Knowledge with Understanding

Wayne Matthews

April 22, 2022

Welcome, brethren.

In this end time God stated knowledge would be increased. If you’d like to turn to Daniel 12:4.

Daniel 12:4—But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal, which is the understanding would not be given at that time. So, the understanding wouldn’t be given. …the book, so seal up what was written, until the time of the end, which we are in. We understand that at the time of the end the understanding that was necessary would be provided by God to His Church, to His people.

Many shall run to and fro. Now, we see that today. Well, not so much because of the virus, but mankind moves around. When you look at the traffic and you look at the airports, mankind just moves everywhere. Now with the virus, of course, everything has slowed down but man is still running to and fro. We go everywhere by vehicle, or if not by airplane to different states.

…and knowledge shall increase. Now, we understand that knowledge has increased for mankind. The world’s physical knowledge has increased. The world’s libraries are full of books, education in physical matters is an employment requirement. Because when you go for a position generally what happens is they start about where you were educated and where were you educated. Because it’s all about knowledge. It’s not about the knowledge of the truth, it’s not about spiritual knowledge, but what is your knowledge, what is your knowledge in this industry? What education have you got?

There are millions of books that are full of physical knowledge, opinions or views of people. These have been developed by just their own ideas or imaginations or even some have come from experience, personal experience.

We often look at this particular scripture in Daniel and look at it on a physical level, which is “knowledge shall increase,” and we see that it’s a prophecy and that has actually taken place. But God has also given His true Church increased spiritual knowledge in this end-time with understanding, which is an important part.

We have knowledge and understanding of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the seven days of Unleavened Bread. So, we have that spiritual knowledge. Now, when you look at knowledge you can see that knowledge is knowledge, and you can read 57 Truths, you can know about the days of Unleavened Bread, which some do. In certain nations they understand that in the sense of knowing it. But to understand it requires God’s holy spirit because it’s spiritual in nature.

So, a person can understand the physical component of these things, the Sabbath, Holy Days, Days of Unleavened Bread. People can know them, but to understand them? They’ll have an understanding on a physical level, but a spiritual level they don’t have because it requires the gift of God’s holy spirit.

So, understanding, true understanding, is given by God, and we give God the credit for that.

The purpose of this sermon is to explore what the difference is between knowledge and spiritual understanding that covers the seven days of Unleavened Bread. Plus, we’ll also, if we get time, look at other truths.

The title of this sermon is Knowledge With Understanding.

Leviticus 23:4. So, we’re going to look at it in two parts. We’re going to look at the knowledge component then we’re going to look at the understanding part. But then there’s another component, which we’ll also look at, which is the most important part, actually, of all.

Leviticus 23:4—These are the appointed times of the Eternal, holy convocations. Now, our understanding is that we are to gather before God. Because a person can read that and say, “These are the appointed times, holy convocations.” Holy convocations, a lot of people would think it’s just a physical gathering. Well, that is involved, but it really is about the spirit of the matter, which is the spirit of the law, which is the spirit of the Days of Unleavened Bread.

Well, this part is about gathering before God. So, we don’t have to get into a big group. It’s great if we can have that fellowship. But if we can’t we still are to gather before God because that’s what it’s about.

…which you shall proclaim in their appointed times. Verse 5—In the fourteenth of the first month between the two evenings is the LORD’S Passover/the Eternal’s Passover. So, it’s all on the fourteenth, which has been completed by us.

And on the fifteenth day, now we’re into a separate time period, of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Eternal; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. Now, a lot of people can have that knowledge and say, “Yep, okay, it’s seven days. It’s a feast and we basically are to eat unleavened bread during that period.” Some in times past have said that’s all you would eat, just unleavened bread.

Verse 7—On the first day you shall have a holy convocation, which is time to stop, don’t work on it. You shall do no customary work on it. So, we’re not to earn a living on this particular day. We’re to stop. Because this is a time to present ourselves before God. Now, that’s physically, but it’s also in the spirit of it, which means we would stop, and we would dedicate our time to God, because He has set it aside for a reason. We understand that reason is that the Sabbath and Holy Days are set aside so that we can listen to God, so that we can learn about God’s way of life.

Verse 8—But you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Eternal for seven days. Seven means complete so this is something that is complete. The seventh day shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no occupation/customary work on it. Now, we can look at this seven-day period with understanding, which we know requires the gift of God’s holy spirit.

So, a person can have knowledge. And generally when we’re called, we’re just so excited about the knowledge, about how exciting it is to have knowledge of Sabbath or God’s true Church or whatever it may be that we’re excited about when we’re first called. This knowledge, because we see it as incredible spiritual knowledge, which some in the world actually have that knowledge, but we’re just so excited about it because we really haven’t gotten to the spiritual understanding of it yet. Because the gift of God’s holy spirit can be given to us, and we still start with this basic knowledge. We can see the truths and we can get excited about the truths, but we still don’t have that understanding that goes with it.

To spiritually understand these seven days or this seven-day period we need the gift of God’s holy spirit because it’s a spiritual matter. Now we begin to see spiritually, which is an incredible thing. To implement this knowledge with spiritual understanding is living wisdom. That is so important.

That’s what our life is really about because we can have the knowledge of the seven days of Unleavened Bread, then we gain the understanding, which we’re going to go into a little bit today. We can get the understanding which God gives us because it’s all the gift of God and we can start to understand, “Ah, that’s what the seven days of Unleavened Bread are about on a spiritual level.” Not just a physical level, a spiritual level. Then – this is the key – the implementation of what that understanding is, is now living wisdom, which is an incredible thing that we have the power to do because it’s a gift from God.

Exodus 12:15. Now, this is the time when God was giving to Moses about the seven days of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. By that, or Before the first day you shall have removed leaven from your house. Why? Well, we can see that now. That’s knowledge. So, people today would with just the knowledge remove leaven from their dwelling, from their house. Generally, they would do it. For us, of course, we understand that it’s symbolic about removing sin from our life because leaven points to sin and we want to be unleavened. Like Christ was unleavened, we want to be unleavened.

Now, we know that we’re not. We are leavened because that’s our nature. We were born with this nature and therefore, we are leavened by nature. Now, the key to these seven days of Unleavened Bread is the spiritual understanding; we desire to be unleavened. We desire to remove leaven from our thinking.

Now, the leavening, we deleaven our homes because we are unleavened. The Bible talks about being unleavened. Well, we are unleavened in the sense of that we deleaven our home before the start of the Days of Unleavened Bread and now the key to this, the understanding, the spiritual understanding of this is that we now have the opportunity on these seven days to focus in on deleavening our minds, to get rid of the leaven, the sin in our minds. Because that’s where sin starts. It starts in the mind. It can come out in actions and words, but it actually starts in the mind.

So, the key to life within the Body of Christ, the Church of God, is to implement this. Now, if we do, if during these seven days of Unleavened Bread we are setting out to deleaven our minds, to focus in on the sins that we have and think about them, why we do them, how they are against God’s nature (about the way God is), that we’re against God when we sin, and that we’re cut off from the flow of God’s holy spirit. We can think about these things, and therefore, start the, and put forth the effort during seven days of removing sin from our thinking.

It’s an incredible thing, an incredible thing that we understand that. Now, the world wouldn’t understand that. They wouldn’t realize that they are to work on themselves for the seven days with more intensity than normal. Because they don’t work on themselves at all, but we do.

This removing of leaven from homes is simply symbolic of something spiritual. It points to us removing sin from our life.

For whoever eats leavened bread… Now this, really, you say, well, that’s physical. Well, on a spiritual level it’s refuses to continually remove sin from our thinking. So, if we refuse to do that, and particularly over these seven days, if we refuse to work hard at trying to remove sin, there’s a problem. We’re refusing to follow the instructions, what the Days of Unleavened Bread are all about – sin, removing sin.

…from the first day until the seventh—so it’s a seven-day period—that person shall be cut off from Israel. What this is really saying on a spiritual level, unrepented sin cuts us off from the flow of God’s holy spirit. Now, that’s the understanding we have. Now, if we are to live wisdom – because we can have that knowledge, we can have the spiritual understanding, which God has given us, and go, ah, this is about sin, this is about repenting of sin, and therefore, not cutting off the flow of God’s holy spirit, well, what is wisdom? Wisdom is implementing it, putting in the effort and doing it, and therefore, working on removing sin from our thinking so that the flow of God’s holy spirit is not cut off. That is living wisdom. It’s wise to do that.

Now, there is (we’ll get into this later), which is about knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and there’s a physical component, and now there’s a spiritual component which we need God’s holy spirit to be able to do that.

Verse 16—On the first day a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. Now, why? Why is it in this seven-day period that God has allocated a time, the first day and the seventh day that we would gather together before Him? Because the other five days we don’t have to gather before God in the same manner. So what is that about?

Well, this is about a spiritual education. We are to be taught by God more on these days. It’s like the Sabbath. We have six days where we can do work, etcetera. We still would appear before God on those days, but here we see during the days of Unleavened Bread that there is a particular time set aside that we are to gather before God. Now, this can be in a group, or it can be at home by yourself, but the important part is that we gather before God on this day to be taught by Him. That’s the purpose of these High Days. It’s an education system.

It’s about putting God first no matter what. So, no matter what happens in life we will always stop on these days. They’re High Days, they’re Holy days, and we will stop, and we will be educated by God. We will take it on board and go, “Ah.” Then the secret, of course, is what? Implementing it, living the wisdom. Because just hearing it, it’s all wonderful, good news. But implementing it takes effort and it takes a fight against the natural carnal mind.

No manner of work shall be done on them. Now, this is a demonstration that we’re putting God first. We stop work, we take the time off no matter what. Whatever happens with employment or whatever happens in life we stop and go, no, alright, that’s where I stand. I put God first and the consequences of that on the physical level (which is all temporary) is what it is.

…but that which everybody must eat—that only may be prepared by you. Verse 17—You shall observe Unleavened Bread on this same day. It starts on the night of the fifteenth because it consists of evening and the mornings. So, it was the fifteenth, Passover had finished.

I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. It’s spiritual as it points to our calling. So, people in the world will have a knowledge of the exodus. They will get confused about when it happened, what time, and where they went and all that. That’s all quite irrelevant in lots of ways. Because we understand that this is spiritual.

I remember, like you remember, the day when you began your journey out of Egypt, out of the confusion of this world. So, this is symbolic. It’s pointing to something spiritual. So, with this understanding we have we can stand back during these days and go, “Ah, this is about the day that God decided to call me (or you) from our current environment,” to be called out of this world. And how did it start? Well, it starts with knowledge, then it moves to with understanding. We start to see the spiritual component. Then we implement it into our life. And often, of course, it starts with the seventh-day Sabbath. That’s how we start. Or it may start with tithing. But it’s spiritual in nature. They’re not physical things. They are physical things, but they’re not physical to us, they’re actually spiritual to us.

With this understanding that we have now, this spiritual understanding, the gift from God, the power of God’s holy spirit, we now have the choice to implement it. Because people have in the history of the Church been called, they see the Sabbath, God gives them the understanding of the Sabbath, “Ah,” but they do not implement that understanding, spiritual understanding. It’s not implemented. They refuse to keep the Sabbath. They just don’t have the character to work against what they have in this world, mankind’s thinking.

So, we have been called out of spiritual Egypt. It’s an incredible thing. Just like the Israelites left on the evening of the fifteenth, which is the beginning of the fifteenth, they began to leave Egypt. We, too, are leaving Egypt and it takes time. They wandered forty years in the wilderness, and they were carnal, well, it takes a long time this leaving because it’s in the mind. It’s not about physically leaving anything, it’s about the spiritual intent of why we do what we do and how we leave those things. Then we change the way we think over time.

Therefore, you shall observe this day therefore, throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. This is a time to remember our deliverance from this world’s thinking, remember our calling or our awakening by God. For some, so blessed (like myself), that we have been awakened. We’ve come out of an environment where we were with God, we left God, and now God has awakened us to see spiritually again, to have that relationship with God.

Verse 18—In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening… So, at the end of the fourteenth, now the start of the fifteenth you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. So, it’s from the fifteenth and it ends on the evening, the end, moves into the twenty-second. It takes seven days. It’s the full period.

Verse 19—For seven days no leaven, which we understand points to sin, shall be found in your homes/houses. So, this is a period where it’s physical, but with understanding we see, “Ah, this is actually all about sin,” and our homes are here. We do it physically in our home. But this is about the mind, and this is a time that we are to work on removing sin, those habitual things that we have from our thinking.

Since whoever eats what is leavened, in other words, fails to deleaven. We know that’s spiritual. “Fails to deleaven.” Fails to work on their mind. Since whoever eats what is leavened, in other words, we’re doing nothing about our sin, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, physical, now spiritual. We will be cut off from the flow of God’s holy spirit unless we continue to repent.

Now, these seven days of Unleavened Bread are about a time of working diligently to overcome sin and to hone in more on the sin in our life and to make an effort to overcome it.

They’ll be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a stranger or a native of the land. This is about the flow of God’s holy spirit. God’s holy spirit will flow in our life if we continue to focus in on our own sins. Not on the sins of others, on our own sins.

You shall eat nothing leavened during these seven days. In all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread. So, it’s during these seven days of Unleavened Bread it’s a more intensified time with the understanding we have that we work on our selves to focus in on the sin that we have in our life and desire to remove it from our life.

We eat a small piece of unleavened bread on each of the seven days as an expression of our desire to be spiritually unleavened. We desire no sin in our life.

So, there have been times where people have just eaten unleavened bread during the whole seven days without anything else. Well, God’s intent of this, the spirit of the matter, really is about focusing in on being unleavened. So, we take that small piece of unleavened bread (because we eat other meals during this period), and we take that small piece each day, and we take a piece, and we eat that and consume it as a sign to God that we desire to be unleavened. That’s what we want. We want to be unleavened like this bread is. We don’t want it.

Well, that’s a physical act which we would do – each day, a piece of unleavened Bread. But the more important part to God is, is it spiritual in our thinking? Is this a genuine desire? In other words, what have we put in to removing sin from our life? What’s the effort? Because we can go along and just eat that small piece of unleavened bread. Well, that’s a physical thing. But more importantly is the spiritual, that we actually have set a desire to remove sin from our life.

If you’d like to turn to 1 Corinthians 5:6. If you start to see some beads of sweat it’s because it’s quite warm in here. I know it’s winter in other parts of the world but over here it’s summer (so-called), and with the Thunders that are taking place at the moment we had the other day where the hail was about the size of golf balls, and it was pelting down and flooded everywhere and we had a flash flood, had a lot of rain, and we were a bit worried about some of the windows have been broken or whatever it was that heavy, but fortunately our cars were under cover and there was no real damage. There was a lot of flooding around the place but no damage to the home, fortunately. But there were some cars that we saw the other day which were out in the hail, and they had big dents all over them from the hail because they were as big as golf balls. But we were fortunate all our cars were under cover. That’s our summer.

1 Corinthians 5:6—Your glorying, which is “boasting; rejoicing.” Because this is about so-called themselves being merciful and tolerating sin, being more merciful than God. They put themselves up above God really here, so they were better than God because they were merciful. Well, they were tolerating sin, which God says, we’re not to tolerate sin. That’s what these days are about, not tolerating sin. Don’t live our life with just sin being habitual and continuing on. This is a day to focus in on those habits of sin that we have and to desire to remove them and work on them.

Your glorying is not good, this boasting about being merciful. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? So any sin, or any tolerance of sin, is like leaven. So, if we tolerate a sin, in other words, don’t work on it, just leave it and think, “Ah, well, that’s not that bad,” and just leave it be, well, that will infect us so that in the end what actually happens is if we tolerate one sin we’ll tolerate another and tolerate another, and all of a sudden, we’ve gone that far that we just tolerate sin, and we don’t even understand what sin is anymore.

This tolerating sin is like leaven. Sin can affect the whole body, including the Church. So if it affects one person and it’s tolerated within the Body, well, it can affect others. You think, “Oh, well, this is what’s happening, and nothing is being done about it by the ministry.” So, when sin is obvious and known – has to be obvious and known, and be witnessed in other words – the Church, ministry would act on it. But sometimes things are covered up by people and they tolerate a sin in their life and live life with sin and the Church doesn’t find out about it. Only sometimes, years later.

Verse 7—Therefore, purge… Now, this word “purge” of course is like purging something, it’s to clean it. Purge out the old leaven, get rid of the sin that we have—physical versus the spiritual—don’t tolerate any sin that you may be a new lump, since you are truly unleavened. Because we’ve unleavened, or deleavened our house, we’ve got rid of the leavening in our house, well, now the more important thing is to get rid of the leaven in ourselves.

We’ve removed physical leaven but now we are to work on the spiritual, which is far more important. So, if a person, which I have done, have found leaven after deleavening their house thoroughly, and then maybe two months later find a piece of leaven and think, “Ah, how did I miss that? It was so obvious! How did I miss that?” Well, it’s the same with sin. Because that is an outward sign, it’s deleavening, we do the best we can; as long as we do the best we can, we try and we find some, well, it’s physical.

But this is spiritual. We’ve got to actually stop and think about the things that we do. We all do it and we all have issues in our life, whether it’s impatience, whether it’s pride, whatever it may be. We’ve all got issues in life. So, we’re to work on those issues.

For even Christ our Passover was impaled on a pole for us. So, Christ died so that sin could be covered, and that God the Father and Joshua the Messiah could live in us, which is to think the way that they think.

Therefore, let us keep the Feast, these seven days of Unleavened Bread, not with old leaven, which is don’t be hypocrites, just don’t live life normally. Don’t be hypocrite and you know, act one way, turn up to services and keep a holy convocation and make out everything is fine when really, we’re tolerating sin in our own life.

…nor with the leaven of malice, which is ill will towards anybody, and wickedness, which is an attitude of rebellion, which we would be rebelling against God if we do not focus in on the sin in our own life during these days. …but with unleavened bread of sincerity. So, this sincerity is “pure thinking; a real desire to overcome sin.” Because this is the spirit of it, this is the understanding of the Days of Unleavened Bread. This is what it’s about. Now, we understand the wisdom of it would be that we actually do it.

So here we are, we’re talking about it, and say, well, it’s great to have a good desire to overcome sin and to not think evil of others. Oh, that’s wonderful. That’s good spiritual understanding. Wisdom would be to actually do something about it, implement it into our life and do it.

…and truth, which means it has to be according to God’s word. So, we have to do the physical component, which is deleaven our homes, and the spiritual component, deleaven our minds. Then we are to make that choice to do this for the rest of our life, which is the key to it.

Now, I’ve got some questions here. What good is knowledge without understanding? It’s just that, knowledge. What good is understanding without wisdom? So, although we may understand the spirit of the matter and God’s spirit is there to give us that sight to see the spirit of it, we still have to do something about it.

Now, there’s lots of truths, which we’ll hopefully get to some (may or may not), but the reality is that we can actually set out to do something and say, “Ah, see that,” and we can understand it, “Ah, but that’s the spirit of it,” but don’t implement it into our life. Well, that means we’re not living wisdom, therefore, what good is that understanding without the wisdom? Well, in God’s eyes it’s understanding, and we had to make a choice – and we’ve made one.

I want to go through some definitions here because we can look at them. There’s physical knowledge, physical understanding, and physical wisdom, but there’s also spiritual knowledge, spiritual understanding, and spiritual wisdom. Knowledge is facts. God’s word.

“Knowledge: Information, skills acquired through experience or education.” So, we can come to a Sabbath service and be educated, and we might have even experienced something. Well, that’s just knowledge. Like today, knowledge is being given. Then we can see the understanding of it all, “Ah, this is what God desires of me,” but of course, the wisdom component is implementing it. It can come from theory or practical understanding of a subject. Well, that’s knowledge.

“Understanding: The ability to understand something, to comprehend it.” On a spiritual level: To understand the knowledge or the intent of why it was given. For example, you can look at the Sabbath. A lot of people know about the Sabbath. They do not understand what the Sabbath truly is about. Well, there’s also the intent of the Sabbath. A lot of people wouldn’t understand the intent of the Sabbath.

What’s the intent of the seventh-day Sabbath? What is the intent of the seven days of Unleavened Bread? Well, we know that. We know what the intent was. The intent, what was God’s intent for giving this? What was God’s intent for giving seven days of Unleavened Bread? Now, most people understand it at a physical level (knowledge), they have some understanding. Not on a spiritual level, but on a physical level. We have the spiritual understanding. Now, we implement it knowing this is about education and about God’s way of life.

So, the intent of things is important. It’s interesting some time to look at God’s intent, knowing who God is and the way God thinks. Often it pays to just stand back and look at the intent of a lot of things, why things are.

It was interesting watching a program yesterday and (cause this isn’t the seventh-day Sabbath or anything like that. It’s actually a different day of the week). Watching that program and somebody lost their mind and killed, I think, three children and three adults in a family. Killed the whole family, and then had an insanity plea, and therefore, couldn’t be convicted of murder, was found not guilty of murder. Then they went to jail, was twenty years or something they’re eligible for parole. And you think, mankind, that’s like, what?

It’s hard to speak about those things because the people that were left were just in agony. The families are in agony. Another one even in Australia that did the same thing, chopped up his brother with a sword and virtually got found not guilty because of insanity and got put away for thirty years, I think it was. But he could be released after twenty-odd or something, fifteen years if the doctors agree that he was now on his medication and he was alright.

And you think, the people that left behind, that he was trying to kill (he had tried to kill others), they had to live a life wondering whether that person was going to escape, and if he is put out on parole they weren’t going to be told, that they could walk around the corner tomorrow and get killed because of this person. Just insanity of mankind. They have knowledge; they have no understanding of God’s thinking, and they don’t implement it. They don’t live wisdom at all. They can’t. It’s a physical thing if they did.

So, wisdom is actually the implementation of God’s word. It’s about putting God’s word into our life. Spiritual wisdom is the implementation of God’s word with a loving intent. Because God’s intent of all things is based on love.

There is physical knowledge and then spiritual knowledge. There is physical understanding and there’s spiritual understanding. There is physical wisdom about somebody implementing something on a physical level and there is spiritual wisdom.

An example of that God gives knowledge. This is an incredible thing. Because mankind takes it to himself. He doesn’t look at it and think that it came from God. But knowledge, physical, understanding, physical, and the implementation of those things like any type of wisdom that is associated by implementing that knowledge and understanding, God gave it because God is the creator; He is the one who gives the human mind the ability to think.

Let’s look at an example of God giving knowledge. Exodus 35:30. Now, this is when they were going to build the tabernacle and God gave knowledge to artisans so that they could complete this physical thing. Because that knowledge didn’t exist, but God gave it because God gives knowledge, which mankind just takes to himself.

I’m often reminded about people that are really highly educated and they come out of high education, which in itself can be okay. But generally, most people take it to themselves, that they’re better. They say, “I’m educated and you’re not, and therefore, I know more, therefore I am better than you of course, because I’m educated.” It’s meaningless. Just means you’ve spent a lot of time in a college. But whether you’re living God’s word is a different matter, isn’t it? Totally different thing.

So, this example in Exodus 35:30—And Moses said unto the children of Israel, See, the Eternal has called forth… (has called). Now, this is not a calling involving a spiritual thing, but it’s certainly about called forth. It’s not like our calling where we were called by God, which means He’s opened our mind to see spiritual things. This isn’t the case. This is something physical. They’ve been brought forth to achieve something physical.

…Bezaleel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and He has (it’s God) filled him with the spirit of God. Now, this is the power of God, this ability to think a particular way. It’s not a spiritual matter, it’s the power of God, it’s not the holy spirit. …in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship. So, God gave that ability.

God gives abilities to people. Some people can educate themselves in a particular way, and that’s good in itself. But if you look at today’s world, which has been given great physical knowledge and some understanding on a physical level, mankind has taken that knowledge and understanding in pride. Mankind credits himself. He takes credit to self. That’s the natural carnal mind.

Many take knowledge and understanding that they have and they make themselves better in their minds by looking down on others. Well, that’s a natural thing because the natural, carnal mind, that’s what it does. It makes itself better, it makes itself more comfortable because it’s selfish. That’s the way man is.

Even with this physical knowledge and physical understanding mankind often misuses that knowledge and understanding because they do not give God the credit for it. Because all knowledge and all understanding came from God anyway. The truth is knowledge without understanding is just that, knowledge.

Today, mankind does not understand what is spiritually good or evil. Now, this is a classic example, how mankind has lost the sight of God’s word and now takes a level of knowledge to themselves, and in that taking knowledge to themselves they then will work out and define what they see as good and what they see as evil.

Isaiah 5:20-21. So, mankind judges for himself what is spiritually good and evil. I told Chris I’d talk about it here that I went in to have a medical check-up because of my knee had been playing up. The nurse took me aside first because I was new to that clinic. Just by the way, can’t find doctors, there’s none around, but I wanted them to check out the knee, which happened to be a ligament, which is fine. She sat down and asked me a question, which I was a bit shocked, really. She said, “Well, what sex are you?” I sort of stopped and she said, “Are you heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual?” I know there’s fifty some other ones that you could be. It sort of stunned me because I said, “Well, I’m a man.” And she said, “Yeah, but you could be any one of these ones.” I didn’t think at the time, “Why are you asking such a question?” but I’m sure it’s to do with sexually transmitted diseases and things like that. I said, “Well, you’ll have to explain to me indeed what those are.” So, she went through and explained what they were because at the point I was really taken aback about what that question really was about. Anyway, got to the right conclusion.

You realize this is man just taking to himself what he thinks is good and evil. Because if I’d said, for example, that I was homosexual she would just tick the box and move on, or if I was bisexual or homosexual or whatever, heterosexual. You just realize mankind just goes down, he works out what’s good and evil and what he will tolerate. Mankind will work out what sin he will tolerate.

Well, the Days of Unleavened Bread are for us about not tolerating any type of sin. Anything that goes against God’s word we should not tolerate in our life, and we should be zealous about it. Sin can cover many things like not keeping the Sabbath correctly, blaspheming God’s name (Church of God), not tithing correctly in sincerity and truth, doing it with a right attitude. This sin can rear in our life so easily just with wrong attitudes, ill will towards others. It’s so easy to sin. Well, we’re to be working on that. That’s our life.

Isaiah 5:20—Woe. Now, that word “woe” is “alas.” It’s “a passionate cry of grief or despair.” In other words, suffering is coming. Look at the three Woes. Well, “alas,” a cry of grief or despair; suffering is coming, and it is coming because man will not listen to God. …to those who call evil good, which is today’s world, and good evil. God’s word is considered to be evil, considered maybe we’re divisive or it’s a cult. You just realize that mankind has made up his mind what is good and evil.

To those who call evil good, and good evil. The Churches of the world call evil good, and good (God’s way) evil. Because when you look at a lot of the rituals and things that they have they are calling evil good. Like a lot of the religious world has statues and that sort of thing. That’s actually evil, absolute evil. It’s a breaking of God’s law. It’s a sin. But they call it good to have statues everywhere. It’s just incredible what mankind can do.

…who, it’s talking about mankind, who put darkness, which is disobedience to God’s way, for light, for the truth. So, they have all these other things that they do and say that are actually sin and they call them good. The world is deceived by Satan to believe they’re good. If you were to say anything against them openly you can imagine what would happen and what is going to happen. They call sin God’s way, who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! In other words, it’s the opposite to what God states.

Verse 21—Alas, which is, you know, woe, which is this suffering is coming to those who are wise in their own eyes. Well, this is about pride and self-reliance. Well, suffering is coming for anyone who is self-reliant. …to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! So, they’re using human reasoning.

Some in mankind have some knowledge, but the lack of spiritual understanding, a lack of what sin is. Because man has taken things and twisted them. Now, we know that when you go down the path of certain things in this world that you’d have to be very careful about what you say openly to people because they will misinterpret what is said about certain things. Sin. What we consider sin they would think you’re just crazy. You know, “That’s not sin, that’s just tolerating. You’re intolerant. You’re a racist! You’re a bigot,” you’re whatever. Because they don’t see it the way God sees it. They see it through their own eyes, their reliance on their own knowledge, what they think is right and wrong.

Proverbs 1:7—The fear of the Eternal, which is obedience, is the beginning of knowledge. Now, this is what we can say with regards to the seven days of Unleavened Bread. “The fear of the Eternal,” which is this obedience to the seven days of Unleavened Bread, two High Days, but during this period what have we done? We’ve deleavened our home physically. Well, that’s just a task that is to be done. But during this seven days we are to work at deleavening our minds, and this is the beginning of knowledge.

So, we begin to fear God. We respect God’s word; we use God’s word as our guide. So this obedience is the beginning of knowledge. Because once we do that we keep the days, and then we can start to see what they mean, what they are, that we understand them because of the power of God’s holy spirit.

This is not about a physical unleavened bread; this is about something spiritual. This is about sin. The Days of Unleavened Bread are about sin and the way we deal with sin in our own personal life.

But fools despise wisdom, fools despise the implementation of God’s word of the truth. We are foolish if we don’t implement change in our life; we have been very foolish because there is a consequence for that, and that consequence isn’t far away.

But fools despise wisdom and instruction. The keeping of the seven days of Unleavened Bread is a demonstration of the fear of the Eternal. Isn’t that beautiful? The keeping of the seven days of Unleavened Bread, not just on a physical basis but on a spiritual level and implementing and working hard on ourselves during these seven days of Unleavened Bread is a demonstration that we fear the Eternal.

Now, this isn’t about, “Oh, I’m scared!” No, this is we don’t tolerate sin. We don’t want sin. We want to be more like God.

Verse 8—My son, take this on a physical level, you can take it on a spiritual level, spiritual sons. Hear the instructions of your father. God is our Father so we should be listening to what God has got to tell us. …and do not forsake the law of your mother, Church government. The instructions that come through the Church government, we should take them to heart and implement them into our life. Now, if we don’t what are we? What are we? We’re a fool. We are a fool. But our natural mind would go, “I’m not a fool. I’m not foolish.” No, what God says is “Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” We’re rejecting the instruction of what God is giving us, the mother of us all.

Verse 9—For they, these instructions, will be a graceful ornament around your head (ornament on your head), and like chains (a wreath) around your neck (about your neck). They will beautify our life. That’s what it’s really saying. If we listen to God’s word, if we listen to the instructions from the Church, it will beautify our life, this physical life we have. They will be symbols of spiritual achievement.

Isn’t that a beautiful thing? Because if we are taking God’s word into our life and we’re implementing it, we’re following the understanding that we have and we implement it, we’re living wisdom. We’re becoming more like God because this is God’s word.

Verse 10—My son, if sinners, which is a transgression of God’s law of love, entice you. So, if we’re drawn away. You know, we know that the majority of times that we’re drawn away it’s because of the thoughts of the mind, and they can be triggered by things we may see or things we may hear, or men easily implement these things or trigger them, that we’ll have a certain thought process. Well, the beauty of it is we have the power by the power of God’s holy spirit that we can turn around and say, “No, I’m not going to live that way of life. I’m going to live another way of life,” and choose to reject it.

My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. In other words, resist, resist the temptation that is there and deal with it. Well, during these seven days of Unleavened Bread, that’s what it’s about. It’s starting to hunt through the mind and the memory bank and think, “Ah, maybe I could be doing that better and I could be doing this, and I know that’s a weakness,” and dealing with it.

Drop down to verse 15—My son, do not walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their path for their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed blood, which is ill will. They are quick to pull somebody else down. Well, we're not to be. We are to think about these things and realize that when we criticize or pull somebody else down, what is really happening? What is it all about really? Well, it’s about us. It’s about our pride and we’re making ourselves better by pulling them down. So, we’re building ourselves up. Just like an education person, a person that’s educated, they can lift themselves up so that they can see over the top.

Well, it’s the same thing. We often are faced with those things in our own mind, and we will fail often. But we have the beauty of repentance.

Drop down to verse 22—How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will we be naïve, in other words? Being naïve about our natural carnal mind? For scorners delight in scorning and fools hate knowledge. They resist the truth. So, we don’t want to be a fool, so we need to follow the instructions given by God in His word.

Verse 23—Turn (repent) at My rebuke, at My correction. Because God does correct us. The way that that is often done is that we’re put into environments where we begin to respond in ways that we didn’t realize that we would respond that way because of the stress or the trial that is there.

Surely, I will pour out My spirit on you, which is the power to think differently.

I will make My words known to you; because I have called, and you refused. In other words, wouldn’t listen. I have stretched out My hand and none would regard.

Verse 25—Because you distained all My counsel and would have none of My rebuke, none of My correction. When you really look at it the books that have been written to date, and the new book, are really about letting people know. It’s a prophecy about what will happen. But it’s also a lot of correction in there. It’s God giving an opportunity, “Here is the correction, if you will read it, and what will you do with it? Will you take it to heart?” It’s spiritual instruction and it's a lot of understanding could be given just even on a physical level to realize that what’s true and what’s false. But people won’t listen. People refuse to listen about these things.

I stretched out My hand and no one regards. Because you have distained all of My counsel and would have none of My review (none of My correction). “You won’t listen to any of the words that I’ve spoken,” I also will laugh at your calamity, the tribulation and stress that is going to come on you. That is what God is saying. I will mock when your terror comes. When the fear comes. And it’s coming. It’s already started. You can see that with the Thunders. There is a lot of problems happening, but people are not turning to God. And yet it’s all been written, it's all there for them to do something about it.

…when your terror comes like a storm and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call on Me, which is what is going to happen, but I will not answer. So there’s going to be a lot that are going to call out to God or their gods even, but God is not going to listen because they’ve had plenty of opportunity, they’ve had years of opportunity to listen to the correction, to listen to the truth.

The differences between Easter and Christmas versus God’s Holy Days. The Days of Unleavened Bread versus Easter. People have had that opportunity. It’s there. Some have, some haven’t. Some know nothing about any of it, but they’ll have their opportunity in the future.

Verse 28—Then they will call on Me and I will not answer. They will seek Me diligently, but they will not find Me, because they hated knowledge. So it all begins with knowledge.

So, when a person is called the first thing is knowledge is given. God gives that knowledge. Well, mankind has had the opportunity just to have basic knowledge to challenge things like Christmas and Easter. It’s just basic knowledge, that it’s easy to prove that Christmas is a man-made concept. Not hard to do. But man doesn’t want to listen.

I’ve raised it with different opportunities where I’ve mentioned that Christmas is not real, in the sense that it’s a man-made thing, that Christ wasn’t born on Christmas day. The reaction has been generally much the same, which is, “Well, it doesn’t really matter because it’s a day of family, it’s a day of rejoicing and getting together.” So, they overrule God and God’s ways. People overrule the Days of Unleavened Bread. You generally find hot cross bun. Days of Unleavened Bread, and mankind has what? Hot cross buns full of leaven. Staggering.

Well, mankind, they hate knowledge. They’ve hated spiritual knowledge of God’s word. It’s true because you can see when a person’s called they are given that knowledge. They’re given the opportunity to have the understanding by the power of God’s holy spirit, then it’s about implementing that understanding.

They did not choose to fear the Eternal. They did not fear to go against God, to overrule God’s word. In other words, they’ve made good evil. They say that’s evil. But they have turned around and said evil – Passover is good, they’ve made it evil. They’ve brought out Easter, which is evil. It’s incredible, really, what man has done when you really stop and think about it.

So mankind has taken what God says is good and righteous and made it evil and they’ve called good evil and they’ve made evil (Christmas, Easter, and other things) good. They’ve made those things to seem good. “Oh, what do you mean you don’t keep them?”

Verse 30—They would have none of My counsel and despised My every rebuke. So all of God’s correction is just “Don’t worry about it!” Therefore, they shall eat the fruit of their own way. This is the conclusion, that they will pay the penalty for selfishness, for not listening.

And that’s the point we’re at. We’re at the point where man is going to begin to pay the penalty for not listening to God. …and will be filled to the full with their own fantasies. So, in other words, their own thinking, their own reasoning, they’re going to have enough of it, and as we can see it’s all starting to fall apart around us now. Man’s ways are falling apart.

For the turning away of the simple will slay them. In other words, destruction is coming. And the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to Me, in other words, listens to God and implements it into their life, which means living this wisdom, will dwell safely. So, this is talking about a physical and spiritual protection. We will be protected spiritually if we just listen to what God has to say. …and be secure without fear of evil.

For us, God’s appointed times and Feast days are among the 57 Truths, are part of our knowledge. When we understand those things by the power of God’s holy spirit, when we understand the spirit of them, then we are faced with a choice. I’m sure you see where we’re going here.

Because we are faced with choices everyday about God’s way of life. We can have knowledge of things. Like not to lie can be one. We’ve got that knowledge. We understand why. We understand the intent of that, what that really is about. It’s about pride and protection of self, the reason we lie. We want to paint a better picture. So, we understand that.

Now the choice we have is will I do it? Will I stop lying? Will I stop exaggerating, stop painting this picture of myself as better than what they may think I am? Therefore, will I lie about it or protect self? That’s what lying is about. It’s about protecting of self or covering something up, to lie about it.

Well, will we change that? Will we implement it into our life and stop doing it? Well, that’s the wisdom part. Wisdom is implementing it and fighting not to be a liar.

We understand that by the power of God’s holy spirit we understand spiritually. We understand the spirit of these matters. We understand that if we choose to live the truth, God’s word, we are living wisdom. Wisdom is living the thinking of God.

So, we’ve been through the seven days of Unleavened Bread, we understand the knowledge of them, we understand their spiritual intent, of the seven days of Unleavened Bread, because it’s all about sin and what we will do in our life, what leaven is really about. It’s not about a piece of leavened bread; it’s about sin and it’s about being unleavened, about us desiring not to have sin. Well, now we’ve got to implement it, which is what? We have to do something about it, which means, we’ve got to do it. So we might understand it, but we still have to do it. We’ve got to choose to do it. That’s the key to spiritual life, spiritual growth, the desire to do it.

I was going to look at some of these, some of the truths that God has given to us, because they have knowledge, understanding, and wisdom connected to them.

1 (1) The seventh day Sabbath.

Which is a key to spiritual life, living in Elohim. It’s about this understanding that goes with it.

The weekly Sabbath has remained one of the most basic signs of God’s true Church. God’s people have always obeyed the seventh day Sabbath.

Now, that’s knowledge. Now, we know there are other religious groups, so-called world groups that would keep a seventh-day Sabbath, and there’s a blessing connected to that. It’s not necessarily a spiritual blessing, but it’s a physical blessing that goes with it. We have the knowledge of it, “Ah, the Sabbath.” Now, understanding – we understand why the Sabbath. God teaches us His ways. So we stop from our ways and now we’re going to learn about God’s ways. It points to the plan of salvation, 7,000 years, the Millennium.

So, we understand what it’s about. It’s about a time period of mankind has 7,000 years. The 100 years is about spiritual salvation. It’s not about births anymore and mankind, it’s about what will man do with this knowledge? Now, the wisdom is living the Sabbath by implementing all of this into our life. In other words, stopping is implementing it, which is living wisdom. We then take the understanding that we have that God is teaching us on this day, on this seventh-day Sabbath. That God is now going to pour out His spirit so that we can hear Him spiritually.

Now the living it is that we’re going to now implement that which was given from God into our life and try to implement that change of thinking in our life. That is living wisdom because we begin to think like God. It’s an incredible thing.

2 (2) The name of God’s Church – the "Church of God." God’s Church bears His name, as it belongs to Him.

Well, that’s knowledge. Now, it’s a great, incredible knowledge because look at the world churches. They’ve all got other names. The church of this, the church of that. But it’s not the Church of God. There is one true Church. There are others that are called Church of God, but they’re not of God, they don’t have God’s holy spirit.

We have this knowledge of the name “Church of God.” “Ah, which religion are you,” they’ll say? And I say, “Oh, I’m the Church of God—PKG.” “Ah.” It goes dead quiet then generally doesn’t it? Because people don’t really want to know. They’re just, you know, when you mention Church of God it means nothing to them because there’s lot of other Churches of God.

The understanding that we have, God’s Church, Church of God, is powered by God’s holy spirit and will agree with every word of God. Isn’t that incredible? Because what motivates God’s Church? What drives God’s Church? His holy spirit. Instructions that come out from God’s Church, what are they about? God’s holy spirit. What’s God’s holy spirit about? Love, how to live love. That’s what it’s really about. It’s an incredible thing that we have. We have that understanding.

Now, the wisdom of all of this is, are we living God’s way of love to all? So, we might carry God’s name, Church of God, and we understand the spiritual ramifications of that, of saying that, is that we should be living a particular way, the way God desires us to live, which means we’ll be keeping the seven days of Unleavened Bread, we’ll be deleavening our homes, all those instructions.

So, here we have God’s name. Well, we won’t be blaspheming God’s name by our actions or our words. So we won’t be cursing. They’re only minor things in comparison to living a life of non-blasphemy. In other words, we are ambassadors for Christ, we represent God’s Church on earth. God’s name, we carry God’s name. We represent God on earth; therefore, we should be living it out.

So how is it that we would lie to somebody or exaggerate or speak ill will of someone else? People turn around and say, “Strange that they call themselves Church of God and yet they’re always gossiping or they’re always talking down about somebody. They say they’re Church of God?” That’s blasphemy! That is blasphemy. We’re bringing God’s name into disrepute because of what we’re saying. So, we’ve got to be very careful, brethren, that the things that we do are not blasphemy to God’s name.

Tithing to God is another one: 3 (3) First Tithe to God. God gave the tithing system for the purpose of doing His work on earth. [That’s knowledge.] This tithe is God’s, and He has given it to the leaders in His Church to use in His work as He directs the Church through His Son, Joshua the Christ.

All that’s knowledge. We could say, “Yep, we know that.” Well, do we understand it? The understanding is God funds His spiritual work through tithing. Because that’s how it happens. It’s because of the tithing that God says that’s to be given, because there’s a spiritual work to be done. Now at different times that work can vary. Our understanding is that we desire to do God’s work. We desire, we love to tithe. We love to tithe because we’re doing God’s work. We want to assist in any way possible.

God could make money appear anywhere at any time and make the Church overly wealthy if He wanted to. But this is about an attitude. The spirit of this matter is really about the attitude that is connected to tithing. That’s the understanding of it. We can say, “Oh yes, a person tithes,” but what’s the spirit behind the giving? Is it giving for what reason? Well, that’s the understanding we have, that a person can tithe and still sin. That’s the spiritual understanding.

Whereas you have the knowledge and say, “Oh, supposed to tithe,” or “He’s supposed to tithe.” Well, the world has that. They have that knowledge. Some churches do, actually do it. But the spirit behind it is totally different. That’s the understanding.

Well, the wisdom is implementing the tithing principles in our thinking and doing them with the right intent. That is the living of wisdom. A person should love to tithe, first tithe and second tithe, and should love to give an offering. Because if we see the plan of God and the 7,100 years of mankind, how stupid, how foolish would a person be not to think clearly about tithing?

Because this is all temporary. It’s just, all this is going to pass, and this is just simply one way of expression of our love to God, that we love to tithe, we want to be involved in God’s work, we want to support it in any way we can. God looks at the heart.

4 (1) The government of God. When Christ comes, He will restore God’s government to the whole earth.

And most people don’t believe any of this, but this is knowledge.

God’s government was restored to His Church during Philadelphia. It is not a government of men where decisions are made by such practices as voting or one’s own will, but as God leads through the power of His spirit.

Because that’s what drives the Church. Well, that’s knowledge that we have. The world would look at that as saying, well, it’s a dictatorship, basically. That’s what they would say. Well, we understand that God’s government is spiritual and powered by His holy spirit. Now, to try to explain that to somebody else is a very difficult thing because if you mention that it’s powered by God’s holy spirit, which we have, they look at it as just an act of pride. “You’re just lifting yourself up; you’re better than me because you’ve got God’s spirit. You’ve got a special relationship with God? Sure.”

Well, wisdom in all of this is the fact that we will listen to the instructions God’s government gives, we would implement that instruction. So, when a person’s asked to put in something with regarding to the Feast, put your name in straight away, the wisdom would be “I’ve heard God’s instructions and I’m going to do it.” Not get around to it in a week’s time. You can see the difference.

Our word should be our bond, our thinking should be this is the most important thing on earth. The most important thing in our life is God. Then the most important thing is, of course, to have God’s holy spirit. That’s what we want, and we should be living it, and when we say we’re going to listen to what God is going to tell us and we’re going to do it, well, that’s living wisdom. We do it, it’s done. Because that’s living wisdom; that’s living the government of God.

I want to go on to the Holy Days, which is truth 19.

19 (16) The annual festivals. The plan of God, as shown through the Holy Days…

Which we’re now living. We’re going to implement this into our life, we’re going to live wisdom.

…was revealed to the Church of God only through Herbert W. Armstrong. The Passover and Holy Days picture God’s plan of salvation for mankind.

Now, that’s a knowledge that we can have. You say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” That’s knowledge. The understanding is that we understand God has created mankind for a period of time. So, man is allowed, from Adam and Eve to breed, basically, for 7,000 years, and then there is a 100 year period called the judgment, which lasts a hundred years. That hundred years is important because mankind is going to be given what we’ve talked about today. They’re going to be given the knowledge of God’s way of life. They’re going to be given that knowledge.

Then the more important aspect of that is that they’re going to be given the opportunity to have God’s holy spirit so that they can understand the motive behind all of the laws, all of God’s word, the commandments. They’re going to understand the purpose of the seven days of Unleavened Bread. Isn’t that exciting?

Now the big issue is they’re going to have a choice. They’re going to have a choice to choose to implement the seven days of Unleavened Bread into their life not only over seven days but for the rest of their life, and if they do they will be living wisdom, they’ll be living God’s purpose for mankind, which is living a life that will be accounted to them as righteousness. Because they believe God, they’ve got faith and they believe God.

So, the Holy Days point to this plan of salvation, and the seven days of Unleavened Bread is just one component of the plan of salvation, but it’s a key component. We understand Passover, it begins with Passover. Not a Holy Day. Not a High Day. This is the period now where we have two High Days, well, this is so important because we’ve now dedicated our life to being unleavened. For the rest of our life we want to be unleavened. We want to be unleavened for the rest of our life.

We understand God’s plan to create a family from mankind. That’s God’s plan of salvation for mankind. It’s through mankind. So, when a person lives nothing is owed to them, not a single thing. There is nothing owed to mankind. There is nothing owed to us. When a person dies, nothing is owed to them because it’s God’s plan of salvation. It’s God that has eternally existed. So, we are owed nothing.

Now, wisdom, when you come to the Holy Days, is believing God’s plan and implementing the plan into our life. These seven days of Unleavened Bread are about this implementation. That’s what we’re going to set out to do. No matter when we hear this sermon, our life is about implementing this plan of salvation about being unleavened. We are leavened; we want to be unleavened.

Psalm 51:1—Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your loving kindness. According to the multitude of Your tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Well, this is what the Days of Unleavened Bread are about. When we sin we can repent, and God forgives and forgets. The problem with us as humans is we rarely forget. Certain sins we will forget, other sins we will remember, and they’re quite burnt in our brain. Well, God has moved on. God has a plan of salvation for mankind. God has a plan of salvation for you and me; therefore, He is so merciful that He will blot that transgression out. And that, of course, starts with Joshua Messiah, Passover.

But during these days of Unleavened Bread we have had this opportunity where we can stop and look at our life and then we can repent of sin and realize that this habit that we might have or this sin that we have will probably reappear at different times and we get on top of certain sins more than others, and others will always be with us because that’s who we basically are. The natural carnal mind will always dominate. But we have this desire to fight. We have this desire to fight self and to continue to fight self for the rest of our life.

So, Blot out my transgression, “Blot out my sins.” “The wages of sin is death.” “Blot that out so I’m no longer under the death penalty because I’m in a state of continual repentance.”

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Now, this is a key scripture in lots of ways.

“For I acknowledge my sins/my transgressions.” I acknowledge them. Now, that is an incredible thing, that if we can examine ourselves and we can see the leaven in our life, and we can acknowledge it before God (which is the key), acknowledge it before God, that this is the way I am, this is the way we are, this is the way we think, this sin that’s there, we don’t want it, we want to get rid of that sin and we repent of it because of the desire to please God, that we want to be like God.

We don’t want to live with that sin because it hurts. It hurts self, but it hurts others as well. So, if we acknowledge our transgressions God will forgive – as long as we make a genuine effort.

Against You, and You only have I sinned and done evil in Your sight. That you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me.

Verse 6—Behold, You, talking to God, desire truth in the inward parts. Something that’s genuine, sincere, based on truth. God wants us to live truth. He wants us to implement the understanding we have.

In the hidden parts, or in the hidden, in the thinking You will make me know wisdom. So, we can live wisdom, we can if we choose to. It’s about choice.

So, we’ll work to a conclusion here. Ecclesiastes 12:13—Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. These seven days of Unleavened Bread, the conclusion of it all, what is it all about? We have the knowledge, we have understanding because God has given it to us, and we choose to live wisdom. That’s the conclusion. That’s what we choose. That’s our choice, what we’ve made.

Fear God and keep His commandments. That’s what we’re doing. This is man’s all. So this is what our life is about. Our life is about gaining knowledge spiritually, gaining the spiritual understanding, and then implementing that spiritual understanding in our life so that we begin to live it. That’s the conclusion of life. That’s what life is about for anybody that has had the opportunity to be called.

For God will bring every work into judgment. So, there is nothing in our thinking that will not be held to an account. We’ve got to give an account for it. Well, we know our time of judgment now; judgment is on the house of God. We’re under judgment now.

During these seven days of Unleavened Bread all the more reason why we should work hard at trying to overcome sin, to recognize the sin in our life and then to work hard on overcoming it by the power of God’s holy spirit. Because it’s God’s spirit that can enable us to live wisdom. Because you can’t live wisdom without God’s spirit, not spiritually.

Verse 14—For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil. So we are being held to account every day, and the most important thing is that we hold ourselves in judgment, that we should judge ourselves every single day.

God has given us spiritual knowledge and understanding. The issue is, will we choose to live wisdom by keeping the seven days of Unleavened Bread on a spiritual level?