Well, thank you, Mr. Skipperot. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the first day of unleavened bread as we begin a new Holy Day season.
I believe it's important to remind us today that we have observed the New Covenant Passover, and we'll be observing the New Covenant days of unleavened bread rather than the old. As Jesus stated on his last Passover in 51 A.D., he said in Matthew 26-28, for, This is my blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for the remission of many.
Later on, the Apostle Paul told the Corinthian congregation, we'll be going back to his writings to Corinth in a few minutes, he said in 1 Corinthians 11-25, the same thing that Jesus said. He said, In the same manner he, referring to Christ, also took the cup after supper, saying, This is the cup, is the New Covenant in my blood? This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
Well, we've already experienced the Passover this year, so today what I would like to do is discuss the New Covenant observance of the days of unleavened bread. But before we do that, we need to remind ourselves of what the Old Covenant observance was. So let's do that together, going all the way back to Exodus 12, beginning in chapter 12, beginning in verse 15, where the introduction to these days are first made. Exodus 12 and verse 15, this is before it becomes part of the law of Moses, a little later codified. Exodus 12 and verse 15, here's what it says, and they were instructed.
Before that very first event of the days of unleavened bread, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats unleavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person will be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. We follow that example. We have in our congregations around the world a holy convention or assembly or convocation on the first day. And on the seventh day, which is the latter part of this verse, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat, that only may be prepared by you. So forget your normal routines this day, your normal work habits. What you were permitted to do in this day is to prepare for your meals. Aside from that, take the day off and celebrate and worship the great God.
For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person, shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. Then verse 20, you shall eat nothing leavened in all your dwellings, you shall eat unleavened bread.
So again, this is the first instruction in scriptures about the celebration of this very feast. Let's take a look at a few more verses and add on to what we've just read. Verse 33, So they're pushing the Israelites to get out of Egypt as fast as possible.
Verse 34, I'm going to read this verse, 34, from the translation God's word for today.
And carried it on their shoulders in bowls, wrapped up in their clothes. So they're mixing their bread, but they're in such a rush, and they finally get the message, Hey, it's time to go, that they don't have time to mix leaven in it. They don't have time to set it aside and let the bread rise. They immediately take that mixed dough, unleavened, wrap it up in some clothes, and lop it on their back and carry it, because they are in such a hurry. Remember that they've been told to be ready to leave Egypt in an instant. Regarding the Passover, they had been instructed in verse 11, to feed it in haste, quickly, fast, ready to depart at just an instant, a moment's notice. It is the Lord's Passover. Let's read about this again, reinforce it, dropping down to verse 37. Then the children of Israel journeyed from Ramesses to Sukkoth, about 600,000 men on foot. Besides children, a mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds, a great deal of livestock, and they baked unleavened cakes of the dough, which they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves. Now, the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was 430 years. So in the Old Covenant observance, have you ever considered there's no obvious statement or teaching that leaven represents sin? Yes, later on, many grain offerings and priestly offerings were forbidden to contain leaven, but here, in this introduction, in these scriptures, there's no explicit statement about leaven being a symbol of sin, or even pharaoh being a symbol of Satan. Within the scriptures, it isn't until Ezekiel 29, written a thousand years later by the prophet Ezekiel, that he likens pharaoh to Satan. Instead, what we just read is an emphasis here on freedom from physical slavery, and the need to be prepared to leave Egypt in a rush, in a hurry. There are lots of symbols and metaphors that you and I use every year regarding the days of unleavened bread that are only because we understand the New Covenant, the New Testament, because they're unspoken here. If you were to ask someone why they ate unleavened bread, their answer would be because we had to leave Egypt in a hurry, because it didn't have time to have mixed in the leaven in a premixed dough and to bring it with us on a journey. We were rushed out of there. That's why we eat unleavened bread. If you were to ask them why they eat unleavened bread for an entire seven days, I don't know if they could have given you the answer. The unleavened bread mentioned here in this symbolism and what it means to its fullness is unstated here in Exodus 12. It would take the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ to provide the full and rich meaning of these days.
This feast would become part of the new covenant that Jesus mentioned in Matthew 26-28 that I mentioned earlier. So let's fast forward in time. Why do we observe these days of unleavened bread? After all, they're not part of the Ten Commandments. We can easily explain to Sabbath it's part of the Ten Commandments. The Holy Days are not. They're established here in Exodus 12 and codified in Leviticus 23, but there are a lot of things we don't do that's mentioned in Leviticus and in the Old Covenant. So why do we, of all people, observe these days?
Well, of course, Jesus and his disciples observed these days. And when we look at the Book of Acts closely, we see that Paul observed these Holy Days as recorded in the Book of Acts. But after the death and resurrection of Jesus, there's a powerful example, the most key scripture, on why we understand the celebration of these days to be New Covenant, and why we continue to observe them in a different way than the Old Covenant, and with a different meaning.
That is what we call the Book of 1 Corinthians. If you'll turn there with me, you can turn to chapter 12. That's the first scripture we'll look at in it.
This book was written in 55 AD, and there's not a lot of dispute by scholars about that date. That's about 24 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So everything that's nailed to the cross, so to speak, and has been done away 24 years ago.
It's also a number of years after Ministerial Conference of 49 AD that's recorded in Acts chapter 15 that discussed the topic of circumcision and the law of Moses. So this is a time period in 55 AD when this book is written that everything that's been nailed to the cross, done away, obsolete, is gone.
Has already been revealed. Has already been exposed and is not part of the new covenant. Everything has been done away or fulfilled in Jesus Christ long ago. So now let's go back to 1 Corinthians. Who is this book written to? 1 Corinthians 12. Paul writes, That's important. Because some people don't want to keep the Holy Days because they say they were for Jews. They say, oh yeah, Jesus kept them. He was a Jew. They'll say, oh yeah, Paul kept them because he was a Jew. Well, here is Paul talking to Gentiles. Who said it? Paul said it.
And he said they had formally worshipped dumb idols. That's not something you would accuse a Jew of doing. Maybe not being faithful to God, but not, certainly not, worshiping dumb idols. Corinth was located in south central Greece, about 50 miles west of Athens. Paul is talking to Gentiles, not to Jewish members in the Corinthian church. So now let's go to this key New Testament scripture that helps us to understand why nearly 2,000 years after Jesus walked on the earth, we as the Church of God continue to observe these days and respect them and honor them.
1 Corinthians 5 and 6. Paul says, your glorying is not good. For the sake of the sermonette, you can go back to verse 1. Paul was frustrated that the congregation was tolerating a sexual deviant.
It's a family show, so I won't go into more detail than that. But they thought they were so righteous, so patient, so kind that they tolerated this individual within the congregation rather than sending him out. Paul was frustrated with that. They weren't living by the values of Jesus Christ, and it was a congregation. They had a responsibility to do that. So your glorying is not good, he says. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. How would they know what leaven represents? How would they know that leaven is symbolic of sin?
Paul's going to say it's symbolic of sin and wickedness in the next verse. How would they know that? Because they had been taught that by the New Testament Church of God. And this phrase, since you are unleavened, some scholar say it arrived during the feast, and he's talking, physically speaking, that they were observing the days of unleavened bread. But most likely, it's because of what he says in the very next verse.
They're unleavened because, unlike the Old Covenant, they have a Savior, and His name is Jesus Christ. And because of that, their sins are forgiven, and the righteousness of Christ is available to them, and spiritually that makes them unleavened. Let's continue here. For indeed, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us, Gentiles, Paul, if the congregation had some Jewish members, that certainly would be us, but let us, inclusive everyone in Corinth, let us keep the feast.
Not with old leaven, not the way we used to, not being a hypocrite, and removing leaven from your home, but continuing to live your life in a shallow way, or one that's sinful, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So Paul takes what was a physical holy day, people leaving slavery, people eating unleavened bread, because they were forced to leave Egypt before the bread could be mixed together with leaven and leavened, and he creates a spiritual understanding and a new covenant perspective that the leaven represents sin.
It's undesirable. And we should put that out, and for seven days we should imbibe righteousness. We should be eating unleavened bread, which represents symbolically the righteousness of Jesus Christ. So let's continue here. I'll read this again. Let us therefore keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Two things we can understand from acknowledging these powerful verses in this scripture is we begin these holy days this year. First of all, it reveals the complete fulfillment of the symbols used in the original declaration going back to Exodus 12 of these days. Leaven represents wickedness. That's what Paul reveals. And should be removed from our lives. And symbolically, we take the leaven out of our homes because we want to remove wickedness and sin from our hearts and from our minds.
So we remove leaven to draw closer to God and to develop the mind of Jesus Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of the Passover, and our sins are forgiven. And we eat that unleavened bread because he said twice in John chapter 6, I am the bread of life. And that's symbolically what is represented that we want the bread of life dwelling in us, in our hearts, and in our minds. The second thing we can take out of this scripture is the Old Covenant observers needed a spiritual Savior. We have a Savior, Jesus Christ, our Passover.
And we consume unleavened bread for seven days because it pictures that righteousness of Christ within us. It shows our commitment to internalize the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ, into the heart and core of our life.
So during the upcoming days of unleavened bread, we will eat some unleavened bread every day of the festival. These days picture for us hungering for the righteousness of Jesus Christ, being more like him, desiring to develop his mind in our hearts and within our minds. In scripture, the number seven represents perfection, and the seven days we eat unleavened bread symbolize the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ that we want to share in, that we desire.
So the New Covenant expands on the Old Testament's symbolic use of leaven, associating it more explicitly with sin, moral corruption, and the salvation that's offered by Jesus Christ. So here's a brief recap of the differences in the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, observances of the days of unleavened bread. The Old Covenant, the focus, was on freedom from physical slavery. It was connected with animal sacrifices and a Passover sacrifice every year. The animal sacrifices on the Holy Days had to be taken to the tabernacle, eventually the temple, when the temple was built. It was officiated by the Levitical priesthood. But under the New Covenant, the focus is on sanctification. We remove leaven from our hearts and minds. And, symbolically, we do that by removing leaven from our homes. We want to internalize Jesus Christ living within us, and that's why we eat unleavened bread for seven days. Worship is in a congregation, like Corinth, or anywhere God's people assemble and congregate. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Passover Lamb, and we come to worship as living sacrifices. We don't bring animals here to be sacrificed. So, I hope we can all more fully appreciate why we observe the New Covenant days of unleavened bread and not the old. One final scripture as we begin to prepare for our offering today, and if you need an offering envelope, I encourage you to raise your hand, and we'll make sure that someone gets you. I see a hand over here on my left, so I'll make sure someone gets an envelope to you. If you'll turn to Deuteronomy 16 and verse 16, something else that we choose to follow as an example, because it's in Scripture. But again, we do it in a New Covenant perspective. In Deuteronomy 16, 16, it says three times a year, All your mail shall appear before the Lord your God in the place that he chooses. It designates those time periods. The Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. In the New Covenant, it's not restricted to males. Anciently, males represented the entire family. But in the New Covenant, Jesus Christ made male and female equal in God's eyes, equal before God. So this isn't limited to just males coming and giving an offering today. As my children were growing up, it might have only been a quarter that I put in their hand or a dime that I put in their hand. But from very early ages, I taught them to give some type of an offering on these days.
It says, every man shall give as he is able according to the blessing of the Lord your God, which he has given you. There's no amount. It's from your heart. According to how you feel you've been blessed, I ask you to give. That's all that God expects. We choose to follow the example in the Scripture and have an offering in each of the seven high holy days every year, including today.
