Going on to Perfection

All of God's Holy Days have multifaceted layers of meaning and analogies. For instance, Passover has seven different meanings and analogies worked into that one very important day. Also is the case with the Days of Unleavened Bread. The various meanings and analogies that take place all through this festival are very important. Today we have the second Holy Day of Unleavened Bread, and I would like to just focus on one of the analogies that we could be talking about that's very important to this second day. As we know, the Israelites had been locked in Egypt for many years, and the Passover had freed them from being slaves to the Egyptians and to Pharaoh.

They traveled for six days. They worked their journey to get away from where they were for six days. And today, when this day began, they found themselves at the edge of the Red Sea with Pharaoh's army, pursuing them. Now God had told them, if you will follow me, I will take you to a Promised Land. To a land compared to what you've been living in here in Egypt with all this bondage, it's going to be a much easier place. A land flowing with milk and honey. When you go get milk out of the cow, you don't really have to do anything. You just want milk? Squeeze. Honey is a rich, wonderful source of food. If you want honey, you just take it and eat it. And so God's way of life, going towards His kingdom, and living a life with God, taking us on a journey, is going to be a lot easier. It's going to have a lot more good side effects to it than our life in sin. God commanded Israel to do what He intended them to do, and they worked six days to fulfill His directive. They were told to leave Egypt, and they worked at that for six days. Similarly, you have a covenant with God, and God has given you directives. He has given us a type of six days here in this festival. Let's just remember for a moment. There's a six-day week followed by a seventh-day Sabbath. In one sense, you can look at that for carnal humans. The seven-day week is for carnal humans. Six days, mankind lives any way it pleases. There is a time when the seventh of the thousand years begins when physical humans will live under a form of God's government, and in a kingdom on earth and human state, led by God. That's followed by the resurrection of all who have ever lived, and as humans, they will live. That is sort of the story of humanity. Let's look at the days of Unleavened Bread for a minute in a similar light. Seven days for a peculiar people. Seven days that gets inserted into the seven-day week concept of the seven thousand years. You and I are called out of this chaos that humanity lives for its six thousand years. Following the passover, we are to follow a new master during our lifetime in a different journey on a different path. And at the end of our six days, in other words, the end of our life of following God, there is quite a different version of God's kingdom, isn't there, than the rest of the world will experience at first. When Christ returns at the beginning of the seventh of the seven thousand years, we will actually become spirit beings and reign with Him. So the seven days of Unleavened Bread is very special about the lives that a special called group of humans will live at this time, and a special seventh day that will apply to them. I'd like to talk about that with you today and ask, what are you supposed to be doing during your six days, during your journey out of Egypt, during this time allotted to you as a saint, a potential first fruit in the resurrection? What are you to be doing at this time, and how well are you meeting God's intentions for what you're to be doing? This sermon I'd like to examine how to move along to the point that God wants you and me to arrive at. Israel was led six days to arrive at a certain point, a certain destination within that timeframe, just as you and I are called to follow God in His light to a certain point, a certain destination that we need to reach during our lifetime.

The title of the sermon today is, Going On to Perfection, whatever that is. We are to go on, we are to travel, we are to march in our exodus to perfection, the Bible tells us. Let me start by asking a question. Have you ever been part of an event that didn't go as expected? It just sort of caught you by surprise. You had an anticipation and an expectation, but it really didn't work out that way. Perhaps a teen campout. The adults worked on this for weeks, they got all the details together, the ladies provided food and menus and gear and tents and activities and the planning and the transportation. You haul all these teens out in the middle of the wilderness and the heavens open and it just pours. It pours and pours. You can't do any of the activities, all that stuff that you planted. It was just very undoing. Or like a young lady whose wedding. Again, she's thought about since she was a young girl. She's dreamed of since she was playing dress up and I want to get married someday, dressing up the dog as the ring bearer or as the husband or something. And finally, it's her one day to have her first marriage ever and be that bride. The family works together and the friends and the people make it all very, very special. The father does everything he can and the time of the ceremony comes and the minister steps forward and it's raining so hard in this outdoor wedding that it just drenches the entire crowd. Nothing you can do. The wind is howling. The thunder is rolling. You can hardly hear. You can't even take a Bible because it's raining so hard. Or how about the impromptu Grand Canyon hike? Where you go to the Grand Canyon, you're expecting to look over the edge, but you see how beautiful it is down there and you see that there's people coming up the trail and you hadn't planned. You didn't bring any food. You didn't do any training or muscle preparation. And you think, it's only a mile vertically. Let's do it.

And you've got nothing to eat. Or like the teenage girl who right in the beautiful flower of her life contracts multiple sclerosis and it begins to take her away from all of her intended path of life. No marriage. There'll be no children. You'll start with a cane and go to crutches and then to a walker and then to a wheelchair and eventually into bed and all she can move is her head. And how do you deal with events that don't go as planned? Or the individual whose doctor says, you have cancer and it just changes your life. It's a massive interruption in all that you had planned. You know, there are very dramatic experiences that we as humans go through. And sometimes those experiences can be the most dramatic, have the biggest impact. The stories that are told about them are with the greatest passion. The lessons learned are some of the strongest. And so it was. With Israel in Exodus 13 and verse 17, they had certain expectations for this new God who did all these miracles and said, come with me to the land of milk and honey and I will make you free. Here in Exodus chapter 13 beginning in verse 17. Then it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines. You see from Goshen, which is up in northeast Egypt, there's a highway. There was a highway that ran right up through Philistine, Canaan, arched over the Fertile Crescent and back down into Babylonia. All that area of Syria and Lebanon, the major highway. Abraham had been on it many times. God didn't lead him that way. It says, although it was near, you know, they had rest stops and restaurants, hotels. It was paved, air conditioning, water. Verse 18. So God led the people around by the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. The wilderness is in an uninhabited place. There's nothing there to support you. There's no food there. There's no real water there. And they didn't even know where that was and it was not near by any means. Now God has called you and me to leave our Egypt. And these days that we have been celebrating and eating that unleavened bread remind us of our destination. We need to come to be that unleavened bread. The same type of bread that we ate at Passover. That is our goal. That's where we need to be heading. Away from sin and towards the righteousness of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ.

We assume at baptism why you just step away. The old person is buried. I buried it. I step away. You know? Now I'm done. That's not exactly how it works, does it? Because Jesus talks about a route. You know? You're going to take the difficult way. You're going to take the narrow path. You're going to take the way that is very, very challenging and very dangerous. But I'm going to lead you. One thing about this way that God has called us to live is that it is challenging. It has the unexpected. It has things that those who are faint-hearted will just not be able to endure. But what did God tell Joshua? And what is restated in the New Testament? You be strong and of good courage, for I am with you. In other words, it's very doable. And where Israel was going, even though it was very difficult, it was very doable with God there. There are great examples that we have beginning with Jesus Christ and others like Abraham and David and the apostles, Peter. Various ones who began this challenging journey. It was very, very difficult. There was a man named Stephen who was stoned. And a raft of people in Hebrews 11 are described as being challenged, enduring, faithful, and very trusting in God.

And so we are led down through time with legendary individuals that can really be encouraging to us. Others like Herbert Armstrong, who was called in a very tough time and given a huge job and a difficult path to walk. But we can look to those examples of those who are and have been among us, including those in Hebrews 11. Let's go to Hebrews 12, beginning in verses 1 and 2, and remembering some of those examples are important to us. Some of those who have been among us, they have shown us the way they've had the courage, they've set the examples.

Those are individuals that we should give God thanks for and that we should remember and pattern our lives after. Just as Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. So when you look at the totality of these successful individuals who have been challenged but do so well, we have verse 1, We also are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses or examples that you and I should take courage from this and realize, yes, we can do this.

And Paul says, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us. These days aren't just one week of the year where we say, oh, I'll get my sin out. These six days are about your life and mine. Walking out of our Egypt as a special group called at this time on a special, difficult path with Jesus Christ, the way, the truth, the life and the light leading us and saying, I'll never leave you or forsake you. Come on, let's do this. We need to unload and get rid of every weight and the sin and do this every day.

And he says, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. It's a good race. Verse 2, how do we do this? Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He is the originator of our faith and he's the one that's going to help us complete it, as we're going to see.

And that's really the message of this second Holy Day, is that Jesus Christ is the finisher. He's the one that's going to complete this journey for us and with us. And so, as Paul said in Hebrew 6, let us go on to perfection, whatever that is. We need to go on. We need to go on to a certain point. Now, the Greek word perfection is telio, or perfect, telios.

And those words can mean perfect. They can mean mature. They can mean complete. But there's also another meaning that the Greek has, and that means to reach a point that you are intended to reach as a destination. To fulfill that which you were intended to fulfill.

It's like the Egyptians. They had their perfection, which was they had to get to the Red Sea. That's what God told them. Some didn't go. Some said no. Some didn't like the New Taskmaster, and they dropped out along the way. But his intention for them was to get to the edge of the Red Sea. For you and me, God knows that we are human. We have our carnal human nature tagging along.

He knows that we are imperfect and that we continue to sin. That's why we have the Passover every year, with the foot washing, which in part reminds us that our sins, as we go down this path, need to be continually cleansed. He knows that. But there is a point. There is an intended destination that God wants you to reach in this lifetime.

In other words, you and I need to get to our Red Sea. By the end of the sixth day, Israel did what they were supposed to. They stood on the shore of the Red Sea. They fulfilled the purpose for which they were called. Paul said, I am terrible.

I am a sinner. I want to do what I don't do. Yet Paul reached his point by day six in his life. He said, I have fought the good fight. I have done what I needed to do. I have accomplished and arrived where I needed to arrive. Therefore, a crown of life is laid up for me and for all those who love God's coming.

Today, again, is the seventh day. It's something different than just our journey. Just like in the seventh day for the world at large, there will be a time that humanity is then governed by God and comes to live God's way of life as humans. Seventh day is unique for you and me in that we are intended, on what this day pictures, to help Christ teach and rule the world at that time. It's quite a unique thing that we are given the opportunity to.

About 3,500 years ago, Israel stood at the edge of the Red Sea.

What did they accomplish? In reality, what did they accomplish? A fundamental question in seeking God's kingdom is, does your pursuit of righteousness get you into the kingdom of God?

That's a good question. I think sometimes we might have the expectation that if I do everything and become righteous, then I'll have earned myself and I'll have somehow made it into God's kingdom. Well, a typical view of religion is, if you do good things, you'll enter into paradise. While at the same time, they say you can't earn salvation by work, so you don't have to obey God. You don't have to do anything that God says. Funny thing is, though, when a person dies, they always say, I wonder if he went to heaven or hell. Let's see. Was he good? Did he obey God? Did he love? Or was he a sinner? So there's this kind of dichotomy of belief with religion.

Israel did not get out of Egypt. All that they did for six days did not take them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. They couldn't even see the Promised Land from there. All it did was leave them firmly entrapped in their host country of Egypt, with the Pharaoh and his armies just pounding down right behind them.

It's important for us to realize that, because that was not what they were intended to do in six days. They were intended to move.

The point that God wanted them to achieve in that journey was to move from where they started. See, they had built the city of Ramses, and they had journeyed from Ramses in a circuitous, difficult route for six days, and they were somewhere else. They had gone 30, 60, 100-fold times from where they began.

Now they were somewhere else. They had moved, and they had moved in the direction that God led them. They now were in the place that He expected them to be. Like you and me, we had our old sinful life. And from that old sinful life, we are expected to move. We're expected to move 10, 20, 50, 80, 100 times with God leading us in a direction to a point that He wants us to arrive at. We need to accomplish that in our lifetime. We can't just stay where we were, or drop out along the way and say, I've gone far enough, I'll hang out in this campground. We need to make it to the edge of our Red Sea. In Exodus 13, verse 21, we can answer the question, Did the Israelites' six-day of effort take them into the Promised Land? Exodus 13, verse 21. Let's just see this very, very clearly, the beginning of this seventh Holy Day. Exodus 13, verse 21. And the Lord went before them day and night in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and the night a pillar of fire to give them light so as to go by day and night. And He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people. The point here is that they were going where they were supposed to go. They were accomplishing what they were intended to do. And what did that net them? Well, it took them far from where they began. Same with you.

How do we go in the way?

How do we go along the path? Do we just say, oh, I think it's this way? Do we become self-directed and guess?

Jesus, this way, truth, and life, said in John chapter 10, in verse 27, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. So it's important for us to realize that this whole journey of life needs to be one of following, just like Israel did, and trusting, and submitting, and repenting, and getting rid of the weight of sin, and running this race, and being confident that where we're going is where we need to be. Jesus said, verse 28, And I give them eternal life. It's not something we can earn. It's not something that all this work and effort nets us. And at the end of our life, it doesn't mean that, oh, we have not only earned salvation, but we can just sort of step into the kingdom of God. We will no more be in the kingdom of God at the end of our life's journey than the Israelites were in the Promised Land at the end of six days.

Verse 29, or verse 28, They shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. Verse 29, No one will snatch them out of the Father's hands. We're very secure, but we're on a God-led trek.

We have darkness around us. The world is full of darkness, and Satan is darkness. But we have light, and we have this pillar of light we can follow if we choose to.

In John 12, next chapter, he says, He who, verse 25, John 12, 25, He who loves his carnal life will lose it. And he who hates his carnal life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Verse 26, If anyone serves me, let him follow me, and where I am there my servant will be also. Again, this journey is about us going with God, him leading us and taking us to the place that we need to arrive at. God the Father wants fruit, and he'll trim us. He'll guide us. He'll shape us. He'll help that development in your life and mind take place, to where we do become at the end of that life perfect in the sense we arrive or we fulfill that for which was intended.

Peter warned of others that they have forsaken the right way and have gone astray. We don't want to do that.

A lesson of unleavened bread is we need to focus on Jesus Christ, the bread, the true bread. We need to follow God and Jesus Christ, and we need to persevere in that way.

It's a good way, and good can be challenging. I mentioned some examples of challenging events that don't always go the same way. There was once a time when my wife and I led a group of teens with other adults off into the wilderness, and we had this great outdoor teen activity in the woods. It was so well developed and so well planned. Then the heavens opened and it poured and poured and poured and just destroyed our activity. The only thing we could do was put up some blue sheets of plastic and tie them to trees and stand underneath them over picnic tables hour after hour after hour all afternoon and all evening.

Everybody stood underneath there and sat around those tables and played board games and ate and got to know each other and told stories. At the end of the evening, all the teens said, this is the best teen activity we have ever had. I hope if we ever have another one that it rains. The teens said that for years. I hope it rains.

As the rain was pouring down at the wedding, we actually took our shoes off dressed in tuxes. Us guys and the gals took our shoes off because the water was that deep. The rain was just coming down. I had to speak very loudly. The father felt so bad for his daughter. Afterward, he went up to her and said, I'm so sorry that it went this way and it rained. She said, Daddy, I love rain. This was a fabulous wedding. Look at everybody's together. You can go on a lot of teen activities in 35 years and do a lot of weddings. But I don't really remember all those weddings. I remember one in particular. I don't remember all those teen activities, but I remember one in particular. It turns out when you go over the edge of the Grand Canyon without food, there's a law there that what you pack in, you have to pack out. A lot of people who thought they were going to be really hungry at the bottom are having to haul a lot of food back up that mountain nine miles. They're happy to give you anything in their backpack.

Some of the people that had not trained, including our youngest little daughter at the time, and a lady who really was in no condition and shouldn't have done it, would never, in fact, that lady and another person would never have made that hike and still today would never have been able to make that hike, but by pulling her, one person carrying her on his back, and just bribing the little girl that if you go to the top of this mountain, you'll get a t-shirt. Sometime that night, everybody came out, and of all the times they've been at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, that one has the most stories with the greatest passion, a wonderful experience.

There are individuals who suffer health problems, and being in bed today listening to a sermon and only being able to move your head after years of debilitating MS, one of our sisters in the faith will tell you, I'm so thankful that God let me have MS, because if I didn't have MS, I would be out in the world pursuing my own life, but it has given me a focus throughout my life to grow spiritually mature and focus on what God wants me to do and love and serve others, and I'm so thankful that He's enabled me to have MS so that I can succeed as a first-fruit Christian.

Cancer is a tough thing to come down with, but many of us who have been around, many people who have contracted cancer and it has eventually taken them down, have found that they will tell us that those difficulties change a person's focus and develop a sense of understanding the purpose of life, the meaning of life, and deal with issues of life that otherwise they would never have done. And there's a certain sense of appreciation in the challenging sense of, God has brought me to a place that I would never know otherwise. And, oh, by the way, my pain has been very manageable if I've had any at all. God knows what He's doing on this journey, and not just those physical things, but in those spiritual challenges that we face. He's there with us. Everything has a purpose for those who are called according to God's will and who are following Him.

The six days of unleavened bread should have been filled with looking for sin, just as every day of our life. We need to do that. We need to look for this sin. And I hope that this festival has been helpful to you. It's been humbling to me. You know, a veteran, I've been in the church, what, 58 years? I've had so many days of unleavened bread. You've got to be good at getting leavened out by now. I was having dinner this week with my wife and the director of the feast office and Mr. Scriber, and having some chili and it was really exciting. The waitress came out first with the bread. I knew she was coming. I was waiting for her. Here she came. This bread looked really good, by the way. She just got to the table and said, we don't want any bread, thank you. She's like, whoa! She didn't know what to do. She kind of did that. She just left. She didn't say, just walked away with the bread. Took care of that. So I'm eating my chili. Everybody has chili. And the middle was this corn thing. It was really good. It was really dense, unleavened corn something, butter in it. It was crunchy. It was the best kind of cornbread-y stuff you ever had. And I didn't have much. It was just a little cube. He had his cube. He had his cube. It's only four bites. One bite, eat a quarter of the chili. Another bite, a quarter of the chili. Halfway through, I'd say, wow! Two bites to go. That's all that's left. My wife looks over and says, why are you eating cornbread during the days of 11 bread?

I say, it's not cornbread. It's not leavened. Cornbread isn't leavened. Mr. Scriber says, that's why they call it corn bread. Duh!

Well, when you say it like that, you know, corn bread, duh! You know, I tried to send up a silent prayer to say, forgive me for eating corn bread, but I realized my heart wasn't in it because I was upset with my wife for having told me before I got the last two bites. And I had to wrestle with that one all week. So that was a little embarrassing. So Friday I went to Yuma. I'm not going to have any problems like this. I was driving down alone. I stopped at, you know, that subway place, but none of that bread stuff. And I got in line behind the lady in front of me, and she ordered up bread, a nice big sandwich of bread. And I thought, well, now don't, you know, they don't know any better. Don't look down on people who don't know any better. It's fine. So she put the sliced, hammy stuff on there and toasted it, and it looked really nice in the center. But, and then the man turned to me, and he grabs for the door of all the breads, and he says, what kind of bread would you like? And I said, I'd like a salad. And he almost did like the waitress did. He's holding the bread door, and he's looking. Somebody doesn't want bread. He says, let the door go, and he looked around, he looked at the counter, and oh, and he grabbed a bowl, and he started stuffing lettuce and all that stuff in it. He kept moving it up to her sandwich. It was catching up, and guys down there, I was afraid the breadcrumbs are going to come into my salad. And I made sure, you know, vegetables only, no croutons, nothing, just, and then the lid went on, ah, it's protected.

It's got the plastic dome on there. You know, leaven can't get in. So, as I was checking out, I noticed the cookies, you know, for sale, the unleavened cookies. They're really flat cookies, and I thought, well, you know, one of those would go good for dessert, so, in fact, two would go good for coffee in the morning. So I got three, three packs.

What are you laughing at? Cookies aren't leavened. They're flat. They're really, really flat. So I was having my cookie going down the road and thought, you know, two more for tomorrow, and thought, you know what? Cookies aren't leavened, are they? Surely they're not leavened. So I got one more out just to see. Sure enough, no, it's flat. You could drive a truck over that thing. If it had leaven, it would go, hoo, you know, into a big tall biscuit or something. But, nah, this thing, and I looked on the bottom, there was no air holes, just raisins and nuts and flour as real food. They were really tight. Not a problem. So I thought, I don't know. Now I'm doubting myself. Do I call Mary? No. I don't want to hear any duh.

So I drove to a grocery store and found some oatmeal raisin cookies and read the long list of ingredients. Quick scan? Ha! No, no leaven in those. Did you really read them well? No. But, you know, I scanned. It's kind of like my life, you know. I didn't see anything. I looked. Let's have another look. So I read very, very, very, very, very, very carefully through all the long things they put in cookies. Scientific. Come from a lab, evidently. And there was bicarbonate of soda. And I thought, no! So I had to repent of that. Now I'm just... This is not working well. I'm getting gun shy. So I decided, I'm not even anything that has even flour anymore. Rest of the feast. Saturday morning I got up, did three visits, finished up getting ready for the sermon. And I was hungry for lunch, so I thought I'd drive around and find some place to eat. It was a taco shop. Nope, nope, nope. I ain't even gonna trust a taco. I don't know what's in them. Obviously, they look flat, but don't go there. I'll go to the Chinese place. Went to the Chinese restaurant. Chinese people, they don't cook with flour, you know. It's just rice.

So I went in, checked it all out. It was a buffet, you know, got the vegetable things, a little sushi with rice. Nothing. Didn't even go for the little, what's that little cookie thing at the end? Don't want to know if that thing with the fortune in it's... No. So, thought, you know what? The sushi was better than I was expecting with the wasabi sauce and the sliced ginger. I'll just go back and have some of that for dessert, because I'm doing that dessert. I don't care what's over there. I'm not gonna do it. Even the whipped cream. I don't trust it. So I got one more piece of tuna, stuffed with the rice on it. And, let's say, oh, the vegetarian one. One more of those. Because they were pretty good. Some more wasabi, all ready to go. And I thought, there's five more kinds here who don't... No names. What if one of those is clean? You know, not like the crabby stuff. So, I had to go back in the kitchen, finally, to find somebody. This gal didn't speak very good English. And I said, come with me, come with me, come with me. Look here, look here. What is this? What is this? You know? What's this sushi? She starts at the beginning. This, the halibut sushi. I got one of those. And this, the tuna sushi. And this, these. Crab, crab, crab, crab, crab. I don't need those. And there's that one other one, the vegetarian sushi. That crab, too.

I said, what? Excuse me? What's in the vegetarian one? Oh, that crab. Yeah, that crab.

I just decided to fast the rest of the week.

But you know, we are, to go through our life, really looking for sin. And the sin is not always easily there. It really can trap you up. And you can say, that's not sin. Look closer. Look for the selfish component. We have to get to where God wants us to be. The Israelites were close to there into the Exodus. Exodus 14 and verse 5. Notice here. Exodus 14 verse 5. Now it was told the king of Egypt that the people had fled and the heart of Pharaoh and his servants was turned against the people. And they said, why have we done this? And let the Israelites go. So he made ready his chariots. Verse 7. He took six hundred chariots and all the chariots of Egypt. Verse 8. God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. You know, this Satan keeps coming after us, doesn't he? He'll come after us every way he can, all six days that represent you in my life. And he pursued them with boldness. Verse 9. So the Egyptians pursued them. Your carnality is going to pursue you and all the horses and chariots of Satan are going to pursue you and they're going to catch you. Right there, verse 9. Camping by the sea. You know, we never, even at the end of our six days, get free. We never get into the kingdom of and by ourselves. We never become so-called perfect. But do we get to the place where God intends us to be? We certainly can do that.

An important lesson for today is to realize we've come far and yet we are still in sin.

When you and I reach the end of our day, yes, we've come far, but we're still a sinner. Like Paul said in Romans 7, 24, O wretched man that I am. That's where I am at the end of my life. And he asked the question, who will deliver me from this body of death? It's not going to be him. You and I reach the end of our six days, reach the end of our difficult road, and what do we find at the end? The door to the kingdom is tiny. It's the size of the eye of a needle. What are the Israelites going to do with an ocean in front of them? Oven by ourselves, who's going to deliver me from this body of death? Paul says in the next verse, verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And so it was right here in Exodus 14, 21, that Moses stretched out his hand, and a great miracle took place, that the sea opened up with two huge walls, and a wind blew through and dried it. And they went forward, and Pharaoh and his armies died.

The parallel to that is in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 50. You and I come up to our door, and we can't get through it. It's absolutely impossible. But it says here in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 50, I say this to you, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. It doesn't matter how far you've come. You're still there. You just can't go into the kingdom of God.

Nor does corruption inherit in corruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. There's going to be a dramatic miracle that Jesus Christ and God the Father are going to do for us. Huge! We will be changed. Verse 57. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In conclusion, as unleavened bread comes to a close, and you and I return to eating leaven, the meaning of this day actually goes on to another festival that lies ahead. There are seven more seven-day periods, 49 days, that also encourage us to be producing fruit for the harvest. You and I need to keep this lesson alive throughout our lifetime. In Ephesians 4, verses 22-32, I read part of this, Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 22, It is important for you and I to keep putting off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt. It didn't just grow corrupt, it continually is to grow corrupt. The leaven is in there, we've got to find it. The sin is there, we've got to get it, we've got to unload it. Put this off, this old man that grows corrupt according to the seatful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Come to desire Jesus Christ in His perfection, His unleavened state, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Verse 32, Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, a great lesson of Passover, even as God in Christ forgave you.

We are on a journey, and that journey will go for our entire physical life. And it's a journey that we have to be passionate about, it's a journey that we have to be very diligent about, and one that we have to follow Jesus Christ all the way in. Let's encourage one another as we go on from here to perfection. Let's develop that character of God, let's develop that mindset to the degree that God intends us to, so that we can reach that point of 20, 40, 60, 100 fold from where we began that God has intended you and I to reach, so that we can arrive at our Red Sea and have a miracle take us on in to the family of God.