Joshua Our Passover, Pt. 2

Ronald Weinland

April 20, 2019

In this Passover and Unleavened Bread season we are going through a series entitled Joshua Our Passover, and this will be Part 2.

I thought I’d mention, too, that because of travelling in Europe during the midst of this holy day season that people in different parts of the world are going to be hearing this at different times or different segments of this at different times because of some of the juggling we have to do. Just wanted to make comment that that isn’t that important in one respect because all the segments stand on their own anyway so it’s not that important. It’s not like you’re going to miss something because it wasn’t followed in order. The only place that’s going to hear it in order is Europe, as a whole.

Actually, you’re going to hear it in order here, too, when it all comes down to it because it’s pre-recorded. Some things changed even as I planned some of this. What can I say?

We’re going to begin by picking up right away here where we left off in Part 1 and that was in Leviticus 23:5 where we ended. I want to make comment about this where it says In the fourteenth day... And when I read these things, because of some of the history of things we’ve gone through in the Church since the Apostasy, some of these things really jump out at me because we have had incredible battles, especially in the beginning after the Apostasy took place, within many of the scattered groups of people who wanted to change things and people who believed something different all along for years and years and years, even in God’s ministry. Even the first organization that we joined with, in that respect, about half the ministry from what we can grasp and understand at that particular time believed in a 14th/15th Passover.

Again, as I’ve mentioned so many times, if they would have just believed what God gave to them, because God gave to them through Mr. Armstrong, His apostle at that time, three scriptures that were written in a booklet and if they had just been faithful to those three scriptures it explains exactly that this is in the fourteenth day. It is in no other day. Every bit of Passover had to be fulfilled in that period of time between the two evenings and in no other time. That would have shut their mouths; that would have stopped all arguments.

But it didn’t because different ones were taught in college by an evangelist who began to throw that out there a long, long time, a long time before the Apostasy ever occurred. They went out and taught and they still believed what he gave to them – 14th/15th Passover. All I can say is sick, sick, sick. Thank God just as these days picture being delivered out of Egypt, coming out of sin, God has blessed us mightily to be able to see past those things, see through those things, those arguments, and to be able to hold fast. We’re blessed to be able to hold fast to what was given to Mr. Armstrong.

Leviticus 23:5—In the fourteenth day of the first month at even, “bane ha erebyim,” which means “between the two evenings,” which we understand because we keep a Sabbath between two evenings. Everyone knows what that means. It’s not a mystery, but they made it a mystery. …between the two evenings is the Eternal’s Passover. Awesome! Here is where it all begins, God’s plan.

It’s incredible what God has given to us to see, to know, to believe. That’s why we have made some comment, I have made some comment, about not taking things for granted, not taking for granted what we have but cherishing it, treasuring it because we are exceedingly blessed to be able to see what we see. Because the only way one can see what is true, one is able to believe what is true, is because of what God Almighty has put into your mind. Otherwise, you can’t do it. You cannot do it on your own. And if a person begins to be cut off from the flow of that spirit once we’ve had the impregnation of God’s spirit you will begin to lose what you have. You can’t help it, because it’s spiritual, and only God can, not only just, in that respect, give it to you and help you, in that respect, to keep it. Because that’s what He does. He helps you to keep it. That’s the only way we have it and if we begin to cut ourselves off from the flow of God’s spirit we begin to lose it, because He maintains that within us as well as we seek to be faithful and serve Him faithfully.

So it’s the Eternal’s Passover, not man’s. It’s not man’s. It’s what God has given to man and not what man gave to God, and if people could just understand that one they wouldn’t get confused as so many are today who once sat in services in the Worldwide Church of God. Now they have lost much of this, of what’s being stated here, just to understand that it wasn’t anything that man sacrificed. If they could separate and understand the Passover was not man’s sacrifice to God – that comes later. This day, Passover, is God’s sacrifice to man. He gave it to mankind and His Son gave it to mankind by fulfilling what was given, by what God had predetermined before anything was ever created, before anything was ever made that was made.

So again, nothing that man sacrificed made the Passover possible, but it is a matter of what God has sacrificed for man.

Let’s turn over to Exodus 12 now and begin to pick up some of the things here spoken of because God began to reveal the subject of Passover here. He began to reveal it to the Israelites before He took them out of Egypt, before He took them out of sin. God begins to reveal to us Passover, about His Son Joshua, before we actually begin that journey out of the sin itself because there is something we have to come to see in the very beginning, and that is that which is about our Passover and how we’re able to have a relationship with God, how we’re able to be forgiven of sin. That’s why this is at the beginning before all the holy days, God has revealed things about His Son, about the Passover.

To me that’s exciting, to see all these things in order the way that they are, because you can’t proceed in leaving Egypt, you can’t proceed in leaving sin, because you can’t do it on your own until God has blessed you to be able to have the Passover, to receive His Passover, His sacrifice for mankind, to mankind.

Exodus 12:11. Again, He begins to reveal the physical types of those things that foreshadowed the fulfillment and meaning on a spiritual plane, things which we can see and grasp that are beautiful. To be able to see things physically as a story is one thing, to believe those things, but to see what they pictured, what they foreshadowed, that’s so much more meaningful, if you will. It’s just awesome!

So here it’s speaking of the Passover lamb and it says in Exodus 12:11—This is how you shall eat it… This is the first occasion that instruction is given to a group of people of something they were to observe year by year and this was the beginning. They didn’t even understand yet that they were going to be observing this year by year. This was the first occasion that they were given that they were to observe this and God told them how to do it here. This is how you shall eat it, in this particular case here for them specifically because of what they were getting ready to go through, with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Eternal’s Passover. So a lot is said here that foreshadows things that are spiritual that we’re to learn from.

For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night… That means a lot spiritually too in how we’re blessed by God that He works in us and what we go through that pictures this same thing. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will strike down all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. So things that they looked up to, things that they had been misled in in their lives as they grow up, had been systematically going through the process of being taken away, and now this incredible event was getting ready to take place and how God was actually going to deliver them completely out of the hands of the Egyptians.

He says, I am the Eternal. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. Beautiful! When we receive, as we talked about the cup we drink, when we receive into our lives the blood of the Passover, because that’s what we do when we sin, we recognize that he spilled his blood to the earth for us, that we’re able to go before God and ask for forgiveness of our sins, this is what we’re doing. We’re partaking of His sacrifice. We’re partaking of the very reason of why he gave of himself as he did.

It says, “When I see this blood over you, upon you, because of what you’re living by in faith, because of what you believe I will pass over you. Your sins will not be accounted to you whatsoever. They’ll be forgiven. They’ll be forgotten. They’re behind you. You don’t have to drag them behind you. You’re free.” He was going to help the Israelites to be freed from the Egyptians and from the power of Pharaoh, which is symbolic, in that respect, of a great spirit being who has fought against God for so long now. We don’t know how long that is. I can’t comprehend that. Multiple millions of years? I don’t understand things like that as far as time is concerned. You can’t. To me I can barely understand almost seventy years. Where did it go? I’ve forgotten far more than I’ve ever learned. That’s the way we are; things we’ve experienced throughout life, we can’t even retain it all as human beings.

For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will strike down all  the firstborn of the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. I am the Eternal. And the blood shall be upon you for a token, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I strike down the land of Egypt. So again, we know that this is a physical type that God gave of that which is very meaningful on a spiritual plane.

Let’s turn over to 1 Peter 1. We’ll come back here, by the way, if you haven’t lost your spot yet. 1 Peter 1. This is well described by Peter in these verses. Again, God having us focus upon these things every year, to speak about these things every year. There is so much written, there are so many lessons about Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread that with the time we have in the sermons that are in this period of time we don’t have time to go through it all. From year to year God gives us a different focus, a unique focus, all basically about the same meaning over all but with a different vantage point or something else that He adds and gives to us that makes these things exciting to us that we’re to be reminded of. We’re to think about these things year by year because we tend to forget as human beings or we begin to lose certain things as human beings because we can’t retain everything that God has given to us.

He wants us to refocus upon these things for a purpose because He’s going to give us more. Every year no matter where we are in our growth we are growing and there is something more that we can receive. That’s a unique thing about a building. As you’re constructing something and once a certain layer is complete, like in blocks or whatever it might be or bricks (if you can picture that), you can’t go on another row above it until the other one is secure and settled and at least set. Then to go to the next one. You can’t get ahead of the game.

That’s the way it is with us. We can’t get ahead of it and so as we come to it and as we have built that particular part, if you will, that particular foundation that God can work with, has worked with, has built within us, then we can go on to the next. We’re not all in the same place and we’re not all the same part of the building either. So it’s incredible what God does and how He works with us. But every year we should be growing, picking up more, being inspired, more clearly seeing things more clearly.

I was dumbfounded by that on Passover night, which was the night before. Awesome, the inspiration, the things that God adds to it. There is just no end!

He says here in 1 Peter 1:17—If you call on the Father, who without respect of persons—no partiality with God—judges according to every person’s work… What are we doing with what we’ve been given? That’s what it’s about. How do we respond to God? How are we utilizing what He’s made possible? How much are we fighting for what He’s placed before us?

I think of this group here. Thinking about that Passover night, thinking about that yesterday and last night and today. What an awesome thing to look over a group of people who have fought to this point in time. Because you have to fight. To hold on to this way of life, to receive this way of life you have to keep fighting. You have to keep fighting against self. You have to keep fighting against things in this world. You have to look to God to keep focused. That’s the only way you can do it. It reveals something of what you’re doing in your life. It reveals the fact of what you want in your life and if you continue to cry out to God He’ll continue to work with you and lead you out of Egypt and mold and fashion within you that which you want. Because you don’t want self. You want what’s in the mind that He’s placed in your mind that can be transformed, that can be changed. I marvel at that. We should marvel at that. That is something that God has blessed me to see more clearly in this Passover season than any other, why He’s doing things the way He is.

He could have chosen different ways to do things. You think of a sacrificial system. You think of the process. You think of how His Son came to die and all these things that God has done. He could have done things in different ways. But to learn, to grow in why this way that makes it unique and what His purpose is, is so awesome, so incredible, so profound. It’s all about an ability to work with human beings, to give them something that they can respond to. And if they believe, if they will do it, He will bless them, He will work with them. If they will seek to live by faith and do it the way He has given to do it, whatever that way is that He’s chosen, He’ll bless us and He’ll count it to us for righteousness, because we’re not. Incredible!

Going on… without respect of persons, judges according to every person’s work; conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear. We should fear to move away from God. That should be a horrifying thought to us. To go through a life, to come to a certain point of time where we begin to tolerate or allow sin into our life to the point it begins to cloud our vision, our ability to see things as we need to see them? There are so many who have gone before you, that that is exactly what’s happened to them and they don’t have it. There are so many who sleep. You read those verses, “there are many sickly among you and many who sleep”—it comes alive—because of not understanding the Body of Christ, not understanding how we’re able to have what we have through our Passover. Incredible!

We should fear and if that fear is real and genuine in our hearts and minds, because that’s the last thing we would ever want to happen, the more we see that and the more we believe that the more we’re going to cry out to God for help to continue in delivering us, and to continue in transforming our thinking, our minds, and to continue to be able to see ourselves and to see ourselves more clearly so that we can get rid of the garbage and the swill and the evil of selfish human nature. So what an awesome God we have who has provided a means and a way in the manner that He has that we can be changed, that we can become something different, something new. Incredible!

Verse 18—knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold, not purchased, not redeemed by anything physical. Nothing physical that you could do, nothing physical, but it goes on to say here, from your aimless conduct received through the tradition of your fathers. In other words, everyone through life grows up believing whatever’s been given to them, as a whole, and so whatever that tradition or teaching is, whatever even whatever religion it is people believe what has been given to them. Look at all the religions in the world and what people believe. It’s astounding! They’re captive to that because they begin to receive it at a very young age and they become imprisoned to it then. They become captive to it all.

We were captive to whatever we learned and whatever we taught, or whatever was taught to us and whatever we thought about some of those things and ever how we dissected them and made our own choices about what we received.

So as it says here, we weren’t redeemed from our aimless conduct. I like the way it says it there, “aimless conduct.” Where does it lead? And what kind of conduct is it? …through the tradition of your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot. I can’t help but think about whenever I think about Passover coming, I think of the four days beforehand, because they were supposed to do something on the tenth day, families would pick out a lamb. Pick out a lamb, set it apart from all the rest. “This is the one you’re going to kill.” “This is the one you’re going to eat.”

Now, for city folk, and I say that because a lot of people have never been around what they get at Chick-fil-A or someplace like that, or Kentucky Fried Chicken or at City Barbeque or whatever it might be, whether it be beef or chicken or whatever it is they eat. They’ve never known fully the process. They know what has happened to them, but they’ve never seen it. They’ve never themselves taken the neck off of a chicken and let it run around to where, because it still flutters and you throw it out and blood goes all over the place coming out the neck. So whatever method they use, you bleed them and then you get some very, very hot water and you have like a five-gallon bucket of hot water and you put the bird in there. Grab a hold of the leg area and all the way down into the water and you lift it back up. The smell is horrible! I remember helping someone one time with a hundred chickens. Around a hundred chickens we did that day and the smell of wet feathers. I couldn’t eat chicken for awhile. Seriously, that smell is in your mind and it’s just horrible.

People don’t know then what it takes, to cut it up into pieces and how to do it and what it is that finally you come and eat at a fast food restaurant. They don’t know what happens to cattle when they come through and they take this device that is kind of like a gun, and I think most of them are on air, and this plunger thing comes out and right in the forehead, right in the head, and kills the animal. They just fall flat. Then cutting of the throat and the hanging up of beef. I’m not trying to gross you out but I’m just telling you there is a different experience if you’ve grown up with those things, if you’ve seen those things, if you’ve been around those kinds of things. If you’ve taken and cut down the hide in the front and begin to peel it back and begin to cut away and remove the hide off of a steer, as an example… I’m not going to go any farther.

But it’s just a part of life. It’s a part of existence. People who grew up in farms, they know that. You just do it. But today that’s kind of gone by the wayside in large part. A lot of people just don’t grow up that way anymore and so they don’t know what it’s like, so to put yourself in a position where you’ve got to go out and you’ve got to pick the animal, you know what happens to people with animals? You can get attached. It doesn’t take long. You see their behavior. Lambs, if you’ve ever been around lambs? You can get attached.

I had one when I was real young. I say this “real young” because I want you to understand I wasn’t that old. I called it “Cutie Pie,” and it got killed in the winter, died in the wintertime through these horrible blizzards we had there in Kansas. I was not happy about that. It struck me deep and because of that and knowing how close you can be to an animal, because I’d go out to feed it, because when you have lambs like that a lot of times, obviously, especially the orphan type that aren’t with mother’s anymore, you’d feed them by a bottle, like a pop bottle and it has a little nipple on the end and you’d fill it with warm milk. I could holler its name and wherever it was it would come running. The rest of the lambs wouldn’t come running, but that one there it was always there. Now, for me at that point in time if I had to know that, hey, you’re going to set that one aside and you’re going to eat it, I wouldn’t have been as happy about that at that time at that age.

The reason I tell this is because I think about that then on the tenth day, four days before Passover, they were to set one aside. In four days little children, young children can get attached. To know that you’re going to slice its throat and bleed it, to know that you’re going to take off its hide, to know that you’re going to roast it in fire, well, it’s a little harder for a young child when they first start experiencing something like that and become accustomed to that. Now, as a person gets older and get in their teen years it becomes this is the norm, but still there is that need to go out and do it, but I’ll tell you what, it means something unique to a person.

The whole point of this is to understand in a deeper way, then what about a human life? What about someone who chose, made the choice that they wanted to do this? “I have with great desire desired to keep this Passover with you.” It’s hard for us to grasp that, what he was saying and the depth with which he said it because of the kind of love that he had. So I can’t help but think of Passover night and all that we’ve gone through and experienced ourselves here the other night, and to understand what these things teach and how we’re to think about it, how we’re to think about him. It’s a personal thing. Personal. It should be personal to us what our elder brother did.

It goes on to say here, but with…we were redeemed with, if you will then, with the precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, because there is something unique about a lamb. See, that lamb will come running to you. That lamb will pay you attention in a unique way. You’re going to pick it up one day and take it out and kill it and eat it. See? The attitude of mind we’re to have toward our elder brother is to realize how he was willing to do what he did, humbly so, not without resistance of any kind, but as a lamb, to give of himself. Now, if you’ve ever been around a lamb, and it would be so good if everyone could be around, had been around lambs as they grew up just to see what their behavior is like and you’d appreciate what it’s saying here even that much more, you really would, because you know that nature if you will, of how they act to certain things. To know then that this is how God has described His Son, how He wants us to see His Son means a lot. It means a lot and it’s on a very personal plane, and it should strike us deep inside to think about that sacrifice.

So again, but as a lamb without spot. Not to have blemish. Healthy, strong, and what that pictures then spiritually about him. Without spot. Had no sin. We deserve death. He didn’t. As human beings, because of our sins, that’s what we deserve as human beings.

Verse 20—Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, of the ages. Incredible. I marvel at these kinds of scriptures and when we come to understand what it talks about in Ephesians and other places, to come to understand that before God created anything that this was all purposed and all planned and that everything would be built upon him, God’s own Son? Awesome! Even the time periods of things and how they would be done God purposed and planned. We can’t comprehend all that, but we should marvel at it. We should be in awe of it and thankful for it, that we can see what we do see.

Again, Who was verily foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you. We don’t look upon that ourselves as being the last times. We see this time as the end-times. That’s a little different. But what it’s talking about here now, four thousand years have gone by. We’re past the halfway mark, if you will. We passed the halfway mark in time and now His Son has been made manifest, the Passover for all mankind. For both loaves. For both that of the Old Testament time and for that of the New Testament time as far as the wave loaves are concerned.

It’s talking about some of these things and we are to marvel at this. When Peter wrote this it was much later on. It was toward the last of time, when we’re now on the downhill slide of 7,100 years. It’s hard for us to grasp time like that.

Verse 21—who by/through him do believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory. So for us it’s a matter of what we believe. We begin with the Passover. We see what he did. We learn things about three days and three nights and it becomes immensely important to us because that separates us from that which is counterfeit and a lie. We’re able to see through it. God blesses us to see something that is awesome, that He’s given to us the ability to understand, the marvel of what it meant that Jonah was in a great fish for three days and three nights. As Mr. Armstrong said. You talk about 72 hours, 72 hours in the heart of the earth precisely. God gives us the ability to see this, to believe it, and to marvel at what we have. If we’re not careful we can begin to take even that for granted and not realize, not marvel at what we’re able to see.

Because all the people out there who are going to do what they do tomorrow in your communities, they don’t see that. They don’t understand that. They see their children doing something that for children is fun, and it’s fun for the parents to watch them run around early in the morning looking for eggs… that some rabbit has laid. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help that one. They don’t know. They don’t understand because its fun for them, it’s enjoyable, it’s unique family time. They probably at that time watch their behavior more than a lot of other times and how they think about their own children as far as the parents are concerned.

…who by/through him do believe God who raised him up from the dead and gave him glory, that your faith and hope might be in God. He became our High Priest. Even that took time to be fulfilled, the things that are there and what he’s been doing. I love Leviticus 16, when we read that on Atonement and go through there and talk about what the High Priest did once a year and what Christ then fulfilled. What it says when he went into the tabernacle and he didn’t come back out until certain things were finished, until people had been atoned. I think of what an awesome foreshadowing that is of what God has given to us to understand that Christ is our High Priest for 2,000 years and then he’ll come back once his job is complete in us…in us.

It’s not finished yet. That’s how you can know. It’s not finished yet. It’s not complete. But it says he’ll return then once it’s done, once it’s complete. That’s incredible to grasp and comprehend, that it’s about us. It’s about His Church. It’s, candidly, first and foremost about 144,000 because that has to be completed and accomplished, and then it’s about the rest who will continue on, who are blessed to do so.

Let’s go back to Exodus 12. Returning here again to that first Passover in Egypt. Exodus 12:13, again, And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where you are, and when I see the blood I will pass over you and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I strike down the land of Egypt.

And this day, the time of the Passover, shall be to you a memorial; and, time of Passover, not just the Passover but it’s talking about this period of time because this is the beginning of what God is going to do to deliver His people out of Egypt. It’s about an entire period of time that begins with Passover and goes right into the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the time of coming out of Egypt, the time of coming out of sin, the time of getting rid of sin in our lives.

And you shall keep it as a feast, and this is the word “feast.” So we know what this means. Was it Passover? Was that a feast? No. But the period that follows it is and so He’s giving them instruction of things here that put together with other scriptures in Leviticus and so forth make it very clear what happened on each day. Passover was not a high day. He makes it very clear. But the first and seventh day, they were high days, holy days and that period in between all a feast unto God.

And you shall keep it a feast to the Eternal throughout your generations. You shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. And some people, I marvel how human beings can get into something and start using human reasoning and begin to twist and distort things rather than just believing what God has given because everything fits together. Everything in scripture all fits together. If you begin to take one thing out of context and begin to read it in a different way then it begins to distort other things and people don’t have understanding of it. That will cause them then, because they want to press an issue, to distort things written in Deuteronomy, to misinterpret things written in Deuteronomy or other places, because that’s where they, a lot has happened in the past.

Going on, verse 15, makes it very clear, explains it. We understand that. We see it. It’s clear and when it isn’t clear, if it isn’t clear, cry out to God to reveal to you the sin that’s in your way because something is blocking it, something is preventing what He’s already given to you. Because there are many who have gone before us in not too many years before this time who don’t grasp and know these things, who went astray.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. Beautiful. Seven being complete. We have a period of time that God has given each one of us to eat unleavened bread. Our task, our work, our job is to fight against this and to stay away from the leavening, just as we do during this seven days. We’re to get the leavening out of our life. You have to think about that. We learn little lessons here and there of how easy it is sometimes because of certain habits or because of certain routines and if you’re not careful something of your past will just jump right in there and bite you in the rear end and you’ll just slip right away. Incredible!

We were talking about some of that last night, things that happen at times, how easy it is to mess up, how easy it is for something to happen, to pull into one time, as I did at McDonalds. Because it was my routine if I were going out on some business calls before I was in the ministry and before I would take off to some company to call upon them I, a lot of times then, catching something late, would just run right through the McDonalds and grab a hamburger, and I did, and I ate it. And you know what, it didn’t hit me for several hours later how stupid I was. “You drove through McDonalds! You idiot! You fool!” We learn things like that.

Because sin is just like that. It doesn’t take much. You can slip back into things of your past if you’re not careful. You’ve got to be on guard. You’ve got to fight yourself constantly. You have to be alert. Things can happen in life. People get caught up in all kinds of things. They sneak up on you, slap you in the face, because human nature is selfish and can give in.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. You have to think about it. You have to think about it. You have to think about it continually to stay away from it. It’s not an easy time of the year. It’s not an easy time of the year when it comes to food and certain routines we have. If we can learn those lessons on a spiritual plane, of what that means for us, and hold them close and live that year by year then we’re doing well.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened Bread. Even the first day you shall put away leaven out of your houses. Or “you shall have,” as it is. We understand those things. Some things aren’t quoted very well here in scripture. We understand what it is. There are things that have been added by different translators. We know what this means. “From the first day?” That’s a little late to start putting it out. It better have already been put out. It’s too late if you do it then. Passover is the last chance you have because it’s not a high day. It’s not Unleavened Bread yet. Before that is a lot wiser, obviously. But you can eat bread if you want to up to about what was it, about 8:20 last night, which when I told the waiter we don’t want bread at this table because we were there a little earlier. I didn’t know they’d already had a discussion and decided they’re going to have some bread because it’ll be done well before that, so the waiter is standing back there, who is going to win? You say no, she says yes? So they got the bread and I did too. We’re not pharisaical about it because the reality is is you can have bread if you’re out eating somewhere before it’s sundown.

We’ve had people in times past who, just like was reminded here about Atonement, that it’s better, it’s more spiritual, if you just stop eating maybe an hour before sundown. Afterwards you don’t want to go right to eat right away because that’s kind of you just want to get back to doing something. Wouldn’t it be better just to extend it an hour? Then I think of the sirens that go off in Jerusalem an hour before the Sabbath and an hour after the Sabbath because you don’t want to err, you want to feel good about what you’re doing. It’s about your own righteousness. Sad. No, you can have a drink of water right up to sundown. You’re still going to be thirsty as soon as it’s sundown, as a whole, but hey. But we have to have balance and soundness of mind. Sometimes that’s so hard to achieve in life. Thankfully God is transforming our minds and blessing us and helping us to achieve that, to have that. He doesn’t want hypocrisy. He doesn’t want us to add to nor to take from what He’s given. “Just do what I’ve said the way I’ve said to do it.” Anything else, be at peace.

It says put leaven out of your houses, For whosoever eats leavened bread from the first day, which is the fifteenth day of the first month, until the seventh day, another high day (so that’s seven days), that soul shall be cut off from Israel. Powerful, because the reality is sin will cut you off from God. Sin will cut you off from the Body of Christ and the reason he died, the reason he was our Passover, and so because he was our Passover we can repent of sin and God will continue then to dwell in us and we won’t become cut off from the Body of Christ, from the Church of God. We must do so speedily for that very reason, and not allow it to continue on and not to continue to return to it, but to fight to not have leaven in our life, to cry out to God for help in removing it because you can’t remove it on your own. You can’t remove all the selfishness in your life without God’s help. He has to give you the help of His holy spirit to change this, because this is what has to be changed, your motives and your reasons for doing why you do the things you do. That’s what has to be healed and changed.

And in the first day there shall be a holy convocation, and in the seventh day, in other words, on the twenty-first day of the first month, there shall be a holy convocation to you, God’s people convening, coming together, coming before God. No manner of work shall be done, in other words, prepared or performed in them; save that, or except that which every person must seat. Very much like the Sabbath. It’s fine for the food, the work you have to do with some of that. ...that only may be done of you.

Verse 17—So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for in this self same day, as it should be, I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Because He’s telling them in advance of what’s going to take place and what is being observed and a portion here of why that’s being revealed. I shall have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an ordinance forever.

In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, “ba erev,” at sundown, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at even, “ba erev,” which means at sundown. We understand that. The beginning of the fifteenth, sundown, until the ending of the twenty-first, sundown. Seven full days this is what we’re to do.

For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, for whosoever eats that which is leavened, again repeated because of the importance of it. Yes, we go through it as a physical part because there are certain physical things God has given to us to follow in a specific way, but for the purpose of learning what it means spiritually and being reminded of what it means spiritually and how important this is to God for us to change and to grow and to live by what He’s given.

For whosoever shall eat that which is leavened, even that life shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel. So reinforcing this – sin will cut us off from God, from the Church of God, from the Body of Christ. …whether he be a stranger or born in the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all of your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread. That’s what we talked about on Passover night. We’re to eat of the unleavened bread of life, the Word of God, of Christ. He was the Word of God made flesh. It’s through him that we’re able to have the Word of God in our minds, in our lives, the truth of God, because the truth of God that God has given to you is the Word of God. It’s here and He’s revealed it to us in very specific truths that He’s given to us to hold fast to, to review, to think about from time to time, to never lose track of them, to never lose sight of them, to try to understand them.

Because you don’t understand them all. You’ll ever grow in understanding of them just as much as God’s Church that went through Philadelphia and didn’t fully understand, and then went into Laodicea that manifested that lack of understanding, didn’t understand the very first thing attributed to Mr. Armstrong, the fourth truth in order that we learn it, the government of God. The government of God. Ministers and churches and people lost sight of what that was and they didn’t understand it in many cases because some in the ministry didn’t understand it, and because they couldn’t understand it or didn’t understand it they didn’t teach it, and because they didn’t teach it brethren didn’t learn it, of what it was and what it is.

If they’d understood it and received it as they should have they would have feared, as we talk about to fear, would have feared speaking ill of, badly of, against God’s apostle, Mr. Armstrong, at that time. And many did speak ill of him and wrong toward him, disrespected in so many ways. I heard so much of it myself through the years. Didn’t understand the depth of the severity of it all at that time even. Knew it was wrong. Knew it wasn’t right when I heard even people ordained speak in wrong ways. You think, boy, you’ve got a problem. Hope you get this addressed in time. Incredible!

So you see? We can feel that we know because we have them written down and none of us know them all! We don’t understand them fully to the depth that they are. That’s why even with holy days God reminds us year after year because He doesn’t want us to lose any of it and He wants us to continue to build upon them and He wants us to build upon His truth, His Word, the Unleavened Bread of life. It’s your life! The truths that God has given to you, they are your life. They truly are.

Who else has them? Who else is trying to live by them? What life do they have? They’re asleep, those who used to be a part. You have the ability to be alive on a spiritual plane. How blessed are we? Incredible!

Verse 25—It will come to pass when you come to the land which the Eternal will give you, according as He has promised, that you shall keep this service. And it shall come to pass when your children shall say unto you, What does this service mean? that you shall say, It is the sacrifice of the Eternal’s Passover. It’s His sacrifice. …who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.

See, they were only given something to see and to be told about on a physical plane that they could hold as a physical carnal people, to have a certain limited relationship toward Almighty God. It wasn’t a spiritual one. It wasn’t a spiritual one at all! It was a physical one and they went through physical routines, and in time the routine became more important by far than what God wanted them to receive from it; they became pharisaical in time, so many of them did.

That can happen even in God’s Church. We can make the routine or the observance of something more important than what is really there, what God wants us to see and what He actually wants us to live, which I’ll mention a little more later on. So the people bowed their heads and worshipped. Then the children of Israel went away and did; as the Eternal had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did. So again, on a physical plane.

They were only taught a physical story, much as the world learns about physical stories, but they don’t understand the spirit of it, they don’t understand God’s purpose in it all. And it came to pass that at midnight… But at least the truth was there with what they had, the knowledge of certain things that God had given them. The truth was there about certain things of life and it hadn’t been marred and twisted and distorted to something else. But it had been mightily by the time Christ came to be our Passover.

And it came to pass that at midnight the Eternal struck all the firstborn of the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle. So Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt… Can’t comprehend that. When they began to discover, to learn what was taking place all around them, for there was not a house where there was not one dead (a household, family).

You can turn over to Revelation 19. We’ll be going there next and coming back a little bit later here to Exodus. I think of God’s deliverance and those things that are being pictured in a different way now as far as what God is going to do in this world.

It was an incredible thing that God did back then in Egypt, destroying the greatest nation on earth. Powerful, it was a powerful nation Egypt was. Destroying Pharaoh and all of his army and the nation being wrecked like it was economically in every way.  Destruction was mighty in the land of Egypt and they were brought down mightily so and they never rose up to become what they had been before that as far as a great and mighty people on the earth compared to other nations that rose up, and though they had powerful armies and such that still rose up in time and had conquests that they came to it didn’t last. God continued to give favor to His people, Israel, in battles and so forth and things that took place, and later on even with Babylon and what happened and what happened to Egypt, but Egypt was never recovered to the degree of what it had been before and the glory that it had before that.

I think about how we’re moving ever closer to the time when God will deliver this world in a far greater exodus. What an awesome thing to grasp what’s getting ready to take place whenever that time is, which we’ll talk about more throughout this period of time, in the days that follow here. Incredible what God is getting ready to do in this world, to free the world from Assyria, from Babylon, and from Egypt. I talk about all three because they all three stand for something unique and something horrible that mankind needs to be delivered out of and delivering us out of sin means we have to be delivered from all those things and what they picture spiritually because nothing in this world is worth saving, not a thing. No economic system. No religion. No government. Nothing. Nothing is right. Nothing is sound. Nothing is of God. That’s why.

The first Passover and deliverance from bondage, again, was symbolic of a far greater deliverance from bondage by the Eternal’s Passover, by Joshua the Christ who is coming as King of kings. We begin to experience that in our own lives because of the Church, but what’s getting ready to happen now in the world, we really don’t grasp. To recognize that it’s not that long away, whenever that is (hopefully soon), whenever that is that people’s minds are going to be able to begin to be opened up as your mind was when you were called out of the world and to realize that there are going to be multiple millions? That’s hard to understand that. That’s hard to grasp that. But when God, just as He did with us—it doesn’t matter the size—when God begins to pour out His spirit and communicate to the mind this is true and people have choices to make, this is true. They’re going to be brought to their knees. They’re going to be brought to a time where everything they had looked up to, as Egypt did, their god’s destroyed. Nothing that they held on to and held fast to for so long, it’s all been ripped away from them.

That’s what has to happen in the world in a similar manner for people to come to a point where God can work with them because He can’t work with the world the way it is now, just can’t. Doesn’t work that way. Man has to be humbled first and for those who will be humbled what an incredible thing to grasp and understand that not too long from now no matter where you go in the world you can go to services on the Sabbath day. You can go to services wherever you travel to and everyone is going to have the same truth taught to them.

Every religion is going to disappear. Wherever it tries to pop up, which it will, they’ll be taken care of in time. They’ll go through hard times and if they don’t learn from that then God says He’ll intervene and He will kill them, destroy them. That’s what will happen. Because people are going to learn to fear God and obey, be motivated physically in order to be helped spiritually.

Sad that we’re like that. Sad that we’re that hard-headed, that we have to go through the kinds of things we do sometimes to come to a point of humility, to realize “My way doesn’t work. Our ways don’t work. Only God’s way works.”

So to look at this a little bit here in Revelation 19 about a far greater Exodus that’s coming, if you will, and what God’s getting ready to do. You talk about deliverance, because this one here isn’t just for a physical nation, this is for the world. This is to deliver people and to bring them into the Church, into the Church of God, to give them opportunity to become a part of the Body of Christ en masse. I really can’t comprehend that yet. I believe it, but to comprehend all that? We’re going to get to watch it. We’re going to get to watch that transition in time, to observe it, to see it, and to be a part of it.

Revelation 19:1—And after these things I heard a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power unto the LORD our God! For true and righteous are His judgments. That’s an amazing thing that people have to come to. It’s an amazing thing that we in the Church grow in, to come to understand that His judgments, the way He has determined things to be are awesome.

Just the thing of death and the timing of things: Where there is death God can give life, and God’s purpose is to give life. People are going to be resurrected. People are going to have opportunities, as a whole, to realize that, yes, there is death, some in a first resurrection, but those who aren’t it might be a thousand years but they’re going to live again. What you accomplish and what you do in order to be there in order to help them, in order to encourage them, you can’t grasp what that will mean to people you know. And you think, how blessed they are! How blessed they are! Because the vast overwhelming majority aren’t going to have that. They may have someone in their lineage somewhere and they’ll marvel at that in time, because when you think of all the millions that are going to come and then everyone is going to know what the true history of the world was.

God’s called people out of different ages of time and all the history we have today it’s going to go by the wayside because so much of it is so messed up, fouled up, screwed up, lied about, distorted. Wrong things have been recorded on purpose. Some nations have conquered others and rewritten everything. Everybody has their own slant. Look at WWII, you go to different parts of the world people have a different idea about what really happened in WWII and who it happened to and so forth. Though they agree on a war and who fought each other but there is a lot of stuff there that’s not real good if it were to go on a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years and what people would read eventually, but today because of technology they can’t hide things as well as they used to.

It goes on to say, For true and righteous, again, are His judgments. Sometimes, candidly, the more we learn the more we grow, even in things I just mentioned, the more in awe we become of God’s judgment of things, of how He has determined things to be. The more at one and unity we are with Him, the more we understand His mind, His thinking, because, you see, that’s the Word of God. The truths we have, it’s the mind of God to us. It’s beautiful.

…for He has judged the great harlot… So even what’s getting ready to take place, to really grasp and understand that, it’s a horrifying thing. But what comes out of it is so incredibly beautiful. It truly is. Though a thousand years will pass and so many of those then are going to have an opportunity, what an awesome plan, what an awesome God, that they’re going to be able to see then what’s happened over a thousand years and, candidly, a lot of stuffing is going to be taken out because first they’re going to be resurrected, probably in there all together as they’re standing there, and that tends to humble people a lot, and what you have pride about at that moment. Then to be able to see what God has done with mankind for a thousand years? You can’t argue with that. “I want to be a part of that. I want to learn. I want to see. I want to know.” Because now they’re going to have the ability instantaneously to receive what’s true from God just as the day you were called and what was put in your mind as God began to draw you.

…for He has judged the great harlot who has corrupted the earth with her fornication; and has avenged the blood of His servants at her hand. It’s what’s taking place, a judgment on the world. That’s why I marvel sometimes when I go through this and I think about how limited we’ve been in our thinking and understanding sometimes when so much of the Bible talks about a time of judgment. People think about what that means and they don’t realize that the vast majority of that judgment is about a period of time when it finally comes to the earth. Because it hasn’t been handed out to the whole world to this point in time, but there comes a point in time when it has to be handed out to the world in order to bring in a different age, a new world.

…and has avenged the blood of His servants at her hand. And again they said, Alleluia! And her smoke rose up forever… This is depicting a glorious thing. Alleluia! Thank God! Glorify God! Rejoice! How do you rejoice at a time like that? You do. It’s hard as far as mankind, as far as what’s physical is concerned, but when you see what it is, when you know what it is you have different thinking. When God sees others die, people die through time and has seen that happen through time, it’s not a big deal. They’re going to have a time and they’re going to be resurrected and when we begin to see and that’s our mind it’s not a big deal. We’re going to wait. It’s just a matter of time.

...and her smoke rose up forever and ever! In other words, until there was no more, until it’s fulfilled its purpose. And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen! Alleluia!  You see, especially for them, too, because they go back much farther. They go way, way back. They have seen much through time.

They have seen one of the archangels turn against God, and a third of all the angelic realm. They have seen what they have done in fighting against God. They have seen what they’ve done with God’s creation of the earth and having placed mankind upon it. They have seen. They have witnessed what has happened through all the deceit that has taken place over nearly 6,000 years and the cruelty that Satan and the demonic world has foisted upon those whom God has called, because they’ve always stirred that up and tried to destroy and hurt wherever they could. God has allowed them to do that for a purpose because there is something that Satan has never got—he can’t see, he can’t grasp—that is that God uses those things to mold and fashion us. It’s through the fire that we’re made stronger. It’s through the hard things that we go through in life that God can transform this mind.

So sometimes when we hate the trials and the hardships and the difficulties of life we’re going through we don’t grasp the power of God’s spirit that’s in that if we’ll yield to what God is doing in order to change this mind because it requires that for self to be changed. This is not an easy thing to do. It’s done by the power of the Great God of the universe over a long period of time. I marvel at that when I think about it because I think of the universe, and none of it resisted His creation and His commands that went out, but we do as human beings. For God to create with us, which is a creation ongoing right now and has been for 6,000 years, it didn’t stop in that seven-day week. It’s been going on ever since, and the greatest part of it has been going on since because it’s in those whom God has called to begin the process of Elohim growing inside them, in their being. Awesome to understand those things.

Verse 5—And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all you His servants, Praise God… Finally! Yes, it was hard to know and to have people that they knew in Egypt, that people were dying all around and that so much destruction had taken place to people they knew. Because when you serve others you get to know them, even as a servant. Even as a slave they got to know people, and there are those who treated them properly as a human being could, but still as a servant. And you get to know people and you can feel for them. So, yes, it was hard to see the destruction of a nation in one respect. Do you think they didn’t? There are some that came out, that joined the Israelites. It wasn’t just all Israelites that came out of Egypt. They left families and they left things behind.

And a voice came out of the throne, again, saying, Praise God, all you His servants. So it’s a matter of praising God and thanking God. And yes, the destruction was hard, but it delivers Israel. Yes, the destruction is hard, but it delivers the world. It delivers the world and gives everyone opportunity to know what we know and to join in together finally in one true Church. They’ll be resurrected in time again. They’ll have the opportunity to join in in the same thing.

So to get there is hard. It isn’t easy. To come through human life, to have a transformation of the human mind is not an easy thing to go through. It’s hard! It was meant to be hard because there is no other way to change a mind, the spirit of a mind, but by the manner that God is doing it. So indeed, praise God, thank God, and be in awe of God when He brings these things to pass; not to be thankful, not to be grateful of the destruction, but be thankful that God has brought an end to it all in His plan and purpose in order to bring in peace, in order to bring in truth.

And I heard, as it were, a voice of a great multitude, and the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia! For the LORD God Omnipotent reigns! God finally reigns. He’s finally taken the reign to himself. Given it to His Son, but is taking the reign of government. Finally, His government coming to reign on the earth. An exodus that makes the original exodus look puny because it fulfills on a far greater plane what God wants, what God has desired – to bring His government, to help bring others into the multiple millions and billions into His Family.

And I heard, as it were, a voice of a great multitude, and the voice of many waters and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying, Alleluia! The LORD God Omnipotent reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come. Finally, after 6,000 years. Finally, the spiritual aspect of God’s government, of God’s Family. We can’t imagine. We can’t grasp. We can only try to in a feeble, small way to appreciate what God is experiencing, what God will experience as finally after all that time, from the time that He set up the plan and predetermined it before He created anything, that finally, finally the purpose of it, His Family, Elohim.

Some may live through nine months to deliver a child, have that experience in life. That’s pretty puny compared to what God is doing. But He lets human beings experience different things on a physical plane to learn things on a spiritual plane and we can become in awe. But to understand time as He does? To appreciate what He’s planned and purposed and finally to have His family? Wow! What can you say except “Wow!”

…and His wife has made herself ready. Right to the end. The Church of God—Preparing for the Kingdom of God made herself ready. We’re still doing that. You still have work to do. The evidence? He’s not returning yet. We’re not ready. So when we are fully ready, when God has completed what He’s going to complete in us then it will happen. That’s the reality of it all. We continue to go forward until we’re to that time, whatever that is. God’s Family is precious and the creation of the family is beyond our understanding, but God cannot just command and create perfect righteous character in each and every one of us by command. He works with us. He molds and fashions us and we make choices along the way. We resist God along the way and we repent and we grow and we overcome, and God judges and determines who will continue on and who will not.

And to her it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he said unto me, Blessed are they who are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb! We don’t grasp how blessed we are, whether it be in the first resurrection or the one that follows the thousand years, a far greater one at that time of God’s family. We can’t grasp those things yet. No one’s ever experienced that yet.

And he said unto me, These are the true sayings of God. And I fell at his feet to worship him. You know, when you do that in that manner it is in such awe, as it were, almost speechless as to what can you say of the marvel and the glory of God Almighty and His purpose and His plan. And he said unto me, See that you do it not! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren… So it was an attitude of mind, talking about an attitude of mind here is what’s being discussed, and it was about God. …and of your brethren that have the testimony of Joshua. Worship God! For the testimony of Joshua is the spirit of prophecy. So God’s going to accomplish and fulfill everything that He has said through time. He’ll bring it to pass in His time.

Verse 11—And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And he who sat upon him is called Faithful and True… So again here, speaking of Christ and his coming to this earth in the Government of God to reign on the earth. …and in righteousness he does judge and make war. We can’t comprehend all that’s going to take place at that particular time, of what it means. He’s going to be involved in conquering; he’s not coming as a Lamb. He’s coming as a Lion, and it means that he will destroy, and that army with him will destroy what must be destroyed in order for a new world to be established. …and in righteousness he does judge and make war. It means what it says. He’s going to be involved in a war, in battle, and no one can resist him, no one can resist the army that comes.

His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. And he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. When I read this I marvel in ways that I really can’t even explain. Because to grasp and comprehend is what we grow in, that he is the Word of God made flesh, and then to become our High Priest, the Word of God, the mind of God, the being of God, and then what we have blessed to grow in us in our minds. It’s the thinking. It’s the mind of God. We are blessed, so blessed in what’s being transformed in our minds. We truly are. We still have this carnal human nature, and there’s the battle. But what we have, what’s growing in us, what’s being created in us? Far beyond our understanding. Beautiful!

And the armies which were in heaven, followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Transformed, born spirit and made fully unleavened because now they’ll always be unleavened. Those who are resurrected from the dead are spirit. God will always dwell in them…always dwell in them. As we experience a dwelling in us now He will dwell in them forever and they in Him – of the same mind, to the same spirit, the same thinking. Not selfish human nature but God’s…but God’s.

And out of his mouth will go a sharp sword, that with it he will smite the nations. And he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. There’s a picture here of things when it talks about this “winepress of the wrath of the Almighty God.” It’s time of judgment that comes upon the earth because it’s using a winepress for a purpose here and it speaks in other places as the blood that comes flowing out because of what God does. Because what is life before God? It’s in His hands. When He chooses within His creation to judge it accordingly to what it deserves, who are we to speak against it? For it’s all for our good; it’s all for what is better.

Yes, the one who dies, the many who die, the billions who die their next thought and waking moment will be at a time when they will be able to have, receive in their minds the ability to see what’s true. They’re going to be told stories. They’re going to be told some of the things I was told on one night. The Sabbath, the holy days. It’s going to be like, “Wow! I know it’s true.” Then they have to make choices. It’ll be in their minds as true. They’ll know it. They’ll see it. Then they have to choose. I wonder what they will choose, so many when they see what God has done over a thousand years?

And he has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. Our Passover, our elder brother, our High Priest, and then the King of kings.

Going back to Exodus 12. This story of this first exodus continues and it’s important to follow through on it as there are so many spiritual lessons, and we can’t cover everything. There is not enough time in the sermons on the high days and the Sabbath that falls in between, as in this case here it doesn’t fall in between, it’s right now. Sometimes we have a high day that hits ahead of time and so we may have three sermons within a period of time. This time here we don’t, see? But we have a particular season and we’re still going to have three sermons, but some of it’s going to be on the outside of it, as it was for us on the first one. There is so much that’s here.

Exodus 12:37—And the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children. And a mixed multitude went up also with them, and flocks and herds—and very much cattle, livestock, as it is, talking about all these things.

Verse 39—And they baked unleavened bread of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt; for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not tarry, or they didn’t linger. It’s a matter of being delayed here, but for what was given, what’s given to us we’re not to linger in leaven; we’re not to linger in sin. We’re to come out of it and come out quickly. …neither had they prepared, the word here means just “performed or did the work of” for themselves any victual. They didn’t prepare anything, no provisions of food.

It says now in verse 40—Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—even the self-same day… You know, God does things in an exacting way. That’s why I think about different timing of things. There are certain things that are fulfilled by timing. Just like we understand what’s going to happen on a Pentecost. To understand some of those things then other things have to fit together too, and God has a lot of ability, leeway, if you will, to fulfill whatever He’s given, whatever He’s said. We learn from that process and we can be very humbled by that process as well, as indeed we should be. God will give us more as we go along here.

But it says even the self-same day—it came to pass that all the host of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be much observed unto LORD for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is that night of the LORD to be observed of all the children of Israel in their generations. So if you understand the story here – Passover, sundown, eating of the lamb, staying up all night until morning, being told to get out of Egypt, they prepare everything, they get ready to make their journey out, they start their journey, they start walking out. As it talked about here, “they journeyed then from Rameses to Succoth,” and that night God began to deliver them on a particular journey out of Egypt. It was a process here of timing and of the things that took place at this, and it speaks of this then.

So they were up forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours no sleep because of all that God was doing. And you talk about adrenaline? They had adrenaline.

So I think about this particular time here, this night, as it says here, “to be much observed.” Although this has been covered in times past I fear that it’s not grasped and understood to the extent it should be sometimes and if we’re not careful we can place more importance on the physical rather than on what this foreshadowed, this night.

So I thought I’d make comment here again. Some things are hard for us to change as human beings when we begin to think that there is a certain routine, a certain way of doing things. I think of a time, I’ll just share it with you, concerning Passover and the observance of Passover. We can get into rituals if we’re not careful and begin to feel righteous about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it rather than what it pictures and sometimes the ritual takes away from, or if we’re not careful, we begin to drift away from what it means and what its purpose is. Because we’re to learn from, what does it mean? What is it about? What is its purpose? Why has God given that to us?

I think of times past when, in some respects, things began to be duplicated of what was done by others in the world when they observe Passover, what they felt might be symbolic in certain areas. Just to cut to the short here, it was told, basically, that when you had the bread and you blessed the bread and broke the bread what was left over you were to wrap up in a napkin and take it out and burn it, burn it in a fireplace or whatever. You had to go through this ritual. When you had the wine you were to take it outside and pour it on the ground because it was the blood of Christ, symbolically.

Nowhere is that instructed in the Bible in any fashion or form to do anything like that. Paul didn’t give that to the Church, but it came into the Church. The ritual became a pattern of things. I remember being asked one time what to do with the bread and the wine, and I won’t tell you specifically what I said, but basically it was throw it in the trash, dispose of it, pour it down the sink. It has no meaning. It’s served its purpose. Where is it? Well, it’s in the stomach of each person who participated in it and the blessing of what it means for them has been taken. What’s left over is left over; it has no significance, it has no purpose. It isn’t holy.

It’s like the Bible. There are some people that if you – in times past, I don’t know if it’s that much today as it used to be, but it used to be if you marked, if you wrote in your Bible you have desecrated the holy book. It’s like people worshipping a flag and how you treat a flag. This book, it contains the word of God, but it’s a book. It has paper in it and it’s not even a good translation. It’s decent, but one of the first things we’re going to have in a new world is a right translation. I look forward to that. I wouldn’t mind being involved in some of that. But anyway. I look forward to that time when people can have something in their hands and everything is translated into every language according to that language.

So the point being that if we’re not careful we have what has been called “The Night To Be Much Observed,” and the reality is it’s not commanded anywhere in the Bible to observe that night. It’s a tradition of God’s Church since Philadelphia. That’s where it got its start. Is it something that’s going to continue on? I highly doubt it. But again, by choice and by teaching God’s Church God has given it to me to give to the Church that that is something you can do by tradition, but if you’re not able to do it or you don’t want to do it there is no sin involved. That may at this point still blow some people’s minds. You need to think about it then. Because how did it come to us, and why?

The reality is it’s fine to do. It’s a decent thing to do. It’s a good thing to do, to be able to be together with others in God’s Church, but how much really thought upon what it meant? How many prayed about what it meant that night, because that’s far more important. We do not, by command, as God’s Church keep “The Night To Be Much Observed.” You should not feel bad if you were not able to do it. You should not feel bad if you couldn’t do it with anyone else. We have a lot of people scattered all over the place.

So again, I just want to make it really clear that it’s not out of the Bible as to why it’s been a tradition within the Church. It’s been a routine of a tradition of something we’ve done within the Church, but it wasn’t wrong either to take the bread and burn it up if you want to. But that can lead you in a wrong direction to begin doing something for the wrong reasons and to begin thinking things for the wrong purpose. To treat the wine by going outside and pouring it on the ground, be careful because it can do something in the mind – because it did to a lot of people. It hurt them over time. It truly hurt them spiritually. You’ll have to think upon that.

So the point being here, again, the proper translation of it isn’t even “the night to be much observed.” It doesn’t mean that at all. It means something totally…well, not totally different, but if you understand what it’s saying it’s not a problem. So, some think, “Well, that’s the command! ‘It is a night,’ and He told us ‘to be much observed.’” No, it’s not what it’s saying. Not at all.

The literal translation of this verse is far more accurately translated as this, as it is from one direct translation from Hebrew into English by those who translate. There are a couple of different books that do so, that do a good job when it comes to just telling you exactly what the word is, each one of the words, and they don’t try to put ideas into it or thoughts, as a whole.

It says, a night of watchings it is to, as they translate it in one, Jehovah, Yahweh is the word, or the Eternal as we would say it, a night of watching’s it is to the Eternal, to bring them out from the land of Egypt. It is this night to Yahweh (to the Eternal) of watchings to all the sons of Israel to their generations. It is not a command here that you are to observe a night to be much observed. It’s explaining something totally different as to what we’re to learn and what we’re to glean from what God is saying here.

What did it mean for the Israelites? It meant one thing for them, but the purpose of it is what has been given to the Church to grasp and understand why God referred to it in this manner on a physical plane to them. For them, they were alert. They were alert throughout that night. Of the Passover, they were alert especially because of what happened when they finally started leaving Egypt because they didn’t know what was going to happen to them. “Is Pharaoh going to come after us? Is he going to change his mind? Let’s get out! Get out while the getting is good!” They were alert. I’ll tell you what, they were alert to what might be behind them.

But thank God He gave a pillar of cloud by day, or the cloud by day and that which protected, even the ability of anyone to pass through, a pillar of fire as well then by night in those things that were there with them, to give them light to go by night. Again here, they did something unique because they weren’t so sure. I mean, that wasn’t a small thing that they did. Finally leaving? You think there weren’t some real fears involved? There was all the way up to the water, and especially when they finally did see them coming, knew that they were coming.

So again, this particular verse here, speaking about these watchings, “watchings unto the Eternal” should be very clear to understand what it’s talking about. You are to be alert unto the Eternal in your life. In the days of Unleavened Bread of coming out of sin, coming out of spiritual Egypt you must be alert, on guard toward God and toward everything around you, to do things God’s way, to follow God’s way wherever God is leading. It’s about a relationship with God and looking to God.

So Exodus 12, I wanted to pick this up. I’m going back here a little bit. Just a moment. I don’t know if I want to go back all the way here, if I have the time. Just a minute. I got to make sure what kind of time, because I have gone into things I didn’t plan to.

It’s an incredible thing to understand that from the moment of the Passover when they sacrificed the lamb at the beginning of the night, of that night, they were to be in a constant state of readiness. They were to be alert. They weren’t to go to sleep. They were to be fully clothed. They were to have their shoes on their feet, their sandals, and staff in their hand. The whole point here is one of readiness to leave, ready to go, ready to do what you need to do, ready to move forward. That’s so much the story here of what they had to do, of what God left those things to foreshadow, something far, far greater. The lesson is spiritual for us, for God’s Church, because it is about God’s Church. It wasn’t a lesson for them. It was a story to them, to the Israelites.

For us it’s spiritual and we can’t rest or lounge around and take it easy in our Christian lives. That’s much of what we’re to learn. You better be on guard. You better be alert to what’s around you. You’d better be watchful. It’s the night of watchings. That’s what the word means. “The night of observance.” Of observing what? Does that mean because you use the word “observe” that you’re to observe it or does it mean that you’re to observe something specific, you’re to watch something specific? As the word means in Hebrew, to be vigilant about something. That’s what it’s about, you see. We can lose sight of the spiritual if we’re not careful, of what God is teaching us and what gives to us. We have to be careful of some of those kinds of things and realize how rituals sometimes can be damaging, can be hurtful if it takes away from what God’s purpose is.

You know, God’s very specific about what He gives us. It’s just like when we partake of the bread, the wine, and the washing of feet. Everything is so specific and has incredible meaning to it. Nothing is left to doubt, misunderstanding. It’s just really clear. The physical things God has given to us He’s made very clear what we’re specifically to do. Do not eat leaven for seven days. See, very specific. Nothing is left to the imagination, in that respect. It’s clear what God gives.

So again here, they had to be prepared; they had to be ready for action, to be ready to do whatever. When God reveals something we better be ready for action, to take action against whatever we see in our lives that God says you better be watchful for, you better be on guard against. You better get rid of the drama in your life. You better be on guard against that. You better be careful how you speak to people. You better be careful how you think about people. You better be careful how you judge people. As you start to see those things more deeply in your life and the selfishness that’s there you better be more vigilant and fight against it and cry out to God and keep a vigilance toward God, if you will, and a watchfulness toward God in saying, “Holy Father, I need You to fight this because I can’t, and I’ve proven I can’t over and over again! Help me the change. Change my thinking. Help me to be at one with You. Help me to be of the same thinking as You, to be of that same mind,” that’s what the oneness is, “so that I don’t have any other ideas or thoughts of something that’s different, but that I be in unity, harmony, and oneness with You, to think as You do, so that I can respond properly, so that I can hate and loathe the things that are evil, the things that are wrong, the things that fight against what You say are harmful to me or to others.” You’ve got to cry out to God for help in those things and you have to be on guard and watchful.

That’s what that night is. It’s a beginning of coming out of sin and you have to do it for seven days; you have to do it for all your life, the rest of your life until it’s complete. For us we have seven days, and when it’s complete it’s complete. We’re to learn the spiritual lesson from it, to come out of sin, to come out of Egypt, to be watchful to do it, to be alert, to be vigilant, to be on guard. You’ve got to fight. You’ve got to fight the fight, truly, all along the way because you’ve got a great battle on your hand, and if you don’t fight it there’s an army out there waiting for you and they want you. Some who have been returned to that army have suffered mightily because of it. Some have to wait until the Great White Throne they have so damaged their minds by what they have done, by the choices they have made. Others can be awakened out of a spiritual sleep and have opportunity to share in something yet.

So again, incredible sometimes how we can do things and God brings us along and teaches us then what we need to learn so that we can begin to recognize we have to be careful of ritual. We have to be careful of things that make us feel better about ourselves. Do I have to feel better about self? I don’t feel real good about self. I’m sickened by self, I truly am. I loathe and despise the carnal self, but I love what God is placing in the mind when I’m able to know and to think more like God and to know this is how God is and this is the way I want to be.

I want to love everyone in the Body and I don’t want to think any evil thought toward anyone in the Church of God! For if I do I am stepping on things that I should not step upon, I’m doing things that God says you had not better do because you’re doing that to Me! So we have to be careful and we have to be alert to that because that’s our carnal human nature. That’s why we have this arena of people that God blesses us to be around, to be with. That’s why we’re so different, we have so many different backgrounds and so many different kinds of thinking, and so many different things that people are coming out of.

Well, thank God and bless God, if you will, if you understand what I’m saying, that He’s blessing people to be called out of all those backgrounds. Because He’s tolerated a lot of crap in me, okay, and a lot of it in you! He’s had great mercy upon you so who are you to look down upon anyone else? Who are you to judge your brother? Who are you to speak against your brother? That needs to stop right now in God’s Church! I can’t say it any more powerful than that.

That’s from Almighty God, okay? And that’s from His Son, Joshua the Christ. You want to grow, you want to come and you want to be prepared for what God is preparing us for? You better have heard that one! Because that’s the last great thing we all need to work upon. Because this is God’s family, brothers and sisters of Joshua the Christ. How could we say anything against him? How could we say anything negative toward his Father, our Father? And yet when we do it to one, we do it to God. We should fear that. I’m speaking to every person listening. Okay? God wants us to be cleansed.

Don’t hold back the day of Christ’s coming. I don’t want to go into another seven years. I hope and pray with all my being the next year will be the Day of the Lord. I truly do. I mean that with all my being. I hope that it is indeed the Day of the Lord. Because God can have it be the Day of the Lord. It’s up to Him. It’s His choosing. But it depends upon us. Where are we? Where are we in our growth and our conquering and overcoming? Is God saying to you, “Now I know you.”

No matter who we are, God starts a work in us and if we’re yielding our self to the process He will complete it and we can be sealed. We have others that maybe aren’t but will be in His time. God speed that day. Whatever it takes, whatever we have to go through, so be it. Whatever it is that’s got to bring everything to the surface, so be it. Let’s address it and let’s be on guard. Let’s be watchful against our own carnal human nature.

I’m sorry I got as riled up as I did, but I’ll tell you what, we need to be a little riled up ourselves, each one of us, against this, to fight against it. Because this battle is not over until it’s over. Until the seven days are complete it’s not complete. I want it to be complete. I want it to be complete in me and I want it to be complete in all of you. So let’s yield ourselves more fervently, more zealously, and to follow what this means. It’s about the nighttime. We’re in the night, but we’re not to live as the children who are in the night; we’re to be different. We’re to be special, in that respect, as to how we live.

You don’t need to turn there but I’m going to read that: 1 Thessalonians 5:5-10—You are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness, so we shouldn’t live like that. We shouldn’t yield to those things. Therefore, let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch… That’s what this is all about. In the night you have to be alert and on guard. That’s what it says here. We’re children of the light, children of the day, but the night is all around us, brethren. It’s an evil world and it wants to suck you up and suck you in and pull you back. There’s a being out there, beings that want you to fail, and they’ll come at you in different ways until this is finished, until they’re stopped. And you know what? They’re just not going to be stopped until they’re stopped. They’re still out there until finally they’ve been put away for a thousand years plus. But we understand what that means.

For those who sleep, sleep in the night, and those who are drunk are drunk in the night. Intoxicated with the world. People leave because they get intoxicated in the world. “I want ‘this’! I want ‘that’!” “I want this better place to live in.” “I want this nicer car.” “I want ‘this,’ I want ‘that,’ so how am I going to have that? I can’t do that and tithe. I can’t save my second tithe and do that. Huh, well, okay.” Think, give me a break!

So don’t be intoxicated with the world. Don’t let the world pull you away. But let us who are of the day, that’s what we’re to be of. We live in a world that has night all around us. We’re to be a light in a very, very dark world. So we are of the day, so as it says here, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate the faith and love… How we love each other. Do you ask God for help to love each other, to really love each other? Because you can grow in that a lot. You can. You know why? Because you have, I have, a lot of selfishness in me, and I can grow a lot in conquering and overcoming the selfishness and learning to be more giving, serving, loving to one another.

I don’t need to read the rest. You know what it says and you can read it on your own, too.

So with that, what an awesome thing God’s delivering us out of Egypt, blessing us to come out of the night. We’re to be vigilant. We’re to be alert and on guard and this is at the very beginning of coming out. That’s what I love about these examples. This is at the very beginning. As soon as Passover is over, and even while Passover is there, there is still this diligence and being vigilant and being alert. But they were running around and doing so much and preparing to do what finally they were going to have to practice from then on, when they finally actually started that journey out, started walking out. Now it becomes real. Before that it was some preparation that had to take place, a receiving of the Passover and the purpose of it. But the actual walking out, that started in the night. That’s the way it is for us. We’re to be watchful, to be vigilant, to be alert in the night so that we are indeed living, being the children of light, God’s children.

1. Chapter 1