God Always Does Things On Time

Thank you, Carol, for that special music. That was beautiful! You are really very talented, and we thank God for the gifts that He has given you. Keep up the good work!

Brethren, we're ready now for the main message for today.

And we are about to finish the seven days of Unleavened Bread.

During these past weeks, I've mentioned a statement, and it certainly applies to this message as well.

And that is that God does everything on time. We will see that today as well.

God wanted the Israelites to remember these days for the rest of time, not only for that generation, but for all the generations. And we know we are the descendants spiritually of those Israelites. We are part of God's people, and so it's very important for us to also observe these days and remember their meaning. God said, for all generations.

Let's look here at four verses that He mentions this as He inaugurated that first Passover when He gave it to the Israelites in Exodus 12. This is where He gives instructions about that first Passover, which would take place very shortly after this. Notice in Exodus 12, starting verse 1, it says, Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt. Notice it wasn't Moses that came up with these days. It was a very God of the universe. And He said, This month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you.

And so God is establishing His calendar at that time. And then let's go to verse 14. He says, So this day shall be to you a memorial, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Ordinance means commandment. This is an everlasting. This doesn't have an expiration date.

Didn't have an expiration date when Christ came or when He was crucified.

This continues on in time. And we can read in the scriptures where when Christ comes back, these Passover days of Unleavened Bread are going to be kept by the entire world.

And woe be unto them if they don't do it. They'll have a drought which will cause a famine in that land until they learn to obey God.

Notice in verse 17, He says, So you shall observe the feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance, something that God has established through time.

Through time.

And then He goes on to say in verse 24, let's go to verse 24, it says, And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. So using very emphatic words that they're going to last through time.

And then lastly, verse 42, it says, It is a night of solemn observance to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt.

This is that night of the Lord, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations.

So God set it up.

A very important time. Notice in verse 19, going back here, in chapter 12, it says, For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, Since whoever eats, what is leaven, That same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, Whether he's a stranger or a native of the land, You shall not eat leaven in all your dwellings, You shall eat unleavened bread.

And it also mentions in verse 16, On the first day of these unleavened bread days, There shall be a holy convocation, And on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. That's what we're obeying.

We are assembling together the best we can in our homes, but we're still keeping these days holy.

So God wanted the Israelites to observe and to remember them and the great works that God performed during those days.

The Passover is so important.

Now God gave two great symbols at this time to remember these days.

The first is the Passover Lamb, which was slain at that time, the blood taken and put on the door posts.

And of course, the Lord passed over the homes of the Israelites on that evening.

One thing I learned many times, we've talked about the death angel that went through there.

And the idea was that it was an angel that God sent. But actually, that's not what the Scriptures say. It says that God says, I will do this.

I will send.

I will produce this plague.

He says, in verse 12, it says of Exodus 12, For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord.

And when it finally happens, it also mentions that it was the Lord when it happened. Notice in verse 28, 29, it says, And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.

And so, it wasn't an angel. It was the Lord. And this was the very word, what we call the pre-existent one who became Christ, who actually was there, carrying out God the Father's will.

So, that's something to remember.

It wasn't a death angel.

It was the Lord Himself who carried this out.

And that's why He wanted them to remember these days and the great works of God.

Notice in Psalm 77, it talks about how we should remember the great works of God when we get discouraged, when we think God can't act.

We should remember.

He does.

Nothing is too hard for Him.

Psalm 77, verse 11, it says, and this is a Psalm of Asaph, he says, I will remember the works of the Lord.

Surely, I will remember your wonders of old.

I will also meditate on all your work and talk of your deeds.

And then it says, in verse 20, it says, you led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. So, some of those great works of God had to do with that first Passover and then leaving during the first day of Unleavened Bread and walking for those during that time.

Also, Psalm 111, verses 2 and 4.

This is more attributed to David.

Verse 2, it says, the works of the Lord are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them.

They remember these things.

They rehearse them in their minds.

His work is honorable and glorious, and His righteousness endures forever.

He has made His wonderful works to be remembered.

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

So, that's part of keeping these days.

We remember those great interventions, those great acts of mercy that God has carried out, especially during those days. Those were eight momentous and faithful days.

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. So, let's look at not only the symbol.

We talked about the lamb being the symbol of the Passover, but the second symbol is unleavened bread, which has to do with them leaving Egypt and having to leave the leaven behind, which was a symbol of Egyptian society, with all their false values and false teachings. They were leaving all of that behind. God wanted to create a new people, obedient to Him.

And so, of course, that's why these days are called the days of unleavened bread.

And if we look at the chronology of these seven days, it is amazing what took place. Of course, we're talking about eight complete days, but the seven days of unleavened bread, and before that, the day of the Passover. So, we had the Passover taking place on the 14th of September. The 14th. And then, on the 15th, was a night to be much observed when they left Egypt. And notice, in Numbers 33 verses 1 through 8, it gives us the different places that they travel during those days.

Numbers chapter 33 verses 1 through 8. It says, these are the journeys of the children of Israel, who went out of the land of Egypt by their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron. Now, Moses wrote down the starting points of their journeys at the command of the Lord, and these are their journeys according to their starting points.

They departed from Ramesses in the first month, on the 15th day of the first month, on the day after the Passover. So, it's pretty clear it wasn't on the Passover that they left. It was the second day, it was the day after the Passover, that they went out with boldness in the sight of all the Egyptians, for the Egyptians were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had killed among them. Also, on their gods, the Lord had executed judgments.

He had condemned the false gods of Egypt. They were nothing. That was all superstition. And it mentions that the Egyptians were burying their firstborn. Well, they weren't doing that during the morning of the 14th. They were talking about the night of the Passover, and then during the dark part of that day, they weren't burying. It took them a while.

That was during the day part of the 14th, that they were burying all of these Egyptians into the afternoon and evening. And so, when they left, they were watching how all of these firstborns were being buried at that time. And then it goes on to say, verse five, Then the children of Israel moved from Ramesses, that's when they left on that 15th at night, and camped at Sukkoth. So that was their first place that they arrived. Then they departed from Sukkoth and camped at Ethim, which is on the edge of the wilderness. So it would take that time to do that. Verse seven, they moved from Ethim and turned back to P. Hyrath, which is east of Beosaphon, and they camped near Migdol.

And so that was when God told them not to go up, but go down there by the Red Sea. In verse eight, they departed from before Hyrath and passed through the midst of the sea into the wilderness, went three days' journey into the wilderness of Ethim and camped at Mara. And from the chronology of Exodus 13 and 14 and what this is saying in Numbers 33, you can see that it was several days.

And Jewish tradition mentions that it was on the seventh day when they crossed the Red Sea. And that certainly is in a week's time. You would get to that period where you, after six days, you would arrive there on the shores. And then remember also that the Pharaoh said that after three days that they had already departed, he went after that.

And so it took them about three days in those chariots, which are a lot faster, to get to that place. So here they were, ready to cross the Red Sea. And they finally did cross the Red Sea, and we certainly believe it was on that seventh day that we are today celebrating, because that's when they won their freedom from the Egyptians. That's when they were able to cross over, and in a sense they left all the leavening of the society and all of those false ways. And the Apostle Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 10 that they were baptized in that sea.

They were purified, and when they came across, they were no longer part of the Egyptian territory as such. And then they could begin their path to the Promised Land. So I don't want to go into all the technicalities about it. You can read. We certainly have a lot of material showing the chronology of those days, but God does things on time. Just like they left Egypt on the 15th, so they also crossed the Red Sea. And finished leaving Egypt. They were in a new land.

That was the desert of trials that they would go through and testing. So he wanted us to remember those fateful eight days when they gained their freedom. But it wasn't the only example of a fateful eight days, because after they crossed that desert, it took them 40 years of wandering around when they finally crossed that Jordan River.

And they entered the Promised Land. Those were another fateful eight days. God repeats, in a sense, the miracles that he carried out in Egypt, but now it's in the Promised Land that he carries it out. So let's look at Joshua, the book of Joshua, chapter 4, in verse 21. It says, then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying, When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What are these stones?

When they crossed the Jordan River, then you shall let your children know, saying, Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you, until you had crossed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up before us until we had crossed over. That all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord, that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.

And so this happened also during these fateful days. And it says here in Joshua 5, verse 10, it says, Now the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, so they crossed over. They didn't cross the Jordan River on the Passover, but they did it right before the Passover. So they could keep the Passover in the Promised Land, it says, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight. So that's the beginning of the day. Remember, we have a problem because we use the days according to Roman time, which begins at midnight.

But the times of the Israelites, it started, and it was the night portion. It started the day, not the day portion. So here they kept it as soon as twilight came on the fourteenth. That's when they kept it. In the plains of Jericho, and they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain on the very same day. So they left Egypt on that same day, the fifteenth, that God had promised Abraham that he would take his descendants out of Egypt.

430 years before, and God kept it. And now it says the promise of them being able to enter the promised land on the fifteenth. They left that wilderness. And so here they were able to, on that day, eat the produce of the land.

Then the manna ceased on the day after they had eaten the produce of the land, and the children of Israel no longer had manna. But they ate the food of the land of Canaan that year. So I'd like to read this from the Good News Bible because it's a bit confusing.

It seems like they ate, and then the next they ate the products, and then the manna ceased the following day. But actually, it is better translated in the Good News Bible It says, while the Israelites were camping at Gilgal on the plain near Jericho, they observed Passover on the evening of the fourteenth day of the month. The next day was the first time they ate food grown in Canaan, roasted grain and bread made without yeast. Because, of course, these are the days of unleavened bread. They were starting. The manna stopped falling then, and the Israelites no longer had any.

From that time on, they ate food grown in Canaan. So there was no need to sustain them miraculously because now they had all of this grain on that area of Gilgal. And since it was there, the beginning of the spring barley, they could begin eating this, but not making bread with yeast, nothing of leavening. So it goes on, and it shows how God is so careful with the opening of that time period when they left Egypt and the closing of that time period.

On the 15th, when they were able to eat the produce of the land. Now we go to Joshua chapter 6.

Joshua chapter 6 verse 1. It says, Now Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel. None went out, and none came in.

All the gates were closed. This was a fortress city, enormous fortress city. And the Lord said to Joshua, See, I have given Jericho into your hand. It's king and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city. All you men of war, you shall go all around the city.

Once this shall you do six days. So again, those first six days of unleavened bread that they were eating of the produce of the land, he says you should march once around that city of Jericho. I had the chance to visit that area of Jericho. They have excavated around it, and they have found those mighty walls and how they had collapsed. And it's in that level when around the time when the Israelites invaded that area. And so here they're marching around those mighty walls. Of course, the inhabitants of Jericho were laughing at them. Here are people sounding trumpets. And how are they gonna invade? How are they gonna conquer this land?

They're not gonna be able to do so. In verse four it says, And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark, but the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priest shall blow the trumpets. It shall come to pass when they make a long blast with the ram's horn. That's the shofar and called in the Hebrew, same one we use sometimes to begin a holy day. Jesse could have done that. Could have brought his ram's horn if we would have thought about it. But it's the same horn here. He says, And when you hear the sound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout, then the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him. Then Joshua, the son of none, called the priest and said to them, Take up the ark of the covenant, and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of ram's horns before the ark of the Lord. And he said to the people, Proceed and march around the city, and let him who is armed advance before the ark of the Lord. So it was when Joshua had spoken to the people that seven priests, bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns before the Lord, advanced and blew the trumpets, and the ark of the covenant of the Lord, which is symbolic of his presence, followed them. The ark went before the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard came after the ark while the priests continued blowing the trumpets.

Now Joshua had commanded the people, saying, You shall not shout or make any noise with your voice, nor shall a word proceed out of your mouth until the day I say to you, Shout, then you shall shout. Notice here how God wants that spirit of obedience. God tells how to do things, and then we carry it out. We can't do it on our own. We can't improvise. He goes on to say, So he had the ark of the Lord circle the city, going around it once. Then they came into the camp and lodged in the camp, and Joshua rose early in the morning, and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. Then seven priests, bearing seven trumpets of ram horns before the ark of the Lord, went on continually and blew with the trumpets, and the armed men went before them. But the rear guard came after the ark of the Lord, while the priests continued blowing the trumpets.

And the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. So they did six days.

Notice this quote by the Jewish historian Josephus about this time. He says, So on the first day of the feast, he's talking about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the priests carried the ark round about, with some part of the armed men to be a guard to it. And when they had done this for six days on the seventh, Joshua gathered the armed men and told them these good tidings that the city should now be taken. That's from Antiquities of the Jews, book number five, chapter one, paragraph five. And so we continue. Verse 15, it says, But it came to pass on the seventh day that they rose early, about the dawning of the day, and marched around the city seven times in the same manner. On that day only, they marched around the city seven times. So it took them a while to do that. Some might have said, well, why does God want all of this done? Why not just once? It's tiring, carrying this ark around, blowing those trumpets. But you don't see that attitude. You see an attitude of obedience. This was the second generation. They had learned a lot about the disobedience of the first generation and how they didn't make it across. And so here you have a different attitude, a submissive and obedient attitude. Continuing on, it says, verse 16, And the seventh time it happened, when the priest blew the trumpets, that Joshua said to the people, Shout, for the Lord has given you the city. Now the city shall be doomed by the Lord to destruction. The term here is harem, when you put the city under a curse, that everything in it is considered contaminated and shouldn't be touched or taken. He goes on and says, It and all who are in it, only Rahab the harlot shall live. She and all who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent. So here was a woman.

She had been a sinner. She had been a prostitute, a harlot. And yet she had faith. She believed these people were from God, and she was willing to back them up, even risking her own life, and that of her family. That's all in the beginning there of the book of Joshua, if you want to read it, about the faith and courage of Rahab. And it's interesting that because of Rahab's faith, which is mentioned in Hebrews 11, that her household was spared. That wasn't the household that actually did it, but they all were part of the family. And so it gives us that indication that when God intervenes, and He's going to protect God's people, that the households are going to be protected through those faithful members. They will have a chance to accompany and change their lives totally. So it goes on to say, verse 18, and you by all means abstain from the accursed things, lest you become accursed when you take of the accursed things and make the camp of Israel accursed and trouble it. And so He's saying that Jericho symbolizes sin, and they were at that time finishing the days of Unleavened Bread. And it symbolized a pure people and obedient people.

And He didn't want the accursed objects, even whether they were good or bad, that they were to be put to the torch because it was a cleansing that had to take place of the land. Remember when in Genesis 15, God talks about bringing back the Israelites from Egypt, and He said to Abraham, He says, I'm waiting this period of time because the sins of the Canaanites had not become as wicked and as terrible as they would be. And so here God was cleansing His people, and He didn't want them to be contaminated again by those things that belonged to the Canaanites. And then He says in verse 19, But all the silver and gold and vessels of bronze and iron are consecrated to the Lord. They shall come into the treasury of the Lord. So God did take His part because this would be useful later on to build up His house and all the tabernacle surroundings. Everything that would be built up would be used with this money of the inhabitants of Jericho. Verse 20, So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpet, and it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a gray shout that the wall fell down flat.

Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

It's interesting that one of the archaeologists that excavated this area and studied it, his name is Bryant Wood, and I'll never forget that article that he wrote in Biblical Archaeology Review around 1990-1991. What an impressive article! He said that when they examined the walls of Jericho and in those days it was a typical building of the walls that they always were tilted toward the inside, not the outside. So all these walls were tilted with a certain degree toward the inside, because if they fell, at least some of that mound would remain and the inhabitants could still defend the city. This is found in all the rest of the walls of the cities in Israel. They all had that degree, and so they were again with a gravity.

If there was a siege or something, the wall would fall down, but it would become a partial protection for the inhabitants inside. But here those walls defied gravity and fell outward, and so the people could use them as steps to climb up, and then they invaded the city. That's why it says that everyone was able to go up into the city. Every man straight before him, and they took the city, and they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both men and women, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey with the edge of the sword. God had said, you're not to contaminate with the habits of these people, with the corruption. I've waited centuries, and they've become like Sodom and Gomorrah, and if you take some of them as captives and whatever, they're going to bring that pagan religion and all the wrong practices right into the camp.

And so verse 24, they burned the city and all that was in it with fire, only the silver and gold and the vessels of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord.

But there's a problem here. It says in verse 26, then Joshua charged them at that time, saying, cursed be the man before the Lord who rises up and builds this city of Jericho. He shall lay its foundation with his firstborn, and with his youngest he shall set up its gates.

And so that was a cursed place. And then it tells us in verse 10, so the Lord said to Joshua when they invaded Ai, which was a small town, but they were defeated, the Israelites. He said, Get up! Why do you thus lie on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed my covenant, which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the cursed things, and have both stolen and deceived, and they have also put it among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies. And that's the sin of Achan. And he lusted after some things, and he stole it, and it was like having the coronavirus inside of the Israelite camp, and it just contaminated the whole thing. And God says, You have to get up. He says, verse 13, Get up, sanctify the people, and say, sanctify yourselves for tomorrow, because thus says the Lord God of Israel. There is an accursed thing in your midst of Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the accursed thing from among you. And so they found who was guilty of that, and Achan and the family that knew about these things. They all were destroyed by God Himself. They just opened up the ground, and they were swallowed up. Now, in the New Testament, it tells us also not to take of the accursed thing.

Notice in 2 Corinthians chapter 6, starting in verse 14, Paul is alluding to this. He says in verse 14, Do not be unequally yoked, together with unbelievers.

For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness, and what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belia? What part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Come out from among them, and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty. So, God here is warning us, but here we're talking about the spiritual sins that this world is full of. And for us to be participating of them is very dangerous. God doesn't want us to fall into those same sins as before. Notice in 1 Corinthians 5, as we begin to finish this message, just got one more scripture after this. 1 Corinthians 5. In verse 6, Paul is reminding them, don't let anything corrupt and contaminate the congregation. He says in verse 6, Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Just like Achan was giving the wrong example, others could have said, well, he took things. Let's all take things and contaminate the camp in that way. Therefore, says Paul, purge out the old leaven. Get rid of those old, sinful habits that you may be a new lump, a new attitude, a new way of thinking, since you truly are unleavened, because we've been forgiven of our sins. For indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. That's the way we become unleavened. Therefore, let us keep the feast talking about the feast of unleavened bread, not with old leaven, not with his old worldly and sinful attitudes, nor with the leaven of malice, which is a way of wickedness and also doing wrong things and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Yes, purity and doing things God's way, not our way.

And so, for us these days remind us of how the leaven of the world can contaminate us, and we need to eat that unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. That's the attitude that God wants to see in us. The attitude found in Isaiah 66, verse 2. Isaiah 66, in verse 2, it says, For all those things my hand has made, and all those things exist, says the Lord. But on this one will I look, on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at my word. Do we tremble? Do we do things God's way or our way? One example is just keeping this day as God has asked us to do, and be able to imbibe of his wonderful spiritual truths that are behind these great events. Those eight momentous days, leaving Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, gaining their freedom, but also 40 years later of departing of the Jordan River, of them crossing miraculously, and this time not into the desert, but into the Promised Land. In those momentous seven days, they began eating again of the produce of the land, and that now God was going to give them that land, starting with Jericho, which looked like an impossibility, but God did it. And on that seventh day, he showed again his mighty hand and his mighty works. So this is something we should remember and put into practice. These days remind us of that obedient, submissive kind of people that God looks to, that bride of Christ that isn't there rebelling or rejecting him, but a humble and submissive bride, and these days remind us of the victory over sin through Jesus Christ's sacrifice, of overcoming to the end. We still have a struggle. We've got to be delevening ourselves during the rest of the year in a spiritual sense, and of not touching the unclean thing or participating in the worldly and sinful desires of this society. This day symbolizes God's victory over sin and how he is doing it with us through Christ.