Let Us Keep the Feast

So the very next time that you and I will see each other in person will be Friday evening, and that's the Passover. It's come upon us pretty quickly, and we've been doing a lot of preparing. I know that we've talked at services about preparing ourselves spiritually for the Passover, in line with what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11, verses 23 through 32 there. This week, if you haven't started already, I know that there will be a lot of preparation going on in our homes to get our homes ready to get them unleavened, physically unleavened, for the days of unleavened bread. If you'll turn with me back to Matthew 26. When we come to the spring holy days and any of the holy days of God, there's always preparation that is part of it. It was no different in Christ's time. And as he approached that last Passover that he was going to be alive as a human, you know, they were preparing for the Passover as well. Matthew 26 and verse 17, it says, on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus, saying to him, where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover? It's time for us to get ready. This is an important feast to God that we keep this Passover. Now, some would read that verse 17 and wonder, what does that mean on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread?

The original translation is that that was the first of the unleavened, and some from time to time have a question as that, what does it mean? It looks to their like that's the first day of Unleavened Bread they're keeping the Passover, not the night before the days of Unleavened Bread.

But as you look back at the Old Testament times, and we do the same thing today, we have the Passover evening on the 14th of Abib. On that, unleavened bread is part of the ceremony, the rituals, the ordinances that we keep there. It was part of the ordinances in the Old Testament as well as they prepared the Passover dinner. There was specifically unleavened bread mentioned, and then the very next day, the seven days of unleavened bread began. So when they would say the first of the unleavens, they were talking about those whole eight-day period that began, the spring Holy Day season. We typically today, we do say the Passover in the days of unleavened bread and separate them, but at the Feast of Tabernacles, often we will just call it the Feast of Tabernacles, and we know that we're gone for eight days. Maybe not so often we say Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day, but we know what that means. It was the same thing that the Old Testament people did. They was the first of the unleavens. They ate unleavened bread with the meal on the 14th, and then they ate unleavened bread for seven days in accordance with God's command, beginning on the 15th, all the way through those seven days. So as the disciples came to on that 13th of Abib, and that evening, right after sunset, would begin the beginning of the 14th, the day of Passover, they came to Christ and said, how do we prepare? Where do you want us to eat?

Just like we're saying, here's what we're going to do next week. This is the preparations that we have to make. And Christ told them, He said, go into the city to a certain man and say to him, the teacher says, my time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.

So disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. Just like you and I are preparing for Passover now, preparing our homes for the days of unleavened bread.

20 years later, as Paul is writing to the Corinthians Church, the Corinthian Church, in 1 Corinthians 5, he references this same time of the Passover and days of unleavened bread, as they were still keeping those days 20 years past the resurrection of Jesus Christ and after His ascension, now in the Gentile city where God was now calling Gentiles as well as Jews into His church, they were keeping the days of unleavened bread as well. 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 2, Paul, as he's writing to them, is aware of some sin that is in the church. In verse 2, he says, and you are puffed up. Well, that's unleavened bread language. We often around the days of unleavened bread will talk about being puffed up. We know that when we put leavening or yeast into our bread, it puffs it up and it becomes this nice, nice fluffy little loaf that we enjoy cutting into and biting into. And of course, that leavening and that puffiness represents the pride that is in us. And the Bible uses that analogy of the puffed up nature of what leavening does to bread to reflect what we could become. When pride enters our hearts and pride is part of what motivates us, we become puffed up. We might become haughty in attitude, haughty in our looks, and think we know much more than we should. And so God cautions us. In fact, if you want to keep your finger there in 1 Corinthians, we'll go back to Proverbs 21. Proverbs 21.

In verse 4, says, A haughty look, lots of proud look. We recognize when people give us haughty looks, a haughty look, a proud heart, and the plowing or the way of the wicked, our sin. A haughty look, a proud heart, our sin. And so when Paul talks about being puffed up, when we're in a puffed up state, there's sin. There's sin that is evident there. In fact, pride goes before a fall. And whenever there is sin, there is pride that's involved as well. We think we know more than we should be. We think we stand when really we need to be humble before God and allow Him to teach us. Well, going back to 1 Corinthians 5, verse 2, Paul writes to them, he says, and you're puffed up. There's sin in your church. Here we are approaching the days of unleavened bread, and there's sin among you. You're supposed to be working on that as you prepare and as we get closer to those days. You're puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. Of course, he's talking about the man in the midst of the congregation who is involved in some sexual immorality. The congregation was aware of it, and they haven't taken the steps to put the man out, but they've become tolerant of it.

We shouldn't become tolerant of sin in our lives or with each other. Well, dropping down to verse 6, he goes on, he says, your glorying is not good. Don't you know that a little leavened leavens the whole lump? And so it is, for those of you who make bread, if you just drop a little bit of leavening in there, the whole loaf is leavened. God's will for us, we learn, is to become unleavened, and so Paul is addressing that in a different form than just the bread, the physical bread, because now in the New Testament times, there's a spiritual unleavening that goes along with the days of unleavened bread and preparation for it, not just the physical. The physical is important, but in New Testament times, it's the physical plus the spiritual. So this is what he's driving at here. Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? If you're tolerating in this situation the sin in your congregation, then the congregation is puffed up. It needs to be taken care of. You need to become right before God. So in verse 7, he says, therefore purge out the old leaven.

Get rid of it. On a physical level, we get rid of the old leaven. We throw it out. We get rid of it before the days of unleavened bread begin. Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump.

Kind of reminds us of the time when we were preparing for baptism as well. God would open our minds to see the sin that we had always lived under, that we were living apart from God's way, and we had to put those ways out. The fruits of repentance needed to be evident as we understood God's way and how our way differed from that, and those things would be put away. That we, when we fully repented and were baptized, became a new creation in his eyes. Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, a new creation, since you are truly unleavened. For indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, he says, let's keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Keep those words in mind, because I will reference back to them during the sermon today. But as we are here now just a few days away from Passover and the days of unleavened bread, I thought we would do a refresher, a refresher today of why we're keeping these days, how we keep these days, and why we do what we do. It's been a while since we've done that, perhaps, and to do that, I want to go back to the Old Testament and see what God instructed the Old Testament congregation of Israel to do, and apply that to our lives today, and what God, as his New Testament congregation of his church, would do. So let's go back to Exodus 12 and look at that Passover that is notable in the Old Testament that Israel was told to remember. Now, as we come to that Passover day, I know that you know the story of the plagues that God sent on Egypt, and as Israel was in Egypt for centuries as slaves during that time, while they may have even still known God, they became very familiar with the gods of Egypt as well. And perhaps they began to trust in those gods, just like the Egyptians did. After all, Egypt was the greatest country on earth at that time. Pharaoh promoted himself as a god himself, and Egypt was the place to be physically if you were living in the world. They seemed to have all the power and all the comforts of life, and everything went well there. So Israel was pretty familiar with those gods of Egypt, and perhaps, just perhaps, they looked at those gods of Egypt, and life was pretty good in Egypt. It was comfortable.

They had plenty of food. They had plenty of the things that they needed. But God, one by one, as he was preparing to bring Israel out of Egypt, he exacted judgment on those gods. So one by one, he taught them he's more powerful than any of these gods of Egypt. One by one, he showed them you don't need those gods. They are absolutely nothing. And finally, it was Pharaoh that he showed. So as Israel approached this Passover in Exodus 12, they'd become quite knowledgeable that God is the only God, and that he had the power to supersede any other god that they were ever familiar with. They would have a lot more to learn, but just as you and I come to the point when God is going to take us out of the world, when he opens our minds and we see the truth, we begin to see it's God, and only his way, and only the way that God would have us to be. It's the only way to eternal life. So if we pick it up here in verse 5 of Exodus 12, as they approach the Passover, they're going to do something that they hadn't done before, as God prepared them for this ultimate event that would be the genesis of their absolutely departing from Egypt for good.

In verse 5, it talks about a lamb that they were going to select, and they were going to select this on the 10th day of the month of Abib, four days before the Passover on the 14th. So in verse 5, it says, your lamb, each household would choose a lamb, says your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the 14th day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. Well, twilight, the Hebrew word there is between the evenings. You know how it is right after sunset. It's still kind of light outside. It's not dark. You can see. So right after sunset, they were to take this lamb, and they were supposed to kill it at that time to prepare the Passover meal. So when we keep Passover today, it's really, we always schedule it just a few minutes after sunset on the 14th. So I think here in Orlando, sunset is 740 or 742 this coming Friday evening when Passover is. That's why we've scheduled it for 745. So we'll be meeting during the same time that Israel was to take this lamb that was unblemished and kill it at that time in order for the Passover. Now as we go through these verses, you're going to notice four things that Israel, that God commanded Israel to do. One, there was a Passover lamb that they had to select. It had to be without blemish and had to be exactly the age that God had set it to be. So there's one piece.

And then they were going to kill this lamb. In verse 7, we find a next component of the Passover in the Old Testament. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. So we have the lamb. The lamb is going to be killed.

Verse 7, the blood from that lamb is going to be used for something. They will put it on the lintel of the houses where they eat it. We drop down to verse 12. We see what that blood was going to do for Israel when they obeyed God's law. It says, verse 12, I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and I 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 eternal. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

So the blood from the lamb, the Passover lamb, when it was over their doorpost, it would be the thing that would save them from death of the firstborn in their household.

All the houses of Israel that might not have done it, but I think all of them did do it. They knew by that time we'd better be obeying God, but all the houses of Egypt rose during that night, and all of them had death among them. The blood over the doorposts for Israel saved them from death.

So we have the blood, Passover lamb, and we have the blood from that lamb that's part of the Passover, the Old Testament. We go back to verse 8. It says, then they shall eat the flesh of this Passover lamb on that night, roasted in fire with unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs, they shall eat it. And God says exactly how to cook it. He doesn't leave anything of his commands to our imagination. Don't eat it raw, nor boiled it all with water, but roasted in fire, its head with its legs and entrails. And let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. So the Passover lamb is killed. The blood is there.

With the blood over their lentils, they are saved from death of their firstborn, and then they eat of the flesh of that lamb. Down in verse 11, God says, as you're eating this, eat it with a belt on your waist, with your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste.

It is the Lord's Passover. Well, the very next morning, they were going to leave. They may not have fully understood at that time, but they were going to flee. And what God is telling them, do these things, eat it, and be ready to leave. Be ready. When I say go, go. Don't dilly-dally around. Don't think you've got to do this and that. You be ready. So we have four things. We have the Passover lamb. We have the blood. We have the eating of the flesh of that lamb. And we have being ready to leave in haste when God says to go. Now, we can fast forward to the 21st century and the New Testament church with Passover. And we can see that what God has called us to have their very same four elements in Passover today that the Old Testament Israelites kept back there in Exodus 12.

They did it on a physical level. We do it in a spiritual level, but with a different lamb, not the physical level that they did. Let's talk first about eating it in haste. As we read through the Scriptures, and we've talked about recently, especially with the way the world is going and some of the things that we see happening in the world around us, we're well aware of Jesus Christ's words in the Olivet prophecy when he talks about this is the way life will be. And many times in the Bible, in Matthew 24, 44, in each of the Gospels, he tells us, be ready. You don't know the day or the hour. You be ready so when the time comes and God says go, you go. Same thing he told Israel back then. They may not have known it was the very next morning. We don't know when God is going to say, it's time. But we don't want to be one of those five foolish virgins in Matthew 25, and we're not ready, where we're caught sleeping. Like, whoops, you meant now? I wasn't ready for that. His message clearly is, be ready. And on Mark 8, very, very sobering verses, you know, where he says, let those who are up on the housetop not go down and pack their clothes. Let those in the fields not go back into the houses for these things. When the time comes, go. Have developed that faith in God. Be ready. So part of our lives, just like the Israelites, is when we, when God is our God, and we have committed to Him, be ready. Have that sense of urgency. When He says go, go.

Don't be caught sleeping is the clear message that Jesus Christ would have for you and me.

And that's one part of it. Let's go back and look at the Passover lamb. I think we're all aware that today, Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb. He was the one who fulfilled that ceremony that Israel did back then on Passover. He was the perfect lamb. He is our perfect sacrifice.

So today we don't go out and we don't go and buy a lamb or go out to our flocks and pick out a lamb if we have one and sacrifice it on the 14th Jesus Christ was sacrificed as the perfect sacrificial lamb on the 14th of Abib on that Passover day, on that very same day. We say that many times in the Scriptures. Go back to John 1. I should say forward to John 1. And as John the Baptist is baptizing people. He's preparing the way for Jesus Christ and as he preaches the gospel of repentance, many came to him to be baptized in the Jordan. Verse 26 of John 1, people are asking him, why are you baptizing if you're not the Christ or if you're not Elijah or the prophet? And John answered in verse 26, I baptize with water, but there stands one among you whom you do not know. It is he who coming after me is preferred before me, whose sandal strap I'm not worthy to loose. These things were done in Bethabara beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing.

Verse 29, the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

So before he even begins his ministry, there's Jesus Christ presenting himself to be baptized.

As an example of what we do, he didn't need to have any sins washed away. He was perfect, but he set the example for us. We clearly see it. I believe it's back in Luke 3 where he was baptized with water. But here's John the Baptist announcing, here's the Lamb of God. He's here to take away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said, after me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me. John knew this is the Lamb. Back in 1 Peter, or forward in 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1.

Let's begin in verse 17. Peter writes, again, this is 20 and 30 years or more after into the New Testament church.

If you call on the Father, verse 17, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear.

Not in fear of the world, not in fear of what man can do to you, conduct yourselves in the fear of God. That's the aspect of the Spirit that we need to be fearful of God, and that means holy reverence and in awe of him. Conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you weren't redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers. But you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He's the sacrificial lamb. He is the Passover lamb. Revelation 13 and verse 8. I'm going to pick it up in verse 7 here. Revelation 13 verse 7.

Speaking of the end time, the Beast Power that's going to be coming on the earth.

John, as he's recording under inspiration from God, he's talking about the Beast Power will derive its authority from Satan. In verse 7 it says, it was granted to him to make war with the saints. The Beast Power granted him to make war with the saints and to overcome them. That authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, that's Satan, the Beast Power. All who dwell on the earth will worship him whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. So today we have a Passover lamb. We don't have to go out and we don't have to purchase a lamb. We don't have to go out and buy even a lamb that's already been slaughtered to have our Passover meal. Jesus Christ is that Passover lamb. He's part of our Passover every year. He's there. He superseded. He superseded. There is no lamb or number of lambs that could even possibly ever even come close to being worth the life that Jesus Christ gave as the perfect sacrificial lamb. And we know that blood is part of the Passover celebration or ordinance as well.

Back in Matthew 26.

Matthew 26 and verse 26. Oh, verse chapter 25. Matthew 26, 26.

As they were, you know what, before we go to blood, let's go to eating the flesh. That was the next thing that we talked about back in Exodus 12. They had the Passover lamb and they were commanded to eat the flesh of that lamb. Matthew 26, 26. What do we eat? What do we, when we come to Passover, what do we do? As they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, take eat. This is my body. This is the flesh you're going to eat.

He's the sacrificial lamb. Take and eat this. This is my body. And then I'm going to read 27, 28, and 29 so I don't come back there when we get to the blood. And then he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until the day I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. His life, his physical life would end at the end of that day. So Christ says in his own words, take eat.

This is my flesh. Take eat. This bread represents me. In John 6, verses that we do read on Passover evening, takes us directly to what Jesus Christ said and brings us right into the analogy of what they were doing back in Old Testament times, that that Passover and what we do today as we keep it in the same spirit, but with the new ordinances that Jesus Christ, who is the perfect Passover lamb, gave us. In John 6, in verse 48, Jesus Christ says, I am the bread of life.

I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the man in the wilderness and they are dead.

This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. I'm the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I shall give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.

Jews had some questions about that. They didn't understand it. In verse 53, Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. We'll pass over, meal, eat the flesh of the lamb, use the blood, use the blood that will keep you from death. Jesus Christ says, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Take eat. This is my body that I've given to you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I am him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me.

So when we gather together for Passover, Jesus Christ is certainly front and center as the main reason we're gathering. We owe everything to him, and we come to commit to him. He is the Passover lamb, and as we're there that night and we wash each other's feet, a New Testament type thing, we need to be humble. That gets that humble. The pride gets rid of it. That's why we wash feet first. We need to come to God in humility. Pride needs to be put away. It doesn't need to be any part of our Passover service or our love and bread or part of our lives. It's a lifelong process to get rid of that pride. So we commemorate that first, but then we have the bread.

It represents Christ's flesh, the flesh of that lamb, the flesh of that perfect Passover lamb.

We need that. All of us have sinned. All of us have come short of the glory of God. We all have earned death. Even if we've been baptized and think we've lived this wonderful life, we have done something that would earn us death. And so every year as we come before God, we spend the time examining ourselves before Passover, repent of the sins again sometimes, new sins, attitudes, or whatever leavening God reveals in us to get rid of them so that we come before Him with the attitude that all the leavening we want to come out of our lives, and we eat His flesh. We eat His flesh. Hebrews 9. We've spoken a lot about this as we've gone through the book of Hebrews, but let's just read a few verses here from Hebrews 9 that speaks to this as well, beginning in verse 22. According to the law, well, I've jumped here to blood, okay? We know blood and we know the wine represents the blood that Jesus Christ shed for us. He said that in Matthew 26-27. Take, take, drink of this wine. It is the blood that is shed for you. And so we know blood was there to keep the Israelites from the death that would otherwise have come to them.

Christ's blood pays the price for our sins, and He delivers us from certain death to eternal life as we continue to yield to Him. Verse 22. According to the law, almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. We say that in the Old Testament, all that blood of all those animals never forgave their sins, but it covered them. That was what God had designed at that time. Now we have the blood of Jesus Christ that does provide payment for the sins that we've committed, does pay the price for us if we follow Him, if we commit to Him with all our heart, minds, and souls. According to the law, almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. Therefore, it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heaven should be purified with these. Those copies of the things in the heaven were that tabernacle of the Old Testament times, that temple, and all those things that were back then. That the copies of the things in the heaven should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. Jesus Christ is by far a better sacrifice than any animal or any number of animals. His blood pays the price that no number of animals, animal sacrifice, could ever pay the price for what we've done. But Christ does.

Verse 24 for Christ hasn't entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the most holy place every year with blood of another, He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world.

But now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

His blood. So when we keep the Passover, we have all the elements that God had always designed to be part of Passover. We have the lamb, we have the flesh that we're eating of that lamb, we have the blood, and we know that we are to be ready whenever it says that we always need to have that sense of urgency that when God says go, or it's time, it's time. Not to be asleep at the switch, but to be ready, becoming more and more ready as the day occurs. So let's go back to Exodus 12 and look at some of the other, I guess, requirements, if you will, or qualifications that God puts on this Passover, because it's unusual in the fact that God does qualify who will take the Passover.

It's the only holy time that He designates in this way. Verse 43 of Exodus 12, The Eternal said to Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover, no foreigner shall eat it. Now, as Israel went out of Egypt, apparently some of the Egyptians did go with them. They saw the wonders of God as well, and they saw this God is far superior than Pharaoh, this God is far superior than any of the gods we had in Egypt. We will do that.

So, you know, we had a whole congregation of Israel that left Egypt at that time, and others went with them as well. So God says, no foreigner will eat it. But every man's servant who is bought for money, when you've circumcised him, then he may eat it.

Now, you recall the sign of commitment to God in the Old Testament was circumcision.

As children were born, they were circumcised, the whole family was involved in it, and so circumcision was a sign of the covenant between man and God. So He says, if you do, if you have a servant and you bought him for money, he needs to be circumcised. He needs to have the sign of the covenant. He needs to go through that sacrifice of himself, if you will, that he would be part of Israel. Okay? That was the physical sign that God had back then.

A sojourner, verse 45, in a hired servant shall not eat it. They can come along with you. You know, they can be there. You're not going to say, we don't want you part of us. We don't want you traveling with us or whatever. They're not going to eat the Passover, though. In one house it shall be eaten. I have it dropped down to verse 47. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.

Everyone of Israel keep the Passover. They were circumcised. If they were following God's law, as baby boys were born, they were sacrificed on the eighth day. Or not sacrificed, circumcised on the eighth day. Just as Jesus Christ was when he was born. All the congregation of Israel shall keep it. And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the eternal, let all — well, here's the household thing — let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it. And he shall be as a native to the land, for no uncircumcised person shall eat it.

So God is pretty clear on what the qualifications for keeping that Passover is.

It was clear if you were not part of Israel, if you weren't part of that congregation, natural-born, you could be what you had to go through and have on you the sign of the covenant between you and God. You can imagine what kind of sacrifice that would be for someone to say, okay, I'll do it. I believe and I want to be part of Israel. And I want to do that. I want to do that.

Now, today — without today, we don't have circumcision as a sign of the covenant between us and God. That was part of the old covenant. But today, there is a spiritual covenant, if you will, with God as we are, as God calls, and as we repent.

And we learn to examine ourselves during that time leading up to baptism, much like you and I, who have been baptized, review our lives and examine our lives each year to see that we are continuing in that commitment we made. The most important thing we do in life, if I can say most important, is first we commit in baptism exactly the way the Israelites. If you wanted to keep Passover, you had to commit and you had to have that sign of the covenant on you. You needed to be baptized — or not baptized — you needed to be circumcised, and all your males in your household needed to be circumcised.

Then you could keep the Passover. The most important thing we do is look at our lives, repent, and commit to God. That's what baptism is, right? A commitment to God, an eternal commitment. Leading up to baptism, there is a deep repentance. There is an awareness of who we are and how different we are than what God wants us to do. And there is accounting of the cost that goes along with that.

Accounting of the cost. This is the way God wants me to live. It means I need to come out of the world. My old ways of doing things may need to be set aside. I may not have the same friends anymore when I can't do this on this day with them, that I no longer am going to join with them in this activity or that activity. I will be coming out of the world that I know it, and I am ready to sacrifice that all. I will allow my heart to be sacrificed, my life to be sacrificed.

I choose to live the way God says to live, and I am willing to give up all of me. All my ideas, all my attitudes. I see I am worthless, and I want to simply yield myself to God and have Him write His way, principle, attitudes, outlook on life, everything I want to give it all up to Him. That's a major part of the preparation for baptism.

Counting the cost. And then when you come for baptism, to be able to say, yes, I have repented. Yes, I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord Savior, Master King. Yes, I have done that. Yes, I am willing to bury my past life in the waters of baptism. And when I come up out of that waters of baptism to have God write His way on me. If we don't go into baptism, and that's the eternal commitment we make with all those attitudes, that's the most important thing for us to do, to commit to Him.

And not everyone does it. How many people know the truth, but they don't come to a point where they give themselves in baptism to God? No one should be rushed into it. It is an important decision and commitment in our lives. And that comes first. Just like circumcision needed to come first, in Old Testament times, baptism is the first commitment we make. And the process to baptism is much like the process that you and I go through who are baptized as we come to Passover each year. In 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 32, God tells us, examine yourselves. Don't take the Passover in an unworthy manner.

It's a time for us to look at where we are, look at the commitment we've made to God. Are we still walking with the same fervor as we did when we came to Him in baptism?

Are we still committed to sin being rooted out of our lives? Are we still committed to following Him no matter what happens? Are we still awake? Are we still alive? Are we still zealous?

Well, we do that before baptism. But Passover, then, is that we do that once we're baptized as a reminder of everything we do, of who we have to, who we owe everything to. And that's Jesus Christ. A reminder that we're to be coming out of the world more and more each year, less and less of the world in us and more and more of the way of Jesus Christ, less and less of the spirit of the world, more and more of the spirit of God, directing us and guiding us.

That's the process that God has made for us. If we go back to Romans 2 in verse 28 and 29, we see this principle. No longer physical circumcision, but now it's giving up our lives as we knew it, committing to follow God the way He said to follow Him. Romans 2, verse 28, He's not a Jew who is one outwardly. We don't look anymore. You know, when you come to Passover, no one's going to ask you, are you circumcised? We are going to ask, are you baptized? Have you committed to God? I mean, we know those who are and aren't.

He's not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision in New Testament times that which is outward in the flesh. But He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not from men, but from God.

So, baptism and then year-to-year the Passover is a recommitment to God, a remembrance of what He's done for us, a commitment to continue coming out of the world and to look at ourselves, are we? Are we coming out of the world? Or are we still holding on to some of the things of the world? Have we let God exact judgment on all the gods in our lives? Or do we still hold on to them maybe a little too closely? Well, that's the Passover. That's the Passover.

And we'll be observing that on the 14th of Abib. But let's talk about the days of Unleavened Bread because by the time we get together here next week, the days of Unleavened Bread will be upon us as well. And if there's any question on what we do for Passover, I'd be happy to talk about it more. God is very clear. It's His words, and we follow exactly His precepts as we keep the Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread as well.

So let's go back to Exodus 12. Let's look at the days of Unleavened Bread that are also upon us.

Exodus 12, verse 37. So they wake up on the evening of the 14th. They had the sacrifice, the lamb, the blood, eating the flesh, ready to leave in haste. And verse 37, in the morning of the 14th, when they woke up, they were out of there, if you will. Verse 37 of Exodus 12, the children of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Succath, about 600,000 men, excuse me, on foot besides children. A mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds, a great deal of livestock. And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and couldn't wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves. So as they were leaving Egypt, and by that evening, they were out of Egypt, God took them completely out of the world that they knew. And it came to pass, verse 41, for verse 40, their sojourn was 430 years, and it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, on that very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. God does things in exactly His time.

And on that very same day, we can trace back, and that's another sermon or sermonette to go back into those days where Passover and the days of unleavened bread could be seen even before Israel, they were gone. Now they were out of Egypt. Now they were in a place that they hadn't known before. All of them alive at the time had spent all their time in Egypt, and now they were out in the wilderness. They were completely in God's hands. Completely in God's hands.

There was nothing around for them. They were in the wilderness, and they would learn.

We rely on God for everything, and He is a faithful God who will provide everything.

For New Testament Christians, when we're baptized, and we commit to God. Now we're physically baptized in the water, and then the second extraordinarily important part of baptism is having hands laid on us when we ask God to put His Holy Spirit in you. God will put His Holy Spirit in people if they have genuinely repented. We can baptize with water, and that's important. Required in Acts 2, verse 38, and other places in the Bible. Water baptism and complete immersion is important, but we're also baptized by God's Holy Spirit. It's given to us only. Only if we have been genuine in our repentance and our commitment to Him. So we have God's Holy Spirit, and when we come up out of that water is the baptism. God puts His Holy Spirit in us. Just like ancient Israel, our mission has come out of the world. It's no longer home. It's no longer the place we look to.

It's no longer the place we live in. Now we rely on God. Now we live in His grace.

Just like the Israelites were in the wilderness completely dependent on God, when you and I are baptized and we become new creations in His sight, we live in His grace.

Like ancient Israel, He will watch, and He's keenly interested in everything we do.

He will provide all we need. We have to use it. We have to rely on Him. We have to learn to ask of Him. He wants us in His kingdom. He wants us to be there. He has to see that we want it as well, and that part of us wanting it, He sees the sacrifice we're willing to make, that we're not holding dear onto the world around us, but we're learning have reliance on Him. If He can bring water from rocks for the Old Testament Israelites, He can provide anything we need when we have faith in Him and learn to trust in Him. They lived in the wilderness with God, live under His grace, which is more as we've spoken in the past than just unmerited pardon. We live with His Holy Spirit, and God has His eyes on us, His watchful eyes on us, just like He did Israel. Well, as they came out of Egypt, and they observed the night to be much observed like we will be doing next the beginning of the 15th, which is after the weekly Sabbath, next Sabbath, we come down to verse chapter 13 in Exodus. And in verse 3, Moses said to the people, Remember, remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. For by strength of hand the eternal brought you out of this place.

No love and bread shall be eaten. Remember what God has done for you. He took you out of the world. He gave you a future. He gave you a promise. He gave you hope. No longer just slaves going through life, live, work, die with no hope, no future, nothing. Now God has brought us out of the same type of existence we were in that was just absolutely meaningless when you look at it. Now you and I have meaning to our lives. Now we have purpose in our lives. Now we have a commitment in our lives. Now we have God who has told us and promised us, You will be in my kingdom. I will give you eternal life if you continue in the way that I have called you to. The Israelites had that hope. They lost it along the way. They didn't have God's Holy Spirit, the very thing that God has given us thanks to Jesus Christ and His complete sacrifice and perfect sacrifice for us.

And He makes us promises. So we have hope, and we have that lively hope, as Peter calls it.

So Moses says, Remember that, and as part of our keeping the days of Unleavened Bread, and as we prepare for the Passover, remember, take the time to think what God has done. What would your like be like today if you didn't know God, if you didn't know what He had called you to, if you didn't know what the end of all this mess that we see in the world around us is?

Would there be any reason to live? Would there be, or would we even be in complete, complete fear of what is going to transpire? And He says at the end of that verse, No leavened bread shall be eaten.

Down in verse 6, says, Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. And so when we go into the days of unleavened bread, we keep, we keep the physical days, just like ancient Israel did, but there is a spiritual component to it. If all we're doing is just eating unleavened bread and we are not doing the spiritual part of it. Well, well, I hate to say, but we're almost wasting our time. It's the spiritual part that we need to be getting from the days of unleavened bread.

Yes, eat the unleavened bread. God says, Seven days you shall. There's no compromise in the word shall. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. And on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the eternal. He repeats in verse 7, Unleavened bread shall be eaten. Seven days. Leviticus 23, 6, where He lists the holy days, He talks about the days of unleavened bread begin on the fifteenth of Abib. You must. Another one of those words doesn't leave a whole lot of room for compromise. You must eat unleavened bread. Seven days. Unleavened bread shall be eaten. Seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters.

Okay, and we know that that's what we're going to be finishing up this week.

Keeping God's physical command, we're going to go through our houses, we're going to get rid of the leavening, we're going to throw it out, we're going to have it out by the time the days of unleavened bread begin. And as we do that, we should be thinking, oh, I found this leavening over here in this drawer. I remind, remind ourselves there's leavening still hidden in our lives somewhere that God wants us to weed out when He shows us what that is. It's all the leavening out. It's our physical houses. That's what Israel did. They were all a physical nation. They physically cleaned their houses. They physically got the leavening out. We do that. But physical is not enough for New Testament Christians. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 5, you know, it's not enough that you just physically keep the commandments. It's a spiritual application that you do. And so we do the spiritual part of it as well. So today we have our physical homes that we clean, but what about our spiritual homes? This is where God is building His temple in us individually and us in His church. This is His temple. This is His house. As much as He wants more, okay, more, but doesn't mean we don't clean our physical houses, He wants our spiritual homes and our spiritual temples that He's building in us to be clean and to get the leavening out. And so we'll take the time to do that. But as we do that, don't just forget. Don't just forget about the spiritual cleansing that we need to have. We all have leavening in our lives. None of us are completely unleavened. We have to be through that process every year. And as long as we're drawing breath, every year when we go through the unleavening process, we will find spiritual leaven that has to be put out. If we don't, then I dare say we haven't prepared adequately for the Passover. We haven't examined ourselves the way we should because if we come up and say, I think I'm pretty good, then you know what? There's that take heed, lest you think you or think heed when you think you stand, lest you fall attitude that needs to be dealt with. If we are not improving year by year because that's the purpose of these days, that God expects us to become more and more like Jesus Christ, get the leavening out. You know what the physical leavening is. What about the spiritual leavening?

Well, if you recall back in 1 Corinthians 5, 7, Paul said, let's not keep the feast with old leaven, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, right? Not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, not with the leavening of those works of the flesh that we read about in Galatians 5, 19.

Those are the things that are supposed to be being weeded out. If malice, if wickedness, if anger, if clamor, if corrupt language, if all these things that are listed there are still part of our lives, those are the things that we need to address and ask God. Give us the strength to remove them and then work on it purposely. Commit to working on it during the rest of the year. Get it out. Sin is part of the leavening. Crystal clear the Bible is on that. And Paul makes that clear in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 7. Jesus Christ also talks about leavening quite a bit, actually, in the Gospels. Not too long ago, we read Luke 12. If you want to turn over there. Luke 12 and verse 1. Crystal clear that Jesus Christ intended that the days of unleavened bread would continue to be kept and that leavening would be put out. Physical leavening, because it's physical and spiritual. The disciples were having a little bit of time, trouble here understanding that concept. You and I need to understand it more fully. In Luke 12, verse 1, in the meantime it says, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they trampled one another, Christ began to say to his disciples first, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Oh, there he is, his physical leaven. And he says, this is what the Pharisees do, they're hypocrites. They're going to tell you what to do. They're going to look great. But you know what they do behind the scenes?

They're hypocrites. And he goes into verses we talked about. There's nothing covered that won't be revealed nor hidden that won't be known. So we would want to be aware. When we come to church in front of each other and we present ourselves, are we the same people that are there the other six days of the week when we're presenting ourselves at work, presenting ourselves among our neighbors, presenting ourselves among our schoolmates or whatever it is? Are we hypocrites? Do we want everyone here to think we're one way, but really in our personal lives, we're not that way at all. Hypocrites may talk the talk and make you look like, you know, they're really with it. But behind the scenes, they're not. Christ says, beware of that.

Beware of that. Your daily actions with your friends, co-workers, bosses should reflect the Christian life. There should be a good report about you as you're growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, and you're applying all the principles of the Bible and letting yourself be led by the Spirit of God.

Hypocrisy, if we look at ourselves and think, oh well, I am hiding this sin. I think I mentioned a few weeks ago, if there's anything we're hiding in our lives, we may want to focus in on that and say, if I'm going to be in God's kingdom, I need to take this thing that I'm hiding from boss, hiding from church, hiding whatever. I need to get rid of it. I need to get rid of that. That's the spiritual leavening that needs to come out of my life. I need to commit to God wholly and sacrifice me and that part of me that, man, I want to hold on to, but I know that God expects me to give it all to Him. Okay, so he talks about hypocrisy. We go back to Matthew 16.

Matthew 16 and verse 11. In Christ's own words again, he speaks of leavening again. In verse...

we'll pick it up in verse 9 of chapter 16. Here, he's talking about physical bread and the disciples there are having a hard time grasping what he's saying. Verse 9, he says when they're questioning about physical bread, he goes, don't you yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up, nor the seven loaves of the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? Okay, there's the physical bread. How is it you don't understand that I did not speak to you concerning physical bread, but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? When I'm talking to you about leaven, I'm not, you know, it's physical bread, but this is the leavening that needs to not be part of our lives. I was speaking to you of the spiritual leaven that's marked, that's their evidence among the Pharisees and Sadducees. Verse 12, then they understood that he didn't tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Don't pay attention to their doctrine. It's not the doctrine of God. They may keep the Sabbath, they may keep the Holy Days, they may seem and appear to you to be good people.

But what they're teaching is not the teaching of Christ. Judaism, or true Christianity, I keep repeating, is not just Judaism plus Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ taught how the religion, what the religion of God is, and the doctrines of Him, the Pharisees and Sadducees. So as we come out of the world, we spoke about this a little bit, that Bible study when we talked about outside the camp that's evident in the Scriptures, that we leave our past religion behind. We don't look to people that are of the different faith to see how do we worship God. Certainly that means not in Christmas, not in Easter, and not in their holidays, but even in their beliefs. Get that doctrine out. The doctrine that we live by is in this Bible, what God says. And there's a danger, just like it was among the disciples, and later on, when we get into the book of Hebrews, we've talked about it, that people could go back and look, well, they do that. Isn't that good enough? No, God is exact in what He wants us to do.

He's detailed in what He wants us to do. He's not a God of compromise. There's one way into the kingdom of God. That's through Jesus Christ who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

You know, when you read through the book of Exodus and you see Moses talking about the tabernacle, I mean, do you look at the detail that God gave him? And Moses remembered it all. Over and over through that account, God said, remember the pattern that I showed you? He said, I am the pattern that I showed you? All this detail you will do. Remember what I showed you on the mountain, Moses? This is the way it needs to be. We would say, remember what we've been taught.

Remember the way of God. It's here. That's the way it has to be. Not a mixture of most of it, but I can do this and I can do that. We do it God's way. Beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. If we allow that doctrine that's so available on TV and the Internet to become part of our lives, we just need to be aware of it and make sure that what we believe and what we're doing the way we're walking is exactly the way that Jesus Christ said for us to do it. Okay. Mark, Mark 8. One of the words of Jesus Christ is, he spoke about leavening that needs to be put out. Mark 8 verse 15. In verse 14, we see the same type thing. Here the disciples have forgotten to take physical bread. In verse 15, Christ, it says, charge them, saying, take heed.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. Now, I've talked about the leaven of the Pharisees. What's the leaven of Herod? Herod was the king. That was in control at that time.

What was Herod about? When he found out there was a king born, that the Jews believed it was a king born, he wanted him dead. He sent out missions. Let's get rid of this any child, two years old or younger. Get rid of him. Kill him. The doctrine of Herod is not unlike the doctrine of the beast power at the end time. I will kill God's word in God's way however I can.

So political. You know, maybe some of us have some things to repent of because it's been a pretty lively political landscape the last few years in America. Maybe we found ourselves getting too involved in the politics of the world rather than remembering who our king is and what he says to do and trusting in him and looking to him and remembering we're citizens of that country, living here but coming out of the world. Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. Okay, let me so we can see some of the things. I'll give you 1 John 3. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life, the things that we need to be getting out of our lives. So as we come to the days of unleavened bread and the Passover, we see why we do, I hope, the things that we do. We see how what they did and what God commanded in ancient Israel. We do the same thing today but not just physically but spiritually, following the pattern of the Bible, following the words of Jesus Christ, doing things the way that he said.

So as we keep this feast, as we keep the Passover, as we keep the days of unleavened bread, as we complete our physical preparation, I don't know if we're ever spiritually done with the unleavening that we do, but we come to the feast, Passover, Friday evening, the days of unleavened bread as we begin the 15th, and as Paul said, let's keep this feast knowing why we're doing it, understanding how important it is to God, and understanding that it is the crucial step as we walk towards God's kingdom, just as it was the first crucial step for Israel to march toward the promised land that God had set for them. So it is something that we do every year as we review our course and make sure we're on the path to where God wants us to be.