Three Takeaways from this Passover

Well, in one way, it's almost cliche to say that it's hard to believe that we're here on the seventh day of unleavened bread. To me, it does seem like this week went by very quickly. It's always nice to be in times that God has appointed. He didn't appoint every single day during the days of unleavened bread as holy days. He appointed the first and seventh for us to be together. But it is holy time when we are doing His will, and we're in the midst of the days of unleavened bread. And as we eat that unleavened bread every day, to think about what it represents, what God wants us to do, the changes it should be making in our lives as we eat the spiritually unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and we become different people. That, as we heard this morning from Mr. Ginn, begins to think in a different way and not the way we used to. And as we go through the days of unleavened bread, I know that there are lessons that all of us learn. There are things about ourselves that we learn. There's more about God's plan that we learn. There are things that we have read before that all of a sudden stand out to us this time that they didn't before. And I know every year when we keep the Feast Days and God's Holy Days, we learn more about it no matter how long we've been in the Church. If you will, turn with me over to Isaiah 30. Isaiah 30. God tells Isaiah to write something to the people of Israel there, and it's always been a verse that kind of has struck me. I've never been one to do much journaling or anything like that, but I read what God says about writing and things like that. And sometimes I wish that I had kept kind of a journal of what I thought back on leavened bread 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and 40 years ago. In chapter 30 and verse 8 of Isaiah, he says, Now go, write it before them on a tablet and note it on a scroll, that it may be for time to come forever and ever. Write it down. Write it down so that you remember it. Write it down so that you know what you thought. Write it down what God reveals to you and what you learn each year so that maybe you can go back and see where you've been, how far God has progressed us along. And recall some of the things that we may need to remember that we've learned in the past. You know, as we read through the accounts of the Exodus from Egypt, often, well, over and over, God says, Remember. Remember this. Do this as a memorial of what I've done. When Jesus Christ took the Institute of the New Ordinances of Passover, he said, Do this in remembrance of me. Do these things so that you remember, so that you recall how you felt, what you committed to, what it was like before you knew the truth and you had hope and a purpose in life. And so today, as we're here on this last day of Unleavened Bread, I thought it might be good to review what we've been through. Some of the things that we've learned, some of the things that we've been reminded of this year, that maybe were a little different or a little different this year, you know, I guess this would be from my perspective, you would have your own perspective as you think about what about the days of Unleavened Bread? Will I be different going forward from here? Because, you know, as we exit the days of Unleavened Bread, we should not be the same people.

Tomorrow, when we can...well, it'll be the Sabbath day, so when we have leavening again, you know, we shouldn't be going back to the way we were before. Everything, we should be different people and we may bring physical leavening back into our lives, but we should be committed not to bring the spiritual leavening that God has opened our eyes to see back in our lives.

Those should be gone forever. And if there's nothing that we've seen in these days, you know, that's sad, actually, because God always progresses us and He always does that. And sometimes, well, often we have to see who we are to know what we need to change in order to become more the way He is.

So we could recount all the things, but there's a lot of things that, as we've been through the last eight days together, that we know. You know, in Passover, for those who are baptized, we talk as we do about Jesus Christ. We know He's the Savior. We know it all revolves around Him. Without Him, there is nothing. There is no hope. I mean, simply, He is it all. These days are all about Him, and we should never forget that and never forget to be giving Him thanks for literally everything that we do and have in our lives.

Christ, so that goes without saying. We remember that. We know about the bread of life. We talk about that every year. We know about the unleavened bread that we should be eating, that it's physical leavened that we put out, unleavened bread that we eat, that we have to be putting something in during the days of unleavened bread. It's the spiritual unleavened bread that is really a benefit to us. Do the physical, but remember the spiritual. We don't have to talk about that again. We know that.

We could talk about wave sheaf, because here these days of unleavened bread, there's been an awfully lot go on since a week ago from last Thursday night. From the Passover to the first day of unleavened bread to putting the leaven out and then eating the unleavened bread, and then that wave sheaf offering day when Jesus Christ was resurrected during the days of unleavened bread.

Romans 5, 10 tells us his life. He sacrificed that our sins could be forgiven, and we have the hope of eternal life because he was resurrected during those days. We could talk about that. If we go back to Israel and Egypt, we remember the plagues. We remember the things that we talked about there and how God brought them out, step by step, out of Egypt.

Israel was a very going-nowhere group of people in Egypt, but God brought them out just like he has done for us. So today I don't want to talk about those things. We know those things. I'd like to talk about three things. Actually, there's more I'd like to talk about than that, but I know what the time constraints are here this afternoon. Three things that we've talked about this Passover that maybe we can understand what God wants of us a little more. The first one I want to talk about, I'm going to give you a title for each one. The first one is just simply the word exactly.

Something to remember from these days of Unleavened Bread and what God builds into these observances we've been through for the last seven days, and then of course the Passover on the day before that. We learn an awfully lot from the experience of ancient Israel. Mr.

Ginn recounted a lot of that experience as they left Egypt in Exodus 13 to 16 this morning, but we learn an awfully lot about us from ancient Israel. That's why God recorded all those things in detail. They're examples for us upon whom the ends of the ages have come because what they went through are similar to the things that we go through.

Israel, as I mentioned, they were hopeless. They were going nowhere. Here they were, a people great in number, but they were simply being held down by Pharaoh. They had no power, no ability to extract themselves from the situation that they were in. They were never going to realize the potential that they had. They were never going to be able to free themselves from Egypt. It was only God who could deliver them. Without God, they would have just, as so many of them did, lived in Egypt, died in Egypt as slaves, and never understood what life was or what the freedom that God could bring and does bring to us when we obey Him.

Israel was there for hundreds of years. God was there. Jesus Christ was there watching over them. He heard their cry. He tells us in Exodus 3, I heard their cry. They're miserable. He didn't come down and rescue them or deliver them immediately. It took him some time, but he prepared a physical person to deliver them, Moses. It took Moses 80 years of his life to be to the point where God would use him to go to Pharaoh and deliver those people.

That's a long time. That's a lifetime. But God did that. Moses, as you recall, he didn't want to do it, but he learned to trust in God and yield himself completely to God and let God work through him to do what only God could do. But as Moses began to go to Pharaoh and say, let my people go, God told him the answer would be that Pharaoh would say no.

I think the people of Israel were very hopeful that God is involved. He will let the people go. But what happened? They suffered. Life got worse instead of better. Remember, they had not only the straw given to them for bricks, they had to go gather the straw and make the bricks and the daily quota remain the same. So they moaned and they groaned, as any of us would be. But when the deliverance came, there was immediate suffering there. The suffering we learn is just part of being delivered from the oppression that we all live in.

Jesus Christ suffered a lot for us, that we might be delivered from the bondage and the oppression of the slavery to sin and Satan that you and I lived in. And as God began to work the plagues in Egypt, Israel suffered right along with them. The first three plagues, the frogs, or the water turning to blood, the frogs, the third one was the lice, I think. We look at those things and think how bad could it have been, but when you read through the accounts, it was pretty bad to have frogs literally all over every place in your land.

It was pretty bad to have lice literally covering the land of Egypt as the dust was like the lice that was there. And Israel suffered right along with them. And they watched Moses. I suppose Moses was going back and reporting to them what would happen. And they knew what God was doing and probably heard, Moses is at Pharaoh's house, then he told them lice are coming and so be prepared, lice are going to come. But then God segregated Israel. And for the last six plagues, four through nine, they didn't suffer from those, but they did see God's hand in all of that.

But they watched. Over and over, Pharaoh was told, let my people go. Eventually, Pharaoh began to say, okay, okay, after several plagues were there.

If we turn to Exodus, go back to Exodus 8.

Exodus 8. We see that Pharaoh, after seeing the plagues and beginning to realize this God of Moses is so far superior to any God that we have in Egypt or any conglomeration of the gods we have in Egypt. Pharaoh didn't think this. God said it later. He really is executing judgment on all the gods of Egypt. He is clearly showing there is no God or group of gods in Egypt that can ever compare to God Almighty, the eternal God. And in chapter 8 and verse 25, Pharaoh, you know, kind of like, okay, I think we're tired of these plagues. I understand your God is not going to relent until I let you go. And so, verse 25, Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron. He said, go, sacrifice to your God in the land.

Sounds like a good deal, right? Really? We can really do what you say? But Pharaoh wasn't completely yielding, we realize, in that statement that he made. And Moses picked up on it right away.

He says in verse 26, it's not right to do so. Pharaoh, he was willing to compromise. Okay, I'll give you what you want, but I'm not going to give you everything.

You want. I'll let you leave the land. And Moses might have been tempted to say, yes, yes, finally Pharaoh broke. Finally we're going to be able to leave. Moses saw right through it. He knew exactly what the command of God was. Take the people, take the flocks, go three days wilderness out of Egypt and sacrifice to me there.

Moses didn't fall for the compromise. Pharaoh tried because he was willing to give a little, but it still had to be a little bit his way. You can go, but just sacrifice in the land. Go ahead and sacrifice to your God. Later he tried it in chapter 10 a couple more times. Fine, you can go, just leave your children behind. Then another time, fine, your men can go, leave your flocks behind. Moses said no every time. No, it will be exactly the way God said. We're not compromising any little bit on what the command of God is. And so Pharaoh never was able, never was able to yield to God completely.

We see, you know, where God says God hardened his heart sometimes, but Pharaoh had a hardened heart. I'm not going to yield completely. I'll do part of it, but there are things I'm not going to do everything you say, Moses.

Moses was resolute only the way God said to do it.

All that spirit of compromise where Pharaoh was never able to yield and say, okay, do it exactly the way your God says, Moses. What did it lead to?

It led to the complete destruction of Egypt. Pharaoh lost everything. Pharaoh lost everything because he simply wouldn't yield to God completely and fully.

You know, we spoke about that Pharaoh sometimes we look at Pharaoh and say he's a type of Satan, and then in a way we can say that. But Pharaoh is more a type of you and me and the human nature that's in us. There's a lot of times that we will say, okay, God, this is what you say to do, but here's how I'm going to do that. It's going to look like I'm doing it, but I'm going to hold back. I'm going to do exactly what I, how I want to do it. And it'll look like I'm serving you, obeying you, changing, or whatever it is. But I'm not going to do it with all my heart. I'm not going to give you everything you need. In that way, that resistance that Pharaoh felt is like the resistance that you and I feel.

Not the way you say, I'll just do it this way and that'll be good enough. I'm fulfilling what God wants at that point. Moses knew what God's command was. He listened to them exactly.

And it required Pharaoh to look at them exactly.

In Exodus 12, As God was leading Israel, or leading Moses, through the plagues and working with Pharaoh, we talked about how he was executing judgment on the gods of Egypt, but he was teaching Israel during that whole period of time, too. Israel didn't have to suffer through the last plagues, but they were watching what was going on. They were well aware that these gods of Egypt, that they were very well aware of, were being dispelled one by one. One by one, God was showing, no match for me. This God with the frog said, this God with the body of this and the body of that. Forget it. No comparison to God. Israel was watching that, and they knew God... Moses is saying what God tells him to do. Pharaoh, and it's happening exactly the way God said. The words that Moses said, they're happening exactly the way they were. As they were getting these reports back when Pharaoh was trying to compromise, perhaps some in Israel who were hearing that, Moses just accept it. Moses just accept it. But they would learn not to. In Exodus 12 and verse 28, we read twice in Exodus 12 about what the children of Israel learned about God during those plagues. They already knew who God was, but they had lost so much about the truth of him during their time of slavery in Egypt. In Exodus 12, 1228, since the children of Israel went away and they did so, just as the Lord had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.

He repeats that in verse 50. Now what he's talking about there is that fateful 10th plague. When the 10th plague came around after those nine that had really decimated Egypt, and then finally the 10th plague, it was death. Can't get much more final than death. Death would come.

God sent Moses. It's always interesting that God, as he says, told Moses, I'll tell you the words, you tell the people. Initially it was Moses, I'll tell you what to say, you tell Aaron, they'll tell the people. When Moses was afraid that he wasn't going to be able to speak effectively, they learned, Moses has the words, God is giving him the words. What did they learn through those nine plagues? They learned this is a God that is exact. This is a God who knows exactly what he's doing, everything he says he will do, he does, and it happens exactly the way he said. He is all-powerful. They came to fear him as rightly they should. And so when you look at this 10th plague and Moses went to them and said, here's exactly what you're going to do. On the 10th day of the first month, you select the lamb. On the 14th, at twilight, you kill that lamb. And he also described exactly what that lamb should be. Of the first year, a male without blemish. You take the blood, you take hyssop, you dip the hyssop in blood, you spear the blood on the doorposts. You have a meal with that lamb. Don't boil it, roast it. Serve it with bitter herbs. Serve it with unleavened bread. Let none of that lay over till morning of that meal. Do it exactly the same. And stay in your homes until the morning. As I mentioned, but I'm going to mention it again for emphasis sake, all of Israel apparently did it exactly the way God said. They didn't have anyone in Israel that says, you know, I'm really busy on the 10th. I guess it makes no difference if God get the lamb on the 9th and set it aside that day. They didn't do it. Didn't wait till the 11th. They didn't wait until four or five hours past twilight. They did it exactly when God said they learned, this God, our God, can deliver us, can save us, can set us free. What he demands is do it exactly the way he said.

Pharaoh would not yield. Pharaoh had to have it just a little bit to what he wanted to do. Pharaoh lost it all. And so the Israelites did that, and they learned that lesson. Exactly. Do it exactly the way God said.

We have the same example that the New Testament passed over when Christ was on earth. If we turn to Matthew 26, as Christ, who knew what his fate was, he knew what was going to be required of him, he had been there with God the Father when the plan of God had been established. All those prophecies in the Old Testament, he was well aware of how the Son of Man would suffer, what it would be like, how people would treat him.

He knew it all. And as he came to that Passover and he celebrated or observed that Passover with his disciples, and then they went out and talked, and then when they were done talking, and after he was done praying, as we read in John 17, he went and he prayed. And he realized the time was then. Everything he knew that they had determined would happen was going to happen to him.

And he was flesh and blood, just like you and me. So it might have been one thing, you know, five years before this is going to happen, but boy, when it's facing you right there at that moment, you begin to feel everything that's going to happen. And so Christ, as flesh and blood, knew...

well, probably didn't know the pain. He knew the pain was going to be intense. May not have realized how intense until the time that it began. He began to be beaten and scourged and everything. But in chapter 26 of Matthew, in verse 39, to show the weight of what was on him, as he knelt down and prayed to God, says he went a little further.

This is while he left the disciples there who couldn't even stay awake as he went off to pray. He went a little further and fell on his face and prayed, saying, O my father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Is there any other way to do this? Isn't there a way that I can be the Savior of the world?

Can't I be the Messiah and not do these things that we said were going to happen? Do I really need to suffer the way that we said the Messiah would suffer? Do I really need to die in the way that it was determined I would die?

You can feel the weight of what he's there. He says nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will. Whatever you say, that we will do. God didn't answer. Well, we don't have it recorded. But the answer probably came when Judas came to the garden as prophesied and betrayed him with a kiss. And Christ knew, no, it's going to happen exactly the way we planned.

No compromise. No getting out of something. It's going to happen exactly the way we said. Every single prophecy is going to be fulfilled exactly the way it was planned. And Christ was okay with that. Nevertheless, not my will. Your will be done. If there is a way. But it was clear the answer was no. But as we read down in verse 53 of the same chapter, Christ apparently knew there would have been a way to just not go through all that.

After a sword is pulled on Malchus in verse 53, Christ says, Put the sword away. He goes, Don't you think that I can't now pray to my Father, and He'll provide me with more than twelve legions of angels? I could call all this off. I could just say, forget it all. I don't want to do it. How then? He says, though, in verse 54, How could the Scriptures be fulfilled? It has to happen this way. Exactly the way we planned. That's part of that Passover night that's there. Exactly the way God said. In this past Bible study, we looked at something, and it happened during the days of Unleavened Bread, and we talked about it.

So let's turn to Ephesians 5, because it falls right into this topic of doing things exactly the way God said. In Ephesians 5, verse 15, Paul writes, See then that you, he's talking to you and me, right? All Christians, see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. We know what fools are. There are people who say there is no God. We know who the wise are. The wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord, learning over the course of time to obey God's laws. Exactly. But we talked about this word circumspectly.

I made the comment that I've never used the word circumspectly anywhere that I can think of in my life, except when I'm reading that verse or talking about that verse. What that word means when you look it up in the Strong's and Corden's, circumspectly is not a good translation. It means exactly. It means accurately. Walk accurately. Walk exactly. See then, if you are following God, that you walk exactly. You walk accurately. Christ said, by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. You know, not one of us do that today.

When we're first baptized, we are committed to learning the way of God, but it's over the course of our lifetimes that we learn a little bit more each year about what the detail of God's way of life is. He doesn't reveal it all to us all at one time, because if he did, we would be so overwhelmed we wouldn't even know where to start. But he's a very wise God. He knows what we can do. He's just like he worked with Pharaoh in Egypt. He didn't just come in and do the death plague at the first.

Over the course of nine plagues, he developed the whole process. Over the course of nine plagues, Israel saw who God was. Over the course of nine plagues, they got to the point they saw, we need to obey this God.

We have to fear him. Our lives and our futures are in his hands. And if we don't learn to do it his way exactly with no compromise, well, just like Pharaoh, we could lose it all.

Ephesians 4 tells us what our goal is to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. What was the fullness of Christ? I will do it exactly your way. He obeyed God perfectly in every single way. Not one of us are there now. We will learn year by year. We just have to be paying attention to what God says. We have to pay attention to every word that God says. And when he opens our minds to something, not just discount it and say, not important, count it important. So one of the lessons that we can learn, and maybe we write down as a goal, is let's be committed to doing things exactly the way God said. Let's understand his way of life. Let's do it the way he said and not taint it by our own ideas or our own, you know, whatever, thinking that it's okay. Because this Passover time tells us it needs to be God's way. Okay, another thing that we can learn, and maybe, you know, I think we've already learned this, but let's refresh our minds one more time on it. Pride. Pride can cost us everything.

You know, we see that with Pharaoh. Let's go back to Exodus 10 and look at him again for another moment because God asks him a question, or through Moses asks Pharaoh a question, as these plagues continue. And in one way you can look at Pharaoh and see, you know, his magicians were able to turn the water into blood as well, his physicians were able to have frogs come on the land. They weren't able to have the frogs removed from the land. They weren't able to do the lice or any of the other plagues. They came to realize this God of Moses is far superior than us. But Pharaoh just keeps doing the same thing over and over and over again, and God has a purpose in mind. I will prove to you, he said, you will know that I am God. And so in chapter 10 in verse 3, I'm going to go ahead and read verse 2 here as well. That you may tell in the hearing of your son and your son's son the mighty things I have done in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them, that you may know that I am the Lord. That you may know, Israel, you know who I am. And so in verse 3, Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh and they say to him, thus says the eternal God of the Hebrews, How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me?

How long is this going to go on, Pharaoh? How many plagues do I have to send you before you come to realize, you need to humble yourself before me? Why couldn't Pharaoh completely yield to God? There was that pride. There was that pride that holds us back that the Bible tells us comes before a fall, Pharaoh was full of it to an extreme. He thought he was the God above all gods in even Egypt. He was raised to think that. But there all of us have some pride. All of us have some things that we just, you know, we know a little bit better. Our way is just as good as that way. We all have that in us. It's the carnal nature that's still there. That says that we resist God, that we're an enmity against God, not subject to the law of God. All those things that the Bible says it's all still in us a little bit. None of us have completely eradicated it yet with the power of God's Holy Spirit. That's the journey that we're on, is that eventually it would be eradicated. So if God says it, no matter what it is, we would simply do it. But Pharaoh kept doing the same thing over and over again. He would get a little closer. Okay, go ahead and just sacrifice in the land. Nope, not going to be that way. Here comes another plague. Okay, fine, just take, just leave your little ones and your wives behind. You and the flocks go out. Nope, not going to be that way. Boom, here comes another plague. Now we can look at that, but perhaps in our lives some of those same things happen to us. Maybe God asks us, how long will it be before you humble yourself before me? How many trials do I need to send on you over and over and over again until you learn to do it my way? You know, God is very interested in you and me. He's very interested that we are going to be in His kingdom. He wants us to be in His kingdom. And sometimes we can think, it's too hard. Why is God doing this? Maybe He's doing it because we need to humble ourselves. Maybe He looks at us and says, Rick, how many times does this have to happen to you before you get it? It's not going to be your way, even a little bit your way. It'll be my way. You have to get all the way to the point where you fear me, where you trust me, where you do it my way. And not even a little bit of your way. Let it go. So, you know, Pharaoh, he's the epitome. He's the epitome of pride. None of us are in the same ballpark, I hope, as Pharaoh. But do all of us have that in us? Do we still, maybe sometimes when we see things happening, think, let God in and think as we examine ourselves in preparation for Passover. Why does it say in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 30, because you don't take it in a worthy manner? What is a worthy manner? That we're becoming more like Christ. Remember, we talked about that a few weeks ago as well, what worthy means? That we're becoming more like Him, so each Passover, you know, Christ is way up here, we're way down here at the beginning, but each Passover, we should be getting a little closer to Him if we're really letting His Holy Spirit lead us and guide us. And we know Christ did everything perfectly, and so must we come to that point as well? Pharaoh never was able to come to that. Cost him everything. We have a New Testament example of that as well during the time of Christ in Matthew 23.

In Matthew 23, not too long before the Passover, Christ is talking to the Pharisees of His time. They don't like Christ. They don't like what He has to say. They're jealous of Him. They don't want to change the way they do things. They don't want to listen to it. This is the way we've done it. We like our positions. We like our traditions. We think that we're doing okay. We think we're doing God's will, and we're not going to listen to anything you say, Jesus Christ, even though all the signs are there that you're the Messiah, if we bothered looking at it, even though you're gentle and kind, and everyone who's brought to you, you heal. Even though you heal in ways that we can't even imagine and didn't think was possible, we're still going to harden our hearts, as Pharaoh did, and say, No, don't have to do that. We don't have to accept Him because we want to cling to what we want more than what God wants. Here in chapter 23 of Matthew, in verse 12, Christ, in the midst of where He really is upbraiding the Pharisees and talking about all the things that they do, in contrast to God, He says, Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Right in the middle of that. What was he telling the Pharisees? You guys are full of pride. Humble yourself before God. You're going to lose it all if you don't. And indeed, they never were able to come to the point that they accepted Jesus Christ, the Jews to this day. The Orthodox ones don't accept Jesus Christ. What does that say about them? How much have they lost as a result of just resisting because they wanted to do it their own way? Their own way. Well, at the end of time, we find that this is not an unusual thing for mankind. You know, back in the book of Revelation, at the time of the end, we have God beginning to exact his vengeance on the earth. And we know about the four horsemen, you know, false religion, war, famine, pestilence. All those horsemen that ride across the face of the earth and they gallop faster and faster, and you and I will see and feel the effects of those four horsemen. We'll suffer. We'll suffer a little bit. And those four horsemen of the first four seals ride before the fifth seal of the Great Tribulation is open. But, you know, God didn't call us to be completely exempt from suffering. That was never. I said, you will suffer. People will hate you for what you believe. They hated me. They're going to hate you. That's kind of the way it is. Satan's influence is never one that yields to God in any way, shape, or form. But in Revelation 6, you know, we see that there are people who begin to understand, wow, it's God who's bringing this on the world. Chapter 6 of Revelation, verse 15. The kings of the earth, the great men. That's not you and me. The kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men.

Again, not you and me. Every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us. Hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come who is able to stand. Do they repent? No. Revelation 9, even as the plagues go on, just like with Pharaoh, we're not going to repent. We're not going to repent, so God just keeps sending the plagues. You will know that I am God. You will do it my way. That is the way it has to be done. How long before you humble yourself before God? Or will you lose it all?

In Isaiah 2, God says this pretty clearly. In Isaiah 2, we often turn to there during the Feast of Tabernacles. It talks about people going up to the house, to the mountain of the Lord. There, his way will be taught, and people will flow to it. But as you go down through the chapter, you see what precedes that time. It really begins in verse 6. Let me pick it up in verse 12, and we'll read down through a few verses here, because we see what it's like. These pretty much will show what happened to Pharaoh, pretty much what happened to the Pharisees, which pretty much the people of the end time who will not acknowledge God, what could be to us if we don't fully yield to God. Drop down to verse 14.

The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, the way he should be in our lives now, the only one who's exalted. But the idols he shall utterly abolish. Now, we've talked about the idols. Back in Egypt's time, ancient Israel's time, they had all those little gods that they carved out of wood and stone.

We have our own idols, and there's plenty of them in the world today. Not you and me, but the world has plenty of idols. And like the children of Israel living in Egypt, we kind of look at them, and maybe the children of Israel began to think, well, maybe those gods of Egypt do something. I mean, the Nile really does flood every year.

It really is the life force of this land, and maybe we trust in it a little bit, but we will learn. No trust. No trust in the idols of the land. The idols, verse 18, he shall utterly abolish. They shall go into the holes of the rocks. They will go into the caves of the earth. They will flee from the terror of the Eternal and the glory of His Majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily.

In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver, his idols of gold, which they made, each for himself to worship. He will cast them away to the moles and bats to go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the crags of the rugged rocks. They will flee from the terror of the Eternal and the glory of His Majesty when He arises to shake the earth mightily.

Then, in verse 22, he tells you and me, Savor yourselves. Savor yourselves from such a man. Don't be like that. Come to understand and humble yourself before Him now. I don't even have to repeat, do I? That humility is one of the key lessons of Passover. Jesus Christ, who humbled Himself to be born His flesh and blood. We wash each other's feet at the beginning of Passover to show the humility and our willingness to serve whoever it is, that there is no job beneath us. None of us can exalt ourselves and say, that's too mean, Neil. I don't want to do that. There isn't anyone we shouldn't be willing to serve or anything we're not willing to do if God asks us to do it.

Or we see that need among our brethren. Settle yourselves from such a man whose breath is in his nostrils. It means whose life he's got control of his life. They reference Jeremiah 17, verse 5, They trust in the world. They trust in man. They trust in themselves and not God. And God finishes that account there with, for what of account is he?

Can't learn anything from him. He hasn't learned the lesson. Pride can cost you everything. Humility is the key. In every way, shape, and form, and always examining ourselves for that bit of pride that's still there. That lends us to do things just a little bit our way. Just a little bit resistant. Just a little bit, I don't need to do that. Or whatever it is. Okay. Number three. I'm going to turn back to John 13. There was an event that happened on Passover evening in Christ's time that we don't talk about on Passover evening.

But it was there, part of that evening, that Christ was there with his disciples, eating the Passover meal, and then as he began to, as he was beginning to introduce the New Testament ordinances of bread and wine. Let's look at John 13 and pick it up in verse 18. Excuse me. We read down usually on Passover evening to verse 17. Foot washing, if you know these things, happy. Or blessed are you do if you do them. In verse 18, Christ says, I don't speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen, but that the Scripture may be fulfilled.

He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me. Well, he's talking about Judas, we know, because at that dinner or at that evening, that Passover evening, there was someone not clean in that room. And Christ says, I tell you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am. Most assuredly I say to you, he who receives whoever I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.

And in verse 21, he says, most assuredly I say to you, one of you, one of you twelve that are here, will betray me. Why would anyone at that dinner, knowing what Christ had done, walking with him for three and a half years, why would any of them ever thought about betraying Christ? And yet, there was one who was there. And Christ let him be there.

And so, as the disciples hear this, they begin asking him, if you look at Mark's account, Matthew's account, is it me? Is it me? Am I going to betray you? And you can understand that. If Christ was with us and says, one of you is going to betray me, he's like, am I going to do that? Please don't let me be that person. If there's something in me that I need to wipe out, don't let it be me. So, one by one, they ask, is it me? Is it me? And there are little perplexed, it says here in John's accounts, like, who could be talking about? Who among us would ever betray the Son of Man? We know Jesus Christ. Full of goodness, full of truth. Look what he has taught us. As there was leaning on Jesus' bosom, one of his disciples, the one who Jesus loved, that would be the Apostle John, and Peter motioned to him to ask who it was of whom Christ spoke.

And leaning back on Jesus' breast, he said to him, Lord, who is it? And Christ answered, it's he, to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped it. And having dipped the bread, he gave it to Jesus the scariot, the son of Simon. The old King James says he gave them a sop. He had a piece of bread, unleavened bread, no doubt, because that's what was at the dinner.

He dipped it in whatever he dipped it in, and he offered it to Judas. So when you look at the commentaries, and I have to believe that this is probably the case, can't 100% guarantee it, but in ancient times, if you offered someone a piece of bread, if you broke a piece of bread and dipped it to him and offered to him, it was an act of friendship and love, care, and concern.

Hence, they say, came the term breaking bread, because if you broke bread together, you were there together. And so Christ broke off this piece of bread, dipped it, and handed it to Judas the scariot.

Judas the scariot accepted it. He looked at Jesus Christ right in the eye, no doubt, and he took that bread.

Now he, like the other disciples, would have heard Jesus Christ say, one of you is going to betray me.

There was no doubt in his mind who that person was, because he had already met with everyone. He had already met with the people that were there, the Sanhedrin, and made this arrangement with them for 30 pieces of silver.

So he knew what he was going to do. In fact, if we go back to just a few chapters in John 6, verse 70, before this Passover evening, well before it, Jesus Christ said, when they are saying, we have come to believe that you are the Christ the Son of the Living God, Christ answered them, verse 70, didn't I choose you, the twelve? And one of you is a devil? One of you is an adversary. Jesus Christ knew what was going to happen. It's prophesied in Psalm 41, verse 12, I think it is. Exactly that someone who sits at my table will betray me. And yet Jesus Christ sat at that table, knowing what Judas was going to do, and offered him the hand of friendship. Why would he do that? Would I do that if I knew that that person was going to betray me and begin the sequence that I knew was going to be horrible, terrible, lead to my death in the most painful way imaginable? What was Jesus Christ doing? Well, we can ask him one day. But I think by offering him the hand of friendship, perhaps, maybe just perhaps, Christ was saying, Judas, I'm offering you this. Now, if it were you or me, I dare say, knowing that Christ had said, we might have broken down in tears at that point and said, and confessed, this is what I was going to do. I can't do it to you. But Jesus looked at Jesus Christ, and he took that bread, and he ate it. What did Judas do? To his face. To his face, Judas rejected Jesus Christ. To his face. You read down here in verse 27, it says, after the piece of bread, Satan entered Judas. You know, later Jesus Christ would offer the bread to someone else.

Some water if I need to clear my throat. Later he would offer bread to his disciples, and he'd say, I'm going to take eat. This is my body broken for you. Sacrifice for you. Do this in remembrance of me. But this bread was before that. Judas took it, and Satan entered him. He rejected Jesus Christ. It's a horrible thing to think about. How could Judas have done that? Was Judas full of pride like Pharaoh? Was he full of pride like the Pharisees? Was he full of whatever? Well, there's probably pride. Pride is usually at the base of any sin that we have. But Judas loved money. He loved money. Just one chapter back in chapter 12 and verse 6, it says, he had the treasury and he used to steal from it. He could never overcome that love of money that he had. Never did become clean. You know, before during the foot washing ceremony, Jesus Christ said, you know, I'm going to wash your feet. You're all clean, but one of you aren't clean. One of you aren't clean. And of course, that was Judas, we know. In John 15 verse 3, Christ tells us how we become clean. You are already clean, he tells the disciples, because of the word which I've spoken to you. The other 11 received it. They ingested it. They hadn't received the Holy Spirit yet, but it had an effect on them. It changed the way they thought, changed the way they acted. They knew who Christ was. Later they would receive the Holy Spirit. For Judas, he sat there and he heard all the words. He walked all the same miles with Christ that the other 11 did. But when it came down to it, he never let it sink into his heart. He never let it get down to where it would make a change in him.

And when the time came to choose between what he wanted, what I want, versus what God wants, never made the sacrifice of giving up self and that sin that easily beset him, he betrayed Christ, and he literally lost it all. That led to death. And in John 17, as Christ is praying, in verse 12, he calls Judas the son of perdition, the son of perdition. None of these that you have given me have I lost except the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

Now, I think we know what the word perdition is. It means utter destruction, complete destruction. It's only used of two people in the Bible. Judas is one of them. The other one is found back in 2 Thessalonians 2. 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse 3. Let no one deceive you, Paul writes to the church of Thessalonica, let no one deceive you by any means, for that day will not come, unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition. Later on in Revelation 17, twice in Revelation 17, verses 8 and 11, where it talks about the false prophet who is of perdition.

Let's look at that. 17, 8. Revelation 17, 8. Speaking of the beast, in verse 8, the beast that you saw was, is not, will ascend out of the bottomless pit, and will go to perdition, complete destruction. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

Now he will also blaspheme the spirit. He also will commit what the Bible calls the unpardonable sin, blaspheming the spirit, turning against God, turning back to the ways of the world. Verse 11 says, the beast that was, the beast that is not, is himself the eighth. He is of the seven, and he is going to perdition. 2 Peter, a couple books back, 2 Peter 3. 2 Peter 3 verse 7. The heavens and the earth are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. I'm going to give you 1 Timothy 6, 8 to 11.

It talks about the love of money being the road of all evil. It uses the word perdition there as well. In Hebrews 10, it talks about that in a way that brings you and me into it. We've already seen Judas was one of Christ's disciples, and he committed the unpardonable sin. The false prophet at the end of the time apparently does as well. In Hebrews 10 verse 26, interestingly, after God commands us to be together, stir up good love and good works with one another, don't forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

In verse 26 he says, If we sin willfully, that means we deliberately turn our back against God, just like Judas did. We know better. We make a conscious decision. We know what God's word is, but we will do it the other way anyway.

If we sin willfully after we receive the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins. But a certain fearful expectation of judgment and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Same term that God used for Judas.

One of you is a devil. One of you is an adversary is the correct translation there. We drop down to verse 39. He talks about that, that it can happen to you and me. If we don't learn to become humble, if we don't learn to follow God exactly, if we compromise and allow that spirit of compromise and thinking, that's good enough, doesn't apply to me, I'll do it my way, I'll do it mostly God's way, but it has to be a little bit my way.

If we don't completely relinquish ourselves to God, we can become in danger of committing the same sin that Judas did. In verse 39, he encourages us. He says, we, that's you and me, we are not of those who draw back to perdition. If we betray God, if we don't learn the lessons of Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread, if we don't use God's Holy Spirit, if we don't progress in the way God expects us to progress, if we don't develop the fruits and produce those fruits that His Holy Spirit gives us, if we become lax, if we become apathetic, if we sleep too soundly, and when we don't heed Christ's call, awake.

Get awake. Wake up. Ephesians 3, 5, 13 says, rouse thee. Get up. Redeem the time. Make use of the time. Don't let it slack by. You've got work to do. There's a goal that you have in mind. The days of Unleavened Bread and the Passover show us what that goal is. And each year as we progress through it, God expects us to become closer and closer to that goal.

Well, we examine ourselves before Passover and examine ourselves during the course of the year. Don't do it against everyone else. Don't do it against the world. Measure it against Jesus Christ. That's the only standard by which we should be measuring ourselves. And none of us can rest on our laurels and say we're there or not. We all have a long way to go. Now, God will lead us. He just doesn't leave. He just doesn't throw it in our laps and say, do it. Just like He led Israel to the Promised Land, He will lead us to the Promised Land. Tomorrow, tomorrow we'll talk about that more.

But as we leave the days of Unleavened Bread, as the sun sets tonight, the days of Unleavened Bread are over, we're going right into the weekly Sabbath, might I encourage you to take some time tonight to think about these days? Think about the things that we've talked about at Sabbath Services, the things that you've read, the things that we read that we talked about in the Bible studies that have some very significant Unleavened Bread meaning over the last few weeks. Think about those things. You might even take the time to write down some of those things.

Write it on a scroll. Think about it. Pull it out from time to time and think, what did I learn? Am I still considering? Am I still going that way? Am I still putting out the old? Am I still throwing out those old clothes? Am I really putting on new clothes? It would be a very good exercise for all of us to do that and really let God lead us to His kingdom.