Unleavened Bread Types

A few weeks ago, I gave a sermon on the Passover and talked about how we need to understand the Passover in terms of types and anti-types. It showed how that term is used by Peter when he talks about how Noah and the flood is a type of baptism. Baptism being the anti-type. And what that means is a type is a real person. It's not an analogy. It's a real person or place or event or thing that God uses to represent something in the future that's actually greater.

And so we see the type of something which is real, but then we have to understand that it actually represents in God's plan something greater. And when we went through the Passover, some of that's rather obvious. The Passover lamb in Exodus 12 is a type of Jesus Christ. He's called the Lamb of God. So we were able to look at some of those. We looked at others that may not be so obvious where they had to be circumcised in order to partake of the Passover, which was a command. And yet in the New Testament, Paul relates circumcision to baptism. That one is a type and the other is the anti-type. So today, to be part of the body of Christ, you must be baptized. We went through and showed a number of those types and anti-types of the Passover. How them coming out of Egypt is the Christian coming out of the sinful world. How their slavery, and that's a whole interesting subject in itself, how their slavery is a type of our slavery to sin.

So we looked at some of those types and those anti-types. And in doing so, we begin to see the continuity of the entire Bible. Old Testament all the way up through the New Testament. There's certain continuity that's really discovered in this type and anti-type concept, which is right in the scripture.

Today, I want to look at three types and anti-types from the days of 11 bread, for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It will tie some into the Passover. You can't entirely separate the event of the Passover in the days of the Unleavened Bread because they're all tied together. And yet, what happens during the days of Unleavened Bread, there are some meanings that aren't contained in the Passover itself.

One leads into the next. So I want to look at types and anti-types on the Feast of Unleavened Bread. I want to start first, though, by going back and revisiting a few things that happened in Exodus 12, Exodus 13, that discuss the days of Unleavened Bread. Now, we already went through the Passover, but the days of Unleavened Bread were the seven days that followed that. Well, let's take a look at a few of some verses there in a passage of Revelation. I'm tired today. It's been a tough week. Exodus 12 and Exodus 13. So let's go to Exodus 12.

We'll start at verse 29. Let me make a few comments, though, that are very important in understanding this so that we can understand what this meant to them. I'm always saying, what did it mean to those people who lived it first? Then we see what it means to us. Bread was a staple. It was the center of meals in ancient times in the Middle East. You know, you and I, bread is something that a lot of times in a meal we may not even eat. Or it's brought over as a side dish, right? There's a plate with some bread over here.

Unless you're eating a sandwich. Otherwise, bread is basically a side dish. In the Middle East, bread was the center of the meal. It supplied a lot of the nutrition because it was made from different types of grains and so forth. So it brought a lot of the nutrition. It was inexpensive. One of the reasons the Roman Empire conquered Egypt. It's hard for us to believe this today, but Egypt was the breadbasket of the world. They could grow wheat in Egypt at that time more than they could in Europe.

It was so fertile what they could grow there. So, you know, it supplied nutrition and it was non-GMO. But it supplied nutrition and it was what connected everything else together. You know, if you're eating a meal in the United States, my wife brings out the roast. The turkey. It's the center of the meal. Well, theirs was not. They would sit around a low table or sit around, depending on how much money they had, very poor. They might be sitting on the floor on mats. And in the center would be all these different dishes and there would be bread.

And bread, everybody would take a piece of bread first because you would tear the bread off and that was your spoon. You would dip in, pass it on and eat. You know, then take another piece of bread and dip in. That's why in Arab countries, even today, you only eat with the right hand. The left hand is for personal hygiene. Therefore, you do not use the left hand. It would be an insult to do so. You eat with the right hand.

So they would tear off a piece of bread and they would dip it and they would eat it and then the meat come around and they might put some on or maybe on a plate. But they use the bread a lot of times as a form of a spoon. It didn't mean they wouldn't have eating utensils also, but the bread was used to put things on to eat. So it was a centerpiece of the meal, sort of like we would see meat in our culture, and it was used at every meal.

So bread was the center of the meal. Now they would leaven that bread. Now if you'd have, you know what it's like when we eat unleavened bread. The matzos are the most tasty things that everybody wants to run out and get. Actually my wife makes unleavened bread that's so good I feel guilty eating it. Like it's called the bread of affliction. Our kids used to say, oh mom, won't you make this all the time? Just like all the time? Why do we have to eat regular bread?

So we look at this unleavened bread. We say, well we have all kinds of reasons we eat unleavened bread. But why did they eat unleavened bread? I mean you and I take, you know, when you make bread, what do you women have if you make bread? A little thing of yeast, a little bag of yeast. You tear the top off, you pour it in the dough, and you knead it in, and you set it for a while, and it rises up and puffs up. If you let it sit too long, it just sort of flows over the bowl. Well, what they did, I mean they couldn't run down to the 7-11 in, you know, ancient Egypt. What they would do is take a piece of dough, and they would put it in a jar. And they made bread every day. And then you would take your starter and take a piece of that, put it in there, work it in, and let it sit. And it would eventually make the dough rise. And so, every day they had to take it, and they had to leaven their bread.

So, let's now go to Exodus 12, understanding that little bit of information, and look what it says here. Exodus 12, verse 29. This is the Passover.

And it came to pass at midnight that the Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn of the captive, who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock. So Pharaoh rose in the night, he and his servants, and all the Egyptians. And there was a great cry in Egypt, and there was not a house where there was not one dead. Then he called from Moses and Aaron by night, and he said, Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel, and go serve the Lord, as you have said. Also take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also. And the Egyptians urged the people, they might send them out of the land in haste, for they said, We shall all be dead. After this tenth plague, the people are actually, the Egyptians are actually saying, Get out of our country. It says they spoiled them. In other words, the Egyptians are saying, Here, take this, take our gold, take whatever, just get out of here, leave, we don't want you anymore. And so they're leaving very quickly. And it's this fact that they're leaving in haste is why what happens next. Verse 34, So the people took their dough before it was leavened, having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes on their shoulders. The reason they ate unleavened bread was because they didn't have time to leaven it.

They had to leave so quickly. So they just bound up the dough in the bowls and wrapped it up and put it on their shoulder or put it in a knapsack or stuck on the back of a donkey and off they went. Now you and I later this week will be celebrating the days of leavened bread, but not for exactly this reason.

We have a different reason. Where does that come from? It's understanding the type and the anti-type. This is the type. This is why it's so important for us to understand this is historically correct. This is what God did. So why don't we do it exactly this way? Why don't we make our unleavened bread and say, well, we're doing this because the Israelites were forced out in haste.

That's not exactly why we do it. Look at verse 39. 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. They hadn't made any food. They didn't know they were going to go that quick. So that's why they got unleavened bread. Look in Exodus 13, one more chapter over. This is going to be more like a Bible study today. We're going to be going through lots of scriptures because it is very important to us to understand as we approach these days, or we just make it into a ritual. If we're doing it for the ritual, we're missing what God wants anyways. Exodus 13. Let's look at verse 3. Here's the instructions now for observing the days of leavened bread, the very first instructions. Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten. On this day you are going out to the month of Abib, which was the first month of the year. And it shall be that when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, which she swore to your fathers to give you a land flooded with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month. So they were commanded, just like they were commanded to keep the Passover, to keep these days of leavened bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters. Verse 8, When your children ask you why, this is the reason. And you shall tell your son in that day, saying, This is done because of what the Lord did for me when I came up from Egypt.

In Torah observant Jewish homes today at the Passover, they do a Seder meal. They have questions they ask. The children actually have a book and they open it up and they ask questions. Why do we do this? And all it has to do with this is because this is when God brought our people out of Egypt. So now let's look at three types, three things that are very important in Exodus 12 and 13 concerning the days of unleavened bread. We'll also jump ahead to Leviticus 23 a little bit later. And let's tie it into the anti-type. What is it that those things represent in a greater historical prophetic context? The first thing I want to look at is leavening itself. Now remember, leavening causes dough to rise. It forms pockets in it. It literally puffs it up. Puffs it up. And it gets large and you can make nice fluffy donuts and bread and all kinds of things because this agent forms these pockets of air. So why would you slice a piece of bread? By bread you can see what looks like little holes in it. Those were pockets formed by yeast.

And remember, the reason they were doing this is because they had to leave quickly. God was saving them. God was delivering them. Now if we go to the New Testament, the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul, we will find leavening used as a symbol of something. We now begin to see the anti-type. That this use of leavening in Exodus 12 actually is a symbol of something greater. Now I'm going to go through four scriptures rather quickly. It's a sermon in itself. Maybe next year I'll just give a sermon with these four scriptures because these four scriptures tell us an awful lot about what God is telling us the anti-type of leavening is. But let's start in Matthew 16. Matthew 16.

This is just an overview. Matthew 16 verse 5. This was not long after Jesus had fed 4,000 people with a little bit of bread.

He performed a miracle. Now when His disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. It's interesting in the Bible that bread, remember it's so central to the meal that bread is the synonym even for food. But obviously it was like we don't have any bread. So I get a couple figs. I get this. You know there wasn't enough to put a meal together for the disciples and for Christ. And it's like what are we going to do? We don't have any bread to build a meal around. You know maybe a few pieces of fruit, a few things, but we got to get some food. What are we going to do? And Jesus said to them, and you have to understand how odd this must have been seen. Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And they reason among themselves saying, it is because we have taken no bread. They had no context to put that in. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Their conclusion was, He doesn't want us to go get any bread from them. Why? Probably one of the disciples at this point is saying, I'm hungry. Why in the world is he saying, he's griping, you know, low blood sugar. I'm hungry.

We go over here to some Pharisees and give us some bread? What's his problem?

They had no context. That's what's interesting, because they only understood the type.

They didn't understand the anti-type. They were about to get a lesson in it. But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, this is verse 8, O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? Do not yet understand, or do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves and the five thousand, and how many baskets you took up? Or the seven loaves and the four thousand, how many large baskets you took up? Don't you remember? He says, I just asked God, what make all the bread you want? God will say, bread? Give me a fig. We'll have a thousand figs. God will perform the miracle here. You're missing the point.

How is it that you do not understand, this is verse 11, that I did not speak to you concerning bread, but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees? He says, I'm talking about leaven here. And you're thinking in a very physical context. Verse 12, then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Well, that's a unique use of leaven, isn't it? Now, that's what they had to be thinking.

Huh! That's a pretty neat use of leaven. Now, they didn't understand the science of leavening. You know, they just knew you put yeast into a... I mean, it interacts with things at the cellular level. They didn't understand that. They understood. You take this, you put this in here, and it causes this to rise. Okay, they understood that. And it's like, ah, that's interesting. Leavening sort of, you know, you put it in there and permeate. You can't get leavening out of something once it's in there. Not physically. You can't do it. It's in there. You can't get it out. So, ah, so the doctrines of the Pharisees and Sadducees, it's sort of like leavening. It gets in there and you can't get it out. So we've got to be aware of them. So here we have the first use of leaven in this spiritual sense. It's false teachings. False teachings that fill us full of hot air. Because it's the whole point of leavening, it fills something full of air. So false teachings will fill us full of hot air. Obviously, once again, that could be a whole sermon, right? Luke 12. So look at another case here where Jesus uses this analogy. Luke 12.

Verse 1.

Luke 12. Verse 1. It says, in the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so they'd trample one another, he began to say to his disciples, first of all. So he went to his disciples, first of all, and he said, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

Oh, now leavening is being used as another spiritual meaning.

Remember, leavening is a core agent of their meal every day, of their meals every day. Leavened bread, except during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, where they were to get rid of leavening. Oh, so leavening has a spiritual meaning. In this case, it's hypocrisy. To pretend to be one thing when you're something else. Now let's look at the Apostle Paul. And of course, the first place you would think of is 1 Corinthians. Why? Because it is in 1 Corinthians that Paul commands a Gentile New Testament church to keep the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread. So he's going to give us some insight. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians 5, 6 to 8. It would take an hour just to expound everything in this passage. In fact, we were in this passage a few weeks ago when we talked about the Passover, the types of the Passover. He says to them, Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? So they're using this principle. When you put a little bit of this in the dough, everything gets affected by it. It affects everything.

So Jesus is using that same analogy. You've got to be careful with Pharisees, the Pharisees, and Sadducees because you absorb some of their teachings and it can take you someplace. That didn't mean the Sadducees and Pharisees, by the way, were wrong on everything. They weren't. But they had places where they were wrong. Then he talks about hypocrisy. You get that into your life, hypocrisy will control everything about you. You will become a hypocrite.

And now Paul's using this same analogy. He's using this type to show something greater. Therefore, purge out the old lemon. Here's what's really interesting. I want you to think about this phrase because we have to come back to this. That you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. Now that's a whole new concept he just throws in there. Remember I said the Passover is a person? And in Exodus 12, they would have never thought of that. It was the Lord passing over so that they did not die. And then we have Jesus come along and John the Baptist says, Ah, the Lamb of God. We have Paul at 1 Corinthians say, well, we're going to read it here. He is our Passover. The Passover is a person. That's a whole new concept. Well, I want you to think of the paradigm. I don't like that word. I want you to think of the context of Exodus 12.

And what these people have known for 2,000 years. Well, not that long, 1,400 years. For 1,400 years, we left Egypt and that's why we eat unleavened bread. And Paul says, you have to be unleavened as a person. That's a big shift of context, isn't it?

He's opening this up to a whole new understanding.

By the way, he's not doing away with the Passover days of unleavened bread. Because if he did, he couldn't argue his point. He's just saying those things were symbols. They were real, real people, real events, real objects. But they're just symbols of a greater context.

He says, in the pickup in the middle of the verse again, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So here we have leaven is malice and wickedness, wrong attitudes and sin. Oh, there's a whole other subject there. One last place. 1 Corinthians 8, here are just a few chapters. He's still using this analogy. Remember, leavening puffs up. That's why he said, your glorying is not good. You just sort of get filled and filled with pride. Verse 1 says, now concerning things offered to idols, Paul says, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love enifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing, yet as he ought to know. In other words, he says, you know, you can even have good knowledge. And that knowledge can be like leavening. It can puff you up.

We can get so caught up in the knowledge that God has given us that we don't have the character of Jesus Christ. We don't live the way we're supposed to live, as if the knowledge itself saves us. That'd be like saying, an encyclopedia is all I need in life.

And we have to apply what God gives us. So we see that in the New Testament, specifically two cases with Jesus and two with Paul, they use leavening in a whole different way. They show that while what we're talking about here, these real experiences show the anti-type, which is an internal leavening that we have inside ourselves.

Now, removing leavening physically is impossible. But the days of unleavened bread is about removing leavening from ourselves. See, you and I can go remove leavening from our houses, but we can't take the leavening out of the bread. If you have a bag of pretzels, you can't take the leavening out of the pretzels. You've got to throw the whole bag away. Again, well, I've got a machine here. I'll just pour the pretzels in, and all the leavening comes out. And what I get at the end is what? Well, you can't. You can't get the leavening out. You have to throw it away. And yet, here he says, you must be unleavened. So we must become D11. It's a miracle. To be D11ed is a miracle. So we've looked at leavening. Now let's look at unleavened bread. And I want to look at unleavened bread in two passages. One we've already read, so we won't have to go there. Where in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul says that the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We must replace malice and wickedness with sincerity and truth.

So as leavening is taken out of us spiritually, something else has to come in.

Something else has to come in. And that brings us to something that Christ taught in John chapter 5. Or John chapter 6. I'm sorry. Let's go to John 6. As I said, we're going through a lot of scriptures today. This is more of a Bible study. But this is real important. Because you can go throw out all your leavening and not receive it all when God wants you to understand. I'm not saying you shouldn't throw it out. But if it's like, oh, I'm righteous, I got rid of all my leavening, why are we any different than a person who denies Jesus but throws it out?

I mean, there's lots of Orthodox Jews that will throw out leavening. Is that all we're doing? John 6. It's a very long passage. I want to read parts of it.

Read all of it. All of John 6 between now and the Passover. It's important. Let's look at verse 25, though.

And when they found him on the other side of the sea, this was a large group of people, came to Jesus, and they said to him, Rabbi, where did you come? Or when did you come here?

Now, he starts answering this question with something that just perplexes them. It's like, is he answering our question? What is he answering? What is he telling us? Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek me, not me, I'm sorry, you seek me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves that were filled. Now, if you read the first part of chapter 6, you'll see that this is just before the Passover. Look at verse 4. Now, the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Now, you read the first part of chapter 6, and he feeds 5,000 people with a little bit of bread. So here's right before the Passover. He performs this miracle and feeds large numbers of people with a small amount of bread. And then these people come to him and ask him a question. He says, you know why you're following me? Because you think I'm going to give you some more food.

That was cool. Do it again.

He says, Do not labor, verse 27, for the food which perishes, but for the food which adores to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on him. And they said to him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Oh, good! We want to see some more miracles. We want some food.

Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.

So here's what he means. We've got to follow you? You're telling us this is the work of God, that we have to follow you. And the next statement is fascinating. And therefore they said to him, What sign will you perform then, that we may see it and believe in? What work will you do? Our fathers ate the manna in the desert, as is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

How about some manna? He made some bread. That was this. But some manna would really be great. We've often wondered, you know, what did the manna taste like? A little manna would be good. That would show that you're from God. Give us some bread.

Then Jesus says to them, Most assuredly I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. They said to him, Lord, give us this bread always. Okay, feed us! Give us what we've got to have for eternal life.

Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me, and you do not believe. He goes on and explains to them, if you accept that I am the bread of life, I will resurrect you, he says, at the last days. I promise you a resurrection if you believe that I am the bread of life. So here he claims he is the bread. How's the new concept?

That's a whole new concept, isn't it? Verse 41. The Jews then complained about him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it that he says he I have come down from heaven? Wait a minute. We know this guy. We know him. He stands a carpenter. In fact, she was pregnant before they were married. We know about Jesus. How can he say I came from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said to them, verse 43, Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. Verse 48. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and are dead. Okay, so he tells them, I know you want a physical miracle, and you want me to make some manna for you. But you know, you eat manna, you'll die. Oh, you might, you know, it's good for you. Best food ever made. You can eat that stuff and go for days on it. Okay? You eat manna, you probably lived to be 200 years old. And that's all you had to eat. That means perfect food from God. But you will die. They all did.

He says, this is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. He says, I am, this is real important, I am the living bread, living bread, which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread I will give him is my flesh that I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat? Now they're in a big argument. He doesn't mean this literally, does it? Surely, why is he so cannibalism? This guy's weird. Others are saying, ha, why in the world does that mean? And now they're having arguments among themselves. Over what does he mean? Verse 53, that Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Now, when I talked about the types of the Passover, his body is represented by that piece of bread, his blood by the wine we take. And in 1 Corinthians, Paul said, we do this in remembrance of him.

And we what? We commemorate his death. It's very important. That's why the Passover is such a solemn occasion. We take that piece of bread that represents, you know, it doesn't literally turn into his body inside of us, that represents it's a type of his body. And we take that type of his blood and we take it into us. We are commemorating his death till he comes. We will do that until he comes. Part of the end, so he predicts this here. He predicts that's what's going to happen. He's going to give those instructions, which he did. But he also keeps saying he's the living bread.

Did he go on? Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood is eternal life, and I want to raise him up at the last day. Verse 55, for my flesh is food indeed, my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. Now that's real important. You take these symbols of his death and I will abide things live. I will live in you and you will live in me.

We take that bread on that night to commemorate his death. But here he keeps emphasizing, I am alive and I will live in you. As the living father sent me and I live because of the father, so he who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna that are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.

So here we have a discussion of Christ as bread, but not just in the context of commemorating his death, but the fact that he will live in us. This is brought out throughout the New Testament. Look at Galatians. Galatians 2. Galatians 2. You still with me here? There's lots of scriptures.

I'm sort of cherry picking this one. I like to get things in context. This is a very difficult passage, but this verse is such a perfect sentence in English. It says so much. So I'm going to pick this verse out to make a point. Galatians 2.20.

Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ.

On that Passover we celebrate, we commemorate his death, that we die with him. He is our substitute. Without that, we cannot appear before the righteous God. We have no right to go before God.

God's justice and love both must be met. His justice demands you and I die as criminals because we are criminals. But his love sent Christ to die for us. So his justice is met and his love is met. That's incredible. I can't even wrap my mind around it. So he was crucified with Christ.

And then he says, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. He abides in me. He lives in me. The life which I now live in the flesh. I live my faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. So he died for me and he lives in me. These come together. These concepts come together with the Passover and Days of 11 bread.

When we eat the bread at the Passover, it's the body of Christ who's commemorating his death. When you eat the bread during the Days of 11 bread, you're commemorating Christ coming into you because he's alive.

That's not new, by the way. You can find that taught in the Radio Church of God. I learned that as a child. Which the Radio Church of God doesn't even exist anymore.

Is that some new concept? We commemorate his death, but his life. I mean, what if Jesus had never been resurrected? Then let's just go out and have a big time because we're all dead people.

So we commemorate his death. We also understand he now lives in us. We take him in. That's why every day during the Days of 11 bread, when you eat that bread, it is because what? I am becoming, what did Paul say, unleavened. Well, you can't be unleavened. It's impossible. No, with God, we can be de-leavened. All that leavening can be taken out of us. You can't do that physically.

Malice, wickedness, hypocrisy, false doctrine. It can all be pulled out of us. My God. And what is it replaced with? The unleavened life of Jesus Christ.

Look what Paul says in Romans 5.

These are big concepts.

Romans 5.

Verse 8.

Verse 6-11 is a remarkable passage. Paul just... It's amazing what he does in those few verses. But let's just pick this up in verse 8. But God demonstrates his own love towards us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He takes us back to the Passover.

And he died for us while we were his enemies, while we were criminals in his eyes. In accordance with his law.

Much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, that means we can now have a relationship with God.

Accepting that substitute and saying, please apply that brutality in my stead, we can now come into a relationship with God. But notice the rest of the verse.

Much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by what? His life.

It's Christ coming into us through God's Spirit and shaping and molding us into the children of God. His life is announced at the right hand of the Father, carrying out the Father's plan to bring children to him. During the days of 11 bread, on that fifth and sixth day, when you take a piece of 11 bread and say, oh man, I'm getting tired of 11 bread. When you eat that, think, Christ in me.

Not just Christ dying, Christ alive in me.

That's the power of this. We can throw out the leavening and it doesn't mean anything. It just means you have a cleaner house and probably going a week without all that gluten. It's not bad for you. But it doesn't change who you are unless you understand what it symbolizes.

The third point ties these together. We've looked at leavening and unleavened bread.

Now let's look at the third point. It's a point that many times we don't think about in terms of the Feast of the 11 Bread. But in Leviticus 23, we have all the holy days outlined, starting with the Sabbath and in each of the holy days. It tells the offerings that they had sacrifices they had to do, the Levites, during those days, the special ones. Then in the middle of this passage, it's simply instructions on a special offering. But it's very important. Leviticus 23.

Leviticus 23.

So the first part of Leviticus 23 is about the Sabbath. It's the Passover and 11 Bread. Later, we have the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles. But in verse 9, we have something just thrown in here. It seems to be, but it's not. Because remember, every single sacrifice is a type of what God's doing through Christ. The endotype is Christ. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Now, it is understood, and it's virtually every, no matter what brand of Judaism or Christianity you come from, that this has to do and is attached to the Days of 11 Bread.

So the problem is, what does it mean by the Sabbath?

Does it mean the first Sabbath of the Day of 11 Bread? Or the last Sabbath, because those are high days, those are annual Sabbaths. Or does it mean the Sabbath in the middle of the Days of 11 Bread? And you'll find people that argue all that. I will just tell you how we've come to our conclusion. Type and anti-type. We actually use that as our conclusion.

That's why we come to our conclusion. It's like, why do we keep the Passover at the time that we do, when there's people who keep the Passover at all different times, doing the 14th of Abib and even into the 15th of Abib? Because it's when Jesus did.

Type and anti-type. If he's the Passover, we'll do it when he says the done.

So here we have this command. They would take this little bit of first fruits of the barley harvest, and they would stand before the altar, and they would wave it, and it would be accepted by God.

During the Feast of the First Fruits, or what we call Pentecost, they would have another harvest of first fruits. But it's a different harvest. And then, during the Feast of Tabernacles, there would be a great harvest. But here's this little harvest. We have a little harvest. A little bit of barley, waved, and accepted by God. During the Days of the Eleven Bread. Okay, that's sort of interesting. Now let's go look at an interesting passage in John 20. You know, understanding when Jesus actually died and was resurrected is very important.

Well, in John 20, the whole idea of a resurrection on Sunday morning is disproved. I mean, at sunrise. Jesus was resurrected at sunrise. It's disproved. Just reading the passage. So then we've got to figure out when he actually died. Now most of you figured this out, you know it. That we know that Jesus would have died on the day before the first day of the Eleven Bread, which was a high day. So he died, and if we look back at 31 AD, 30 AD would work out too, but 31 AD, that that would have been a Wednesday. This is very important because he said the only sign that he would be in the Messiah is that he'd be in the grave three days and three nights. Right? So if he dies on a Wednesday, three days and three nights later, this is late in the evening, just remember they had to take his body and they had to hurry up and put it in a tomb. They didn't even prepare for burial because that great high day, as John calls it, a high day, wasn't just a regular Sabbath, it was about to happen.

That would mean that he was resurrected at the end of the Sabbath, towards the end of the Sabbath, three days and three nights later. There's no way to add up Friday afternoon to Sunday morning. You can't get three days and three nights out of that. I've read convoluted arguments. You can't make that work. You just can't. What's parts of days? Okay, I can come up with three parts of days. I can't come up with three nights. When Jesus says, this is it, this is the proof, and you can't prove it, there's a problem. Now, if you have, though, he dies, on a Wednesday, he's resurrected on the Sabbath, which makes sense. The Sabbath is all about redemption. And there's a whole other sermon, too. It's right before sundown, but it's on the Sabbath.

Knowing that is the only way you could make sense. And what we just read in Leviticus 23, it's the only way you could make sense out of what happens in John 20. Let's go to John 20. Verse 1. Now the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, this is way before sun up, the sunrise service doesn't work here, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. She ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciples whom Jesus loved and said to them, they have taken away our Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him. He was gone. It's still dark. It's before sun up. He's gone. He's not in the tomb. Where is He?

So verse 11. But Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping, and as she wept, she stooped out and looked into the tomb, and she saw two angels in white sitting one at the head, the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had laid, and they said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? She said to them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him. Now when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but did not know it was Him. Jesus said to her, Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking? And Jesus, posing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away. And Jesus said to her, Mary, she turned and said to Him, Robonai, which means teacher. It actually means more than teacher.

This term was only applied to a handful of rabbis throughout history. This is like super teacher. Okay. And Jesus said to her, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to my Father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father, and to your Father, and to my God, and your God. Why in the world would Jesus be hanging around the tube and not yet ascended to the Father? I mean, even if He had been resurrected just minutes before. Why?

Why would He be resurrected and not ascended to the Father? Remember, everything that was done in the Old Testament was set up by God as a type of future events that are real.

A little later that morning, there would have been in the temple a priest that would have gone before the throne of God, the mercy seat, with a little sheep of firstfruits, and waved it.

With the belief, God will accept this and He will bless this nation.

What was happening at the literal throne of God at that moment, Jesus Christ, was being presented to the Father and accepted. For all of us.

So when we put all this together, we commemorate His death. We take this piece of bread that symbolizes His broken body. We take this little bit of wine that symbolizes blood.

And then He's presented before the Father as the firstfruits. See, He's accepted as the Passover. He's accepted as the firstfruits. And now, we keep the Days of Unleavened Bread to what? Take in His unleavened character. To take in His unleavened life into us. As we eat that piece of unleavened bread all through the week. All through the week.

It's all fits.

1 Corinthians 15. Our last scripture here. 1 Corinthians 15. Remember, on Pentecost, it is a feast of firstfruits.

But it's not the firstfruits presented to God. The firstfruits are presented to God after the Sabbath, in the middle of the days of Unleavened Bread. Now, I can tell you what different Christian groups and what different Jewish groups teach, because even the Jews don't agree on which day that happens. You know why we believe it happened on the Sunday after the Sabbath in the middle of the days of Unleavened Bread? Because that's what happened in John.

It is exactly what happened. It was the Sunday after the Sabbath in the middle of the days of Unleavened Bread, because he had to be in the grave three days and three nights from Wednesday to Saturday.

That's why we believe that.

I can't argue that in terms of going through. I've seen the charts people work out. Well, no, it's supposed to be the day after the first day. No, it's the day after the last day. No, it's this. You know what? No, it's the exactness of God and what he does that makes me believe and do what I do.

That it's all type and anti-types.

God's got it worked out that perfectly. That's amazing.

I don't know what Jesus did for all those hours hanging out at the tomb. But it wasn't time. Why didn't God have the wave sheaf offered at midnight or something? Why did he have the hand? My wife said she figures he and the angel sit around and talked. Probably. There were angels there, right? They probably had a great conversation. I'm glad you're that. Lord, I bet you're happy that's over. He said, you have no idea. What's he doing? He's waiting for the moment to fulfill with the Bible type predicted he would fulfill. And he doesn't. And he ascends to the Father. He's accepted as the firstfruits. Verse 20. But now Christ is risen from the dead and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Somebody had to be the first one to be resurrected from the dead. He came from heaven. He never experienced death. He knew he was going to have to. And he died. He experienced death. A brutal death. And then woke up three nights later in a glorified state fulfilling the Passover, fulfilling the wave sheath, fulfilling the firstfruits. And now is the connection between the days of love and bread and Pentecost. But that's another story. Because he's now the connection between these holy days. God has this all planned out. Our Father is amazing. He wanted us to learn all this, to experience all this. He gave us these simple little ceremonies to do in order to teach it to us. The holy days are all about types and other types. And that's why I wanted to give these two sermons to really think about this. Most of this isn't new to anybody. I just wanted to put it together in a way that you can see what God is doing. As you remove leavening from your homes this week, and it's been a whole week eating unleavened bread, which may seem strange to some people. I can remember taking crackers to school. You know, Matzos to school, until my mother finally figured out she could make better unleavened bread than Matzos. And at first I was really embarrassed until some of the kids said, Man, I wish my parents would give me crackers for lunch. Strange one of these Matzos for banana. But remember why we're doing what we're doing. Meditate on it. Think about it. Think about what it is to remove leavening. Think about why we eat unleavened bread. Think about what it is that the first of the first roots has already fulfilled that. And we're waiting for Pentecost to be totally fulfilled. We're in the midst of Pentecost being fulfilled, as far as history right now. And remember this important point. The real important spiritual meaning about this whole idea of unleavened bread. That is, God wants us to understand who is the authentic bread of life.