The Importance of Bread in God’s Plan of Salvation

Title of today's sermon, The Importance of Bread and God's Plan of Salvation. The Importance of Bread. What's the big deal about bread? It's all throughout the Bible. Man should not live by bread alone. Jesus Christ is the bread of life. The days of unleavened bread. Bread is mentioned constantly throughout the Bible, as if it were a big deal. And yet in our society, for the past 200 years, we've kind of lost touch with the importance of bread. We're out of touch. Bread used to be the central part of the human diet for the past 6,000 years, except for the past 200 years. Something dramatic happened with bread, and I believe it was intentional.

And bread became somewhat dangerous to human health as a result. And some people correctly, not incorrectly, but correctly warned us about the dangers of bread. Because something has changed. Something has changed that God did not put in place. We're going to go through that today. We're going to roll back the clock. And we are going to take a look at bread from the point of view of how Jesus Christ looked at it, how Moses looked at it, how most of humanity throughout the history of mankind looked at bread.

Bread was more than 50% of the human diet for the majority of human history. And during times of famine, bread was the only part of the human diet. Without bread, mankind would not exist. Not today. It is not so today. Why is bread harmful today? And it was the sustenance of life during the time of Jesus Christ. And why is it such an important part of the plan of salvation?

So important a part of the plan of salvation by means of an object lesson, that is, because it's only a symbol, it's only a type. But it's such an important object lesson that Satan would want to ruin that lesson so that we would be completely out of touch and not understand why in the world would we keep the days of unleavened bread. In fact, a lot of people wish we wouldn't even have bread in the day because they are aware of the dangers of the grain that goes into bread.

And they're so aware of it that they won't even eat unleavened bread. They'll have some substitute that they'll eat because they are very well aware of the dangers. So I'm going to go through three aspects of bread today that relate to the days of unleavened bread and how important they are to God's plan of salvation individually for each one of us individually. We'll look at how Satan has marred this understanding so that we don't even get it anymore.

I've given bits and pieces of this throughout the years, but I've never actually put it together like this before. I figured I'd wait for the days of unleavened bread to do it. Bread has become unhealthy in a way, and it actually can cause health problems, mineral deficiencies, and bone loss. Oh yes, yes it can. And that was no accident. Satan knows the importance of the symbolism that bread holds. So of course he's going to attack it. So we're going to go through three aspects today of bread. We will discuss, number one, the leavening process and why it affects or symbolizes the effects of sin. Why does leavening symbolize sin? That's number one.

Number two, we're going to go through what does unleavened bread mean? How does it picture Jesus Christ and what he's doing in our lives? And number three, and finally, we will discuss why we're told to become a new lump. Why don't we just eat unleavened bread for the remainder of our lives? Why don't we only do it for seven days, and then we go back immediately to eating bread again? Leavened bread. Like right at sundown, we go out and we chomp on a burger or a piece of pizza, and there's always that joke, oh, you're rushing back into sin, and we hear it every year, every year!

But it doesn't symbolize sin at the end, so we'll go through that as well. Three aspects of bread. Part one, or point one. Leavened bread. Sin consumes us. Sin consumes us. We are to put leavening out of our homes for seven days. Why? Well, it's an object lesson. You know, as human beings, we'll draw analogies, we'll give metaphors, we'll do similes. This is like this, so that we can explain things a little bit better. We'll take one thing and we'll explain it to try to help somebody understand the other thing that we're really trying to get across.

We use analogies or metaphors or similes. But you know what? When we use them, they're never really dead-on accurate. When God uses an analogy, an object lesson, it is precise. And that precision in and of itself makes me just have awe and wonder at God at how well He planned things out and why we cannot change a thing, nor will we.

We learn from the object lessons in the Bible. We're reminded about important aspects of our journey towards the Kingdom of God. And in this particular case, in Exodus 12 and verse 19, I want you to notice something. It says for Exodus 12 and verse 19, it says, 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 is a stranger or a native in the land. And I want to remind you who've heard this before and tell you for the first time who's never heard this, there's actually two things we're supposed to put out prior to the days of unleavened bread. Not one thing, but two things. First thing that we're supposed to put out in verse 19 is the leaven. The Hebrew word is seor. The leaven is not what we think it is today. That fast rising yeast, Fleischmann's yeast, you know, baking soda, baking powder, we gather all of that and we throw it away. In the time of Jesus, in the time of Moses, in fact, until about 200 years ago, that's not what leavening was. Leavening was seor, sour. It was a sour mash. You know how you made it? You take some flour and you take some water. You mix it in a bowl, you put it in the window. Then guess what happens to it? It starts to bubble. It starts to ferment. That fermentation consumes the entire mush that's in the bowl and it starts to smell like beer. It's actually quite a good smell. I like the smell of seor, of leavening. It's really good. You take just a little bit of that and you put that into some fresh dough. Do you know what it does? It completely consumes it. Not one piece of that dough is left. If you've ever seen fresh ground whole wheat, you see these little brown specks in the whole wheat flour. You know what those specks are? It's bran. Bran. Oh, everybody likes bran, right? Bow motility. Yeah, we need some bran. We'll actually find out. You don't really want too much of that in your bowels. We'll do that in point number two. It's one of the problems with grain. But that bran, when it comes in contact with this seor, which is the first thing we're supposed to put out in Exodus 12 and verse 19, there's something else we have to put out. But the first thing is this seor. When the bran comes in contact with that seor, do you know what happens to it? The fermentation process completely digests it. It's gone. The bran has been completely converted into something else, and that's what sin does to us. So we've said for years, leavening pictures sin, and it does. It pictures the all consuming nature of sin. But there's something else we're supposed to put out before the days of unleavened bread, and that is whoever eats what is leavened. That word is not seor. That word is chametz. Chametz means soured bread or fermented bread, what we would call leavened bread. But we don't sour our bread anymore. Like all of mankind did for 6,000 years. For the past 2,000 years, we've been mechanized, assembly lined, mass produced, and shipped things around the world. And we don't ferment our bread anymore. So we lose the lesson of the all consuming nature of fermentation, of sin, the seor. So if the seor, that bubbly, frothy, beer smelling leavening, is sin, what's the bread? Do you remember? What's the bread? If leavening is sin, you and me, we're the bread. We are what gets consumed by sin.

But if we're the bread, why do we have to throw it out? Why do we throw out the bread? Why don't we just throw out the seor and keep ourselves? Well, that would be good, right? No, that would be bad, because that represents the sinful self, the old man, the you and me that we don't want to be. And the symbolism is beautiful in the days of Unleavened Bread. Prior to the Passover, prior to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you and I are to repent. We are to repent and throw the old me out. The symbolism is accurate, and it is perfect.

We are to become something completely different. Now, we're going to come back to this later, but let's go to 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7.

1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7, Therefore purge out the old leaven, throw it out, and go out, gone, that you may be a new lump. Repentance is complete and 100 percent. There is no compromise. There's no little bit of the old you that's allowed to stay. The old selfish you that pitches a fit every time we don't get our way must leave. And the new us must come in. And there is a process, and that process is represented. The process of salvation is represented in the days of Unleavened Bread with, guess what? Bread! Bread! Here's the problem we have today. Bread is unhealthy because we don't ferment it anymore. And I'll get to that when we get to point three. And so, dietitians correctly assess the fact that bread is dangerous, that grains are dangerous. So, they swap out the grains that we use for grains that don't contain anything that gives the ability to make fermentation. So, in other words, all of those gluten-free grains, they do not ferment themselves. And that's the problem with them. They skip the analogy. Now, you can sour gluten-free items, but you have to add something from outside the grain into it to create the fermentation, and it will eventually die. It won't keep itself going. You ferment a cereal grain like wheat, you can keep that going forever. Of course, we don't. We have to throw it out every year. We stop the process and start it all over again, which is a huge part of the salvation process. Huge! The meaning of it is beautiful. So, this bread that's fermented is completely consumed, and we have to throw it out, not just a little bit of it. That's why a lot of people think, you know, I really don't clean my house. I throw out my yeast, and I throw out my baking powder, and I vacuum the floor. Because if I say I didn't, then people will get on my case. But it's not really that big of a deal. And you don't lift the couch, and you don't go behind the refrigerator, and you don't get under the car seat every year. I could make a meal out of the bread I pull out of my couch. I mean, that's kind of gross. I wouldn't. Now, that's fermentation right there. But it all has to go. It's not just the leavening. It's anything that was leavened. Why? Because repentance is not halfway. That's why it all has to go. A lot of people think, well, we're mature Christians. We don't have to keep the symbolism anymore. It's an object lesson. It has a beautiful meaning. You can't do half of it and understand the meaning. You have to actually do it to get the meaning. And you know what? It is a royal pain to quote D. Levin, as we call it, our house. What a pain that is! Levin gets in the stickiest, weirdest places in your house, especially if you have kids.

It's very difficult to get out. And that in and of itself is the lesson. That in and of itself is the lesson. Peter said in Acts 2 and verse 38, Acts 2, 38, then Peter said to them, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. And that's what Mr. Piper was talking about in the sermonette. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But what kind of repentance? 100% complete repentance. Where do we find an example of how to repent? Well, we sing it at Passover. What song did we sing at the end of Passover? And I bet you, whether we were in Austin or San Antonio or Waco, we sang this song because it's our tradition. Psalm 51. Do you know what Psalm 51 is? It's when David repented after the horrible mess he made with his sin with Bathsheba. And he was finally caught, he was busted, and he broke down and he repented. And he didn't repent halfway. Psalm 51 and verse 1. To the chief musician, a psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba, have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. How much so? Verse 2. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. Let's drop down to verse 6. Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, not the false evil way that we are, that that leavened bread represents, that we throw out before the days of the 11 bread begin. Truth on the inside, David said. Boy, he gets this, and he teaches it to us. And in the hidden parts, you will make me to know wisdom. Verse 7. Purge me with hyssop. Do you know what hyssop is? How many of you have ever tasted on your tongue oregano oil from Greek oregano from the Mediterranean? In the Middle East, yeah, right? That stuff is as hot as jalapenos. Some people use oregano oil when they can't take antibiotics because the stuff is so potent. They put it in a little capsule because you can't put it in your mouth and swallow it unless you really like hot stuff. So, essentially, David is saying, purge me with jalapeno peppers. All right? It's a scouring. He means completely clean, not part way. That's hyssop. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Repentance is complete and 100 percent. And that's why we put the leavened bread out also. Not just the leavening, but everything that has been leavened because that represents you and me, the old sinful self. And sin, when it goes through that fermentation process, when it gets in us, completely consumes us. And so we have to completely go away. And a completely new us has to emerge. How does that happen?

How does the old man go away? Part two of how bread is so important in the plan of salvation. For seven days, we are to take in unleavened bread. I think you will find this interesting at least. I kind of geek out over this stuff, but I think you will actually find this interesting because we're going to throw a little science in with the days of unleavened bread.

But we're going to start in the book of Hebrews of all places. Why do we have to put leavened bread out and then eat unleavened bread, but only for seven days? Hebrews 3, verse 7.

We're going to go through Hebrews 3, verses 7 through 19. But it's going to take a long time to get there. We don't get to verse 19 until four pages later in my notes. We're going to take a lot of detours along the way. So, hold your place in Hebrews 3. We will get through it. Hebrews 3, verse 7. We start with Paul explaining the Exodus story and making that first Passover story and that first Exodus an analogy for our own lives. Therefore, Hebrews 3, verse 7, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion in the trial in the wilderness. What rebellion is He talking about? Chorus Rebellion. Remember in Numbers, chapter 16? They sent spies into the land. After wandering around for more than a year, complaining about everything. And that's an important key. They wander around after going through the baptism of the Red Sea and becoming God's special people. What do they do? Wine and moan and complain. Oh, manna! I don't want to eat manna again. Every day we have manna. I want to meet. And then they send spies into the Promised Land. And what do the spies do? All but two of them come back and they complain. Oh, there's giants in the land. There's fortified cities. We'll never take it. This is an analogy of you and me. This is our Christian exodus away from the old man, prior to baptism, walking towards the kingdom of God. Now, their kingdom of God was a physical kingdom. They were inheriting dirt. Very, very fertile dirt. But they were inheriting dirt. You and I are inheriting something far greater than just a plot of land. But they inherited dirt. And what did they do? The spies came back and they complained. And then what did they do? Well, God killed the 10 spies who complained. Just killed them. That's what God thinks about complaining. He got so fed up, he killed them. And then some of them in the congregation were complaining, he sent fire in and killed people on the outside to the camp until Moses prayed and stopped the fire. And that wasn't the first time God had sent something in to kill them. That was like the third or fourth time. God really did not like complaining because it's rebellion. It's a hardening of the heart.

So what did they do? They tell Moses that Korah and Korah's, you know, the leading men in their congregation, were now going to be in charge. And they were going to go back to Egypt. And do you know what they said of Egypt? They said of their old way of life, of the old man, it's a land full of milk and honey, which is what God described the kingdom as, a land flowing with milk and honey. So what did the complaining Israelites say? We're going to go back to a land flowing with milk and honey. Not only were they rebelling against God, they were calling God a liar. So he took Korah and the men who rebelled against God, and he opened up the ground and swallowed them up, alive. And they died being buried alive.

So why doesn't God bury us alive when we rebel? But simple, because we're not inheriting dirt. They were inheriting dirt, so they got swallowed up by, guess what? Dirt. We're inheriting eternal life. They were just a type. You and I are the reality. We're the reality, and we're playing for keeps. Of course, the ground hasn't swallowed us up. God wants us in His kingdom. He used Korah as an example for us to not follow. And the days of unleavened bread. And bread is a central part of this whole thing. Now, verse 8 again, do not pardon your hearts as in the rebellion in the day and the trial of the wilderness. Paul brings that trial, that rebellion in the wilderness, forward to us today. He says, look at them, and don't let your Christian walk be like their exodus out of sin. Your exodus out of sin better be with a whole lot less complaining and a whole lot more obedience. Verse 9, Very interesting. So I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest. That's what we do not want said about us. Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. So Paul says, if you don't believe you're departing from God, he's going to describe what belief is in just a moment. What do we do to show we believe? Paul's going to make that point. Verse 13, But exhort one another daily, while it is still called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ. Jesus Christ is our unleavened bread. For seven days we eat unleavened bread, and it symbolizes, internalizing, Jesus Christ. What does that mean?

For we have become partakers of Christ. If we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. What does hold to our confidence mean? Hold to our confidence? When you were baptized, you put your confidence in God and in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And on that day, you said, the old man died. I become a partaker of Jesus Christ. And what Paul is saying is, hold fast to that to the end. Why do we eat unleavened bread for seven days? God created the earth in seven days. He completes things in sevens. Seven represents the completion of our lives. For seven days we are partakers of Christ. How long is that? Our entire life. And that's what he says here in verse 14. If we hold to the beginning of our confidence, steadfast to the end. The end of what? The end of our life. When we put our head on the pillow, when we breathe our last. That's how long we are partakers of Christ. That's what eating unleavened bread symbolizes. Partaking of Christ. You know, when the first Passover happened, they simply didn't have time to leaven bread. They had no way of knowing how accurate a part of the salvation plan they were playing out. They just didn't have time. I mean, we have a thing today. Why didn't they just make some biscuits? I mean, take some baking soda and some flour and throw it in the pan with a little grease and you've got some mighty fine biscuits. Throw a little lamb gravy over that and you've got yourself a Passover. Fermentation takes a long time. We're not used to that today. We've lost that in society. It took on average eight hours. It could have taken up to 12 hours to leaven a lump of dough. If you want complete breakdown, which we'll get into in the third point, you've got to let it go for 12 hours. They didn't have that kind of time. They were simply out of time. So they just made bread and cooked it up.

They had no way of knowing that they were doing such an important part of God's salvation plan. The unleavened bread pictured Jesus Christ and what He does for us. It's an incredible detail. It pictures the transformation that Jesus Christ is making in our lives. Why? Why does it picture that? Because of what unleavened bread does in our bodies. Which is why you should not make a diet of unfermented grains. You should not make a diet of store-bought bread unless it is soured fermented. Let's research that and see what happens. Grain, like wheat, has an outer shell called bran. That bran has a protective barrier for the grain that helps prevent it from decaying. Inside the bran is an acid called phytic acid. This phytic acid fights off invading bacteria and enzymes that would cause the grain to spoil before you can use it. Grain can be stored properly and last for years. Remember the dream that Joshua had, I mean that Joseph had, to Pharaoh? And so Pharaoh put him in charge of the country and he stored grain for seven years. So you have a silo, right? And you pile grain, store it for seven years, and then the famine lasted seven years. So you start whittling down on that grain until you get to the bottom of the pile, which was the first grain you put in. So seven years of storing grain and seven years of famine means that that grain lasted 14 years and it didn't go bad. That's a pretty serious shell of bran around that grain. That that grain, if it sits dry, will last years.

A lot more than 14, by the way. So what does that have to do with the days of unleavened bread? What does that have to do with partaking of Jesus Christ? Phytic acid in that outer bran cleans you out. It scours you. It's a cleaning agent. Isn't that amazing? Unleavened bread, unfermented grain, cleans you out. Oh, we know it cleans you out. I mean, you eat a bran muffin, you're going to clean out. But it does a whole lot more than just bowel motility. Sally Fallon is a well-known author who wrote the book, Nourishing Traditions. She states that phytic acid molecules, if left in the bread, will do remarkable and a lot of times an unwanted act inside your body. Let me read from her book. Quote, All grains contain phytic acid, an organic acid which phosphorus is bound in the outer layer of the bran. Untreated phytic acid can combine with calcium, magnesium, copper, iron, and especially zinc in the intestinal tract and block their absorption. Now, all of those things I mentioned are vital minerals that your body needs to absorb. But bran, that phytic acid in bran, blocks that from being absorbed and therefore you just pass it through, as though it's just scouring you out. Let me read on. This is why a diet high in unfermented whole grains may lead to serious mineral deficiencies and bone loss. Why do people scream that grains are bad for you? Because, unfermented, they can be really bad for you. They're not wrong. They just don't have the whole story. And I'll give you part of that story today. Reading on, the modern misguided practice of consuming large amounts of unprocessed bran often improve colon transit time at first, but may lead to, and she lists a lot of disgusting things that I'm not going to discuss, and many other adverse effects, she says. So I'll just leave it there. Reading on, soaking allows soaking, just soaking, which, by the way, fermentation does a whole lot better than soaking. God had this all figured out. Soaking allows enzymes, lactobacilli, and other helpful organisms to break down and neutralize phytic acid. As little as seven hours of soaking in warm, acid-related water, I can't read big words when I'm tired, will neutralize a large portion of phytic acid in grains. The simple practice of soaking cracked or rolled cereal grains overnight will vastly improve nutritional benefits. So in her book, she discusses why leavening is so important. But leavening does a whole lot more than break down the phytic acid. But amazingly, if you don't break down the phytic acid, it does something remarkable. Unleavened bread, a matzo, a whole grain, whole wheat matzo, works as a scouring pad for your digestive track. Literally just whoosh, washes you right out. And that's exactly what Jesus Christ does for us. He cleans us out. God had it all planned out. The grain could be stored for years and kept in a dry place, and the phytic acid in the bran. During the leavening process, the phytic acid is broken down, and the grain becomes very nutritious to the body. Without leavening in the fermentation way, grain is like a scouring pad in the digestive system. And just like Jesus Christ literally cleans us up. And God commands us to eat unleavened bread, but for only seven days. Only seven days. Exodus 12, verse 15. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. Whoever eats leavened bread on the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

This was a whole grain bread. Israelite slaves did not have white flour. Only Pharaoh had white flour, and he was very degenerate. Most pharaohs were degenerative. When they look at their mummies, they were very degenerative. Because they only ate white flour. Right? So you got a no-win scenario there. White flour messes you up. Unfermented whole grains mess you up. So the bread that they were commanded to eat had a high phytate content. That's the point. So why does God require us to eat unleavened bread? What does it do to us when we eat high phytate grain for seven days? We partake of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ helps us remove the sinful nature out of our lives. That selfishness, that selfishness that we have, that when we don't get our own way, we make other people pay. And Jesus Christ's nature was such that not only did he not make other people pay, he literally laid down his life for people he didn't even know, willing to take loss, that somebody else might gain. That is what Jesus Christ does for us. He takes that selfishness and scours it out of us. How does he do that? Remember, we were in Hebrews chapter 3, and we left off in verse 14. It's warm in here, yeah? Maybe I'm just blowing a lot of hot air.

But Paul isn't Hebrews chapter 3 and verse 14. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold to the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. A lifetime of growth. Verse 15. While it was said, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. For who, having heard, rebelled, indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt led by Moses? They stopped right in the middle of their exodus out of slavery and turned to go back. There is no stopping. There is no turning back. Verse 17. Now with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his west? But those who did what? Did not obey. How do we partake of Jesus Christ? It's simple. It's practical. It's easy to understand. Taking in of unleavened bread and being cleaned out comes by obeying Jesus Christ. It is that simple. That's the point Paul's making here. When he's giving the analogy of the original exodus and comparing it to our lives, what do we have to do? Obey. How do we become partakers of Jesus Christ? How do we eat unleavened bread all of our life? All of our journey out of slavery, the slavery of sin? Obey. And what is disobedience? Verse 19, so we see that they could not enter because of unbelief. Remember I asked the question, how do you know if you believe Jesus Christ? If you obey him, it is that simple. So that's the second analogy in the days of unleavened bread. Partaking of unleavened bread, pictures partaking of Jesus Christ, which means obeying him, which is believing him. Let's continue on now in chapter 4 and verse 1. Therefore, since a promise remains of entering his rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. Remember, the very first thing we did was put the leavening out. We put the old man out. How much are we supposed to repent? One hundred percent. And then what do we do? Take in Jesus Christ. Obey. Verse 2, for indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them, but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith and those who heard it. We eat unleavened bread for seven days to remind us not to fall short, not to turn back as the ancient Israelites did in their exodus. Okay, so let's move on to the third analogy that God uses with bread, just in this holy day alone. And this one cracks me up, because at the end of the seven days, we go back to eating leavened bread again. And when the sun goes down, pretty much every one of us goes out and we eat croutons in our salad and that fresh bread they bring by. You know, some people order a pizza, some people go get a burger, but we all just rush back and eat leavened bread. And every year, somebody makes the joke, you're rushing back into sin. But actually, leavened bread at the end of the days of unleavened bread doesn't picture sin. It pictures sin because sin was the leavening that corrupted us before the days of unleavened bread. But now we've gone through the days of unleavened bread and we've partaken of Jesus Christ. And now we are to become something new. And now, leavening represents the conversion process. Leavened bread now represents becoming completely consumed by God, completely something new. And here's the neat part about the analogy. God is so fascinating. He's so accurate. We actually become more than what we were. We're supposed to. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7. We went here once before. Let's go back. Let's take a second look at it. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 7. Therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump. A new lump of what? Leavened bread.

We are supposed to become a new lump leavened with God's spirit. Not leavened with sin, leavened with love, leavened with the character of God. And it is supposed to completely consume us. You know, if we continued eating leavened, unleavened bread, we would have bone loss and mineral deficiencies and all kinds of problems. And that's why a lot of people experience problems when they eat bread today off the shelf. Because bread today off the shelf, even though I love it, is not fermented like it has been for the past 6,000 years of mankind's history. Mankind, all of mankind, used to leaven their bread the fermentation way. And then, brewer's yeast was discovered. And King Louis XIV outlawed it as a means of leavening bread. Because he realized that it would cause a health problem if you didn't allow the bread to ferment. But progress would not be stopped. And mechanization and automation and getting things done quickly took the priority. And for the past 200 years, mankind has changed the way we eat bread. And bread has become really not a central part of the human diet. We have such good transit transportation systems that we can get coffee from South America, and veggies from all over, and meat. And bread is not really 50% of our diet anymore. And it's a good thing, because unfermented bread can really mess you up. But sourdough bread, bread the way mankind ate it for 6,000 years, would actually sustain life. That's all you would have needed, was bread. But how can that be? Bread, grain, has so many harmful things in it. I mean, there's the phycic acid in the bran, but there's also the gluten. And gluten can be a huge problem in the digestive tract. It's not really that easy, even for those of us who are healthy, to assimilate gluten. It is a problem. People who say they have a problem with gluten are not lying, and they're not wrong. There is actually a problem with gluten. But God had it all figured out. And God's way does not need editing. It does not need modern science. God knew what He was doing. Imagine that. He did. Sourdough leavening process completely converts the dough, and that is the analogy. It consumes the phycic acid in the bread, so it does not scour your body of vital minerals. It converts the gluten into a bioavailable food that actually nourishes your body. According to the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition, Volume 51, Issue 6. Why do I quote this? So you don't think I'm quoting some off-the-wall, new age, health guru, hippie nut. This is the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition.

They did a pilot study, a 60-day challenge, where they took celiac patients with juvenile celiac, children with celiac. Do you know what celiac is? Okay, some people are gluten intolerant. Celiac is a completely different ballgame altogether. If celiac people, people who have celiac, get even a small amount of gluten, they react violently. In some cases, it can be life threatening. Just a little bit of bread. How can bread kill you? It can, because of that gluten that's in there. And if you have celiac, some people get a really bad rash, but some people have a violent allergic reaction. And usually, it involves a lot of internal pain. Just a little bit. So they did a study with children with juvenile celiac to see if they could tolerate fermented bread, sourdough, if it was completely converted into something bioavailable. So fair warning, they took the bread and they fermented it for 12 hours. Now, normally, some of you ladies make sourdough and you'll ferment it for about eight hours. And that will pretty much do the job for most of us. Not for celiac, they did it for 12 hours. But every single patient could tolerate the bread. How is that possible? We're talking wheat bread. How can a celiac patient tolerate such a high gluten grain? Sourdough renders a bread nearly gluten-free. The original gluten molecule is changed into something that's actually healthful to the human body. And here's the neat part about it. You didn't need to know any of that. All you needed to know is you take grain and you pound it into a fine powder. You mix it in a bowl with some water and you let it sit in the window. That's all you had to know. And you could survive. And it was affordable because grain was cheap. It grows everywhere. Look out your window. There's probably some grain growing somewhere. It was cheap for all of mankind. Unfortunately, today we have such processed breads that if you actually get a real sourdough from the store, it's considered artisan bread. And it's really expensive. How ironic is that? The one thing that God made that anybody, no matter what income level they had, could have would be bread is now something that's out of reach for most people to afford unless you know how to make it yourself, which is actually really simple. It's kind of hard to mess up. It is. It's actually hard to mess up sourdough bread. But here's the important part that leads to the days of Unleavened Bread, the analogy. And that is that the fermentation sourdough process unlocks nutrition in the grain that was not originally there. It converts and changes the grain to something completely different. And now there is enough nutrition in the grain, in the bread, to sustain human life. So that even if there was a famine, just keep your grain sack dry and you'll live. Isn't that amazing? And that conversion process of that grain, making it more than what it is, is exactly what God is doing in you and me. We are supposed to become something more than what we are. The days of Unleavened Bread are not just about being clean. That's not the end goal. You know, if you just remove Satan, you just remove sin. You're still you. And I'm still me. We have to become something different. A new lump. A new lump of bread that becomes completely consumed with God's nature. Not our old selfish nature, but something bigger than what we originally were. Ephesians 4, verse 13.

Till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure and the stature and the fullness of Christ. We are to become something more than what we are today. That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men and the cunning craftiness and deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth, how? In love. May we grow up in Him who is the head Christ. What does it mean to take in Christ? Well, to obey Him, yes. To what end? That we become something new. The days of unleavened bread are a fascinating object lesson. Incredibly accurate.

We were consumed by sin, and we had to be completely thrown out and purged and cleansed, and then become something more than we currently are. The three stages of the days of unleavened bread. We throw out the seor, and we throw out that leavened bread. And then we take in the cleansing nature of Jesus Christ, His sacrifice and our subsequent obedience to Him. And the end result is that we become something greater than we are. Bread used to play a very large role in mankind's history. And now we read things like, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And we don't really relate, because bread is really a side dish. Bread comes with the meal, or it's an appetizer, a promise that something better is about to come. You know, you put bread out because you're waiting for the meal to come. That's not the way it was throughout all of mankind's history, but that's the way it is today. So when we hear bread, we think, yada, yada, yada. No big deal. And we don't get the significance and the importance of what bread, the role bread plays in the salvation process. It's a great analogy. During the Days of Unleavened Bread, we take in Jesus Christ. After the Days of Unleavened Bread, we eat leavening again. And that is just an important part of the Days of Unleavened Bread, as eating the unleavened bread. You and I are to become that person that is willing to literally lose your own opinion in favor of somebody else's opinion, just that they might benefit. Willing to breathe your last that somebody else might live.

Willing to help somebody, no matter how inconvenient. And none of us are there yet. And so God gives us an annual reminder every year, He's brilliant! He's amazing! I am literally awestruck at His brilliance. His analogies don't break down. They're dead unaccurate. We take leavening and go through the painful process of throwing away every little cheesy rabbit or cheesy cracker that's in the back of our van and under the couch, because repentance is supposed to be complete.

And then for seven days, picturing our complete life, we take in Jesus Christ and ask Him to clean us up. Because we all know that the day we're baptized, we come out of that water, a new man, symbolically only. It's really the same old us. And we get that seed planted. And the rest of our life, we take in Jesus Christ. Why? So at the end, we are a completely converted, 100% loving human being. And that is why bread is so important in the salvation process.