The Tale of Two Loaves

Ken Loucks - The Tale of Two Loaves - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWQu-bMa-do

Transcript:
(00:01) You know, when God revealed his system of offerings through Moses, one of the earliest distinctions that he made concerned the use of levan in offerings in Leviticus chapter 2. I want to turn over here and start here with my very brief sermonet split sermon. Leviticus chapter 2. You'll have to bear with me because I noticed that in the last couple years, you crest 60, something real happens to those eyeballs.
(00:39) So, I'm having to I'm I don't know if I'm need a large print Bible. These This must be a 10 font. So, anyway, I'll do my best here. I'm over in Leviticus chapter 2. See, I'm like, that's 22. There's two of those. I'll get there. Leviticus 2 and verse 11. Leviticus 2 and verse 11. Let's notice something here. It says, "No grain offering which you bring to the Lord shall be made with leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering to the Lord, made by fire.
(01:17) " This word leaven from the comes from the Hebrew word seor. You're a big Hebrew scholar. I probably just butchered that word and you're going to lecture me later. It's s e apostrophe o r. It means soured dough fermentation. It generally always consists of or refers to the decay or the popping up or the impurity of the leavenvening process.
(01:41) And so these things if you think about those things those words I just used to describe what's in levaven God says I don't want you to burn that in sacrifice to me. Those are not elements that I respect in a sacrifice. So he prohibits them. Now Paul helps us to see a connection here between leaven. Of course we just went through the days of unleaven bread.
(02:02) So this is not a days of unleven bread message. But this element is important for us in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 6-7. Speaking about our us spiritually 1 Corinthians 5 6 and 7. For he says, "Your your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leavenan this same word leavenvens the whole lump? Therefore, he says, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavenvened.
(02:43) For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us." So we're unleavened only in the fact that we have been given God's Holy Spirit and we're unleavened through that process of sanctification being set apart being trained being transformed. That is what essentially what sanctification means. So we see this direct connection then we obviously came through this during the days of unleavened bread but we see clearly that no leaven was to come near his altar in the grain offerings.
(03:13) Now, that's something we need to be thinking about carefully as we consider that there's a striking exception to that. Turn over to Leviticus chapter 23. Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 17. Let's notice an exception to that rule. It says, "You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loads of two tents of an epha. They shall be a fine flour.
(03:53) They shall be baked with levan." H Well, that's interesting. So, here's an offering that's supposed to be made apparently that's baked with leaven. Now, just I had this idea that I was going to bring up a couple of loaves to show you as an example. You know, speakers are encouraged to use props. I thought this would be a great prop.
(04:16) So, I started looking up. Well, how big would these loes be? You know what a standard loaf size is? It's one pound. Okay, so it's not very heavy. Do you know how big these loaves are? Every family has to bring these. two of them, right? We just read that if I make I want to make sure I say this correctly. Verse 17.
(04:42) They hide the scriptures right within the paragraph. Trying to like find it again. All right. It says, "You shall bring from your dwellings two ways of two ten of an epha." You know how much an epha is? Me neither. It's 22 lers. 22 lers mean anything to you? Well, if you drink pop, it probably means something to you. Soda pop. What do you guys call it again? I don't know.
(05:04) My gauge, we called it pop. Anyway, so a tenth of an ea is 2.2 liters. A loaf. These wave loaves were between four and a half and five pounds each. That's why I didn't bring one up. Like, think of a 5B bag of sugar. So, these are very large loaves. I don't know why that's relevant. That's just the size God said to make them.
(05:27) And that's why I don't have them here to show you because I'm I'm not toting those around anyway. All right. So, you notice that they have to be baked with leaven. So, why this exception? Why would God, who has consistently excluded levan from the altar, now require it to be included and presented on this holy day, the day of Pentecost? What do these two leaven breads, these two leaven loaves represent? And why are they waved before God? I have three very brief points.
(06:03) Why leavened bread? Well, to understand the instruction for leavened loaves on the day of Pentecost, we must first recognize what leaven represents in scripture. Now, we come out of the days of unleavened bread. We're all pretty familiar, I would say by now. I know Mrs. In case you're not familiar, leavening represents sin during the days of unleavened bread.
(06:25) All right, just want to state the obvious. So, we come out of the days of unleven bread. We've been rehearsing that leavening in that context represents sin and our job is to remove the leavenvening during those days and then to take on or eat and consume unleavened bread. Right? That's the lessons of the days of unleavened bread. Okay? So we have that context.
(06:48) So let's go back and rehearse a couple of things. So we read earlier from Leviticus 2 where levan in offerings is prohibited. The Hebrew word refers to fermented dough which is a substance that's in active decay. Its presence causes the dough to rise. That's a visible transformation which is driven by the he the hidden chemical process.
(07:09) You can't see the chemical process. You're not in the dough. It's underneath like a cloth most of the time. When my mom baked, that's what And when my wife bakes, that's what she All right. So, when leaven appears symbolically in scripture, it most often represents the spread and influence of sin. It's not the only thing.
(07:29) Levan itself isn't evil. It's just a type. It's a symbol for us to understand this concept of how sin permeates and grows in our character if we don't control it. that it's internal, that it's pervasive, and that it's gradual. It works subtly, but it is thorough, and it alters whatever it touches. Paul makes this clear as we read in 1 Corinthians 5 6 and 7 where he said, "Do not do you not know that a little leaven leavenvens the whole lump.
(08:01) " So that's why we read that. And he says to purge that leavenan out of us so that we can become a new unleavened lump through the process of sanctification and change given by God to us when he called us out of this world separated us from this world and gave us his holy spirit. So this metaphor is not limited to outward conduct alone but obviously it reaches inside of us to what matters which is our motives.
(08:31) Hypocrisy, false doctrines, all kinds of things that it is referred to as being representative of. Christ himself warned us in Luke 12. Luke 12 verse 1. All right. Luke 12:20 says, "In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they had trampled one another, he began to say to his disciples, first of all, beware of the leavenven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
(09:20) In another place he compared the teaching of the religious elite which is the Pharisees to Levan because error like sin does not stay contained spreads. It permeates it corrupts. So when levan is present in the offering it cannot represent perfection or purity or righteousness. Instead, it must represent the presence of human weakness.
(09:50) Our natural condition as being human beings represents us. Yet on Pentecost, God commands that the two loaves of leavened bread be baked and waved before him. And that detail is central to the meaning of this day. Look, you know as well as I do that there are a variety of different messages that are what we would call meat of the day, meaning of the day types of messages.
(10:14) So, we're covering one of those, which is these two loaves, which were waved in the Old Testament on this day. Now, these loaves represent the first fruits, those called by God in this age, those in whom his spirit dwells, those being sanctified and prepared for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. That's who is represented by those loaves.
(10:41) Romans chapter 8 and verse 23 where we're reminded of this connection. In Romans 8 23 it says not only that but we also who have the first fruits of the spirit even we ourselves grown within ourselves eagerly waiting for the adoption the redemption of our body that future promise given to us when we accepted this calling that God gave to us.
(11:19) The 11 loaves of Pentecost are not about perfection because we're not perfect. They are about transformation, the calling and setting apart of the first fruits, us. And they remind us that God is working with real people, human beings, flawed, imperfect, but those who will be resurrected at the return of Christ. So before we can be accepted by God as first fruits, we must first be presented and accepted by God. Our lives lived are that sacrifice.
(11:59) They are that offering given to God. Living the way he has called us to live. Lives lived transforming, becoming like Jesus Christ. And those lives are represented by the two loaves baked and waved before the altar under the old covenant. So why two loaves? Why not one loaf or three loaves? Some have speculated that the two loaves represent two periods of spiritual history.
(12:31) The faithful patriarchs and the prophets on one loaf and the church of God on the other loaf. And I can understand why that's appealing as a answer to that question, but that's not an accurate answer to that because it doesn't fit either the biblical symbols or the prophetic purpose of Pentecost.
(12:54) Obviously, the patriarchs and prophets are part of the first resurrection. So let's set that aside and it and just acknowledge that over in Hebrews chapter 11, which is the chapter of what we call the hall of faith, which goes through and describes all of those faithful patriarchs and prophets of old who were faithful in their lives, who held the vision of the kingdom and who lived lives in accordance with that vision, who saw the kingdom.
(13:21) They saw the new Jerusalem as it says in the scripture. And all of their faith is described throughout the entire chapter. And we get to the end of the chapter in verse 39 and 40. And it says, "And all these having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise." So none of the patriarchs, none of the prophets are in heaven having received some reward that ahead of all the rest of us, if you will, but it says God having provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us. We're going to be made perfect with
(14:01) them, their first fruits, long in the grave, awaiting the return of Jesus Christ. But the symbolism of the two loaves does not divide history into these two pieces of history. It reveals something else. A two-fold makeup of the church today. People drawn from Israel, of course, and people drawn from among the gentile nations.
(14:33) That's two origins, but one offering. I'll make the case for you so you see it and understand. Now notice both loaves are made of fine flour. That's mil grain from a single spring harvest. The recent harvest. So if you'll recall all of the plantings which happen at the early rain, which is in the late fall, all of that happens and then they ripen which begins when we take the first ripened grains.
(15:02) When? for the wave sheep when it is cut down on that first Sunday which lands during the days of unleavened bread. That's what I tried to explain in the article in the United News so that you understand we keep the Pentecost this year exactly when we're supposed to. We're not a week early. We're right on time. Okay. So, we think about that harvest then.
(15:24) That harvest once that's accepted, that wave sheet waved before the altar is accepted, the harvest begins. And that harvest isn't one day, it lasts for seven weeks because the grain is constantly finishing its growth during those seven weeks when it is finally harvested. Okay? So when we get to Pentecost, we have harvested the first grains.
(15:46) We've harvested the barley and the wheat. This is the first fruit crop. It is the smaller crop. It is juxtaposed to the fall, the feast of in gathering. And so notice that the culmination of the spring holy days is Pentecost called the feast of first fruits. First fruits ends that first season. We then go into the summer and we begin all of the harvesting starts for all of the fall crops and those culminate when? At the feast of in gathering called the feast of tabernacles.
(16:20) So, two distinct seasons. It's as though if God wanted us to know his plan, we have almost everything we need right there for the harvest of mankind. Two seasons. A spring harvest, the first fruits, and the fall harvest, the greater harvest of all the rest of mankind. This is laid out for us then in these two agricultural symbols.
(16:48) So this these two loaves then are baked from fine flour which comes from the one harvest that harvest that happens beginning after the day of the wave sheep all the way up to Pentecost. So there's one harvest. It's not a previous year's harvest. So if you start digging into some of how the symbolism would be applied, it doesn't make sense.
(17:08) It starts to break down too rapidly. So we have one harvest of first fruits, barley and wheat. You can see symbolism even within that. So they are taken together and two loaves are baked from that. All right. Now I want you to consider something. Let's go back to Leviticus chapter 20. was talking to my wife as we were driving over today about as we're I'm meditating as I'm driving thinking about how many times do we see something in the scripture divi described as a division that God wants to reconcile and so we look here in
(17:50) Leviticus chapter 20 did I say 23 I said I meant 20 verses 24- 26 I have to find it. So, you got to bear with me. It's in here. All right. Verse 24. We're in chapter 20 of Leviticus. It says, "But I have said to you, you shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.
(18:24) I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore distinguish between the clean animals and the unclean, between the unclean birds and clean. And you shall not make yourselves abominable by beasts or by bird or by any kind of living thing that creeps on the ground which I have separated from you as unclean.
(18:43) And you shall be holy to me for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples that you should be mine. So when God separates Israel as his people and enters into a covenant with them, they are distinguished from the rest of all of mankind. Every other nation, no nation on the planet had a covenant with God except Israel.
(19:07) No law of God abided in any other nation. God had separated Israel from the Gentiles. And every other nation became known as the Gentile nations. This is an important concept for us to understand because it's a breach between humanity, Israelites and Gentiles. Well, that has hostility only grew over centuries.
(19:40) But God has a desire to repair that breach and it is through Christ in which he accomplishes that. One of the meanings of this day is that reconciliation between Israel and the Gentiles. Two loaves called out of one harvest of the first fruits. I'd like to show you how Paul explains this carefully in Ephesians chapter 2.
(20:11) Ephesians chapter 2 11- 16. Verse 11 of Ephesians 2, he says, "Therefore remember that you once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, made in the flesh by hands, that at the time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.
(20:45) Pretty clear description of the Gentile peoples from the time God established a covenant with Israel right up until this time. But now verse 13. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once a far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments contained in the ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might
(21:30) reconcile them both to God in one body. What body is that? The church. One harvest of first fruits called the church today has both Gentiles and Israelites in it. Two loaves to represent two peoples formerly separated now made one. offered together, not separately, thereby putting to death the enmity through the cross.
(22:08) And so this is one of the meanings of the days or the the feast of Pentecost. This is what these two loaves portray. And they're not waved independently. They're not waved one at a time separately. They're waved together. So that unity began to unfold immediately after the spirit was given. On the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, Peter preached to the people of Israel.
(22:43) But in time, the same spirit led him to the household of Cornelius, the first gentile family to be baptized. Let's read over here in Acts chap 10:es 34 and 35. Acts 10:es 34 and 35. Just the summation of Peter's determination who having previously thought that the church was going to be those made up of the Jews.
(23:10) This is the section of scripture, you'll recall, in which the blanket is lowered in vision to Peter and he sees all manner of unclean. And many in the world believe that this is where God is trying to show him that it's okay to eat pork and all the other unclean things. And yet Peter himself had no idea what this meant because he had told God, I have never done this.
(23:30) And so he's wondering to himself when he comes finally to the conclusion when we get down here to 34 and 35 of Acts 10, he says, "Then Peter opened his mouth and said, I get it now. In truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation, whoever fears him and works righteousness is accepted by him. Notice the context of acceptance.
(23:55) Who does righteousness, the first fruits, you can only be right with God if he has given you his Holy Spirit. The first fruits. The connection could not be more stark. more real. Paul later expressed this truth in a form of a question, but it was rhetorical. Let's look here real quickly here at Romans chapter 9 and verse 24.
(24:27) Romans 9 and verse 24 where he's ending a statement with a kind of rhetorical question. even us whom he called not of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles together one church, one harvest, two peoples becoming one in the church. The first fruit offering of Pentecost includes both. They have the same value. They have the same destiny. They have different origins but the same future, the same purpose.
(25:09) One church, the ecclesia, called out of the world, transformed by the spirit of God and offered together as a holy people through this symbolism. Paul describes this unity to the Galatians over in Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3 28 29 where it says there is neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither slave nor free.
(25:49) There is neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. Those promises which had previously been only available to Israel under the old covenant, now available to everyone under the terms of the new covenant. A covenant we enter into early.
(26:12) A covenant that will be fully established on this earth at the return of Jesus Christ. We enter into that early by invitation as first fruits. So what's great about Pentecost is it doesn't erase the distinctions or the history of these peoples. Instead, it reconciles it, baking individual people into a into the same harvest and they're waved together, not apart.
(26:43) And so they're accepted not as two peoples, but as one first fruit offering to God. My third point is that they're baked and waved, which is the finishing of the offering. They're baked and they're weighed. Why? The loaves have to be baked. Unbaked dough, especially when it's leavened, continues to change. It continues to rise.
(27:07) It continues to expand. It fermentss. It's active. But once the dough is baked, the process is done. It's finished. The leaven becomes in earth spiritually. The character is set. When we're transformed, our spiritual, our character will be set. We will be the finished baked loaf as first fruits during the resurrection.
(27:38) This is what this symbolism helps us to see and to understand. But that baking process resembles heat, trials, tribulations, challenges, overcoming that's necessary for transformation. If we don't transform our character in this life, there's no future for us. That's why we go under trials. That's why we go through difficulties because God is trying to transform us.
(28:06) He doesn't want me to be a better version of me. He wants me to be like Christ. when he looks at me, he wants to see his son. He's not, that's not to say that he doesn't love our individual personalities. But our character needs to look exactly like his son. And that's what we call being equally yolked with Christ.
(28:31) He doesn't want his son marrying a church that's not prepared and equally yolked with him. He wants that church prepared as a bride. I got the privilege of marrying two girls. One of which is here. I know I'm going to brag about this forever. Look, I own this. I'm gonna just enjoy it. The only double wedding, two twins. It was fantastic. But what was really fantastic was I got to sit in the best place in that not sit stand in the best place in the house was dead center of the aisle.
(29:01) And so as both the girls were escorted up by her father, I got to watch them in all of the glory of their beauty, having prepared themselves for their wedding day. Is there anything more special to a woman than than that moment? She's done everything to prepare herself. And if it's like those two girls, there was not a detail left unlooked at.
(29:26) Every single thing that could be looked at had been. And so they were ready. That's the very image of a bride preparing herself as we must spiritually prepare ourselves being ready to become the bride of Jesus Christ, equally yolked to him on that day of his return. We're not yolked equally with him yet. We're not equal to him yet.
(29:52) So, we have to be thinking about becoming equally yolked. How does that mean? That's the life of somebody who's transforming themselves, who recognizes when I look at the man in the mirror, that's not Jesus Christ yet. But one day, as we inch along this process, maybe he looks a little closer. And finally, when Christ returns, maybe we look a lot closer to him because we've made ourselves ready.
(30:15) We've prepared ourselves to be equally yolked with him on that day. So we notice that there is no leaven product that can be burned on the altar as we read that before. Right? So these are not burned on the altar. They're waved before the altar. Now that waving is a process of acceptance, a presenting and an acceptance by God.
(30:42) It began with Jesus Christ represented by the wave sheep offering. That wave sheep offering is not burned on the altar. It is waved cut down first representing the death of Christ and then waved before God representing his ascension and acceptance. And Mr. Schloulo just read that passage. Christ ascended to present himself to the father.
(31:05) Now that is the first of the first fruits. We come to this point in our in our time. And so we are also to be presented. These loaves which represent the first fruits of God, that harvest, his church are also therefore presented to God. Now our picture hasn't happened yet because the fulfillment of our time hasn't come yet.
(31:26) Our presentation happens right when Christ returns when God accepts us finally as his first fruits. So just as Christ had to go through the resurrection process to be accepted by the father, so too do we. And that's what our preparation is all about. Making sure we're ready for that day.
(31:50) And that's why we are not burned as a sacrifice is burned. We are baked with levan in our lives because we're humans and we have human nature and still we have sin in us. But one day we'll be baked finished with with a completed process where we have overcome through those trials and those difficulties in our lives because that's the spiritual process of sanctification.
(32:13) That's what it leads to transformation. James chapter 1 verse 12. James chapter 1 verse 12 describes us as overcoming and with reward for doing so. James 1:12 says, "Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.
(32:47) If you finish, if we finish this race that's set before us, if we endure the trials, the temptations, the difficulties, and we overcome, what's waiting for us is a crown, acceptance, and then being baked a completed and finished product as resurrected spirit beings with Jesus Christ. This is what the final stage of baking and acceptance looks like.
(33:18) To wave something to God before it before that was to lift it up, to acknowledge it as a gift to him. It was an act of presentation. That's what we're doing as we live out our lives of conversion. We're presenting ourselves every day before him as someone submitting to this sanctification process, lifting up our lives to him and yielding to our father.
(33:45) The loaves are not burned because they're not sin offerings. They're not destroyed because they are not symbols of wrath or judgment. They're offered as a finished product ready for divine acceptance. This pictures our life once it's completed. Once all of the work of change and transformation is completed, the baked loaves represent that life.
(34:09) And of course, we read Leviticus 23:20. The priest shall wave them. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. So they're waved before God. And that is when they are accepted by God. And this moment pictures what Pentecost ultimately reveals that God will complete his work in the first fruits. He will one day raise them up as sanctified offerings made holy by his spirit and tested through fire and trials of life made ready.
(34:45) Romans 12:1 describes the difference between an offering poured out and finished, burnt up, consumed, and what we're supposed to be. Romans chapter 12 verse one says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God." Notice that word and that connection that we are a living sacrifice presented to be accepted by God which is our reasonable service.
(35:23) Our rational decision is what that means. A much better translation of reasonable service would be rational choice. This is what God thinks is what we should be willing to do given what he's offered to us. that we should be willing to sacrifice and live in sacrifice of change. And yes, change is hard. It requires sacrifice.
(35:53) There's no reward for us if we don't sacrifice and become like Jesus Christ. The loaves of Pentecost remind us that God is preparing a people from Israel and from the Gentile nations, shaped by his word, filled with his spirit, purified by trials, and presented to him for acceptance. This is what the leaven, baked, and waved loaves declare that God finishes what he begins.
(36:31) If it's up to God, we'll all be there. We have choices to make between here and there about yielding, about transforming, about allowing that process to finish in ourselves. James 1, back to James here as we wrap up. James chapter 1 and verse 18. Now for it says of his own will James 1:18 of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
(37:11) This is the unique opportunity given to us today that this day pictures to be a part of the first fruit harvest to be trained and changed and transformed into a useful king and priest under Jesus Christ when he returns. co-equal servants to help him bring the government of God to this earth to prepare this earth and to serve those people who live through the mill or through the tribulation who survive all of the terrible end time events who need all the love and care that can be provided for them and God has prepared a people to do that with
(37:46) his son us his first fruits and then through that millennial period to be ready for the great harvest the great in gather of all the rest of mankind represented by the eighth today, that final harvest where we'll be there to help them too, to make their transformations, to make their changes, to make them ready to be future sons and daughters in the kingdom of God.
(38:16) We have not been called because we're already complete. We're in a process. We're all We're all in the heat of the oven right now. We're being baked little bit by little bit every single day until finally we'll be done. But that day won't come until Christ returns. The leaven in the loaves remind us that he is working with human beings, not yet perfected, but being worked on.
(38:45) The waving of the loaves assures us that the time is coming when those who endure to the end will be presented, sanctified, and accepted by God. that in order for any of that to happen, God had to first give us his Holy Spirit. And this day of Pentecost as recorded for all past posterity and Acts chapter 2 pictures that event, we've received the Holy Spirit, if we've been baptized, if we've repented, if we've had hands laid on us, if we've yielded to God, and he gave us his spirit. And if we have that spirit,
(39:22) we're in a process of transformation. That spirit is God's down payment to prove his faithfulness to us. That he will see his work completed in us on that day when Christ returns and we are finally raised up for all eternity.