The Sin That Ensnares Us

First of all, thank you so much. The Garden Grove Choir did a wonderful job. That was very moving and powerful. That can taught us something special that we are able to do, and we're even able to glean a little more out of it the following week because we have special music that's already been prepared. So thank you, Dan, for preparing that. Thank you, Jerry and George Meyer, for helping us out here with the stage.

Brethren, I truly love to share God's truths with you. I'm not one that's very talkative. I wouldn't be doing these things unless it was something assigned to me. And also because God's truths are so wonderful. It's such a great privilege. It's undeserved, but on this first day of Unleavened Bread, there's so much meaning from God's Word. I have a handout to pass out. I'm going to be reading from it, and I'd like for you to keep that. Put it in your Bibles because it is such a significant statement. If I were to teach church history beginning around the fourth century, all the way through the Middle Ages, this would be the introduction I would give, the handout that will be passed out now.

The beginning of the days of Unleavened Bread means seven days of eating Unleavened Bread. Now, what if the feast was instead of the feast of not drinking wine? Instead of eating Unleavened Bread, we wouldn't have to search for it. Anybody has some wine? Just get rid of the bottles, and basically, that would be all you needed. It would be very easy, but the feast of Unleavened Bread is not easy to carry out. Everybody has been working hard taking all the leavening out of their homes. It's not like taking a bottle of wine out. You have to go through and clean the corners, and it truly is a spring cleaning. Most of the men have to clean the cars, and you know how much you have little crumbs here or there. So it takes a lot of work. I'm sure everybody sweated a bit after getting rid of all that Unleavened Bread.

Now, if it was a feast of not drinking wine, there wouldn't be the right lessons. That's why God did not do it. So He had very carefully designed the days of Unleavened Bread for the spiritual lessons that He wanted us to learn.

The days of Unleavened Bread represent the cleansing of the church after the Passover. During the middle of the Unleavened Bread season came Christ's resurrection, fulfilling the ceremony of the wave chief offering. So the Christ resurrection is included in God's feasts. It has to do first with the Passover, Christ's sacrifice, and then during the days of Unleavened Bread you have the wave chief offering, which represents Christ being accepted by God the Father and His resurrection rising up. And then we have the last day of Unleavened Bread, which is a lesson in itself. And so it's very complete, the spiritual lessons. That's why the tragedy that today, traditional Christianity is starting to prepare for their Easter, Sunday, and how different the messages are. Anybody that studies a little bit about Easter, you can look it up and see that it has to do with pagan traditions. And that today, nowadays, people have the symbolism of the Easter bunnies and hot cross buns and many other things. They have the Palm Sunday in the Catholic Church, many things that are not instructed by God. And so, of course, people have their Easter, but they've forgotten the deep spiritual lessons that God designed for the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. Now, in prophecy, the Passover and Unleavened Bread actually can be projected out to two particular events. One had to do with Christ when He came and fulfilled as a Passover lamb, and then God cleansing His people of sin. And now we start preparing the Church to receive God's Spirit, which is the Feast of Pentecost. Well, that's one of the fulfilled prophecies. But the second one has to do with when Christ returns. And we have the trumpets and all the fall feasts. But also, Passover and Unleavened Bread project as well, with the Passover being the lamb that comes to the earth. He is symbolized in Revelation 19 as the Lamb of God. And then He comes and He establishes a reign of purity for a thousand years. Satan is not going to be there. We're going to have a world of unleavened bread, of purity, as Peter mentioned in 2 Peter, it's going to be where righteousness will reign, where we will not have sin like it reigns today on this earth. It's going to be a time of rest from sin. It's going to be a time of joy. It's going to be a time of happiness as it was brought out. It's going to be fun to be in the kingdom of God, just like in the Feast of Tabernacles. That's a fun time to fellowship with the brethren. And it projects out as we renew the face of the earth. People are going to be true brothers and sisters. There are not going to be any more wars or threats of destruction like presently we have. In one of the, it was the Economist magazine of this last week, they had a kind of a cartoon about the nuclear option, which had to do with the politics and getting the Supreme Court nominated. But then they said, well, we also have another nuclear option. North Korea has it. And there was a big mushroom cloud in the background. So we are living under the shadow of that nuclear mushroom cloud. It's not something to be comfortable about. It really is a very dangerous time we are living in.

And so the ultimate fulfillment is this Lamb of God who's going to establish this unleavened kingdom during those thousand years, just like the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, pictures, Christ's reign. So there's also this parallel, the beginning, the spring feast, also projects that way. Now, what a contrast to what is being kept by traditional Christianity, as I have brought out. It's been the controversy through the centuries from the time of Jesus Christ establishing His Church. And then we had the apostles faithfully teaching about the Passover and the Sabbath. But then in the second century, we see that Rome starts changing the Passover. And then slowly it starts changing the Sabbath to Sunday as well. That's why I'd like to read this quote from Donna and Mal Brodhurst. It's called Passover Before Messiah and After. Has anybody ever read that book? Anybody has? Well, now you can get a Kindle edition or whatever. It's a very good resource. They're both historians. And I thought it was remarkable what they admitted here from their research. They say Constantine took a militant anti-Semitic position at the Council of Nicaea. We have talked about this in the past. The fact that Christianity had never had religious fellowship with non-Christian Jews means the Jews referred to by Constantine were Christian Jews. So that's a remarkable insight that when Constantine made his decree that now the Passover was not going to be kept, but Easter was going to be kept, and he was saying we're not going to have anything to do with the Jews, he was referring to Christian Jews. Because, you see, in the Christian community, the Jews were not keeping the Christian Passover. This is a dispute inside the Christian church. It wasn't dealing with the outside what the Jews did or didn't do. He goes on to say, church law had been laid down by Constantine. No longer could any Christian celebrate Christian Passover the way John the Apostle or Philip the Apostle and other Christian Jews had celebrated it. All were required to celebrate on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisai or Abib in the Old Testament. It is inconceivable that Jewish Christians could have escaped a struggle with the bitterness after the Council of Nicaea. Oh, a lot of people celebrated, but the Christian Jewish community and those that were continuing on keeping the Sabbath and the Passover, this was a body blow. This was terrible because now those who kept the Passover, like the apostles, were going to be hounded and persecuted by the Roman Empire. Continuing on, it says, it is understandable that they withdrew into themselves. It is understandable that non-Christian Jews would have no interest in investigating the beliefs of such a church. And I put here, and vice versa. So you see there was a separation. Those that wanted to keep Sunday and Easter under the Catholics and the Roman Emperor, they went their ways. And then those that continued with the Jewish Christian roots, because after all, Jesus had been a Jew. All of these, John, had been a Jew, but they were Jewish Christians. And so the Jewish Christian church separated from the church at Rome and Alexandria. They go on to say, as far as Christian Passover is concerned, the beginning of the Dark Ages can be set at 325 AD with the Council of Nicaea. That's a conclusion these historians came to. Along with turning their backs on Christian Jews, the Gentiles turned their backs on the Jewish scriptures. They no longer used the Old Testament and the New together. They disallowed Christian Jewish input to their faith, lifestyle, and worship. So you see now what had been the original church centered in Jerusalem. Now we had a Gentile church that splits, and they don't want anything to do with the true teachings of the church.

They became persecutors of the Christian Jews. And of course, it's not talking here about Jewish nationality. We're talking about Jewish Christians, those that continued with the original faith. In place of the Exodus Passover story to inspire a sense of justice and freedom for all men, the Gentile church had the words and example of power-hungry leaders who taught oppression. They were very happy to use Constantine's sword to impose their teachings upon the church. It took a major reformation centuries later, virtually 1,200 years later, to begin to undo the horror and destruction the church brought on the world when the Gentiles at Nicaea formally adopted the policy of having, quote, nothing in common with the Christian Jews.

So that's the beginning of the real split. And of course, we are the descendants, the spiritual descendants of the Christian Jews at that time. We trace our background to those that continue to keep the Sabbath and the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread from those that keep Easter and Easter Sunday. And of course, they have no place nor understanding what the Days of Unleavened Bread means. Of course, if we were in a police state in the Middle Ages, as it was, we would be hiding out, listening to sermons like this. We probably would not last very long. I know I wouldn't. Would you be prepared to take the baton and continue teaching? Because today, thankfully, we can meet in peace, but that has been the exception to the rule. So why do we keep the New Testament Passover and Unleavened Bread? The first reason is because they are commandments of God showing His will. It comes from the divinely inspired word. So the first thing is, if we call ourselves Christians, we're going to follow what God says in the Bible. And He instructs us from the time of Sinai, where He spoke His law to mankind. And Christ one day will speak from Jerusalem about the laws of God for mankind. So this is a continuation of these wonderful truths. And secondly, because it is very important due to the spiritual lessons that we should learn, this is not some senseless ceremony. This is something that has great meaning. The God who designed the universe, who designed the trees, the animals, everything we see around us, designed these days so He knows what He's doing. That's why it's not the days of not drinking wine, because that's not the lessons that He wants us to take from this. So what are these lessons? That's what we want to focus on today. Let's go to the clearest instructions in the New Testament about the spiritual meaning of the feast. It's a very interesting section. It starts in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, and we can see how it applies to our day. 1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 14.

Paul, the pastor of the church here, he was not able to live with them. He was traveling to different churches, and so he sent this letter, which is a type of a sermon that he's giving them. He says in 1 Corinthians 4, verse 14, he says, I do not write these things in this letter to shame you, but as my beloved children, I warn you. For though you might have 10,000 instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I have begotten you through the gospel. So he says, remember that I came to Corinth. This was a congregation that was raised up. God used me to raise this up.

Therefore, I urge you imitate me. For this reason, I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach everywhere in every church. So he had this young minister, and he accompanied him, and he sent Timothy to Corinth because there wasn't a local pastor there. And there were a lot of problems when you don't have a local pastor. There are all kinds of leaders that raise up, and they have their opinions about things. And, well, we should be doing this, and we should be doing... And then there are schisms. There are separations. There are groups. There are all kinds of things because not everybody's thinking the same way. And so he goes on to say, verse 18, Now some are puffed up as though I were not coming to you. So again, the some are those would-be spiritual leaders among themselves, and they felt, well, we don't need Paul. We've got us. We've got... We can teach spiritual things. We can make decisions for people here.

Verse 19, he says, But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power. So they're going to have to face the apostle Paul.

For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. The proper authority exercised in a loving way. What do you want? Shall I come to you with a rod or in love and a spirit of gentleness? He's asking, well, how do you want to be with me? Are you going to be contentious? Are you going to, you know, face me and confront me? Or do you want me to be there with you in love and a spirit of gentleness? And then he deals with basically the background of why he introduces the theme of Unleavened Bread in chapter five. He goes on to say in verse one, It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father's wife. So here they had different families that came to the Corinthian church and there was a young man. The way it's talked here, the father's wife, he doesn't say it's his mother, but it would be his stepmother. And that they were having sexual relations.

Verse two, And you are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. So again, the self-appointed leaders there had sort of said, well, yes, this person's having a problem, but we should express love. We should express tolerance. And we really feel that's going to work out. Just let's give it more time. And Paul wasn't that way at all. He was upset.

He says in verse three, For I indeed as absent in the body, I'm not there, but present in spirit, I have the same spirit that you do, have already judged as though I were present him who has done this deed. So Paul, as the pastor, said, I'm going to have to take action. Even if I'm not there, this is urgent. This is damaging. The church relations. People know about this. Some people are upset because how can this go on? Others are rather a bit of the kind of milk toasts and, you know, wringing their hands, not doing anything about it, hoping it'll all go away. So you're always going to have this. I imagine if I took a poll or a survey and say, well, brethren, if we have this problem, how many would do this? And we'd have a bunch of people that would say yes. And then I'd say, well, how many would say, opposed to this? There's always going to be some. We're not going to have 100 percent unanimity on anything. Usually that's the case. And so he goes on to say in verse four, this is his declaration. And again, this is a good point to see how the church was ruled at that time. This wasn't a bunch of democracy where everybody in the congregation knew everything. And well, go ahead. You guys handle it for yourselves. You're going to have chaos. You're always going to have people that are going to butt heads together. And so in a sense, the minister is the one that's there to keep the peace, deal with the situation. Let's all work together with it. And of course, there's a confidentiality involved here. You don't want to be telling everybody some people's sins, right? So he goes on to say, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, again talking about authority, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So this person needs to be disciplined. And this means being separated from the congregation, what we call suspension, temporary suspension. The person cannot have fellowship with us until the person repents, changes their behavior. You can keep your finger here and go to another scripture which brings us up in 1 Timothy 1.20. Here were some troublemakers that Paul had to deal with in a similar way. 1 Timothy 1.20.

It says, some have departed from the faith. In verse 20, it says, of whom are Hymnias and Alexander, whom I deliver to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. So they were saying vicious things, wrong things, heretical things. Now, the way Paul taught how to deal with these things was not in a harsh and authoritarian manner. Let's go to one scripture here in 2 Timothy. We're going to come back to Corinthians, but just to show what God instructs us how to deal with these types of difficult situations.

He goes on to say here in verse 24 of 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 24, he says, And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth. They wake up from their attitude and wake up from what they're doing wrong, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. So again, he says, you've got to be gentle, patient, but you deal with the problems. You don't run away from them. You don't cover them up. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 5. So we've covered up to verse 5. It goes on to say in verse 6, Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are a leaven, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us.

Now, Nelson's commentary has a good comment on this. It says, evil can never be remedied by ignoring or hiding it. In fact, covering it up is the worst that can happen. For like yeast, evil does its terrible work from within. The same is true of believers who live in consistent disobedience to God's express will. Their behavior will badly infect the larger groups, of which they are a part. It can even lead to a distorted perception of sin, in which the group tolerates or even approves of disobedience among its own members, yet condemns outsiders for the very same activity. So people can be outraged with us going outside in the world, but then they turn a blind eye to what can be happening inside of the congregation. Notice in 1 Corinthians 5 in verse 9 through 13, Paul explains the reason why this person had to be separated. Verse 9, he says, I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world or with the covetous or extortioners or idolaters. Since then, you would need to go out of the world. You can be part of society. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, a church member, who is sexually immoral or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or an extortioner, not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside, who are outside the church? Do you not judge those who are inside? Shouldn't we be examining on the inside of the congregation, not worrying about the outside? But those who are outside, God judges, therefore put away from yourselves the evil person. So that person is contaminating others. Let's go back now to what he says in verse 8. This has to do with the days of unleavened bread. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So here are the spiritual principles behind the purpose of the days of unleavened bread. He says we're not to permit the leaven of malice and wickedness. Those are two terms that have to do with something bad from the Greek word kakia, which is wickedness as an evil habit of the mind. And then you have the second word, wickedness, which comes from poneria, which is the active outcome of wickedness. Poneria is malevolence, not only doing evil, but being evil. So one is more some actions that can be produced. The other one is what the person has become. So you see, sin has consequences. This person that was in this legitimate relationship, he was doing this habitually, frequently, and now it wasn't just something temporary, something momentary. It had become part of him. He had become an adulterer. And so, of course, this is what the spiritual leavening does. And that's why God wants us to examine ourselves and also just to understand the lessons, why we cannot be part of this world with the leavening of false teachings. They can contaminate us. We should not tolerate them.

Even the smallest piece of leavening is yeast that will spread. We start compromising on God's truths. Pretty soon, it doesn't look too bad. Pretty soon, we can celebrate these other things. We just get used to it. Why? Because we allowed that first little step into the pagan teachings, the substitutes. Instead of Passover and Sabbath, well, it's Easter and Sunday. Just a minor step. How many people did that? And they didn't even realize what they were doing. They were stepping out of the church and into the world's churches. They were not cautious enough. And that's why every year we do this ceremony. We do this process to de-leaven our minds, remove any leavening, any of those temptations to go that way. Because that's why leavening is the symbol. My wife knows it much better. Ladies who have to cook bread and who have a little bit of leavening or yeast, whatever kind of leavening, you just have to put a little bit on it. And pretty soon it rises. It multiplies. That's the same way. That's why Christ commends the first church, the church in Ephesus. He says, because you cannot tolerate, you cannot stand those that are that way. And we cannot be with that type of practice. We cannot have fellowship with those that are going the different ways. And that's why we separate ourselves. That's why if people ask me, what are the others that are keeping Easter and Sunday, what about that? I have nothing to do with them anymore. They decided to separate, just like it did after Nicaea. You see, we continue in a different church with a different mentality. We fear God. We fear leavening, invading our lives and teachings. And so he says we are not to keep the feast with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but here's what we substitute it with, with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Those are the two positive qualities, spiritual qualities, that should reflect our lives. The first word here, which is sincerity, elecrinaia. In the Greek, it means something pure, clean, sincere. And commentators mention, it comes from two words, heli or heli, where you get the word helios, which has to do with the sun. Helios is a term that they had a god named Helios, or helios. And then the word crino, which means to judge. So it means to judge by the light of the sun, holding it up to the light. That's where the word sincerity came from. And of course, back in those days, they used this word also from the term sincere, which is Latin, cincera, which means without wax. And some of these beautiful white statues, as the ones that you see in Rome and other places, they were made out of marble. And sometimes the man was finishing up, and all of a sudden, knocked a little piece of marble of this beautiful statue. And he said, oh, what am I going to do? And so he would actually get some wax and make it white and stick it in just like gum. And the wax would dry up, and it would cover that piece. And then people would buy the statue, and they'd put it there in their patio, and with the sun hitting it, the wax would melt. So you see, that was not a sincere statue. That was an insincere statue. That was a statue with wax. And Spanish cera comes from cincera, when a person is sincere. The second term has to do with truth.

In truth, aletheia comes from the word letho, which means to conceal or hide. Aletheia means not to conceal, not to hide. So it is not hidden. It is out in the open.

So this is a valuable lesson for us. There are days to examine ourselves, to identify sin, and remove it, substituting for it that which is good. That's why it's not just the days to be careful of leaven, but it's days to eat unleavened bread as well. Let's go to Hebrews 12, verse 1. Hebrews 12.

It says, Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, those who have already made it, they crossed the finish line. They were faithful. They were sincere and truthful to God's word. He says, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And actually, it's talking like, He's our coach. He's there to help us. I sometimes watch some tennis matches and on TV, and they just finished one. It was a ladies' tournament. And in these cases, when they are, they have difficulties, they'll lose a game, and they'll say, Come here. They raise their hand, and who comes down? The coach. And I watched as one coach gave this girl, just 18 or 19 years old, playing against a veteran. And the coach gave her such great instructions, and she followed them to a tee, and she won the tournament. First one, she listened to her coach. And in a sense, Jesus is our coach here. Of course, we go before God the Father to pray, but we have this intercessor, Jesus Christ. He lived down here. He knows every one of our problems. He says, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, just like a coach, He's going to be with us to the end. He's going to be there in the good times, the difficult times, and He wants us to triumph. He's going to be there at the victory. Who, for the joy that was set before Him, the joy of bringing us into His kingdom, endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. Yes, this is not an easy way of life. We can get discouraged. We can become weary of well-doing. But again, every time when we start getting tired, when we just don't want to go out there and serve or help out or do whatever, we should ask ourselves, would Jesus have done it? Would He have gone through, or would He have quit? Well, that gives me great encouragement, because I know He wouldn't have quit. He would have done it. He would have gone that extra mile for that other person.

And so we need to focus on that sin that so easily ensnares us, keeps us from growing spiritually as we should. In Romans 6, verses 12 through 14, Romans 6, verses 12 through 14, Paul is speaking here, and he says, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Don't let it become victorious. Don't let it rule that you should obey it in its lusts. Are you the servant, or are you the master in your life? And do not present yourselves, members, as the instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. We have God's help, God His favor. We don't have His condemnation as long as we follow His way of life. He understands, He forgives, He's not going to throw the book at us, but we need to continue faithfully in this wonderful way of life. Let's go to the last scripture in 1 John chapter 3. I'm sorry, 1 John chapter...

Let's see here. Did I... Chapter 1 in verse 15. This is the leavening that we have to be aware of. This is the spiritual leaven. In 1 John chapter 1 verse 15 it says, do not love the world or the things in the world. Now, he's not talking here of being nasty to people. It's talking about don't become infatuated with this society and its false values and ways of life. Don't become infatuated. It's so easy to just go with the current. If anyone loves the world, if anybody loves the false values of the world, the love of the Father is not in him. That's going to be a contradiction. How can God's Spirit be dwelling with the spirit of this world guided by Satan? For all that is in the world, the society that we live in with its false values, the lust of the flesh, all of the things that are bombarding you about lusting after some seductive things, the lust of the eyes, what we see through the eyes, and that we can lust after wrong things, and the pride of life puffing us up, thinking, yes, we know better. We can guide our lives without God. It is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world is passing away. This society with its false values will have its end, and the lust of it and all the wrong attitudes, but he who does the will of God abides forever. That's what's going to last through time. So we have a fresh start. Just took the Passover. Now we have the Days of Unleavened Bread to look forward during this year, and we have a chance to improve spiritually in this year, to get out of a spiritual malaise, to focus on that sin that easily ensnares us, and we have a race to run toward that next Passover and Unleavened Bread a year from now, when we renew our race one more lap before God's kingdom will come or our death. And so we make a commitment to work on it, to improve, and get rid of that sin that so easily ensnares us.