When and Why Did God Plan for Our Forgiveness?

Well, happy Sabbath, all of you again. I just met someone in the hallway when I went out to get a drink of water. He said, Yeah, Mr. Thomas, appreciate what you said during announcements. We were just talking about stocking up a little bit last night on chocolate and wine. So, not quite what I meant, but I guess the principle holds true. Well, in less than five weeks, we are going to be celebrating the beautiful event of the Passover this year. It's not a coincidence that the Passover begins the first observance of the spring holidays each and every year, according to the calendar that God gave to ancient Israel, only 14 days after the start of that first month called, in Scriptures, a bib.

The meaning of the Passover is central to our salvation because it's centered around the role of Jesus Christ. What I'd like to do today is remind ourselves that the Passover, and when we use the word Passover, we mean the Savior being willing, voluntarily, to live a perfect life and to shed His blood through a very torturous act called crucifixion, and to die in our place and shed His blood for the forgiveness of our sins. So that's what we mean, but when we use the phrase Passover. If I were to ask an average person, well, tell me about the Passover. When does it start? The average person would say, well, I think it begins in Exodus 12, when God, through Moses, instructed ancient Israel to set aside a lamb on the tenth day of that first month, and then on the fourteenth to kill that lamb. That's how many people would define the first time that the Passover is mentioned in Scripture. Well, we're going to see today that that's not quite accurate. The Passover is part of the new covenant, and the Passover was part of God's plan from the very beginning.

Let's start at the book of Revelation 13 and verse 8. Let's read a Scripture that's very easy to gloss over, but also a Scripture that tells us a lot about the omnipotence of an all-knowledgeable, all-loving, all-caring God. Revelation 13 and verse 8, it says, and this is yet to come when this statement will take place near the end times, and all who dwell on the earth will worship Him, and whose names have not been written in the book of life. In other words, everyone is eventually going to worship Him. This is referring to Jesus Christ in the book of life of the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. What does it mean when it says, slain from the foundation of the world? It means that when the earth was created, which, by the way, was long before God began the process of refashioning the earth and making it suitable for the kind of animals that exist in our world today, when the earth was created, God understood in advance that His creation would sin. And He already made future provision for the forgiveness of sin. Let's talk about this a little bit. The sin and disobedience by Adam and Eve was anticipated in advance. I've heard people give sermons before about when Adam and Eve sinned, God said, Oh, all right, everybody, on the plan B! You don't understand. The God who revelations says knows the beginning from the end. If you know the beginning from the end, you know what happens between the beginning and the end. God was not shocked by the sin of Adam and Eve was disappointed at their sin. But He had made provision, as it says here in Revelation 13, verse 8, The Lamb slain, meaning He made provision. He understood what Jesus Christ would have to do. The Scripture isn't saying that Jesus Christ was crucified at the foundation of the world or slain at the foundation of the world. What it means here is that He was designated that He would have to pay the price. That provision was made that someday the Lamb of God would have to empty Himself of His divinity, come to earth and walk as a mere mortal human being, and sacrifice Himself as the true Lamb of God, shedding His blood and dying for the sins of the world.

So why does God care enough about humankind that He puts so much effort in His creation, in our creation? What kind of God would care so much about us that He made provision from the foundation of the world, knowing that the physical creation He would establish would in time fail, and in time would sin, and in time would also need a Savior, a Redeemer? Let's go to Hebrews 2 and verse 6. Hebrews 2 and verse 6. A statement made here in the book of Hebrews, actually repeating something that said in Psalm 8.

And if you remove God's spiritual essence in human beings, I think this scripture might make a little bit more sense to us. He says, but one testified in a certain place that's Psalm 8, saying, what is man that you're mindful of Him or the Son of Man that you take care of Him?

What's this about humankind, God, that you would even care about humanity? I mean, if you take away the spiritual essence, human beings are as evil as other mammals. Human beings kill each other. Human beings are selfish. Human beings are destructive, just like you find in apes and other forms of so-called life.

If you remove that spiritual element, there's not a whole lot more you can commend human beings for than other types of life on this world. He says here, continuing, you've made Him a little lower than angels. You've crowned Him with glory and honor and set Him over the works of your hands. And indeed, God told Adam and Eve that I'm giving you dominion over the earth and dress and keep this garden.

By the way, that doesn't mean abuse the garden. That doesn't mean tear the garden apart. When they were to dress and keep the garden, they were trustees of something that was very beautiful and wonderful in the world. And then in verse 8, it actually has a prophecy, and then it stops itself and reveals that it's not yet filled.

Verse 8, you put all things in subjection under His feet, for in that He put all in subjection under Him. He left nothing that is not put under Him, but now we do not yet see all things put under Him. In other words, we have great potential humanity, but we're not there yet.

We're still pretty weak, pretty frail, but our potential is that we would even be above the angels in the eyes of God. That we would be spirit beings even above the angelic realm. That's how much God loves us. And then verse 9, but we see Jesus, who is made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. Though we're beginning to talk about the Passover today, Jesus Christ willingly tasted death for everyone.

For you and me and for everyone who has ever lived. Verse 10, for it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory.

And that's God's ultimate goal. He wants to bring many sons to glory. We'll talk about that in a little more detail in a few minutes. To make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. And indeed, Jesus Christ suffered a lot. He endured a lot so that He could be a perfect Lamb of God, so that He could be our Savior. So again, when you look at human beings just biologically, if you were to look at our physical bodies without a spiritual dimension or focus, you would only see weakness and carnality and selfishness.

If you look at what we call human history, you basically see war and evil and just a lot of bad things going on within the human race. Look at what we've done to this planet, how much we've basically defiled everything we've ever touched as human beings.

So again, if you were just to look at human beings biologically and outside, there's not a whole lot to look at. But here's the key. God sees something else in us. God sees something else in you. He doesn't see you just as you are today, this physical tent with all of these biological processes going on, keeping our lives functioning. He doesn't see us limited in that way. He sees our potential. He sees us as we can be, as we shall be, as one of his many sons to glory. In his great love, God created you, and God gave you grace, and he gave you a wonderful potential because he loves you so much.

I'd like to give just a little bit of outline of how God came to this decision to create humanity. God came to a point in history—we could break that down—and the point in his story, after all, human history is very limited.

It's really more about the story of God and his plan, his story. He came to a point where he decided he wanted to share everything he has with a new creation.

He destined it to become part of his spiritual family to create something that eventually would be higher than angels. Did you realize what great love that is? Now, human beings would say, I've got what's mine, and I'm not giving it up. It's all about me, and I'm going to grab and hold on to what I've got. That's not a God that we worship. God said, you know what? I own the universe, and I want to share everything that I own with others. I want to create a class of spirit beings who, ultimately, I can give the universe to. Who I can share eternity with. Who I can give away all that I have to them. That's an incredible amount of love. Now, God knows that character is only developed through free choice. The ability to consciously choose between right and wrong. And we are all presented every day. Humanity has since the time of Adam and Eve with that choice between right and wrong. And ultimately, what character means is we make that conscious choice to do what's right.

Right after what we might say, righteousness is defined as loving God with all of our heart, and loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. We call that the Ten Commandments. That's the crux of the Ten Commandments, and actually all of God's laws and commandments. So to prepare individuals to share eternity with God, as him bringing many sons to glory, he needed a classroom environment so that they could develop that character. They could use that free choice and consciously and willingly choose right over wrong, because that's the only way that you can develop character. There are no shortcuts. You cannot instantaneously create something that's righteous forever.

Didn't work with Lucifer, did it?

We all have, ultimately, free choice.

And God wants to make sure that our character is solid, that when, throughout eternity, being prepared now, that when we are confronted with two choices, right or wrong, good or evil, that we consciously, willingly choose to make the right choice.

So as a classroom to develop this high degree of character that God wants to give to his spiritual family, he created a physical world filled with all of the limitations, and these limitations many times are here to test us.

We grow old, and we see our biological body changing. That's to test us. How will we deal with old age? We get sick. We have relationship issues with loved ones. The world is meant to be a classroom environment where we constantly are given those two choices.

Right, wrong, good, evil.

And God wants us to grow to the point where we willingly and consciously, through our free choice, choose what is good and what is right.

As his highest creation, he made humanity.

God designed the physical world to test the character of each individual by allowing everyone the free choice, again, to make either the right decision or the wrong decision. So why would he do this? His goal is for everyone to learn to freely choose to do the right, without fear, without intimidation, without being pressured to, you make the right choice because it is the right thing.

You make the right choice because it's part of your value system, to seek what is right.

It's within you. It becomes ultimately who and what you are. And God doesn't leave us alone in that. He even gives us a part of himself, his Holy Spirit, that Jesus Christ and the Father share.

He gives that Spirit to us to help us in that process. Godly character becomes who and what we are over a period of time. It changes the process. It's not an event.

And all of us are in that process right now.

You know, in Romans chapter 4 and verse 17, there's no need to turn there, but Paul makes an incredible statement about God. He's referring in context to Abraham. And here's what he says in Romans chapter 4 and verse 17, God who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. I'm going to read this from another translation that I think makes it a little more clear. This is from the New Century version, which I think Mr. Housen quoted from today in the Spine Sermon. Thank you for that. As it is written in the Scriptures, I'm making you again, this is referring to Abraham, a father of many nations. This is true before God, the God Abraham believed, the God who gives life to the dead and who creates something out of nothing. You see, that's what God's doing in us. He's developing character in us.

He is developing something out of nothing. On the outside, we are just carnal, physical human beings. Biological clocks are ticking. Without the intervention of God, we all grow old and we die.

That's nothingness. But God, as part of his great plan, doesn't see you simply in the limited way that we are today. He sees the potential in us. He, just like he looked at Abraham and he looked down the future when there would be many nations who came from Abraham. When there would be greatness that came from the descendants of Abraham, one of whom, by the way, the most important one, would be Jesus Christ himself, who fulfilled the role of the Savior. So, just like God looked down the path of Abraham and generations to come and said, I'm making something out of nothing, this mere man, God has that same view towards you and I.

He doesn't see you simply as the way you are today. He sees your incredible potential.

So, God in his forbearance allows us to suffer from our mistakes and from our sins so that we can be convinced in time that carnal selfishness hurts us. When we sin, when we make mistakes, it hurts us and it usually hurts the people that we love. It doesn't work. The effects of sin is intended to be part of the learning process and that's why God endures it. That's why God allowed Adam and Eve to sin. That's why thousands and thousands of years later, he continues to allow humanity to sin because it's all part of God's learning process in that classroom. Doing wrong and suffering from it affects eventually everyone, but if we're paying attention, it helps us to learn from those negative experiences and to begin more often than not to choose what is right and choose what is good because sin hurts. Sin is painful.

Many individuals don't get the lesson in this lifetime, so they're going to have to repeat class, that class over again after they're resurrected, but that's a sermon for another time. So again, why does God go through all of this time and effort for humanity and for you in your daily walk with God? Because he loves you so greatly. That is why he has put so much effort into this plan.

That is why he has allowed sin. That is why he has allowed suffering in human beings.

Someone must pay the price for our sins, however. God is a God of justice, and those sins that humanity has committed, the sins that you and I have committed, have to be answered. They have to be accounted for. Someone must pay the price for all of our sins and humanity's sins, and that individual is Jesus Christ, the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. Let's go to look at some of the original events surrounding the first sin of Adam and Eve and see how God reveals this plan immediately. How there's not a kick of time between sin and God already expressing how he's going to work out reconciliation. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 6. If you'll turn there with me, Genesis chapter 2 and verse 6, these are scriptures that I believe we're very aware of, so we won't go into great detail in the verses themselves, but I will bring out just a couple of important points. Genesis chapter 3 and verse 6. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. Also she gave it to her husband and he ate. The eyes of both of them were open and they knew that they were naked. First time in their existence they felt something called shame and humiliation. They had never felt that feeling before this time. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord called Adam and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, who told you that you were naked? God knows the answer. This is a rhetorical question. He knows the answer. He wants to see if Adam is going to tell him the truth. Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded that you should not eat? Then the man said, good old human nature, let's blame someone else. The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the tree and I ate.

And God said to the woman, all right, your turn. What is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So, unfortunately, we see that here the disobedience to God caused by Adam and Eve alienated the close relationship they had with God in the garden. They're going to be forced out of the garden. God will no longer walk and just carry on that casual loving communication like he had before the sin was committed. But you know what? God is already looking forward to reconciliation made possible by the perfect life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

God doesn't say, whoops, now we'll go to plan B.

Wow, now what am I going to do? That's not what God says. The very next verse is a prophecy that God gives the serpent. God doesn't wait a thousand years to reveal his plan of reconciliation.

He doesn't five thousand years later reveal his plan of reconciliation. He immediately alludes to it in the very next verse, because he knew all along that humankind would sin, Adam and Eve would sin. And in that classroom setting, they would now have to begin to learn certain lessons to get them to the point with their own free will when confronted by two choices.

That they would always willingly, voluntarily make the right choice. Again, it takes time to come to that point. Let's take a look at this verse now, and let's see what happens in verse 14.

So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity, that means hostility, between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. Here's what it says, he, that's her seed, shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. So in context, he's saying, he, Christ, will bruise your head, and you shall bruise Christ's heel. So immediately after the sin, God is already introducing the whole concept of what the Passover is all about. Prophecy tells the serpent that a descendant of Eve will completely destroy his power, his head. That she will have a descendant who will destroy power. Power comes from the head, and ultimately we know that he will be imprisoned in a spiritual prison, will lose all power and dominance and influence in this world. He will go from the prince of the power of the air to nothing. So that's part of that prophecy. And it also says that the serpent would wound the descendant of Eve in his heel. Also a prophecy. And let me allude to how close that prophecy comes home. Have you ever wondered if there's archaeological evidence about crucifixion? It's believed that the Romans may have crucified 40,000-50,000 people in the history of the Roman Empire. But do you know that there's actually only one fossil that has ever been found that proves crucifixion? Only one that has ever been found. It happens to be a man whose name was Yehohanan. You can find this on Google. J-E-H-O-H-A-N-A-N. And he was put to death by crucifixion in the first century. He has an ossuary. That is a box in which this bone and other bones were found in. It was found in 1968 when building contractors working in a Jewish neighborhood in northern East Jerusalem. And inside that ossuary, the only proof ever legitimately found proving that crucifixion was done, is his heel with a nail fused through his heel bone. A spike of crucifixion. What they did is they put his two legs together, his two ankles, and matched them, twisted them sideways, and drove a seven-inch spike through both of his heels into the wood, the cross or the stake, whatever you prefer to call it. And they have the fossil remains of one of his heels with that spike fused inside of his heel bone. Again, it's about seven inches long.

This very prophecy we just read looked forward to a time, to the time of the crucifixion of the Savior, and the fact that the literal heel of that seed of Eve's would have his heel bruised. How?

Through the act of a torturous death that we know of as crucifixion. And the good news, of course, is that even though Christ was crucified, and he shed his blood, and he died, he was resurrected from the dead. And he was resurrected to receive full glory. As the book of Hebrews that we just talked about a few minutes ago revealed to us. So let's now take a look a few verses later in verse 20. See another event here in Genesis that foreshadowed the future Passover sacrifice. How soon it was, like immediately, that God revealed a plan of reconciliation for the sin of Adam and Eve. Genesis chapter 3 and verse 20. And Adam called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them. By the way, this is a gift from a loving God to provide a permanent covering for their shame and humility rather than something made out of fig leaves that would probably fall apart every few days and have to be replaced over and over again. The new century version says the Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and that God dressed them. It's not much he cares for them. Adam and Eve had made a temporary covering of fig leaves. God took an animal skin and he fashioned it and he made for them durable clothing in the form of an apron. In the process of skinning the animal, its blood would have been shed, picturing the future need for the shedding of blood and the sacrificing of an animal like the sacrifice of this animal's life so that they could have a covering over them. Humanity needs its sins covered by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

Just like Adam and Eve needed their physical bodies covered, we too as humanity need our sins covered, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Another example is Genesis chapter 22. If you'll turn there with me, this event that we're familiar with for most of us is of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his precious son Isaac whom he waited so long for. This chapter is a sermon in itself and we don't have time today to go into it in detail, but it too pictured the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If you want to hear a sermon specifically on this entire chapter, there's one on the UCG site called How Abraham Learned About the Sacrifice of Christ. It goes back to 2011 and the whole sermon breaks this down in the minute detail and obviously we don't have the time to do that today. Genesis chapter 22 and verse 10. And Abraham stretched out his hand. He had been told to go to Mount Moriah where Jerusalem would literally be located. And he took his knife in his hand and slay his son, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, said, Abraham, Abraham. So he said, Here I am. And he said, Do not lay your hand on the lad, nor do anything to him. Now I know.

Remember God? That character choice? Free will? How I know that you will obey me when you're given a choice between obedience and disobedience, right and wrong. Now I know that you will obey me.

Now I know that you fear God since you've not withheld your son, your only son of promise, from me. By the way, he was called the only son of promise because, or the only son, because he was the son of promise. You see, Abraham, after God promised him a son, tried to do it the human way the first time with the handmaid of his wife, but that wasn't what God had promised. He tried to do it his way instead of God's way. So this son here was the son of promise, his only son, from God's point of view. Verse 13, And Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by its horn. So Abraham went, took the ram, and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son. And Abraham called the name of the place. So you think Abraham gets this? You think he envisions and says in his mind, wow, God has asked me to do something that doesn't make sense because someday he is going to have to do something similar to this. As a father, someday he's going to have to allow his only son, we know who's Jesus Christ, to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. Do you think he understood that? Well, let's see what he calls the name of the place. And the Hebrew was very clear. He called the name of the place the Lord will provide.

That's future tense. He doesn't say the Lord just provided. No, he doesn't say that. He gets it. He gets that his commands and everything he was instructed to do, that everything that God had asked him to do was about some great plan and great purpose and that the Lord will provide, says, as it's said to this day, in the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. So Abraham understood it. He got it. And God was pleased with Abraham's faith. He was willing to do what God himself would need to do in the future, allow his beloved son to be sacrificed. Abraham understood this and he proclaimed the Lord would provide, knowing that the Lord would provide a lamb, capital L, for the sins of the world. Now, with all of that background, let's go to Exodus chapter 12, where most people, if you said, where's the Passover first mentioned, most people would turn right here to Exodus chapter 12, not understanding all of the things that led up to this from the foundation of the world.

Exodus chapter 12 and verse 1, now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, this month shall be the beginning of months. It shall be the first month, called Abib, by the way, in the year to you. It happened in the springtime. It'll be beginning shortly. Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, on the tenth day of this month, that's the very first month, every man shall take for himself a lamb according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household, and if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it accordingly to the number of persons according to each man's need, that you make your count for the lamb. So there wasn't a lot of wasted lamb. If the family was too small, you would combine with someone next door so that perhaps one lamb would take care of the need of both families. Verse 5, your lamb shall be without blemish. Jesus Christ was without sin. A male of the first year, obviously Jesus Christ was a male. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight, and they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two-door post and on the lintelah houses where they eat it. Then they shall eat the flesh on that night, roasted in fire with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. They shall eat it, and thus you shall eat it with a belt on your waist and your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. You shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord's Passover. God said, you're going on a journey. I'm taking you to a brand new place. You need to be ready to go. God has called us as new creatures in Christ, and when we came out of that baptismal tank, I certainly hope that we had our waists girded sandals in our feet and a staff in our hand ready to march forward towards the kingdom of God, because that's what God wants of us. Continuing, for I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night and will strike the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all the gods of Egypt. I will execute my judgment, for I am the Lord.

Now, even though these instructions were new to Israel, as we've seen already today, the plan of God from the beginning, going all the way back to Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, was to provide a Savior to redeem humanity from our sin and to redeem us from eternal death.

As Israel would be saved from the sin and the slavery of Egypt by the blood of that animal, lamb, so too all humanity will and would be saved from sin and slavery to Satan by the blood of the very lamb, capital L, the lamb of God, Christ Jesus.

So now, with that information, let's go to the New Testament and see what the desire of Jesus was on the last Passover that he observed with his disciples shortly before his death. Luke chapter 22 and verse 14. Let's turn there together. Luke chapter 22 and verse 14.

He says, when the hour had come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with them, and he said to them, with fervent desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. This is important to me. Jesus Christ says this is an emotional, a profound moment because he's about to change the symbols of the Passover and introduce the New Covenant Passover. I want to interate again. As I've said in past years, we do not observe the Seder. We do not observe the Old Covenant Passover. We observe the New Covenant Passover with new symbols, new meaning, and a new attitude. Verse 16. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. So, he's implying here that the Passover will be kept in the kingdom of God, but he's saying that I won't be able to celebrate it with you because I'll be with my father. Verse 17. Then he took the cup and came thanks and said, take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread and gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them, saying, this is my body which is broken for you, sacrificed for you. In other words, do this in remembrance of me. Likewise, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the New Covenant in my blood which is shed for you. So, we see here, brethren, that Jesus Christ establishes the New Covenant Passover. No lamb is mentioned here.

He is the fulfillment of that lamb. Bitter herbs are not mentioned here because his sacrifice frees us from the bitterness of spiritual slavery to sin. We are to live for a wonderful future and not relive the pains of the past. The bitter herbs are to remind them they once were slaves in Egypt and to always be looking backward. Christ said, no, we don't do that. When we receive the Spirit of God, we look forward. We don't relive the past over and over again. The unleavened bread and wine represent his perfect broken body and his shed blood for the remission of sins. And I want you to notice that he tells his disciples he expected them to do this in the future. He says, do this in remembrance of me as an annual reminder, as an annual remembrance that I am your Savior, that I shed my blood, and I allowed my body to be cut and lacerated and broken my flesh so that you could have eternal life. Don't ever forget that. Very few churches observe the Passover. Unfortunately today, churches have replaced the Passover with sunrise services, colored eggs, bunnies, baskets, marking your head with the sign of a cross with ashes. You won't find any of that in Scripture. The Passover, which is considered Jewish, has been pushed aside for these traditions of men to celebrate God, not the way that God says we should worship and celebrate him, but in the way that they want to. So why do we continue to observe the Passover? How do we know that it's not fulfilled like so many other Old Testament rituals and customs? How do we know that, like a lot of other things that were part of the Old Testament, that the Passover isn't done away?

Well, we continue to observe the Passover because we have the absolute incredible audacity to believe the Bible. Not to believe tradition, not to just blindly follow what everyone else does, but to dig deep in this book and say, what does the book say? So let's go to 1 Corinthians 12 and verse 2.

I want to look at a scripture that was written 24 years after the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Virtually every scholar admits and agrees this occurred about 55 AD, this writing.

Some scholars even place the date later, but we'll just, I think, looking at the other writings, 55 AD is probably pretty accurate. That's about right. Again, 24 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. So point number one, who is this book written to? Chapter 12 and verse 2.

You know that you Gentiles were carried away to these dumb idols however you were led.

So in context, who is this book written to? A bunch of Jewish people who already keep the holy days?

Sorry. Let Paul tell us who the book is written to. And he says it's written to Gentiles.

Now let's go back to chapter 5 now that we have seen in his writings who the book was written for.

Not again leftover Jewish people. Chapter 5 verse 7, he tells this Gentile Greek congregation 24 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. Let me ask this question.

How would Gentiles even know about the metaphor of what leavening represents?

Unless someone taught them. How would this even make sense to them? Unless Paul had previously taught them the fact that leaven represents sin and it spreads. And like leaven in a loaf of bread, it starts out small and it just gets more and more. Pretty soon it encompasses that entire loaf of bread. That's what human sin does. How would they understand the metaphor of what leaven even represents being Gentiles, as he told us in chapter 12? It's because he had taught them the metaphor.

For indeed, Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast. He says to these Gentile people, us, me, you, everyone in the congregation, let us together keep and celebrate this feast. Not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, putting a spiritual slant and understanding on the meaning of these holy days, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. The bottom line here is that Paul is instructing Gentiles in a Greek congregation to join him in observing the Passover and the days of unleavened bread. 24 years after the death of Christ. If the holy days were done away, someone forgot to tell the apostle Paul.

Someone told me a few years ago, well, that was all done. And Acts 15, the ministerial conference of 49 AD. That was all done away. Well, really? Well, I realize I'm a graduate of the Cleveland school system, but I think 55 AD was later than 49 AD when the ministerial conference was.

And here is Paul in 55 AD telling of all people, Gentiles, that they should be sharing and enjoying the peace, the Passover, and the feast of unleavened bread with him. He knew that the Passover had significance from the beginning of time. He understood who all the way back slain from the foundation of the world and what we read and understood in Genesis immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve. He understood all of that. Now, let's go to chapter 11. It's actually our last scripture today. Let's go to chapter 11, and we don't have time to go into detail about the very strong correction he's giving them. They were abusing the Passover service, and he corrects them for that. And again, I'm not going to get into it, but he says, you know what? If you take the Passover with some kind of joke, you're putting a curse on yourself, you could have serious health issues. Some people have even died, he says, because they didn't take the seriousness and the relevance and importance of the Passover in their hearts and minds. They just treated it like it was some kind of cheap token ritual. Chapter 11, verse 23, for I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread.

And obviously, he wasn't there that night, but we believe it's when he was in Arabia that Jesus Christ personally spoke to him in the early part of his ministry and taught him a lot of things that Jesus was able to teach the other disciples when he literally walked on earth. That's why he can say, I received from the Lord. And that I delivered to you that the Lord Jesus Christ, on the same night in which he was betrayed, he took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take eat. This is my body, which is broken for you. Do this remembrance of me. Do it as a memorial, remembering of the sacrifice that I voluntarily took for you. Don't ever forget it. Verse 25, in the same manner, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. It's not about herbs and land. It's not about all of those things anymore. There's a new spiritual context that goes far beyond Exodus 12 or people's rituals of colored eggs and bunnies and crosses on their foreheads with ashes and the things that people do. This is the new covenant in my blood. This do is often as you drink it, meaning as an annual reminder of the Passover that was established there in Exodus 12, the timing that should occur on the 14th of Abib every year. This do is often as you drink it in remembrance of me. Verse 26, for as often as you eat and drink this cup, which you should be doing annually and celebrating the Passover, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Therefore whoever eats this bread and drinks of this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord, but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Now none of us are worthy of God or worthy to take the Passover, so he's not talking about somehow we can make ourselves righteous in the next five weeks and become worthy to take the Passover. The worthiness comes from having a good heart-to-heart talk with our God and our Father between now and the Passover and saying, thank you for your calling, thank you for loving me so much. I repent of my sins and transgressions. I repent that I haven't treated this person properly in my life. I repent that I'm doing these kinds of things that I know I shouldn't be doing. I repent having a good talk with ourselves, comparing ourselves not against our spouse, not against anyone sitting in this room, but comparing ourselves with Jesus Christ.

And that's what he means here. He says, but let a man examine himself, not examine someone else to take time to look at our hearts, our attitudes, our thoughts, our lifestyles.

Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

So we see here, as Paul is writing, 24 years after the death of Christ, he's instructing this Gentile congregation to continue to keep the New Covenant Passover. He even gives them the details.

He even reminds them what they should be doing and corrects them on the abuses of things they shouldn't be doing on the Passover. Why? Because they were doing those things and they needed that correction. He's not suggesting that they bake buns and color eggs and make Easter bunnies.

He's instructing them to do what Jesus Christ instructed his disciples to do as an annual memorial of his death and his sacrifice, and that is to observe the New Covenant Passover.

And this is why we're going to observe the Passover this year. Not because any man told us, not because some minister in the past thought he or she or they or them discovered the meaning of the Passover and told us we need to keep it, we need to continue to observe it. We're going to keep the Passover because it's right here in this book taught by the Apostle Paul decades after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ taught to his Gentile congregations because it has the same meaning today that it had for them. And that is that God is working wonders in this world through the sacrifice of his son. If you look at the book of Acts written later by the Gentile Luke, you'll see that many years after this book was written, Paul continues to observe the Holy Days. The book of Acts is actually a history, and you can see that many years after he wrote 1 Corinthians, he continued observing the Holy Days. So in conclusion today, let's appreciate the central role of the Passover and everything that it means, the voluntary attitude of Jesus Christ to walk on this earth as a human being, the willingness to shed his blood through a torturous act called crucifixion, the willingness to die in our place, and of course, God's great plan of resurrecting him again to be our Savior for all eternity. It's far more than just some event seemingly first mentioned in Exodus chapter 12. It represents the reconciliation between God and humankind pictured immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve. So with that, let's now begin to prepare personally in our own lives for an inspiring Passover this year.

Next time I'll speak in a couple of weeks, I will talk about the meaning and the importance of the days of Unleavened.