The Night to Be Much Observed

Memory is not the only thing going. Sermonette Mann in Murfreesboro this morning mentioned looking for a new Bible. He went to the Bible bookstore. He was looking at the large print, quickly put it down and went to the giant print. So I tried to encourage him by saying, well, I got the giant print in 2000, and now I'm looking at extra giants. And the problem is that they get so huge that you need a card to carry them around. Last week's e-news, Mr. Holiday, included a policy statement, or at least excerpts from a statement, that the church has. And this is on the topic of the night to be much observed, which is a subject for our sermon this afternoon. Let me reread what is here. The excerpts that he included are these. The evening at the beginning of the first day of Unleavened Bread is a very special evening in the Church of God. On this evening, most members invite other members to their homes to enjoy a meal and fellowship. And others choose to gather in a restaurant or similar location to celebrate the evening. There was a time in the Church of God when all members gathered together as congregations to celebrate the night to be much observed.

Currently, most members gather in small groups or in homes or other locations. And then it says, the night to be much observed begins the first holy day of the spring. It is a joyous occasion that we celebrate in worship of the great God. So if you plan to celebrate this special evening in a restaurant or other public place, we would recommend that you make plans in advance to have a private room or other location where you can be able to truly enjoy the fellowship of your brothers and sisters in Christ.

The night to be much observed. Well, I might abbreviate it by just saying the night to be during the course of the sermon just to save a few words. Denise and I dinner last night, I asked her, how did the church in Birmingham observe that day? You hear a lot of stories from way back when. I don't know. Some of you might well remember. Her earliest memories were when they would go to the churches in this region, would go to Gadsden and Birmingham.

It was before there actually was a Gadsden church, Birmingham. I don't know. When did Huntsville start? Were they around quite then? 66. 66, okay. So Huntsville was there. I think Atlanta, Macon, and maybe Chattanooga. But you'd have several congregations come together for the beginning weekend where you had Passover tonight to be much observed. First Holy Day and then people go back home. And that would have been a very special time. I don't know if anyone here goes back far enough to have made the trek out to Big Sandy, Texas back when the church did the whole week.

Charleston Williams this morning was telling me after services that when they started in Memphis back around, I think it was 63, I believe, was their first feast in, was that the first year of Jekyll, I think it may have been. But they went to the last time, I think he said it was 65, the last time the church had a whole seven-day, seven-eight-day festival where people came in from across the country to Big Sandy, Texas.

And so that would have been exciting. But we can't always do like they did at times in the Old Testament where they found the book of the law and they said, oh, here's a feast for seven days. And it was so much fun. They said, well, let's do it seven more days.

Let's turn to Exodus 12. Exodus 12, there's one verse that mentions this night. Exodus 12, and let's just read verse 42. Verse 42, it is a night of solemn observance to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is that night of the Lord, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations. And of course, the generations of the children of Israel continue. Now, from the e-sword program, I printed out about a dozen different translations as far as this one verse, and I want to read the key phrase.

The American Standard says it is a night to be much observed. So it's quite similar to the New King James. Bible and basic English, it is a night watch before the Lord. The contemporary English version, on that night, the Lord kept watch for them, the easy-to-read version. So it was a very special night when the people remember what the Lord did.

Good news, Bible. It was a night when the Lord kept watch to bring them out of Egypt. International Standard, that was for the Lord, a night of vigil to bring them out of the land of Egypt. The Jewish Publication Society, it was a night of watching unto the Lord. King James, it is a night to be much observed. Young's Littoral, a night of watchings. There are different ways, basically it brings across the idea that this is a night of watching, this is a night of vigil, this is a night to remember, a night to celebrate, a night to be very thankful for.

And so I want to take the sermon and discuss what I believe are four benefits that we have in keeping the night to be much observed, keeping it with brethren, with people of like mind. Now, what we just read in verse 22 is just about the sum total of what we have on this night. So that should tell you that what we in the Church of God have done all through the decades is ninety-some percent church tradition, but it's a good tradition.

It's a great tradition to get together, and as that night begins, we are starting into the first Holy Day of the year. Now, you can go to Leviticus 23, as maybe you have this spring. I generally go there myself, but Leviticus 23 is that one chapter that lists all of the festivals, all of the annual samos. And I think we realize there are seven feasts, and there are seven annual Holy Days, and they're not exactly one and the same, because what we do tomorrow night, Passover is a festival, but it is not a Sabbath day.

And so, if you look at the listing from Passover to Unleavened Bread all the way through to the eighth day, you've got a total of nineteen festival days, if you count the intervening days in Unleavened Bread and Tabernacles. Nineteen days, seven of those are specifically holy convocations, days of rest, days of assembling, days of gathering before God.

Now, let's back up a couple of verses here. We're still here in Exodus 12, verse 40. For the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years. Now, we'll come back to that idea here a little bit later, as far as what we are to remember and celebrate that night.

And it came to pass at the end of the 430 years, on the very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night of solemn observance. Now, there is a statement. You can just make a note of Deuteronomy 16, verse 1. And then we'll read another one in Numbers that would help to narrow this all down.

But Deuteronomy 16, 1, has the words in there that as far as them going out, they went by night. You know, it's not a matter of waiting until the next morning. They went that night. Now, that night, we know, wasn't the previous night, because on the Passover night, they were to be in their homes, they were to have the blood out on the doorposts in Lendl, and God had told them, don't go out of that house till morning.

So, it wasn't that night of the 14th. It's the next night, the night of the 15th. And they began walking out of Egypt. They had seen one plague after another fall upon ancient Egypt. And Egypt was brought to its knees before God. They were never the same. They never fully recovered from the glories of ancient Egypt. They never became that great again, although they did have their times.

But they had seen one plague after another, and really, those plagues were attacks upon the gods of Egypt. Egypt worshipped a little bit of everything. They worshipped the Nile River, so God turned into blood. They worshipped the most unbelievable things. Like, I've seen in museums the Egyptian scarab, a huge beetle. And we called it, out on the farm, we called them dung beetles, because they'd find some organic material and legs in it, roll it into a ball, and go rolling off into the sunset.

And they worshipped those, and they worshipped cats, and they worshipped all kinds of things.

And so, one plague after another was an attack upon the gods of Egypt. And they had seen all of that, and now, God, in an even greater way, that night, and the days to follow, was going to bring them out with a high hand, as the one verse actually says. I was rereading this week some areas. I've got this old set of daily Bible illustrations. I was surprised. I knew it was old, but I finally looked. One place where the author, John Kitto, was writing, he referred to that present year, and it was 1841. So, they've been around a while, but he wrote at a time when people believed the Bible was inspired. So, you know, get some good material from somebody's mind who actually has the deepest respect for the Holy Scriptures.

But in this one particular chapter in Volume 2, he's talking about the departure and estimate of how many, and some of the particulars, and just the tremendous miracles that had to take place for them to move the way that they did. And I just read two or three sentences at the end of this chapter. He says, the power of the Eternal was directly exercised in every stage of the departure. We know not how far it extended, how it strengthened the weak, healed the sick, and directed the movements of the host. We do know, however, that it was exercised, and without the hand of God, the Exodus would have been impossible. It's difficult for us to envision what it would have been like. You would have had people with babies in arms. You would have had people with elderly. You would have had people who were infirm and couldn't move.

And God got them out, and they began moving this very night that we're talking about.

The night to be much observed is a night for, number one, rejoicing. It is a night for rejoicing.

It is an occasion for great rejoicing. It is the beginning of the first holy day of the year, the first day of unleavened bread. Now, let's turn to Deuteronomy 14.

Deuteronomy 14, as we get past the part of that chapter that speaks about clean and unclean meats, it moves into the topic of tithing. And yet, the wording is different. It is distinct from instructions about tithing that we find, say, in Numbers. There are places where it talks about tithing, that it is holy unto the Lord. And the instruction essentially is you are to give that to, in their case, the local Levite. And that's God's tithe. Give God, He just gives you 90 percent. He just wants 10 percent. And the book of Hebrews makes it clear that there was a change in the priesthood. And so those who spiritually are the Levites today, it says, have a command to take the tithes. And the work that God does with that is different today than it was back then. Same law, different application. But here we pick it up in verse 22. It begins speaking of tithing again, but the wording is different and distinct. It is what our term has been a second time.

And that second tithe is not something we give to God, but it is for a holy purpose. It is something we are to set aside to finance these occasions when we have annual Sabbath. So verse 22, you shall truly tithe all the increase of your grain. Now, it's important it says increase because income does not equal increase. Just as a simple example, if you have a rental property, if you have a partial land you rent out to for somebody to farm and just again, a round figure, if you if you're given a check for $5,000 that year, well, you've got property taxes, you've got state taxes, you might have some repairs, you might have to repair fences. And so you have expenses, you take that off, you take that away from the $5,000, and you might have titheable income increased to you of $3,000 or $3,500.

So I think it's important with tithing to think of the increase. All income is not increased to us.

The increase of your grain that the field produces year by year. And you shall eat before the Lord your God in the place where he chooses to eat. The Lord your God in the place where he chooses to make his name abide.

The tithe of your grain and your new wine and your oil of the firstborn of your herds and your flocks.

That you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

Now in these verses, we basically have two concepts that are stressed. We tithe so that we can go and appear before God on those annual Sabbaths.

And one reason is to learn to have the deepest fear, awe, reverence for the God who has called us and for all that he has done for us.

And then a little later, that you may learn to rejoice.

And that's what we're talking about here.

Verse 24, if it's too far, turn your livestock, your grain and all of that into money.

And then, verse 26, you shall spend that money for whatever your heart desires for oxen or sheep.

Now, the Passover of Exodus 12, they were instructed to set aside that lamb. It could be from the sheep or the goats.

And that was a part of their Passover. And that was practiced all the way through.

They were preparing to kill the lambs when Christ was actually taken. I mean, the Jews, again, different story, but they began observing it at the end of the 14th and end of the 15th.

But nothing says we have to have lamb, although I love lamb.

You can have some fresh lemon, fresh, not Alabama, but Alaskan wild-caught salmon if you want.

You can have prime rib. You can have mesquite-grilled chicken.

Whatever. Or you can fill your plate with all kinds of veggies and fruits.

Boy, there are places on this earth you can travel to, and they are fruit-rich.

Tastes, flavors that we never have. We seldom have them the same way here.

But then, for wine or similar drink.

So yes, if you want some grape juice that's fermented, have some.

You might want to fork over a few more dollars and get a really good one instead of Boone's Farm or Ripple or MD 2020. I just accidentally know those names. Not that I got those when I was 20-something. But, and similar drink. There are other places to talk about. Strong drink, if you so desire.

For whatever your heart desires. I love the way the old King James says, whatever your soul lusteth after. And I remember a time talking with her father before we were married, and I pointed that verse to him, and he said, that does not mean my daughter.

But we knew each other well enough to have a little humor there. Very little.

You shall eat there before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice you and your household.

And that's as far as we need to read. The night to be much observed is the night of fellowship.

It is a night to sit down and share a meal together. That doesn't matter what that meal is.

The point is you do it together, and you might have some some fine wine. You might have some some some fruits, some veggies. You might not normally enjoy, but you just you just want it. But mainly you have good company, and there are few things as pleasing as sitting down with others of like mind and sharing a good meal. Share what you have. Share what you are with others that night.

And in so doing, develop a bond with others in the body of Jesus Christ. You know, the early church, their story in the early chapters of Acts is just a fascinating story. They gathered on that day of Pentecost. The Spirit of God was poured out. That led to that inspiring sermon of Peter.

And then toward the end of that chapter, too, it says that God got out of 3000 of the church that day. But then a little later, it said that they broke bread in each other's homes. And it said, with gladness and simplicity of heart. I like the way that's written. And the night to be much observed is one of those occasions. To just be glad to be with each other, and simplicity of heart. You know, human beings like to make things complicated. But God says, on this night, gather. On this Holy Day, come back and appear before me. Do it together and have fun. Have a good meal.

And, you know, there's so many things we can learn by just doing that. Let's look at 1 John 1.

1 John chapter 1. And notice what it says in verse 3. 1 John 1 verse 3, That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you may have fellowship with us.

And truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

So whatever it is that we do that night, if it's a pot roast, if it's grilled hamburgers, if it's seven different types of veggies and fruits, do it together and do it with each other and do it before and with God. And our fellowship will be sweet if we can just do that.

And enjoying that meal is so enjoyable, more enjoyable when we do it with brethren of the people of God. 2. The night to be is a night of deliverance.

We can't help but read the story without going back to the concept of Israel being delivered from a most disgusting situation that they found themselves in. The night to be reminds us of our own deliverance as well. And deliverance is an ongoing process.

They began taking steps that night. And in the days that followed, it led to the point where, yes, they literally stepped outside. They fully left Egypt. They were outside of Egypt. But as we follow the story on through, we find that they came out of the physical bondage, but they never came out of the spiritual slavery. Their minds were still enslaved to, well, Pharaoh did it this way. Or we had fish and melons and leeks. And when they were in Egypt, I bet they complained about melons and fish and onions and leeks and all of that, too.

Human nature is that way. But God began calling us at a certain time, and that process of being delivered continues. Let's go to Numbers 33. Numbers 33. Here it gives us a little bit more, as far as what we looked at earlier. They were coming out by night, and this one names the actual day. It was the day after they kept the Passover. Numbers 33. And let's just read verse 3.

They departed from Ramesses in the first month on the fifteenth day of the first month, on the day after the Passover the children of Israel went out with boldness in the sight of all the Egyptians. Now, the King James says they went out with a high hand, and departing Egypt, you know, Egypt represented sin to them, and they began to leave it behind.

The Bible uses a lot of word pictures, a lot of concepts to define sin. God puts it in physical terms. For them, it was Egypt. Now, He didn't always use Egypt that way. When the Christ child was born, Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus went to Egypt, and it was their place of safety for a while until Herod the Great died. But for ancient Israel, Egypt was sin. The society had its shackles all over them. They were in bondage to the way Egypt did things. They were in bondage to the thinking of Egypt. And God began bringing them out. Well, there are places where Sodom is used as a type of sin, and we know that story from back in the days of Lot.

And we have Babylon. The book of Revelation, you have Babylon, is that end-time system that will once again be built, and it will represent the embodiment of that house of Satan that will seek to completely destroy the people of God and physical Israel. We have leaven. Leaven is a type for sin. I took the little Toyota yesterday and went and D11ed it, washed it, and this morning it was covered in yellow pollen. I thought, why? But I mainly wanted to get a good vacuum, one that I didn't drop four coins in, and then it runs out in about a minute. But I went, and I got one where I could use, and I got every nook and cranny. And, you know, it hasn't had a lot of people eating in that little Tacoma. But, you know, as it sits out there, I'm pretty certain there's a crumb or there's some leaven. I mean, there are yeast spores floating in the air that we breathe.

But I gave it a good, honest attempt. Good old college try there. So these are all types of sin that God uses. The national Israel, ancient Israel, was led out of Egypt, and we, spiritual Israel, the church, we are being led. We are being delivered from sin. And that's an ongoing basis, kind of like repentance. It's an ongoing process. Now, let's go back to Exodus 1. Now, just touch a little bit back here. I listened to the fine sermon Ron Davenport gave recently here on the slave's view of the Passover. And, you know, Israel, God had told Abraham a long time before, there's this land I'm going to give you, but there'll be a while. It's not going to be yours.

And then your seed are actually going to end up in bondage. It took time. Don't think of the 400 years as 400 years of bondage. It was a progression. And even in Egypt, when they were up there in Goshen, up in that delta land, they had some good times. They prospered. They thrived. But as we get to Exodus 1, we read here in verse 6, and Joseph died, all his brothers and all that generation.

But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied, and grew exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them. Now, as we follow along through, we find that began to sow the seeds of a problem. It happens any time. You know, just somehow, it ought not be, but Satan can get in there. And when you've got, in this case, the Egyptians were the minority. And this little group of 75 people come, and they start reproducing and reproducing, and getting larger, or they feared they would get larger. You begin to have this animosity.

And it's happened for 6,000 years, and it'll take the kingdom of God until we can finally get over all of that. But here it says, verse 8, Now there arose a new king over Egypt who did not know Joseph. And that's when they began realizing, you know, there are more Israelites here, and what are we going to do about it? But you know, that took quite a while. Joseph was, as a teen, went down there when he was age 30. He was lifted up to that level below Pharaoh. And the last verse of Genesis says that he died when he was 110. So 30 to 110, that's a long time. And as long as Joseph was living, surely they had good times.

And see, this is all a part of the greater 400-year period of time that Abraham had been told of.

But then Joseph's gone. All of his brothers, all of that generation, you give it another generation, maybe two, and you have people who don't remember. You have a different leader who doesn't remember all that God did for that nation. God saved them through Joseph's wisdom and insight and the revelation God gave to Joseph. Well, they began looking, and they set taskmasters over them, and burdens. Verse 11, we have them serving with rigor. Verse 13, we have the Hebrew midwives. They tried to get them in the midst of what's slow the population growth. Chapter 2, we begin to be introduced to one tool God is going to use as a physical individual God's going to use to deliver them. Of course, the ultimate deliverer was the God of the Old Testament. So Moses comes on the scene. Let's go to the end of chapter 2. Verse 23, now it happened in the process of time that the king of Egypt died. Then the children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. Fascinating to me. It's been a long time. You know, when you had Abraham, the story there in Genesis, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, I mean, these were individuals who had a relationship with the God of the Old Testament. But then they end up in Egypt, they have some good decades, and that generation is gone. Somewhere along the line, they end up in a horrible type of bondage. And they had, you know, when they come out, God had to say, you know, here's the Sabbath. You're going to have this manna out here, six days you won't find it. They had to reinstitute so much. There's so much they had lost or couldn't observe because of their slavery. God began to deliver them. He heard them. They somehow, stories were told from one generation to the next, and they remembered that there is a God. And they cried out and God heard. And that leads to the story of Moses being set aside, Aaron his spokesman, leads to, a little later, being sent to Egypt and the message to Pharaoh and one plague after another. Let's go to Exodus chapter 12. Finally, the ultimate trump card is played with going through with the death of the firstborn. And you have this whole nation that suffered terribly because of this hard-headed, self-willed leader named Pharaoh who would not budge. The time came, the firstborn have been killed, and it's time for Israel to go. Verse 33, and the Egyptians urged the people that they might send them out of the land in haste, for they said, We shall all be dead. And that led to the fact that they got out in such a hurry, the dough was not leavened. Let's just go down and read verse 39. They baked unleavened the cakes of the dough which they brought out of Egypt for it was not leavened because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provision for themselves. It's like John Kiddo wrote. Just imagine all of the deliverance, all the miracles of God, that suddenly, two and a three million people are moving, and they're putting one foot in front of the other, and they're going somewhere. They may not know where they're going, but they were going somewhere.

And what a one miracle after another would have taken to make that happen.

Well, time came when God called us, and God began to deliver us from the shackles of a lifetime. He called us to have a relationship with Him. Human nature is still the same. We don't like to get in a hurry. We don't like to get in a hurry in anything. It comes this time of the year, and we don't like to get in a... I want to ask for a show of hands on how many of you are going to do the lion's share of your deal-evaning tomorrow. We won't ask over Monday. We won't ask that question. But human nature is, we like to put it off. Ours, I think, is almost complete, but we don't have eating machines in the house grabbing a sandwich and walking through it, dropping crumbs everywhere, either. And last time we had kids in two of the bedrooms, cleaned after they were here, and the doors have been closed since, so we didn't have to worry about those. But in one sense, though, we're that way. But then, sadly, we're the same way as far as overcoming. As God begins to deliver us from the sins of a lifetime and from the bondage of the way we think, the bondage of the way the society is around us, we don't get in that big of a hurry to address the way we think about each other, the way we may treat each other, the way we talk about each other. We just get comfortable. We get in our comfort zone.

And decades later, sometimes, it's still there. It's still there. Well, God wants us to be in a hurry, but at any rate, this is a time to remember that we have been delivered. We are in the process of being delivered from the shackles of a lifetime. We place the leaven out, but you know it's more important to be getting the sin out.

We come out of physical bondage. We come out of bondage to the way we think.

It's more important to come out of spiritual bondage. Let's go to Romans chapter 6.

Because you see, you can't help but when you come to the Passover, not to be much observed, days of Unleavened Bread, you can't help but focus back to the time of our own baptism. It's the time when God called us and we made a commitment. We made a commitment with God.

We entered a covenant with God. We entered a covenant that symbolically is written in the blood of Jesus Christ. We willingly were immersed in water and we were more fully, completely immersed into the work that God has for us to do.

We symbolically died, but we came back up. That's what the earlier verses of this chapter talk about. I want to go a little bit further. Because we have been through that process, we are to walk in newness of life, as the end of verse 4 says. But let's skip down to verse 12.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should obey it in its lusts.

But you know, again, we all have that human nature. And we think, yeah, I've got a temper problem and I need to work on that someday. Yeah, I've got a, you know, my language. When I get mad, my language, well, I need to work on that someday. And unless we allow God to place prods on us, kind of like Egypt was told, excuse me, Israel was told by the Egyptians, you're getting out of here or we're all going to be dead. So move.

Verse 13, and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you. For you're not under the law, you're under grace. And we're the undeserving recipients of the forgiveness of Almighty God.

Verse 20, when you were past tense, you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Let's just go to verse 23. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So we had that choice. All humans have always had that choice.

Like God told ancient Israel there under the latter time of Moses, I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, choose. And He said, choose life.

And when we got to this point, we told God, I want to live. I want to live for all eternity.

But you know, to do that, we have to seriously take that deliverance. It's an ongoing process, an ongoing process. We can't afford to be comfortable and settle back on our leaves.

So yes, tomorrow we celebrate the fact that Jesus came. There is a scripture, actually a quote from back in the Old Testament, but He came to lead captivity captive.

Ephesians 4 verse 7, 8, 9. He came to lead captivity captive. In other words, that which your very nature, the society, the influence of Satan, that which enslaves us, He came to lead us down a path, to lead us out of that, and to take care of the things that have enslaved us up to this point. The night to be much observed symbolizes the beginning in our ongoing release from sin. We who were enslaved to sin are now free to become the slaves of righteousness, the slaves of God. Number three is remembering. This is a night to remember. Remember the covenant. Remember the promises of God. We were told that we were given better promises than ancient Israel was ever given. We read already back in Exodus 12, verse 41. We backed up and we read verse 40, 41, and talked about 430 years.

And it said, to the very day, I like the old king's aims, to the self same day.

There is enough, there are quite a few dots we can connect. There are a little more information I'd like to have, but we can come to a pretty fair conclusion. That 430-year period of time that he had spoken of concluded in that year when Israel came out and the law was given to them on tablets of stone. 430 years earlier takes us back to a time in the days of Abraham. And Abraham, God had told him a number of times, I will establish this covenant with you.

And then he expanded it in chapter 12, chapter 15. We get to Genesis 17.

We get to Genesis 17, and God says, I will establish this covenant with you. But then, a little later in the chapter, he gives a sign of the covenant. And Abraham, Ishmael, and the others, the males of the household are circumcised, and they have the sign of that covenant.

You might just want to make a note of some scriptures in Galatians 3, Galatians 3, verses 8, 16, and 17. Because there, too, it talks about that 430-year period of time.

And he likens it as a period from the covenant to the year when the law was given.

And, yeah, you look back at the history of ancient Israel. So many times, some of the great turning points of Israel took place on holy days, and specifically the spring holy days. We have the story of Exodus there, 12 through 15. We know what happened. We have the story 40 years later under Joshua where they crossed over, set up campground Gilgal. They kept the Passover and then began circumnavigating the city of Jericho. We have stories where they'd find the book of the law and they'd find where it said, you're supposed to have this feast, and they'd keep it, and they'd do it again. So many times, of course, that's not even talking about what we'll read tomorrow night. That night, Jesus with His disciples, where He took bread, blessed it, passed it. He took the cup, blessed it, passed it, and He said, this is the blood of my covenant. And I won't rather drink of this fruit of the vine with you again until I do it with you in my Father's kingdom. So, we have so many turning points, and truly what Israel went through, it was, and truly what the Israel of God, the spiritual church of God began to enjoy therein. The Gospels and Acts was a real turning point.

But in Genesis 17, God says to Abraham, when Abraham, when Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, I am Almighty God, walk before me and be blameless, and I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you. So, you see, it's future tense, it's still a promise. But we're going to have parts of this that begin to change. Of course, it continued to be expanded until the book of Romans tells us that Abraham was the heir of the world. Well, verse 4, He's going to be the father of many nations. Verse 5, because of that, His name has changed from being a father to a multitude, father of a multitude. He goes on here to verse 8, speaks of that fact that you're a stranger in the land of Canaan, but the time will come and it's going to be yours. But in verse 10, this is my covenant, which you shall keep between me and you and your descendants after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised, and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your four skins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days, I think as far as we need to read. Well, let's look at verse 21. Verse 21, But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year. Set time. That's from that Hebrew word, moedim. These annual appointed occasions. Now, it is Jewish tradition, and it's just that that a year later, Isaac was born on the Pass overnight. Jewish tradition, for what it's worth.

Verse 23, the latter part, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and circumcised the flesh of their four skins, that very same day. Old King James, that self same day, as God had said to him. Verse 26, that very same day Abraham was circumcised, and God and his son Ishmael, and all the men of his house.

Well, we have so much to remember. For Israel, the events there of the middle chapters of Exodus, you have God remembering a promise he had made 430 years earlier. And God was so faithful that to the very day they came out of bondage, they were delivered. They remembered the covenant. God led them for the weeks that followed toward Sinai, and there was this institution of a different covenant. Based on, yes, but different covenant. The spring of the year, Christ sat down with his disciples, and revealed brand new signs of a covenant that he was initiating. And it was done the same season of the year.

Same season. This is a time of promise. This is a time to remember. This is the time to anticipate.

Anticipate the full receipt of those promises. Romans 2. Romans 2. Just notice the last couple of verses of that chapter.

Because the sign of the old covenant was circumcision of the males.

And the sign of the new covenant is circumcision, but not of the same type. Romans 2 verses 28 and 29. For he is not a Jew. Now, let's pause right there. Go back into Genesis, and you find the chapter where it talks about mainly Leah and then the handmaids having all these children. Well, when Judah was born, it mentions his name means praise.

Judah means praise. Jew is the abbreviated term.

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly.

So he's saying here, it doesn't matter what your genealogy is. When Christ walked the earth, he spoke with a lot of Jews who were very proud to have Abraham their father.

And what is most important is what God has done through the new covenant that, well, as Paul wrote to those of the region of Galatia, if your Christ's your Abraham seed and your heirs to the promise, it doesn't matter what gender, doesn't matter slave or free. None of that matters. If you're Christ's, if you are forgiven and have the Spirit of God, you're in that covenant.

And you are with Abraham an heir of all things, who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. So the physical right of circumcision is not required in the Bible now. Although, again, it's a personal family decision on whether it's done. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is out of the heart. Because similar to the fact that the, well, in the days of Joshua, God said, make you knives of flint. And I wonder if they went, uh-oh. You know what followed. And as the knife circumscribed, and that portion cast aside, and they called the hill of the foreskin, which is just as good as name is any, I guess. But in similar manner, spiritually, God takes the sins and the selfish carnal mind of human beings, and He begins to cut that off. Begins the process of removing that. Circumcision is out of the heart in the Spirit, not in the letter whose praise, again, Judah, the play on words here, your salvation is not in your lineage. Your praise is not from men, but from God. So on the night to be, it begins the day when God remembered His covenant, and God chose us as well for better promises, and He began to pour out those promises upon us. But that is ongoing. It's a time to celebrate the renewal of a covenant, and remember what God has done for us. And number four, the last one, is that of anticipation. That's the thing I like about Holy Days. You get the one, and it points you toward the next one. You get to that one, and it points you on. It's steps of a ladder. A step ladder with seven steps on it. And the one leads to the next, and you can't cheat by taking a step up, you know, two or three of them at a time. It's one after another. And the night to be much observed focuses our eyes forward, just like any Holy Day does. On that night, it is an anniversary of Israel's deliverance of old, yes. But, you know, we have uncomfortable things to remember that are prophesied for years to come. There are places in all of the major prophets where it talks about the fact that Israel, once again, is going to be punished. The peoples of Israel of the end time, you know, Isaiah in one place says, your cities will be laid waste. No, we have to go over those prophecies. It's uncomfortable. It's unpleasant to read those. But there are hard times ahead for our country and others, and frankly, for the whole world. There's the prophecy there of Ezekiel chapter 5. He was told to take a sharp sword, cut off the hair from your head and your beard, and, you know, measure it out, weigh it three different piles, and you hack on one of the sword. Well, a third of you are going to die by warfare. And then, you know, a third of you threw pestilence and famine, and then a third of you just going to be scattered. And then you take that sword and you chase after him. Well, Isaiah's got one place where he indicates one in ten may come out the other end.

Those are unpleasant. Let's look at Jeremiah 11. Just maybe two or three quick places here in some of these prophecies.

But God is a God who remembers. Jeremiah 11, beginning in verse 11, Therefore, though says the Lord, behold, I will surely bring calamity on them, which they will not be able to escape. And as I like to put it, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. But when they get better, oh, what a future God has in mind.

And though they cry out to me, I will not listen to them. Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry out to the gods to whom they offer incense. Well, we live in a society, an end time society that has all kinds of gods. We trust in the almighty dollar, and I tell you, it's got problems. And we trust in our armaments. And I opened Mr. Tuck's prophetic news yesterday, and it's just downright depressing. You have countries out there like North Korea that have things that are deeply distressing, and nobody's pushed a button yet, but it'll come.

You'll cry to the gods to whom they offer incense, but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble. For according to the number of your cities were your gods, O Judah. According to the number of the streets of Jerusalem, you have set up altars to that shameful thing, altars to burn incense to Baal. Let's go to Jeremiah. I'll tell you what. Let's go back to Isaiah 11, because Isaiah, he has his heavy prophecies, but he also is a Messianic prophet, and he lays out a marvelous vision of the world to come.

In Isaiah 11, he talks about this branch, this rod from the stem of Jesse, who come in rule and righteousness, and the wolf dwelling with the lamb and all. Let's go down to verse 11. Isaiah 11, 11. It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people who are left from Assyria in Egypt, from Patris, from Elam, from Shainar, from Hamath, and the islands of the sea. He's prophetically looking at the fact that the end time descendants of Israel will be scattered all around the world. You read of the final Babylon, and one thing that they do is they deal in the souls of men.

He will set up a banner for the nations and will assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together to disperse of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

It talks about finally, this is an innate envy between Ephraim, the dominant tribe of the north, and Judah, the dominant tribe of the south. That's all going to be gone.

Let's look at Isaiah 27. Isaiah 27. And let's read verses 12 and 13. Isaiah 27, verse 12, and it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord will thresh from the channel of the river to the brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered one by one, O you children of Israel. So it shall be in that day the great trumpet will be blown, and they will come who are about to perish in the land of Assyria, and they who are outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount of Jerusalem. So many places we could turn to here as far as prophecies showing that times are going to be awful. But we have to look beyond that. We have to anticipate the future as God's plan comes to realization. There'll be a worldwide regathering as God remembers His promise and establishes His covenant. And in a millennial setting, the call goes out.

All who want can come and drink of the waters of life freely.

So we look at the night to be much observed. It'll be on us here in a couple of nights.

I hope you have a wonderful evening, and I hope that we can focus a little more completely on why we gather together. It's a wonderful church tradition. I love the way that we do it. It really is, and I hope you'll take advantage of that. But have a wonderful night to be by rejoicing before God with brothers and sisters in Christ. And have a wonderful night to be by being humbled as you remember the deliverance that God continues to give us.

We certainly have not deserved all that God's poured out upon us. And have a wonderful night by remembering the covenant that God established and continues to establish. And have a wonderful night to be by looking on beyond. On beyond the hard times to the future, beyond anything we can imagine. And then ultimately, as Christ said that night, as we'll read those verses tomorrow night, the time's coming to sit down with our King and once again drink of the fruit of the vine with Christ in His Father's kingdom.