Why Do We Do What We Do?

Much missus Bohm Gardner. It's one of the wonderful things about modern electronic keyboards. You can not only have the beautiful music, but you can have the sound of various different instruments that we wouldn't be able to have otherwise. Well, when Christians gather during the days of Unleavened Bread, one of the inevitable topics of conversation comes up. It's usually prepped with a question like this. So, have you messed up yet? Or, did you find something that you missed?

Now, these are usually more relevant later on during the days of Unleavened Bread, but it's funny, sometimes even this early, we find, you know, somehow, somewhere, despite all our diligent efforts, we miss something or we experience something. And I would guess, even by me just mentioning that now, some of you probably already have some of those amusing stories going through your mind. Often, in the case of something like, you hear of a worker in an office place where he goes by the break room and somebody left donuts. They're like, wow, they almost never have donuts. You come in and find, oh, there's a blueberry donut left. Nobody got it yet. It's my favorite. And he's munching down, and in the back of his mind, he's thinking, something's not right with this picture. And it depends on who tells the story, how many bites it is before he's aghast and tries to spit it out. I was discussing this topic with Sue, and she reminded me of a time when she was single. A fellow had asked her out on a date. And I don't think they went to see a movie, and then they had dinner. I think it might have been Big Boy. It wasn't anything real fancy. But since it was a date, she went ahead and ordered dessert, and she got one of those hot fudge brownie sundaes.

And ate every bite during the days of Unleavened Bread. The interesting thing is, she said her date sat and watched her and never said a word, even though he was in the church. Later she said, why didn't you remind me it was the days of Unleavened Bread? Now, of course, we get frustrated over the things we find that we missed. Another thing that came up, Sue reminded me, she said, remember when we found that waffle?

In the back of our freezer, this was three or four years ago, we found one of those frozen toaster waffles wrapped up in that wax paper. And this was about June. She said, did you know that was there? I didn't know it was there. And then we started wondering, did we miss it just this year, or had that been there two or three years, and we didn't know it was there?

And there are some of the more serious ones. When my grandmother spent her last six months in a nursing home when she wasn't able to care for herself, and she'd been living in an old farmhouse that her and her husband rented for 40 years. And so it became my job to clean out the house when we realized she wouldn't be moving back there. And that included pulling up carpet in two or three rooms. And I was astounded at underneath that carpet how much dirt and what looked like it might have been crumbs were underneath the carpet.

And I thought, how good of a vacuum cleaner do you have to get to suck things out from under the carpet? I mean, you wonder, how much are we able to ever really get the leaven out of our homes?

Well, despite these stories, actually we mostly do pretty well. And I think we should be encouraged. One of the things that makes those stories funny is that they are rare occasions, and we usually catch them and fix them.

And of course then we might ask, how much are we able to get wickedness, to get sin, malice out of our lives?

That's a little more sobering.

But with God's Spirit, we can do surprisingly well. And that's another case where the exceptions aren't as humorous, but often people do eventually find them and correct them.

So I want us to be encouraged in both cases, and I'm not going to focus on that so much today. But I wanted to back up and look at that whole practice of getting the leaven out and eating matzos for seven days.

You probably have family members or friends who have looked at you and said, why do you do that?

What's the point of all that?

And even if it's people you've known many years and you've explained to them, they might say, well, yeah, I know you don't believe that the law was nailed to the cross.

But you don't still kill a lamb and smear its blood around your door.

So why all the hassle with the matzos?

Well, we know that there are good reasons. There are reasons we do this, and I think we know what they are.

I wanted to come in today not to bring a sermon that's new and astounding information, but rather, I think it's appropriate for us, knowing what God wants us to do, to review and remind ourselves, why do we do it?

What's the reasoning behind it?

And actually, there are a couple things.

One, I would say, first off, even if we didn't understand all the why and wherefore, we know that we keep the days of unleavened bread because God tells us to do it.

Let's look at some scriptures that remind us of that.

We'll start with Exodus 12. Exodus 12, beginning in verse 14.

Exodus 12 and 14. So this day shall be a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to the eternal throughout your generations.

You shall keep it a feast by an everlasting ordinance.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

On the first day you shall remove the leaven from your houses.

For whoever eats leavened bread from the first until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off.

Now, I just talked about the fact that we make mistakes.

If you haven't caught yourself in a mistake during the days of unleavened bread, you just haven't been keeping it long enough. It'll catch you.

That doesn't mean... I think what God's referring to about being cut off is talking about intentionally deciding you're not going to do it and you're going to willfully eat the leavening.

Accidentally eating some leaven or not getting some out of your house is not the unpardonable sin.

I think we all know that.

But he continues on, of course, in verse 16.

On the first day there shall... Boy, my mouth's still tired from the sermon on Sabbath.

On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. That's today.

And on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation to you.

No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat, that only may be prepared by you.

So you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. For on the same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt.

I like that. This is still future tense. He gave these instructions while they were in Egypt.

But he was saying, in the future I will have brought you out.

And of course, it's like I remember that Babe Ruth talked about boasting.

And he said, it ain't bragging if you can do it.

God wasn't bragging. He could do it, and he did.

And he goes on and says, Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.

That's pretty clear instruction.

And we know there's nowhere in the Bible where it says anything like this telling us to celebrate Christmas or Easter, which many who think of themselves as Christian will be doing soon, or Halloween, or any of the other days.

But the command to keep the days of unleavened bread is repeated. It will come up again in the next chapter, which I'm not going to turn to right now, because I'm going to come to it later.

But let's move ahead to Leviticus 23.

It's interesting, because we can see this command comes up in several settings.

And I think in some cases it might be the fact that it's represented in God giving overall instruction in how to live, and how he's giving civil ordinance for governing the nation, and, you know, instruction in how to worship him.

It's included in all of them, because it's so important.

We know Leviticus 23 includes description of all of the holy days, beginning in verse 5.

Oh, no wonder.

I was in Exodus 23, verse 5, and it says something about if you see a donkey.

And I said, that doesn't fit with what I was expecting to see here.

On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover.

And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord, to the Eternal.

Seven days you must eat unleavened bread.

On the first day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work.

But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Eternal for seven days.

The seventh day shall be a holy convocation, and you'll do no customary work.

And one of the things I like about this passage is it makes it very clear that the first day of unleavened bread and the Passover are not the same day.

The fourteenth day is the Passover. The fifteenth day is the first day of unleavened bread.

That came up, there's a fellow that's joined us fairly recently within the last few months up in Portsmouth.

And he was there at dinner last night, and he asked me, he said, Why on my calendar does it say tomorrow, meaning today, is Passover?

And we discussed how modern day Jews celebrate today calling it the Passover, and they've gotten confused and don't see the separation.

But to me, it's pretty clear where it says, 14 days Passover, 15th is the day of unleavened bread.

Let's move on to Deuteronomy 16 to read one more account of this.

Deuteronomy 16, verse 1, 13, observe the month of A.Vib and keep the Passover to the Eternal your God.

For in the month of A.Vib 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 in the place where the Eternal chooses to put his name. You shall eat no leavened bread with it.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it.

That is the bread of affliction.

And many people have called matzos and rychrisps and other versions the bread of affliction.

Of course, it's not referring to necessarily what it tastes like.

It says, For you came out of the land of Egypt in haste, that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt, all the days of your life.

And no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory.

For seven days, nor shall any meat of which you sacrifice the first day remain overnight.

I'm not going to get into the meat and such, but I think this adds something else.

It reminds us that they came out overnight.

And so we keep the festival that we did last night, or we begin the festival that begins at sundown, starting the fifteenth of Abib, we celebrate it as the night to be much observed.

It reminds us of the children of Israel being delivered coming out of Egypt, and of course us being delivered from the lifestyle we had before God's calling.

And also, I think it's interesting where it says, You won't have leaven in any of your territories.

That means you get it out of everywhere. I think, I interpret it as any area that you control.

Other places it says, Get it out of your house. People might say, Well, okay, I'll pick it up all out of my house, carry it out to the garage, store it there for seven days.

When the days are over, I'll bring it back in.

So, no, we don't do it that way. You clear it out of all of your territory.

You know, your garage and your house, and you sweep your car.

And if you work in an office or whatever workplace, you clean it out of there, too.

It's interesting, these last couple years are the first where I didn't have an office, you know, downtown in Columbus to go do.

And I always would eat lunch in my office, and I packed sandwiches, so it was a job doing that.

I had my computer keyboard, I would literally take the letters off of the keyboard, because the crumbs got down in there.

And that's where it's interesting, you know, that it's more of a challenge to get the leavening out for some people than others.

Of course, some people have found that they don't control as much territory as they might have thought. I've talked to women who are married to unconverted mates, who their husband says, you're not getting rid of the bread out of my house.

And so they might set aside part of the cupboard, and maybe a section of the refrigerator that they'll keep that unleavened to obey the command the best they can.

So it's interesting where it goes, as I said, I can make it a lot easier on myself if I didn't like to snack almost everywhere I go.

You know, eating a sandwich over your computer keyboard causes problems.

I thought it was interesting to add this, because we have to get it out of all of our territory.

Not long ago, I was talking to a friend of mine that lives in Indiana, and he and his wife just bought a new house. They had been renting, and so they moved into a new house about a week ago.

And while I was talking to him, he said, well, it makes getting ready for unleavened bread really easy.

He said, they did like the ancient Israelites. They left their leaven behind and didn't take any with them.

So I said, well, that can work, but you can't move every year.

Anyway, so we understand that the commands are there, and we can find ways to keep them.

If Jesus Christ had ever intended to supersede the days of unleavened bread, or to end this practice, saying it was obsolete and New Testament Christians don't do it anymore, wouldn't the New Testament have to be very clear in saying so?

When you think about the fact that we don't practice animal sacrifice anymore, there is a lot of detailed explanation, especially in the book of Hebrews, to show us why we don't do that.

Because at that time, Christians were a little hesitant, saying, are you sure? Maybe we should still be.

So God went out of his way to put it in the Bible.

But that's not found regarding putting leaven out of our homes. Instead, we find the opposite. There is a reference in the New Testament to keeping the days of unleavened bread.

What we think is many years after Jesus Christ had been crucified and resurrected.

Let's turn there and read that. It's very important.

1 Corinthians 5 will begin in verse 6.

And I'm guessing many of you have probably read this or referred to it recently.

1 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 6.

Breaking into a thought, Paul had to correct the Corinthian church on a number of matters.

And he says, Your glorying is not good.

Do you not know that a little leaven, leaven is the whole lump?

Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you are truly unleaven, for indeed Christ our Passover was crucified for us.

Now Paul is here making some spiritual analogies that would have been utterly meaningless to people that did not keep the Passover in the days of unleavened bread.

Because otherwise it would have been lost. Why would he say those things?

But we can assume that they were keeping the feast, and he then goes on to instruct them therefore.

In verse 8 he says, Therefore let us keep the feast.

And he meant the feast of unleavened bread, not with the old leaven.

There he is making a physical reference.

Old leaven being the sourdough that most women would keep in their kitchen.

They are old leavens so they can mix a little into a new lump of dough, and it would be.

So let's keep the feast not with physical leaven, but he goes on to give something else to.

He says, Nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

We commonly say that during the days of unleavened bread, leaven represents sin.

And that's correct.

Paul doesn't use the word sin here, but what else is wickedness?

Wickedness is evil. It's being opposed to God.

It's doing and being opposite of what God wants us to be.

And Paul also says, malice.

That reminds us that a person's intentions can also be sinful.

And the law is sometimes called malice of forethought.

It fits in perfectly with what Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, where he says, It's not only wrong to murder someone, but to be angry with your brother without just cause is wrong.

It's not only sinful to commit adultery, but to lust for someone in your heart is also a sin.

We can sin in our minds.

And during the days of Unleavened Bread, leaven pictures that sin, as well as the sin that we commit, overtly.

Leaven is a really good symbol for sin, because it's both...

I like to use these terms, I hope I'm using them correct scientifically, but insidious and transformative.

Leaven is insidious, and sin is.

And I'll mention that the whole idea that a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

If you want to jot it down, I'm not going to turn there, but Paul said that again in Galatians 5 and verse 9.

Galatians 5-9, it just says simply, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.

And that was absolutely true when Paul wrote that, because as I said, the only...

Why am I having trouble pronouncing these words? Maybe I'm just going too fast.

The only leaven they had was sourdough.

And because they didn't have microscopes, I'm not sure that they understood exactly how it worked.

They knew that you kept some dough that had previously risen, and it would start to smell bad and be kind of weird, but you'd put a little bit of that in a lump of new dough, let it sit for a while, and pretty soon the whole thing is leaven.

Nowadays, we also use chemical leavening agents, specifically baking soda.

It doesn't work in exactly the same way, but it is amazing to me how just a little bit of baking soda mixed into a batter makes it all rise.

But the best example for my purpose today is still yeast, because, as I said, they didn't know it from looking through a microscope, but that sourdough consisted of dough that was, you could use the term, infected with yeast. Yeast is a microorganism, a single-cell organism, and it's all over the place. Yeast spores float through the air, and thus any dough that's left out, raw dough, the spores can get on there and then begin to reproduce yeast. And that's what happens. The yeast, like a bacteria, actually it starts feeding on the dough, reproducing, and it spreads. It becomes a colony. What it's feeding on is the sugars, the carbohydrates that are in that dough.

And in the process of digesting part of the dough, it excretes gas bubbles that end up creating the countless little air pockets that make dough less dense and to rise.

Interesting to think, if you left it long enough, they would destroy the whole lump, make it inedible. Part of the process of baking makes it so it's going to taste good and be good to eat, but it also kills the yeast so that they don't continue.

That's why you take a little bit out to keep your sourdough, because any of it you bake, the yeast is gone.

And I'm probably not telling you anything you don't know, but I guess from a man's perspective, I'm not used to cooking with sourdough, so I find that fascinating. You know, I still use those little yeast packets. That still works the same way. They're sort of... I'm not sure how they dry them, but when they get in contact with moisture, they come back to life and start working.

The important thing for us to remember is that sin works like that yeast. It's all around us. And it can get into our lives by us not doing anything if we just allow it.

Sin can infect our lives the same way yeast can infect raw dill. And once we get involved with sin, it'll tend to grow. It'll reproduce. One sin leads to another.

The best example I could think of in that case was especially lying. Because if you haven't been that experienced yourself, you've certainly seen it on TV programs or movies where somebody tells a lie.

And then later on, it comes back up. And so they have to tell another lie to cover the inconsistencies with the first one. And it leads to other lies.

I used to enjoy watching the Seinfeld program, the sitcom with Jerry Seinfeld. And certain of their characters would always do that. And you'd see them tell these elaborate stories that inevitably would come back and they'd suffer for it. But it's a good demonstration. One lie leads to another, to another, to another.

One of the reasons one sin leads to another, even if it's not for that reason, is that many sinful activities are pleasurable at first.

A lot of things that are sinful feel good, and the harm and destruction take time to develop. So in the meantime, people think this is great, and they do it again and again.

Let's turn to Ecclesiastes 8, verse 11. To remind ourselves that God is aware of this, and we need to be aware and guard ourselves and not be like the common people without God's Spirit who get caught up in sin and think there's no consequences.

Ecclesiastes 8, verse 11. It's a simple scripture, but it's one I like to turn to and keep in mind, especially when I was younger. It says, Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

Because the consequence doesn't come right away, people get caught up in sin, and it, like I said, it reproduces, it takes over their lives.

Yeast and chemical leavening agents both transform dough. So I mentioned they're insidious, they spread and infect the whole thing, but they're also transformative.

They make the dough into a different substance than it was before. Yeast especially, because, as I said, on a molecular level, the yeast is literally digesting the host substance and changing it into something else.

The dough is fundamentally changed, and the change cannot be undone. And sin, of course, can change people, and it can't be undone except by the power of God's Spirit and Christ's sacrifice.

But that brought to mind while I was thinking, because the questions come up, well, some people say, why do you allow beating eggs and putting that in stuff that you fixed during unleavened bread?

I think that's the difference. A beaten egg traps some air particles, but it doesn't spread on its own, and it doesn't fundamentally change the dough. It just creates those air.

Air is there, and it'll expand if it's heated. But if you think about it, you could, if you beat eggs, you let them sit long enough that the air will eventually work its way out.

And even in dough, now I'm speculating here, because I'm not sure how long it would take to stir it and let it sit to get the air back out.

But it hasn't changed the molecular level of the dough the way yeast and chemicals do.

And so that's my thinking of why, because it's bothered me sometimes. I thought, normally, if Sue beats some eggs and cooks popovers and an air pocket develops, is that leavened bread?

Well, it's not leavened the way yeast and baking soda are, because as I said, they represent sin that's insidious and transformative. That's the important thing.

There is another trait about leaven that's symbolized during the days of unleavened bread. If we'll look at Luke 12, Luke 12 and verse 1.

Of course, this is a time when an innumerable multitude of people are gathered, they're trampled one another, and Jesus Christ begins to speak to His disciples.

Before He addresses the crowd, He turns them and says, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Now, it's obvious, He said, it's hypocrisy.

And I wonder if that's because there are other accounts where He said, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

And the disciples said, Oh no, we forgot to bring bread. He's warning us not to get their bread. And He said, No, what are you talking about? I can make bread out of nowhere.

And He explained that He means the doctrine of the Pharisees. But here, it's very simple.

He's likening leaven to hypocrisy.

Because, you know, leaven, well, hypocrisy is the act of pretending to be something you're not, trying to put on a false front.

You know, usually trying to appear good and righteous when inside you aren't.

And leaven does that. Through its transformation, and you could say corruption of dough, that yeast makes the bread rise up and look more substantial than it really is.

Now, that might not surprise us that if we see a loaf of bread, we kind of know what we're getting there because we're around it all the time. But just think, if you'd never been around that, say, if you saw something that size, and the outer surface of it were made of wood or metal, boy, it would be a lot heavier and more substantial. It's the leaven that makes that dough into something that looks like something it's not.

And think, look at the surface of a loaf of bread. It's nice and smooth. It looks solid, but if you slice it open, it's full of millions of little holes.

You know, there's a whole lot of nothing inside there. And thus were the Pharisees. And so is anybody who trusts in their own righteousness instead of God's, can look good on the outside, but be the exact opposite on the inside. If we'll turn back a chapter here in Luke 11, Jesus Christ makes it very clear, and this is one of those cases where He was telling the Pharisees to their face, and they didn't like it. Luke 11 and verse 39.

These you ought to have done without leaving the other undone.

And I like one of the lawyers says, teacher by saying these things, you reproach me also. He said, well, okay then, woe to you lawyers. You load men with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your little fingers. Now that's the hypocrisy. This is good for other people, but not for me. That's making something appear different on the outside. But that's not how Christians are to be. And we know that we're to talk the talk and to walk the walk. Boy, I've been hearing that all my life. It sounded like a cliché the first time I heard it, but it's so accurate. I don't mind saying it again. You know, the way you appear on the outside be that way on the inside. Or, if anything, we should be more substantial than we appear. And I think I've heard of people sometimes meeting someone who is a Christian, and later say, boy, there's a lot more to Him than I thought. You know, there's some real substance in His character. But it should never be the opposite.

Now, I've been discussing what leaven represents during the days of unleavened bread. But I do want to stop before I leave that discussion and stress that it's only for these seven days. And we could get caught up in how leaven pictures all these evil things and think, well, I'm never going to eat it again. But in spite of all that I just said, of course, we know, I hope we know, and we want to remind ourselves that leaven in and of itself is not bad.

God created it. He made it so that it would do those things to dough. You know, God made yeast. And it's good not only for making dough into bread, but also, you know, grape juice into wine and things like that.

Now, sin is the thing that's always bad. Let's notice what Christ himself, in Matthew 13, Jesus Christ used leaven as a symbol for something good in some cases. And in this particular case, Matthew 13 and verse 33, one of the brief parables that he gave, says another parable he spoke to them, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven. And he said, well, I thought leaven was terrible and evil. Now, leaven is insidious and transformative. And he said, the kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till all was leaven.

So in this case, the kingdom of heaven is going to start very small, just like a lump of sourdough bread, putting into a large lump is small, but spreads and changes everything. When God begins his kingdom, it's going to begin, as he says in another parable, like a mustard seed, the smallest seed, but it's going to grow and grow and grow.

We're going to be privileged to be part of that small initial lump, and we're going to change the world. We're going to teach. Who knows how many people, during the millennium and then after that, in the great white throne judgment, so God's way of life will be insidious.

It will spread to everywhere and transform it. It will change people. It will change the world. I wanted to point this out because, as I said, we can point out how evil sin is, and leaven pictures that, but we want to remember that eight days from now, we can start eating leaven again, and we won't have to feel guilty about it. I don't think that's probably not a problem here. I mean, we were eating leaven several days ago and didn't feel guilty about it because we know it's for this certain time and place.

But all this talk of eating and not eating can lead to another important question. And that question, and I've had several people ask me this in the last couple months, is, do we have to eat unleavened bread every day during the days of unleavened bread?

Now, the instructions we've read so far make one thing very clear. During the days of unleavened bread, we are not to eat anything leaven. Usually, nobody has that question. There should be no leaven in our house or anything area we control. That's pretty clear. And what leaven symbolizes makes it easy to understand and comply with this.

But if we easily agree what not to do during this time, there have sometimes been questions over about what we do have to do. Or some people have questioned how much or how often we have to do. Now, God's Word does say, eat unleavened bread. And by the way, I'm not going to introduce any new doctrine or strange teaching here. So, in case you wonder if I'm setting up for something like that. But I wanted to explore this. God's Word says, during these seven days, eat unleavened bread.

How much of it do we have to eat? Do we have to eat it every single day of the seven-day festival? Now, I'm not certain. I brought some crops up here with me. So, I hope you don't mind. I think one of the reasons that question has come up is because of this. Maybe I'll leave it in the bag.

You've all seen these. I brought several boxes. Matzos, they're not all that appealing sometimes. Especially the plain, dry ones with no salt or anything. It's like eating cardboard. I suspect some people have got that and said, Do I have to eat this every day? And I mentioned, now it's been a long time since I've seen rye crisp.

I don't know if they make it anymore. But when I was a youngster in the church, you heard about that a lot. I got to taste some. I liked the matzos better than rye crisp, personally. But I think rye has a developed taste. There are some people that would just rather go without eating any bread for seven days.

And they'd say, I'm not eating any leaven. That's not so bad. But the response would be, No, it says clearly in Exodus 13, verses 6 and 7. I'm going to go there in a little bit. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

That's a positive command. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. Well, matter of fact, let's go there. I'm referring to it. I want to turn to it eventually. So let's... I'm paraphrasing.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the seventh day is the Feast of the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you. So that sounds like two separate commands. Not only no leavening, but also you shall eat unleavened bread. That seems pretty straightforward. You know, one of... You could break it down. There's going to be a week of the year where you can't eat anything leavened and you do have to eat unleavened. Where is there any room for disagreement? Well, there is one small area that people have brought up. Some scholars read this as saying that the command to eat unleavened bread applies to the seven-day period as a whole, rather than seven individual units, as in days. Now, I'm not saying this is my personal belief, but I want to present and explain scholars have looked at the original Hebrew and said it could be translated that way. Their reasoning is that during the week-long period, whenever you may have eaten bread, instead you eat unleavened bread. But they would say not necessarily that you have to make a special effort to consume some matzo each and every day. And I see skeptical looks, which is what I expect, because that's not the way most of us read it and have understood it. I was looking at... Actually, I was using my 23 translations of the Bible that someone down here gave me recently. The New American Standard Bible translates Exodus 13, verse 7, to say, only unleavened bread may be eaten during the seven days. So that's a little different than saying you shall eat unleavened bread. Now, it's a pretty small difference in translation, and as I said, scholars argue both ways over whether it's accurate to translate it that way. And because of this, it can cause, and it has caused, bitter disagreements among brethren. Some have looked at others and said, you're being sinful because you're not eating some every day. And on the other hand, some people have looked at it, well, you're being legalistic and judgmental and self-righteous by telling me I have to eat a piece every day when that's going further than the Bible says. And I've learned, not that I've been around... Well, I've been around, but some people have been around a lot longer, and they say this comes up every so many years. It's been around a long time, probably since they left the original Hebrew. So, is enough so that the doctrinal committee of the Council of Elders addressed it, and recently, you know, they studied it at length and recently made a new doctrinal statement, which is not... It's new. It was issued on February 27th, but it doesn't say anything much different than what we've done before. It's fairly brief. Matter of fact, I'll mention a week or so ago, Kevin Call asked me, did you read the new doctrinal statement? I said, well, I saw the email, but I didn't... I was busy. I didn't open it up. He said, well, it's only half a page.

I thought, oh, I thought it was going to be like, you know, 20 pages of all this. So, let me read for you the doctrinal statement they issued. It says, The church believes and teaches that we should observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread by removing all leaven from our homes, by refraining from eating leavened products, and by eating unleavened bread, as is stated in the booklet, Fundamental Beliefs of the United Church of God, and it cites page 36. The next paragraph says, The Feast of Unleavened Bread, starting the day after Passover, and continuing for seven days, teaches us that Jesus Christ leads us to reject lawlessness, repent of sins, and live by every word of God.

And it cites 1 Corinthians 5, verse 8, and also Matthew 4, verse 4. During this festival, leaven, an agent such as yeast that causes bread dough to rise during baking, symbolizes sin, and is therefore removed from our homes and not eaten for the seven days. And again, it cites 1 Corinthians 5, verses 7 and 8, and Exodus 12, verse 15.

By eating unleavened bread during this time, instead, we picture living a life of sincerity and truth, free from sin. The first and the last days of the seven-day festival are annual Sabbaths. And that's the end of the statement, and then on that page, it gives the full text for 1 Corinthians 5, 7 through 8, Matthew 4, 4, and Exodus 12, verses 15 through 20. And it says, approved by the Council of Elders, February 27, 2013. Now, if you listen carefully, and it's easier if you look at it in print, it does not specifically say how often you have to eat unleavened bread.

It doesn't say you have to eat it every day for seven days, but it doesn't say otherwise. My understanding is that that was a deliberate choice, because the Council, they saw the arguments from both ways and said, there's enough uncertainty that rather than making an official church teaching one way or the other, we want to teach people and leave it to a matter of conscience as to what they do.

Now, because of that, I'm not going to tell you that I know absolutely for certain which way is correct. I think I understand both arguments, but I will go on to explain a couple of things. One that I think is the most important is to remind us that Romans 14, 23 tells us that whatever is not from faith is sin. So we should not violate our conscience, and we should never encourage another person. So if one of us is convicted that one way of interpretation is correct and someone else disagrees, we shouldn't say, you're sinning if you don't see it my way.

If you believe that you should eat one piece of unleavened bread each day during the days of unleavened bread, I advise you by all means do that. The second thing I want to do, and I'll spend most of the rest of the sermon doing it, is I'll spend some time explaining why I do eat unleavened bread every day during the days of unleavened bread, and usually several times each day. My reasoning has to do most of all with the symbolism for what unleavened bread represents, but there's also the fact of what things are unleavened bread and what we should consider to be unleavened bread.

So let's move on first and look at the more abstract intellectual reasoning, the spiritual representation, to show why, as I said, I want to eat unleavened bread all through the seven-day festival. If you'll go back to 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 8. We read this earlier, I know. I want to go back and emphasize the part that I didn't emphasize at first.

1 Corinthians 5 and verse 8, Paul wrote, Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. If during the days of unleavened bread, leavened pictures, wickedness, sin, hypocrisy, unleavened bread represents the exact opposite. And I did some checking in my lexicon, which I like to do sometimes just to help me have a deeper understanding. The Greek word there for sincerity is elecrenia, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, which could be interpreted as purity, clearness, or of course, sincerity. It's the exact opposite of the corruptness that leaven represents during that time.

The Greek word for truth is the standard Greek for truth, elethea. It comes from a word that means not concealing or not hidden. And it's usually interpreted as truth. It's the exact opposite of hypocrisy. So, you know, where it says truth, it means truth. And since unleavened bread represents truth during these seven days, I thought, it'd be good to spend some time looking at some of the things the Bible tells us about truth and why we want that in our lives all the time.

Let's look at John 14. John 14 and verse 6. I'm taking this a little out of context, but I think it's a very good statement. John 14 and verse 6. Jesus, he's speaking to Thomas, and he says, Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. Jesus basically said, I am truth.

I thought, well, if during these days unleavened bread equals truth, and truth equals Jesus Christ, well, I want that. I want to have Christ living in me. That's very important. And it makes me think back to when Jesus was telling the disciples at Passover, he says, take this bread and eat it, all of you, because this represents my body that's given as a sacrifice.

And it represents Christ's body, particularly during the Passover, but I'd like to think any time we eat a piece of unleavened bread during the days of unleavened bread, it can help us to remember Christ's sacrifice that was given for us, and we're making Christ a part of our life. We're taking remembrance of him, and remembering that throughout the days of unleavened bread can't be a bad thing. But there's more. Let's look ahead in John 17. John 17 and verse 17 says, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. This tells us a couple things about truth, but here, again, I'm playing almost as though it's mathematics, but if unleavened bread equals truth and truth equals God's word, then in a sense, unleavened bread is representing God's word.

I know I want to partake of God's word each day, and I do that through Bible study, of course, every day. During the days of unleavened bread, when I eat that piece of unleavened bread, it reminds me of taking God's word into me and making a part of me. It's a very visible symbol, and I like the fact that the symbol has come full circle if you cite Matthew 4, verse 4, where Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

As I said, during the days of unleavened bread, there's two symbols that merge into one symbol.

Of course, it's worth remembering the model prayer Jesus gave in Matthew 6, 11. He said, give us this day our daily bread.

That's something that's interesting. Bread, that word can appropriately mean food in general. When he said, give us this day our daily bread, it didn't mean bread is all we're going to get.

We're allowed to have vegetables and meat. But, it's saying we look to God for our daily food, and we have it every single day, except when we're fasting.

When we eat and digest unleavened bread during the days of unleavened bread, we should be thinking of putting God's word, and God's word is a spiritual thing. Jesus said in Matthew 6, 63, that God's word, which represents Christ, we're putting it into us, thus making Christ and the word of God a very part of us, part of our substance.

Now, there's a few other things we can see the Bible tells us about truth, which unleavened bread is symbolizing during this time. If we go to Matthew, Psalm 51, or perhaps more appropriately said, the 51st Psalm, Psalm 51 and verse 6.

Here, David's writing in deep repentance, and he says, Behold, you desire truth in the inward parts, in the hidden part you'll make me to know wisdom. That truth in the inward part, that's deep down in your very substance. That reminded me of that phrase, you are what you eat. We want to have truth in our inward parts.

We can turn over to Proverbs 16, Proverbs 16 and verse 6.

Proverbs 16 and verse 6, I'm reading the New King James, it says, In mercy and truth, atonement is provided for iniquity. Now, in the original King James, or the Old, it says, In truth, iniquity is purged. That's another way of saying truth drives out sin. Just as during the days of unleavened bread, we have unleavened bread come in and take the place of the leaven, pushing the leaven out, so to speak, just as truth pushes sin out.

So I thought I might make some reference to some other scriptures, with, as I said, the thought of unleavened bread representing sincerity and truth during these days. I'm just going to read what these tell us. If you want to jot them down, you can, but rather than take the time to turn to all of them, because they're rather brief. But Psalm 119, verse 151 says, O Lord, all your commandments are truth. All of God's commandments are truth.

In John 4.23, Jesus Christ said, true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

We want to worship God in truth. That's John 4.23.

Likewise, Jesus referenced truth several times in that last Passover. John 15, verse 26, when He's trying to explain to His apostles that the Holy Spirit would come, He referred to it as the Comforter. He said, the Comforter sent from the Father is the Spirit of truth. So the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of truth. As I read already in John 17.17, God sanctifies us by His truth, and His Word is truth.

One more reference I'll mention here. In Ephesians 6.14, where Paul is describing the armor of God, it includes saying, have your waist girt with girt. I think it says girt in the Old King James. Girted with truth. Have truth around your waist, holding everything together.

And that's only a small sampling. I actually did a little concordance study with truth, and there's dozens and dozens of references, and some more really good ones than I thought I could take the time with. But those are some of the outstanding ones. And as I said, it's good for us to remember, the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So that unleavened bread represents all these things during this time. If you think in these terms, knowing that God's truth is so important and powerful, and that during the days of unleavened bread, unleavened bread directly symbolizes truth, which can be seen as an embodiment of Christ Himself, or as an embodiment of God's Word, then I would think, why would anyone want to eat as little of it as possible? Why are people asking the question, do I have to eat it every day? Well, then I thought, there's one reason I can think of.

It could be, you look at this and go, ugh! Some people just don't like unleavened bread, and so they're thinking, okay, I understand the symbolism, but man, I'm going to force myself to eat it. Well, I think in that case, and I've been emphasizing the matzo, but I think some of us might tend to overlook some forms of unleavened bread that aren't so unappetizing. And I guess some of you might be looking at me and saying, well, who thinks it's unappetizing? Well, that's been me sometimes, sometimes, especially when I first had the dry ones my grandmother had, with no salt, no flavoring.

I wasn't that fond of them. Then when I first tasted egg and onion, I said, oh, well, that's not bad. And I thought, whoa, if it tastes good, does that mean it's not really unleavened bread? Shouldn't it be bread of affliction? Well, I also like wheat thins. I can't remember that. Put some of those in here. Yeah. Oh, they're not in a bag. But I like these, but some people look at this and say, well, that's not unleavened bread.

Those are crackers. It doesn't say unleavened crackers you shall eat seven days. And these, well, it's funny, I like the old square triscuits. For some reason, she's beginning these rectangular ones. They're thinner and a little crispier. I like the other ones because they fill you up more. But it leads to the question then, what exactly is unleavened bread?

Or what is bread? What is bread? And you might look at it, well, we all know what bread is. It's bread, right? You know, it looks like this. I couldn't bring that in as a prop. I thought I'd be in trouble there. So, but if you can all see it, you know, that's the way that that's bread. Okay. By that line of reason, though, if they say this is bread, then this is not bread, is it? What gets us to that point? Now, some of you are way ahead of me, but bear with me as I go through some of this.

But what is the mixed bread? Well, essentially, you take some kind of grain and grind it into flour. And then you mix it with some other ingredients. At a minimum, some water and usually some salt, if you wanted to have any flavor at all. And you can have, and then if you allow the leaven to work on it, you'll get some bread.

Now, better bread is going to have, you know, some butter, some eggs, some milk. I'm trying to think, as I said, when we were using up our yeast packets, I got our electric bread maker machine. And I'm trying to think, I used flour, salt, milk, butter, a lot of butter. Of course, butter is good. I'm with Julia Child on that one. You don't go wrong with more butter. Then all that mixed together makes dough. Okay, we agree it's dough. And then it becomes bread when you bake it.

Now, can you consider it bread if it's cooked by some means other than baking? I might wonder. And of course the question then, can you consider it bread if it's made out of some other grain than wheat? You know, is corn bread still bread? I got a picture of that, too. Now, this doesn't look like this, does it? But it's called corn bread. And we're in Kentucky. Corn bread's got to be bread, isn't it? And I'm going to confess on this. I don't really like corn bread. And I know I might have trouble getting back across the river if I say that. Of course, in Southern Ohio they're very fond of corn bread. Sue thinks I'm nuts, but I've just never been that fond of corn bread. But I do call it bread. And what about the others? What about banana bread? Now, I love banana bread. Does that stop being bread? Or do you have to call it cake? And does it matter? And every now and then I've had that Hawaiian bread. You can find it Kroger's sometimes. And I'm not sure what it's made of, but it tastes good. Well, I thought, let's consider the ancient Israelites to whom God gave the command. He's the one that spoke to them in the Hebrew and said, Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and not eat leaven. Let's go back to Exodus 16. I want to look at something where He gave them. Remember, they couldn't stop and sow crops and reap. They were wandering through the wilderness. So originally it was probably going to be a year or so, but they wouldn't go in the Promised Land. So it ended up being 40 years they wandered, and they didn't have any way of getting food except God give it to them. And so He did. And this is the case where that begins. Exodus 16, beginning in verse 14.

When the layer of dew lifted there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said to another, What is it? Or what's it? Which in Hebrew was the word manna. What is that? For they didn't know what it was. And Moses said, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. So Moses said, It's bread.

But it wasn't either of these, was it? It was something on the ground, and they gathered it up. So He's using a different definition of bread than we often think of.

And I checked the Hebrew word to make sure that it was still bread. It was Strongs number 3899 Lechen, if I'm pronouncing it L-E-C-H-E-N. And I said, Well, what's the definition of that word that's translated bread? It means food, or victuals, or grain, or bread. And I was actually a little surprised because usually when I look up a word, I'll find there are some exceptions or issues so many times. And in the Old Testament, there's only one Hebrew word for bread, and that's it. So in other words, that one word covers a wide variety of things.

And for the next 40 years, when the Israelites wandered, when they kept the days of unleavened bread, it was with manna.

Manna wasn't wheat. So as I said, if I'm going to parse this down to what you can consider bread or not, or unleavened bread, well, it can't be limited to wheat because manna wasn't wheat. We're not sure exactly what it was.

But, and then let's look at the cooking. We should remember, and I'm sure we all do, we look at the story most often because we're studying about the Sabbath, not because we're studying what is or isn't bread, but God sent the manna six days a week. And on the seventh, it wasn't there, so that they could not go through the work of gathering it on the Sabbath. And God gave them instructions. Let's look over to verse 23 here in Exodus 16.

He said to them, This is what the eternal has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest. Oh, holy Sabbath, to the eternal. Bake what you will bake today, boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept till morning. And so they did so.

Now, if I'm reading correctly, then making dough with the manna and cooking it by boiling, it could still be considered the bread that God gave them.

Now, am I stretching if I say that? Does that mean if I take something made out of green that I'm going to boil, it looks like this. Only we call it pasta or spaghetti.

Now, as I said, I might be stretching, but if this counts as unleavened bread, I like to eat it not only during the days of unleavened bread, but all through the year. And I like it the macaroni style, too.

Now, some people might, like I said, question that. Can you still call it bread? Cooking it that way?

Let's go over to Leviticus 2. Leviticus 2, beginning in verse 4. Now, I meant to bring both translations up. Many of you have the original King James, I think. It'll read a little bit different. I'm beginning in verse 4. It says, Now, this is an offering not of an animal, but it's a type of offering of grain where you could show thanks to God or use it as a peace offering. Now, I'm beginning in verse 4. It says, If you bring an offering, it says a meat offering in the original King James, but the new King James says a grain offering, It's baked in the oven. Now, this is an offering not of an animal, but it's a type of offering of grain where you could show thanks to God or use it as a peace offering. As you make an offering, a grain offering, it shall be unleavened cakes, a fine flour mixed with oil, or unleavened wafers anointed with oil. But if your offering is a grain offering baked in a pan, it shall be a fine flour mixed with oil.

And, yeah, you shall break it in pieces and pour the oil on it. It's a grain offering or meat offering. If your offering is a meat offering, now the original King James says cooked in a frying pan. The new King James says covered in a covered pan, but it goes on through there. Now, that's interesting. As I said, different translations are using different words because maybe because they were limited there.

Meat offering, grain offering, frying pan. But it's describing different ways of cooking offerings of whatever you want to call this substance that's made out of dough and then cooked and offered to God. Aside from the fact that they're made of dough, being unleavened is the only major factor that's common to these differences. It's showing different ways to prepare this grain. They all had to be unleavened and they're made of dough.

Now, I wanted to stop and point out this is not addressing the days of unleavened bread. Here in Leviticus, it's talking about making offerings. So I'm extrapolating slightly because this isn't directed to the days of unleavened bread. But it is focused on what is acceptable to God. You can bring this to God as an offering. And He's saying you can do it baked in a baked oven, cooked in a frying pan. It seems that He allows some flexibility on what grain is used or not used. He allows some flexibility in how it's cooked.

But He doesn't allow flexibility. Like I said, no offering. There He's saying it can't be done with leaven. And of course, during the days of unleavened bread, we don't have any flexibility over leavened or unleavened. But maybe we have some flexibility on the type of grain.

As I said, if this is leavened bread, then are these unleavened bread? And I'm going to pose the question because I mentioned that to Sue and she said, no, I don't think so. And I said, but I really like these. I eat these every day all year, whether it's unleavened bread or not.

I don't know.

But it does talk about bringing an offering to God cooked in a frying pan with oil. And if cooked in a frying pan with oil, that sounds like frying. Now, as I said, I'm not saying that anything made of grain that's not leavened is unleavened bread. Because I eat oatmeal for breakfast just about every day. And there's no way I can stretch to say oatmeal is unleavened bread. It's just not. And rice arone is never going to be unleavened bread. Rice is a grain, but it has to be made into a dough and cooked. And you might go further. You might say it has to be baked.

But most of us already, when I lifted up the wheat thins, and somebody, we had a type of unleavened bread made with cheese and Italian seasoning and red pepper. I think Laura Call made them. And said they were like something like cheese Napoleon's. I'd never heard of it. But boy, they were tasty. And most of us consider those things as unleavened bread.

Now, and I wonder, have you ever had one of these out in a non-church member sees it and calls it a cracker? It's easy to get the, okay, it's cracker. It's not bread. It's a cracker. Or is it a cake and not bread? And you might wonder, why is he spending all this time on this?

Largely because I want to get to the idea that we have to eat unleavened bread to honor God and what it symbolizes. That's the most important thing.

And that word in the Old Testament that says bread means a lot of things. It means food. Now, obviously meat and vegetables can't be leavened or unleavened. So for it to be unleavened bread, it has to be something that could have been leavened.

But some people say, well, pasta can't be bread because you mix it with other ingredients like sauces and cheese and then eat it. But, well, you know, I slice bread and I put slices of meat and cheese and vegetables in that when I make a sandwich and the bread didn't stop being bread.

So I wanted to throw that out there. And as I said, I want to make a point. Please don't anyone think that I'm trying to change your watered-down doctrine? That's not at all. I just wanted to say that some people, and I don't know necessarily who, but some people could have, in their mind, had a more restricted view of what they have to do to keep the days of unleavened bread than God originally intended.

And if that's the case, some people who thought it was challenging to eat unleavened bread each of the seven days might not be near as challenging as they thought if they think in a more broad variety.

But in any event, as I said, if anyone has any doubt, the one thing I say is, you should not violate your conscience. Whatever is not of faith is sin. And having said all this, it's funny I wrote in my notes because I knew I would forget, but I looked back over the years and I'm pretty sure I'd doubt in my own life if I've ever had a day during the days of unleavened bread go by that I didn't eat some matzo.

It's a habit, I think it's a good thing to do, and with some butter on them, they're pretty darn good. So I like to look, you know, if I'm eating macaroni and cheese, I feel like, yeah, I'm eating unleavened bread, but I've usually had some matzo too. And maybe it's a little bit my conscience, you know, as I said, I'd rather make sure I'm there. But I do want us to understand and not condemn others who look at the Hebrew and say, I don't think it means exactly what some people say it means. We don't have to condemn them whether or not, or you don't have to condemn them if you don't agree with it. And someone who does feel that way, you know, if I feel that way, I shouldn't be condemning someone who does want to eat it every day and thinking they don't understand. Because I think they do. The most important thing is, you know, whether we're talking about baking or boiling, frying, is what does it stand for?

What is the symbolism? You know, we are fortunate. We get to keep this festival once a year. And as part of it, we clean out anything and everything that's leavened. And for seven days, we don't eat any leavening, and instead, we do eat unleavened bread. Now, that seems odd to people who don't have God's spirit and who have not been educated in what it symbolizes. But we know during this time, leavened pictures sin, malice, wickedness, and hypocrisy. And for us to become like God, we need to eliminate those traits from our life. In contrast, unleavened bread pictures sincerity and truth. And truth can be equated to Jesus Christ, to the Word of God, to His commandments, to His way of life. We want to have Jesus dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit. We want Christ in us. We want to feed on God's Word. We want to make it a part of us. That's the higher concept. As I said, don't worry about baking or boiling or frying. Sincerity and truth and God's Word in us matters. And we should want those things all year, every day of the year. But during the seven days of unleavened bread, we have a special opportunity to act it out by consciously and purposely eating unleavened bread in the place of the leavened bread we normally eat. So, having said all that, there's only one way I can think to wrap it up, and that's once again, quote the Apostle Paul. Let's keep the feast, not with the old leaven, not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and peace.