The "yom" of Trumpets

Well, good morning, brethren, and welcome to the seventh day of Unleavened Bread. Art, I can only say wow. I think that's the first time I've ever heard him do that particular number and piece. And very moving. Thank you so much for sharing that with us today, special music. And Mr. Graham, I don't know what to say about him.

When Mr. Graham does music for me, he always gives me these bizarre French songs that I cannot pronounce. French titles, French composers. I stumble over them. I look like a fool. For Mr. Miller, he gets Bach. Who doesn't know Bach? So thank you, Mr. Graham, for doing that to me. I truly appreciate it. I don't see a clock in the building, so I have to set a little timer here. Let me go ahead and start that. Well, again, welcome to the seventh day of Unleavened Bread. During the sermon this morning, I would like to primarily focus on just two verses in Scripture in great detail. There's actually a theological term when you do that. It's called exegesis. Exegesis is not the study of a man formerly known as Jesus. Exegesis comes from a Greek word, and it means the explanation of a text based on careful objective analysis.

That's what I would like to do today. I'd like to focus on some verses in 1 Corinthians 5 and examine the wording of these two verses very closely. They're important for a number of reasons. Freeman mentioned himself that 1 Corinthians is such a vital and important book for us today. If it weren't for 1 Corinthians, it might be very difficult to prove that the Holy Day should be kept as part of the New Covenant. Thankfully, Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in 55 AD, that's 25 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and five years after the ministerial conference in 49 AD. That's embarrassing for some scholars, for people that don't want to keep the Holy Days, because supposedly at that ministerial conference in 49 AD, everything relating to the law of Moses supposedly was done away. And here's Paul five years later, making a statement to the Church at Corinth. But unfortunately, it doesn't fit the agenda or the tradition of much of the Christian world today, and the verses that we're going to look at are usually glossed over as simply a remnant of an obsolete ritual.

The Epistle was written from Ephesus, a city on the west coast of today's modern Turkey, about 180 miles by sea from Corinth. Now, some of you in Cleveland are probably already saying to yourselves, haven't you covered this already before Mr. Thomas? And the answer is yes, I have. I'll tell you something that I learned, and early in my ministry, I would use a scripture, and I would say, all right, I covered that scripture. I'm not going to use that scripture now for six months, because there are so many other rich and wonderful scriptures to focus on. But as the years went by, and as due to my career, I began to go to a lot of seminars and received professional training, I realized that the way that we truly learn things is through spaced repetition. We don't get it if we're told something once or twice. The way our minds work, we have to be told something repeatedly for it to become part, for our subconscious mind to open up and understand and accept it, so it becomes second nature to us. And that's a very important concept. So, at least the early part of this sermon today, I'm going to be talking about something that I've spoken to the Cleveland Church about, and please bear with me. Hopefully there will be enough new things in the sermon today to continue to pique your interest. Let's go now to 1 Corinthians 5, verses 4-8, and we'll actually look at a few verses to lead up to the context of the two verses that I want to focus on today, which are verses 7 and 8, ultimately. But before we do that, let's get the context of what Paul is talking about. The context is that this was a congregation that had a lot of problems. It had problems with fornication, it had problems with worship practices, it had a superiority complex because it had a lot of spiritual gifts. It was far too tolerant of sin because it was a Gentile congregation, had problems understanding about the return of Jesus Christ. It was a church with a lot of, shall we say, issues. Paul wants to address those issues in 1 Corinthians. At this point, he wants to address something that's really eating at him, and that is, they were allowing someone who was committing incest with his stepmother to attend services and participate in the church congregation. Paul's going to put his foot down. Here's what he says in verse 4. He says, Paul is saying, I want you to put this individual out, and hopefully he'll come to his senses, he'll realize that he is sinning, and those kind of actions are not acceptable within the church of God. Before Christ comes, hopefully he will wake up and he'll get his life in order. As someone sent me an email recently, which I really appreciated, Paul gives the impression in 2 Corinthians that that is exactly what this individual did. The bottom line is, it turned out okay. He continues here in verse 6 of the congregation, You're glorying, often translated in modern translations, you're boasting, or in other translations, you're bragging. This is about how tolerant, how open-minded they were. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? So Paul is bringing an analogy here about leaven and how leaven infects something and it spreads and ultimately it destroys the whole lump.

How would these Gentiles know that that had any spiritual analogy or any spiritual impact? Obviously Paul had taught them. The Corinthian church was bragging about how tolerant they were of incest occurring by a church member. And you know, I've seen an example of this in my own lifetime. I'm just going to share with you what I've seen in my own life. I can remember I attended an inner-city elementary school that was naturally integrated. I grew up around 140th and St. Clair. And between East 140th and about East 180th were all kinds of factories. And growing up as a child in the 50s, I rubbed shoulders and I played with African-American children whose parents came up from the South to work at the factories. People from West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, they were all coming to Cleveland. Cleveland had a phenomenal number of great factory jobs. And back in those days, one breadwinner could earn enough money to provide for their family. Those days, unfortunately, are often gone today, forcing both parents to work. But back in that time, the pay was so good that one breadwinner could provide for the whole family. And I can remember in the late 1950s, I was in a class of about 30 children. I remember this because I was shamed. I felt a sense of shame. I was in a class of about 30 children, and the teacher said, how many of you don't have daddy who lives at home? And out of 30 children, there were only two of us. I was one. My parents were divorced when I was a small child. My mother was a single mom, raising three children at this point. This would be about 1958-59. There was one other child, and the rest of the class, 28 out of 30, had dad living at the home.

Then came the 1960s. Then came the birth control pill. And the sexual revolution. Then came a cultural influence from the Hollywood media that marriage and providing for your children wasn't important. And in the 1960s, the sanctity of marriage was eroded. If you look statistically, divorces dramatically increased beginning in the 1960s. Children born to wedlock to single parents dramatically increased beginning in the 1960s. In some population groups in the United States, 70% of births are now occurring to unmarried women. If you take that same little school I was in, it still has the same name, new school, called East Clark Elementary School.

Just by going by average statistics, if you took that same class of 30 children today, 21 out of 30 do not have daddy living at home. Now, two, 21 out of 30 do not have their biological fathers living at home. Also during this period of time, obviously, the number of couples just living together dramatically increased over the past 40 years.

What was happening here? A little leaven beginning with the change of cultural mindset, violating the sanctity of marriage, accepting sexual promiscuity, a number of things converging in the 1960s, a little leaven began to leaven the whole lump. Now what do we have? Now we have same-sex marriages. Very soon we'll have plural marriages. Plural marriages are when there's one husband and three wives living together as a family. And I have to be honest with you, what I've read on the Internet, there is no way legally you can stop plural marriage.

If you were able to redefine marriage from one man and one woman, if the culture could do that after 6,000 years legally, then there's no way that you can prohibit ultimately, starting with some states and ultimately settled by the Supreme Court, there's no way that you can stop plural marriage. Soon after that we'll see legalized incest among consenting adults, because after all, if they're consenting adults, who is our culture? Who's our legal system to stop two consenting adults, a brother and a sister, I think you get the idea, from marrying one another?

Then we will legalize child porn, because after all, it's a victimless crime. How can society punish someone for just looking at something? So as you can easily see in our modern culture, what started out in the 1960s is an erosion to the importance and the value of marriage has come to where we are today. And, in Katie Barr the Doors, you've just begun to see the level of erosion and perversion of the traditional family and the traditional concept of marriage between one man and one woman.

In our own culture today, we have seen that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. And Paul was concerned about this because he knew that it could affect the entire congregation at Corinth. Now let's go to verse 7 here and take a look at what he says. Verse 7, I'll read the verses and then we're going to go into these two verses in greater detail.

Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, something brand new, something that is just started over again that doesn't have yeast, that doesn't have leaven in it. That you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity.

And truth. So let's zero in. Let's look at these a little more closely, these two verses. See what we can glean out of them today. Verse 7, therefore purge out. Paul uses a Greek word ekath eyo, ekath eyo, and it means to cleanse thoroughly, to literally, to force or purge something out. This is a very strong word that Paul uses. He could have used other Greek words that simply mean to set something aside, or simply to remove something.

But he didn't choose to use those words. He chose to use a Greek word which means you cleanse something thoroughly. You scour it. You purge it. Because he realized that sin defiles. Sin ultimately can destroy us. Sin infects other people who are around us. Often times when families have particular sins, families have dysfunctions, it goes from generation to generation. My grandfather, who immigrated to the United States around the year 1900, was an alcoholic.

I had an aunt. One of his daughters was an alcoholic. She died very young in life from cirrhosis of the liver. My father was an alcoholic. So you see those generational dysfunctions, those sins, are often passed on generation after generation until someone comes along and says, that is something I need to purge out of my family culture. That's something that has to stop. It has to stop now, and it's going to stop with me.

So he says, therefore purge out the old leaven. The old word, old leaven, here is from the Greek word, zoume, which means to ferment something as if boiling it up. Many years ago, I used to make wine, and I would take various types of berries, flavored berries, and I would put sugar in it, and I would put yeast in it, and what happens by a natural process that God created, when you put the yeast in that berry juice and that wine, that yeast goes to work, and it begins to convert the sugar into alcohol. And the result of that is a lot of fermentation, a lot of bubbly coming out of that wine. And if you don't have some type of escape valve, either some people put a balloon on the top of the bottle. I used to have a little device that had water in it and then had a tube coming out. It's because you don't want bacteria to get in, but you have to allow all the pressures of that fermentation as if it's boiling up. You have to allow that to escape. And that's what this Greek word means, zume. It means as if boiling up. Something is fermenting. And that's what sin does in our lives, brethren. Old leaven is a destructive sin, or a habit, or an attitude that's been around for a while in our lives. We may have acquired it from our culture, a rather lackadaisical approach to the sanctity of marriage, like I just discussed here, and a little bit of how it happened. We may have acquired some attitudes and some sins from our culture. The family that we grew up in, we all grew up in imperfect families, and we saw imperfect parents, and we may have had imperfect siblings. So they may be family characteristics. It could be our school friends. Many people acquired a habit of binge-drinking from their high school friends or their college friends. So it can be our school friends, our co-workers. Even the church of our youth can have contributed to us dealing with a destructive sin or a habit or an attitude. It's a sin that's deeply embedded and normally hidden from the view of most people. This is why Old Levin is so destructive. It stays within us. If we don't examine ourselves, if we don't get it out, it stays within us. And then what happens? Well, eventually a situation occurs where it ferments and it becomes to boil up over again in our lives. And then once again it rears its ugly head, and it begins to influence us in a negative way.

Have you ever heard the phrase that someone is like a ticking time bomb? It's their behavior. You know that it is so bizarre. Something's going on. It's only a matter of time before something explodes in their life. Well, that's the way sin is in our lives. We may think we have it under control. We may think we're hiding it really well, sometimes even from our spouses, even from people that we have intimate relationships with. But over time, if we don't deal with it, we can try to hide it. We can ignore it. We can deny it. But eventually it will come back to haunt us. So again, this is the Greek word zoume, which is old leaven. Therefore purge out the old leaven.

The next phrase is that you may be a new lump. This word for lump from the Greek is furama. That's to mix a liquid with a solid, to knead something like a batch of dough. You would take a little bit of oil. You would take a little bit of something to mix the flour. And you would create something brand new from it. Remember, what most people did is when they made normal bread, they had a starter yeast that might have been around for centuries. An old family piece of starter yeast. They would take that and they would add that into a new batch of dough. And it would do its thing. It would, through the natural fermentation process, that yeast from that little starter dough would make that entire loaf rise. And what Paul is saying here is that we need to be a new lump that has no remnant of the sin that we had before. That has no influence from the kind of issues that we need to get out of our lives. We can be new. In other phrases, he uses terms like being a new creation.

Being a new creature in Christ, that means wiping the slate clean and starting brand new, a new lump. I'm going to read verse 7 from the New Century version. Take out all the old yeast so that you will be a new batch of dough without yeast as you really are. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Let's take a look at here in verse 7, the next part of the phrase, that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened. Now there are two ways that this phrase is valid and can be used in this statement, since you truly are unleavened. That's from the New King James version or the version I just read. It said, as you really are. The two ways that we can interpret this and both are valid. Number one is the Passover itself represented that they were clean and undefiled by the shed blood and the broken body of Jesus Christ. This was written during the springtime. Later on in the book, Paul said that he would be leaving Ephesus around Pentecost. That's the summer he was looking forward into the near future. So this book was written around the time of the spring.

This book could very well have arrived just before the Passover or even during the days of unleavened bread. Jesus had said in John 6, verse 52, Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. Of course, Paul knows that. Paul understood that. So from a spiritual sense, even though they were struggling with their own sins, it was Jesus Christ in them as a congregation that made them unleavened. Continuing in John 6, it says, For my flesh is food indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. So Jesus Christ did abide in this Corinthian congregation in spite of their troubles and problems and weaknesses.

Jesus Christ in them made them unleavened in a spiritual sense. Now I want you to save your spot where you're at with a little ribbon or a little piece of paper and turn with me, if you would, to 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 20. This would be the book that Paul wrote as a follow-up. And he wrote this within six months of sending the first letter. It may have even been quicker than that. We don't know for sure. But this was the follow-up that he wrote to the Corinthian congregation.

And again, we're talking about how one can interpret the phrase, Since you truly are unleavened in a spiritual sense. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 20, Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us, We implore you on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. For he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. So he made Jesus Christ become sin for us, so that in the sight of the Father we're no longer sinners.

So in the sight of the Father we no longer are burdened with the shame of sin. We are reconciled with Him, who knew no sin to be sin for us, That we might become the righteousness of God in Him. So it's because of our relational aspect of having Jesus Christ in us through the power of the Holy Spirit, That we might become the righteousness of God. Where we fall short, the righteousness of Jesus Christ fills the gap. So that's certainly one valid way to interpret, since you truly are unleavened.

And of course the second way is that the book of 1 Corinthians was written in the spring of the year, Perhaps just before or during the days of unleavened bread. And we're not making this up. You can go on the internet and see that many biblical scholars, Many Protestant biblical scholars that have no axe to grind, note that 1 Corinthians was written in the spring. And again in chapter 16 and verse 8, Paul mentions that he intended to leave Ephesus after Pentecost.

He was looking just a month or so down the road when he himself would be leaving Ephesus. So the book was literally written in the spring, which means physically they were unleavened. They had removed leaven from their homes. They got it. They understood the symbolism behind what leaven represents. Now let's go back to verse 7.

That you truly are unleavened, for Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. So Paul again is highlighting the fact that they were spiritually unleavened because they had recently observed the Passover and renewed the grace of the new covenant through the symbols of unleavened bread and wine. He said, you know, there's a responsibility that comes with the fact that Jesus Christ was sacrificed for us. There's a responsibility that comes in removing sin out of our lives. In making that effort, in looking at our hearts and minds, in making those changes, to root out the secret or the hidden sins from our hearts and our minds.

Continuing here, as you truly are unleavened, for indeed Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. Verse 8, therefore, let us keep the feast. A very powerful statement. What feast is he talking about? Well, obviously he's talking about the days of unleavened bread. The late Dr. Bakiyaki, who was a Seventh-day Adventist scholar, went through most of his career trying to say that let us keep the feast was talking about the Passover and not the days of unleavened bread.

But before he died, the light came on. And he finally admitted in one of his books regarding the Holy Days, he came to believe that the Holy Days should be observed. He admitted himself that he was wrong. And that Paul clearly, when he says let us keep the feast, is not simply talking about the Passover, he's talking about the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread.

So who does Paul mean when he says us? He says let us keep the feast. Well, unfortunately, some scholars who have an agenda say he's talking about the Jews who were converted and accepted Jesus Christ as the Messiah. He's talking to the Jews who were part of that congregation. This is a letter written to the Jews. This is a comment made for the Jews. But is that true? Again, hold your place. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 12, verses 1 and 2. And let's see who he's talking to. You know, as a speaker, as a writer, you have to know your audience. If you want to be effective, if you want to make a connection with them, you have to know who your audience was.

1 Corinthians 12, verses 1. Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that you were Gentiles. So who is this book written to? It's written to the Gentiles. Obviously, Corinth was in a pagan part of the Roman Empire.

The predominant majority of church members were Gentiles. They weren't converted Jews. Though there may have been some, this book was written for the Gentiles, who were the primary majority of this congregation in Corinth. You know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. So again, Paul states here that the Corinthian church was a Gentile congregation.

Before they were called to God's way of life, they were led by dumb idols. They worshipped many gods. Paul had said in Acts 18, verse 6, after trying to convert the Jews, in many ways, he said, I will go to the Gentiles. And he did. When he went to Corinth, he primarily approached the Gentiles. In many ways, he had given up on Jewish believers. Paul wrote this letter because they were suffering from many problems, this church. They were struggling with immoral behavior, for an occasion, distorted public worship. They had self-centered attitudes. They had a superiority complex. And they had confusion about when the resurrection was. These are all the themes of the book of 1 Corinthians. The fact is that a Gentile congregation is the audience for this epistle. So observance of the feast is for everyone in the congregation. When Paul says, let us, he means let me, who comes from a Jewish background, let you, who comes from a Gentile background and previously had been led by dumb idols, let all of us in the congregation at Corinth keep the feast. That's basically what he's saying. Let's continue now. Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven. Now, this word old leaven is from the Greek word zoome. And what he's saying here, and he's trying to encourage the congregation to understand, is we're not simply to recycle our personal sins into a new year. When it comes to sin, God is not in favor of recycling. Our community may, when it comes to garbage, we should recycle. There are a lot of things that we should recycle. We should repurpose. But God is not into taking our sins and repurposing our sins or recycling our sins all over again. We should not allow old habits and behaviors to ferment and boil up again in our lives. And you know what? If we don't deal with them, there's that ticking time bomb. That's exactly what those hidden issues in our lives will do. During the right situation, the right personal crisis, the right amount of stress that you're under, they will ferment and boil up again in our lives. With Christ in us, we can finally resolve to replace the old, to remove the old, and literally to put in something new. And when something negative or destructive is removed and put out, remember we should never casually accept it back again. We have to fill that void, the void of negativity. We have to fill that with something positive and productive. Let's take a look here, continuing in verse 8.

Let me explain that for a minute. In the Jewish realm, particularly the Jewish leaders, the Pharisees and the scribes and so on, they looked at themselves as only under the physical letter of the law. Their attitudes didn't matter. They wanted to just really look righteous on the outside. So as long as they kept the Ten Commandments, the letter of the law, as long as they kept the oral law and all these little bee things that they thought made them righteous, and were very showy, as long as they did that, it was acceptable to hate their brother's guts. It was acceptable to treat people with spite. It was acceptable to do all of those negative spiritual values that hurt people, that defile people. That wasn't considered sin. What was considered sin was physically breaking the commandment on adultery, physically breaking the commandment on idolatry, physically stealing something from someone else. The physical aspects of the law were what they focused on. So the reality is, is yes, they kept the Holy Days for thousands of years, but because of the way their hearts were, it was with malice and wickedness.

Oh, really looked good in the outside, but on the inside it was putrid. It was corrupt. It was defiling. So again, when Paul uses this word, malice, and again that Greek word is ketliya, it means depravity, it means having ill will, it means being spiteful for another person. Paul was saying, we should not keep the feast this way, because the New Covenant is all about the heart.

Remember, God is changing the heart. God is putting a new heart within us. Jesus Christ gave us the spirit of the law. He said, it's no longer just a sin to kill your brother. If you hate your brother, you've got an issue. You need to deal with it. It's no longer just a sin to physically commit adultery. Jesus said, if you lust after someone in your heart, you've already committed adultery.

Jesus magnified the law. He gave the spiritual application. And that's what Paul is doing here. Paul said, I'm not interested in you looking good on the outside, and yet the inside is depraved and has ill will and is spiteful towards one another. Hold your place. Let's go to 1 Peter 2 and verse 1. If you'll turn there with me, 1 Peter 2 and verse 1.

This is Peter encouraging the church brethren. 1 Peter 2 and verse 1, encouraging them to move onward and upward and get beyond their carnal human nature. Therefore, laying aside all malice, that same Greek word, kakaya. Laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking. He's saying, put that aside. Get rid of that. Take that out of your life. Push it aside. And as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the word. You notice the contrast? From being spiteful and hypocritical and political to being pure.

To being transparent. To being clear in who and what you are. What you see is what you get. Desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby. You need to first start when you're small, when you're an infant, you start with milk. And it's through the nourishment of that milk that you are able to grow and then start eating solid food. And this is what Peter's talking about, verse 3. If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious, coming to him as to a living stone rejected indeed by men, speaking of Christ, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Brethren, what Peter's saying here is that God is building a spiritual house, and that spiritual house should not include malice. It shouldn't include deep resentments of an attitude. It shouldn't include deceit, being hypocritical, being envious of other people. It shouldn't include speaking evil of other people. All of those things we need to reject, and we need to desire the pure milk so that we can grow up as God's people. Now let's go to Ephesians 4 and verse 28 and see where Paul, writing to the congregation in Ephesus, uses that same Greek word. Ephesus 4 and verse 28. Paul again says some very strong words for the church members. Remember, when we read some of these things and we say to ourselves, how could congregations of God have these kind of issues that Paul would even bring them up? And the answer to that is they came from the Gentile world. The unique thing about the Hebrews, Hebrews were the people of the law, the book. The Hebrews had the Bible. The Hebrews were unique in that their faith required them to live a certain way. For most of the pagan world, the pagans weren't in the morality. The pagans didn't care about value systems. All the pagan religions cared about was placating your gods, giving a sacrifice to the gods. But they didn't have books that were moral codes. They didn't have teachings in which conduct, the right kind of conduct, was emphasized that wasn't part of the Gentile culture. That's what made the Jews so unique. Paul writes, Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. We have a phrase today playing something forward. He says, rather than stealing, work. And when you've earned something, give some of that to someone else to help them out.

Verse 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, the word edification comes from the word edifice. It means to build up. So he says, what should come out of our mouths isn't something that shames, humiliates, and demoralizes someone. The words that come out of our mouths, even if it's corrective, need to be something that ultimately builds someone up, that edifies them. That it may impart grace to the hearers. Verse 30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, but whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. Interesting how he just adds that on at the end. He listed all of those traits, and then he says, oh, and also, malice. This shouldn't be in our hearts and minds. This is that same Greek word kaklia, meaning depravity, meaning ill will, meaning having a spiteful attitude. Verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. Wow, that's a high order. Be imitators of God. God is perfect. God is righteous.

God has the most complete, balanced, perfect value system of what's right and wrong, what's acceptable and unacceptable. And Paul says, be imitators of God. Verse 2, and walk in love as Christ has also loved us and given himself for us, and offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.

Well, let's take a look at the other word that was in verse 8. Nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness. The Greek word for wickedness is paneria, which means a purposeful intent, a plotter, someone who plots iniquity, someone who is political, someone who has an agenda. Let's see how Jesus described wickedness and where it emanates from. If you'll turn, you can hold your place to Mark, Chapter 7 and verse 18. If you'll turn there with me, Mark, Chapter 7, verse 18. We're going to see that he was criticized by the Pharisees and scribes for not commanding his disciples to ceremonially wash their hands before they ate bread. And that's the context of his reply. It has nothing to do with clean and unclean meats. The context is he was being condemned because his disciples didn't ceremonially wash their hands before they ate bread. And he responds with a parable, and then later on the disciples say, we don't get it. What did you mean by that? And so we'll pick it up here in verse 18. Mark, Chapter 7 and verse 18.

And he said to them, Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not perceive that whatever enters a man from the outside cannot defile him because it does not enter his heart, but his stomach and is eliminated, thus purifying all foods? That's from the New King James Version. You may have a translation that in verse 19 has a bracketed edition and reads maybe something like this.

Thus he declared all foods clean. How many of you have something like that in your Bibles? Okay. Well, that is an inset. It's a parenthetical phrase. It isn't found in the original Greek. It's described somewhere along the line who just wanted to make it clearer for you to understand what Jesus meant. But the meaning of these verses are very clear. Contrary to the traditions of the Pharisees, Jesus teaches that his disciples may have their denerits, may have dirt on their hands when they eat their plates, may even have some crumbs and dirt. Their utilities may be a little dirty. But those things cannot make them common or unclean because it goes in your throat, goes through your digestive system, and the next day you probably sit down and you dispose of it from your elimination system, don't you? That's what we do.

So the stomach eliminates the impurities and they're purged as waste. Well, now let's see what Jesus says is really important. And of course, this ties in this Greek word paneria, which is wickedness. Here's what Jesus says.

Now, obviously Jesus was not speaking Greek, but whoever decided to record this down, Mark, used the same Greek word as Paul himself would use in his epistle to the Corinthians. But here's what Jesus said. Here's what's really important. And he said, What comes out of a man that defiles a man for from within out of the heart of men. You see, it's all embedded in our attitudes. Out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness.

Again, Mark used in recalling the words of Jesus that same Greek word paneria that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians. Wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye. That's interesting. Now, Mrs. Thomas doesn't have an evil eye, but she has the look.

And when I do something really bad, I get the look from her. It's not evil. It's just a statement that says, You are making a fool out of yourself. You better stop that right now. All right, anyway, he says, All these evil things come from within, and these are what defile a man. So the lesson that Jesus Christ has for us during this seventh day of unleavened bread is that God is not concerned with the superficial. He called the Pharisees white-washed tombs because they appeared so righteous on the outside. They were dread- Poura constantly. They fasted two to three days a week. On the outside, they appeared to be very righteous, godly people.

But on the inside, he referred to them as having dead man's bones. In other words, you are a dead man walking. In the side of these people was corruption and wickedness and malice and deceit and hypocrisy and all of those things that defile because they came from the heart.

Now let's take a look at- go back to 1 Corinthians 5. If you'll turn there with me where we were at.

And finishing off here, verse 7. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, which were the way that the Jews kept the holy days in many cases, especially the leaders, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Let's talk about sincerity for a minute. In ancient Rome, if you were a wealthy aristocrat, the way that you would boast of your wealth, the way that you would tell the world that you had arrived was you had to have lots of statues and lots of pottery around your villa. You had to be inside your villa, outside your villa, and that's how you told everyone that you were noble, you were wealthy, that you had arrived.

Statues and pottery were a status symbol and were important to impress all of your peers. Possessing a large number of elaborate statuary, he told others that you were important and that you were wealthy. And that even continued on into the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, many years later, Michelangelo was once asked about the difficulties he must have encountered when sculpting the masterpiece David. I don't know if you've ever seen his sculpture of David, just meticulous detail. I think it's in Florence, Italy. Just truly the work of a genius. So they asked him how he did it, and he said, quote, It's easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David. Now, that's easier said than done. That's like me asking Mr. Graham how he plays the piano and him saying, you just don't hit the notes that aren't there. Right?

I mean, it's a lot more complicated than it first seems. But again, back in ancient Rome, being a sculptor was considered a very prominent occupation, and it took a lot of patience, a lot of labor. It was a rare skill to create a beautiful statue or great pottery. And like every profession, there were honest businesses, and then there were dishonest people making and selling statues. In the early days of the empire, when people had more character, when the empire was proud of who and what it was, if a sculptor made a mistake, if they accidentally took a chunk out of the rock in the sculpture, or there was a crack caused in the pottery, they would break it up in pieces and start all over again because they had pride in who and what they were. But as the empire became more decadent, as the morality of the empire eroded, things began to change. And after a while, when some sculptors made a mistake, they would hide the blemish in wax. And it became very good at putting wax in there, heating it a little bit, taking some dust, sprinkling it on the outside. And as the wax cooled, you couldn't tell. Oh, it just looked so beautiful. It just looked like there was no chip out of it, like there was no crack in it. Many became so talented with the use of wax that it was hard to tell an unblemished quality statue from one that had been remodeled or reworked with wax. It even looked like it was brand new and whole and had total integrity.

But after you purchased the statue that had flaws hidden with wax, eventually the wax repair would begin to show in time. It would discolor. Rome was a very warm environment, and time heat would actually soften the wax, and the wax would begin to melt. Long after, of course, your 30-day warranty had expired.

So to find a statue of the highest quality, one would go to the artisans market in Rome, either shop for a statue or shop for pottery, and they would look for a Latin sign. This is Latin, not Greek, obviously, but they would look for a Latin sign, and the sign said, Sin sera. That's what the sign said.

And what it meant, Sin sera, which in English we get the word sincere, the sign meant that the products sold there were without wax. You see, they were the real thing. They weren't flaws, just artificially covered over. They looked like they were just a genuine article.

Thousands of years later, people still admire the rare quality, even in the 21st century, of being sincere. That is, a human being being without spite, being without deceit, being without pretense. Here's the definition of the word sincerity from the American Heritage Dictionary. The quality or condition of being sincere, genuineness, honesty, and freedom from duplicity, meaning you don't have a hidden agenda, you're not political. When people see you, they see what you see is what you get. You're very transparent, you're very clear. Free from pretense or deceit. This is what I'm continuing with the definition. Free from pretense or deceit, proceeding from genuine feelings. Now, that's the Latin, the Greek word that Paul uses here is eicornia. Eicornia means purity or cleanness. It comes from the concept that someone would take a water jar and they would hold it up to light to make sure there were no particles floating in it. They wanted that water to be clean. They wanted the water to be pure. So they would hold it up to the light to see if there was anything in it. That's what Paul means here when he says that we should be a sincere people. Let's see how he uses this word again in 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 12. If you're concerned, wear with me. He felt inspired to use the same Greek word later on in his second letter to them. 2 Corinthians 1 and verse 12.

2 Corinthians 1 and verse 12. For our boasting, in context, he's talking about how he conducted himself as a minister when they visited Corinth. Actually, anywhere that he went. For our boasting is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity. That's like arena. So here again he uses that same Greek word. He says, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God and more abundantly toward you. So Paul says that my conduct to you as a congregation was one of clearness. You could see me. I was transparent. I had nothing to hide. I didn't come to you with my hand out. I didn't come to you with an agenda. Some congregations, like in Thessalonia, when he worked himself, took care of himself just to set a good example for the congregation. So Paul was very sensitive that he did not come across to people as someone who was just out for a buck. He was very tuned in to people's feelings, and he wanted to reflect simplicity and godly sincerity and not works of the flesh. Continuing here, that was sincerity, but the unleavened bread of sincerity, so that's pureness. That is cleanness and truth. The Greek word here for truth is aletheia. Let's see how he uses this word again in a writing to the Galatians. Galatians 5 and 6. Aletheia. Truth. Truth means a principle of fundamental importance. The book of Galatians, which is probably the angriest book that Paul writes, he is very strong in the book of Galatians. He was deeply disturbed that after spending so much time to help them, that some heresies had infiltrated them and told them that they had to be circumcised in order to be saved. That really bugged Paul, because that is against the new covenant. It is against the heart and core of what the gospel was, and that had already been solved at the ministerial conference of 49 AD. So he is really frustrated. He is angry here. And here is what he says. Again, beginning in verse 6.

That is what saves us. It has nothing to do with cutting off a little piece of flesh. And as I say, as I've said before, for Paul, this was personal in another way. And that is that he believed, as part of the new covenant, that men and women were equal. And if you have a doctrine like that, where does that leave women in the congregation? They can't be circumcised. So it automatically places them in a subordinate role, doesn't it? Since they can't be circumcised. So Paul had issues with this philosophy. He says in verse 7, You ran well. You were doing so good. Who hindered you from obeying the truth? Again, that Greek word, elethea. From obeying the truth. This is a principle of fundamental importance, and that is that we are saved through faith. Not in some physical thing we can do. Verse 8, This persuasion does not come from him who calls you a little leaven. Leaven's the whole lump. Again, using that analogy of leaven. How it starts with an idea. It starts with an attitude, very small. And then the next thing you know, it might start in one person's opinion, one person's mind. And if left unchecked, it can divide an entire congregation. It can wound the church of God. Let's go to the book of James and see where James was inspired again to use the same Greek word. James 1 and verse 17. If you'll turn there with me, James 1 and verse 17.

James is getting to the heart and core of what the Days of Unleavened Bread are all about. He doesn't mention the Days of Unleavened Bread. But as we'll see, he's talking about the importance of looking at ourselves and doing something about it. Not just looking at ourselves and saying, yeah, I'm looking into the spiritual mirror and I still have this problem and I have this weakness and I have this sin and I'm still dealing with this. And, oh! That new show's on television.

Turn around, walk away and just totally put it out of your mind until the next Days of Unleavened Bread 12 months later. He says, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. In other words, it comes from God and comes down from the Father of Lights in whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

God's not turning his back on us. God is not giving up on us. He's not varying his love towards us. He loves us deeply and he's always there for us. Verse 18, of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth. That's that Greek word again that Paul himself used in 1 Corinthians, that Greek word, alethea.

That we might be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures. So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak. And now he's getting personal. He says, we should all be very good listeners. Swift to hear. Listen. Ask a few questions. Listen some more.

And slow to speak. That's a total reversal of our Western culture, by the way. In our Western culture, we can't wait to say something. When that person's talking, we're not really listening to them. We're already forming our next statement that we're going to tell them while they're talking. That's the way our Western culture is. But Paul is saying we need to be different. We need to be swift to listen. And just shut up for a minute and let that person talk. Let them say what's on their heart and what's on their mind and be slow to respond. Slow to wrath. For the wrath of men does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word. Is God's word implanted in our hearts? Is the good news of the gospel part of our mission statement? Is God's word implanted in why we get up every day and why our lives should be filled with zeal and enthusiasm for the grace that God has given us for the truth that he has helped us to understand? And receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. And it gets down to the nitty-gritty here in verse 22. But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. Or he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. Is that us, brethren? Do we take the days of Unleavened Bread and we prepare for them? And have we been looking at the same sins for a decade?

And say, yeah, I really need to begin working on that. I really need to get that out of my life. And then the seventh day comes and the days come to an end, we just turn around and walk away. And the next day, the next year, we're going through the whole process all over again. Verse 25, God's law will help us to understand where we need to conform to God's way of life. It will reveal to us, because it's a law of liberty, it will reveal to us how to stop being a slave to sin, how to stop being controlled by our undisciplined passions.

The perfect law of liberty will continue in it, and it is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work. This one will be blessed in what he does. And why he'll be blessed? Because he accomplishes something, because he begins to imitate God, because he develops the mind of Christ. Verse 26, if anyone among you thinks he's religious and does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless.

Well, the days of Unleavened Bread 2015 are almost over, aren't they? But it's not too late to make that important change in your life that you've been holding back from doing. There's still time to decide to at least begin to make a change in your life, to overcome that private sin that plagues all of us. It's time to take those first steps and become a doer, to go beyond seeing, go beyond acknowledging, and start doing something about it.

It's time to take those steps, to look into the mirror and say to ourselves, Yep, there are things that I see in myself I don't like. Things, sins, and attitudes that are holding me back from reaching my full potential. And then, at least, begin to take the steps to create the change. Because if we don't capture the moment, it'll pass. If we don't take those first steps, we'll turn around quickly and we'll soon forget what we saw in that spiritual mirror.

Don't let an opportunity pass this year to finally begin to deal with some of the issues that you may have. If you have a substance abuse issue or are addicted to anything that is not healthy and it is not godly, please get professional help. You should not allow anything physical to control you. Jesus Christ called us to liberty. The ministry is glad to offer you encouragement and spiritual advice. But we're not health care professionals. We love you and we want you to beat it.

Whatever substance abuse issue you may be struggling with, frankly, we probably already know. So, let this be the year in which you take those first steps and you turn around and you begin to create that change in your life and root those issues out of your life. If you're angry, if you're depressed, or if you have unhealthy thoughts, please get professional help. The ministry is glad to offer you encouragement and spiritual advice, but we are not health care professionals.

Again, we love you and we want you to be able to be healed. We want you to be able to deal with those feelings. If you have a destructive or toxic attitude or personality, you're not only hurting yourself, but you're poisoning others around you, especially those whom you love the most. I encourage you to begin to take steps right now. Be determined. Be a doer. And make steps right now to learn more about the powerful fruits of the Spirit that literally can change how we think. And those fruits are joy and peace and kindness and gentleness.

And if we have those fruits, it is impossible to have a toxic attitude or personality. If past events have shattered your faith and you're on spiritual cruise control, please, please get off the road to nowhere and get right with God. Rebuild your foundation with the basics of prayer and meditation, study and service. In 1 Corinthians 3, verse 11, Paul wrote, But for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ.

Brethren, in my 40-plus years in the Church, I have known tens of thousands of people whose original foundation was built on simply knowing things, or following personalities, or seeking physical protection, church names, judging everyone, or mastering prophecy. That is our foundation. It is weak, it is defective, and it will break. And, brethren, if that is our foundation, we need to rebuild our foundation one brick at a time because we can have no other foundation than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And that means that He died for our sins.

That means that we can be new creatures in Christ. We can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and we literally can change who and what we are, and our destiny is now for eternity, not just for the few years of this short physical life. Start rebuilding with the right cornerstone, which is Jesus Christ. Because, again, if our church life, if our belief system, if our spiritual value system was originally built on the wrong foundation, then it's flawed, and it will come crashing in.

When the storms come, you won't endure because you had the wrong foundation. One final scripture, Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 14. Final scripture for the day, Ephesians chapter 3 and verse 14.

Here's what Paul wrote as he wanted to encourage the church at Ephesus about tapping in to the power of God to make a change in our lives. He says, Mr. Thomas, I'm struggling with an addiction. Mr. Thomas, I'm struggling with pornography, or I have a drug addiction, or I'm an alcoholic, or I have these serious problems. Well, then I encourage you to be strengthened with the mic through his spirit in the inner man. Please get the professional help you need and deal with those issues.

My phone went off here. Excuse me.

Where was I? I just hated when that happens. All right, verse 17.

I think that's how great God's love is. It is so great that we can't comprehend how wide it is, how long it is, how deep it is, how tall it is. That's how great his love is for us. That's how much he wants us to overcome these issues that we deal with.

Again, verse 20. Amen.

So on this 7th day of Unleavened Bread, the morning of the 7th day of Unleavened Bread, there is still time for us to become doers. Not to be simply hearers, not to be simply watchers or bystanders. We can be doers, and we can take that important step in changing our lives because of the power that lies within us. Have a wonderful 7th day of Unleavened Bread.