Unleavened Bread and God's Standard of Righteousness

So let's start with a key scripture about this day in the Bible, because we actually have the Apostle Paul talking about this day in particular. Let's go to 1 Corinthians, chapter 5. Starting in verse 7, he says to the Corinthian church, "'Therefore purge out the old leaven.'" Well, there we're going to remove all the leavening. He says that you may be a new lump. So he's not just talking about the physical leavening, but the spiritual leavening. Since you truly are unleavened, you've been forgiven by God of your sins. For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. And so we celebrated on Friday evening that Passover. And then it goes on in verse 8, the following day in the evening. It says, "'Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness.'" Here's the definition of why leavening is prohibited during these seven days, because they symbolize malice and wickedness. Sin, in other words.

But he's saying, "'Let us keep the feast with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.'" So yes, we're going to be eating unleavened bread, and it is a symbol of those spiritual qualities of sincerity and truth. And it's a mouthful when you think about those two terms, because sincerity is an attitude inside your heart. And truth is an outward obedience to God, the truth. So sincerity is the behavior, and truth is the way outwardly to keep it. Just like today, we have the sincerity of heart to come before God on this day and keep God's truth about this day, because he says it's a holy convocation. So it is one of God's truths, not man's truths, not something that humans or leaders in whatever religion—no, it's God's truth. He set this up as something true to him. And so this is such an important verse to be able to keep with that inner attitude and also with the right concepts that God has given us.

So of course, I begin showing you a little bit about what we have to thank God about and that is what we have been eating since last night.

And it is a matzo.

Okay. And the matzo is a symbol of an attitude. God wants us to be like this unleavened bread, which is flat. Our egos should be flat.

They shouldn't be puffy like the slice of bread. You can basically make a slice of bread with the same amount as a matzo. The thing is, with a slice of bread, you put leavening in the flour and you mix it with water. Here, you don't use leavening. So it's an attitude that God wants us to take into account. Matzo is flat. You wouldn't see one of these in the bakery, right? Oh, you want to have a nice matzo pastry? No, it's very humble. It doesn't really attract people. You can have that there for six months. Nobody would buy it, right? You got donuts. You got cakes. You got all of this stuff that puffs up. That's the same way the world. Well, we, for a week, have to say, this is our bakery. This is what we are eating, which is the bread. What the Bible talks about is the bread of affliction or the bread of suffering. Notice what it says in Deuteronomy 16, verse 3. It's called the bread of affliction.

Or it can be the bread of suffering. Now, here's insight into why God called it this way. This is from the voice translation. It says, don't eat any leavened bread with it.

Eat unleavened bread during the seven days of this celebration because, quote, suffering bread is what you made when you quickly left your suffering in Egypt. If you eat it again each year, you'll always remember the day you left Egypt. So, yes, all the things in the past world and how much did we suffer with the lies that were pawned off? How much did we suffer with our carnal human nature reigning over us? And in the New Testament, Egypt is this whole present evil society with its false values. And so, yes, when we are baptized, we leave all the pain and heartache and headaches that society will give us. And whether you prosper or not, you're still inside. You're broken until God comes into your life. You have a broken heart. Money is not going to make up for that or anything else. Success, fame, whatever. That's all just artificial. Artificial.

And so, I'd like to cover the following topic today.

Unleavened bread and God's standard of righteousness.

Because righteousness is a type of unleavened bread. You know, God is not puffed up. God is love, right? And so, he doesn't become vain with his power. Notice what it tells us in 1 Corinthians 13. It gives us the description of love, which unleavened bread symbolizes 1 Corinthians 13.

It says, again, the inner attitude is so important. Verse 1, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, in other words, with a great eloquence or whatever God gives you gifts about speaking in different languages, but have not love, which is the sacrificial love, the love toward others and God. I have become a sounding brass or a clanging symbol. It's just all on the outside. And though I have the gift of prophecy, people can, and usually this has to do with inspired teaching and preaching, but it can also be foretelling the future that God reveals. He says, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge. So, you see, this has to do more with understanding Bible mysteries and knowledge. Although, if you're an expert on knowing everything about the Bible, he says, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and Jesus Christ was the only one who could do that, but human beings, not even the apostles, moved mountains. He says, and have not love, which is that inner attitude of godly righteousness. He says, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, you do all charitable works, and though I give my body to be burned, even become a martyr, but have not love, which is God's Spirit in you, producing Christ's spiritual character and righteousness. He says, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself. It's not puffed up. See, it's not like that little matzo that I've shown you, not puffed up, does not behave rudely. So careful with words, not injuring others with words. Always praying that God gives us the ability to not offend or cause damage with our words and be able to express ourselves. With love, with humility, and with prudence. Prudence to know how to speak to others. Goes on to say, does not seek its own. It's not about me, me, me. It's about you, you, you. It's not provoked. It's a person that suffers silently, humbly, thinks no evil, not thinking the worst of people, does not rejoice in iniquity, not happy with sin, but repudiates it, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, that's an attitude, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails. So we see here, again, the symbol of Unleavened Bread and of God's true righteousness, which is so important. In Proverbs 23 verse 7, it just gives a simple statement, but it's so profound. It says, as a person thinks, so is he. So your way of being, your inner life, is actually what eventually will manifest itself as a person thinks, on the inside, his thoughts, his attitudes. They're going to be expressed outwardly. And so we have different standards of righteousness in the Bible, and we have wrong types. People think that these are the right types of righteousness when they're not. So the Bible illustrates the wrong type of righteousness and the right type of righteousness.

Let's take an example. The great example of Job in the Bible tells us Job was a very righteous man. Let's go to Job chapter 1. It says here in verse 1, there was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil. And so, yes, he did a lot of the right things, but there was a flaw in Job's character, and he could not see it.

He was so dedicated, he was so zealous that he developed what is called self-righteousness, where you think, I've done it all so well, I only deserve blessings, I'm better than everybody else, and I'm doing things just as God wants me to do, even better than others. And so we see after 32 chapters of debate and discussion of why all of these calamities fell on Job, he felt, I don't deserve any of this, my righteousness is something that pleases God, and I'm just going to always have blessings.

And what happened in Job 32 verse 1, it says, so these three men ceased answering Job because he was righteous in his own eyes. He had convinced himself his standard of righteousness was just what God wanted from him, and he basically lowered God's standards to his. Have you ever known people that just think they're so great, so wonderful, so righteous? Well, in a sense, it's syrupy, isn't it? It's a little bit nauseating when you see a person like that. I remember one of the gentlemen's that I was on a baptizing tour back in 1976 before I married Cottie.

We had 110 baptismal visits to do, and I was just a young minister, 23 years old, wet behind the ears, and I never really traveled. They gave me a map, and they said, here, go throughout the whole territory of Mexico. So anyways, in one of those visits, we went to a little place, and sure enough, you're getting all the addresses, trying to figure out in Mexico, you got to ask like three people to get the right address because they'll tell you this way or that way, or to please you.

Even they don't know, they will tell you it's that way, and so then you got to go and ask another way that way, and then the other guy said, no, it's that way, so two out of three. It's a pretty good chance that you, and that's the way we had to, because a lot of places didn't have all these nice American signs and everything so orderly, and so I went there, this gentleman was waiting and said, oh, I'm so glad you came finally after all the time he'd sent, and I said, well, we're here, and he said, well, I want you to know that I praise God the whole day long, and I'm thinking, man, how righteous is that?

I don't do that. He says, I just always give thanks to God for everything, and I'm thinking, wow, maybe he should be the minister, not me. So then the first question I asked is, are you keeping God's commandments? Oh, yes, I keep them all. Are you keeping the Sabbath? Well, that one I'm not. Right? Yeah, I got problems with that. I'm busy on that day.

Oh, okay. So you praise God all day, and you're breaking one of God's big 10 commandments? And so I realized that man really didn't know how he looked, and as we went through, he wasn't ready for baptism. He wasn't even ready to begin preparing for baptism, but he was righteous in his own eyes, and a lot of churches teach you about how good you are and wonderful, and this person ended up in that way.

And so Job is an example here. You can do everything right, but if you do it with a wrong attitude, it's not going to please God. And so it says in Job 35 in verse 1 and 3, you know, Eliyu is the only one that God did not reprimand. He reprimanded the other three. Eliyu did speak properly.

He says, verse 1 of Job 35, it says, Moreover, Eliyu answered and said, Do you think this is right? Do you say, My righteousness is more than God's? For you say, What advantage will it be to you? What profit shall I have more if I had sinned? I will answer you and your companions with you. Look to the heavens and see and behold the clouds. They are higher than you. In verse 13, he says, Surely God will not listen to empty talk, nor will the Almighty regard it. So again, sometimes people bring God down to their size. Job had made that mistake. And so what happened in Job 38?

God actually talks directly to Job. He says, Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, didn't show him his appearance, but out of this whirlwind he was inside, and said, Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Now prepare yourself like a man. I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you, Job, when I laid the foundations of the earth? Were you here when I created all these things? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you must know because Job had brought God down to the level of a human being. And after God shows him, God's greatness, and much higher he was than Job. He says, and Job answers God in Job 42, verse 1, Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that you can do everything, and that no purpose of yours can be withheld from you. You asked, Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge? Referring to Job, therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. Oh, God just rose himself so, so much higher. Job felt like an ant in front of God. Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. See, he had this idea of God that he was going to reach God's righteousness.

Listen, please, and let me speak. You said, I will question you, and you shall answer me. I have heard of you by hearing of the ear. This is what he had been taught. But now my eyes see you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Yes, he saw himself. Self-righteousness is one of the most difficult things for a person to see.

And so God gives the example of Job to warn us not to fall into that pitfall. The Pharisees had this type of self-righteousness as well, and that even exists today in the rabbinic Judaism. They're still trying to find their own self-righteousness to rise up to the level of God. Notice in Luke chapter 18, Luke chapter 18, and verse 9. This is a classic case, again, doing the right things, but with the wrong reasons, letting self-righteousness, pride, vanity get a hold of you. Luke chapter 8 verse 9. He says, Also, he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves, that they were righteous, see, that they were righteous and despised others. See, they were doing it directly to God. They were doing it to look good before men and to make others admire them. That's why they'd be called, you know, a rabbi, which is my great one in all of this.

So he gives example. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, which is a very devoted Jew, and the other a tax collector, which was despised because, after all, that was kind of the IRS of those days.

And really, it was a lot worse because at least the IRS here spends some of the money, right, in the right way. But there, it was for the Romans to build their Rome and build their empire, and then they threw all the crumbs back into the Jewish nation.

Then the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. You see, he was praying, just looking at himself, how wonderful I am, how dedicated I am. And then he gets out his list of righteous actions that he wanted to show God. What a great blessing God had for him to follow. Basically, it's almost like, I'm doing you a favor, God, by doing this. He says, he stood up and prayed, not even kneeled down with himself. He says, God, I thank you that I am not like this other man. So immediately, he's not thinking, I'm nobody, you know, I'm among 11 bread. No, this was big donut bread. This is bread that had risen. And he said, oh, I think I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as this tax collector. See, I'm much better. You should reward me a lot more. He says, I fast twice a week. So these were partial fasts, but this is what he did. I give tithes of all I possess a list of every little thing.

And then the tax collector standing afar off, he wasn't close to the first tier of he was way out there in the back. He felt so unworthy would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breath saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. He was repentant. He was asking for forgiveness. Christ said, I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified, which means forgiven by God, rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humble. And he who humbles himself will be exalted. So again, God looks at the inner attitude, what you do? Is it sincere? Is it humble? Or is there that self-righteousness that is there?

Jesus Christ had the right balance. He showed us how that righteousness of God is based on the right balance. Notice in Luke 7, verse 28.

Luke 7, verse 28.

Christ was talking about John the Baptist and said, For I say to you among those born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. And when all the people heard him, even the tax collectors justified God. They praised God. They were accepting Christ's words, having been baptized with the baptism of John. So you have the two extremes. You have from one side, you have the Pharisees. And boy, they just kept thousands of religious laws that they had enacted. They had established many of them, like in Matthew 15. Jesus calls them traditions of men. This is not traditions from God. And so they were burdened with just every little law.

Keeping the Sabbath, they had memorized the Pharisees. 1520 different laws to keep the sack. Can you imagine? It was inconceivable. Even today, if you go to Israel, you go to some of these hotels, and they still have Jewish law there. The elevators, if you have a 12-story building, you have an elevator on the Sabbath that had been programmed to open by itself. And then it goes and opens every door. You have to wait there because if it's a religious Jew, he can't push it because that's energy. And he is violating one of those 1520 rules. So he has to wait there. If he's on the 12th floor, it probably takes him half an hour to get up there. And of course, the appliances, they're also all tuned in. Now they say if the appliance is working before the Sabbath, it can be used because you're not turning it off. So you can use it. I mean, this drives you nuts. It was driving people nuts in the time of Jesus Christ.

And so Christ says here that the publicans, those were the tax collectors, were listening. But the Pharisees, verse 30, and lawyers, these were the experts of the law, rejected the will of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. So the Pharisees and lawyers were worse than the tax collectors. And the Lord said, to what then shall I liken the men of this generation? Talk about those Pharisees and lawyers, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace, these very much fickle type children in the marketplace. You can't please them. And calling to one another, saying, we played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We were teaching you Christ, and you didn't pay attention. You didn't dance. We mourned to you, and you did not weep. For John the Baptist came, neither eating bread nor drinking wine. And you say, he has a demon. The Son of Man has come, eating and drinking, and you say, look, a glutton and a wine bibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He says, but wisdom, which he was talking about those that were following him, is justified by all her children, the children who have the wisdom to apply it. And so Christ had these two opposite extremes. One is the Pharisee and adding laws. You can also equate this now to the Catholic Church and all this what they call canon law, which the Pope says something, and okay, that turns into a law. And so if you're a Catholic years ago, like we were, you know, we couldn't eat fish on Friday, right? Because that was special. That's a law set up at that time. If you were out there in the ocean and the only thing you could eat fish, on Friday you had to starve because you couldn't have fish. And so then you have Protestantism, and they have their numerous laws of how to keep Sunday, how to keep Easter, how to keep Christmas, and all of these things. And so everybody adds to God's laws, unfortunately, except God's people in the church, talking about the Church of God community.

And so Christ had one extreme with the Pharisees and the other ones were the publicans. The Pharisees added, made it very strict, overly so, but then you had a lot of the publicans and tax collectors, not the ones that had repented, but they were the ones that watered down things. They were the ones that just were in cahoots with the Romans, and they justified violating a lot of God's laws. And Jesus Christ could be with the Pharisees and not become a Pharisee. And he could be with the publicans and sinners and not become one of them. He always kept in the middle of the road, not going to either extreme. And so notice what it tells us in 2 Timothy 1.7. What is God's spirit like when it enters a person and starts growing and developing? What kind of results? What fruits are there? 2 Timothy 1 verse 7. I'm going to read it from the Amplified. It says, For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but he has given us a spirit of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline, abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control.

So this is what it produces. You don't go to extremes. Now, I've used this example before many times, but I'll go ahead and do it. And of course, I hope it works because I've got to do my gyroscope. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So we'll see if this gyroscope is going to do the right thing this time around. Okay, here it goes.

See, as long as it spins, it will not fall. Gravity, it defies gravity through centripetal forces, and it'll stay straight up. Just like God's Spirit, it doesn't matter what angle in life, you always keep that balance because it is a power that gives us strength, love, and a sound, balanced mind.

Now, we in the church, as we mature, should become more balanced. I'll go to the extremes. And a church, the church should do the same thing. Sometimes we get it better, sometimes we don't, depending on the leadership we have. We can either go to the self-righteous side or we can go to the publican side. I've lived it! 55 years of it! We have all done that because the church is made of imperfect people, and God's Spirit can only guide you partially because you still got that carnal nature. And so, looking at Ron, who was with me at college, you can tell you nice little stories. I do. I'll give you a personal example. Back in 1970, when I learned about the truth of God through a friend in high school. He was the only one in the church in that whole town, and he came from a strict Southern Baptist background. I was Catholic, one of the few in that whole area.

He had been in the church for a short time, and he applied his Southern Baptist attitude to God's law. I didn't know at the time. He was the only person I knew. I learned the truth from him. So I thought, I'm just going to do whatever he wants. And so I acquired his personality of a Southern Baptist applying God's laws. So I wouldn't look at National Geographic magazine because it might have some Africans that are not dressed properly.

And we were pretty fanatical. We went to services three times a week, an hour and a half drive from Murphy to Chattanooga, Tennessee, through that Nantahala Gorge, if you've ever gone through there. We went for the Sabbath, then we went on Sunday for Spokesman's Club, and on Wednesdays we went to Bible study. And we were not going to let anything get in the way. And I was very strict in everything I did. In my house, I tried to convert my family. That was an awful experience. I just drove them farther out. It took me years to recover them. Thankfully, I got accepted to Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas, the following year, 1971. So I've been in the church probably about eight months under my Southern Baptist-type mentality. And we both got accepted, so we both went to Big Sandy. And I'm thinking, oh, I'm going to meet all kinds of people just like my good friend Sammy. They're all going to be this way. He's our model. And so it was just about the first week somebody invited me. Hey, there's a Bible study over at one of the ministers' home. And I thought, oh, how wonderful. Just going to see one of them, the Ambassador College instructors. And I went there for dinner. And I was expecting, boy, we're going to talk Bible. We're going to just answer all the things there. And I'm sure everything is just going to be very strict. I went there. It was totally different. It was such a nice family. And it was such a relaxed time. We had enjoyable children. We're really fine examples. And we basically just talked about enjoyable things and how we were doing there, getting used to college. And then the wife was a perfect hostess. So I came there and I left shocked. I wasn't reflecting that. I was theophilus, the sifter, the sifter, Bible sifter. And I realized, oh, I went off the tangent. I'm following my friend's personality. Very strict, very tacit term, and almost like being part of the Amish or these Mennonite types. And so, boy, I had to change. I said, I can be myself now. I can be happy. I don't have to be out there thinking about all these things. It could cause me to sin. And so, Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas, it was much more relaxed, kind of like a country style campus. But then the Spanish department moved over the next year. They asked me because I spoke some Spanish, if I would move with them. So I went and I went to Pasadena here, and that was headquarters. That was God's headquarters on earth. And unfortunately, the person who was in charge was Herbert Armstrong. He had started it in 1947, and he had learned godly balance. But he was off on these trips to visit all of these kings and all these people. And so he left some in charge that just were very self-righteous, and it permeated. And so we had certain hours that we had to pray, certain length we had to pray. This was back in 1971, and the seniors would walk around, you know, oh yeah, oh you're a sophomore, yeah, you're not doing things very well. You've got to become Joe Ambassador here, you know, smiling, deep voice, all these scintillating personalities. And I wasn't!

And so that lasted through 1975 when I graduated. But about the last year, 1975, Mr. Armstrong's son basically took care of the headquarters while Mr. Armstrong was continuing traveling. And Mr. Armstrong was not the Pharisee. He was a publican type. So everything got watered down and loosened, and by the time I married my wife, I was just saying, oh you're just gonna love this college. In 1977, we went to a dance at the college, and it was awful! They turned the lights off in the music to see what people were doing, whether they were kissing or not. And she couldn't believe how it swung. And so Mr. Armstrong finally realized what had happened, so he sacked his son in 1978. And then he said, I've got to put the church back on its track. In other words, back to the right balance. And until 1986, the church got back into a balanced way. He never let anybody else. Basically, he didn't delegate to the point he was always going to be watching. And then, when he died, of all things, the man who had promised him, oh we're going to continue, we'll follow all these doctrines, it didn't happen. And so now, we went again, well we went from the middle of the road, now we went back to the publicans, and to watering down doctrine. And by 1995, it had been watered down to the point where God's laws were directly attacked. Things were just completely, the wheels had gone off. And so, 1995, they started talking about, well, you know, we should look at this evangelical theology, and they started trying to teach it to us. And many ministers, including me, I just said, no, I'm not going to follow that. And so, we had to put God's, as it says in Acts 5.29, I have to obey God before men. And so, we had to establish United Church of God at that time. And then, there were different groups. And you can see how their standard of righteousness has changed, because we have groups that are just as extreme as those Pharisees in some of these churches, where the minister controls everything, and women can't wear makeup, they can't do this, they can't do that. It's that extremist. Some people like that, because, you see, God does not want us to legislate righteousness, with all kinds of added rules to it. And United was one of the largest groups, which had a way of avoiding that one person becomes this pope-like figure, this pastor-general figure, where he's going to decide doctrine. And we saw what happened before.

And so, from that time on, yes, we've been able to grow in balance, trying to always please God, looking at the letter, and looking at the spirit of God's law. And so, let's look at Matthew 23.

Oh my, I just have so much to give you in such a short amount of time, but maybe next Sabbath I can give. Part 2. Matthew 23, verse 23. Since this has to do with the days of unleavened bread and God's standard of righteousness, Jesus Christ talked to the Pharisees, and he said, verse 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. See, that's the term for actors. They're acting away, but inside they're really not converted. He says, for you pay tithe of mint and anise and come in which are the tiniest of leaves. So they're very meticulous about that. He says, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law. The things that God focuses on more, justice and mercy and faith. And Luke 11.42 adds the love of God. So you see, all of these are the real focus points. These you ought to have done. So yes, tithing is something, but it's not trying to tithe every little thing like a mint or the leaves of things like that. Because you can go overboard on that. Again, you ought to have done that. Nothing wrong. He says, without leaving the others undone. And then he uses an illustration here, which I will end with. He says, blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. So that's what the Pharisees were doing. Straining the technical gnat and swallowing whole the spiritual camel. In other words, majoring in the minors and minoring in the majors. You're putting emphasis on something that's not that important. And what's truly important, you're forgetting the application of that.

And so, yes, united has matured to the point of striking what I believe is a good balance.

But we have to continue to grow in the grace and knowledge, as it says in 2 Peter 3, 17, and 18.

The grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. He was a perfect, balanced person. He knew how to apply God's law. And that's why the Pharisees had such a hard time with him. Because he said, look, with the Sabbath, there are times when you have the ox that falls into the ditch. And that there will be emergencies. If you see your neighbor's house, as we had something here, it's starting to burn. And the guy says, please bring your hose. No, it's the Sabbath.

Let it burn. Let it burn. No. No, no, that's not what you do. You get your hose. God understands very well. I'm looking at Lee over here. He's even older than I. He could tell you a lot more stories than I. And Ron as well, and Dave Wallach as well. So we have to learn to strike the right balance. Will we ever get it 100% well? Never. Not while we're human beings. But in God's kingdom, we will have perfect, balanced, righteous nature. Part two. God willing. Next Sabbath.