Nature Abhors a Vacuum

Well, brethren, in 1966, NASA engineer Jim LeBlanc became the first man to experience the effects of a loss of suit pressure in space. Well, sort of. He wasn't actually in space at the time of the experiment. Rather, he was in a specially designed test chamber that NASA had produced, which was designed to mimic the harsh realities of the pressures of space. Space itself is a vacuum. There are very few molecules out in empty space, and so as a result, when you have very few molecules, very little pressure is your ultimate result. Now, we can mimic these conditions on Earth by constructing extremely strong airtight chambers.

Then we use a very powerful pump to remove all of the air inside the chamber, and voila, you have created instant space. Or at least, good enough for government work. And it was in one of these chambers that Jim LeBlanc found himself on that day in 1966. The United States had not yet been to the moon, had not yet set foot on the moon. We were in the middle of the space race, and we were building towards that day in 1969, when the crew of the Apollo 11 set foot on that lunar surface.

But first, in order to get there, NASA needed a space suit that could handle the difficulties that that moon landing would put on those astronauts when they arrived. LeBlanc happened to be the test subject, the guinea pig, if you will, who got to get inside the chamber with that suit and see if it worked.

A full vacuum was pulled on the test chamber, and the process began. Video of the event can actually be found online. Recently, NASA declassified a bunch of these videos of things over the years. And you can actually see this video online. But as the test progressed, Jim was doing very well at the very beginning of the process. He was conversing with the engineers involved in running the test. Everything was working brilliantly. The suit was working perfectly. Then something went wrong. And the air supply hose that supplied outside pressure air to his suit and kept it pressurized began to leak.

And as a result, Jim experienced a very rapid loss of pressure inside of his suit. All that high-pressure air in his suit raced out to the vacuum that surrounded him. And soon, Jim's words over the headset inside of his suit became very, very garbled, became very hard to understand. And soon, Jim went over backwards and collapsed. Now, as soon as it was apparent something was wrong, all of the engineers began scrambling to restore normal pressure to the chamber.

That normal repressurization process took about 30 minutes. They did it in less than one. So from 30 minutes of full vacuum to get to a normal pressure, they did it in one minute. And so, Jim, they weren't really sure what they were going to find when they got in there. Was he alive? Was he dead? This was uncharted territory. This had never been done before.

They did know, however, from prior animal testing, that one minute was about it. And one minute of full vacuum exposure was enough to kill the test subject involved. So they didn't know had they begun the repressurization in time. The first doctor that made it into the chamber discovered that he had, in fact, blacked out when the leak in the suit began. But by the time the doctor had reached it, they repressurized the chamber. Jim had regained consciousness. And he ultimately made a full recovery.

In a later interview, he stated that right before he lost consciousness, right before he blacked out, the last thing he could remember was the saliva on his tongue boiling. The very last thing he could remember, and the reason for that, just a quick little science aside, is that boiling is a function of pressure, not temperature. And so you can actually boil room temperature water at a vacuum. Very simply. We do it as a demo in science. But what Jim had viscerally experienced was a statement that the Greek philosopher Aristotle made 2,300 years earlier. And that is that nature abhors a vacuum.

Nature abhors a vacuum. For those of you who like titles, that is the title of this split sermon today. Nature abhors a vacuum. Through several attempts at experimentation, Aristotle demonstrated that nature itself didn't like the existence of a vacuum. That whenever we put one together here on Earth, whenever we made some sort of a container that we could ultimately pull all of the air or all of the molecules and the substances inside out of, that as soon as that container was punctured or that seal was broken immediately, whatever air or water or molecules that surrounded it, rushed in to fill that chamber that had just been vacated. Whether it was a gas, a liquid, a solid, it really didn't matter.

When that seal was punctured, eventually all of that empty space inside of that container must be filled with something. Aristotle's assertion would be further tested by other scientists throughout the years, and it would ultimately stand the test of time. Today on our planet, we can unequivocally state that if we pull all of the air, all of the water, all of the molecules, out of a container, if we create inside of it something we call a vacuum, empty space, that if that container is punctured or the seal is broken, air, water, whatever that's around that particular container will rush in and balance the two pressures.

You can do this experiment on your own at home with a little pop bottle and just suck all the air out of the pop bottle and put the cap back on, and then slowly release the cap and what happens? It all rushes in and the pop bottle goes right back to its original shape, or at least as close as we can get.

Let's turn over to Exodus 12. Exodus 12, verse 15. We're not going to spend much time here. This has been something that we have read already these Holy Days, the first Holy Day, in fact. But Exodus 12, verse 15, we'll see that God gives the Israelites some pretty specific commands here as He lays down the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. But Exodus 12, verse 15 states, And so we see two very specific commands outlined in Exodus 12, 15. One, we put the leaven out of our homes, and two, for seven days, we eat unleavened bread. Two very specific commands.

First, we put the leaven out. Secondly, we then take in unleavened bread. We see the same concept carried on in the New Testament, so there's no doubt that that happened there. We can go to 1 Corinthians 5. We won't turn there. We've probably been there already, this Days of Unleavened Bread. But 1 Corinthians 5, verse 8 very specifically tells us that this particular festival was still in place in the New Testament.

In fact, it was so ingrained in the lives of those in the New Testament, in their belief system, that Paul didn't have to spell out the process. He didn't have to tell them that they needed to be eating unleavened bread, that they needed to put out the leaven. It was something that they just did. It was something that they understood. He could make assumptions in his letter and still ultimately get the point across in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 6 through 8.

But we see that in that section he adds a couple of additional components. He gives characteristics to what we would call Old Leaven. He says the Old Leaven has malice. It has wickedness. He gives some characteristics to the New Leaven. He says the New Leaven has sincerity. It has truth. And so we see that Paul makes it very, very clear to those in Corinth, and by implication, ultimately, us, that the Old Leaven has to be put out.

It has to be purged. And the word purged that is used there in 1 Corinthians 5, verses 8, is a Greek word ekitharō. And the Greek word ekitharō means to cleanse thoroughly. It means to remove entirely, to completely cleanse. But that word comes from a little bit of a different root word, kitharō, which means cleanse, but it also means to prune.

It also means to expiate, which means ultimately to atone for. So when we're being commanded to purge out the Old Leaven in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 8, we're being told to cleanse ourselves thoroughly by pruning away the parts of our body and our mind that are not in line with God's law. Get rid of the diseased branches, so to speak. The branches that aren't fruitful. Or even trim the branches that are fruitful a little bit, just in order to be able to produce more fruit. That root word kitharō is used in two other places in the Bible. The first of those is John 15. Let's turn over there real quickly. John 15. And we'll pick up that account in verse 2. Actually, we'll go ahead and go to verse 1 for the context. John 15, verse 1. John 15, verse 1, we'll see the use of that root word kitharō as prune. It says, I am the true vine, and my father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that bears fruit he prunes. That's the word kitharō. He prunes. In the ASV, it's actually translated, cleanses it. Every branch he cleanses it. So it's a usage of pruning or cleansing that it may bear more fruit. So the word in this particular instance is specifically used for the concept of pruning. Now, in Hebrews 10-12, which is the other place that it's used, we won't turn there. You might just jot that down. That one specifically is referring to cleansing. And so it's one of those words that can be used interchangeably in different contexts and in different ways.

My wife and I, as it was mentioned by Mr. Leffrin at the beginning, we've been working in our front yard during the past week I've been on spring break to kind of transform it. We are one of those people that we've decided that our lawn just doesn't make sense, so we're just going to get rid of it and put a garden out front. I think they had a term for this in the old days called victory gardens. That's kind of what we're doing. We're putting a victory garden in the front yard because, one, I'm sick of mowing, and two, it doesn't make sense, all that wasted space.

So, we've been doing a bunch of work in the front of the house this week. We've been putting in a split rail fence and digging in paths and trying to get all the hardscapes taken care of. Well, we had our neighbors go by the other day. They jog every night. We were out working pretty late. And they made the comment that they really liked what we were doing, that they were pretty impressed with the process and they really enjoyed it. And then they kind of kept on jogging. But when they came back, he kind of kept going, but she stopped and she said, Is that tree that you have there in the front? Is that a fruit tree or is it a shade tree? And she was referring to our little dwarf apple that we've had in the front yard. And we said, Oh, it's a fruit tree. And we look at it and the branches are so long it's touching the ground. And we haven't touched it from a pruning standpoint. She says, Well, he says you really need to prune that back.

And he's Latino, so he speaks very broken English. So she was translating for him. And I looked at my wife and I looked at them and I just kind of shrugged. I don't know what to do. All the branches look important to me. And you get the loppers out and you start getting close and you go, Oh, what do I do? She says, Well, he does this full time. He works at an orchard. He'll be right back. So he jogs down to his house, comes back with these loppers, and proceeds to attack the tree. And I'm just beside myself, just not sure what to do here as he's lopping off these branches. But when he was done, I had him explain what the process was and why he did what he did. And what he told me was, he said that the parts of the tree that remain will grow stronger. Those parts of the tree that are left will be more fruitful over time. That's the kind of pruning that is behind this idea of removing that old leaven from our life. Pruning it out of our lives. We purge it. We prune it. We get it out. The diseased parts, the parts of our lives that don't bear good fruit. What that does is allows the rest of our life to have the energy that we need to develop and to become strong. But purging the leaven and pruning the leaven out of our lives isn't enough. Remember, we talked earlier. Nature abhors a vacuum. So we have gone through in the last seven days, and we have purged out the old leaven. And what we've done as a result is we've left these holes inside of ourselves of empty space. And as the seven days have gone on, we've filled that empty space with unleavened bread. With the process of really examining our lives and seeing what needs to be put back in. But if we only purge the old leaven and we don't put anything back in that is holy and that is righteous.

Anything and everything will come back and fill those holes if we're not careful. In fact, as we may well know from experience, at times what comes back are the same old issues that we pruned out the first time around. In order for us to make lasting change, for us to grow spiritually, we have to fill that empty space with something else. So today, as we close out these days of unleavened bread for this particular year, I'd like to spend the remainder of our time today focused on what it is that we need to replace this vacuum that the removal of sin has produced. What do we put in over the next year between now and the days of the unleavened bread are ending? What do we do over the next year to be able to make sure that we're in a different place next year at this same time? Well, we focus on putting in three things. And those are outlined for us in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 8.

Let's go over there very quickly. 1 Corinthians 5, verse 8. We didn't visit it earlier. I want to make sure we see it. 1 Corinthians 5, verse 8.

1 Corinthians 5, verse 8 reads, Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but here are our three things, with unleavened bread in italics, sincerity, and truth.

So three things that we put back into the holes in our lives that our removal of sin has produced, the vacuum that that has produced.

We put in unleavened bread, we put in sincerity, and we put in truth. So let's start today by looking at unleavened bread. And firstly, what we take into our bodies during these seven days must be unleavened. Must be unleavened. Let's turn over to Exodus 12, verse 19. A couple passages down from where we started today. I should have had you keep your fingers in there, but... Exodus 12, verse 19.

And we'll see kind of an echo of verse 15 with the consequences among the Israelites for not keeping this into account.

So Exodus 12, verse 19 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. Now notice this, whether he is a stranger, a sojourner, or a native of the land. And so we can see that eating leaven during these seven days results in a person being cut off from the congregation. But interestingly enough, this passage makes it clear.

It didn't matter whether that person was a native Israelite or whether that person was a sojourner in their lands. The penalty is the same. The penalty is a removal from the congregation. That these sorts of spiritual penalties we also see are in place in the New Testament as well, as the remainder of 1 Corinthians 5 talks of putting out the fornicator in their midst that was a part of the process they were looking at.

One who refused to be unleavened. Verse 45 of Exodus 12, we go down a little bit further. Verse 45 of Exodus 12 specifically tells us that the sojourner was to eat the unleavened bread for seven days, but they were not to take of the Passover unless they were willing, of course, to be circumcised and become part of the host of Israel.

Now, during these seven days, as we know, leavening represents sin. It represents sin in our lives, a life that is not in line with the laws of God and the teachings of Christ. Physically removing that sin from our lives represents getting rid of the sin itself.

But when we get into a post-New Testament situation, it also represents taking in that unleavened bread, represents filling our lives with Christ, as He is the only unleavened, quote-unquote, man who's ever lived. It is absolutely essential that we do this daily, both physically taking in unleavened bread each day, but also spiritually taking in and focusing on Christ's teachings each and every day. We need to be eating unleavened bread each and every day, both physically and spiritually, as these seven days have progressed.

Now, as we're getting ready to exit these days, though, we need to be sure that we're also taking in Christ daily. Now, why do we eat unleavened bread for seven days?

To understand why we need historical context. In ancient Israel, according to numerous sources, bread itself was a staple. Bread was a staple in their diets. In fact, it's been estimated that it made up between 50 and 70 percent of their diet. In fact, it's been estimated that 330 to 440 pounds of wheat and barley were consumed per person per year, which is an amazing amount of wheat and barley. Bread was a staple in their meals.

In fact, we describe meals in the Bible as breaking bread. The model prayer includes, give us this day our daily bread. In fact, the Hebrew word for bread itself, lechem, means the main food. It means the main course, lechem. This is something that's inherent in the social context of the lives of those in ancient Israel.

Now, we're a bit removed from that in today's post-Atkin's world. You know, we, as a whole, we avoid carbs. It's rare for us to have bread with every single meal. And when we do, it's an afterthought or it's a side. It's not the main dish. So we don't always fully understand the social context, but then again, we're also not ancient Israel.

When God gave them instructions to eat unleavened bread, it is implied that they would be doing that daily. He didn't have to spell that out. They would be eating bread daily. They would realistically be eating it with each and every meal. Let's take a look at Deuteronomy 8. Real quick, Deuteronomy 8. And what we'll see in Deuteronomy 8 is a passage that was quoted to Satan as Christ was being tempted.

As he was attempting to get Christ to turn stones into bread. Matthew 4. What we'll see is the actual scripture that Christ quoted to Satan. Deuteronomy 8. And we'll pick it up in verse 3. Actually, we'll pick it up in verse 2. Deuteronomy 8 verse 2 says, And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. Verse 3. So He humbled you, He allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live, and this is the piece that he quoted, man shall not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

So God used the wilderness to prove Israel to know what was in their hearts, whether they would keep His commands, and as a whole, the wilderness humbled Israel. He allowed them to hunger, miraculously fed them with manna, that bread from heaven, but for what reason? So that they might know that man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every single word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Ultimately, that they were reliant upon God for their survival. Bread may have made up the majority of their diet, but without God, they'd be dead. And that was the point that He tried to prove to them in the wilderness. Christ amplifies this idea in the book of John. John 6. We'll pick up a discussion between Christ and His disciples after the miracle of the loaves and the fishes.

John 6, verse 30. We'll pick it up through verse 35. John 6, verse 30. And we'll look at it through verse 35. Oops. I'm in Romans. It doesn't do us much good. John 6, verse 30. It says, Therefore they said to him, What sign will you perform, then, that we may see it and believe you? What work will you do? Verse 31. Your fathers ate the manna, and the desert is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Verse 32. Jesus said to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my father gives you the true bread from heaven.

For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. Verse 34. Thinking that it's some sort of physical bread that they could partake in. They said to Him, Lord, give us this bread always. Christ, in verse 35, says, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. He makes the point to the disciples that he is the bread from heaven. That if we abide in Christ, we won't hunger.

We won't feel empty. Christ fills the holes. So when we've purged the sin from our lives, Christ fills those holes. Our prime directive after this evening, when these days of unleavened bread are over with, our prime directive doesn't stop. We're still to be removing sin from our lives. We're still to be pruning the parts of our lives the way that need to be removed. And actively growing those righteous parts of our lives so that we can bear much fruit.

Just because the days of unleavened bread are over doesn't mean that our spiritual goals are over. We need to grow closer to God each and every day, actively seek Him, and really make Him the main course of our diet. Man has to eat spiritually, just like our physical life. If we're not eating, we waste away. If we're not eating, we waste away. We will become malnourished and die.

We need to partake of Christ daily through prayer and study, and only through actively drawing closer to God as the year goes on can we even hope to be in a better place this time next year. God desires that we will grow. So once we've ensured that we're taking in unleavened bread each and every day, we need to work on putting on the attitudes that come with unleavened bread.

And the first of those attitudes is sincerity. Sincerity is an interesting word study. If you've ever taken a look, I'm one of those that enjoys word study and etymology. But if you look at the definition of the word in English, it means to be genuine. To be sincere means to be genuine. It means to be real, so to speak. Now, there's a couple of different camps that believe that the word is derived in a different way.

One camp believes that it came from a Latin word, sincerus, all one big word that means to have a clean, pure sound. There's another camp, however, that believes that the word is combined from two Latin words. One is sign, which means without, and one is serus, which means wax. Now, that one's somewhat hotly disputed. But I think if we look at the word within the context of the Bible, we can see which definition is more likely. So if we go back to 1 Corinthians 5.8, and we won't turn there, we've already been there a couple times.

But if we look at 1 Corinthians 5.8 in Greek, which is a precursor to the Latin language, the Greek word elecrenia, which is derived from the root word elecrenace, two big Greek words. Elecrenia is the word that we see sincerity in 1 Corinthians 5.8. Elecrenace is the root that makes that word. Elecrenace is made up of two Greek words.

One of those words is for sun. The other of those words are for judgment. So when that word is put together, elecrenace essentially means to judge something by the light of the sun. Back in the day when there were open-air markets and booths and merchants throughout Greece and the Middle East, pottery was one of those things that was an everyday necessity.

You had to have water. You had to be able to carry water. You needed to be able to store items. And as it is today, some potters were very good at what they did, and other potters' items might be found at the Middle Eastern Walmart. Good pottery was thrown well. It was fired with no cracks. It was the real deal. While cheaper pottery might have chips, might have cracks, might even have holes.

But in order to make the pottery able to be sold, what the lower-quality potters would do is they would fill the cracks with wax. They'd fill the cracks with wax, and they'd smooth it out so that it replaced the chips and the cracks in the holes, and then they'd color the outside of the pot so it wasn't noticeable. But if you held the pot up to the light, if you let the sun shine through the opening of the pot itself, you could see the cracks and the holes, because the sun would shine translucently through the wax.

Where there was actual clay and where there was pottery, it wouldn't shine through, but where there was wax, it would shine through.

According to the stories, this became a method to check whether something was genuine or actually quality. According to the stories, stone carvers and potters in Rome began to stamp Sinceras on the bottoms or on parts of their stuff that they've created to indicate without wax. Is it guaranteed that this is going to be quality? I didn't put wax in this. This is a quality thing. Well, Sinceras ultimately becomes sincere, genuine. Now, it's possible that eventually there was a method that came along that would allow for the other word, too. Maybe they could knock on it, and it would give a clean, pure sound if it was quality, and that's where sincere came from. I really don't know on that. But there are other scriptures in the New Testament that tie together our concept of leaven and sincerity than just 1 Corinthians 5-8. Let's turn to one of them quickly. Luke 12, verse 1.

Luke 12, verse 1. We'll see Christ's own words here as He warned His disciples of a type of leaven. He even identifies what that leaven is. Luke 12, verse 1. We'll read through verse 2. Luke 12, 1 says, In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples, first of all, so He started with the disciples, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is, and He identifies it specifically, which is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy itself is the exact opposite of sincerity. If someone is not genuine, they are hypocritical. Sincerity and genuineness are the opposite of hypocrisy. He goes on in verse 2 of Luke 12, To say, For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light. Whatever you have spoken in the ear and inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops. Christ gives His disciples an object lesson in sincerity, admonishing them to live in a way that is not hypocritical, to live a life that is genuine.

He warns them that what they think may be hidden in reality is not hidden at all. We know God sees all, and that as followers of Christ, they would be accountable for every hidden thing. Every word spoken in darkness would be shouted from the rooftops. He is admonishing His disciples to be genuine, to be sincerest, without wax. Now, for the hard question, what would Christ see if He held us up to the light? What would Christ see if He held us up to the light?

Would light shine through the cracks and holes that we have patched with wax, in order to make ourselves look good on the outside, to make ourselves appear more passable and sellable? Are we living a life that is not in harmony with what Christ has instructed us to do, and sometimes refer to that concept of our church mask? We put on our mask for the day, and we go to church, and then we go home, and we take off the mask.

We recently took the Passover after a period of self-examination, looking for those parts in our life that need work. Were we sincere in taking it? Were we genuine in taking it? Did we take those symbols that bred in that wine with full intent to grow spiritually in this coming year, or were we going through the motions?

God wants His children to be genuine. He wants them to be sincere. If you turn over to Revelation 3, we'll see a passage that Christ speaks to the Apostle John, revealing a series of messages to the seven churches. We'll see one that we're very familiar with. We hear about this quite a bit. I think we've even been called this periodically. Revelation 3, I'll pick it up in verse 14 to the message of the church in Laodicea, says, And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write, These things, says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God, I know your works, that you were neither hot nor cold, and I would wish that you were cold or hot.

Verse 16, So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. In today's vernacular, if you're in, be all in. If you're out, be out. But what God desires us to do is to get off the fence. God requires of us a commitment, and we're told that once we put that hand to the plow, there's no going back. We have to take this calling seriously and commit fully. We have to be sincere. We have to be genuine in what we're doing.

This life, as we all know, is a one-way street, and we all bear our cross. We have to pray, we have to study, and we have to commit ourselves to God's calling. The last thing that we're looking at putting on during these days, and as these days close, is truth. And truth goes hand in hand with sincerity. Truth goes with living a genuine life.

The word translated truth in 1 Corinthians 5-8 is the Greek word aletheia, which does mean truth. Specifically means truth. But the word of aletheia, which is aletheus, gives a little bit more context. Aletheus means not to conceal something. It means not to hide something. Maybe what we refer to today as full disclosure. I'll give you an example of the difference between these two. Let's say I'm selling someone a car. I've got this guy who's come over, he's got the hood popped, he's fiddling around under the hood of the car trying to get a feel for things.

And I know, personally, I know that there's something wrong with that car. I know that it doesn't run perfectly right. But I'm not going to tell him about that, because I want to sell this car. Okay? I'm playing the other side here, so I wouldn't do this. I promise. But he goes through his inspection, and I notice that he misses it. Breathe a sigh of relief. Oh, good. He didn't see it. Okay, good. All right, we can sell this car, then. Have I lied? Technically, no, I didn't tell him the car wasn't perfect.

But was I truthful? Absolutely not. I didn't disclose everything that I knew about this topic. I didn't tell him everything that I knew about the car. I didn't lie. But the kind of truth that this section is discussing is not concealing things. Giving full disclosure. And that goes, again, hand in hand with sincerity and genuine. So how do we fill the vacuum with truth? How do we fill the vacuum with truth? There's an old acidic story of a man who sought a rabbi, and it is a lesson that we can learn from. It says, the visitor from Hungary stopped a passerby on a street in the town of Lesensk with the quarry.

Can you please direct me to the home of the great rabbi, Alemolek? The man raised his eyelids in astonishment. He says, You mean to tell me that you journeyed all the way from Hungary to see this rabbi of Lesensk? I have the exaggerations and embellishments about this man traveled that far already. I know this rabbi, Alemolek, personally, and he is an absolute zero. I'm afraid you've wasted your time and money on these silly rumors.

The visitor was absolutely outraged. He says, You lowly, despicable man. What do you know? You obviously have no understanding of anything holy and spiritual. Still fuming, he stormed off. Later that day, when he entered the study of the rabbi he was searching for, for his appointed audience, he nearly fainted in shame.

The man he derided earlier on the street was none other than the rabbi himself. With tears in his eyes, he begged his forgiveness. The rabbi said to him, Why are you so upset? There's no need to apologize. I told you the truth. And everything that you said was also true. Sometimes our truth hurts, but it doesn't make it any less the truth.

In the example above, he was being humble, if not a bit self-deprecating, but recognizing that he really was nothing in the overall scheme of things. It wasn't the great rabbi, Alemolek. All of the things that he had that made him what he was came from God, and he recognized that. Since we entered the Passover season, we started examining our lives, and we tried to see ourselves in the way that God sees us.

You know how that truth can hurt? Oh, how that truth can hurt. When we realize how far it is that we have to go to reach that full measure and stature of Christ, and when we see the sin in our own lives, the parts of our lives that need to be fixed, it's easy for us to get discouraged. But identifying the problem is the very first step in solving it. In fact, Alcoholics Anonymous has put together a 12-step program that cures all these ills, and the very first step is recognizing that there's a problem.

We can't recognize the problems in our own life without truth, because God is truth. Western thought is based on Greek philosophy. The way that we think about things in the United States and in the Western world is based on Greek philosophy.

The way it teaches is that truth is in the eye of the beholder, that things are true because you've gotten a certain amount of evidence that allow you to conclude something is true. Hebrew thought is very, very different. The way the Hebrews think, in fact, the word truth itself in Hebrew is the word amet. It's made up of three things. It's made up of three letters. The first is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph.

The second letter is the middle letter of the Hebrew alphabet, mem. And the final letter is the final letter of the alphabet, tov. It's made up of the beginning and the end. And we know from John 1717 that God's word is truth. From the very beginning of the book to the very end of the book, this is truth. This is truth. This is what we know to be true. We don't need the evidence. We don't need all of the other things. We know it on faith. There's actually an interesting interaction in the book of John between Christ and Pilate that shows these two schools of thought. Let's go to John 18.

John 18. We'll pick up the context of this conversation, picking it up in verse 34. But John 18 verse 34, this is after Christ has been captured. It's after he's been accused. And Pilate is questioning Christ. Verse 33, end of 33, Pilate asks him, Are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered him, Are you actually speaking for yourself? In other words, are you really wanting to know this or did the others tell you this concerning me?

Pilate says to him in 35, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight so that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now my kingdom is not from here. Verse 37, Pilate therefore said to him, Are you a king then? Jesus answered, You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world. Notice this, that I should bear witness to the truth.

Everyone who is the truth hears my voice. So Christ is telling him the kingdom is not of the world. That the kingdom of God is the truth. The gospel of the kingdom is the truth. He goes on to say that all who are of the truth then hear his voice. And in this school of thought, this is the one that we all subscribe to, God himself defines truth. God says the kingdom will come to earth. That's truth. That's what we put our faith in. Christ was the ambassador and the witness of that truth. But in verse 38, we see the Greek school of thought come up.

In verse 38, Pilate said to him, and this is almost rhetorical in his reading, What is truth? What is truth? And when he said this, he went out again to the Jews and said to them, I find no fault in him. It's a clear rhetorical question. Christ doesn't answer it. He says, almost passively as he's walking out, what is truth? And out he goes. It's possible that this is alluding to that Greco-Roman school of thought, that absolute truth itself is unattainable.

That you only have truth based upon the evidences by which you have found. But he's almost also alluding to the idea that truth is what one makes it to be. Almost like he's asking Christ, are you willing to die for this truth? Are you willing to drive for this truth? Two very different schools of thought. And it's painful sometimes to examine our own lives truthfully. It's painful to see how far we fall short, but the only way that we're going to fix the problems in our lives, the only way that we're going to actually make a life of ours that God is pleased with, is to identify the root cause of the symptoms that we see.

I learned an interesting lesson this year as we D-Levin the house. I don't know, maybe you've felt this before, too. I felt like I was searching for leaven in all the obvious places. That I was looking for leaven in the places that I knew there would be leavening. The toaster. The kitchen. The kitchen table. And it wasn't that I was ignoring the other parts of my house, but my focus was on these places where I knew leaven to be.

That was my primary focus. As I thought about that, as I meditated on that and analyzed it, I realized those things, if I look at it spiritually, are symptoms of a greater problem. The root cause is really what needs to be fixed. And it opened up a whole aspect of my life this year to focus on for this coming year. Looking at getting that core out, getting that root out, rather than just the symptoms. You know, we have a dandelion in your yard. You pull the dandelion. If you don't get the root, it just comes back.

If we fix the symptoms, but we don't fix the root, we never get to where we need to be. So as we examine our lives during these days and beyond, we really need to focus on the core of the issues that we face. By being truthful and finding the core of those problems, we can work to solve the issues. Again, we need to be daily taking in God's truth, asking Him to help us, to see ourselves as He sees us.

And most importantly, comparing our life with the truth of His Word, to find the deficiencies in our life as our year goes on. Brethren, as a church, we've done a great job over the years, emphasizing the removal of leaven. We really have. We've done a fabulous job emphasizing the removal of leaven each and every year. And I don't mean to say this in a negative way, but it's been drummed into our heads, year after year. It's not a negative, but we know. Leaven has to go. We know what that represents. What we haven't done a great job of over the years is really focusing on making sure that we're taking in unleavened bread.

That we're focused on bringing in those things each and every year. Because if we simply focus on removing the leaven, we miss... we face a very serious problem. Nature abhors a vacuum. And if we're not careful about what goes back into those holes, if we're not careful about making sure that those holes are filled with something holy and righteous, they will be filled by something else. They will be filled by something else. If we're not actively taking in unleavened bread each and every day, for that matter, each and every meal, we're missing out on a very crucial aspect of these days.

It doesn't mean either, though, as we go forward this coming year, that this process has to be reserved for just the seven days. We can and should be analyzing our life and working to fill these holes all year long. Unleavened bread is a reminder to us that Christ led a sinless life, that He is truly unleavened. And we must, as Romans 13 tells us, put on Christ each and every day. Each and every day, and not just the seven days of unleavened bread.

We need to take on the attitudes of sincerity, being genuine, walking the walk. We have to be taking on truth, being willing to be brutally, brutally honest with ourselves about the life that we lead. And for that matter, being willing to be brutally honest with those that we love, in love, to help our brethren.

In order to do that, we have to know each other very, very well. And we have to be very comfortable with each other to be able to do that. But in order to do that, that's the only way we're going to have true, godly growth in our lives. Not hiding, not concealing our sins, but openly confronting them in an effort to truly change. Only through this ongoing process can we become a spiritually mature person, and can we attain the measure of the statue of the fullness of Christ, which we all speak. All seek, brother.