A Passover Like None Before

Okay. Well, really we have four Sabbaths before we're together here for the Passover and the start of the Days of Unleavened Bread. And as we begin this season, as we've been talking about it a little bit, but as we begin preparing for it in earnest, you know, we'd be remiss if we didn't turn to a very familiar set of scriptures that we read more than once during this time. So if you'll turn with me over to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 11. And Paul's instruction, of course, inspired by God on how to keep the Passover in the appropriate way as he's instructing the Corinthians and correcting some of the things that they were doing on the Passover Day so that they were keeping it in order.

We read these scriptures, but let's do a little bit of exegesis on this group of scriptures today to see how important and what kind of emphasis God puts on this day we're about to embark on in this Holy Day season. In 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 23, it says, For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Very familiar words. Sometimes words like that can become too familiar. And sometimes we can take the Passover as just a matter, of course. We've done it 10 times, 20 times, 30 times. The spring comes around, and here we are taking the Passover again. Jesus Christ said, When you do this, do this in remembrance of me. Make sure you know exactly what you're doing.

Remember the sacrifice that he made. Remember what it means to us. Remember what it means to all of mankind. When you take it, take it with that full recognition, not just as a matter of an ordinance that we keep every year, but with the deep meaning that God wants us to have as we participate in the Passover ceremony. Verse 25, he says the same thing about the blood in the same manner. He also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

This do, as often as you drink it, and we know that means once a year on the Passover evening, this do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. When you drink the blood, recognize what it means. It's not just a matter of taking it out of that little holder, sipping it and putting it back in. It's something that we should be very cognizant and aware of as we're taking that and applying these principles into our lives or applying these ordinances into our lives, that we've come ready to take those symbols with a full understanding of what they mean, what they represent, and when we do it, what our responsibility to God is.

Verse 26, he says, For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Now we'll stop and look at that word proclaim here for a second. The word proclaim, you know, if we proclaim something, we know what that means. And if you look up the Greek word that's translated, proclaim, there it means publicly proclaim.

Publicly proclaim what you're doing, publicly proclaim Christ's death until you come. So as you look through the Scriptures leading up to the verses we're reading here in 1 Corinthians 11, you see Paul talking to the church. You see him saying in verse 18, When you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you and in part I believe it. And in verse 20 he says, Therefore when you come together in one place, it's not to eat the Lord's supper and then he goes into what the ordinances are.

When we come together to keep the Passover, we publicly proclaim what we believe, who we believe in, what we're doing. It's hard to publicly proclaim if you're sitting at home by yourself taking Passover. In some cases that needs to happen.

In some cases that's appropriate if you're only one in the area. But when God instructed the Corinthian church, they were coming together. There's a public proclamation. There is something to proclaim. I'm here. I'm together with you. I'm part of your body. I'm part of taking the Passover with you. Just as the Corinthian church did, just as Jesus Christ did with his disciples who were gathered together with him that night, just as we see throughout the Bible.

Proclaim his death. His death has such meaning to us that this is a time that we should certainly want to be together and celebrate it as his body before him. Or observe it, I should say, as opposed to celebrate because it is a somber occasion. So he goes on in verse 27. He says, therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

And when you look at those verses, boy, they have some meaning, right? If you take this flippantly, if you do it just because it's going to be the 7th of April, it's the evening, and we have to be there to take it. And you know, I'm gonna leave work early, get to where I need to be on time for Passover, and just take it without having done any advanced preparation as we see.

You know, we might be guilty of taking it in an unworthy manner because observing and keeping the Passover on that evening of Passover is very, very important. But what we'll see, what we do before the Passover is extremely important in being ready to keep the Passover, in being ready to observe it the way that God says. So he says, if you don't keep it in a worthy manner, you're guilty. None of us want to be guilty of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

None of us want that to be said of us. If we're sitting here, certainly some time in our life, we said we accept Jesus Christ's sacrifice. We know that without Him we are nothing, we are going nowhere. And without Him, without Him, our lives are hopeless. And as a result, the proper response of accepting His sacrifice is yielding and surrendering our lives to Him. Nothing short.

Nothing short of that. Verse 28, as part of a matter of getting, becoming, then taking the Passover in a worthy manner, he says, let a man examine himself. Let a man examine himself. Take a good hard look at yourself. Why are you doing what you do? Is your heart in what you are doing? Are you keeping what God says to do with all your heart, all your mind? Are you paying attention to the detail as well as the broad scope of things? Do you see Him as your master, as your Savior?

Do you see Him as the one who you obey? God says before you do that, if you're going to take the Passover in a worthy manner, examine yourself. Look at it closely. Look and see what you're doing. Ask God to help you see what you are and to see you in His eyes, to see you through the eyes of the Word of God. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup, something that gets done ahead of time, as in beginning now, if you haven't already started.

For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning or not understanding the gravity of the matter, not understanding the gravity of the ceremony, not understanding what we're doing that night, not giving it the particular and the special importance in our lives that it should have. He who drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not understanding, not discerning the Lord's body.

And then He says, For this reason many are weak, and sick among you and many sleep. You know, our calling is a very special calling. Our calling is something that God expects us to take seriously. And this time, this Passover time, these unleavened bread time, if we take the whole seven days plus Passover together, it's a time we give to God. It's a time we should understand what we're doing. It's extremely, extremely important.

And the time between now and then of what we do with our time is extremely important in how we have and how that Passover and unleavened bread are. There's no way you cannot prepare for Passover and unleavened bread. Everything about these days means there's preparation beforehand. And if you don't do it, if you don't do it, you're not discerning the Lord's body. And if you're not taking this time seriously, you're not doing what God wants you to do. Well, we know those of us who have been in the church for a while, you know, every year when you come to Passover, it's almost like God will open our minds to see a problem that we have.

You know, maybe a light bulb goes on on something that happens in our life and you think, whoa, I've seen that before, but I never really got it. Now I understand some of where I need to be, some of what needs to happen in my life or our lives as a church, that where we need to be and where we need to get to to be pleasing God. And He'll prepare us for Passover, if we let Him, and if we are paying attention to it, and if during this time we really are serious about examining ourselves and being ready for the Passover in the days of Unleavened Bread, He'll lead us there because, as we know, when He called us, His goal is and His wish and His mission is to perfect us, right, to develop us.

And year by year, year by year, we learn a little bit more about ourselves, a little bit more of where we have fallen short, a little bit more of where we need to overcome and use God's Holy Spirit that He gives us after we repent, after we're baptized, and we receive that Holy Spirit to kind of have His mind in us so that we begin to see and see where we need to be in order to be more like Him.

That just happens. We realize that as we go through life and as we've done that, those of you who are newer in the church, you'll experience that as you go through time. I would dare say, if you go through a Passover and you don't see anything, anything that you need to change, anything that you need to work on, any area that you fall short on, you probably need to ask God, help me prepare, help me prepare and get ready for the Passover because something I'm doing isn't right.

None of us are perfect, none of us are close to it, and as long as we live, we won't be. There will always be something, always be something that we can look at at the time of Passover and say, as we enter a time of recommitment to God and renew our commitment to Him that we have to work on. Well, you know, the Bible is instructive in so many ways.

We can look at the Old Testament, right? We see examples in the Old Testament that teach us spiritual lessons. We do that all the time because the Bible, of course, flows together. So today, let's look at some Old Testament Passovers and see what we can learn through examples of some of the men and some of the Passovers that God recorded for us as people prepared for the Passover, as He got them ready for the Passover, as He will do for us. Let's start back here with Moses. You know, we talk about the Passover in the Old Testament.

We think about coming out of Egypt. We think about that time and the firstborn of Egypt being killed, but the firstborn of Israel were passed over and were spared death. So let's start back here with the man Moses. Moses, of course, a key figure in the Exodus and in the time of Unleavened Bread. In chapter 4, we find something that Moses had to have his attention drawn to. As we come into chapter 4, God has already called Moses out of Midian. Moses has seen the burning bush. God has worked with him and shown him in over objection, over objection, after objection that Moses had, I can't do this, I can't do that, what about this?

God has showed him, you're the one, you're the one I chose, that you're gonna go to Pharaoh, you're gonna say, let my people go, and God has told him what was gonna happen. It wasn't gonna be an easy road. He wasn't gonna go there and Pharaoh was just gonna say, okay, it was gonna be a heavy road there. So as Moses packs up his wife, packs up his kids, and they're on their way to Egypt to confront Pharaoh, we see. In verse 24 of chapter 4, we see something unusual happen.

After God's got all through this with Moses, in verse 24 it says, it came to pass on the way at the encampment that the eternal met Moses and sought to kill him. Sought to kill him. Now, isn't it interesting that God would seek to kill Moses when he's just prepared him, gotten him ready, sent him on his way to Egypt? Why would God do that? Now, what does it mean that God sought to kill him? Well, we don't know exactly what God did, but you look at the commentaries, you know, most of them will say that God sent some kind of illness or illness or something on Moses that was going to end in death.

Whether that happened or not, I don't know, but somewhere God sent something and Moses knew and his wife, Sapphora, knew it's death or do something. God was getting Moses' attention because there was something that Moses needed to know before he could lead Israel out of Egypt, before he could be the one who was coordinating, if you will, that Passover, talking to Moses. There was something in his life he had to recognize and he had to do.

And we find what that is here in the next verse. Verse 25, Sapphora, his wife, took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet and said, Surely you are a husband of blood to me. Moses hadn't circumcised maybe just one son, maybe neither of the sons that he had.

He hadn't followed through with a basic principle of God, a sign of the covenant between the people and God. And Moses, for some reason, with his son, didn't follow through on that.

Kind of makes you wonder, as a basic principle, God is very clear of what needed to happen, what the sign of the covenant between God and his people were in the Old Testament, but Moses hadn't done that. Now, there's speculation that can occur on this thing. It's interesting that Sapphora is the one who took thief lint and she's the one who circumcised her son. And a little bit angry, as you see, when she did it. She cast the foreskin at his feet. There, I've done it. Now, speculation would be that did Moses just think, you know what, I just don't want to circumcise my son.

I just don't. It's a physical thing. I don't know why I need to do it. It can't be that important to God. He knows where my heart is. He knows I followed him. Look, I left Egypt. Did he just think that? Did he just count it? That's just not important, so God would overlook it? Or did Sapphora? Did Sapphora his wife? You know, after one son was circumcised, I don't want to do that. She was from Midian. Some of the commentaries suggest that in Midian they didn't circumcise. It was Israel that did it.

You know, Moses was circumcised, we'll see here in a moment, but for some reason he thought it wasn't important, whether it was to him not important, or whether he was honoring his wife and following her wishes rather than doing what he knew to be best and what he knew to be right. Whatever it is, it was wrong. And before Moses could go forward, God was gonna see that Moses would do that. Moses would follow his commands, or Moses would die.

And so we see Moses did it, and verse 4, Sapphora did it, and verse 26, so God let him go. Ah. Now, it's interesting that Moses was all those 40 years in Midian, or at the time, however his oldest son was, and God didn't bring his attention to it, kind of just let it go until this time.

There was time now that this had to be addressed. Well, we know that circumcision was an important thing in the Old Covenant. Let's go back to Genesis 17 and rehearse those verses just here for a second. Genesis 17 and verse 10, as Abram, you know, Isaac hasn't been born yet, but after the birth of Ishmael, and God didn't institute the circumcision at the time of Ishmael's birth, but he waited until Isaac was about to be born, the son of promise.

And in verse 10 of chapter 17, he makes it clear to Abraham what that sign is and what would happen if people didn't pay attention to his command. Verse 10, Genesis 17, 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 foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

Kind of an important thing if it's a sign of the covenant between God and them at that time. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant.

He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. Moses had broken God's covenant. Moses had not done what God clearly instructed. Moses knew what it was. We'll see that the people who left Egypt, they were all circumcised. That's one thing that they did keep up during their time in slavery and captivity there. But for some reason, he kind of thought, it's just not that important, or his wife gave him so much trouble that he went against what his conscience was.

But we'll see it here a little bit later. But we can talk here for a moment and think about us in this. You know, we know that circumcision was a sign in the Old Covenant, but there's a covenant that God makes with us today, and there's a sign between him and then. Let's look at him and us. In Deuteronomy 10, you know, God was working with the physical people back with ancient Israel.

But he makes a very New Testament comment, or he does through Moses in Deuteronomy 10, that shows what he was looking for in his people then, and what he's looking for in us today in Deuteronomy 10. Verse 16, as Moses is preparing the people to cross over into the Promised Land, he makes this comment. He says, therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer.

Oh, they had the sign of the covenant. It was a physical sign. But what God was looking for was they wouldn't be stiff-necked. They would yield to God. They, that their heart would be one that was soft and malleable, that it would yield to him. That's what he was looking for, and that's what he's looking for in spiritual Israel today. You know, we see that in Paul's writings here and back in Romans 2.

Romans 2 and verse 28. There Paul says, he's not a Jew. He's not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor a circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. That was Old Testament times. That was the sign then. That's not the sign between God and his people anymore.

Verse 29, 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. You know, in the old times, they could say, look, he circumcised, he's a man of God. Look at the flesh and look and see. Today, God looks on our hearts. Are we yielded to him? Are we giving ourselves to him? Do we give him everything? Even the most precious things in our lives. Over in Colossians, if there's any doubt of what we're talking about, let's read Colossians 2.

Colossians 2. Let's pick it up in verse 6 and read down through a few verses here. Colossians 2.6, As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him. Walk in him. Follow his example. Walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Do it, embrace it, be thankful for the calling this God has given you, be thankful for the life that you live.

Drop down to verse 9, For in him, in Christ, dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him who is the head of all principality and power. In him you are also circumcised, with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with him in baptism, in which you are also raised with him through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. So today's circumcision is of the heart. Today, circumcision is not of the flesh as a sign between us and God, but it's of our of our yieldenness to God as we repent, truly and fully repent, of the way we have lived our lives.

That the remorse is there not just as a momentary thing, but a thing that's an life-altering belief that we have in God and a life- altering realization that we come to that we haven't been following God. We haven't been doing his will. And so then we we commit to him through baptism, a public proclamation of our death to our old self and a renewal of our life as we come up out of the waters of baptism washed clean and ready to have God write his laws and principles on our hearts. That we're circumcised in the heart, that we're no longer stiff-necked doing our own way, but yielded to him, even when we learn things about ourselves that we don't like.

And we don't want to give up, but we do it anyway because it's God's will. That's the mind of Christ. That's what he's called us to do. That's circumcision of the heart. That's the sign of the covenant today. Baptism. Baptism and a giving up of ourselves to follow God because we fully recognize who he is. We discern his body. We discern his death.

We understand what we're doing. And we keep that understanding throughout life. And don't let it become commonplace. Don't let it become something that we just do because we do it every year. Or think that we don't have to spend a whole lot of time on it because we're pretty good, pretty good the way we are. Well, Moses would learn as we learn from the New Testament. But as Israel went through the plagues and they learned a lot of things through the plagues, and I'm not going to go through that today.

It may be something you want to look at as you prepare for the Passover. What did Israel learn from those plagues? You know, well, they did learn as they went through it that sometimes it's really hard. Sometimes things don't go as easy as we hope they would when God calls us. Things can become difficult. They learned through some of the plagues that, you know what, the world has some pretty good counterfeits out there, pretty good counterfeits that look like God, but they're not really of God.

And we have to understand what is of God and what is a counterfeit for it. They learned the power of God as they had to unlearn some of the reliance that they probably developed over those gods in Egypt and saw where God differentiated between him and the people of Egypt. But as they came to the Passover and as God gave his instructions for keeping the Passover going forward, let's pick it up in Exodus 12 and verse 48.

You can read on your own verses, the lead up verses, verses 43 to 47. In 47 he says, All the congregation of Israel shall keep the Passover, everyone, okay, in the congregation of Israel. And when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the eternal, let all his males be circumcised. They're gonna keep the Passover. They need to have the sign of the covenant to keep it. When a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the eternal, let all his males be circumcised and then let him come near and keep it.

And he shall be as a native of the land, for no uncircumcised person shall eat it. And so God was clear what needed to happen to eat the Passover in the Old Testament. It follows through in the New Testament today as we understand the sign of the New Covenant as well as we keep this one holy day where God says who will keep it and what people need to do before they keep it.

One of the things that they need to do in order to keep the Passover. Because there is a commitment we make to God that is a life-changing commitment and eternal commitment when we're baptized. And then annually we come before the Passover, before God at the Passover. We recommit to Him, we examine ourselves, and year by year we progress, year by year we develop, year by year we yield to God. More and more becoming more like Him and growing in the grace and knowledge but also in the demeanor and stature of Jesus Christ as we're like Him.

So Moses, you know, as he went through this and as he was recording these words from God, I think it probably really settled in with him. This was important to God. This is the way things get done in His people and a way that we still obey it today. But, you know, as I said, they went through the plagues. God brought them out. They learned many lessons through that.

But let's go to the next Passover that we have that's noted here and that we find that in the book of Joshua. And by at this time Moses has died. Children of Israel have crossed over the Jericho. They've come into the land that God promised them.

And we find in Joshua 5 the time leading up to the Passover. And there's something the children of Israel need to do before they can keep the Passover. And God made sure that they understood it and it was whether they would do it or not. But let's pick it up in verse 1 here of Joshua 5. It says, So it was when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over that their heart melted.

There was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel. Well, you can imagine they'd heard all the stories of what went on in Egypt. They heard of all the plagues. They saw how God delivered this tremendous group of people from Egypt. And now they're there on their land. And they knew that God supernaturally is part of those waters of the Jericho so they could cross over as well.

I'm sure they thought, what do we do? How do we stand against this God? This God was able to overcome everything in Egypt and bring them over here. At that time, God said to Joshua, Make flint knives for yourself and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time. Wow! Here they are now crossing over the Jordan, but before God was going to work with them, before they were going to keep the Passover for the first time in the Promised Land, there was something they had to do.

Somehow, somehow, they hadn't circumcised any of the male children that were born for 40 years in the wilderness. It kind of boggles the mind. How does that happen? How could they have overlooked something like that? How could Moses have overlooked something like that? When he, in Exodus 4, we saw, God confronted him on that. Moses, you circumcise or you die. If you're going to lead my people, you do this. And yet, somehow, it didn't get done. Let's read on. So Joshua made flint knives, verse 3, he heard what God said, he went right to work in getting it done. Joshua made flint knives for himself and circumcised the sons of Israel at the Hill of the Foreskins.

Now, you know, that was no small number, right? That didn't happen in an afternoon. You remember how many males came out of Egypt and how many children they would have had in 40 years in the wilderness. So when it says Hill of the Foreskins, there was a lot of work that went on that day and a lot of pain that went on that day. Verse 4, and this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them. All the people who came out of Egypt, who were males, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt.

For all the people who came out had been circumcised. While they were in captivity, they kept that up. Even Moses was circumcised, but for some reason they had a blind spot when they came out of Egypt. But all the people born in the wilderness on the way as they came out of Egypt hadn't been circumcised. For the children of Israel walked 40 years in the wilderness till all the people who were men of war, who came out of Egypt, were consumed. Because they didn't obey the voice of the Lord, to whom the Lord swore that He would not show them the land which He had sworn to their fathers that He would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey.

40 years they wandered in the wilderness. 40 years it never really dawned on anyone. You know what? We should probably be circumcising our sons. That's a sign between God and us. Apparently Moses never brought it up. Apparently Joshua never brought it up. Didn't dawn on Joshua until God brought it to his attention as they were ready to enter into the promised land.

You have to wonder how did that happen? But God did bring it to their attention. He let them wander for 40 years. And as we prepare for Passover, maybe we want to ask ourselves, are there blind spots we have? Is there something that we're not doing? Something that we're compromising? Something that we are just overlooking and saying, eh, God's okay with this. God, you know, that's not really that important. That's just a physical activity. That's just something we don't need to know. Because the children of Israel, including two notable leaders who walked with God, just didn't see it until God brought it to their attention. And so the same thing can be with us. Is there something that God sees in us that we're just kind of not seeing? Is he just letting us go through life? And maybe as we examine ourselves and examine ourselves through his eyes, as we go through some detail with ourselves, what's my attitude on this? How do I respond to this? What are the things that have come to my attention? Have I heard someone say something? Have I read something in the Bible? Have I heard something in a sermon that I should have paid attention to? Are there voices that are telling me something that I'm just kind of shuffling under the carpet and saying, oh, not me? Not now. Not that important. I don't have to do that.

Well, it happened here, but eventually God got their attention. And to their credit, Joshua went right to work, and the people were circumcised. So let's go down to verse 9. The Lord said to Joshua, when they were completed, that circumcision, the sign of the covenant that they should have known about. The Lord said to Joshua, this day I've rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you. Now you are totally out of Egypt. Now you're my people. Again, you've done what I have said. Therefore, the name of the place is called Gilgal to this day. And then the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, and they kept the Passover on the 14th of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho.

All that happened. God brought something to their attention. They responded, and then they kept the Passover. He didn't wait until after the Passover. Gave it to them before the Passover, and they had to have it completed before the Passover, preparing for it. Preparing for it so they could take it in a manner that God would have them take it. Well, today, you know, God doesn't speak to us. Maybe it's the same way that he spoke to Joshua. But today we have God's Spirit. Once we repent, once we're baptized, hands laid on us, and God puts His Holy Spirit in us, it puts the mind of Christ in us. And you can mark down in your notes. We won't turn there. John 14. I think you're very familiar with the verses and chapter in verse 16 and 17 there. When Christ says, you know, it's to your advantage that I go away. As He speaks those words before He's arrested, it's to your advantage I go away. Because when I go away, God will send the comforter to you. And it will bring you. It'll bring you comfort, of course, but it will guide you in all things. It will teach you in all things. If you pay attention to it, if you let it lead you, you'll have the mind of Jesus Christ, and it will occur to you. I'm not doing this. If you're using the Spirit, if you're making some of the stakes that maybe Moses made with his wife, with the inattention to some of the details that he just thought, not important, or I don't want to do it, that maybe the children of Israel just kind of overlooked. Maybe listening to someone else and saying, you know what, you're okay the way you are. You know what, we're never okay the way we are. We always have something that we can learn. If we let God's Holy Spirit lead us, direct us, correct us, and God's mind is in us, it'll lead us. He won't tell us everything, or the Spirit won't lead us into everything we need to change at once. We'd be overwhelmed if that was going to happen. But little by little, year by year, we'll learn as God in his time brings us closer and closer to the perfection that he desires in us. Well, let's look at another Passover. I think we've learned some things maybe here.

In the first two, this time let's turn over to 2 Chronicles.

2 Chronicles 29.

We have Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 29, who's just become King of Judah, and we know that Hezekiah was a good king. You know, he sought to please God. And it's interesting because as he begins his reign, we see some of what Judah goes through as they prepare for a Passover under King Hezekiah. Let's read the first seven verses here or so of 2 Chronicles 29. Let the Bible give us the story. It says, Hezekiah became, I'm in verse 1 of 2 Chronicles 29, Hezekiah became king when he was 25 years old, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the sight of the Eternal, according to all that his father David had done. In the first year of his reign, in the first month, I mean right from the outset, right from the outset, here's what his attitude was. He opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. Now, what does that tell us? That tells us that the house of God was in disrepair. Somewhere over the brains of the prior kings, God's house was to shovel. They didn't pay any attention to it. They kind of let it go. Maybe they saw it every day and thought, oh yeah, yep, it looks okay. We don't need to do anything with it. Now, as we read through this, I want you to remember that was a physical temple, right? And God was dwelling in that temple, that physical temple. Today, we're the spiritual temple of God. Today, he's building his temple in us individually and us collectively in this church. But as we read about the disrepair and the dirt and the grime that the children of Judah had allowed to happen to that temple, we have to ask ourselves the question, is there dirt? Is there grime? Am I keeping and maintaining the temple? Am I building the temple that God wants us to? In the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the house of the Lord and repaired them. There was work to be done. It wasn't in the state that it should be done. And he went to work. He didn't say, well, that was someone's job before me. Well, it's always been that way. Well, God hasn't thundered down from heaven. He hasn't given me some huge trial. He didn't confront me like he did Moses and say he's going to kill me if I don't do it.

I see what needs to be done. And he went about repairing the house of the Eternal, and he brought in the priests and the Levites and gathered them in the east square. And he said to them, hear me, Levites, and you remember the Levites were the ones who served God in the temple. Now sanctify yourselves. Set yourselves apart. Get yourselves cleaned up. If you have a job to do, we're going to have to re-educate you on what your job is regarding the temple and maintaining it.

Hear me, Levites, sanctify yourselves. Sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers and carry out the rubbish from the holy place. Can you imagine? The temple of God? And there was rubbish. Rubbish in there. They had just allowed those things to accumulate. And yet they probably thought they were doing God's will. They probably thought they were obeying God. Well, some along the line, they just weren't, and they no longer were paying any attention to God or what his dwelling place was. Rubbish was in there. It had to be cleaned out. For our fathers, Hezekiah says, have trespassed and done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God.

They've forsaken him. They've turned their faces away from the dwelling place of the Lord and turned their backs on him. You know, when we allow disrepair, when we allow dirt, when we allow rubbish into our lives, and we don't pay attention to the detail in our lives, and we aren't diligently and carefully keeping the law of God, when we aren't diligently and carefully paying attention to what we do, we can accumulate some garbage pretty easily, can't we?

We've all been there. We can look at our lives and say, man, I don't even know how I let myself get to this point. It all needs to be taken out. It all needs to be carried away. I need a clean house again. Just like David in Psalm 51, when he said, created me a clean heart. I've allowed rubbish into my life. Get rid of it. Take it away and wash me with hyssop. Well, this is what they're doing here. And Hezekiah realized, we've dishonored God. We've taken Him for granted. Look what's happened. They've also shut up, verse 7, the doors of the vestibule.

They weren't even open anymore. They've shut up the doors of the vestibule. They've put out the lamps. They haven't burned incense, nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. They haven't done any of those things. God commanded, keep those lamps burning forever. They've let them go out. He said, bring sacrifices to Me. Bring offerings to Me. They haven't done any of it. They've just let it all go by the wayside. And maybe they thought they were doing just fine. We could all be in the same situation that we just let things go. Doing most of the things, but maybe not all of the things.

Things that we think, it's just not that important. It's easier not to do it and get ourselves into a state of lulling ourselves to sleep, becoming complacent, not paying attention to the things that we should be paying attention to if we really are seeking to please our master. Right? As we talked about last week, if we really are seeking to please our master, we do the things the way he wants them done. And all the detail, not just 50% of it or 75% of it or 90% of it, but as God leaves us and opens our minds to all, to all of it.

Well, Hezekiah had a heart that he was going to clean up the house of God. Hezekiah was determined that they were going to obey God the way he wanted to be, obeyed in exactly the way that God had said to do it. Down in verse 11, as he's giving them the charge, you know, we can read these words and we should each of us look at these words as they are spoken directly to us. Verse 11, My sons, don't be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before Him, to serve Him, and that you should minister to Him and burn incense.

And we can take all the spiritual applications of that because we know each one of those words and we know what the spiritual application of those in the New Testament we heard these things. Each one of us should look at this and say, you know what? God has chosen you and me. What a privilege it is. What an honor it is. Not something to be taken lightly, not something to kind of mix it with our own ideas or mix it with our own will, but to yield to Him and do His will, to do His will the way He wants it done.

You know, it's very easy as humans to kind of justify what we do. Any one of us can justify anything we do, right? And say whatever it is. And two verses that we can remember as we're going through and preparing for Passover between now and then because as as Hezekiah says, you know, do it now, do it now, don't be negligent now. Proverbs 14, 12. There is a way that seems right to man. There is a way that seems right to man.

God must understand that it seems so logical to me, but the end thereof is what? The end thereof is the way of death. There is a way that seems right, but the end thereof is the way of death. Proverbs 3 verse 5. Don't lean on your own understanding. Don't lean on your own understanding or the understanding of someone who is trying to, that doesn't have something to do with the word of God. Don't let them know the word of God and understand it and follow it.

Follow it and commit to what He has said. So all this is happening, all this is happening in ancient Israel with Hezekiah in the first month. And we know what happens in the first month. I mean in just a few weeks we'll be in the first month of God's calendar as the month of ABIB begins here or Nisan whatever you want to call it in the first day, you know, right along here as they do these things. And Hezekiah has this tremendous mission. We have to get ready. We have to clean up the house of God. And he says be diligent in it.

Don't be negligent. And in verse 17, 2 Chronicles 29 verse 17 says, they began to sanctify after Hezekiah tells they began to sanctify on the first day of the first month and on the eighth day of the month they came to the vestibule of the Lord. So they sanctified the house of the eternal in eight days and on the 16th day of the first month they finished. Now it took them, that's pretty quick, for everything that had to be cleaned up. They did a job pretty speedily. But they didn't have it done by the 14th of ABIB, did they?

They didn't have it ready by Passover. Now they were on one day after the holy day on the 15th and here they are on the 16th day of the first month. Now they've completed what they set out to do to clean up the house of God. What do they do? The Passover has passed. What do they do at that point? Let's drop down to verse 36 here. As Hezekiah and the story continues with us in chapter 29, you see everything that they did. And it says in verse 36, Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced.

They rejoiced that God had prepared the people since the events took place so suddenly. Look what God has done. He's been with us. We've done His will and they rejoiced. You know, one thing we have to remember, when we do God's will, we rejoice. There are days of gladness. That's the way to joy. That's the way to peace. That's the way to motivation and invigoration. That's the way to excitement for God's way of life. Do His will. It's contagious. It's the energy that God gives us when we do His will.

And that's what was happening to Israel here as they rejoiced, as they saw what God had done. Chapter 30, verse 1, Hezekiah sent to all of Israel and Judah, and he wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh. Remember, they were on the other side of the river, that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the passover to the Lord God of Israel. Well, okay, passover has passed, but He sends letters out to everyone, to all the tribes of Israel.

You know what? I want you to come here. I want you to come here to Jerusalem to keep it. Ephraim and Manasseh don't keep it over there. If you're going to come and keep it, come and keep it with the people of God here.

For the King and His leaders and all the assembly in Jerusalem had agreed to keep the passover in the second month. Now, just how important is the passover to God? The passover is so important. It's the one holy day that He says, if you're not clean, okay, ceremonially clean in the Old Testament. If you're not clean, if you're out of town, if you're sick, if you can't keep the passover on the first day, He made provision for a second passover to be kept. And so Hezekiah is talking about this.

It's like, you know what? The first hope, we weren't ready. We couldn't possibly have been better ready, and the priests weren't ceremonial clean. They couldn't have done it at that time, so they were going to keep it as it explains here in the first three in the second month. For they couldn't keep it at the regular time because a sufficient number of priests had not consecrated themselves, nor had the people gathered together at Jerusalem.

They couldn't get there at that time. They couldn't be there by the 14th. They didn't have the house ready. They didn't have everything cleaned up. They weren't adequately prepared. They weren't even ceremonially clean.

And the matter pleased the king and all the assembly. So they resolved to make a proclamation—there's that word proclamation again—a public proclamation throughout all Israel from Beersheba to Dan that they should come to keep the Passover to the Lord God of Israel at Jerusalem since they had not done it for a long time in the prescribed manner.

It's been a long time since we've done it exactly the way God said to do it, as Achaia said. Maybe they were keeping the Passover, but it had been a long time since they'd done it the way that God said to do it. And there was something they would have to learn from that, and something we can learn from that. And the runners, verse 6, went throughout all Israel and Judah with a letter from the king and his leaders and spoke according to the command of the king. Children of Israel returned to the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Come back to him, look at what he said to do, do it his way. Come back to him.

Then he will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. Come back to him. This Passover, return to him. Do the cleanup. Do the things that you need to do. Get the house in order ahead of time. The people of Israel, or the people of Judah back then, didn't have enough time. They started on the first day of the first month. If we start preparing ourselves for the Passover in the first day of the first month, we've waited too long. There's no excuse for you and me. We've got plenty of time to be examining and getting ready to take the Passover in a worthy manner between now and the evening of April 7th, the 14th of Ava. We have plenty of time. If we don't, it's because we've been negligent. It's because we haven't taken matters into our hands and done what God has said to do, that we have not redeemed the time to do what we need to do to take the Passover in the manner that God would have us do. Verse 7, don't be like your fathers, Hezekiah said, and your brethren, who trespassed against the Lord God of their father so that he gave them up to desolation as you see. Don't be, or verse 8, now don't be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the eternal and enter his sanctuary, which he has sanctified forever, and serve him that the fierceness of his wrath may turn away from you.

You know, stiff-necked. Stiff-necked can be just, we just don't want to hear, right? I can be stiff-necked if someone tells me, if Debbie tells me something over and over again, I can be stiff-necked and say, you know what, I don't believe it, I don't want to hear it, I'm going to believe what I want to believe. But a soft heart, a heart that's shielded to God, may listen to things that she says, that you say, things that I hear from other people, and say, or even thoughts that come into my mind, where God is saying, you know what, there's something you could work on. There's something that isn't exactly the way I would like to have you be. Turn back to me, do it my will, sacrifice your will, deny yourself, but do it the way he said to do it. Not the way you want to do it, necessarily, unless it coincides with what God would want. Don't be stiff-necked. Don't be stiff-necked any longer. So the children of Israel, or the children of Judah here, they kept the Passover. They kept the Passover. Let's look at verse 12 here. As they were going through all these things, as people from the outlying area, some from Ephraim and Asa said, you know, it's too far to go, too far to go, I don't want to go to Jerusalem, you know come on. That really, God wants us to travel all the way to Jerusalem to keep the Passover. That's ridiculous, you know, see that in verse 10. They laughed at them, but some, some did come, some did come to Jerusalem just as they were encouraged to do. And it says in verse 12, the hand of God was on Judah to give them singleness of heart, to obey the command of the king and the leaders at the word of God. Singleness of heart. They came to realize one God. I serve one God. All these years I've been serving these other little gods along the side as well. All these other little gods that kind of get between me and what God's will is. These people, these times, these events, these other whatever it might be that we I've got to do it this way because this is what I want rather than what God wants. All these little gods that, as the children of Israel came out of Egypt, one by one, God took care of those little gods. They came to see it was one God they relied on. We need to come to we need to come with singleness of heart as we discussed again last week as part of the sermon. One God serving Him with singleness of heart. And the people did that. God's hand was on them. God's hand will be on you and me as we purpose to serve Him with singleness, singleness of heart.

We drop down to verse 18. As the people came, it says, a multitude of the people, a multitude of the people, many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was written. They weren't even really theoretically ready by the second Passover. You know, sometimes I hear people say, oh, I don't think I should be keeping the Passover. I'm not, I'm not clean. I haven't done this. Well, you'd have to be perfect to keep the Passover.

If that was the case, none of us would be keeping it, right? God is looking at the heart. What have you done? What has your attitude been leading up to the Passover? Are you looking? Are you examining? Are you doing the things and with your heart trying and building into your life the way to to obey Him and clean up the dirt and the grime? But Hezekiah says, prayed for them, saying, may the good Lord provide atonement for everyone who prepares his heart to seek God.

The Lord God of His fathers, though He isn't cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary, God will you just bless these people? Look, they've prepared their heart. Look where their heart is. They really are trying. They may not be ready in every sense of the Word, but look what they're doing.

Verse 20, God listened. He saw their heart. The Lord listened to Hezekiah, and He healed the people. As you read down, you see there was gladness in Judah as they kept that feast. When we do things God's way, there's gladness. There's a buzz in the air. There's energy in the air. There's invigoration in the air. There's excitement in the air when we do things God's way. If we just kind of lull through it and, oh, we got to do this, and you know I got to do this, and whatever.

Come on. That's not what God wants. He wants us to be excited about His way. And as we prepare for Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, which we'll talk about at another time in more detail at the Bible study and other times, you know, that's what we need to do. Well, we see what Hezekiah did, and we see the gladness. Let's look at one more here, just a couple chapters forward. In 2 Chronicles 35, another notable Passover in the Bible.

And this is, at this time, Josiah is the king. His father was Manasseh, an evil king, an evil king, right? God said, even Josiah, even though the people turned to you under them, what they did under Manasseh was so much, they're still going to go into captivity. But here in chapter 35 and verse 1, you know, we read about Josiah. Hold on just a minute. No, let's just start in verse 34, or chapter 34, I'm sorry. Chapter 34, verse 1. Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and he walked in the ways of his father David.

He didn't assert a side to the right hand or to the left. His mind was what God says, I will do it his way. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David. And in the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem. Here's some of the verses I love reading. I love reading about the old, the kings of the Old Testament, when they were good kings. And what they did is they cleared the landscape, and they went through and said, this has to disappear. This has to go out. This has to be taken away. In the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images.

They broke down the altars of the bales in his presence, and the incense altars which were above them he cut down. And the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images he broke in pieces and made dust of them and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He went through, as you read on, he went through all the land of Judah, and everywhere he saw a high place, everywhere he saw an altar, everywhere he saw an image, he got rid of all of them.

And, of course, the spiritual application to us is God expects us to clear our mental landscape, our physical landscape as well. Get rid of everything that smacks of another God, including yourself. Get rid of it all. Break it down.

Throw it out. Turn it to dust. Don't pay attention to it. Get it out of your life. Josiah did that with all his heart and all of his soul. Verse 5, he also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And he did so in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon as far as Naphtali, and all around with axes. When he had broken down the altars and the wooden images, when he had beaten the carved images into powder and cut down all the incense, altars throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.

In the 18th year of his reign, look how long it took him to do that. Look how committed he was! It was an endeavor for him. In the 18th year of his reign, when he purged the land of the temple, he sent Shaphan and Azaliah, whatever, to the son of Jehoahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord of his God. Here it had fallen into disrepair again. He'd gone through the land and cleaned that up, but here the house of God was still in disrepair. Again, a lesson again, a lesson to us. Well, the rest of chapter 34 talks about more of what he did in detail. In chapter 35, we find him keeping a Passover.

He did all this before he kept the Passover. 2 Chronicles 35 verse 1, Josiah kept the Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem, and they slaughtered the Passover lambs on the 14th day of the first month.

And he set the priests and their duties, and encouraged them for the service of the house of the Lord. And he said to the Levites, who taught all Israel, who were holy to the Lord, put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built. It shall no longer be a burden on your shoulders, and serve the Lord your God and his people. And so, let's go down to, let's go down here later in the chapter.

In verse, verse 17, you can read the rest of chapter 35 on your own, verse 17, it says, The children of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. There had been no Passover kept in Israel like that since the days of Samuel the prophet. And none of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as Josiah kept, with the priests and the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. In the eighteenth year of his reign, this Passover was kept.

You know, notable in that, and the spiritual applications to those of us who have Jesus Christ as our Savior, who have his Holy Spirit, who are led by his Holy Spirit, as we look forward to the Passover and as we contemplate and as we prepare for it, as the Apostle Paul said to prepare for it in 1 Corinthians 11. You know, let's do it the way God said. Let's examine ourselves and see, are we doing what God said? Are our hearts in line with him? Are we committed to him? Are we serving him with singleness of heart? Are we preparing ourselves because now is the time, now is the time, it's too late when you come to the evening of Passover. This is the time, as Paul said, prepare yourself, examine yourselves. If we do it, if we do it in the way God prescribed, we, let's all work together and commit that we will have a Passover like none other.