Ongoing Repentance

Wayne Matthews

April 15, 2020

Welcome, everybody, to this special day in New Zealand.

Today we are going to cover one aspect of a Feast season, because we understand during a period of time there are seven offerings to be given that God has commanded to be given. So if you’ll turn to Deuteronomy 16:16. We’re going to look at this from one part about the commands, but also the motive or intent behind that. Because, really, offerings reflect a state of mind; they reflect the way we think. A person can give offerings outside of these seven commands. Well, there are people in the Church, the Body of Christ, that actually give offerings outside of the Feast season because it’s reflecting something. It’s a personal choice, of course, whether a person wanted to do that. It’s a freewill offering.

Deuteronomy 16:16 covers the command over the holy days. The Church has allocated a period of time, which is seven offerings to be given, and we know that is a Church government decision.

Deuteronomy 16:16—Three times (three seasons) a year all your males, which is now baptized members of the Body of Christ, shall appear before the LORD your God (the Eternal) in the place He chooses. Now, that in itself can reflect something because when the Church, the government of God on earth, the Church of God through the ministry makes the decision to allocate a location (Napier) as a place to meet for Unleavened Bread, well, then it depends on the thinking of a person. We can sit back and think, “Hmmm, why are we going there? They should have gone ‘here.’” “They should have gone ‘there.’” Well, that actually is revealing something to God, because what we’re really saying is we don’t agree with God’s decision, who has appointed a Church government to have made that decision. So really deep down we’re disagreeing with God, the allocation.

Now, that applies to Feast of Unleavened Bread, it applies to Pentecost, and it applies to the Feast. Now, that is something that we learn over time, because there are times when we’re not in the right attitude, right spirit, and we just don’t really understand Church government, God’s government on this earth, and therefore we will disagree with the decision that has been made by God who supports the decision, “what is bound on earth is bound in earth,” because God puts a ministry, who are physical, and make decisions based on the benefit of all. Well, it may not necessarily suit one person. Well, that’s a challenge for them in their thinking, about what they’re going to think. Well, that thinking is revealed to God. You can’t hide anything from God.

Well, the same with offerings. So at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Tabernacles; so in that there are seven high days.

And they shall not appear before the Eternal empty handed. So, why? What’s that really all about? Well, the offering reflects our state of mind, our thinking. We’re either thankful and we understand who we are and what we are or we don’t. So we’re either thankful or unthankful.

A lot of the things that we can look at is offerings reflect humility and repentance because the days of Unleavened Bread are about repentance. Well, the title of this sermon is Ongoing Repentance because our life once called is about ongoing repentance. It’s not just a one off. It’s like when a person’s baptized we should come up and walk anew, walk a new way of life. It’s a different way of thinking. Well, Unleavened Bread is a period of time that we would focus in on our self, on the way we think about things.

Well, it’s already been revealed to God what we really think about Him and this particular season by our offering. We’ve revealed our hand to God, the way we think. Now, did we think about it? Was it automatic? I know in times past that I’ve been through periods when I was not connected to God during the period after the Apostasy, for over ten years, that all of the thought process that I did was selfish because I wasn’t with God. God was not with me, therefore, I couldn’t think correctly. Therefore, I’d really examine the motive now and I realize it was done for pride—it would have been selfishness—or habit, just a habit, automatic allocation of a certain amount of money. Here it is, bang, bang, bang, and it’s automatic; I always give this amount every holy day because there wasn’t a thought process going into it. Or if it did, or it was increased for a reason it would have been because of probably me thinking that, well, I need to up it because of my own internal pride, my own thinking, my own selfishness, because that was the only way that I could operate. Didn’t have God’s holy spirit.

Now, we understand repentance is to think differently. That thinking differently is from inward—Right? We think inward naturally—to outward. Well, our offering is exactly that. Our offering reflects an outward thought.

So let’s just stop and think about that whole process. Here we are, we have been called – which is an incredible thing if you really look at what a calling is about – and what is the most important thing in life? We have a physical life (we all do), and it’s a period of time, three score and ten if we’re blessed, and beyond that by strength, therefore, when that’s over there is no more chance to please God or to give an offering because we’re not here. So the offering reflects something. Our offering has reflected something to God. Doesn’t matter about reflecting to the ministry. It isn’t about reflecting it to somebody else. Our offering has reflected something to God. It has shown God what we consider as important – our calling and 57 Truths +1. Is that really important? Really important? Or is it more important, other things?

In times past I’ve heard people saying, “I can’t afford to give more as an offering.” Stop and think about that. “I...can’t afford...to give more...in an offering.” It’s insane thinking when you think about it, when God gives everything anyway. So maybe in all of it it’s about stopping and thinking, “What is my highest priority?” Well, God’s work on earth is the most important thing...most important thing...and whenever we make the decision to give an offering and the amount, the amount has nothing to do with the spirit of the law. Absolutely nothing to do with it. A person may have nothing and give $5 or $1. You know, widow’s mite is a classic example.

The spirit of it: The $1 could be a lot. It could be a big percentage of a person’s income. Another person may give a lot, but that may mean nothing either. They could have held back. If you understand what I mean, they could have held back because the spirit of it. So the important part of giving any offering is not the amount, it’s actually the spirit of the matter, because the giving of an offering has revealed to God our thinking. We can’t take that back. If we’ve given the offering during this particular season it’s already revealed to God where we see God in our life and the importance of our calling. It’s all been revealed.

Well, the purpose of this sermon is really looking at ongoing repentance. So if we have given an offering and we’re examining ourselves now, we’re sitting and going, “Hmmm, maybe I was stingy. Maybe I did it automatically. Maybe I didn’t think about it,” well, we can repent. What does repent mean? Think differently. So what can we do? We could give a freewill offering afterwards as a sign of repentance, if you understand where I’m going with that. It’s just it’s the way we think. It’s not the amount; it’s the way we think.

We now see that an offering is a way that God sees our thinking, our attitude. God sees the priority that we have set. We’ve either put Him first and He’s important and His way of life is important, our calling’s important.

An offering is a demonstration of our thinking. An offering is a spiritual sacrifice because we are sacrificing something and the first thing we’re sacrificing is we’re denying our self. Because by nature we’re selfish, we want to hang on to it. “Oh, I can’t afford to give $2 extra because I need it for ‘this’ and ‘that’ and ‘that,’” because that’s our thinking. Where, really, we should really, really understand what a blessing we have. For me in particular, and my wife, we know being called was incredible, but being awakened is just like... Second chance? Well, I don’t deserve any chance but a second chance to appear before God in the right spirit? You can’t talk about it really because it’s just so overwhelming, just what a blessing. And why me? Why Chris? Why... Why? Of all the people, why? Anyway, God knows what He’s doing. He knows that for that reason, whatever it was, this is what God is doing and working with us. It’s just hard to explain.

I remember when it happened to us. I remember the days. I remember the time, and it was so overwhelming that we were being awakened, that Chris and I, we couldn’t sleep. We’d sit up in bed and just the excitement of it was... How can you explain? We believed it. We were being awakened. Now we sort of realize why we were having so many problems in the church that we were in. Because in the end we were being awakened over a period of time and we were disagreeing with the ministry and disagreeing with the people in that particular organization, and when we walked in the room, well, “Oh no! They’ve turned up again! More trouble!” Oh, dear. Well, I didn’t know what was going on.

I remember at one point I was asked to speak, and I gave a sermonette (12 minute sermonette), about being Laodicean. Because I’d read the book and I believed I was Laodicean so I gave a sermonette saying, “We’re all Laodicean.” Well, that went down really well. Had people coming up afterwards, “Well, I’m not Laodicean.” I’d say, “Well, you are!” Because I believed; God had given me the power to see and believe. It’s incredible. No one there could see or hear and here I’m talking about being Laodicean. So you can see how we fitted really well in that group in the end.

Well, God sees our sacrifice because our sacrifice is pleasing to God. We know what scripture talks about, you know, when we sacrifice. We have to sacrifice our self. So giving an offering is actually part of that. Although it’s a command it’s still a demonstration of a self-sacrifice, because we’re to think about it and we have to deny our selfishness and turn around and go, “Ah, it’s not just a command that God sees, it’s the reason why. Why are we giving it?” Well, God sees the reason why.

Well, here we go in Deuteronomy 16:17—Every man, which is every baptized person, shall give as he/they are able according to, so there are now guidelines given here, according to the blessing of the Eternal your God, which He has given you. So there are the guidelines. So we should take time at any time – I know there are seven commanded but there are other times when maybe we should stand back and go, “Hang on a minute; how have I been blessed?” and look at the blessings...look at the blessings. Well, being born in a western country is an enormous blessing just in itself. Having life in a western country with its depravity and everything around, well, just being born here is still better than being born in some countries, you know, the oppression and what they have to go through and the number of deaths and diseases. Look at what we have been blessed to have.

So we’re to look at the physical benefits that God has given us, but also the spiritual benefits. We should see these blessings and then admit we see them, and therefore, that will govern how we give, the intent, the motive behind it, because we’re just thankful to God.

So having physical life in itself. It’s interesting because I’ve often thought about that I may have never existed, therefore, could never enter Elohim (because I never existed). Because it’s only through humans, through existence, that God is going to have a family. So if I never existed, never had consciousness, was never Wayne Matthews, I would never, ever have the potential to enter Elohim. Staggering. That in itself is an incredible thing.

If you reflect on God’s plan, which we’re going to do quickly, God is eternal, has eternal life, existed forever, and He has decided to create a spirit family through something that He creates that are hostile to Him (I’m going to make it simple), this hostility that they’re created in. The only thing that these people have to do, these humans that God is going to make, that He’s going to give them life everlasting from a certain point, forever, never to sin ever again, the only thing they have to do is choose to obey God with the right spirit once they’re called.

That sounds really simple. But that is it. But if we never existed, well, never have that potential to live forever. But that’s our potential, to have life, and we’ve chosen it. By being here today we’re demonstrating to God that’s what we want. We don’t want this selfishness. We don’t want this, we want something else. All we have to do every day is fight against our selfishness. That’s what God created. Look at all the things He’s done to help us to enter Elohim. He’s done everything with the desire that we can’t understand, the desire to give this nothing something. Because we’re nothing. We come from nothing. He created matter. We’re made of matter. He wants to give that something that He has and has always had. It’s an incredible thing. We’re not worthy of any of that. We’re not worthy of a calling, not worthy of an awakening. What a blessing. Well, that in itself should motivate us to express our appreciation and thankfulness to God.

Being called is a great blessing. Being awakened is a great blessing. Church government is a blessing. Now, there may be some in the Body that think Church government is not a blessing, but it is because it has God’s holy spirit and decisions are made based on God’s holy spirit to the benefit of all. But one person or two people may think it’s not. Well, that’s a battle for them. But Church government is an enormous, enormous blessing because God is working through a church structure. It’s God’s thinking coming through an apostle. What an incredible blessing! What an incredible blessing!

I do believe that those that have come through the Apostasy probably see the blessing of Church government – should – probably more than those that have been called since 2008, 2006, that period, because unfortunately, or fortunately, I don’t know which word to use there, I’ve experienced both. I’ve experienced a period of time where there was Church government. There was a fair bit of physical focus. But then there was a government of man, which was scattered Church governments, which is the government of man. And in hindsight you see all of the political aspect and all the motivation behind it all was only carnal, because that’s all it can be. It can only be selfish because that’s all it can be.

Then to be awakened out of that and being given opportunity to be part of God’s government on this earth or to be under God’s government on this earth, what an incredible blessing. Church government is an incredible blessing if we see it for what it is. One of the incredible things that we have that others don’t have is direct access to God the Father. We have direct access at any time we choose to God the Father through Joshua the Christ. Others don’t.

We were at the airport coming from Auckland airport walking to the domestic terminal, international, walking along, and there was a lady there. She was a bit, maybe partly blind, a bit older. Anyway, my wife was helping her and she’s asked and said, “Can you go to the domestic terminal?” “Follow us.” We’ll take her there. I walk reasonably quickly. Anyway, she’s walking along, we get there eventually and sitting at the stool and she said, “Oh, I really appreciate the help. I’ll pray for you.” I said, “I don’t know whether that’s going to help,” because I realized she couldn’t understand. She said, “No, no, I’ll pray for you.” I’m like, “It’s not going to help, but alright, if that’s what you want to do.” But you realize that she doesn’t have access to God as we do and that God is eager to hear from us. No matter what it is eager to hear because we are sons and daughters of God. We’re begotten sons. That lady wasn’t. Her time will come, God willing, at some point in time. We are begotten sons.

So a father loves a son and a daughter and they will give up everything for them. You know, they sacrifice, parents; even though it’s selfish will sacrifice for their children. Now, they’ll go without. Well, God the Father loves us so much that He was willing to give His only begotten Son for us.

So these are things that we should count.

We have access to God. Nobody else does. Only those that have God’s holy spirit have access to God the Father directly. What an incredible blessing. Now, how could you weigh that up? Like, how could you weigh that? How do you measure that? Well, when we think about it you can’t. We’re not worthy. You can’t measure it. It’s just not possible to measure it, to say we have it. Not that we’d tell other people we have access to God and they don’t, having spiritual knowledge and understanding, truth, which is a gift of God, having the understanding of Christ’s sacrifice for us. We understand why Passover. We understand the gift of repentance. People don’t. So all of these things are things that we should count before we give any offering, whether it’s a freewill offering or whether it’s the commanded offerings.

So, the purpose of this sermon is to look at what it really means to have ongoing repentance, which is the title. What does it really mean to have ongoing repentance?

Now, the days of Unleavened Bread really are about repentance, about thinking differently, and God has provided these physical things to point to something spiritual which we only can see. We’re the only ones that can see it, really see it. The physical world, the scattered Churches, some of the scattered Churches will keep Passover and Unleavened Bread, but it’s meaningless because they don’t have God’s holy spirit. They’re doing it through a knowledge that they have. They don’t have the understanding, they have a knowledge, and they do it out of habit. It’s commanded. They’ve worked out all the dates and that’s what they do.

Well, Catholics do the same. Once you look at it, Catholics do exactly the same. They follow certain things. They do, what, Easter and Christmas, and we’re talking about stations of the cross. They all do it. It’s a habit. It’s tradition and that’s what they do. Well, the scattered Church is in exactly the same environment. They did have God’s holy spirit – don’t have it anymore, therefore, they can’t keep the spirit of the law. It’s not possible because it’s only by God’s spirit that you can do it.

Leaving Egypt was symbolic of leaving sin, for us. Physical Israel leaves; they’re called out. Well, we’ve been called out. If you look at the night to be much observed, what is it really all about? It’s about us rejoicing about our calling! Because we’ve been called out of Egypt; we’ve been called out of sin. Now, this calling out is an ongoing process. It’s not just leaving once and saying it’s all over. No, this battle is going to go on and on and on.

Becoming unleavened is about repentance, this ongoing repentance. Now we consider the Days of Unleavened Bread and what they point to. Leaving sin is a spiritual matter. Because if you turn around to somebody in the world and talk about sin, they’d say, “What is sin?” We’d say, “Well, sin is the transgression of God’s law.” But that’s done away, and therefore, they can’t sin, technically. If you look at it, if the law is done away there is no sin because there is no law. God says clearly, well, sin is the transgression, the breaking of the law of intent. Not just a physical thing, the intent behind it.

Now, we only can leave sin if we’ve been called to leave sin and we are being led by God’s holy spirit. It’s the only way to come out of Egypt, spiritual Egypt. God’s holy spirit gives us the power to leave sin. The world can’t leave sin because they don’t have God’s holy spirit. It is only by God’s power that we see anything spiritual.

Once we see ourselves, what we really are, what we’re made of, and we see God’s plan, we now can have the right intent behind everything that we now do. And being more carnal than having God’s spirit there is many a time where we sin. I know I do – say things that are wrong, do things that are wrong, respond the wrong way, have the wrong attitude, have the wrong motive. That’s normal. And in times past I’d look at things and think how that it’s, you know, like you get depressed about it, “Oh, I’ve done it all again.” Well, no, I realize that it’s about repentance, that you can do these things and think, “Argh!” and your desire is not to be like that (but we’re going to be because we’re physical), and then to make sure that we do repent of it, that we do change. It’s a choice.

That’s what’s God’s looking for, the choice. We’re going to stumble and fall all the time. The choice is will we get up? Will we say, “Ah, I didn’t want to do that, God. I did it because of who I am but I’m going to strive next time to do better than what I did that time.” The reason we are called is for the purpose of ongoing transforming our thinking by repentance of what we are by nature. Because this is the way we are.

Now, let’s consider God’s plan for mankind. We see our selfishness. That’s a great blessing we see that. We know that we have to strive to the end. So it doesn’t matter how long a person’s been in the Church, it’s this knowing of who we are and that we have to keep fighting to no matter what age it is. You’ve just got to keep going no matter what. We now see that we are not to fulfill these desires that are in our flesh, we repent of wrong attitudes, and we choose self control. Now, we will fail often. We need now to sacrifice our self, which is what this is really all about, this ongoing repentance.

We’ve been called to leave spiritual Egypt so we can learn to repent of sin that is active in our thinking. Now those words, “active in our thinking,” some of the things in my childhood and growing up through my teenage life I realize there are certain words, certain pictures, certain music that automatically trigger a thought process in my mind that are sin and it can pop up anywhere out of the blue. It can be music on the radio and that music takes me in my mind to a location that is wrong. I know I have to fight it because of my past and things that I did. I remember it clearly and I’ve got to fight it and fight against it. Well, there are lots of things like that in life.

If you look at the future, the Millennium, and things like that, it’s going to be so much easier. We were talking, walking along, when you take away Satan and the demons and you take away the pornography that’s on the internet and the billboards, and you just take away all the things that are in this world, how much easier it is going to be for the generations that live into the Millennium but then onwards when they grow up where none of that is around. So they won’t have the problem I have as when I see a particular thing a thought comes into my mind that’s evil, that I have got to fight. They won’t have that problem because the evil was never experienced (if you understand what I mean), was never experienced. The pornography is gone from the internet. The billboards have gone. There’s certain dress standards that are gone. There are certain things that they will never, ever, ever have to battle that we have.

Now, in saying that there is great blessings in having to experience it, because God knows what He’s doing and He’s allowed us to experience Satan’s system of government, man’s system. Where when you look for the next 1,100 years, they’re not going to experience it. So we could say it’s a big disadvantage.

But God knows that there’s a big advantage for this end-time era of who we are, this end-time period that we’re in, of the people that He has awakened and the people that He has called to experience for a period of time, very short period of time, Satan and Satan’s system. There are enormous spiritual benefits because the potential for us to grow in this period is just incredible because we have to fight so much more on a daily basis, whereas the future world after a period of time will not have to fight it. A child born in the Millennium or in the end of the period of the Millennium and goes into the hundred years does not have to fight any of Satan’s system. We do. Well, our repentance is going to be different than theirs. Ours is going to be more rapid, more ongoing because we know who we are. They’ll know who they are but it’s going to be a bit more difficult to see the evil. Because we see it—it’s everywhere—because of God’s gift.

For them it’s probably going to be a little bit more difficult because it’s not around them. They grow up in a family that kept the Sabbath and the holy days, have tithed and given offerings. That’s the norm for the person. There is no internet with all the garbage. Different world, different environment.

We understand that leaven is symbolic of sin. So symbolically we are leavened, we have sin by design. So we have it; it exists. There is no use denying it, we all sin every day, and if we didn’t think we sinned today or we won’t sin today we’re just spiritually deluded, really. Spiritually deluded. Because we will. We’ll do something that’s selfish because that’s the way we are. We’ll fight against it.

We understand that Christ lived a life of being unleavened which means he was without sin because he had a different mind, a different way of thinking. The way we think is selfish. He didn’t think that way, he just thought differently all the time.

Now, there is a statement about leaven. I want to look at that because it carries on in our life, this leaven, and all being well, with time we’re going to get to two aspects of leaven. One is leaven is sin, but there is also the leaven of the Pharisees, the Scribes and Pharisees, which Christ talks about. We’re going to look at that because it’s really interesting. We may think about getting rid of sin and what leaven is, but there is a leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees that Christ told his disciples beware of that. Now, are we aware of what the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees is and are we being, you know, on guard about that leaven?

I’ll read this statement, which is from a dictionary if I remember rightly. “Leaven: a substance as yeast or baking powder that causes fermentation or expansion of dough or batter.” So it’s about this expanding. “An element that produces an altering, transforming influence.” Now, we understand that leaven as sin, it does the same thing. It is an element. Sin is an element in our life that produces an altering or transforming influence in our thinking. Now, we all have leaven. Everybody’s got some sin. We may not be aware of it. Sin alters or transforms the way we think because we’re selfish by nature. So it transforms. Because we’re inward, we draw things in to please self, satisfy self. Whereas if we are unleavened we look outwardly. God’s unleavened. He looks outwardly, alright, to the benefit of others. Well, we don’t. We look to the benefit of self first and then we might think of others as long as it pleases us first.

As leaven alters and transforms dough (which we are aware of), sin alters and transforms a person’s thinking in a negative way. So it’s not the way God sees it, it’s the way we see it. So sin alters and transforms. Both pride and false doctrine (which is the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees was false doctrine), alter and transform a person’s thinking in a negative way.

By the power of God’s holy spirit we now can choose to become unleavened. We remove physical leaven from our homes before the start of the seven days of Unleavened Bread. We search it out. We look for it, and often there is hidden leaven that we may not see. An example was we felt we had deleavened the house and I remember for some particular reason I went to a container and moved the container to get something out, and behind it were leavened cones. But if I hadn’t moved that I wouldn’t have seen it. Well, that’s what sin is like. Other people can see it but we may not see it ourselves. It belongs to us. It’s our sin or the sins that we’re aware of that others may not see but we know we’re fighting them in the mind and they, other people, just have no idea that that’s what’s going on; there’s a battle going on within our mind.

So this physical removal points to a desire to remove sin, something spiritual, from our thinking.

If you turn to 1 Corinthians 5:6. 1 Corinthians 5 we understand is covering the Corinthian Church where certain things were going on between a man and his mother-in-law, and the Church, then the Corinthians, were tolerating that sin. What we want to look at here is about tolerating sin. Now, when we don’t tolerate sin we repent. It’s this ongoing repentance. So we’re willing to do something about the sin, which is this ongoing repentance.

Well, here Paul is addressing the Corinthians: Your glorying... Boasting with rejoicing is really what it’s about. They’re boasting with rejoicing; they’re very happy about this. Their tolerance for this person and the environment that he’s created by his sin, is not good. This tolerance of sin is not good. So we’d look at this now personally. The tolerance of sin within our lives individually is not good. Because what does sin do? It alters the way we think. So we’re thinking wrongly. The more we tolerate a sin or allow a sin that we’re not trying to get rid of, it’s altering our thinking. And in the end, if it’s unrepented once we’re aware of it, if we do not repent of it, it will take us out of the Church. Because we’re not fighting it. We’re not doing anything about it. We’re tolerating it.

They were making themselves, by this decision of tolerating this sin, they were making themselves “more merciful than God” because they thought, “Well, we’re allowing this but God wouldn’t. We’re obviously more merciful than God because we’re allowing it but God wouldn’t allow sin; He doesn’t tolerate sin. But we do. We tolerate this man and his behaviors so we’re more merciful than even God.”

The fact is they were tolerating sin in the Church, within the Body. Now, remember what leaven does. It infects a body and it just doesn’t this little bit, it spreads out. Well, this is exactly what was happening to the Corinthians.

The same issue happens to us in our lives if we tolerate it individually. It will infect us and eventually it will be exposed and it could affect others by words or actions. Do you not know that a little leaven, which is tolerating any sin in the Church or within ourselves, leavens the whole lump? It’s going to infect. It’s going to expand elsewhere. It is altering or has a transforming negative influence on everyone in the Body and individually. So that’s what it’s doing. It’s altering thinking.

Therefore, purge out the old leaven... Now, we know this is physical. This is actually spiritual. Purge it out. It says a sin that we’re aware of, that we’ve been battling, maybe we need to cry out more to God about it saying, “I’m fully aware of this sin that I have and I do it all the time. Help me to get rid of this. Help me to purge it out.” Now, when you look at what purging is, like it’s ripping it out. You’ve got to get it out, not just tolerate it and say, “Oh, yeah, I’ve done it again. I’ve done it again.” It’s really working hard, being really upset about it and working hard at overcoming it.

Get rid of the sin that grows because of pride, because all sin is connected to pride. Anything that we put, any leaven, any sin that we allow, it’s an idol; it’s something we’re putting up before God. We’re just allowing that sin to continue. Same one, been around thirty years, same sin. No growth; tolerating it. No, purge it out. Now clean from sin by repentance. That’s where we have to get to, this point of stage where we’re cleansed because of repentance. God forgives and moves on. Often we don’t.

...since truly you are unleavened. They’re talking about physically. They’d taken out the physical leaven out of their homes but now they needed to take out the spiritual leaven, sin out of their thinking. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was killed (sacrificed) for us. Christ’s death, God’s sacrifice for us, was for the purpose of covering sin. That’s what it’s really all about. It’s about sin.

Now, we talked about God’s plan and if you look at God’s plan, how incredible! You have an eternal spirit being that decides to have a family, and to create a family through these physical beings that have sin from birth, basically, from the mind of sin, selfishness from birth, and then to give them the opportunity to fight against themselves so that one day God can say, “Now, I know you. I know you’ve set your mind that you don’t want to be like this. Now I know you, that no matter what environment I put you in you will always choose Me. You will always choose My way. Now I know you,” and therefore, give them life at some point in time. Isn’t that incredible, to live forever? What an incredible God that would do that.

Now, we would not do that because we’re selfish. We’d say, “Now, hang on a minute, I’m not going to give you something unless you give me something else back. Because I’m doing something for you, but of course, you’re going to pay me back, aren’t you?” That’s not how God is. God is doing something we don’t deserve, but He’s doing it and He’ll give it to us. All we have to do is choose, make a choice.

God’s holy spirit in our thinking can be given to us now because of a sacrifice, which we have been through, the sacrifice of our Passover. Verse 8—Therefore, let us keep the Feast, which is the seven days of Unleavened Bread, not with old leaven, not with sin of pride and selfishness, nor with the leaven of malice, which is ill will. So we’ve got to examine our thinking in this matter. ...and wickedness, which is rebellion against God’s thinking, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. So we have to be genuine. We have to be sincere about this fight.

We know the fight. It’s been explained to us. We’ve been in the Church for a period of time now. Some have been in for a long period of time. We know exactly what this is talking about. Sincere; we have to be really, genuinely sincere about overcoming sin. “That’s what I really want. That’s what I want.” “...and truth.” Well, we’ve been given the truth so we follow the truth, we obey the truth.

We now have the power to walk in the truth, to live a different way of life. We now can live a life by rejecting sin and we do that by ongoing repentance, admitting to God that we do the things we do.

Now, the first time God provided physical examples were for the children of Israel, which covers the Feast of Unleavened Bread. That’s the first time it’s introduced where it’s obvious for this nation of Israel this is what you’re to do. Now, did they understand what it was about? No, it was all physical to them. It was all unleavened bread. They knew what that was, but they didn’t understand it was about a future Church that would have God’s holy spirit that have the power to overcome the sin, which was all symbolic to them. So to them it’s just leaven; it’s all physical. It’s a physical event for a spiritual purpose.

We’re going to look at Exodus 12:12. Now, there are some interesting things here during this particular season which is about repentance. Here we really see God working with a nation of Israel and everything is physical for them, but it’s spiritual in another way for people like Moses that could see, certain things. He wouldn’t have known a lot of things but he knows God, he’s had communication with God. He knows why he is in Israel, where they’re in captivity, and they’re to come out of Egypt. Would he have known this was all going to be pointing to a group that exists in 2019? He wouldn’t have known any of that. But we have this example.

So all of these people went through all of this, and the suffering they went through, and Egypt and all the firstborn died, all for? Us. As a spiritual example, coming out or being awakened out of a darkness, out of Egypt.

Verse 12—For I (God) will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, now we’re talking about the fourteenth, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt... Now, we often don’t dwell on that one. We look at the firstborn. But it says “against all the gods of Egypt.” Well, what was God going to do to the gods of Egypt? Well, a lot of this, it says, I will execute judgment (death): I am the Eternal. Well, a lot of this is about the Egyptians had their gods. Now, do you think that after a certain number of plagues that they were going to their gods going, “You know, you’d best intervene here.” So God is all powerful. God’s going to prove that their gods were useless, worthless, just manmade concepts.

So to the Egyptians they’d be out there crying and doing all the things they do because they were going to prove that their god was stronger than the Israelite God, and therefore, God says, “No, I’m going to execute judgment against all of the gods of Egypt, all of them.” You know, the cats, the dogs, and all the other things that they had. Well, their gods were going to be proven to be worthless, you know, useless, hopeless, couldn’t do anything. The death of the firstborn proved it. That was the execution of the judgment that their gods could not control life and death but the Eternal God could, Yahweh Elohim. He could choose the firstborn from a whole nation of Egypt, the firstborn. Well, we wouldn’t even know where to start. How do you choose the firstborn of the tribe of Israel? It’d be a nightmare trying to work it all out. Well, God has the power; He knows all things whereas their gods, well, they’re just concepts.

Verse 13—Now the blood shall be a sign for you... Now, we understand that is pointing to Joshua the Messiah (the blood), on the houses (the dwelling places) where you are. So it points to Christ. They wouldn’t have known that. They would have had to have gone out, get the blood, and put it on the lintel of the door. Now, what was going on in their thinking? Physical things. It wasn’t saying, “Oh, this is Christ, the blood of Christ, Passover.” No, this is a physical event to them. They knew they had to do it because they’d been told to, otherwise death would come to them.

And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, which is where the word comes from, “I will pass over you,” and the plague, which is death, shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Now, the same thing – they did all that physically – now for us it’s the same thing. “The wages of sin,” which we have, “is death. “ It’s exactly the same. We have to have the blood of Christ so that our sin can be passed over, it can be forgiven. It’s passed over. The getting rid of sin, which is why we have ongoing repentance for the rest of our life, so this passing over of sin, this covering of sin can take place.

Verse 14—So on this day, which is the fourteenth, Passover, shall be to you a memorial, which we’ve done; and, now it moves on to the next day, the fifteenth, and you shall keep a feast to the Eternal throughout your generations. You shall keep a feast by an everlasting ordinance. Now, we know what a Feast is. It’s a time of rejoicing before God. So we can rejoice during the seven days of Unleavened Bread because it’s about repentance which leads to salvation. We know about salvation. The world has no idea.

Verse 15—Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On/by/before the first day you shall have removed leaven from your homes, which we have done. In times past, in hindsight, I look at it, I think I spent more time worrying about the leaven – shaking the toaster and all the other things, you know. People washed it and all sorts of things, threw it out and bought a new one, spent more time on that physical act of deleavening than what it really is talking about. God looks at the heart. We deleaven for the purpose of a physical thing that’s demonstrating something we’re doing in the mind, something spiritual.

So Unleavened Bread is all, really, about a spiritual attitude, whether or not we want to work at getting rid of sin out of our life, and to focus on it during seven days. But after that it doesn’t stop. Deleavening, once called, once awakened, deleavening never, ever, ever stops. The physical act stops – this period of seven days – but the spiritual deleavening continues for the rest of our life. But this is a period that God has given us to focus in on for a period of time, to really focus in on it. But then after that it’s an ongoing process that we are to be aware of, that we live in sin, we dwell in sin. That’s our life.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. We’re to remove it. So we take a piece of unleavened bread during that period as a physical demonstration of something spiritual. So it’s no use eating unleavened bread, a piece, for seven days if we’re not working actively on getting rid of sin out of our life, because God’s looking at the heart. The physical act is a physical act of obedience, but if we’re not working in the mind going, “I’m going to really work on number 1 or number 2.” “During this seven days I’m going to really, really work on this, you know, big time,” and then continue from that point onwards. That’s what these days are about.

It goes on in verse 15—For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. Physical – spiritual. If we are not willing to fight sin through repentance we will get cut off from God. It’s the same thing. God’s spirit, we’re going to get cut off, because we’re not willing to fight, we’re not willing to fight against the sin that’s in our life.

Verse 16—On the first day shall be a holy convocation, and the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation (gathering) for you. No manner of work shall be done on them, on those two high days, but that which everyone must eat, in other words, you’ll be able to organize meals, etcetera. That only may be prepared by you. So you shall observe (keep) the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and on this same day I will have brought your armies out of Egypt. So this was about, on the fifteenth, when they were brought out. Well, we had the night to be remembered. We managed to get together. Well, this is the night where we reflected on a calling.

I remember talking about callings, and “How were you called? How was I called?” Everyone is different and we have a mixture. We’re blessed to have a mixture here of people that are awakened and that people have grown up in the Church, others have been called to repentance. It’s a wonderful blessing to be able to sit down with people and realize what God did with them. God has done incredible things with all of us, incredible things when you look at our background and all the different things that we have come out of. Well, God decided, “I want to call this person and I’m going to place them in the Body of Christ,” and they’re in the Body of Christ for a reason – ongoing repentance. It’s called growth. They have to grow.

If we don’t grow and if we’re not willing to repent God will work with us and reveal sin to us in ways that we would never expect. Because God loves us, He wants to help us, He wants to give us life, and if we’re struggling a bit, well, God will reveal sin and go, “Oh.” I know that after years of things I’ll all of a sudden go, “Oh, I didn’t realize that.”

I will tell you this story. I shouldn’t get stuck in my stories but when we were being awakened and we hadn’t come out completely my disposition is one of self-righteousness. I’m right, opinionated, self-righteous. So it was obvious to even the people that were asleep. They obviously saw this trait. The more that we were being awakened and we were saying things that were the truth that we were learning through sermons and different things that Ron was giving back in 2005, we were seen as more (I was in particular), more self-righteous because I’m telling you the truth and calling you Laodicean, “Well, you’re just being self-righteous.” Because I’m speaking the truth, so obviously I’m more self-righteous. Well, it’s a natural thing for me anyway, being opinionated and all that. I realize that’s one of the things I’ve got to overcome.

Well, in the hindsight of the wisdom of the organization they decided that a minister would give a sermon directed at me, basically, about self-righteousness. So that particular Sabbath Chris and myself decided to go to another church group around that was farther away. It was a long way. So we drove off, went there, and the minister turns up at the different location and had to give his sermon, of course, and I’m not there. So we come back and met some friends after services and one said, “Where were you today?” I said, “Oh, we went off to the other area, the other Church area.” “There was a minister had a sermon for you today and you weren’t there.” And he said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Well, what was it about?” And he said, “Self-righteousness.”

At the time I thought, “Ah.” At that time I hadn’t really thought that way. But ever since then, because that happened and that’s what some else said, “It was directed for you,” it’s made me stop and think. I still haven’t overcome it but it made me realize, it’s made me stop and think. You know sometimes you get things, “Oh, hang on a minute. I never, ever, ever really saw myself or thought myself that way.” And therefore, it’s a big thing to overcome, if that’s what you’ve been for all these years, and then to overcome it. It takes a lot of work and it’s took just a lot of work. It’ll never stop. I understand that. Therefore, it’s an ongoing repentance for me, ongoing repentance; that I know this is probably never going to stop because of my pride and who I think and my opinions. It’s just it’s hard work and I don’t always win. Well, don’t always – rarely do I win. I just got to keep going.

I admit it. I know it, which is the biggest thing. I know my wife has often said the most important thing in a calling, really, is being aware of a sin. Because you can live your whole life not being aware of a particular sin. Everyone else sees it, but you don’t. It’s an incredible thing! You don’t see it and you go on. You know, someone says, “Ah, I’ve realized this.” That’s one of the most important things. God has revealed to you this sin. That’s an incredible thing that you can see a sin within yourself.

Because we just assume, we just assume that people are like us, that they’re conscious of themselves. Well, I know that to the age of thirty odd there was no consciousness of myself in any shape or form until I was called. Then I began to see myself. Then being awakened, the blessing of seeing more of myself, as ugly as seeing self is, but it’s an incredible blessing. I know that others cannot see themselves. All those people out there have no awareness of self. None. We do. We have an awareness of self because God has given us the gift of His spirit to see self. That’s an incredible blessing, isn’t it? Incredible blessing. Therefore, our functioning in the world should be different. We should demonstrate a different way because we’re fully aware of self.

We were going into a lift in a hotel and this gentleman came with his suitcases. There was a lady in front of us, we were there, and he could see the lift door open and he bolted for the lift. He was an older person – suitcases and all straight through, push through. You stand back and go, whoa, the arrogance of it all. Gets in, we get in, and you think, then it dawns on you, “You know what? That’s exactly me before I was called. That was me. That’s what I was like.” You know, don’t worry about anyone else. I’m going to get that lift before it goes! Whereas now you go, oh, it’s full, don’t worry about it. I’ll wait. Because you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for it. They know nothing about sacrificing self. Can’t judge them or condemn them, but one day he’ll go, “Oh, I remember the day I pushed in front of a lift, in front of those people,” when he’s aware – when God gives him the gift to be aware.

So here we see God bringing out the children of Israel on the fifteenth, beginning at the night of the fifteenth. It’s the same for us. We’ve been called out. Incredible thing, isn’t it, that we’ve been called out. No one else has. For whatever reason God decided us, it’s us. We’re never to forget our calling, never forget the awakening that we have been given.

Exodus 12:38. We’re just hitting highlights here of Unleavened Bread. We know what Unleavened Bread is about. We’ve lived in the Church long enough to know the purpose of Unleavened Bread.

Exodus 12:38—A mixed multitude, so it included some gentiles, which were obviously coming from Egypt, they were Egyptians coming. A mixed multitude went up with them also, flocks and herds—and a great deal of livestock. It was by night.

A mixed multitude. Well, that’s what we are. We’re a mixed multitude. Not everybody is an Israelite as far as the physical component. We’re all spiritual Israel because now it’s spiritual, it’s not physical. But we are a mixed multitude from a physical group, but we’re not a mixed multitude from a spiritual group because we believe in one God, one Church, one Body, one truth. We’re at one. We are at one.

Now, we know from the world’s churches they are not at one. If you go to different church groups, if you go, for example, I know a little bit about the Catholic religion. There are divisions within the Catholic Church. There are different levels of monks and there’s different levels of cardinals and it’s divided. Not everyone believes the same thing at all. They follow similar to the same ritual, but they’re not at one. They all have their own opinions. As the world goes farther along people are becoming more divided. It’s not getting better, because man can’t govern himself. It’s getting worse. Religion is getting worse. There’s division between religion.

There’s division between politics, and people now take a stance one against the other because that’s that group, and even if they’re right they’re wrong, if you understand what I mean. “Because we have to be against them!” This is political, “We have to be against them.”

Religion is the same. Even though the people are doing that right, that doesn’t matter, they’re still wrong because they’re that group. Tribe against tribe, literally.

Well, we’re not. We’re at one. We’re to be one. We were called out as a mixed multitude to be at one as spiritual Israel – one Church, one faith. We have one faith. We believe the same thing. We believe God.

Verse 39—And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt; for it was not leavened because they were driven (thrust) out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves. So this is like a person that can’t prepare for a calling. Really, when you look at it, who here prepared for a calling? None of us. Who prepared for an awakening? There’s no preparation. It happens and you go, “Oh, I see.” And generally we try to help others see. But we go, “Ah, this is what it is,” and we leave, we leave then. What happens when you leave? Well, people look at you and they think you’re going a bit strange and you’re joining this and you’re giving money to this. They look at us as weird and different. That’s fine. That’s natural for them to think that. If they didn’t, well, there is something probably wrong with us because our life should be demonstrating the thing that, no, we’re different. They know we’re different and no one wants to talk about it. That’s fine. Their day will come when they’ll understand.

Verse 41, we’ll drop down to: And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on the very same day (which is the fifteenth day of the first month in God’s calendar)—it came to pass that the armies of the Eternal went out from the land of Egypt. Now, this is like our calling. We have been called to come out and to think differently.

We’re going to just drop down to different leaven, because I’ve got too many notes as normal. Let’s look at Matthew 16:5. This is covering the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees. We know what leaven is. Leaven is what puffs up and alters thinking because it’s to do with sin. Now, this is the leaven of the Scribes and Pharisees: Matthew 16:5—Now when his (Christ’s) disciples had come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread. So remembering they’re all talking physical things.

Verse 6—Then Joshua said to them, Take heed (perceive) and beware of the leaven... Now, we know what leaven is. Leaven is something that alters or transforms the thinking in a negative way. ...of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Now, this is really talking about doctrine. Here leaven points to false teaching.

Now, when we look at what they taught, which we’re going to look at some of the things, they were teaching a way that had nothing to do with God’s way. They were making up rules and regulations which was leaven. It made them more self-righteous because they were right and you were wrong. They were right, everyone else is wrong. So they’re becoming more puffed up in their thinking because they’re right, they’re self-righteous—not the righteousness of God—self-righteousness, “I’m right, you’re wrong, obviously.” Well, this is where they talked to Christ in this attitude, which is they’re right. Christ is obviously wrong, and they’re going to accuse him of things.

Here leaven points to false teachings that will infect a person’s mind and thinking. We have to be aware and beware of false doctrine. Now, you think, well, why are we worried about false doctrine? Well, false doctrine can actually develop in a person’s thinking within the Church of God, within the Body. It’s where it can come because people think they read something and go, “Ah, I see this and I know this, and of course Ron is wrong.” God’s apostle is wrong, “Because I see this. He doesn’t, but I see it.” Well, that’s a false doctrine. Got to be careful not to raise up or puff one’s self up thinking we are better – self-righteous.

This leaven is something that alters or transforms the thinking in a negative way. So this is what can take place. God uses leaven because it points to something. Leaven tends to infect or alter a person’s thinking. It influences thoroughly or pervades a thing, because it’s leaven, the leaven of the Pharisees.

Now, we understand a little leaven leavens the whole lump. Well, it’s the same in the Body. A little false doctrine can leaven the whole body if we’re not careful, because we’re willing to listen to a false doctrine. Now, you say, well, false doctrine doesn’t exist in the Body. I can assure you false doctrine can exist in the body, in people’s minds. Words may not have been spoken yet. Words may not have been spoken yet but a false belief can exist in people’s minds, and eventually if they hold on to that false belief and don’t fight against it, it will take them out of the Body because a little leaven leavens the thinking. It’s the doctrine, the false doctrines of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

So it’s just not a person in a Church. If we’re not careful it can pervade in thinking because they’ll spread that leaven to somebody else, and if we’re not on guard and cut the leaven off and say, “No, that’s not right,” well, we can have false doctrine without even realizing it, if we’re not careful.

Many will have seen that leaven or false doctrine affects the Body when they experienced it in the Apostasy. When you look at false doctrine, what happened? So false doctrine, the leaven entered people’s thinking. Everyone went to sleep. Well, there was one group that believed the false doctrine. The Sabbath was done away and other things, tithing had stopped, etcetera. Well, that’s a leaven. It’s a false doctrine. It leavens and it influenced a third of the Church. Another third gave up altogether. Another third say, “This is not right!” and were scattered abroad. But it’s the same thing, it’s false doctrine. Well, we have to be very careful of the leaven that exists; not just own personal leaven but leaven of the false doctrines that can exist.

Now, there are people that can get carried away with physical things within the Body. We can be worried about physical things that are more important in our own thinking, that we think that are more important than the spiritual component of it. I’ll mention one just from a point of view. There can be debate and has been debate about where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. Some say “it’s here,” others will say “up here.” To me it’s been made very clear by God’s apostle where they crossed, but people have got their own views and opinions, which is very, very dangerous, and say, “Well, it’s up here because the ground, there’s like a natural bridge under the water and that’s where they crossed.”

Well, what does that really say? What they’re really saying, a person is really saying is God is weak. God needs a natural bridge so the children of Israel could cross. Because, you see, if it’s deeper than 15m, obviously... Talk about limiting God without knowing it. People don’t realize it. Without knowing it we’re limiting God by thinking something different than what the Church taught. It’s a doctrine. It’s something false and we have to be very careful. Because if we think that God’s apostle is wrong on this, once you start with one thing that’s wrong it leads to another because what does leaven do? It puffs up, it swells, and we become like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, self-righteous. In other words, “I know. Poor you, you don’t.” That’s what they did, they lifted themselves up. Well, they did it all with physical things.

Matthew 16:7—And they reasoned among themselves, this is the disciples, saying, It is because we have not taken bread. So they’re going back to physical. “Oh no, we haven’t brought bread and he’s saying these things, ‘Where is the bread?’” But Joshua, being aware of it, said to them, O you of little faith, why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread? So they’re looking physical and Christ was actually talking about something spiritual. We want to be very, very careful about leaven. It’s just not leaven of sin, it’s the leaven of false doctrine that you’ve got to be careful of, which is a sin. False doctrine is sin. But be careful because it can affect you. Sin can affect you but false doctrine can affect you. It can raise up in your mind and take you out of the Body of Christ. That’s how dangerous it is.

I’ve often asked in other sermons this question, but it still exists today, “Why? Why would anybody that has been called or awakened read an article or a paper or anything that has not been written and approved by God’s true Church?” Why? Why? God’s spirit was not involved in the writing of it. Why would a person bother? Because it’s the leaven of the Pharisees. It’s the leaven. It’s a false doctrine.

Anything written that is written about God’s way of life outside of the true Church of God, why would a person touch it? I know from experience it’s taken people out of God’s Church, reading this garbage, reading this filth, putting a little bit of doubt. We should know. We’ve been around long enough to know that that’s how Satan works – just a little bit, a little bit of leaven, little bit of false doctrine enters the mind and start asking questions, leavens the whole Body, and all of a sudden one little thing can grow and grow and grow. Because it needs to be cut off and repented of – ongoing repentance.

Now, do you think that we’re not open to false doctrine? Really? Well, we need to be very careful because there’s a lot of false things out there. This whole system, the world’s system, is false. It’s built on Satan’s system, not God’s. God’s system is in God’s Church. The truth is in the Church. True doctrine is in the Church. It’s called the truth. Outside of that why would anyone want to read anything?

I’ll ask that question because I can’t understand why you’d want to subject yourself to the garbage? Why would you want to pour manure on your head, really? Why would you want to do it? But people do and it’s taken them out of the Church.

Verse 9—Do you not yet understand, or remember the five loaves and the five thousand and how many baskets you took up? He’s reminding them, “Don’t you remember the miracle, what actually happened?” From five loaves, fed five thousand? Don’t you remember that?” Physical bread is not the issue. “If I desired...” If Christ desired physical bread, he’s saying, “I’ll just go there it is. I don’t need you to bring it.” Nor the seven loaves and the four thousand and how many large baskets you took up? So it’s not about anything physical. This is something spiritual.

How is it that you do not understand...? Well, we understand they were physical, they didn’t have God’s spirit, and they just didn’t understand. That’s why he said, “Oh you of little faith.” “Why are you doubting that Joshua the Messiah couldn’t produce something physical just easily. God’s will be done. Just easy. So why are you thinking it’s physical?” How is it that you do not understand that I do not speak to you concerning bread (physical bread)?—but beware of the leaven, which is the teachings and instructions of the Pharisees and Sadducees. So it’s the Pharisees and the Sadducees that are teaching certain things and it’s based on false doctrine because of self-righteousness.

Now, we’ve had sermons about the righteousness of God. Well, when you look at it there’s only two things. There’s the righteousness of God or this self-righteousness. There is no in between. It’s either coming from self (carnal, selfish), or the righteousness of God, the mind of God. There’s only two. We’re either righteous because God dwells in us, that makes us righteous, or we’re self-righteous. It’s just different degrees of self-righteousness.

Well, here this religious group of Pharisees and Sadducees were really full on. They were totally self-righteous because they were right, because if they were wrong they would have changed and be right, if you know what I mean.

Verse 12—Then they understood that he (Joshua) did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Beware of false teachings. Beware of instructions from false teachers.

Matthew 5:20—For I say to you, that unless your righteousness... Now, we know there’s only two. It’s God in us or not. There’s only two – self-righteous or righteous. So it says, Unless your righteousness, which is God’s, exceeds the righteousness, which is the self-righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God. We must have God’s righteousness in us to enter the Kingdom of God. That’s really what’s being said. If we hold on to our self-righteousness we cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That’s the beauty of ongoing repentance. It’s a beautiful thing when you think about it.

They, the Pharisees, were all self-righteous because of the physical rituals they imposed and taught to others. What were some of the doctrines of the Pharisees? Well, I’m going to give you three examples here of their self-righteousness. And of course, they were self-righteous and they accused somebody that was righteous of being self-righteous. That’s what they did because that’s what a self-righteous person does. “I’m right, you’re wrong.” It’s easy, pretty straight forward.

Examples: Now, this is in relation to Christ eating with what they considered sinners. So Christ is eating with what we would say people, just having a meal with people, family, for example. They say, “Ah, you’re not sticking to just eating with the Churchies, so to speak, brethren. You’re not doing that.” So, “When the Pharisees saw that Christ was doing this they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’” So they made a judgment against Christ, who was righteous. But they made it because they were righteous in their own thinking. They judged Christ and others because they worked out and said, “Ah, obviously, why are you eating with tax collectors,” who obviously are sinners, “and sinners?” People they had already judged and determined as sinners.

We know we’re all sinners. We are a group of sinners. Out there are sinners. We’re just another group of them in a process of ongoing repentance. So we can’t judge or condemn anybody, because if we were not called or awakened we’d be exactly like everybody else out there. Exactly! I know I’d probably be worse, much worse than a lot of people out there. So who are we to judge others? We only worry about ourselves. They decided who a sinner was based on their judgment, not on God’s word. Because God says everybody is a sinner – everybody bar one.

Another area: “But the Pharisees said,” and this is about trying to discredit who Christ was, “he (Christ) casts out demons by the ruler of demons.” Now, how much more self-righteous can you get than that? That they turn around and say, they’re using their own judgment to belittle, to pull down Christ to make themselves what? Better. Now, do you think we do that? Well, I can guarantee you that we do. We’re the same. Because when we pull anybody down in any way, shape or form, in any way, we become self-righteous. Our pride has leavened our mind and we are better. We just don’t see ourselves as we really are! We know better than anybody! And we’re all called from the world, all different environments, and no one is better than anybody else. We are all sinners to different degrees. Some have different types of sins, but we’re all sinners.

So we’ve got to be very careful that we don’t become self-righteous by pulling anybody down on anything, because the moment we do it we’re actually doing exactly what the Scribes did, and the Sadducees; the Pharisees and Sadducees did this particular one.

Point three: “Now, it happened that he (Joshua) went through the grain fields on the Sabbath, and as they went his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain and the Pharisees said to him, (to Joshua), look, why do they do what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” Now, nowhere does it say you’re not allowed to pick grain. But see here that they’re self-righteous. They don’t do it because they’ve decided that that’s not what we do. So they’re making the rules. It’s got nothing to do with God’s law, what God says. They’re becoming self-righteous. “Well, we don’t do it, and because we don’t do it, we think it’s sin. We think it’s sin, therefore, you shouldn’t do it.” Becoming the judges, being judgmental.

The real issue was that they made physical rules and regulations that have nothing to do with the spirit of the law. This is where we need to be careful because this is really about the spirit of a matter. Because often we may not do certain things but we still can sin in the mind because of the attitude here. We may not say something but in the mind we’ve already made these judgments and that which are not what God says about a matter – is what we think is right and wrong – well, we’ve become judges of God, judges of the law. We’ve become self-righteous. We think it’s right and wrong.

When you’re first called there are things that happen to you that burn in your brain. I don’t know why when first called we think you can’t do certain things. It’s just what happens. You think, “Obviously, this Church, we don’t drink alcohol. We don’t do these things.” But then you find out, well, we do drink alcohol. There are all different things that you do.

Well, on a particular one was somebody about going into a petrol station on the Sabbath. You see, you don’t buy and sell on the Sabbath. That’s what I thought. We’re driving home one day from a holy day and the deacon pulls up at a petrol station and buys petrol. Well! “That deacon is sinning so badly!” Self-righteous; making judgments.

This is what they were doing. They were making things up. “Oh, you don’t pick ears of grain on the Sabbath if you’re hungry. You’re working on the Sabbath. You’re picking grain. That’s not what you do!” Where does it say that you’re not to pick grain on the Sabbath when you’re walking through, to be hungry. Because it’s about the spirit of the matter. It’s the spirit of things.

And, like you say, if there was a fire on the Sabbath day and it was in your house, you’re not going to stand out there and “Oh, watch it burn. It’s the Sabbath.” No, you’re going to get the hose and you’re going to put it out because the spirit of the matter. You don’t want to break it, but you need to save possessions or save people’s lives. It’s the why you do what you do.

We’ll work toward a conclusion here. We have been called to become unleavened in our thinking, and this is only done by ongoing repentance. This ongoing repentance is an ongoing thing. It’s like it doesn’t just stop. This is going to keep going and going and going until the last breath, literally. Because we know we’re not worthy of anything. We’re just not worthy of anything. We’re not worthy of a calling. We’re not worthy of an awakening. We’re not worthy to be part of the Body at the moment. We’re just not, but God in His mercy has given it to us, and that’s an enormous blessing.

We understand that a little leaven can transform a person’s thinking in a negative way. It’s not the righteousness of God, it’s a negative way, and it’s only a little bit, and it can be individual and it can be from something that we hold, a pet doctrine or a pet something that is not in tune with what God has given to the Church. It’s something to be really aware of. Not just personal sin but of things that we think that we know and that we hold dear to that has been taught in the Church that it’s not that, it’s this, but we hang on to it. That’s a dangerous thing and it will take us out of the Church because a little, weenie little thing like that, one little thing can leaven the whole mind and take us out. It starts off small, but it grows if we don’t jump on top of it.

We know leaven puffs us, it transforms and it’ll make us self-righteous. We become right in our own eyes, not the righteousness of God.

We have a choice every day to repent of any wrong thinking. It’s a choice. We can hold on to our what we think is right and “I was right.” No, we can repent and move on because once we repent we move on. God doesn’t hang on to it. He wants us in His Kingdom. It’s an incredible thing, isn’t it? God really wants us in His Kingdom. We’ve just got to choose it. That’s all we have to do.

So eating unleavened bread during the seven days reminds us that we have leaven in our life, sin that dwells within us, and we have to desire to be unleavened, which is really the purpose of being called. We have to desire to be unleavened. We don’t want to be the way we are. Over time God does reveal more of the leavening in our life to us and it’s gradual. From experience to date it never, ever stops. You just see a bit more.

What I’ve learned is that things that I was aware of I see even more, the spirit of the matter. Boy, you know, I’ve got the wrong spirit behind things. I don’t run out and kill anybody and I don’t actively hate someone, but in the mind there are things where I have thought ill will towards others. That is sin. That’s the transgression of God’s law. I didn’t have to do anything physical. It’s in the mind. I desired it. “I wish someone would sort them out.” Well, that’s wrong. It’s wrong thinking. I do not wish the best for them or desire the best for them. I wish them ill will. I desire ill will to them. That is sin that needs to be repented of. Ongoing process; something to be overcome. It’s the way of thinking. Got to learn to think differently. Got to learn to think like God does. By the power of God’s holy spirit it can be done, we can think differently about matters.

So we take that little piece of unleavened bread as a demonstration that that’s what we want. We want to be sinless. We don’t want sin dwelling in our life. We want God and God’s righteousness to live in us, God’s holy spirit.

The way we remove sin from our life at any time is through repentance, going to God and admitting it, that we have leaven in our life, we have sin in our life. We must desire to get rid of sin from our life. We must be aware or beware of setting our own standards for others, being self-righteous. We must be aware of false teachings. And really when something comes up and someone says, “Here is a paper,” or “Read this article on the internet,” unless it is written by God’s true Church why would we bother? ...if it’s any religions background or connotation? Because some of those things have a little bit of truth, but a lot of error. But why would you bother? Why would you bother, really? Well, we do because we are self-righteous. To read that material, even though we may not see it, is sin. We’re going against what Christ said. Christ said, “Beware of the leaven of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.” Beware of it! Beware. It’s dangerous. But we think we’re stronger. Well, the truth is we’re not. We’re not stronger.

We have been called to live ongoing repentance.