Remaining Unleavened

[Kevin Call] Well, I want to thank all the ladies for the special music. It's not bad for all virtual, special music. It's amazing what technology will allow us to do these days. So, again, we appreciate that very much. The words are very fitting and it goes hand in hand, obviously, with this season that we're in. And it adds so much to the services. So, again, thank you and look forward to our next special music. Again, Saturday we have one, so look forward to that. And then we'll see what we can do from there on. Well, as we have said many times, welcome to the last day of Unleavened Bread. And again, as has been said many times, this season, this week, has flown by. You know, it's like I mentioned last week, you know, I think it was on a Saturday, you know, you go to the feast and you're there for opening night and you close your eyes, you wake up and it's the last great day. And that seems to be how this, for me anyway, this week went. You know, we were here for the Passover and that kind of starts the ball rolling and gets us in the mood and in the spirit, if you will, for the season. And then, next thing you know, here we are, the last day of Unleavened Bread. 

Every year, God, very mercifully, He takes each and every one of us through the seven Holy Days. It's a series and He has a reason for it. But He takes us through this and He does this to remind each and every one of us, as members of His Church, as members of His family, His plan for us and for all mankind. And that is an act of a loving, merciful God. Each Holy Day that He shows us, it reveals extremely important lessons. Brethren, you and I are to not just live in the moment, but are to live throughout our lives. And they are designed for you and I to imprint on our mind, on our hearts, and in our character, so that we can become, or go on the road to perfection, if you will, to Jesus Christ, to become just like Him. And that's what we're supposed to do.

You think back, some of us have rehearsed these Holy Days for, oh, dozens and dozens of years. And it never fails. Every time that we go through these, if we are looking, we learn something new. And that's a good thing, because that in itself shows the very fact that, brethren, you and I are still and are willing to continue to learn, to grow, to grow in God's truth, in the greatest knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that's what we're doing. This Passover season is no different. You know, this Passover season includes Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.

And this is especially meaningful. The Passover is referred to in the Bible as one of the most solemn nights of the year. And that is simply because of what it commemorates. And that is the very sacrificial death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, willingly going through that. In His own body, Jesus Christ will only bore our sins. Brethren, the very sins and honor that has allowed you and I to have the death penalty. He bore those sins, making it very possible for you and I to have now forgiveness. And I'm just recapping.

We know all this. But this allows us to be justified before God the Father. And that is extremely important. And this is ultimately the offering that each and every one of us are to make because this is our road to salvation. Because of this very thing, coming before God at this time is tremendously significant for each and every one of us. And I remember maybe growing up in the church and as a youngster thinking, well, here we go, another Holy Day. I got to go to church again. But quite honestly, I've come to the point where now I look forward to it.

And I, you hope, you don't you? I hope we all do. I hope we all have come to that point in our life where we look forward to the Holy Days. We look forward to the Sabbath. We look forward to being with each other, to seeing each other. And, Brad, I look forward to the time that we can all get together again and visit physically. Some of us, again, there's three of us here today, and we've had the opportunity.

We've been blessed to be able to meet us straight together every week. But hopefully it won't be much longer. We'll all be able to meet again together. I would guess that most of us probably prepare more spiritually for this season, this past overseas, days on the bread season, than any other season. Now, yes, we do think about it, and we do study, we do pray for all the Holy Days and our understanding for that. But before this season, how many times have we asked and commanded to examine ourselves, even before Passover, to see what, if we're worthy to take the Passover?

You think about the Feast of Tabernacles. You know, right now we're in the middle of preparing for the Feast of Tabernacles. We're making our arrangements. We're securing our lodging. Yes, that is biblical. And so that you can say that's spiritual, and it is. But at the same time, that's much needed, much required. So it's a physical act that we have to do. Then you can move on through all the Holy Days. I'm not going to look at all of them. But you look at the Day of Atonement. The Bible says, God's Word says, that's another solemn time. And we indeed prepare to fast and draw closer to God.

And maybe you are like this too, but for me, I can't hardly just go into a fast. Somebody can't just go into and say, hey, let's fast starting tonight. I can't if I have to, but I kind of need to mentally prepare for it. When you think about the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Atonement, we have a year to start preparing for that. And we really have no excuse not to be ready when that time comes. But for Passover season, we prepare again by deeply examining ourselves. We need to look inside ourselves as nobody else can do, only God. And we need to see what is our spiritual progress. Where is it? How's it been this year? Where do we want to go? Where do we want to change it? What changes do we expect to make? All of these questions we need to ask ourselves. We're told to do this.

Now, let's turn to 1 Corinthians 11. We'll read a couple of different section of the Scripture in 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, both. And these are Scriptures that we read last week. But I think that it's a good opportunity to review them again. 1 Corinthians 11 is the first section. And I'm reading from the New King James. Most everything I believe today I'm using the New King James version.

1 Corinthians 11:27-29 It says, “Therefore, whoever eats this bread and drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.” 

In other words, brethren, we are supposed to look at ourselves so deeply that there is absolutely no doubt in our mind after we've examined ourselves, after we've taken it to God, and after we've repented for our sins of the past year, the past day, and asked God to cleanse us so we will be clean, so we can take the Passover and the days of our living bread in a worthy manner. Now let's go ahead and go forward to 2 Corinthians 13. We'll notice what Paul says here. 2 Corinthians 13, we'll look at verses 5 through 6. And he goes on to confirm or reconfirm what he said in 1 Corinthians. 

2 Corinthians 13:5 He said, “Examine yourself as to whether you are in the faith.” 

Now that right there is a pretty serious self-examination. Have we gone through this past year and have we looked back and even thought to ourselves that I might not be in the faith? Well, hopefully we'll say no, but then again, what if by some small degree we find that we might be out of faith in an area? Did we take the time to examine ourselves and check that point? Take it to God and ask God to help us. He goes on to say, “Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?” In other words, he's trying to comfort us. He said, remember that Jesus Christ is in you. He will help you. And then he goes on to say, “Unless indeed you are disqualified.” 

That's probably one of the most frightening passages linked to self-examination in the whole Bible. This is a self-evaluation. Are we or are we not in the faith? Are we or are we not living a godly life? Are we or are we not living a way that God has called us to live and honoring God in doing that? So here we see a very strong command and a very strong warning to do that self-examination. And then he says, test yourselves. There is a command. But why? Well, again, as he just said, to see if we really are in the faith in all aspects of our life. Are we willing, like we say in the offering, are we willing to give everything in this physical life that we may obtain complete salvation and eternal life? But look at verse 6. 

2 Corinthians 13:6 He says, “But I trust that you will know that we are not disqualified. Brethren, if God is for us, who can be against us?” 

If we haven't left the faith, if we find ourselves questioning, you know, did I do this right? Did I do that right? We're not disqualified. We can only know if we're disqualified, though, through the very act of self-examination. This will reveal to each and everyone of us where we stand spiritually and if we are truly faithful. It comes down to the only ones that know are you, myself, and God. I know and God knows. You know and God knows. I don't know you 100% if you're faithful or not, and you don't know whether I'm faithful or not, but God does know. And that's really where it comes down to. That's why we're supposed to do this deep, deep self-examination. So, this introspection here, it helps us, brethren, to take the Passover in a worthy manner. It helps us to be re-cleansed of our sins because we sin every day, and this is something we very, very much need. 

So, during this season, we concentrate very, very much, and we take extra precaution to put this sin out of our lives. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't stop? Wouldn't it be great if, as we took this special effort to clean our homes and clean everything that we own, to ensure that we were 11 free? Wouldn't it be great if we continued to do that in our lives, even after sunset tonight, tomorrow? And I'm not saying don't enjoy a pizza. I'm not saying don't enjoy a fluffy loaf of bread. What I am saying is do not enjoy sin. Don't pick back up on sin. If we've gotten a trait cleansed out of our lives, let's keep it cleansed out of our lives. We understand that physical leavening just symbolizes sin. At the same time, we understand what searching it out, the details of searching it out, means it's an attempt to find sin in every little aspect of our life, the little nicks and crannies of our life. And then it's an effort to find it, remove it, put it as far away from us as we can. So what we say in our personal lives is that we can clean our homes, pictures a greater effort of searching, a greater effort of removing this hidden and hard to find sins from our lives, our everyday life. And as we already said, and we're going to continue to say, rather than this, it must remain an ongoing effort in our lives to do this. This is what God wants. This is why God has us repeat this every year. He would love to know that we learned it, we do it, and we never back down. But we do. We fall short.

Then, before taking part of Passover each year, each of us would work extra hard to make sure that we're not sinning. And this is what we need to do. We need to take this level, whatever level we've taken our personal life to, our spiritual life, wherever it's at, we need to maintain that and grow from there. We don't want to come down on that level. So if we're at 80 percent, next year we want to be at 85 or better. We don't want to be at 75. We want to maintain the minimum of where we're at only to use as a foundation and grow from there. We don't want to maintain. I'm not saying we want to maintain because God didn't call us to stay the same. He called us to change and to grow. So we want to take the standard wherever we are now and grow from there. And next year we'll grow even more and so forth and so on. We do understand that in this life we can never ever be totally blameless of our own. But we want to signify to God our desire and our diligence to strive for that definition of blameless, which is putting sin out of our life. We want to signify to God that this is who we are and this is our goal for you, Father. This is what we want to be. We want to do this just as much as we possibly can. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 5 again.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 “Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that the old eleven is a whole lump? Therefore purge out the old eleven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old eleven, nor with the eleven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 

Because the spring Holy Day season makes us acutely conscious of how we are living, we walk softly before God, wanting to be right with Him in every aspect of our life this time of year. Why don't we take that same approach for the rest of the year? We should. We should. This Holy Day season sets the pace for the rest of the year. This, in fact, is the beginning of God's plan of salvation. He's establishing these rules and these laws for us to not just use once this week and then let it go until next year, but to take them and build on them, use them as a foundation. The Days of Unleavened Bread, it hammers this point. It does this deeply for seven days. With that said, many of us do resolve to do better. And that's a good thing. We need to continue on to the next Holy Day and take them one Holy Day at a time, but not forgetting what we've learned in our road leading to that Holy Day. So now we're on to our next point in God's plan of salvation, which is Pentecost. And we just can't leave the Passover Days of Unleavened Bread behind us. Right?

I fear too many times we've done that. We've gotten through them and we said, okay, it's the last Day of Unleavened Bread, and tonight after sunset at 8.02, I'm immediately going to run to Arby's and have a deluxe Arby's Burger with the thickest bun I can find. And then we don't think about the Days of Unleavened Bread or Passover until next March and April.

We must leave the physical days behind, but we absolutely should not leave behind the significance of the lessons and the meanings of this season. We need to build on this and take this with us. This is our lifeblood. Unfortunately, some of us tend to forget the last Holy Day, and we start focusing on the things that's next to come. But here's the thing, brethren. As time progresses towards Christ's return, God expects more of each and every one of us than just to traditionally go through these Holy Days and let it go. He expects much more of us than that. Let's notice a few scriptures here. I think we're all familiar with 2 Peter 3 verse 18, and understanding that God commands us to grow in spiritual knowledge. Quote of this already. 

2 Peter 3:18 “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen." 

This is a command for us to not let down, not stop. Continue to grow. Grow is an action word. It's a process. We start it whenever we start, and we don't stop. Hebrews 6 and verse 1 is another one. There's another one.

Hebrews 6:1 It says this, "Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teaching about Christ, and be taken forward to maturity, not laying against the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God." 

Certainly, we take the Passover and the Days of the Unleavened Bread every year. And I again hope and pray that we learn something new, and then we reinforce what we've already known, and we couple those two together, and we become a stronger Christian. That is growing in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But instead of forgetting the point of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and just moving on, we have to take the meaning of being unleavened. We have to take that with us. We have to carry it with us all year long. And again, this has to be used as a foundation in which we can build our lives throughout the upcoming year.

In other words, we must continue to work hard to remain unleavened as the year goes on. We don't know what trials and tribulations are going to be there tomorrow. We do know the Satan's going to throw every roadblock he can in front of us to cause us to sin, to cause us to put that leavening, right, spiritual leavening, right back into our lives. But you think about these days. This is the first Holy Day of the season, and it sets the pace for the rest of the year. And now we are on the second Holy Day. We are drawing an end and a conclusion to the days of Unleavened Bread. What will we do?

The Holy Days are far more than just a required holy convocation, and that they are. God does not want us to sigh with relief at sunset when they pass, and then we just slip back into habits and weaknesses that we have accumulated over the years. And as we know, the older we get, it seems like the more possibly bad habits and faults, weaknesses, if you will, that we accumulate. God doesn't want us to take those with us. He wants us to get rid of them. God never does anything without a purpose. The purpose of the Holy Days is to teach each and every one of us lessons that we will need to learn and we will need to keep forever. And it goes back to our calling. He doesn't do anything without a purpose. He called you and I for a purpose. And today, that purpose is to absolutely live his way of life, but be that godly example, that Christly example for our co-workers, the people we meet on the street, the people we meet in grocery stores and schools. Wherever it's at, we have to be that example. The days we've only been bred this year will be ending in just a few hours. But here's the thing. The spiritual lessons that we're taught and are there for us to learn will be eternal. I'm sure that we all remember what Matthew 6 and verse 33 says. You don't have to turn there. It's a memory scripture. You can turn there if you like. 

Matthew 6:33 But it says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” 

Okay, now there's the two things we're supposed to seek first. Then he goes on to say, then if you do that, everything else that we need, because when you read a few verses leading up to this, it talks about the physical needs of the people of God, the people in general. But you see, if you seek the kingdom of God first and his righteousness first, then all these things will be added to you. In other words, he says, get your priorities straight and I'll take care of you. That's what that verse says. Christ instructed us that our first priority is to strive to be in God's kingdom with an attitude and a character of righteousness. If anybody told you those are going to be easy things to achieve, they misled you. We know in this physical life those are tough, but you know what? Anything worth having is worth fighting for, and that is worth having.

God expects us to watch our steps and work to live a righteous life in this world. Yes, I know, sometimes that seems kind of crazy. It seems ridiculous to think that we as human beings could live a righteous life in this world. Guess what? We can, as much as possible. God will be there for us. Solomon succinctly lists what we need to be doing. Let's go to Proverbs 4.In Proverbs 4, we'll look at verse 23-27.

Proverbs 4:23-27 Says, “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put perverse lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path before you and let your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left. Remove your foot from evil.” 

In other words, brethren, focus on the kingdom of God. Focus on His righteousness and seek that. Let that be our guiding light. Let that be what we're focused on and what draws us to walk this path in life. And when we do that, these are the things that hit us, and they'll hit us every day. They'll bounce off. Now, they might put a dent in us. They might put a scar on us. But if we stay focused on God, we keep going that direction. They will not stick. And that's the main thing. The sense of the phrase in this section of keep your heart, that's what we need to exert more vigilance in guarding our minds. This is a hard thing to do. But we need to do this. Governments go to great pains to guard their installations, to establish their plans and keep their secrets. But God says that it is even more important, brethren, for us to guard what we allow to reside in our minds. Why is that so important? Well, it's because our hearts and our minds, they guide and direct everything that we do, everything that we say. They guide and direct everything that we are. And if we don't guard and protect them the way God has instructed us to from ungodly ideas, ungodly beliefs, ungodly entertainment, then guess what? We will have spiritual downfall. The thing is, it's in our minds and our hearts that our character, whatever that is, that's where it's shaped. And if we allow perverse and unrighteous character to enter us, then the righteous character that God wants to see in us, it will never form. Or even if it's there, and we allow this other to come in, it will start to diminish. It's the very same thing with taking sin out. Get rid of leavening and put unleavened in. We have to get these perverse thoughts, these ungodly attitudes and actions out of our life and allow God to put His Spirit in our life and to grow that Spirit to become more godly. God has told us many times that He will not be in sin. So we want to get that out and allow God to be in. 

The other instruction that Solomon gives springs from this very section of Scripture also. He tells us to ponder and control what comes out of our mouth and ponder and control what we allow our eyes to view. He teaches us that we are to make our feet sure and to stay on the right path. He gives us all this encouragement. Remember, this is a very wise man, wisdom from God. What he says carries a lot of weight and there's a lot of credibility to this. How do we take it? Do we take it sincerely or do we just read it as poetry? This means, brethren, that we should not become involved in insensitive, hasty, careless and destructive actions. We have to stay away from this. And there is so much of that out there in this world. It's on every corner and it's waiting just to grab us. We have to see it, identify it and stay away from it. The prophet Haggai puts all this very concisely. He says, consider your ways. Let's take a look at this in Haggai 1. Haggai 1, a lot of times we don't go to Haggai that often. We'll take a quick look at it in Haggai 1. If I can find it. There it is. Haggai 1 and read verses 5 through 7. He kind of uses this, consider your ways attitude as bookends. Look what he says here in Haggai 1, starting verse 5. 

Haggai 1:5-7 “Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. This is like examining yourself.” It's another way of saying it. Consider your ways. “You have sown much and bring in little. You eat but do not have enough. You drink but you are not filled with drink. You clothe yourself but no one is warm. And he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways.” 

This is what self-examination is all about. Look at the little things in our life. Not the big things. You know, the big things are obvious. If we're not coming to church on the Sabbath when we can, if we're not keeping the Sabbath, if we're not tithing, if we're not keeping the commandments of God, these are the big things. It's the little things that God wants to know. Was I courteous? Was I polite? Did I represent Jesus Christ in the way I treated this person? Did I use godly judgment? Did I use godly love in dealing with people? That's the little things that God wants to know how we're doing. Another of Solomon's Proverbs summarizes this second principle here as we need to consider Proverbs 11. Proverbs 11 will be verse 27.

 Proverbs 11:27 Says, “He who diligently seeks good finds favor, but trouble will come to him who seeks evil.” 

This proverb is right on target. You know, the individuals who strive after God to do what is right, whether conscious of it or not, is striving after the positive results that will come from living a godly way of life. In the same way, a person who decides to live contrary to God's way of life will automatically produce negative results. Go to Galatians 6. This is the principle Paul mentioned here in Galatians 6 verses 7 through 9.

Galatians 6:7-9 “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will reap also. For he who sows to the flesh will reap the corruption, but he who sows to the spirit will reap the spirit.” Let me reread that. “But he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” 

Brethren, when we truly remain unleavened, we reap the godly reward of godly living. And we have that in terms of peace, contentment, mercy. The peace surpasses all understanding. And ultimately, we keep doing this, it leads to eternal life. But the person who lets down and decides to give in and lead a life of sin will reap adversity. They will reap misery, destruction, and ultimately that leads to eternal death. That's the two paths. So again, we can look back to the book of Proverbs and how it often makes contrast between diligence, which is positive virtue, and laziness, which is a negative virtue. I'll quote this to you.

Proverbs 12:24 Says, “The hand of a diligent will rule, but the slothful will be put to forced labor.”

Brethren, unless and until an individual changes his ways, a lazy person will descend to being a servant of others, while a diligent person will grow. They will prosper and they will have control of their own life. It doesn't mean that they'll always be in business for themselves, but it means they will have control of their own life. We are to become and remain diligent in our lives as God's children. That's what we're called to do. And here's the thing. Spiritually, the stakes are much higher. Those who strive to master themselves and live a godly life, to exercise self-control and be under God's presence, they will rule in the Kingdom of God. He tells us this. Let's take a quick look at this in Revelation 3. Revelation 3, verse 21. I'm going to read a couple different scriptures here in Revelation.

Revelation 3:21 Says, "To him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my father on his throne." 

So we see two things there. We see basically a requirement. If we want to be in the Kingdom of God, we have to overcome. Overcome what? Well, overcome sin. That's where it all starts. We have to overcome sin. And then we see the example that Jesus Christ said. He overcame. He never sinned, but He overcame the sin of this world. He overcame Satan. And He went to sit with God on His throne. And He gives us that same thing, the same offer. If you go forward to chapter 5 and verse 9 and 10, we see this in another encouraging section of Scripture, Revelation 5 verse 9 and 10. 

Revelation 5:9-10 “And they sang a new song, saying, ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open a seal. For you were slain, and you have redeemed us to God by your blood, out of every tribe and time, and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth.’” 

This is part of what lies ahead for us if we stay the course, if we remain unleavened. This is just some of the positives that we absolutely need to remember as we continue on and continue in the faith, and as we willingly stay 100% committed to God and His way of life. Now, the other side of the coin is the fact that for those who sloughly neglect this way, this fact, this task, they could possibly lose everything. Let's notice Paul's warning in Hebrews 2.

Hebrews 2:1-3 “So therefore, we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proves steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him?” 

Very good point he makes here. Let's take a look at yet one more explanation of this in Matthew 24. Matthew 24, verses 45 through 51.

Matthew 24:45-51 “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Brethren, even though we give special emphasis to each Holy Day in their season, and we should, that's by right. It would be ideal to carry the lessons from each of these Holy Days with us throughout the year. It's something we need to do. Just imagine, brethren, if we did this, there would be absolute and no limit to our individual spiritual growth, which means that there would be no limit to our collective spiritual growth. The understanding of God's way is cumulative. It's a process of many years, and it's a process of many efforts. And every one of us have control of this, take part of this. However, if we fail to appreciate our salvation, and if we neglect to remember the lessons that we have just learned through these Holy Days, the absolute reverse will take place. And we need to avoid that at all costs. The thing is, brethren, some have drifted so far.

Like the Hebrews that Paul is talking about, they will need to be retaught, the first principles of life. Let me just quote Hebrews 5 verse 12 to you. You don't have to turn there. Paul was talking to them, and he said this. At least we understand it to be Paul. 

Hebrews 5:12 “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again, the first principles of the oracles of God. And you have come to need milk and not solid food.” 

Brethren, we do not want to regress. We don't want to go back. We want to keep moving forward. Again, we've set that standard for ourselves this year, wherever it's at. Now, that's our new zero, if you will. We have to go from there. We cannot go to the other side of that.

God knows the effort that requires for us to change, and he is faithful to reward each and all of us for our efforts and our labors. In fact, that is what he promises to do. I'd like to notice another section of Scripture here in Hebrews 6. Hebrews 6 verses 9 through 12.

Hebrews 6:9-12 ”But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you have shown towards his name, in that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promise.” 

Brethren, that needs to be us. It has to be us. God will not fail to reward his people in their efforts, their efforts to live his way of life. But we need to make sure that we continue to do that. I'd like to turn to one more section of Scripture that I want to read as we start to close here. It's back in Matthew 25. I want to read several Scriptures here. I'm going to start in verse 31. Matthew 25 verse 31 through 46. Again, I apologize to Wally for having to put the Scriptures on the screen. I hope it gets them off for you. 

Matthew 25:31-46 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will gather before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. The king will say to those on the right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.’” These are the little things don't forget that. “Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when do we see you hungry and feed you thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in? Or the naked things or the naked and clothed you? Or when did we see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ And the king will answer and say to them, ‘As surely I say to you, and as much as you did this for one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to me. You did it to me.’ Then he will also say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me no food. I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and you did not take me in, naked, and you did not clothe me. Sick and in prison, and you did not visit me.’ Then they will all answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or as strange or naked or sick or in prison and did not answer to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘As surely I say to you, and as much as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” 

It goes back to, are we living a truly godly life? In everything. The little things. Because the little things is what makes the difference. Paul emphasized that we absolutely have to show diligence in pursuing eternal life. And you caught that, I hope. He said, to the very end, ironically, to our dying breath. When we do this, brethren, we have God's promise, promises, I should say, that we will inherit all things that are in store for us in this First Resurrection. Let me just quote to you Revelation 20:6 for our final Scripture. Revelation 20:6.

Revelation 20:6 It says, “Blessed and holy is he who has partied in this First Resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years.” 

Brethren, this is our short-term plan. We are God's called-out children. This is a short-term plan for us, and yes, there's a long-term plan. That is eternal life in the kingdom, but we have to get there. We have to make sure that we have set that bar, or if we set it for ourselves this holiday season. Now, what are we going to do with it? Are we going to grow and go from there? Or are we going to let that be our standard for the year? So, because of the sacrifice made for each and every one of us, and that wonderful promise that God has extended to each and every one of us, brethren, let us take the magnificent effort that we all made in preparing for this Passover season and these days on Unleavened Bread. Let's take those lessons that we've learned through this holiday season, and let's put them into action, and let's grow on them. Just because Unleavened Bread ends today at sunset, this absolutely does not mean we should become leavened again. So, brethren, our task, and a tough one at that, but our task is to remain unleavened all year long. I hope you all have a absolutely wonderful final day of Unleavened Bread and what's left of it, and you are all doing well. And again, I look forward to hopefully seeing you all very soon, and we will speak to you again on Saturday.