Passover to Pentecost, Pt. 1

Ron Weinland

April 14, 2018

The Passover season we have just experienced has been exceptionally meaningful to God’s Church at this specific period of time. We are struck with the reality that from the midst of Passover next year at the time of the wave sheaf we could indeed very well be at the beginning of God’s government preparing to become established on this earth. And really, at this time, it’s really hard to even imagine that, that that’s going to be possible in that length of time. Prayerfully, indeed it will be as we’re being led at this particular time.

We do understand more significantly than any other time that we are being made ready for our Passover’s coming in the Kingdom of God. If that is indeed the case we’ll be in the final throes (speaking of a year from now), of the world beginning to be transitioned from mankind’s rule to that of God’s rule on this earth. It will be a time of God pouring out the Seven Last Plagues on this earth. Again, that’s almost impossible to comprehend and understand, but once the wave sheaf is offered, from that time forward, or the timing of the wave sheaf that’s normally offered throughout the Old Testament, at that period of time is the time that Jesus Christ begins His return, God’s government begins to be established in the sense of those being resurrected, but God also takes a direct role, personally from Him, just like He did on Passover in Egypt.

I think of those things of times past that have not been clearly understood when people referred to a “death angel” that did various things that are translated incorrectly as far as things that took place. It was God Almighty who did what He did in order that night to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt, when all the firstborn of Egypt died. Again, it’s God Almighty who does this. He is the one who intervenes in the affairs of the world and stops things from happening. It says and speaks of Him that He is going to be destroying those who are destroying the earth. So there’s a long period of time now that He’s going to be executing that judgment on the earth.

I also marvel at the Old Testament. There are a lot of things in here that talk about a time of judgment. The world doesn’t understand judgment at all; they think people go off immediately to heaven or hell or somewhere in between. They don’t understand that there is a judgment that’s coming upon mankind. Even some within the Church have not understood those things really well because sometimes it’s a matter of thinking, well, that’s the judgment for the Great White Throne. The reality is so much of what’s spoken of in the Old Testament is not about that that’s going to be passed out as far as who is going to be judged during that time period. It’s about a judgment that God said He’s going to execute on the earth because the way mankind has been living for 6,000 years. It’s just that this is God’s timing. It’s at the end of a cycle that God gave mankind to prove mankind cannot govern himself. So God has set a time that He said that He would intervene in the affairs of mankind and He would judge mankind.

Now, those who have lived in times past don’t have to experience that. They’re going to experience something different in the sense of whether or not they’re resurrected during the Great White Throne, but the judgment that’s spoken of is punishment. Those who are resurrected during the Great White Throne aren’t being resurrected to punishment at all though they’ve lived atrocious lives. All have sinned. All have lived in sin. The judgment so often that’s being spoken of is what God does when He intervenes in this world, and candidly, very powerfully so, with those Seven Last Plagues when He starts destroying those who are destroying the earth, because then in essence they are symbolic of the way mankind has been for 6,000 years. It’s just that this is the time for the execution for that judgment. Mankind has never listened to God in 6,000 years. The only ones, as a whole, who have really listened to God, are those whom God has called and drawn. There are exceptions here and there of individuals, one nation in particular that did listen out of fear, but as a whole mankind doesn’t listen to God and hasn’t for 6,000 years.

So we are to be preparing ourselves for the potential of those events that are coming. We’re to be preparing ourselves now more than ever. That should be much more of our focus in this new series that’s entitled Passover to Pentecost. I don’t know what comes into your mind, but when I think of that I think of the Passover we have observed this year and that Pentecost that we’re headed to, not just this year, but the Pentecost beyond that we are so looking forward to; all of God’s people through time have wanted that. They have wanted to see that city whose builder and maker is God. They have wanted to see Mount Zion become a reality. They’ve wanted to see holy Jerusalem become a reality. They have wanted to see Elohim, though they haven’t understood that, become a reality.

So today this is Part 1 of Passover to Pentecost.

If you’d like to begin turning over to 1 Corinthians 5 we’ll be going through 1 Corinthians 5. We’re going to begin with one of the most meaningful things that’s revealed during the Feast of Unleavened Bread soon after the beginning of this season that’s revealed through the annual observance of Passover. That’s going to be very much our focus, of some of what we look at here, but we’re going to begin here in 1 Corinthians 5:1.

So, here Paul is dealing with a people who are gentile, who are very much involved in this world, in the ways of this world in ignorance and worship of idolatry and idols and so forth. They have no knowledge, as a whole, of the God of the Old Testament of the Jewish beliefs. Some perhaps a little bit here and there, but as a whole they don’t. Their lifestyle is quite atrocious (it truly is), the way of life that they lived, and as has been with so many through time. But in this particular area here Paul is addressing something very specific that happened in the Corinthian Church.

He says, 1 Corinthians 5:1—It is commonly reported there is fornication, just meaning sexual immorality, among you, and such fornication that is not even spoken of among the gentiles. Now, this is quite a statement when you understand who it is that Paul is addressing. He is addressing a people that are known for sexual immorality, but a lot of that has to do with their gods and their beliefs about their gods, but this here is something that isn’t even done among them. So he’s saying this is how bad that is. What is done here is so atrocious, so hideous, of what’s taken place, that it’s not even spoken of among the gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife, believing here to be that this was a second wife, not his mother. But again here, this father had married—what happened to his previous wife we don’t know—but anyway, this is a sexual relationship that this son had with his father’s wife.

He said, And you are puffed up, meaning “to be inflated; lifted up,” if you will, that expression that’s used for leaven. This is important again too, to understand that all through the book of Corinthians here Paul is addressing a lot of things that have to do with Passover and Unleavened Bread. Instruction about Passover and taking of the Passover is given later on in Corinthians. Earlier on here he speaks of various things. Even here in Chapter 5 he goes on to talk about some of the things here associated with leaven that we’re going to read today, but so much of Corinthians here has to do with being puffed up with pride, with haughtiness, those things that are reflected in what is taught during the days of Unleavened Bread.

So he said, “You are puffed up.” Now, this is a common problem in God’s Church, always has been especially when we’re new because that’s the way we are as human beings, we’re puffed up. We think we know what’s best in life. We not only think we know and are convicted of the fact that we know what’s best for us, we pretty much know what’s best for everybody else too. That’s the way we are. We’re very opinionated. We judge people. That’s the way human nature is. The world around us, they judge people all the time. “They should have done ‘this,’” or “they should have done ‘that,’” or “They deserved what they got because they’re stupid and they did ‘that,’” or whatever it might be, and always cutting people down and lifting ourselves up. So it’s this practice of putting people down, of being better than they are, our ideas, our opinions: “The way I see it is better than what they’re doing.” It’s just human nature. So when we come into God’s Church we begin learning that has to change. We can’t be that way. We can’t be haughty and prideful and lifted up with pride, if you will, thinking that we’re better than others and looking down upon others in harsh judgment because we tend to be that way as human beings.

He’s saying here “You are lifted up. You’re filled with pride in how you’ve been dealing with this situation. This should never have happened. Well, it happened, but how you’re dealing with it now should never have happened. You’re puffed up because you’re tolerating this. You’re allowing this in God’s Church and you know full well what they have done, or what this man has done.” She wasn’t around. She wasn’t a part of it, but he was and they knew what was taking place. We don’t know how fully, but they knew it. The Church was aware of what was taking place.

He said, You are puffed up, lifted up. In other words, as to uphold your own standard of how things should be done. Even sometimes once we know the truth and know God’s way of life it’s easy to develop this or to continue on with a portion of that kind of thinking because we judge so much as human beings and we can have our own standards thinking that they’re God’s, believing maybe that they’re God’s sometimes.

Sometimes there are situations that take place where people have gotten themselves into “a pickle.” You get yourself in “a jam.” You get yourself in a bad way. We have a lot of expressions for getting into problems, having problems, personal problems, the drama, drama, drama that creates all kinds of problems and situations and we talk about “getting into a jam,” and “a pickle,” whatever, something that you can’t get out of.

That’s what we do to ourselves. Once you’re changed to a pickle you can’t come back. So often that’s what happens in life. We get ourselves into situations, into problems and we don’t seem to be able to work our way out. So it is here with the Corinthians.

I am amazed sometimes when counsel has gone out in letters to individuals, through the ministry in the Church to people who have gotten themselves in “pickles,” really bad situations, and sometimes they’ll write back and talk about how that they’re doing certain things now and certain things have happened and then they bring the name of God into it, “and I know that this is what God wants me to do.” You do? Sometimes we can want God to be in something, or believe that God is in something to justify ourselves, when in reality sometimes people have been counseled, “Don’t do that.” They go and do it because they believe that God’s in it somehow. “I prayed about this, and therefore, God is in it.” Well, God was in it when He told you to stop doing it.

So often in life we justify things we do and we can actually believe that God is behind it. That’s a powerful human trait. That’s an important thing to understand in ourselves, of what we are like, of what we’re capable of doing, that our minds can be so deceitful to ourselves that we can try to believe something different about ourselves because we want to be perceived a certain way. How is that? Doing good. That’s why we like to be perceived by others.

So he said, You’re puffed up, and you have not rather mourned, lamented. You should have been mourning about this. You should have been lamenting about this. In other words, you should have been deeply sorrowful that such a thing happened, and you should have a desire that this kind of thing never happen in God’s Church and want to see this changed, and want to see others be able to as well, address it and not allow it or tolerate it because something like that should not be allowed or tolerated in God’s Church.

You know, if certain things happen at times in God’s Church and people become aware of it, that are of a sexual nature, if you will, or other kinds of things of sin, but it’s so far out, it’s so bad how can one continue to come to services?

I’ll give you an example. One time, several years ago, someone came along who had been in church, had come to church before (they’d never been baptized), but as a younger person. They came back as a much older person because this was a few decades later, twenty or thirty (at least thirty years later I think it was), and seemingly doing well. After a while some in the Church became aware of the fact that he was living with a woman after he’d been baptized. He got baptized in the Church shortly after coming, and yet he was living with a woman out of wedlock, not married to her.

We don’t do that in God’s Church. If we come into the Church at that state of life, which many do now days especially, then they have to address it. They have to address it before they continue on in Church in coming and they have to address it for sure before they’re put under the water. So I was rather surprised at one point in time to finally learn from some others that they think he’s living with someone and has been for a long, long time. I think, “How can you listen to sermons for a period of time, become baptized, and continue to live in that state knowing it’s wrong, knowing it’s sin?” Well, anyway, to make a long story short they were talked to about it and they’re gone. They were gone.

Now, they could have repented. They could have worked to come back. They could have said, “Yes, I was wrong in doing that,” like this individual here did that we’re reading about today. He eventually repented. In the second letter, in the second book of Corinthians, God addresses something, but he made comment that they should receive this man back and not continue to deal with him in this state of disfellowshipment but to receive him with open arms. “He has repented. He is one of us. He is fighting for this way of life. He’s been forgiven and is working on this now.”

So anyway, the criticism that Paul was giving the Corinthian Church is that they were allowing this, they were tolerating this to take place within the environment of the Church knowing that it’s a sin that’s not even spoken of amongst the gentiles—it’s just not done—and they’re very immortal sexually, but they wouldn’t do something like this.

So, you should have been mourning, lamenting this that it ever happened, that it was ever allowed, that this individual was ever allowed to be in our midst because Paul makes it clear that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. If you tolerate and allow one thing like that of that magnitude to continue on, in time the tendency of human nature is to begin allowing many other things within the fellowship to occur and not saying anything about it because “so and so” is doing it, but they may know that I’m doing something else and it’s kind of this hush-hush thing and we’re tolerating sin amongst ourselves. Well, it can’t be that way in God’s Church.

…that he who has done this deed might be taken away from among you. In other words, you should have lamented, stood up to this and said, “No, this can’t be a part of God’s Church,” and he should have been separated from the fellowship.

So, Paul went on to say, For I indeed, as absent in body, in other words, “I’m not physically with you. I’m writing this letter to you. I’m not physically with you,” but present in spirit, in other words, “with God’s spirit and because of God’s spirit and knowing how you should be as a Church and what the Church should be like, I am present with you spiritually.” That’s what he’s saying. “I have already judged this.” That’s what he said. “What I have heard, what has been brought to me by testimony of others, that this is taking place, and I have judged it and this is my judgment.” So as God’s servant, as a minister, as an apostle to the gentiles he was making it very clear what God’s will was and was not.

So he said, but present in spirit have judged already as though I were present with you. In other words, “I don’t have to be there physically with you to tell you this, to pass this along to you, and this is the judgment.” In essence, it’s God’s judgment. …concerning him who has committed this deed; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ… Now, this is a powerful thing that’s being stated here and sometimes people don’t understand this, that within the Church you cannot do things “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Sometimes people will write a letter and put “in the name of Jesus Christ.” No, you can’t do that. That says you have the authority of Jesus Christ to write this letter. You can say “sincerely,” or “love ‘so and so,’” but you’re not doing it as God’s servant, as a minister to send a letter to someone. So it’s not a good thing to end a letter in, to say “in Christ’s service,” yet some people in times past have done that. I’ve tried to explain why that isn’t wise to do; it isn’t the right thing to do. It’s taking something, a prerogative, upon one’s self that is incorrect, because this is something done by the ministry, especially here, God’s apostle. He is saying, “Jesus Christ is not here; in his name as his servant I am telling you this, that this is what his will is.” That’s a powerful thing! Yet God gives that within the Church. That’s why it’s so important to understand structure and how things function and work within God’s Church.

So he says, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do that often when talking/sending a letter to someone specifically about disfellowshipment especially, or about correction if I have to get involved in it. By the time I get involved in it it’s usually pretty bad, what they have to address in their life, because as a whole others are assigned to take care of those things. Information will be passed along oftentimes to other ministers, what to pass along, but if I personally have to get involved it’s going to be a lot stronger. So this is how I end those letters, “In Christ’s service,” is generally how I say it, or “In the name of Jesus Christ.” It’s the same thing. In other words, it’s carrying on that authority and telling the individual where this is coming from.

So, he says, in spirit I have judged this. Basically, he’s saying, “In God’s spirit,” because this is coming from Jesus Christ. He’s the head of the Church; I’m not. That’s what he’s basically saying. That’s what Paul is saying.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, and my spirit… Now, this is an awkward translation because it means, “even as I do in my spirit.” In other words, in our spirit we should be at-one with God. We should desire to do God’s will. We should desire to be filled with God’s spirit. That’s why I’ve oftentimes made comment when something comes up in life and we have to make an important decision about something it’s so important indeed that we seek to do God’s will, that we seek to be at-one with Jesus Christ and with God the Father and not just to do the first thing that comes to our mind. Sometimes the first choice we make in life about certain decisions isn’t the best. If we’re judging something quickly oftentimes it’s going to be a matter of that which is selfish because that’s the way we are, but if we seek to include God in it and we seek to do what is right because this is in agreement with God and God’s way of life and God’s spirit then we’re going to oftentimes stop and think about, “Well, wait a minute, what is the correct, the right thing to do?” So this is basically what Paul is doing here with them, teaching them how to judge matters, showing them how it should be done, as an example that he’s setting.

So he says, basically, the best translation of this is: even as I do in my spirit with or together with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he’s showing them how we should judge matters; that we seek to be at-one with God, with Jesus Christ in that spirit so that we can be confident of the judgment because if we do things “willy-nilly,” any way we want to, it’s not good. We want to make sure it’s right with God and then proceed with confidence and boldness.

So he says to do this in the right spirit, to deliver such a one unto Satan. Now, sometimes in God’s Church, ever since I’ve been in the Church since 1969 I’ve known of so many situations where people in the Church have had a difficult time of this thing of disfellowshipment. Now, I have a difficult time with it, but for the reason of not wanting to see anyone be separated. I don’t want to see anyone separated from the Body, but on the other hand if it comes to a point where they are unrepentant of sin, and especially if it can hurt the Body, I will not hesitate to intervene and tell them, “You’re gone,” because it’s not good for the Body! Just like right now and the focus we’ve been having for the last few years, it is one of the Body being clean, of the Body being cleansed, of our working hard to get rid of sin and to do things God’s way more and more and more so that we can be ready for Christ’s coming as a Church because we’re unique. There has never been a time like this for God’s Church.

So he talks about how this is judged. He gives the authority, “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you’re gathered together.” This is a matter of fellowship and our fellowship together that’s unique, different from the world. It’s a unique fellowship we have together. He says, “Even as I do in my spirit together with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,” because that’s what has to be in it. You know what? If the life of Jesus Christ and God the Father is not in us when we make certain decisions in life, whatever they might be, then it’s just our choice, our decision without thought about God. Why would we do such things? We should always want to make sure that everything is in harmony with God and if we do that then we’re being trained, our mind’s being trained to think in a certain way that is good and healthy and right. Otherwise, what our tendency will be is just to make selfish decisions because, “That’s really what I want. The bottom line is that’s what I wanted anyway.” As a minister I’ve dealt with that a lot in God’s Church; when it comes down to it certain people that’s just what they want anyway. Well, if you want it, you can have it, but not here in this Body.

So it says to deliver such a one to Satan. Sometimes people don’t realize that when you’re cut off from the Body of Jesus Christ, when you’re cut off from the flow of God’s spirit, when God will not dwell in you, and it’s a decision made, a judgment made within the Church that someone is totally disfellowshipped they are also separated from the Body, obviously, in the Church. But it’s just doing something on a spiritual plane within a fellowship that they have already done to themselves spiritually anyway. If people won’t repent of certain sins they’re cut off from God anyway. It’s just that we have a responsibility in the Church to make sure that we follow through to do it God’s way because we want the Body to be cleansed.

Now, we all have sin and we don’t get rid of everybody just because we have sin. We repent. We desire to repent, but when it gets to a point in time where the sin becomes to a level, especially on a physical plane, to where it’s so wrong, not being repented of, then something has to be done.

I’ve mentioned tithing a lot. To me that is one of the most basic because God didn’t even let that disappear during the period of Sardis. They lost almost everything about God in the Church during the period of Sardis, but they didn’t lose the name; they knew it was the Church of God. They didn’t lose the matter of tithing. What was the third one? I’m just kidding. Better know it.

So he’s going through and showing some of these things, talking about some of these things. So again here, there are certain things that are just a part of our life that should be a part of our life. That’s why tithing so blows my mind, that that should be something that would be so simple and easy to grasp and comprehend.

So, to deliver such a one unto Satan, so that’s what we do. When we go through the formality in God’s Church of separating someone from fellowship in the Church and we let the Church know that someone is disfellowshipped, what God is telling us, what we’re being told is that they’ve actually been given over to Satan. It’s not like when you’re first called and you’re living in the world where Satan exists, where demons exist and they try to influence people in wrong ways, obviously, but now you’re a target. Now you’re a target. Now you’re a target for a being who would love nothing more than to come at you and come after you and mess up your life even more, and that’s what he does, if someone’s been baptized in God’s Church and they reject the very things we’ve started to picture here at the Days of Unleavened Bread and Passover period and they take lightly the reason Jesus Christ died, because that’s what happens. When we continue in sin and we won’t repent what we’re saying is is that we don’t value our Passover. We don’t value the sacrifice he made. How does that look to God?  Does God want that in fellowship in a body if someone takes that sacrifice so lightly, His own son, His only Son, in that regard as far as being born from Him directly, given birth directly?

So again here, they’re delivered over to Satan, it says, for the destruction of the flesh. Life isn’t going to be good. It’s not going to be good. …that the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. So again, that’s a sermon in itself, but it has to do with those things that, for some in the Great White Throne, can take place at that particular time but not now.

Your glorying is not good. He’s saying here you’re being puffed up. Your attitude, you’re exalting yourself by allowing this. You’re saying something to God. We, our actions, they speak powerfully. They really do. We don’t have to say something specifically against God for God to receive it as being fully against Him or against His Son. It’s just by what we do. If we sin, what do we do? Every time we sin what’s the first thing you do as far as breaking something, disobeying something that God said? It’s idolatry. It’s idolatry before God. It’s worshiping something other than God. It’s putting something else first before God. Every sin we ever commit in life we’re putting something else first before God. That’s why sometimes I’ve made comments, whatever it might be in life, whatever it is we do, we’re putting it before God.

So he says, “Your glorying,” such an attitude of mind, such thinking, being lifted up to where you’re justifying yourself for what you’re doing is wrong. Don't you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Don’t you understand that just one in a fellowship, if they continue to sin and to live in sin and to dwell in sin and the more they’re cut off from the flow of God’s spirit the more dangerous that becomes in the Body because it can spread, because it’s attitude. It’s attitude of thinking. Attitudes can start to affect a body. Judgment can start to affect a body, and that’s what happens.

I have seen it over and over and over again in church to church to church to church, speaking of different areas of God’s Church through time, of this very thing taking place, of individuals coming along, becoming disgruntled, generally talking in a very devious way to others, especially if it’s deeply inside of them like what’s happened in the past few years even with some ministers, and eventually they’ll talk to individuals and they’ll kind of throw statements out to see where you are, and then they’ll throw another statement out to see what your reaction is. Sometimes it might be a little shocking and you’re not sure, “What did they mean by that?” to see what your comeback is. If they get the least little bit of an idea that you have something inside of you of a bitterness or being disgruntled in some way, or being in disagreement about something within the Church in some way then now you have someone to talk to whose opposing something within the Church, and they start spending more time.

Every time it’s ever happened that’s how it happens. They start talking to someone. They start spending more time together. They’ll go off and have their own little bible study together somewhere; get three or four or five people together, ministers even, and they’ll get together and start saying, “Well, I don’t like what he did here. And he made ‘that’ choice, and he made ‘that’ decision, and we had this truth. They’re calling it a new truth about women and being ordained. It just doesn’t agree with the Bible! Here are some scriptures that show that’s wrong.” So they’ll spend all this time trying to disprove what they have been taught and what they believed for a time.

So if we can see these things early on, our battles, our human nature, and understand how we judge, and seek to make sure we’re in agreement with God then we’re way ahead…way ahead. That’s the way it should always be. And if something happens within a body and someone says something to you that you know it’s wrong you have a responsibility before God to say, “Now, wait a minute. We don’t teach that in God’s Church. Where did you get that? Did I hear you right?” But sometimes people don’t want to do that because it’s like – especially in times past when we had a lot of churches— it was like, “Well, that’s the minister’s job. I’m not going to touch that one,” because who likes to go and talk to somebody about something that’s unpleasant. “I don’t want to lose, potentially lose a friend,” whatever that means. Because that’s used a lot; “You know, I don’t want to offend them because then they’re not going to like me anymore. We’re not going to have the same kind of conversation we normally have, and so I don’t want to get involved.” Well, in God’s Church you’re involved. This kind of a sermon is one that was needed decades ago, and decade after decade after decade, because this is what’s happened in God’s Church through time.

Anyway, a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Sin spreads fast in a body. Attitudes, judgments, criticisms, whatever it is, it’s amazing how quickly they can spread within a Church. I’m thankful to see that as a whole those things have been cleansed in a very powerful way in God’s Church, but we ever have to be on guard.

So, it says, verse 7—Therefore, purge out… That’s a word that means to thoroughly cleanse, thoroughly cleanse it starting here. Therefore, purge out the old leaven… You know, you’re working on that all your life. I don’t care at what point in time you came along and made a commitment to God’s way of life and wanted to be baptized, before that there are things that you have to work on the rest of your life. Everything you did as a child even, as a teenager, so much of your thinking is formulated during those years. You’re making a judgment, you’re stepping out. The more you’ve stepped out in your life through those years early on, eleven, twelve, thirteen on up, during that period of time there are ways of thinking that have already started and they’re being developed, they’ve been developed in your mind, and then you just add to those as time goes along. So, in God’s Church you find yourself battling things that actually began to be cemented, grounded in your mind a long, long time ago, and that’s why we have battles. That’s why we have to fight things that are wrong because there’s something in our thinking that has to be corrected, transformed, and changed. If it didn’t we’d all be perfect.

So, therefore, as it says here, purge out, and this is really talking about two things, as a whole. It’s talking about preparing for Passover and the days of Unleavened Bread and how we get ready for the period of Unleavened Bread, but more importantly it’s about our own personal lives, of how we’re supposed to live all the time, purging out, getting rid of the old self, keeping that head under the water in that watery grave.

Therefore, purge out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, as or even as you are unleavened, meaning physically unleavened. So it’s giving this example here: during the days of Unleavened Bread you put the leaven out of your home, you’ve gotten rid of the bread, and you’ve gotten rid of the yeast. That’s all you have to do in God’s Church. You don’t have to go out and rent a vacuum cleaner that almost rips the stuff out of your carpet, all the weaving out of your carpet because it has to be so powerful to get rid of every little thing that might have dropped in your carpet. That’s not what God wants because that tends to be self-righteous in nature and it makes us feel good about ourselves. We don’t go through, or have what’s called, in essence for us and the world, spring cleaning. We go through this process in order to feel better about ourselves. It’s not about that. It’s about being obedient to God. It’s not about our feeling better because I’ve taken a super duper vacuum and I’ve gotten in places, and I’ve found stuff that you wouldn’t believe! I got a knife and cut out in these corners and I pulled the stove away from the wall and I got down underneath the stove because there were crumbs, toast crumbs that had actually gotten through on the side. We make that a bigger deal. We make it physical! We make it a physical religion. That’s what the Catholic Church does. Physical rituals! God doesn’t want that for us.

There are things we’re supposed to do – we do them. We take a little bit of wine. We take a small amount of bread. It’s physical, but we don’t make a ritual out of some of those things because even there with Passover service sometimes we had a ritual going, and God doesn’t want that. He just wants us to obey Him because it’s not about feeling good and better about ourselves. On the contrary, we’re to be examining ourselves and seeing what we are. I’d like to use some nice words, but our human nature sucks! It stinks! It’s hideous! Selfishness is so ugly and we all have it. All you have to do is get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and smack yourself. I’m just kidding. “Be right today!” So we’re ever fighting this carnality we have.

So again here, he says, “Even as you are unleavened.” In other words, you’ve obeyed God. You’re not as the Jews who maybe go out and give their bread to a neighbor and their yeast to a neighbor and then after Unleavened Bread is over they go back and get it back. No, we get rid of it. We throw it away. We throw away the bread and we throw away the yeast, and so forth. We don’t do like the Jews either; we don’t get rid of certain pops or sodas that might have some leavening, or certain beer that might have leavening. It’s not the Days of Unleavened Beer. We don’t get rid of the dog food because you don’t eat dog food. You don’t eat cat food. We make a ritual out of things sometimes. God just says, “Get rid of the bread and get rid of the yeast.” It’s just that simple, but we tend to go beyond that because of how we think. We want to make something more that we can relate to. “I can relate to getting that super duper vacuum. You ought to see the motor I put on the thing this year!”

So, he said even as you are unleavened, meaning we all have gotten rid of our bread, we’ve gotten rid of the leavening, and you’re to do this spiritually even as you’ve done it physically, the physical means a whole lot more.

So he went on to say, For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. We didn’t make the sacrifice. It’s not a sacrifice like the sacrificial system the Israelites had. It’s not what it’s talking about. It’s God the Father’s sacrifice to us. It was Jesus Christ’s own sacrifice to us, but it wasn’t our offering a sacrifice to God at all. That’s not what this is about. So Jesus Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. God did it. Jesus Christ did it. We’re to honor that with all of our being, to be so deeply thankful for that with all of our being as much as humanly possible. Therefore, he said, let us keep the Feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Therefore, let us keep the Feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice. So, he's talking about something here spiritually, not physical at all. It says you’ve already done that part. That’s just a physical thing you went through. Now look inside. Now get rid of what’s inside. Get rid of the leaven that’s inside of your life. So he says, Therefore, let us keep the Feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice, in other words of evil, and wicked ways; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So Jesus Christ represented, reflected, teaches he gave of himself who was totally unleavened, the unleavened bread of life. The bread we’re to partake of, the truth, the Word of God, the logos of God that we’re to partake of in our life that’s totally unleavened and judge things accordingly, as they should have done with this man and what he did. What he did was hideous, deeply leavened. He said the Church shouldn’t be that way and we should seek to get rid of the leaven that does exist in our lives and take instead of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Then he went on to say, I wrote an epistle, in other words, a letter, to you not to company, and so we have certain ones that are written in scripture. There were others that were written in time, sent around that are not a part of scripture. So there are those things that he wrote at different times to them and to others within that route that he had, within those areas he had visited at different times. So he said, I wrote an epistle/letter to you not to company, and this word literally means in the Greek, "to mix together." So when we’re in company we are mixed together “as to associate or to keep company with someone.” So he said not to company with fornicators. Again, using this word in a very broad way talking about if someone is living a way of life that’s filled with sin, sexual immorality or whatever immorality it might be, any wicked ways, that’s not to be a part of our life.

And he went on to say in verse 10, yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, in other words, we can’t separate ourselves from this world. We have no influence or control over how people live their lives. The only thing you have control over, as a whole, is yourself, unless you have children then there’s control that you’re to exercise in their life. But as a whole it’s talking about ourselves. Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world or the covetous, or with those who swindle others, or with idolaters, you know, people who take advantage of others, or with idolaters; for then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to keep company, if anyone who is called a brother be a fornicator.

So he’s teaching a young Church, a new Church. Now, as a whole we have much experience in God’s Church and much experience from those we’ve been able to know and have company with who were a part of Worldwide that still exists within God’s Church. Then that experience that God has given through time because of all the truths He’s given to us that has been able to be added to and given to the Church, as a whole. Some may have only been in the Church a few years, have understanding and knowledge of things that before has taken decades for some people to learn, to grasp. That’s why I talk about the Church having grown so much faster here in recent time.

So, he went on to say, But now I am writing to you not to keep company, if anyone of a brother is called a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or one who is abusive, or a drunkard, or those who swindle others. There is just certain lifestyles we should not have and we shouldn’t want to mix that within the Body, to have others come in the Body and practice those things or to influence others to do the same things. No, but with such a person not even to eat. God says you don’t visit with them, you don’t eat with them, you’re not around them, and you’re not to be with them. They’re not a part of it, speaking of those who are baptized members.

For what have I to do to judge those who are outside? Don’t you judge within? In other words, God is saying here we’re not judging things that are happening in the world, but we do see clearly things that happen within the Church. People learn quickly about things that happen within the Church. It’s just the way it is. Some is not right. Some is fine. It just depends on how we use what knowledge we have, but we have to judge. We have to judge situations constantly, but how we deal with that becomes another matter. It requires several sermons of how we do it.

Verse 13—But those who are outside God judges. So in time God takes care of everything. He’s going to in a very massive way soon, and then in the Great White Throne when they’re called He begins to work with them. But as far as what happens in the world, God takes care of that to whatever purpose He has that He’s working out. Therefore, put away, the word means, literally, “to remove, to put away,” from among you that wicked person.

So he went through a lot to teach something here to the Church about what Passover and Unleavened Bread is all about, that this is the foundation of our life in how we live and how we change, and how we’re transformed, that we need to understand the purpose of our Passover. Depending upon our appreciation, our desire, or respect toward that has a lot to do oftentimes with how we act then, how we live our lives day by day. The more we’re thankful for that and understand and appreciate that sacrifice and put it in that reality, the more we’ll reflect that in our lives.

I loathe sin. When I think about sin I think about, “This was against Jesus Christ. This was against what he did for me.” It’s what he did for all of us, but we need to see it in those terms, that he suffered, he was beaten like he was, his flesh ripped off his body, the spear rammed into his side, being up there all that time in the heat of the day at that particular period of time (it speaks of that scripture, by the way), whatever that was for him because his body was so drained by that time, and the suffering he went through before he finally died—to choose to do that for each one of us, someone who lived a perfect life in that sense as far as being unleavened. So it’s personal. It needs to be personal with us. We have a personal relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ and we’re blessed to have a personal relationship then with one another because of that. So we don’t hesitate in that respect to put away or to remove someone who doesn’t really want to live this way of life within the Body. Fellowship is precious. How we live it toward one another is precious.

So indeed everything begins with our Passover as it states in what was just covered back in verse 7 where it said, “For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us,” for me, for you. As we begin this series something that was stated was (I want to read it again): “We’re going to begin with one of the most meaningful things that is revealed during the Feast of Unleavened Bread.” I’m going to go back to Leviticus 23 on this.

You know, God’s plan begins with revelation and then understanding of Jesus Christ being our Passover. It always begins with that. That’s how God starts here in Leviticus 23, something that the Israelites didn’t even have until the Exodus, a Passover. Then they were introduced to the importance of what a Passover is though they didn’t grasp what it was all about at all, but they were told to keep something at a particular time and the importance of that would be revealed later on. So that understanding, or that physical thing that they did, moves forward into understanding the purpose of why Christ became our Passover, to begin the process of bringing us out of sin because we first have to be forgiven of it. Again, all of it having to do with things about being able to leave the bondage of sin and making us unleavened, of God actually transforming us, because it can only be done by His living in us. We need God’s spirit. We need God living in us all the time every day.

Leviticus 23:5. I’m going to go back and look at when God introduces the wave sheaf. Verse 5—In the fourteenth day of the first month at even, or again here, “between the evenings,” is the Eternal’s Passover. It’s God’s Passover. It’s the Eternal’s Passover. He gave it to mankind. He gave Jesus Christ to mankind. The sacrifice was His and His Son’s to make. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Eternal. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread. So we know those things quite well. It’s what we do. For seven days we make sure that we eat some unleavened bread. There was a time in God’s Church when some began to teach that whenever you do eat bread it should be unleavened. So, in other words, you might skip a few days because you wouldn’t normally eat bread on those days or whatever. I don’t know, but the point is that you’re to eat unleavened bread for seven days. Just a little bit, whatever it might be at least, unleavened bread, to learn from the experience of what is being given.

In the first day you shall have a holy convocation: you shall do no servile, or in other words, regular or normal as during the rest of the week, work. But you shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Eternal for seven days. That’s a beautiful picture, again, this thing of seven. Seven days of the week like that, seven days at the Feast of Tabernacles, seven days of Unleavened Bread. These things are all important, the number seven. Seven days of the week, what the seventh day is, and so forth, it’s a matter of something that God shows is complete in His plan. He is showing something here that something we’re to do the entire period of our time, our life physically, is to take unleavened bread. We do it until we become complete, until we’re totally transformed, until we either die and are resurrected or until we’re changed. So it’s something we’re to always do. So again, all these things have great meaning and significance to it.

So he says here, again, offer an offering made by fire unto the Eternal for seven days. Again, we learn from that that offering something to God like this is being a matter of fire is about us; it’s about trials and hardships we go through. We’ll go through it the entire period of our life until it’s done. Seven days, not literally seven days for us, but here we observe this because of what it pictures. It’s something that is in our life all the time. We go through trials and tests and hardship. We can’t grow without it.

So He says, you shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Eternal seven days. In the seventh is a holy convocation: you shall do no regular/normal work during that period of time.

Verse 9—And the Eternal spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, When you have come into the land which I give to you, you shall reap the harvest thereof, and then you shall bring a sheaf… Now, this has been incredibly confusing to God’s Church, what has been stated here, in the sense that it really hasn’t been understood very well. Yet what is being stated here— and I don’t have time to go into it, it’ll take several sermons—but this is exceedingly important, what God gave here. It gives us the ability to understand very powerfully so exactly how to count Pentecost more than what’s said in other scriptures as well, but it’s this information, this type of thing here to understand with all of our being that God gives a great deal of understanding of other things.

As an example here He says, When you come into the land which I’m going to give to you, you’re going to reap the harvest thereof. Now, again, the Church as a whole has not understood what this was talking about and the timing involved of the children of Israel coming into the promised land and the time of year they were coming into the promised land because they came in at a very specific time that’s awesomely important to God, and it has to be because it’s important that we understand it. That’s why it’s important to God for us to understand it.

He says, you shall bring a sheaf. So the Passover’s important, exceedingly important. God’s plan begins with it, but this sheaf is about Jesus Christ, and it is exceedingly important to God. It’s important that we understand and grasp what the sheaf is all about. So it starts with Passover and then brings us to this thing about the sheaf. It says when you come into the land and there is a harvest there and you begin harvesting it, you begin taking of what’s planted there, there is a portion that you’re to keep. Some have believed in times past that you couldn’t begin the harvest until you had this wave sheaf cut. That is not what is being said here. The harvest began way in advance. They couldn’t eat of it yet, but they had to start the harvest when it’s ripe. You don’t wait until grain begins to fall on the ground to go out. It’s too late. When something is ripened you go out and get it, just like with certain kinds of grains.

So anyway, it says, then you shall bring a sheaf of the, and it is not the word for "firstfruits" at all. This is not a word in Hebrew having anything to do with fruit. It’s not about fruit. It's a word that simply means the beginning or the first. So He’s telling them you shall bring a sheaf of the first of your harvest unto the priests. So what they did, they would go out and they would begin to harvest and they would take a piece of the beginning here, whenever they started doing this, they would take a piece and save it aside and they would take it to the priest, this bundle of wheat, if you will, with the grain on top. They would take this and give it to the priest and then they continued with their harvest. They saved this for a specific day.

He says here that you’re to take this. So again, you shall bring a sheaf of the beginning of your harvest unto the priest, or the first of your harvest unto the priest. It’s a beginning of the harvest, and you shall wave the sheaf, so on a specific day on a specific time during the Days of Unleavened Bread (see, this is when they were coming into the promised land). It’s awesome here, too, to go back (at least I enjoyed it), going back and if you have all this timing in your mind and you think about these things, God was so meticulous in how He did this. He did it at a very specific moment in time. It’s awesome; it really is, because God is so exact about everything. Even the days of the week that year and when they fell is incredibly important because it set a precedent. It’s like Passover. It’s like Jesus Christ. I’m kind of getting a little ahead of myself here, but he had to die at a specific day of the week. God had this all planned out, the year that it had to be, because he had to die at a specific time because he had to be resurrected at a specific time because this wave sheaf had to take place at a specific time.

God has all these things meticulously planned out. If you go through and really study in and know some of those things that we’ve already covered in times past that’s on the website, about the timing of some of these things involved and Pentecost especially here, leading up to Pentecost from Passover and what they did when they entered the promised land, it is awesome because it had to be a specific way in a specific year that days fell.

Anyway, I find it inspiring because it just reinforces the fact that God is meticulous, that when God gives a count of anything, when God says something in a specific way it’s incredible how He carries it out. He doesn’t leave anything to chance. Everything is planned, minutely so. That’s why I’m so excited about the timing we’re living in now. If there is more to learn it’s going to be exciting because there’s going to be some timing there we haven’t even seen yet. I don’t want to be excited by that, personally, but anyway, that’s just a little bit of selfishness on my part.

So it says here what the priest is to do then with that sheaf that he’s been reserving here on a specific time. And he shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal to be accepted for you. Incredible! On the morrow, in other words the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. So again here, this was done during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So this had to take place at a specific moment in time. Every year, obviously, it takes place at a specific time. Back in the Old Testament they had a specific time they did it, and depending on when Passover fell depended on when the wave sheaf would be offered. So there would be a Sabbath that would come and then the next day is the first day of the week and it always had to be offered up on the first day of the week, but that first day of the week always had to be in the days of Unleavened Bread, otherwise, it has no meaning, the wave sheaf and who it pictures, our Passover.

And he shall wave the sheaf before the Eternal to be accepted for you. On the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And you shall offer that day when you wave the sheaf a male lamb without blemish. So again, God just drives the point home, a male lamb without blemish. It’s about Jesus Christ. He had no sin, no blemish. So this was to be offered up indeed, of the first year for a burnt offering unto the Eternal.

Now, we’re going to go over to Mark 14, and let you get ahead a little bit here, but we’re going to be turning there next, Mark 14.

But understanding this timing here and why we’re going through some of this for when the first of a harvest was to be ceremoniously cut and then tied together as a sheaf is one thing, and to understand when it was then waved and offered up before God as the wave sheaf is exceedingly important. We need to grasp that. We need to embrace that. That’s why we need to understand the true meaning of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and the timing of events that occurred during the morning hours after his resurrection, several hours after the end of the Sabbath when he was resurrected.

To me this is a marvel, to even understand that in God’s Church because as a whole we didn’t focus on that in times past. We just didn’t focus as a Church, as a whole, because it wasn’t time, it wasn’t God’s time until He had us begin to focus upon it that not only was Jesus Christ not resurrected Sunday morning, he was actually resurrected on the seventh day of the week.

Now, although we had knowledge and understanding of that it wasn’t stressed in any fashion or form. And candidly, there are a lot of people who never thought about it. It actually happened on the seventh day Sabbath. They didn’t think it through – three days and three nights – when would that be? It’d still be on the Sabbath day, but that’s important to understand.

So again here, the timing of these events, all important, all important to God, all important that we be able to grasp and understand them because they all have deep meaning.

So we need to back up a little and begin this by looking at the day before the Passover started. We’re going to spend some time going through scriptures we’re very familiar with, but it’s so important that these things be deeply embedded in our being, because in time here you’re going to be able to help people understand it as well.

So the Passover, again, is on the fourteenth of the first month of the year of God’s calendar. So the day before, in other words, on the thirteenth, which began at sundown after the twelfth, on the year of Christ’s death that day began on what we would call Monday at sunset. So we’re backing up to the thirteenth here. We’re going to take time to go through this again. So it was at the end of the second day of the week in the beginning now of the third day of the week.

This becomes exceedingly confusing sometimes to people because you have to shift gears. What day are you talking about? We take midnight to midnight being one day, and here we’re talking about times that fell partly within one day of what we have on the Roman calendar and partly in another day, and understandably so sometimes it becomes a little confusing.

So this means that on the daytime portion of the thirteenth, or this third day of the week, because the daytime portion, the day started at sundown the day before at nighttime, so now on the third day of the week, what’s called Tuesday, again, beginning the daytime of Tuesday, we’re going to read some of what took place.

Mark 14:12—And the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said unto him… Now, see, anyone that has a little bit of knowledge at all knows that this is a sick translation. It’s just not done well. The reason being is because they had no understanding. Those who translated it had no understanding of how to keep the Passover. They had no understanding of the days of Unleavened Bread. They refer to things and they see Judaism in it and that causes problems because they don’t want anything to do with the Jews. So again here, people who translated things really did a poor job.

I mention that because there are not just a few, there are many in the past in God’s Church who became confused by these things and went off on different tangents, went away from the truth, began to adopt and do things that were totally off the wall about timing here and when the Passover should be kept and how to keep it.

“On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover…” So we understand they never killed the Passover on the day of Unleavened Bread. We understand it’s in the Unleavened Bread season. We understand when we talk about Unleavened Bread is coming, we know when Passover is. Duh! It’s the day before Unleavened Bread starts. I marvel that so many people became confused and left God’s Church over something like this. You sit here and listen to some of these things and you don’t see the possibility of that. It doesn’t seem possible. It happened. We lived through it.

“At the first”— it’s not about the “first day.” When we talk about Unleavened Bread and the first of Unleavened Bread season what comes first? Passover. We know it’s not Unleavened Bread. We know that’s for seven days, but we’re going to keep Passover first and when did they kill the Passover? After the thirteenth, on the fourteenth, after sundown that’s when they would kill it, in the evening. So the thirteenth would be over and the fourteenth would begin and they’d kill the Passover, and they prepared it to be roasted. They would have roasted the thing and then they ate it later in the night. They don’t do like we do; as soon as the sun is down we keep Passover. They had to wait a long time because you roast the lamb. Let’s say, you prepare a lamb, kill the lamb, take off what needs to be taken off because you don’t do it with the wool on there, you take everything off and then you start cooking the thing, roasting it. It takes some time so you don’t eat until late in the night. Those things were good for people to reflect upon because when the children of Israel left Egypt they were up a long, long time. They were up that evening when they started doing this, and they were up until the late into the night, and it said when you start eating that and what you’re doing, keep your shoes on, keep everything, be ready to leave, because in the morning, in essence, you’re leaving. So they started getting everything prepared the next day after they were able to go out of their houses and they didn’t leave yet, but they were getting everything ready and as soon as it was sundown you know what, they started leaving Egypt, they started walking out.

So they were up two whole days leaving Egypt, getting ready to leave Egypt, if you will; observing the Passover, getting things ready the next day, spoiling the Egyptians, as it talks about, taking things from them for their journey, getting all the animals, everything else packed, ready, everything that they had, all their belongings, and then they started gathering in a certain part there in Egypt to leave. Then they left starting that night, started to journey out of Egypt. Incredible!

So again, for us and what we learn from this, The first of Unleavened Bread when they kill the Passover His disciples said to him, Where do you want us to go that we might prepare the Passover for you to eat? So here was the first of Unleavened Bread. It was coming. It wasn’t there yet. Passover wasn’t even there yet, but this was on their mind just like it is ours. So where do you go to prepare it? Well, he told them, this is what you do. It’s really (a better translation), it’s Before Unleavened Bread—that’s really what’s in the expressions there—when they were going to kill the Passover. So they were getting ready for it.

Luke 22, another account awkwardly translated. We point out some of these things, or I’m pointing out some of these things so that no one ever has a reason to ever think anything different. We didn’t know this in times past that it would be that important or we would have taught it more, but it wasn’t God’s time. So, not a few but many in God’s Church became confused by it.

There was one organization that I first became associated with at the very beginning after the Apostasy occurred and it was believed by a kind of rough count, by things that they had taught before, that nearly half of all the ministry believed in a 14th/15th Passover of that organization. Matter of fact there was one booklet they wouldn’t write. They were preparing, they were redoing a lot of the booklets. They thought they had to redo everything that was ever written in Worldwide so there was this massive undertaking. We definitely had to have another magazine and we have to have a telecast because Mr. Armstrong didn’t finish the work so we‘ve got to finish it. So that was the thinking.

But one book they wouldn’t do while I was around at least, and that was about Passover. It basically came out the reason they wouldn’t address it is because there were too many ministers who wouldn’t agree with it. Because if you tell the truth, if you tell it exactly like it is and there are half of them that don’t believe it, they’re not going to support it, you’re going to lose a bunch of ministers. You know what happens when you lose a bunch of ministers in this case? You lose a bunch of members. It just always boils down to money. Sick, human nature, and you wouldn’t be able to have a telecast in the same way, you wouldn’t be able to print as much there, and you wouldn’t be as big as one of the other organizations, because you want to be the biggest. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t even go back to those things. It’s frustrating what people have done in time.

But we take these things for granted, things I’m teaching here, things I’m talking about, and we don’t understand that we have lived through this, when people have been very deceived by the timing of these things. No one should ever become confused. Why should anyone ever become confused by what it says in Mark? “And the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover.” Does that cause anyone problems? “Oh, on the first day of Unleavened Bread they kept Passover?” No, that would be plumb stupid. You know the truth. Sadly, we had too many, I guess, that were stupid.

Luke 22:1—Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. We don’t call the Feast of Unleavened Bread Passover, but people got confused by some of these things. They go, “Well, what does he mean?” The literal translation is, Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is speaking of Passover. Something is getting closer. We know that the first thing we’re going to do during this period of time is keep Passover. That’s all its saying. The chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him; for they feared the people. They feared the reaction of the people, so again they were plotting and planning various things here.

Then verse 3—Then Satan entered into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. Now, sometimes in God’s Church when we come along we don’t realize that yes, there are beings that have entered into people. But we understand, especially in the time of Christ, he cast demons out of people. There were those things that were more commonly known or understood perhaps in those times even than what people do today. It was something they were aware of. When it spoke of Satan here, that he had such power, we have to understand what takes place. It’s important to understand he can’t do anything unless God allows it, especially if anyone that God is working with.

In this particular case here Judas Iscariot had an opportunity. He was being worked with, but not as we might think. He had a certain personality. He hadn’t yet been baptized. None of them had been baptized. He was there for one purpose. He was chosen for one purpose. We need to understand that. You might think, “Now, wait a minute, that’s unfair. God made him become the kind of person he would who’d betray Jesus Christ?” No, he was just that kind of person, because, see, money was more important to him than anything else. How money was used, he was always upset about money, money, money. That was his drama in life. So it very much regulated his life. So if money wasn’t being used in the way he thought it should be, boy, that went deep. Like the time they put the oil on Christ, the woman, and he got upset because that could have been sold for a certain amount and given to the poor. That’s what he said. Now, that isn’t what he wanted to do. He didn’t really want to give that to the poor because he kept it. He was the one in charge of doing various things there. Because of his thinking and so forth, God knowing this, Jesus Christ knowing this, he was chosen for a purpose. He’s that kind of person.

We had a man of sin, a son of perdition who was chosen for the same reasons, to betray Jesus Christ, to betray the Church of God, to betray God Almighty, to do the things he did at a certain time. Somebody had to fulfill the role of the man of sin, the son of perdition, and he had a certain kind of personality that fit that. He wasn’t made to do it, but circumstances in time he made choices. God knew what he would do in time. God knew what Judas Iscariot would do because he just had that personality. Unless he was given specific intervention and help to see and understand those things to be able to fight those things, that’s the course he would follow.

So when we have God’s spirit, well, that becomes another matter. Whether a particular individual had it, which I believe that he did, the “son of man,” “son of perdition,” what he did was so much more hideous and sick because he made a choice. He had an opportunity and he made a conscientious choice to begin, if you will, as so many do, to think about things. He became jealous of Mr. Armstrong. I’ll just tell you what happened.

He began to become jealous of Mr. Armstrong and those who looked up to Mr. Armstrong. That was his battle. He didn’t like it. In the beginning he supported Mr. Armstrong. I don’t know if some of you know or understand some of this history, but it’s good to understand it because it’s human nature. But he became jealous then of influence that Mr. Armstrong still had in people’s lives and in much of the ministry because if he wanted to change something (which he did) it was going to be harder.

Now, he addressed some things in the beginning that needed to be changed, that God desired the Church to understand and know. There are little things. Birthdays. It’s a big thing, isn’t it? But it was for God’s Church, that there was a time when no one observed birthdays in God’s Church. People didn’t have anything for their children, basically, as a whole, on birthdays in God’s Church because it was taken to be a religious matter. And because we don’t celebrate the birth of Christ, therefore, we should not celebrate our birth. The Bible doesn’t say that. It doesn’t say anything like that. So when Mr. Tkach addressed this he got a lot of backlash. He got a lot of backlash. There were some other things he changed that needed to be changed.

But he got a lot of backlash because, “Well, you can’t do that. You can’t make a change! During Philadelphia we’ve always believed it’s wrong. It’s wrong. That doesn’t change. Jesus Christ doesn’t change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Those are the kinds of arguments that came out. “Therefore, we’re not going to change.” Ministers or members in the Church who said that, in essence, from the beginning were so dead wrong. You know what they were doing? They were rejecting the power of God to work through someone who’d been given a responsibility to be over His Church, who at that time was over the Church, not an apostle, but he was over the Church, and there were choices and decisions he had to make administratively. He had not committed any great sin within the Church at all. He didn’t try to change any of God’s laws at all. He was changing some things that he was led to see and understand needed to be addressed, and that was one. I could give some others as well, but I’ll start with that one because it’s simple and easy to understand.

Sometimes it’s hard for people to understand that if someone is given something like that to give to the Church and then there are ministers and members who say, “Now, wait a minute, I’m not going with that one. We’re going to continue to teach in this area here that you shouldn’t observe birthdays.” What does that do? Well, the reality is it causes division in God’s Church. The Church isn’t at one. The Church isn’t in unity. God’s Church is to be in unity and oneness of fellowship. So there are individuals who made those rejections who began themselves to be cut off from God’s spirit. One big church got started in the very beginning by an individual who wrote some things and wrote a book and wrote another book later on and they left the Church quickly. They left early on because of some of these little changes. These are small things that were being done early on, and Mr. Tkach spoke very highly of Mr. Armstrong in the beginning. He supported him. He supported things that were done there, although he introduced some of these new things that were coming along.

But things changed with time. God knew the kind of individual he was; whether it was because of things that have happened in the past, I don’t know. But in time he began to listen to the influence of his son. He began to listen to the influence of some younger ministers at headquarters and because of a jealousy that began to become obvious in time he became jealous of Mr. Armstrong, where in the beginning he supported him.

God knows our minds. That’s why we should always be of a repentant spirit and if something like jealousy or envy or anything of that nature comes along we have to fight against it. It can happen to anyone. So any kind of thing like that that can happen in life can literally lead us out of God’s Church because it can begin to cut us off from God’s spirit. We need to understand that, those lessons of the past. So this is a good example of some of those kinds of things, where just a thing of jealousy can enter in.

This was, again, Mr. Tkach toward Mr. Armstrong. That jealousy began to enter in, they began to destroy all the literature, they began to have bonfires to burn a ton of books. You’d think, what kind of a mind goes from something where you’ve got to make a scene and have a rejoicing of destroying books, of burning them so everyone can see it? Now, that says something pretty deep rooted in someone’s mind. It was pretty deep rooted then in time in his mind to allow such a thing, to be, perhaps, behind such a thing to take place in the first place, to try to wipe out his name and anything he had written because of jealousy. So that’s why we’re to repent quickly. And because of that kind of a mind he went in the direction he did. So did Judas Iscariot. The same being was behind it – Satan.

So that’s why it’s so important that some point, when somebody begins to cut themself off from the flow of God’s spirit, and that he began to be cut off from God’s spirit (speaking of Mr. Tkach), then the inevitable is going to happen if you don’t change, if you’re not going to repent of it. He wasn’t going to repent. So as time went along he became the “son of perdition, “the man of sin”—incredible to understand—all by his own choices.

So did Judas Iscariot. So these things that he saw Jesus Christ doing that he didn’t agree with; how money was used, Judas didn’t agree with. You have to think about a mind like that that would do that, that would start talking to those who wanted to kill him, because he started to side with them. And why? In the beginning it was about money again. “We’ll give you thirty pieces of silver.” Incredible. Besides the other money that he was in charge of and working with, he could have it all—sad—to betray someone.

So again, sometimes people are concerned about Satan and demons and so forth, and the power they have. You never have to worry about any power they have. They have no power over God’s people at all unless we live in sin, unless we live in unrepented sin. Then indeed that’s where it can lead to, to where they can have power in our lives. They are more powerful than we are. Okay? There are a lot of people who have gone by the wayside by their influence because they’re more powerful than we are. That’s why I love the scripture that says, “Greater is He that’s in you than he that’s in the world,” speaking of Satan. So that’s why it’s so important that God dwell in us and that we want God to continue always to be in us. That’s why whenever sin comes along we should want to repent quickly and get rid of it. That’s why the matters of jealousy, envy, harshness towards others, harsh judgment toward others, all these things have no place in God’s Church. Becoming offended sometimes at the simplest, stupidest things, there’s no place in God’s Church for becoming offended at things. Who? Why? Why do we let such things get under our skin? What envy is involved? What jealousy is involved? What judgment’s involved? Where’s God’s love? Well, where is God is the question? Where is God’s spirit? Because that’s what we have to have to combat that kind of thinking.

So it’s a matter of always of a desire to repent when we see sin, to be able to recognize sin because if we don’t stay close to God you can’t even recognize such attitudes and spirit. You don’t see it. It’s just happening to you. It’s taken far more away than who has remained in God’s Church.

Satan entered into Judas surnamed Iscariot. I spent more time in this than I normally would but sometimes questions come up and people worry about various things, about demons and so forth. It’s not a thing to worry about with them, not one iota, unless there’s sin you’re not repenting of and fighting against it in your life, then you have something to worry about. And he went his way, and spoke with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him to them. Just mindboggling to think such a mind had been with him all these years, travelling and seeing miracles, seeing incredible things that Jesus Christ did, and yet you allow something like jealousy and envy and greed—because this is greed—enter in so much so that it’ll take you away.

I think of times past, of Mr. Armstrong, how people criticized him about having a jet. “He has to have a gulf stream. I don’t have a gulf stream, why does he have to have a gulf stream?” I’d like to slap the tar out of those people! But there were people who said those things. “I wish I had a gulf stream to fly around in.” Well, you’re not God’s apostle during the Philadelphia era and you sure aren’t going to have a gulf stream. Then people criticized the kind of cars he had to take him back and forth from the airport, primarily first and foremost because dignitaries and world leaders were brought back and forth in those vehicles. You don’t go pick them up in a little Volkswagen. You don’t treat them that way! They won’t come back. They’re not going to listen to things you have to say. Seriously! These are things that happened in times past and people found fault with it.

I know of people I’ve been very, very, very close to in life who found fault with how he used money, how he made certain decisions about finances and so forth. I’ve heard some stories to the point of, “Well, I know parents who are struggling. They struggle getting food on the table and they struggle clothing their children and he’s building this great big auditorium! And yet there are people out here suffering in the Church who are tithing!” I don’t care! At that time, I’m telling you, I’m sorry, that’s a part of the process. You tithe because you obey God! And if you struggle in that, which I did, which a lot of people do when they come into church, you know what they have to do? They have to start changing everything in their thinking about budgeting money because we have to think differently. Then in time God begins to bless us in ways we couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Especially with the truth, first and foremost, which is the most important of all.

So all these things that happen over little things are still happening a little bit here and there in God’s Church, but in a refined way now and less and less, thankfully, because, candidly, today they’re not going to get by with it very long, very easily, because I’ve gone through it all. I’ve seen it all, in that respect. I’ve seen it all; heard it all. I’ve seen those attitudes and so forth and they are not a part of God’s Church and history proves it. They didn’t stay around.

So all those people, every person I’ve ever known who has ever found fault with Mr. Armstrong and how he used money (and there were many) has gone by the wayside. I’ll take it back, there was one that I knew of that repented. All those who I have known – gone by the wayside because that eats you up. It’s a cancer. So whether it be Judas Iscariot who wasn’t even baptized, who didn’t even have God’s spirit, or whether it be people in God’s Church – because that’s what’s happened in God’s Church – envy, jealousy, harsh judgment, thinking our way is right, you know, “I am right; you are wrong,” being harsh on people in that, not willing to show mercy.

Something we need to be willing to do in God’s Church – be merciful to one another. Be merciful. That means to be forgiving. The past is the past. You don’t try to remember and keep things. When something is gone, repented, it’s gone! That to me is a beautiful thing. That’s a part of mercy.

That’s why anyone who has ever left in times past, if they were to come back tomorrow they’d be received with open arms. If their attitude and spirit is one of repentance and a desire to be here and they’re beating themselves up anyway (they don’t need to beat themselves up), and it’s clear they have repented, I’ll tell you what, it’s an embrace, a grateful, thankful embrace that they’re back. I look forward to that time because we’re going to have a lot of them.

So we still have problems of people that don’t recognize sometimes that the least little bit of anger, jealousy, resentment, bitterness, whatever, could enter in and it can destroy you. It’s when those things enter in and are not repented of, that’s when demons come along. They’re there. They’re just waiting, but they have no power over God’s people today at all in any fashion or form unless, and only unless we allow such a thing.

Again here, and he went his way and spoke with the chief priests and captains that he might betray him to them. Now, we’re talking about some of these things and bringing some of these things into this so that we can learn along the way. How could he do such a thing? Well, it’s easy. A lot of people in the Church have done the exact same things, and far worse because they have God’s spirit. He didn’t have God’s spirit. He didn’t recognize his attitude and spirit. He couldn’t see it yet. We can if we desire to. We can see those things if we’re crying out to God day by day, about how we treat people or think about people, etcetera, etcetera.

And he went his way and spoke with the chief priest and captains how he might betray him to them. And they were glad and agreed to give him money. Amazing! We can read right over things like that and not realize how important that is. That’s what it’s about. He's greedy. He's a greedy person. His life revolved around that, jealousies and so forth, and envying and things that came out because he was a greedy person. And he promised to look for opportunity to betray him to them in the absence of the multitude. So he’s going to find out a way when the multitude is not around to be able to betray Jesus Christ to the chief priests so they can take him at a convenient time because they were afraid of what the multitude might do if they took him at the wrong time because of all the things they were saying about him, because when he came into Jerusalem they thought, they talked about, they cried out, hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of people, talking about the son of David. They looked to him as being the Messiah. They cried out those things to him. Christ said if they didn’t cry out the rocks would cry out. Incredible!

And then came the day – it’s the time of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. Again, it doesn’t take a genius to understand what it’s talking about here.

Verse 8—And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat. And they said to him, Where do you want us to prepare it? Now, we just read these recently before Passover season and in the last series and so forth. And he said to them, Behold, when you have entered into the city, there a man shall meet you bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he enters. Now, some have made comment that this was a little easier than most situations because the men didn’t carry pitchers of water, as a whole. The thing is that women did. They would go and collect the water. So it was a little more unusual to see a man carrying the pitcher of water. This was the world then, and they caught somebody back there. Crazy here, he’s talking about a man carrying a pitcher of water and it says, “Follow him to the house.”

And he said, You shall say unto the head of the house, The Master says to you, Where is the guest room where we shall eat the Passover with the disciples? And he will show you a large upper room that’s furnished: there make it ready. They went and found as he had said to them: and they made ready the Passover. Beautiful what it’s talking about here.

Then when the hour was come, finally, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said to them, With desire I desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. So again here, very moving for Jesus Christ to talk about this, because everything he had lived, everything was geared to this moment in time. He knew what was about ready to happen. I marvel at this because it was so deeply embedded in his mind because of everything he knew, it was just in his mind. He knew in a way that we can’t even begin to imagine. There are things that we know. When you come to understand a truth and you hear it for the first time and it’s like, “Ah, why didn’t I see that before,” and you know why you didn’t, because it takes God’s spirit and you just know. That’s the way Christ’s life was in so many of the things he did. He just knew because he had the mind of God in him.

He said, “The things I do I don’t do of myself. The father who dwells in me, He does these things.” He gave him the ability to see and know things that he knew. He knew that. And the same is true with us, of things we can see and grasp and understand. To me, that’s a marvel, to grasp what we have. I hope you treasure that.

So he said, With desire I have desired to keep this Passover with you before I suffer. So it was so deeply embedded in his mind that when he went off to pray and he’s praying to the Father and the disciples sleepy and falling asleep, that he perspired and blood came out. That’s how deep the mind was in understanding what he was getting ready to suffer. It was so real to him in ways we can’t even begin to comprehend. There is no human being who has ever had such knowledge and understanding of something that that would happen, that that’s ever happened to.

So again here, this was the Passover dinner here which was observed after sunset on the thirteenth, again the time that it took to do all this, as we’ve talked about. Now it was the third day of the week, in other words, Tuesday at sunset when this began to happen, started to happen. Now the next day that was beginning on the fourth day of the week in what we would call the nighttime portion, again, of Tuesday until midnight. Again, some of these things get confusing for people, but most listening understand all the timing that’s involved here of what was taking place after sundown. So it was after sundown a new day began.

John 19. We know what Jesus Christ did that evening of the fourteenth. He went up after he instituted the new Passover, went on then to teach the disciples afterwards, spent time with them, spent time praying. Then obviously it came to the point in time when he was betrayed and they came and took him.

Although we’ve covered this very thoroughly in times past and covered it very thoroughly last year we need to continue to focus on some of these things, on some of the timing of Christ’s death here that leads up to the wave sheaf.

John 19:13—When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought forth Jesus, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the Passover, speaking of the preparation of the Passover sacrifices that’d be offered after sundown, which again would be the first day of Unleavened Bread. That’s what it’s talking about. …and about the sixth hour. So some scriptures they either use time that they spoke of as far as the Jews were concerned or they used Roman time, and this one here it was Roman time. It was 6:00am. This was 6:00 in the morning.

So it was about the sixth hour on the Passover day of the fourteenth, again, which was Wednesday of that year. And he said to the Jews, Behold your King!

He said to the Jews, Behold your King! So he’d already had judgment and so forth, things that had happened, and now to me all that’s happening so quickly as it did because the Jews kept pushing this, the high priest kept pushing this, and they even pushed Pilate early in the morning like this because they wanted certain things done quickly because of the Days of Unleavened Bread that were coming. They wanted to squeeze everything into Passover. Time to them was a great constraint here and so they were pushing everything and they were pushing Pilate like mad as well early in the morning like this, wanting a judgment. They already had a huge crowd and gathered there.

It says here in verse 15—But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, and basically, nail him to the pole! That’s what they wanted to do. It’s like in the old west, somebody did something wrong they said, “Hang him!” Yeah, they got in crowds and they’d say, “Hang him! Hang him!” Anyway, that’s what was happening here, “Nail him to the pole! Nail him to a pole! Kill him!”

And Pilate said to them, Shall I nail your King on a pole? That’s basically what he asked, “…on a stake?” and the chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. I marvel at this, how it took place, because this is how they got Pilate. This is how they got the sentence that they did, that Christ should be nailed to the pole, is because basically they were threatening him, “We have one king.” See, because to have any other king at that particular point in time was reason for death, for entire groups of people or even a nation, if you will, because Caesar was to be ruler. That’s basically what they said. “We don’t have any king.” So basically Pilate was being pressured into a corner here. We have no king but Caesar.

And verse 16—He therefore delivered him to them to be nailed to a pole. And they took Jesus and led him away. And he bearing his pole, in other words, had to put it on his back for a period of time here to try to take it to where it was going to take place, went forth into a place that is called of the skull, which is in Hebrew called Golgotha, where they did nail him to a pole and two others that were with him, one on one side and the other…one on each side and Jesus in the midst of them.

I didn’t realize I’d already gone so long. I got carried away in time here with some of my stories of times past. But lessons to be learned about how we can be and what our human nature is like, especially associated with this period of time.

But I wanted to go through some of this timing here to get us up to a point of Jesus Christ’s death and to go through this meticulously again as far as the timing is concerned because it leads us to the wave sheaf and some of the things we’ll be discussing there.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1