What are the Implications of Removing Leavening?

I somewhat understand, and I'm sure anybody who has served as a pastor understands sometimes, there is a time to have a little quiet time in your life. Even Jesus, remember, went to the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon. Don't get your hopes up, by the way. Phoenix is not Tyre and Sidon, in terms of... But anyway, I understand that. Sometimes we have to run from our parishioners, you know, in order to have peace.

But, you know, the longest minute I have ever spent is somebody that says, can I have old minute? Usually it's not a minute, it might be two hours before it's all done. But we're always happy again to serve and to help God's people in every way. No question about that. You know, brethren, if we weren't reminded every year about the importance of the Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread, we will forget.

We would simply forget. Now, that was one of the biggest foibles of the Israelites, to forget. And they had to be reminded time and time again. And God, in fact, you know, we see that in the Pentateuch, that Israel was reminded about things time and again. You know, God gave how to keep the Passover and how to keep the days of Unleavened Bread.

His intent of doing what he did was to provoke thought in the Israelites about the nature of sin and the fact that it has to be overcome, that it has to be put out of our lives. Let's notice over here to begin with by way of introduction in Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23 and down in verse 5 through 8, just a few verses here, it says, in the fourteenth day of the first month that twilight is the Eternals Passover.

And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord, to the Eternal. In other words, it is not a Jewish feast. It's not an Israelite feast. It is a feast to God, to the Eternal. Again, it makes it very, very clear there are seven days you must eat unleavened bread.

Now, you do get to eat other things, by the way, besides unleavened bread. Now, that would be pretty difficult, wouldn't it, to eat unleavened bread for seven days and nothing else. On the first day, you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall do no customary work on it, but you will offer an offering made by fire to the Eternal for seven days, and the seventh day is a holy convocation, and it says you shall do no customary work on it. So, you have the bookends of the first holy day and the last holy day on the seventh day, and during that period of time you are to eat nothing.

It says unleavened bread. Now, this is in the book of Leviticus, because the book of Leviticus pertained to the Levites, and the Levites had the job of educating the Israelites. They were the teachers of Israel, and they had that job of teaching God's loss. You know, we're told in Malachi chapter 2 that the law of truth, speaking of Levi, was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips.

He walked with me in peace and equity, and did not turn, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priests' lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the eternal of hosts. So, the Levite was the the messenger of God, the one that was to bring the people, you know, the laws of God, to teach the laws of God to convey the truth of God. Now, let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 16 again, here by way of introduction.

As I mentioned, Israel had a problem of forgetting, but here in chapter 16, verses 1 through 4, you know, Deuteronomy, by the way, is the second statement of the law that Moses gave before they went over Jordan and on into the Promised Land of Canaan. And so, let's notice here, verse 1, we'll begin there, but it says, observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the eternal.

Again, it says, to the eternal your God, for in the month of Abib that the eternal your God brought you out of Egypt by night. Therefore, you shall sacrifice the Passover to the eternal your God from the flock and the herd and the place where the Lord chooses to put His name. And you shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it. That is the bread of affliction for you came out of the land of Egypt and haste, that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.

It says that no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall any of the meat which you sacrifice the first day at twilight remain overnight until morning. And so here in the second statement of the law we have it stated again to Israel that they were not to eat during this period of time anything that was leaven. And you know, actually the cakes, the unleavened bread cakes that are mentioned in verse three come from the Hebrew word matzah, you know, that means actually literally sweet.

I remember when I was a kid we used to call bread sweet bread. I don't know if you know that was the case here in Arizona or elsewhere, but in Oklahoma we call this sweet bread. But this word matzah is a word from which we get, you know, in the language, the English language, we get the word matzoh. And a matzoh, of course, is machine made and very much used in this country. And we use it, of course, for the Passover as well. But, brethren, what is the meaning of not having this leavening around?

What is the meaning of removing this leavening? You know, why does God have us do this ritual, if I could put it that way, every year? And it is a ritual, isn't it, that we get into? Go back to the very beginning, you know, Adam and Eve, remember, when they were created, God did not finish the creation. He created absolutely perfect physical human specimens, but He did not complete them because there was no character in them.

There was no holy righteous character that was in them. Unfortunately, they began to build the human nature from the very beginning. But God intended that they build holy righteous character. Now, God is dealing here with a physical nation. His purpose has not changed. His desire is to build right character in the Israelites. And He begins in this small way.

And though these are physical acts where we are carrying out the leavening from our houses and throwing it away, putting it away, it has big spiritual implications.

That God intends, brethren, that we ultimately build holy righteous character. We know the Israelites didn't. At least most of them did not. Moses did. Herod did. Others did. Where the Spirit of God was alive and active in them, they were building again that character. It was there.

1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians 5 over here. Now, we come to the New Testament. We see that in the New Testament time that the church was doing these things. They were carrying through and doing these things. Of course, with the spiritual element added to it, something that, frankly, the children of Israel were never prepared to graduate to. But here in chapter 5 of 1 Corinthians, notice this, and down in verse 6 we'll begin there. He's talking to the Corinthian church who had tolerated a rather egregious sin, which we'll mention in a few moments. But it says, you're glorying. He says it's not good. So Paul is having to to Jason, the brethren in Corinth. He says, do you not know that in little leaven leavens the whole lump? Obviously they knew that. The pinch of leavening leavens, a whole lump of dough. That's something everyone would know. And of course they would have been very familiar with because this was the, you know, the days of unleavened bread. Therefore, purge out, he said, the old leaven that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened with sacrifice for us. He says, 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 to get rid of the hate that oftentimes is in people that is a part of that human nature, to rid ourselves of the hate that is within us. It's like the situation down in Florida. It's an example of the kind of hate that is in this world, in this society, that sometimes explodes in people, particularly where there are mental problems that are there, pressures can get so big and upon people that they simply explode, and people suffer as a result of it. But God wants us, brethren, to get rid of those characteristics that are so prevalent in the society that we live in.

But let's go back up here now to chapter 5 and just verses 1 and 2, and where Paul was talking to the Corinthians there, and he said, it's actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality is not even named among the Gentiles, that a man has his father's wife.

Apparently this was a stepmother here in this case.

You know, and he said, it goes on to say, because of this egregious problem that Korith had, that they were tolerating this person that was doing this terrible thing, he says, and you're puffed up! You're puffed up! And have not rather mourned that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. You know, sometimes people can get so close to sin, and they could actually begin to think somehow that they're bigger than other people because they can sort of tolerate it. And apparently they did in the Corinthian church, and they were at fault, and they were vain. They were puffed up over it, thinking somehow they were superior to other people because they were able to tolerate this terrible sin that existed there. You know, this phrase, puffed up, comes from the Greek word, fusio. It means to inflate. They were overly inflated. You wouldn't think that would be the case. They were proud of what they were doing.

And Paul says, why haven't you rather grieved? And you know, they had been putting the leavening out, apparently, from what the Scriptures say, but they had not put that sin out. They hadn't dealt with the problem.

They had at least, you know, symbolically been de-leavened of sin because of Christ the Passover. They hadn't put away the sin and got rid of it, put it out, gotten rid of it.

Leaven, during the days of unleavened bread, pictures sin. And when we allow sin to come and lodge with us, to begin to live with us, it produces a wrong state of being, a wrong heart.

A wrong attitude. And people tend to get puffed up, and they become resistant to God, what God has to say. Never notice that when somebody has a problem, whatever it is, at least I have noticed this, in dealing with people, if they got a problem, whatever it is, if it's a serious problem, whether you're talking about alcoholism, you ever try to talk an alcoholic and tell him he's drunk? Did they listen to you? I mean, they're not going to hear you, one with. It's not going to happen, because sin causes people to resist God and even sound judgment. Don't listen to what is right, what is good. Now, brother, why is leavening a symbol of sin? Well, I'm not going to cover the qualities of leavening in detail, because we're going to do that a lot. As we lead up to the Passover and the days of unleavened brotherhood, we've talked about a lot of the qualities of leavening. But right here, brother, in 1 Corinthians 5 is a major characteristic, and that is the swelling vanity that often people can have, that puffed up attitude that people can have. This is one of the reasons, brethren, we clean the leavening out during the days of unleavened bread, because it is this puffy-up quality, this inflation of the cell, vanity that causes us to resist what God says.

You know, we feel too big. We scratch our head, we scratch it out here, you know, because the head is so big. And Paul said, a little leaven, leaven is the whole lump. It corrupts the whole being. We let it stay if we tolerate one thing. Let's go back to Exodus 12. Exodus 12. One of the great things that we need to begin to think about, brethren, as we walk toward the Passover is about this problem of our vanity. When we think too much of ourselves very often, now, I think even sometimes when we feel like we're inferior, we think too much of ourselves.

Exodus 12, verse 15. You know, the Bible does say that no man ever hated himself, hated his own soul. But in Exodus 12, verse 15, it says, Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. And of course, this is the bread of affliction. It's also called. It was a reminder, Israel, of what they came out of.

You know, we, of course, used to eat this when I was a kid, actually. We weren't Jews, by the way. And my mother just made this unleavened bread. She called it hard tack.

And it was. It was rubbery or hard. You know, you could stretch it from here to the back of the room, you know. But I don't know why she ever fixed it for us, but it'll make, I have no idea. But on the first day, you shall remove leaven from your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. So this was pretty serious. You get cut off from Israel. Now think about that. You know, how'd you like to be marched out of Israel? Over bread. I don't know exactly how they handled somebody who did not obey that, but I'm sure it was dealt with a lot differently than we deal with things today. Chapter 12, verse 17. So you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. On this self same day I have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.

Verses like this I read, by the way, when I was first learning about the Holy Days. You know, the Bible says an awful lot about when it in connection with the Holy Days. It uses that word forever quite a bit. So I knew I've got to start keeping the Holy Days. So in down to verse 19, let's notice this. For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leaven, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. So this was again very, very serious matter.

And God expects us to contemplate the need to put out sin out of our life because of this practice so that they're clean, that our lives are clean. So it used to be that the Jews, as a family, would get on their hands and their knees with an oil lamp. Imagine this scene in a home that was quite rustic in those days, and they would get on their knees looking for leavening. And they made it sort of into a game for children to learn about cleaning out the leavening. Now think about the fact, though, too, that if you're on your hands and your knees down there looking for leavening, that's a pretty good posture to be in.

You know, in terms of humility, at least, it takes away the puffed up feeling, doesn't it?

It's like when you wash feet on the Passover. You know, it's kind of hard to have a lot of vanity, isn't it? When you look at sometimes people's gnarly feet, you know, it is very humbling, you know? And interestingly, when you do the Passover, oftentimes, if you ever thought in your head, I don't want to wash that person's feet, you ever notice that that's the person that you line up with? And what is God saying to you? Get rid of the vanity. Get rid of the puffed up attitude that you have. You know, we need to get up on our hands and knees as it were and ask God to help us to see what our sin is. Sin is a corrupting effect. It has a corrupting effect if we let it remain and stay with us. A little leaven leaven is a whole lump and it must be put out. Brother, Romans 6. Let's go to Romans chapter 6. You know, when I was a part of the world, you know, I was really, I wanted to see the world succeed, too. I remember, you know, reading about the great man to accomplish things when I was in high school, you know, particularly and others. I wanted to see the world succeed. Now, I got to a point where I began to realize that something bad wrong with the world. And I came to realize that the world had to change big time. And I want to be a part of that, too. I want to be a part of this world change for the good. But here in Romans chapter 6, let's notice this in verse 6, it says, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him.

And that body of sin might be done away with that we should no longer be slaves of sin. When we were in the world, we were slaves to what was out there. Like I say, I wanted to see it succeed. I was a part of it. But it says, for he who has died has been freed from sin. And we know that means we're freed from the penalty of sin. Doesn't magically mean that we don't we can't sin anymore, because we do. We fall down. But it says now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we should also live with him. We should change the way we think. We change our heart. We change our life. Though, as the first message was talked about, knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead dies no more, death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead, indeed to sin, but alive to God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are to walk in a newness of life. We're a new creation. We should be transforming, converting, you know, as we know, changing of our hearts and minds. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your immortal body that you should obey it in the lusts. Romans 6, verse 13, and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.

And we can't go out there in the world and be like the rest of the world and live the way the rest of the world lives. But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. We are part of a new age that's coming, brethren, a new world that is coming with a new way of living, a new way of thinking.

I was listening this morning to Mr. Armstrong about how he talked about how he went to see the various peoples around the world, understand things the way we do, and he said, I put it in very simple terms. There are two ways, he said, the way of give and the way of get.

And so we're part of that way of give, brethren. And the way of get is a way where sin exists, where sin is tolerated. We must displace, brethren, the old man and the nature that the old man is sort of built up, and we have to mortify the old man, and we have to displace that sin with righteousness. But to put a new way of life in, brethren, Jesus Christ symbolized that sinless, unleavened bread we eat during the days of unleavened bread. He was the bread of life sent from heaven for us, that if we eat it, we will never die. But that bread pictured a way of life, a life that's changing to the good. So God does not want us, brethren, to look upon these rituals that we participate in, of putting out leavening as merely rituals. They have, again, very big implications for us, not just for now, but for eternity. There are three basic Hebrew words that deal with the word leavening that are used in the Bible.

The first one is mekamech, spelled M-E-C-H-A-M-E-T-Z, refers to leavening agents or substances that are used to puff up or produce fermentation. You know, examples of this kind of an agent is yeast, bicarbonate of soda, or what we call baking soda, and baking powder.

And so that word pertains to again, leavening. There was another word in the Hebrew that is seahold, and it's spelled S-E-H-O-H-D, and it literally means sourdough.

Unnaturally fermenting yeasty batter, and it's naturally fermenting a yeasty batter. In fact, there was the most common leaven of the Israelites, which was often used to cause baked goods to rise and become light and texture. This is probably, in fact, you know, what they would have used in ancient times. And the final Hebrew word is kametes, and I'll spell it for you. It's C-H-A-M-E-T-Z, and this refers to foods that have been leavened. And this is mainly what we're concerned with during the days of Unleavened Bread, the foods that had been leavened, and all foods that someone put the leaven in, and the leaven caused it to rise. During the days of Unleavened Bread, we are not to eat that.

Let's go to Exodus again, 12, verse 15 over here. And so they were told over here in verse 15 of chapter 12, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. So here, you know, they were told not to eat the leavened bread, the chametz. And if they did, they were cut off. Serious infraction. It was a serious infraction not to clean it up. Now over in chapter 13, verse 6, I should say, notice this, seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. So here we have the positive instruction about the days of unleavened bread. And on the seventh day you shall, there shall be a feast to the eternal. 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. And so this is again the positive instruction about how the, you know, days of unleavened bread should be observed, the eating of that unleavened bread. In verse 8, and you shall tell your son in that day, saying, this is done because of what the eternal did for me, and when I came up from Egypt. And it shall be assigned to you on your hand, as an memorial, between your eye that the eternal's law may be in your mouth. Like putting the bread in your mouth, the law is in your mouth. Hopefully it's something we talk about with other people in the church. With a strong hand, the eternal has brought you out of Egypt. And you shall therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year. So this is an opportunity, brethren, for us when we're talking to our kids, our children, not that just Israel came out of Egypt, we came out of Egypt.

We came out of spiritual Egypt and Babylon out there.

And it was a miracle that God brought you out of the world that is out there. The world that is out there.

But God had to do a lot of things in order for you to be able to come into the church of God.

And why it's so important to not just to, again, put the leavening out, but to bring, you know, the bread of life of Jesus Christ, that unleavened bread in, of sincerity and truth into our lives. No malice, no wickedness toward anyone.

And we abide in Bible, the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. But we have a pure intent in our heart, a desire to obey God, to walk in His way.

Now, what should we put out of our homes? There are two things we need to put out of our homes.

Number one, all foods that leavening caused to rise. Now, obviously, a loaf of bread, you know, you put out of your home. Cakes. Some crackers might be okay, but mostly crackers, certain cereals, certainly pies, some candies.

Other items. It's important to read the labels and to check. Check it out. And when in doubt, throw it out. Or if you have time, you can check with someone who knows. Check with the minister. Check with an elder. Number two, what you should put out of your house is any leavening which can activate should be cast on.

And this principle, this is a principle, by the way. Baking powder, obviously, you got to cast it out.

Baking soda, yeast. Yeast extracts, often on the labels, it says this is derived from yeast, but it is not an active leavening agent. Sometimes, you know, extracts are not active.

But if it's something that can leaven, you cast it out. You get rid of it. Burur's yeast, by the way, this is a dead yeast and it's not considered leaven.

Now, what about beer or wine? Well, you got to throw out all your beer and wine.

You can bring it on out to Maricopa. No, I'm just kidding about that. The only thing mentioned is that they made unleavened cakes from dough. We read that, didn't we? That's what they did. Let's, chapter 12 in verse 39, let's look at this real fast here. And it says, and they baked unleavened cakes of dough which they had brought out of Egypt. This is Exodus 12 verse 39. For it was not leavened because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they really mentioned anything else that they did here. And, you know, there's no, you know, no leaven that is mentioned otherwise. And there's no reference to invisible yeast or result of it either in beer, wine, or of their beverages either. In fact, fermented wine was customarily consumed by the Israelites during the festivals. So we have, again, that tradition. And we know that even the Passover is observed with fermented wine and unleavened bread.

And so it's not the feast of unleavened beer. And I know that you really appreciate that. Some of you enjoy imbibing of that beverage. Some people ask sometimes, I've got some dog food or cat food. Well, if you consume that dog food or cat food, which I highly doubt you do, although you listen to some politicians, a lot of the seniors are eating, you know, cat food and dog food. And frankly, when they advertise it, it looks pretty good online. But again, the same principle is not the days of unleavened dog food or cat food.

What about toothpaste with baking soda in it? Same principle. You might read baking soda in your toothpaste, but I don't think you're going to squeeze that into the bread and start making your bread. You're not going to do that, are you? That's not the days of unleavened toothpaste. Now, if you have a container, which some people do this, they'll, you know, they will put baking soda with some salt in it, and they will keep that in their cabinet and use it for brushing their teeth. That you have to throw out. You can't keep that because it could be used. It could be utilized. Oftentimes, this is another question that comes out. What about using egg whites?

Well, egg whites are not leavening again, even though they can puff up.

Like, you know, you can put meringue on a pie. It puffs up, doesn't it? But it's not leavening.

You know, other desserts you can do that with as well. It's not the days of unleavened egg. You know, egg whites or unleavened meringue. No, these are some of the basic things that I think everybody needs to know, you know, as we start with a piece of unleavened bread. If you don't know about something or have faith in it, you know, what is correct? It's best not to do it, brethren. Over in Romans chapter 12 and verse 23, what does it say over there? It says, whatsoever is not of faith is sin. And so you have to go based on your conscience, you know, as to what you eat or what you donate. You know, part way through the feast, you find some leavened product that was overlooked. What do you do?

You simply take it and you put it off your property. That's all you do. No, this is a type of hidden sin in which, you know, sometimes we might not see it in our lives, but, you know, maybe after baptism, something like this can go along and we find out about a sin. Well, when we find out about it, God expects us to put it out. It's like when we talk to people at the time of the baptism. Oftentimes say, have you repented of your sins? And so I use that and so I usually says, yes, we hope they are going to say yes, you know, when they're baptized, but, but, you know, usually what I say, you know, as a result of the repentance of your sin, which means you stop breaking God's law as much as you understand it, because we all have limited understanding, you know, when we are baptized. And so we find out about things as we go along. But when we find out about it, we put it out. Even if it's during the days of Unleavened Bread, we put it out. There are seven days of Unleavened Bread. The idea is that if we keep putting it out, even if we find these secret sins, that we're working toward perfection in our lives and completion. The seven days, of course, picturing completeness. So, brother, when we observe the days of Unleavened Bread that are up and coming, remember, we are observing these days to God. And though we don't want to become pharisaical in what we do, we also don't want to go from one ditch to another. We want to stay in the middle of the roads in terms of God's law and God's way of life. God, indeed, does look at how seriously we treat His words, His laws, His truth, brethren. So, let's be both hearers of the Word, as we've heard about it today, but let's be doers of the law of God. And let's see, brethren, the value of removing, you know, the leavening and removing the sin from our lives as well.