's the Scriptures. And at Succath, they baked their unleavened dough when they finally arrived and camped. Over in the New Covenant, we see the first Holy Day at sunset. The Holy Day began in Jerusalem. A night of solemn observance, verse 42. The Passover plus the seven-day feast of unleavened bread again totals eight days. There's the New Testament counting for that. And Holy Day meals and preparation work was permitted. So hopefully that chart, that visual chart, can show how and only how the Passover was always kept on the 14th and the first Holy Day began on the 15th. You know, in the end, what we find here is the Israelites, or the Jews, who had come out of Egypt, returned to Egypt mentally, and they're taught Egyptians ways. And Jesus Christ had a very challenging time dealing with those who had gone 360 degrees, had gone back mentally to Egypt, and now were pushing Egyptian things just like they had when Jesus first brought them out on Mount Sinai. Let's look at a couple more scriptures as we wrap this up. In Acts 7, verse 38. Acts 7, verse 38. Let's be reminded here. And this is He that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spoke to Him in the Mount Sinai and with our fathers who received the lively oracles to give to us. We have these lively oracles. We have the recipe, the whole thing. To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust Him from them and in their hearts turn back again to Egypt. What will we do with our opportunity to follow God's recipe for life? Will we turn it back into doing what we did originally? Will we somehow Hellenize this book like nominal Christianity has? Will we alter that recipe somehow or will we go forward? In Revelation 11, verse 8, I just want to show that Jerusalem, what God calls current Jerusalem in this context. Talking about the two witnesses when they die. Their dead bodies shall lie in the street of that great city, which is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. You can see what has happened to the Israel-ish nations and where they are today, mentally, religiously. Sodom and Egypt is what Jerusalem is called.

In conclusion, we have then clear instruction in the Old and New Testament to carefully follow God's recipe for life. I'd like to finish up with a couple more verses. One is Hebrews 8, verse 8. Because these things are here for a reason, for us to learn. And as we approach the Passover and the days that remind us of the coming out of this people who were nobody, that were given a recipe to make their potential be realized all the way up to the God-family level. It's important that we learn. Hebrews 8, verse 8. Because finding fault with them, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. And he has done that for us as firstfruits, as the first ones with Jesus Christ of the human race to inherit the kingdom of God and the Godhead. And so let's also go to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 2, and we'll conclude with this passage. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 2.

Verse 1, it says, Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all of our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea. Verse 2, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea. All ate the same spiritual food. All drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. Verse 5, But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. They didn't like the recipe. They didn't follow it. Now these things become our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted. Don't change the formula. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. Verse 8, Nor commit sexual immorality. Verse 9, Nor let us tempt Christ. Verse 10, Nor complain. Verse 11, Now all these things happen to them as examples, and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. It is about the recipe. It's about every ingredient and making it right according to the law of God. The purpose of the Passover is to remember that we have returned and are sanctified, restored through the shepherd of our lives. The purpose of God's festival of unleavened bread is for us to redevote ourselves to keeping the recipe, applying it carefully, getting rid of any elements that aren't in it. Put those things away. And when we do that, we will live rightly in God's eyes, and we will have that really excellent purpose and reason for our being fulfilled at the seventh trump when Jesus Christ returns. I wish you all a very meaningful spring festival season.