Fundamental Elements of the Days of Unleavened Bread

I'm going to give a simple addition to the special services we have on a spring holy day. I can see the sound crew back there. I need to ask before I touch the mic.

Can I bring it down? I'm at least not looking the mic right in the eyeball. I can get it down here where I can speak to you. When I've been asked to take the assignment of speaking on the first day of Unleavened Bread to Tacoma, your mind in developing the messages for the spring go through what might I speak on. In the course of thinking about it, I crossed my mind that the last time that I have spoken to you on the first day of Unleavened Bread was 1995.

I thought, I need to go back and look at that message and see if I might give it again 24 years later. Then I realized that I've gotten to the place where I'm a little spooked when it comes to speaking because every so often I'm inspired to give a message that I already gave.

That doesn't work too well. So I looked and I said, sure enough, the message that I gave that first day of Unleavened Bread, I reworked in 2017 and it's on the ucg.org national website. So I said, no, that's only two years old. I'd best leave that one alone. I'm looking at a group of people that have been keeping these days for a long, long time. In fact, when we go do the corridor from Eugene to Seattle and the churches in that area, we're multi-generations old and there are a significant number of people in that corridor that have been keeping it their entire lives.

I'm curious, just as a show of hands, how many of you in the room have been keeping the days of Unleavened Bread your entire life? Okay. Those that are not in that category, I'm sure there are a number of you that can say, well, I've kept it 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, and there's the probability that there might even be somebody in this room who's kept it 60 years.

So we have a long, long history of observing these days. That's a good thing, but there's a hitch in keeping something that long. And that hitch is familiarity and comfort. All of the vocabulary, all of the phrases, and all of the observances are second nature to all of us. In fact, if somebody came into this room from off the street and walked up to a conversation, they would hear church speak so thick they would wonder what in the world did I just walk into? I was met at the door with the question, can you give me the title to your message?

And I said, sure. And he said, well, that's a rather long title. And I said, well, you can take the Days of Unleavened Bread and just put D-U-B, and everyone will know what it means. Everyone in the room will know what it means. No one else would have a clue what in the world does D-U-B stand for.

But we're comfortable. That comfort caused me to go back and look at the tail end of Hebrews 5 and the beginning of Hebrews 6. Not in the same vein that the writer of Hebrews wrote it, because there's a degree of correction. In fact, there's a considerable degree of correction in the end of Hebrews 5 and the beginning of Hebrews 6. And I'm reading it to you not in that vein, but it provides a platform that you can understand when I launch from that platform.

He said in Hebrews 5 and verse 12, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk, not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Now, the thought doesn't end there. We have a chapter break, but the thought does not break. There's a therefore, which means I have given you a setting. Now I'm moving from there. Therefore, as a result of all of this, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again, and then he names the foundational principles.

Repentance from dead works, faith toward God, baptism laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. Okay, now we have a setting here that I think we can use to our benefit and our value, because what we share in common with these people, and in fact it would have been humorous if we could have been a fly on the wall to a theoretical meeting between the author and this audience, because he wouldn't ask how many of you have been keeping this all of your life, because he'd be looking at an audience where all of their life, all their father's life, all their grandfather's life, all their great grandfather's life, and we would be going back generationally so far that you couldn't even see the end of the great, great, great, great, greats, because he was speaking to the Hebrews.

And there were people there that said, well, my family's been keeping this since Moses. So there's a lot of great, great, great, greats along that particular line. What we want to use this for is, as I said, familiarity that causes us to go on a mental autopilot. And as such, there are times where someone may question us or we may even question ourselves about a fundamental and say, you know what, I really don't know.

Or, hmm, I really haven't thought that one all the way through. Or, let me go back and study that again and sharpen up my ability to explain it. I received an email from the home office. Somebody had written in to my name and they forwarded it and said, if you wish to respond, respond. And it was somebody I had known since the late 70s, and they made the comment in the course of the email that they had listened to one of my sermons on the days of Unleavened Bread and said they were still searching to find the direct connection between leavening and sin.

I thought, hmm, well, that's a—I had mixed feelings. That's a strange comment. And then I thought, well, it's an interesting comment. And I wrote them back and I said, if you're looking for a simple leavened and then an equal sign, sin, don't waste your time. And I said, if you want help with the question you're searching for, I'm happy to help you with it. But it was an interesting, okay, this person is looking for something very tight and very literal.

And on autopilot, we said, well, what's the issue? What's the issue? Everybody knows that. Everybody does know that. But the issue is, as I said to him, don't look for a three-word location to describe it.

We're going to call today's sermon, The Fundamental Elements, if we can take a tagline from Hebrews 6, The Fundamental Elements of the Days of Unleavened Bread. Let's walk through the observance of the Days of Unleavened Bread for the purpose of both seeing and understanding where they came from, why we celebrate them the way we do, and why we believe the way we do. The first portions of the elements are really very simple, and they are literally items that we can look at and mentally go on autopilot justifiably.

We go back to Exodus 12. In terms of pedigree, the pedigree for the Days of Unleavened Bread goes all the way back to Exodus 12, while the children of Israel are still inside the land of Egypt. All of the fundamental commandments that underlie and underpin this observance are found before they ever left. Exodus 12, verses 1 and 2 give us the setting. The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be your beginning of months.

It shall be the first month of the year to you. So he said, all right, we're establishing a new regimen. And that regimen will begin with computations from spring to spring when it comes to your cycle of Holy Day observances. He then gives them considerable germane instruction for the very time, and then he goes into commands that will affect people from that time ever forward.

And in verse 15, we enter that particular realm. He said in verse 15, Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

On the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat. That only may be prepared by you. So you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on the same day I will have brought you, or your armies, out of the land of Egypt.

And therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month, at even, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month, at even. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger or a native in the land. This is the oldest, in terms of antiquity, this is the oldest piece of instruction and description of the days of unleavened bread.

We have lived by these things every single solitary year that we have lived and practiced these days. Remove leaven from your home. Duration is seven days. First day and last day are holy time. Convocations, meaning commanded assemblies, and days on which labor is not done.

The biblical command says those who do not observe these days, whether Israelite or stranger, shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel. It is an interesting term because even to this day, the unanswered argument is how far does cut off go? There is no solid complete answer. The seriousness of it is never in doubt. But the question of whether someone was excommunicated or disfellowshipped, to use terms that we're familiar with, which in that day and time would be by banishment, simply, if you don't wish to live by the ways that we live, then find another country to live in, all the way down to capital punishment for disobeying.

The question of how far did it go is still a question mark. The seriousness of it has never been in doubt. God did not take this time lightly, and he said whether you are native-born or stranger, you are not to take it lightly either. The essence of this command, which is first given in Exodus 12, is repeated in every law book from that point forward. It is repeated in Exodus. It is repeated in Numbers. It is repeated in Leviticus. It is repeated in Deuteronomy. So the seriousness of it is punctuated by constant repetition in each of the books of the law following Exodus 12.

Exodus again, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Another part of our natural vocabulary is the days of unleavened bread picture coming out of Egypt. And we use that particular term, these days picture coming out of Egypt. Let's go back and read one of the verses that we read in Exodus 12. It's verse 17. So you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore you shall observe these days throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. So in a forward-looking manner, God said, on this day I will have brought your people out. Now, he was talking to them before they were ever moving. So it is an anticipatory statement. On this day I will have begun the Exodus. You know, for the ancient Israelites, all the way up to modern Judaism, unbroken for that entire period of time, from ancient Israel here, all the way up to the present time, this season has pictured the literal departure from Egypt.

That has been its focus. If you had asked any Israelite from the time of Moses to Christ, what do these days picture, he would say to you, unequivocally and without waffling either way, this pictures our departure from the land of Egypt.

For an observant Jew, he would be celebrating today in exactly the same vein. You, on the other hand, would see the unleavened bread as a symbol quite differently. If you were taking unleavened bread as a part of a modern Jewish celebration, you would see it as it is described in Deuteronomy 16. Here's a repetition with editorial addition to the commands that were given in Exodus 12. Deuteronomy 16, familiar sounding chapter today, isn't it?

Deuteronomy 16, but earlier than we were earlier. Deuteronomy 16, verse 3, You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it. That is the bread of affliction. For you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt, all the days of your life.

It was seen as the bread of affliction. There may be latitude for interpretation in that regard. Obviously, they had been afflicted in Egypt, and so a symbolism that connected them to the afflictions that they had suffered in Egypt would be appropriate. It was also looked at as a bread that if you have a choice between a nice, fluffy, juicy roll and some crunchy piece of flat bread, it's an affliction to eat the flat bread. And so the bread of affliction went more than one direction.

My wife asked me this morning. We stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, and we had breakfast, and as we were leaving, she said, Well, do you want to take anything to the room with you? I said, Well, what? She said, What about over there? And so, you mean the Cinnabons? And she said, Yes. And I said, Well, I don't think I can have that today. And then she did the... But obviously, the Cinnabon was a whole lot less of an affliction than the flat bread.

So, here in Deuteronomy 16, verse 3, we see that unleavened bread to the culture of ancient Israel was taken and broken. And in their minds, the picture was a very different picture than it was two evenings ago, as you sat. And the minister stood up there and took the cover off the bread and started breaking it. What you were watching and what you were thinking and what you were connecting with that action was very, very different than what Israel connected to that.

Coming out of Egypt, as I said, was very literal to the Israelite. I've got my bread pan. I don't have time to let my sourdough rise. I'm going to have to make things right now very quickly, add the water, and we have been slaves in this land for many, many, many decades. It's time for us to leave. Our affliction is over, and we are going to celebrate these things. Here we are, the New Testament Church. We are the Church of God. The New Testament observance also uses the term coming out of Egypt.

In fact, we've used that term as long as I have been in this church, which is a long time. We speak of coming out of our Egypt, and we talk about how, and we talk about elements of it. But when we use that term, it has absolutely nothing to do with where the Nile enters the Mediterranean, and where Cairo sits, and as it flows back toward Africa through Luxor and eventually into Ethiopian.

It doesn't even cross our minds. Most of you have probably never been in Egypt, and some of you probably never really care to go to Egypt. And some may want to see the pyramids or Luxor or so on, but Egypt to us is not the Egypt that it was to the ancient Israelites. Our focus is metaphorical. And from this point forward, as we will see as we go through the elements of the observance of the Church of God of Passover, according to the words of God and the instruction of God, you and I are practicing an observance that ancient Israel practiced in a very literal way, and you and I practice it in a highly metaphorical way.

As I said, most of you have never been to Egypt, and so coming out of it is irrelevant. I went to Egypt, got Pharaoh's revenge, was happy to get out of Egypt. Very happy to get out of Egypt. For us, Egypt is a symbol of multiple things. On the upper end of the list is idolatry, worshipping God in any way other than the way God says, I want to be worshipped. Deliverance from bondage? We're Americans. A rare individual in this congregation who may have come from another country, in other words, we are such a multicultural nation that somebody could stand up in a congregation and literally say, I did come out of bondage, but for the majority of people, you've never known bondage. You've never experienced bondage. Even the thought of somebody saying you might be in bondage is an insult to us. We are free.

But are we free metaphorically? Two nights ago, we celebrated liberation from sin as a result of partaking of the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ. Very, very different focus. For us coming out of Egypt, we use interchangeably with coming out of this world, and we use all of those if we become very literal or more literal with the focus of I'm coming out of, you know, if you come out of something, you're going somewhere. There is no vacuum in between. If you're leaving something, you're entering something. And so you and I are looking at coming out of this world and going into the kingdom of God. There may be a lag between the two. There may be a waiting period. You and I are in waiting now, even as the hymn that we sang about the church is one foundation. That whole hymn was about the waiting period where we cry out how long between coming out of one and entering the other. So it is a part of our fabric, part of our culture, part of who we are.

You know, brethren, from the very beginning of the New Testament Church's observance of this festival, it has had very little in common with the ancient Israelite practice. Because the old reasons for keeping it, and the old manner of keeping it, has been superseded by a better reason for keeping it. I think one of the best ways that I can make that point even more graphic is to have you turn back to Jeremiah 16. I don't know how often you stop and consider that I am keeping the same days by the same guidebook as the ancient Israelites. I go back to Exodus 12 for my reason. I go back there for my instructions. I add to them by going also to Numbers and Leviticus and Deuteronomy. For seven days, I'm not going to touch leavening. My house is physically on leaven. There's no leavening in it. I don't intend to eat anything for those seven days. I will be taking off work on a Friday to keep a holy day. At the end of the week, this time I keep a holy day on a holy day. So it's a double holy day. It's a weekly Sabbath and an annual Sabbath. So those things are the foundation upon which two very different buildings are built. And the building that you and I occupy is a better building. A good parallel is Jeremiah 16. This is an end-time prophecy. Jeremiah 16, verse 14, looking forward to the coming of Christ, it says, For I will bring them back into their land which I have given to their fathers. The exodus ahead of us is so fantastic that Jeremiah is inspired by God to say, when that happens, people won't even reference Moses and the children of Israel coming out of Egypt. Because it will be small potatoes by comparison with God bringing the scattered sheep of all the lost tribes of Israel from every compass point, gathering from every circumstance where they have been scattered and imprisoned back to the land where Jesus Christ will rule. So it's a comparative. And in like manner, you and I are keeping a Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread that causes us to look at the Old One in the same way that Jeremiah contrasts these two.

For us, the Church of God coming out of Egypt takes on a very different meaning. In fact, as we go to the very end of the book of Revelation, we see one additional metaphor.

As I said, during these days, we talk about coming out of Egypt. In general, during the remainder of the year, we may talk about coming out of the world. Revelation 18, verse 1.

After these things, I saw another angel come down from heaven having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen, and has become the habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird. For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxuries. And I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.

Our vocabulary is coming out of Egypt this time of year. It may be coming out of the world or coming out of Babylon in a conversation some other time of the year. Or a conversation may be in depth enough during the days of Unleavened Bread that in the course of a long conversation all three of them may end up in the same conversation. Are you aware of the fact that coming out of the world, which is what these seven days focus on very strongly, became a part of the Christian vocabulary literally on the evening of Christ's final Passover? You know, vocabulary is built. Remember the Alamo became a part of vocabulary when the Alamo fell. And until then, if somebody said, Remember the Alamo, do you remember what? Where's that? And why should I remember it? It's a sleepy mission somewhere in southern Texas. Things become a part of vocabulary at the point in time that they become relevant. On Passover evening, you read multiple times from John chapter 13. I want you to go back there again. It was read as a part of the foot washing and a part of the bread and the wine, and it was read in the Scripture readings that took place after all of the ceremonies were finished. And so you were in John 13 multiple times in that same evening. And as I said at the beginning of the message, things become so much a part of the rhythm of our life and so much a part of the nature of it that we can mentally go on autopilot because we say, I know that. I not only know it, I agree with it. I believe it. All the things are there. I've heard it. I understand it. I believe it. And I practice it. And when all of those are in place, it's very easy. It's very easy simply to let it slide by. John 13.1. Now, before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he might depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. In the world, of the world, out of the world, is so much a part of the fabric of John 13 that you can't take it out without destroying the message. Verse 15. Well, that's how it starts. Go on to chapter 15. These are just snippets so that you get a chance to see what I'm talking about. Chapter 15 and verse 19. Christ said to his disciples, If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. The world, the world, the world, the world. It's metaphorical. It's metaphorical.

The world, this globe, does not hate you or me. It doesn't think. In terms of the world, meaning all human beings, there are people that you work with that probably like you quite a bit. They're probably neighbors that get along with you very well. This is not about the geography, and it's not about every breathing, living human being. It's a metaphor for something that we can focus on in a moment. Chapter 17.

Now Christ, I don't know how much you focus on this, but I know every Passover evening I'm struck by the fact that Christ, once Judas leaves the room, starts a conversation with his faithful. And he does that from the last half of chapter 13, all of 14, all of 15, all of 16. And when chapter 17 comes, he allows his disciples to be bystanders as he talks to his father. He's not talking to them in chapter 17. He is conversing with his father, and they have the luxury of being able to eavesdrop. So chapter 17 begins with Jesus spoke these words, lifted his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that your Son also may glorify you. What is he saying to his father? Well, look at verse 6. I have manifested your name to the men who you have given me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. He said as he continued talking to his father in verse 15, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. The world becomes a powerful metaphor for all of us once we are converted. And when the days of Unleavened Bread come, and we talk about coming out of Egypt, we start all of that conversation on Passover evening, reading repeatedly over and over again that we are to come out of this world. As Christ said, I am not asking you to take them off the planet. In fact, I am not even asking you to take them out of society. We have never been a monastic church. We have never been a cloistered church. As you go through the Middle East from Greece all the way down to Egypt, you see the monasteries and the cloisters and some of them in the most forsaken parts of the world. You wonder how in the world did they provision themselves enough to stay alive? That's never been us. God has thrown us right out in the middle of the world and said, protect them from it. They are not part of it. That feeling is so strong that in James chapter 4, James, who is referred to as the book of James as the proverbs of the New Testament, direct and blunt short statements, says in James chapter 4 and verse 4, he says, Adultras and adultrases, do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

Now, this is not the place of the time for a sermon on what is the definition of the world, but it's the attitude. It's the frame of mind. It is the way of looking. You know, Mr. Armstrong used to simply say, life comes down to two things, the way of give and the way of get. And God is the author of the way of give, and Satan is the author of the way of get. If you want a simple way of saying, well, where in the world is the world? Well, the world is over there in give me, give me. I need to, you know, the term blessed are the meat, for they shall inherit the earth. The earth is a statement that you get in my way, I'll trample you, and you can pick yourself up and dust yourself off because I'm going to get what I want. And if you're in my way, then I will steamroll. There are all sorts of witticisms about the meek inheriting the earth and the such that basically speak to the attitude of the world. I am number one. I am what counts.

James said, you can't be the friend of God and the friend of the world at the same time.

I said to you that the phrase, the world, was literally introduced into our theology Passover evening. During the ministry of Jesus Christ, he was not only preparing a group of men who could be sent as messengers and upon whom the Church of God would be built with him as the chief cornerstone and they as the additional foundation stones. He was preparing practice, he was preparing theology, he was preparing vocabulary. Christ brought about a change in the practice of keeping these days. As I said a moment ago, being a New Testament Christian is very different from being a member of the congregation of Israel. While the roots are the same, we have a totally different reason. We are following the practices of Jesus Christ and the apostles. Christ both introduced and established beliefs and practices during his three and a half year ministry that brought us to the place where we observed the days the way we do.

And as I said, the ways we do are very different than the ways that Israel did.

Jesus Christ, as we celebrated on Passover, replaced the Passover Lamb. There's absolutely no reason that we need to, should, or are commanded to eat and slaughter and eat a literal Passover Lamb. We have a Lamb. When you go back to John 1, we all know that by a miraculous birth to a barren woman, God called John the Baptist. And John was one of those phenomenal individuals who was imbued with the Spirit of God from the beginning. He was sent as a messenger to prepare the way for Jesus Christ. And the book of John begins with the account of Christ coming to John for baptism. How did John introduce Jesus Christ to all who were within earshot? John 1.29. The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world.

Just as I said with Jeremiah, when it said the day will come where they will no longer say when God brought Israel out of Egypt. So the day has already passed two millennia ago when it was no longer necessary or even relevant to say Israel slaughtered a lamb and ate a Passover lamb. The Lamb of God came to this world in 31 A.D. or he died in 31 A.D. And he became, as we look at the vocabulary of the apostles, he became our Passover at that time. Instead of a piece of lamb, you and I had a piece of dry bread. Instead of lamb, we had a small portion of wine. That little piece of bread and that little bit of wine had redemptive value that all the lamb meat in the world would never provide you. Because just as Hebrews said, the sacrifices of bulls and goats never removed the sins of Israel. Sins of Israel were removed by the blood of Christ. And so you have accepted a practice that is far, far superior and far more powerful than the rituals that were given to ancient Israel. As you develop your understanding of these days, whether you think about it or not, you developed your understanding of these days by a series of metaphors that were introduced by Jesus Christ. One commentator made the comment, and I will not either vouch for or deny the comment because any time you deal and always is and nevers, you start wanting to test the ice and see if you hear a crack. But he said, the word leaven, I'll just share with you a commentator's comment, and it's not a single commentator who holds a few. The word leaven is never used metaphorically in the Old Testament. Never is a big word, and there's a lot of incidences. But if you look through every incident of the use of the term leaven in the Old Testament, you will have to agree, if you don't agree totally with it, you will have to agree that 90-some percent of the time, that is the fact. It is just simply, when leaven is mentioned, it is talking about the physical element you can hold in your hand. And in like manner, leaven is never used literally in the New Testament. If you go home during the days of Unleavened Bread and look at every incident of the use of leaven in the New Testament, again, whether it never is totally accurate or not, you will find that the overwhelming method of the word leaven is not accurate. The majority of the times that leaven appears in the New Testament, it is a metaphor. And Christ introduced those metaphors bit by bit as he went along.

He set the stage one Passover before the Passover he died. If you go back to the book of John, which we also read during the Passover service, John 6, John 6 identifies that everything that is taking place is just before the Passover. So if you turn to John 6, you see in verse 3, it says, And Jesus went up on a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples, and now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near. John 6 is the feeding of the 5,000. It's the crowds saying, give us bread always. And Jesus Christ saying, I am the bread of life. And then it becomes a whole chapter of two conversations like ships passing in the night. The crowd has blinders on, and all they can say is, Moses fed Israel for 40 years. And they didn't have to do anything but go out and pick it up off the ground. Can you do that for us again? And Christ said, I can feed you so you never hunger again. And they said, great, that's just what we want. They're conversing here. He's conversing here. The conversations never met. There's no place in John 6 where somebody goes like that and says, oh, we're not talking about the same thing. As Christ ratcheted up, he introduces a metaphor so powerful and so offensive that possibly a majority of his disciples. It says many. It doesn't define how many many is. But the many were so many that Christ even turned to Peter, one of the closest 12, and said, are you going also? It tells you the many that left him and never came back. They departed and never came back. But they left because he said, my flesh is the bread of life. Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you.

And the majority turned to back and said, I'm gone. I'm out of here.

Those who had faith in Christ and faith in God. A year later, said, ah, now I get it.

It says in this time period that he was testing them. This was test time.

And a test is a test only if you don't already know the answers.

And so when he said these things, and most left, he said to Peter, are you going also? And he says, I can't. You are the ones with the words of life. It doesn't say that one of his disciples understood what he meant when he said, you've got to eat my flesh and drink my blood. But one year later, they did. One year later, they did, and they continued to do for the rest of their lives.

John 6 is the introduction of a powerful, powerful metaphor. A metaphor that has informed and guided our Passover services ever since that day in time.

Matthew 16 is the introduction of another metaphor. As I said earlier, we as a church look at leavening as a symbol of sin. And we look at becoming unleavened as putting sin out of our lives. But why do we believe this? And as I said earlier, why do we believe this in the light of if I asked you to give me a direct equation, you might not be able to provide one. Does it change the truth of it? Not one iota. Not one iota. Matthew 16, verse 1. Then the Pharisees and Sadducees came, testing him, and asked that he would show them a sign from heaven. And he then talked to them. He called them hypocrites. Verse 5. Then his disciples had come at the other side, and they said they had forgotten to take bread. Jesus Christ said to them, now he had just lowered the ears of the Pharisees. You hypocrites. So the disciples are probably walking carefully. And they had forgotten to take bread. Somebody had provisioned for the evening meal. And it was like, oh, oh, who's the one that forgot? And Jesus Christ said to them, verse 6, take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And with the guilt complex, they then talked among themselves and said, is he saying this because we didn't bring any bread? Nobody stopped at the grocery store and picked up supplies. And Christ said, oh, you of little faith, you are still down at this level as I'm talking on this level. This is verse 9. Do you not understand or remember that five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up, nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? In other words, I don't need you to shop for bread. Verse 11, how is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread, but you should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees?

That's what he was talking to them about. Then they understood that he did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

All right, we have a metaphor for leaven. And that metaphor is connected to what? Doctrine. What was wrong with the doctrine of the Pharisees and the Sadducees?

I'm not going to turn here. Mark 7, verses 7-9 is the answer to the question, what is the leaven of the doctrine of the Pharisees? He said, you make null and void the commandments of God by the traditions of your fathers.

How would you describe that in one word?

I think I'd describe that as sin, wouldn't you? Sin is the transgression of the law. That's its definition. To the Pharisee, he says, you have made null and void the commandments of God by the traditions of your fathers. That's sin in the purest, bluntest sense. The Sadducees take multiple sermons to give you the whole pedigree of the Sadducees' sins. The Sadducees, unfortunately from the time of Greek occupation onward, had been bedfellows with whoever was in political power. And sadly, over and over again, whatever compromise needed to be made, in order that we could be in good graces with the Greeks first and the Romans second and the Rhodians next, well, that's expedient. That is horrendous sin. When there is nothing that God has given you to teach as a teacher, because the Sadducees were the Levites and the priesthood, was not up for sale so that you could be in favor with the Greeks, the Romans, or the Rhodians. That is egregious sin. So when he said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and they said, he's talking about their teachings.

That metaphor has informed us of what leaven is every sense, hasn't it? If I look at leaven at the more significant level, I'm not looking at baking powder or cake of yeast. I'm looking at this. If I've succeeded all seven days of having all living out of my house, and I don't make any mistakes and pick up a hamburger or a donut or something else, it was far, far less significant than if I had violated what was just said right here. And so you and I are looking at leavening on two planes. And while we totally respect the physical plane, we understand that the spiritual plane has a far greater impact. Luke 12, another metaphor from Jesus Christ that informs us of what we're doing and what we're looking at while we're going through these days. Luke 12, verses 1 and 2. In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they trampled one another, he began to say to his disciples, first of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Now we have another component. Doctrine we had earlier that leavens. You leaven a body when they don't obey God. He said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

Verse 2 of this particular chapter. He said, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and whatever you have spoken in the inner rooms will be proclaimed in the house, Thomas. He said that because he had just warned them against hypocrisy.

And what is hypocrisy? Well, he talked more about being two-faced. He talked about putting on an appearance for one individual and then putting on a different appearance for another individual. We all know what hypocrisy is. I don't need to sit. Even in the world we live in, it's a repugnant quality, not just within the Church of God. Hypocrisy is a repugnant characteristic to most people. Nobody wants to have somebody going like this to them and say while they're doing that, they don't mean a word of it. This is all for show and there is motive.

So Jesus Christ introduced the metaphor of I am the bread of life. He introduced the metaphor of beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which is their doctrine. He introduced the metaphor of beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Twenty-five years later, the Apostle Paul, to a Gentile Church, keeping the very days we're keeping, introduced additional metaphors. One of them I won't even take the time or have the time to go through because it's a little sideways. And for us, we understand it perfectly. But you know, for somebody who was brand new and just beginning to learn to connect the terms with the actions, they may miss that the first four chapters of Leviticus, first four chapters of 1 Corinthians, were all about being puffed up. And you know, that can slide right over if, again, if the vocabulary is not there with you, that can slide right over. But you and I know exactly what puffed up means. And we know that that's an inextricable union with leavening. And leavening is connected. So we go down the trail, and all of these things are a part of what we understand and know. Before we read the example in Corinthians, I want you, first of all, though, to go to Galatians.

In Galatians chapter 5, Paul is not happy with the church in Galatia, and he says in verse 2, Indeed, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. He had somebody in the Galatian congregation that was trying to elevate physical circumcision back up to a spiritual issue, and he was not happy with it at all. He says, I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised, he's a debtor to keep the whole law. If you're doing it for religious purposes, then you better be prepared to do the whole package. You become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace. So, in other words, if this physical action is a part of what justifies you, then Christ is of no value to you. For we, through the Spirit, eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith works through love. You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion does not come from him who called you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump. That's a metaphor, isn't it? What does it mean? In the context, what's he saying?

He's talking about heresy. Heresy simply means the act of dividing a unified people into camps opposed to one another. He said, you have somebody coming in telling you that you have to be physically circumcised in order to be saved, i.e. justified. He says, if you can be justified, justified simply means you are now just. You have no sins to your credit. If you can be justified by circumcision, you don't have any need for Christ. He said, this person is dividing this congregation, and this is leaven. He said, do you know that that leaven sitting there can simply spread and spread and spread and spread? So we see the metaphor used again. Now back to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 5 is the greatest concentration of leavening, leavened, and unleavened metaphors in the entirety of the New Testament. They all conform to Christ's pattern. They all conform to the same meanings and the same feel and the same spirit. But here's a case where the Apostle Paul is dealing with an egregious sin. As we all know, because we've all read 1 Corinthians 5 before, in Corinth there was an individual who was sleeping with his father's wife. We would assume that this was a stepmother. It'd be even more horrendous and gross if it was his natural mother, but it didn't make any difference. He said, even among the Gentiles, and if you study ancient Greek, there were very few holes barred in the way the Greeks acted, and the Romans. And he said, this is something you don't even hear about among the Greeks. And he said in verse 2, you're puffed up. So we see puffed up again. And he says, get that person out of here. He said, they are damaging your entire congregation. And not only that, you are damaging yourselves. He said in verse 6, your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Beginning in that verse is a clumping of metaphors that are powerful and inform our keeping of these days, and they're part of how we think. Therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast not with old leaven, nor with a leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

This is a dual conversation, isn't it? You know what? Take somebody who's practicing what we practice to truly understand and appreciate these verses. If you've got access to a string of commentaries, read the commentaries and see how many of them get it. You know, there are a number of them that just, whoo, is totally over their heads. Totally over their heads.

You and I for seven days are going to be unleavened, physically. But if we had a major sin, we would be leavened, even though we were unleavened. That's what he was saying to them. Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. That is a metaphorical, spiritual statement. Since you truly are unleavened, that is a literal, physical statement. For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast not with old leaven, that's a metaphor, nor with the leavened of malice and wickedness, that is a metaphor, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. And that also is a metaphor.

So how do we become unleavened? If our total focus for right now was focused on these verses, he would say, well, malice and wickedness. We all know what malice is. I don't like you and I want to hurt you. I would like to see you hurt. I would like to see you injured. I wouldn't mind contributing if something came along and I could darken your name or I could hurt your reputation or I could get you fired from your job or blackballed in your community. No, that's that's malice. I want to hurt you. It can be all the way from very, very small to very, very large. Wickedness. One commentator said, malice is an action and wickedness is a state of mind. That's not a bad way of wrapping your mind around. You know, wickedness is dark. It comes from deep inside and it seems to live and prevail there. And it colors everything. So he says, get out the leaven of malice and wickedness and you replace them with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Sincere was a was a word that meant exposed to broad daylight. You know, when the sun is shining and you stand out in it and there are no shadows, you are totally visible. My wife and I laugh at each other at this stage in life because if I'm wearing a black suit, I have to go to the sincere window to look at my socks. Because I can't tell dark blue from black until I'm in the broad daylight. So in the lighting in the house, I go to the drawer, I pick out a pair of socks, and then I go outside and I look at it. Oh no, I've got blue socks on with a black suit. So I have to go to bright light in order to tell navy blue from black. The unleavened bread of sincerity means I'm exposed to the investigation of pure, bright daylight and nothing's hidden. Nothing's hidden. That's sincerity. You know, we see that and love it in people. All of us. A genuinely sincere person is a joy. You talk with them, you can talk about anything you want, and you know that there is no hook, there is no insinuation, there is nothing there except a true, genuine person. It reminds me of Christ's statement that here comes a true Israelite in whom there is no guile. That's a beautiful, beautiful statement. And truth? Well, you know, Jesus Christ in the very section I was reading to you earlier in John 17 talked about truth. In fact, he defined truth there. He says, thy word is truth. So as he was talking to his father in John 17, he gave the simplest definition. You know, you can't get a simpler definition than a subject, a verb, and an object. Your word is truth. And that's what we gave ourselves to, isn't it? When God called us and opened our minds to see and understand, this became our guide. This became, if we're doing something, let's check and see whether this agrees. If it doesn't, we stop doing it. If we say, I don't know, we go through the book until we find the place that says, oh, that tells me what to do, and that's what we do. This is truth. It informs our entire life. It guides our entire life. These are the fundamentals of the days of Unleavened Prayer.