Observing Unleavened Bread

Ronald Weinland

April 6, 2023

On the annual appointed times that God has commanded us to keep, the ministry of God is commanded to teach about matters that work to reveal the very meaning of those appointed times, His Holy Days specifically. We’re to be reminded of what we’re observing and what these days picture in God’s plan.

That is awesome! I’m in awe. From Passover to the Last Great Day, and everything that God gives to us and helps us to see, comprehend and understand, and able to continue to build upon it from time to time, year to year as well. God gives us more at various times.

And when you think about His plan for mankind and His explaining of it (because that’s what He does on the Holy Days, He explains these things to us), He helps us to learn and helps us to grow in understanding. It’s so clear. I love the word “plain.” It’s so plain, reminding me of The Plain Truth, that with God’s spirit, things are so plain, so awesome to be understood and they fit together so incredibly well, so perfect, so incredibly ordered, everything is.

That’s why I am moved by time and timing and so forth as well in God’s plan. I think about some of those markers we keep looking at and waiting to see what takes place, especially as things are getting ratcheted up in this world.

And so, the way God gives these things to us and how He’s done it, it’s awesomely inspiring. It really is. Awesomely inspiring. It should be that way to every one of us.

So, the title of this sermon is about what we’re doing at this time. Pretty simple. Observing Unleavened Bread.

This entire plan of God cannot be seen in truth unless there is one primary element understood from the very beginning. Over the last two eras of God’s Church, many have tried to pollute, to alter, and to discredit this truth. So, let’s start at the beginning, Leviticus 23, where these periods of time are given to us.

Leviticus 23:4, it says These are the feasts. What an incredible thing as God began to show us the words here. Sometimes, so many times, words in scripture are just mistranslated. They don’t understand God’s plan. We’re going to look at a couple of those today as well as we go through this, but this is a good example of that process. When people haven’t understood God’s plan and God’s purpose and what He’s doing they can’t translate it properly.

They’re incapable of translating it properly unless God gives them help even in a carnal world for the sake of those who come and have come later on in time, which He has done, but He’s also left a lot there for people to get, if you will, bogged down in, their minds to become cluttered, for them to read into it (willingly so) because of their desire to change things in the first place.

God has allowed a lot of places in scripture for people to get tripped up, and only by God’s spirit are we able to truly see and understand these things.

And so, here we began Leviticus 23:4—These are the feasts. Again, that word “appointed times.” They’re the appointed times. It’s not the word for feasts.

…of the LORD, even holy convocations. So, these are the times that God wants His people to come together, first and foremost, before Him. That’s what it’s about. It’s coming before Him to observe these days. Why? Why is it a holy convocation? What is the most important thing about any holy convocation? What God teaches us. What He gives to us.

A holy convocation can be one person that’s out here a long way away from anyone else, that can’t come together with others in fellowship and they’re by themselves. But they come together in a holy convening before God with others who belong to God in that respect, whom God has called.

That is the time we’re to come before Him. The most important part of that time is when we’re to listen and hear what God has given to us. What an incredible thing that toward the end here and toward the end of time here we’ve had various means of doing that. The telephone, just as we began to do some of that when we were so scattered. Telephone. And you think of various means that came along then with the internet, things with just the sound itself. We have Mixlr now. Then later on and we came along, and we have things like the YouTube video that we can watch live or something that’s already been put up there for us to watch, like that one you’ll be hearing on the last day, the split.

So, although it’s complete, we’re to come before God, in a convening before God, a convocation, if you will, a commanded assembly. “Assembly” is about meeting before God. It’s about listening to what He’s going to give to us and to understand the importance of that, that we are to learn more about what these times are about.

So, it’s an awesome plan that God has in motion here.

They’re even holy convocations, meaning God’s spirit is in it. What an awesome thing, because without His spirit we wouldn’t understand what’s being said. So we have the blessing of His spirit in us, the blessing of His spirit, in that respect, in that which is given, and it’s important to God and should be always, obviously, important to us, because it’s set aside for holy use and purpose.

…which you shall proclaim in their… not “seasons” but their appointed times. It can be “seasons” but we know it’s the word for “appointed times,” so when that time comes around this is what we’re to talk about. This is what we’re to focus upon.

When I read this I can’t help but think of that one Last Great Day sermon one time. As soon as UCG got started and there right down there in Kentucky, in Lexington, and an individual got up and didn’t mention a thing about the meaning of the Last Great Day, instead went off on a tangent on something that was perverted and sick, disgusting. Anyway, we’ve gone through a lot of things. That was after the Apostasy. There were still people messed up and screwed up out there.

Then it goes on in verse 5—The fourteenth day of the first month at even… What an incredible place to find a different kind of word that’s used than in other places. There’s another place it’s used when it talks about the timing for Atonement, that it’s to be “between the two evenings.” With God’s spirit that’s very plain. It’s very clear. It’s not rocket science, but you would think it was by how some treat it sometimes.

Again, something that’s so poorly translated, “at even.” No, it means more than that. God’s emphasizing again how we keep time. We keep the Sabbath that way. We keep everything we do as far as an appointed time that way, between two evenings—not difficult—that make up an entire day, that Holy Day, that day that is a holy convocation, sanctified, set apart for God’s people to come together to learn more about what it’s all about, what that period of time is about.

So again here, On the fourteenth day of the first month between the evenings, as it is, is the Eternal’s—it’s Yahweh’s—Passover. It’s His that He’s given to us. He gave it. All begins right here. Without it, the rest of it isn’t going to make sense. Because it can’t. Without understanding this and practicing this and living this everything else is hidden. And so, with this is a beginning. Our growth, our change, the things that God has granted to us begin here, Passover. It’s a beautiful thing.

Verse 6—The fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast, and that is the right word. It’s the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the LORD. So, we’re to observe this time and these times unto God because God is at the forefront of it all. God is the one that is teaching us and showing us what these things are about and what it means concerning our calling and how we fit in.

Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. At one point some tried to change some of that. It was like, “Well, when you do eat bread or when you want it, it must be unleavened. Doesn’t necessarily mean every day. It has to be unleavened if you eat bread.” Think, hmm, taking away from what God said to do. He said to do it for seven days.

Now, this has greater meaning in it because that number is about that which is complete. To have God’s plan complete, before we can become complete, we have to partake of the unleavened bread of life. We have to have our lives become unleavened. That’s our struggle. That’s what we strive for. That’s what we fight for.

You don’t do it whenever you feel like it. You do it all the time. So, from the time you’re called and baptized under water, to the time you die or are changed from mortal to immortal, this is what you’re to do. That’s what it pictures. It pictures our entire calling until we’re complete.

What an incredible picture! We’re to be unleavened. Our lives are to be unleavened. We are to practice living by what is right and work at that.

I keep thinking of this sermon series that we’re in right now because it’s going to get stronger this coming Sabbath and the following Sabbath especially because God is showing us a means by which we are to measure ourselves in a stronger way than what we’ve understood in times past, and no punches are pulled, in that respect. We have to live up to what God has given to us. It’s up to us to respond to those things.

That’s a part of this, what’s being said here, of this right here. We are to be unleavened! We’re not to fool ourselves to think that somehow we can take of leavening along the way and not have consequences to it or that somehow we can get by with it okay. Whatever goes through the human mind.

But the human mind doesn’t even think that. Doesn’t even think it through when it goes off on a tangent to do something else it wants to do, when it decides it doesn’t want to work at coming out of sin. Because that takes work. It takes absolute engagement in your thinking, in your mind, in your life, and you’re crying out to God for help, that you need help, the paracletes as it talks about there in Hebrews, the helper that we just read about here during Passover service as well.

We need that help. We need God’s help. Without it, we can’t change, we can’t grow, we can’t conquer, we can’t fight, we can’t overcome. But if we don’t stay engaged and want to be engaged in the battle?

It’s not just a simple walk – we go to Sabbath services, we tithe, we give Holy Day offerings, we go through the motions. But what do you do the rest of the time? How do we live the other six days of the week? That’s what God wants. He wants to know what you are doing the other six days of the week. Are you working at this way of life?

That’s why I think of that scripture that, again, we read on Sabbath, that He’s working in His love. He works. I think of what Christ said, “My Father works and I work.” There is work to be done and we have to be engaged in what God has given to us; we have to be a part of the fight. And if we’re not fighting, we’re not living this way of life correctly.

If something doesn’t go your way and you think, “Well, I’m just going to be in a huff” or whatever it is, you can’t get along with someone else, you justify it. There is no justification in the Church of God. No justification in the Church of God not to live God’s way of life. Truly. Which is that which is unleavened, which is God’s love.

Seven days you are to eat unleavened bread. So, from the time we come into God’s Church and are baptized to the time we die or are changed, this should reflect our lives spiritually – eating unleavened bread, striving to get rid of all the leaven. Every time we see it we strive to cast it out, we strive to put it out, we ask for help from God to get rid of it in our lives because we recognize the danger of it, instead of somehow deceiving ourselves that it’s okay to exist there, to be there. Sin is not okay to be there.

The first day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work. No regular work that you would do throughout the other six days of the week is basically what this means.

But you shall, not “offer.” It’s a word that means “to bring” or “to come forth with.” You shall come forth with an offering made by fire. That’s what we’re to offer up before God. Beautiful when we understand it on a spiritual plane, an offering made by fire, meaning we’re willing to go through whatever it takes, whatever trial, whatever hardship, whatever struggle it might be.

The greatest struggle of all is with self! Our own mind and how we think. That’s why I love the word “repentance.” Think differently. To become transformed, as it talks about in Romans 12. It’s the mind. What an awesome thing that our human minds can go through a transformation to start getting rid of the selfishness, to begin understanding the other way that is one of giving – giving, giving, giving. Not get. Because our natural carnal nature is get, get, get.

I heard Herbert Armstrong when I say that. He simplified it in those two ways. There is give and there is get. What are we doing?

So, an offering. This is what we’re to do, made by fire unto the Eternal seven days. Oh. So, what does that mean, seven days complete? It means you don’t stop doing that the whole time you’re called; the whole time you’re impregnated with God’s spirit, this is what we’re to do. It’s not a thing that’s just done on a Holy Day or on the Sabbath or whatever, to go through the motions of this way of life as the world does when they go to church, their churches or whatever, and that’s how they see it and their lives don’t change.

Our lives are to be changing. “An offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days.” The whole time you’re alive, from the moment you were baptized, as long as you’re alive that’s what we’re to do.

The seventh day is a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work.

Exodus 13. So, as we continue to be refined… How can I say this? I thought in my mind here things are not going to get easier unless you’re doing God’s way of life. Then they get easier. But as far as our carnal nature, they’re not going to get easier because more is being required. God is showing us what we’re to be like, and now even more so, more than ever we’ve got to focus on these things before Christ comes. Greater changes are required and so God is showing us what needs to be done in our thinking.

Exodus 13:1—The Eternal spoke to Moses saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn. So often this just goes right over the tops of heads. What is it about? What does it picture? “Oh, it’s the firstborn… This Passover and all the firstborn of Egypt and all the livestock and everything, if it’s firstborn they’re all going to die. But the Israelites and their livestock the firstborn can be protected.” No. It means something. It means something to God in a very powerful way that’s about His plan.

All the firstborn. So, it says, “Sanctify unto Me all the firstborn.” That’s what God has been doing for 6,000 years, sanctifying the firstborn that are going to be in His Family, setting them apart for holy use and purpose, molding and fashioning them, preparing them for a place in His Kingdom, preparing them for a place in His Family, in His temple. Beautiful.

That’s what this is about. It’s not just a nice, neat story and we read it as a children’s story like the world does so often. No, it has meaning to it. Everything here has meaning. It pictures something. It’s not just done at random. “Well. Might be a pretty good idea just to show them that we just save all the firstborn if they put the blood on the doorposts. They’ll see all the firstborn of Egypt die.” No, it has meaning in God’s six-thousand-year plan. He’s exceedingly excited because we’re so close to that time being accomplished.

Those who have been worked with at different times and are dead. We can’t imagine! We can imagine things on a physical plane when a child is born, is coming along, growing in the womb, or whatever, but we do not grasp the scale of what it’s like for God Almighty who has worked for six thousand years in so many people that are so deeply embedded in His being, in His mind that He’s worked hard to prepare and get ready, setting them aside for holy use and purpose. Molding and fashioning, transforming the minds and preparing them to come with His Son when he returns in His Kingdom. Awesome!

Sanctify unto me the firstborn of whatever opens… Interesting here, it says, “the womb,” and it’s more than that if we understand it on a spiritual plane and what these words mean, the Hebrew word here which means “that which separates or first opens,” into God’s Family. The first that opens into God’s Family, that comes into God’s Family, that’s born into God’s Family is exceedingly important to God.

That’s why if we can grasp the awesomeness of such a calling, why would anyone do anything different to work against that? And yet the majority of people called have turned against God, have thrown this away.

…and whatever separates or first opens the word means “into birth.” It’s not just about a womb. It’s a word that means “into birth.” Awesome! So, God’s plan first and foremost has to do with the firstfruits. That’s the beginning of it. As the Passover is the beginning of His entire plan of salvation for all of mankind, there is a phase in there that must be accomplished first. We’re almost there. When Christ returns the firstfruits will be born. How excited is God? We can’t comprehend that.

So again, Sanctify unto me the firstborn of whatever separates or first opens into birth among the children of Israel, of men and of beasts. So, both were used here but what we’re to learn from it on a spiritual plane is about God’s Family, God’s Family, and how important that part of the structure is. The Passover, High Priest, the King of kings. But with him the firstborn.

Then He said, notice this, It is Mine, God says. “This is Mine! These are Mine!” These? No. He’s reflecting upon what it’s all about and what He wants us to understand, “It is Mine. They are Mine.” He’s worked for six thousand years to bring them along, His Family, the firstborn into His Family. The first to come out of sin. The first to be called out of sin. The first to be impregnated with His holy spirit. The first.

Verse 3—Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you came out from Egypt. Can you think of a similar expression that we’re told from time to time? “Remember, never forget your calling.” That’s where it started. It’s individual with each and every one of us. Unique to each and every one of us, of something that’s personal to each and every one of us, that we should know and know that we know the awesomeness of what God did, that we were able to understand and see things that otherwise we hadn’t seen, couldn’t grasp in that plane, in that level.

“Remember this day.” Cherish it. That’s what we should do, cherish it. To realize what we’ve been offered. Look what they were offered – the beginning of a process that brought them out of Egypt, that enabled them to leave Egypt, that enabled them to leave the bondage they were under.

Now, they were very physical, very carnal, and didn’t have God’s spirit. So, we have a lot of things there we’re to learn from as well. We’re to be different.

…out of the house of bondage. The response to that is understanding how blessed we are that we’re able to leave things, put things behind, begin to have a mind that’s different and unique than all others on this earth in the sense that we understand they’re in bondage. They can’t help what they’re in bondage to until God begins to, and will in time, draw them out, any more than us. But we see that in our lives, and we should cherish that and thank God constantly in that respect because we see that, because we value it so highly.

…out of the house of bondage. For by strength of hand, the Eternal brought you out from here. Literally, “by strength of the Eternal’s hand” is what it means, is how it should be stated.

There shall be no leavened bread eaten. That’s what God tells us. Don’t. Eat. The. Leavened. Bread. Now that you’ve had this blessing of being brought out of bondage, now that you have the blessing of the Passover and the blood and what that means, that sacrifice, and grasping its picture and everything contained in it on a spiritual plane for us, what’s the next thing? Don’t eat leavened bread! Obey Almighty God! Seek to be at one with God! Seek to stay away from sin! Don’t let yourself be deceived in thinking certain things are okay to be done as too many too often do as human beings…and are still doing in God’s Church.

This is a time to take note. This is a time to look at the world and say, “Look where we are! A war is about to start! Where are we?” God loves us. He wants us to grasp this. It’s about to begin. One day we’ll wake up and the world will have changed, powerfully so. How much clearer could it be?

The Thunder ought to be deafening to us right now in our minds, in our thinking. Whatever that time will be, whether it’s short or a little bit longer. But I tell you, it doesn’t matter. It’s here. It’s on the doorstep. Because these things are happening more frequently. What have we said? More frequently, more powerfully, and it just builds and builds and builds. What an incredible picture of a woman in labor. And if you’ve ever been in labor or watched somebody in labor, well, that’s tough. It’s not easy. It gets closer together and it gets harder, and it gets more difficult, and if you have the ability to leave the room – which I was asked to leave… It's like, “You’re no help!”

So, what an incredible thing to understand where we are. God wants us to grasp, “Don’t eat leaven.” Anyone eating leaven, get a hold of yourself. You don’t have much more time. Mercy? Grace?

There shall no leavened bread be eaten. This day you came out in the month of Abib, on the fifteenth. Awesome! The first month.

Numbers 33:1. We’re going to look at some very simple scriptures that are plain, that are clear with God’s spirit. It just shows how many, and how many in the ministry weren’t able to see plainly and clearly because of the sin in their life. Their minds began to be twisted and distorted and they began to teach things that weren’t true.

A long time ago they began to work against God’s apostle. A long time ago they began to teach things that weren’t true. God allowed that for a purpose. And that purpose? That which led up to the Apostasy so we could learn some of the greatest lessons that human beings could ever learn.

Numbers 33:1—This is the journeying of the children of Israel, who went forth out of the land of Egypt with their armies under the hand of Moses and Aaron. Moses wrote of their going out according to their journeying by the commandment of the Eternal. These are their journeying according to their going out. They departed from Rameses in the first month on the fifteenth day. Pretty simple. “On the fifteenth day,” the High Day. What we’re observing today, this is the time that they began their journey.

…on the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day after the Passover. You know, this in itself should shut so many people’s mouths that believe in a fifteenth Passover. I mean, how stupid and how evil could such minds be to turn away from something so plain, so clear? With God’s spirit it’s very plain, it’s very clear.

But to so many, after they heard different ones at headquarters, especially Dr. Hoeh, teach something different about Passover. When they gave just a little bit of credit to that or were persuaded by someone that they held in awe because they felt the intelligence was so great, more than of God’s apostle, they began to lose their minds. They began to lose the ability to see things clearly. In time they began to teach it themselves.

And you think, even on a physical plane if you just read the booklets from Herbert Armstrong that he wrote it would show how stupid that was. What else do you call it? I mean, just on a physical plane it’s there in black and white. Stupid. Dumb. Ignorant. Exceedingly prideful. It takes a lot of pride to be that dumb. It really does. It just takes a lot of pride to be that dumb.

It’s saying here, again, on the fifteenth day of the first month. On the day after the Passover, which would just mean if you use a little bit up here, fourteenth. Wow!

…the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians. Sometimes we don’t recognize that’s what we do, what God has given to us, when finally we see what we see, and we begin to have to decide. We have to make decisions, “How am I going to respond to what I clearly see now?” the Sabbath, the Holy Days, things about God that I’ve never known – Christmas, Easter, what to do with those.

And so, we have to evaluate, and we have to think about, “What am I going to do? How am I going to respond to this?” Choices. Choices. Choices. Choices. Just the beginning of choices if we choose to move forward, if we choose to leave Egypt. Because there have been a lot of people who have been called and never made the choice to start the journey to leave Egypt. Mind-boggling.

Deuteronomy 16. Over and over again these things are addressed in different ways, different areas of scripture, but all so very plain, so very clear.

Deuteronomy 16:1—Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover unto the Eternal your God. So again, we keep these times, the Sabbath, the Passover, Unleavened Bread, every Holy Day, every High Day unto God before God because we understand the importance of doing it. That way we’re responding to His calling. We’re keeping it in a manner He tells us to keep it. Beautiful. Then we’re wanting to hold on to what He gives us, we’re wanting to make changes in our life. We’re wanting to examine ourselves according to what is given. We’re wanting to work at the work He’s doing.

Because, you see, God does the work, Christ does the work, and we have to work if we want to be at one with Him if we want to make the same journey. Because He’s showing us the way out of bondage, He leads us out of bondage, but we have to do the walking, we have to do the work in the sense of that which is physical, in the sense of that which is spiritual as well in response to God as to fighting the things that are in the mind. Because He shows us how to do it and He gives us the power to do it if we choose to do so. Awesome!

Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover unto the Eternal your God, for in the month of Abib the Eternal your God brought you forth out of Egypt by night. So, another little tidbit. Simple. Plain. Didn’t happen on the fourteenth because they were to stay in their homes, they were to stay in their dwellings on the night of the fourteenth. They weren’t to leave until the morning. They couldn’t leave. They were told they had to stay in until the morning. So, there shouldn’t be any confusion between the fourteenth and the fifteenth.

They didn’t start the journey on the fourteenth and they didn’t keep the Passover on the fifteenth. You think these things are so simple! But you think, so many whom God called into Philadelphia – thousands and thousands and tens of thousands – how could so many go into Ambassador College for as most did, for four years and be taught and taught and taught year after year choose to teach something different than what God’s apostle had given to all of them?

You think, did they just go to classes? Did they ever read any of the literature? Did they ever read any of the books that he wrote? Maybe that’s the problem, I don’t know. Probably a part for some of them.

They came out of Egypt by night. So again, straightforward. So, the Passover is over, the daylight portion God tells what took place, how they did all the preparation of everything they did. They did it quickly because they were going to leave quickly out of Egypt, in haste, it talks about. And so, we already read about when they came together there and what they began to do as part of their journeying.

Simple when you look at it for what it says. It’s not hard. It’s plain. It's amazing how hard people have made it though. So many people by the time of the Apostasy, so many minds were screwed up in these areas they didn’t know what to do.

I’ve told you before but I’m going to tell you again because it’s worth mentioning. Be careful where you place your trust, your thinking, what you esteem because there was another individual that was esteemed because he was Jewish. He knew Hebrew. Before he was called he was being molded and fashioned to be a rabbi.

He came into God’s Church, and he began to teach at Ambassador College as well. And so, here we have the Apostasy, and someone comes up to me in a particular occasion and wants to know about her husband and his desire to keep the fifteenth. I believe that was correct—and I didn’t have the time to talk to them at that time so I told them I felt there was someone they could get a hold of. That individual. Because of all people, someone that knew Hebrew, someone that had been in Ambassador College as long as he had and serving there in that capacity.

I made a mistake. I thought surely he understands Passover. Surely, he understands the timing of the fourteenth and the fifteenth. So, if you get a hold of him he can step you through this. Well, lo and behold he sent scriptures and showed how it’s on the fifteenth. Had a slight conversation with the individual, opposing conversation, and basically it came down to the fact that all these scriptures that he sent me as well, what he had sent them, were the exact same scriptures that I would have given him saying, “Isn’t it so clear?” But he couldn’t see it. He saw the fifteenth there.

That’s a scary thing when you think about it. When you separate yourself from God and you don’t live what you’re supposed to be living you lose it. You don’t see things in a plain way anymore. A warning to all of God’s people always, always, always.

So, they came out by night. As soon as the daylight portion of the Passover was over and they had gathered the things together, they were moving along quickly, in haste. God wanted them to leave quickly.

And what do we learn from that? Sin. You don’t play around with it. You don’t linger around with it. You don’t let it linger in your life. You fight to come out of it. “In the night.” God draws us out of the darkness into the light. All these things have meaning. “By night” they started the journey. We do too. We were in the night, in the darkness, and all of a sudden, God is showing us where to go and how to go and things begin to be brighter and brighter and brighter – awesome – “In the daylight.”

God shines the light upon it and we’re able to see, but we begin it in the night. We’re to stay out of it. We’re not to go back and like what’s in the darkness, to hide, to hide what we’re doing, to conceal what we’re doing somehow from God.

I always think of Adam and Eve walking around. You think, all I see is this huge, this kind of dark area. If you’ve ever been in an area where all of a sudden the light is being cut out by all the plant life above you and here it’s getting darker and darker. That’s where they wanted to be. They didn’t want God to see them.

Sometimes in God’s Church with God’s spirit, people get to the point, or have in times past at least, that it’s like they don’t think about it. But it’s like, God doesn’t see it. That you can get by with it? It doesn’t work that way. That’s on a spiritual plane. What they did was on a physical plane. We do it on a spiritual plane. Not too bright.

Therefore, you shall sacrifice the Passover unto the Eternal your God. So some here, they get into some of this, and they start analyzing it. Why analyze it? It’s plain with God’s spirit. You don’t have to examine it and look into it and try to figure out, try to change this.

And so, because it said they came out by night you know (if you know), they started out on the fifteenth. And so, when it says here, “You shall sacrifice the Passover to the Eternal your God,” “Ah ha, see, it was on the fifteenth!” You think, no (I was going to say “birdbrain”), you shall sacrifice the Passover unto the Eternal your God of the flock—and if you just read the next word it ought to tell you the truth—and the herd. Cattle!

You couldn’t do that on Passover night. You could have a goat or a lamb for Passover night. That’s all you can do, and you don’t sacrifice it either. So, this is talking about something different.

“You shall sacrifice the Passover unto the Eternal your God.” I marvel at this, and I’m so thankful too, that God helped us to understand this, because otherwise these things would be more difficult. But it’s so simple, and so many people have gotten so messed up. I think of translators especially. There are some things here they just couldn’t understand about God’s plan because people haven’t understood something so basic.

On the afternoon of Passover, they started killing animals. Lambs and cattle and goats to prepare for that night because as soon as the sun goes down you can begin to cook, roast, boil, whatever the things were that were a part of it, offer upon the altar of things you’re going to feast on, that which God allowed to be feasted upon because that’s going to be the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

But the animals, there was so much work to be done. There are some examples in scripture where there were tens of thousands of animals for the Passover, into the tens of thousands. A lot of work. And if you waited until, like some people think, that that didn’t begin until sundown and then you start doing it, a lot of work, a lot of time.

You shall sacrifice of the flock and of the herd. It was something to be sacrificed. The Passover lamb never was to be sacrificed. It was God’s sacrifice for us.

In the place which the Eternal shall choose. So again, here we go, another thing that should scream out. For them, that was Jerusalem at that time. It would become Jerusalem, I should say. It was wherever the tabernacle was, but that’s where it began, in the place where God would choose to place His name, in that respect. Well, it’s clear where His name was. So, that’s what they did.

But the Passover was never to be done that way. It was in their homes wherever they were. Didn’t matter where they lived, but the Passover was something they did in their homes.

You shall eat no leavened bread with it. So, here we are in Unleavened Bread. The sun has gone down for the day of the fifteenth to begin and when they began to eat of what sacrifices there were and their ability to partake in that for a feast, they were not to eat leavened bread with it.

Now, on the Passover and during the Passover you can eat leavened bread. It’s not a problem. All the way up until sundown yesterday you could have had a Big Mac or whatever and that would have been fine. It’s when the sun goes down it better not be around.

You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread with it. Again, so simple, and yet there is going to be something said later that causes people confusion.

“Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it,” with what we offer up before God in sacrifice before God. Our lives. Our way. You know, that just needs to be out of our vocabulary in this way of life we live. You’re not expected to get your way. What is your way? What is it you want that’s different from what you should be living? What do you want?

Some need to ask themselves that question today who are out there; got some problems out there where some individuals just need to ask very sternly, “What is it that I want that in reality is different from what God says I should have?”

Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread with it, even the bread of affliction. Now, I like unleavened bread. There is no affliction in that. On Passover, I started eating my egg and onion matzos because they’re good. And if they were around all year long I’d rather have that a lot of times than I would in regular bread. Smear the butter over the top of it. But it’s not healthy for me if I eat that much as I like to eat during this period of time.

So, where is the affliction? Well, we understand what they went through and what it meant to them, but we’re to learn something, again, from this. To obey God, to eat unleavened bread, there is a battle, and you have to be willing to be in that battle. You have to be willing to tell yourself, no, this isn’t right, that I’m expecting to get my own way, what I want, the way I think things should be.

The world doesn’t work that way in God’s Church. Because God tells us there’s a way we’re supposed to live toward one another, and if we’re not living that way toward one another something is wrong, something needs to be changed, something needs to be altered. Because, candidly, we should have love toward one another, which is the mind of God toward one another. And where it doesn’t exist because we have conflict—ANY CONFLICT—with someone else, it’s a shame, it’s a disgrace to the Church of God. That’s it.

At this point in my life and where we are in time we need to understand God is not playing games. And what does He ask of us? To eat unleavened bread. Is that so hard? Is that so difficult? I enjoy it physically, and understanding I enjoy it spiritually because it’s what brings peace. It’s what brings a greater unity. And so, we have to fight against those other things that we do wrong. I have to fight. We all make mistakes. We all do stupid things. We all have to repent of those things that we do.

Seven days shall you eat unleavened bread with it, even the bread of affliction, for you came forth out of the land of Egypt in haste (quickly). That’s what we’re supposed to do all the time. Not just during this period of time when we look at something physical here. It’s a way of life for us. We’re not to linger in sin.

When it’s been pointed out Sabbath by Sabbath by Sabbath, Holy Day to Holy Day, especially Sabbath to Sabbath, and we’re not in unity and harmony with everything that’s said then something is wrong and it’s in us. If we’re not in harmony with that and unity with that and something else is being done in our lives that is a matter of sin, there is only one choice to make. It’s either obey God, eat the unleavened bread, work at that or we’re gone, we’re cut off. Because those things require repentance.

…that you may remember the day when you came forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life. So, these things should ring true in our minds. We began a journey. Are we ever going to quit it? Are we going to quit coming out of sin at any point? Aren’t we to remember what we started, remember the beginning point and every point in between it, that there’s been a battle, that it continues to be a battle?

It wasn’t meant to be easy. It wasn’t meant so that we have a comfortable life, and everything goes peachy keen for us, and we never have a problem. It’s just in God’s Church we understand on a spiritual plane so it can be magnified in our thinking of what we’ve got to conquer and overcome.

But outside of God’s Church, you still have it. Problems, problems, drama, drama, drama, but it’s without God, without God’s spirit, and not even able to see it. People just live it dumbly so because they can’t help it, selfishness, drama.

Verse 4—There shall be no leavened bread seen with you in all your borders seven days. Hmm. See, it’s not about the seven days; it’s about the entire time for us to make us complete, until we’re complete. But there’s a process going on. So, for us, it’s from the moment we’re baptized on until it ends.

I think of all who have chosen to go against that – thousands and thousands and tens of thousands. You go back two thousand years the vast majority have done this, gone back to eating leavening—incredible what has happened—quit fighting at some point; at some point began to turn from the fight, the affliction that’s involved in fighting self. Because that’s a constant battle day in and day out—day in and day out.

Neither shall there be any of the flesh which you sacrificed the first day in evening remain all night until the morning. So, this has to do with that High Day and those things that they sacrifice. God told them that there were things to do, and it wasn’t something you go slam in the freezer. In this case here, that which was for that High Day was for that High Day. They were up late, late, late. Because even when they did start the sacrificing earlier – well, not the sacrificing, but the killing of the animals earlier, and by the time then they started offering and cooking and so forth, it was pretty late.

And you know how long they were up that first night coming out of Egypt? All night. So, it’s about never giving up. You never stop. You keep at it until it’s accomplished. God tells them here in this case when you do observe this later on – because they didn’t observe it there as they were coming out of Egypt – but when this is observed here, we’re reading in Deuteronomy, the second giving of the law, this is toward the end of the forty years.

And so, they’ve gone through these things in their life, and they’ve understood some of the things in the sense of a physical plane of offering up sacrifice before God and participating in the Holy Days on a physical plane. God tells them whatever is there it’s to be gone by morning. It’s to be gotten rid of. No more feasting. Sun comes up, oh, no more feasting. What do you think they did? Oh, probably go to bed for a while, get some sleep.

Verse 5—You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates. Again here, people get mixed up on some of these things because they don’t understand, because they lose it, they’ve lost it. It’s plain. It’s simple. The Passover is never sacrificed on the Passover night. Never sacrificed. Something that God gives, gave to them in order to observe this particular time. It was His sacrifice that He gave to them.

The other things were offered upon the altar. This was not offered upon the altar. This is something they roasted and ate exactly the way God told them to if it’s Passover night. But here when it comes to sacrifice of the Passover, again, it’s that first day.

You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which the Eternal your God gives you. In other words, the Passover was killed and eaten in their homes, inside their gates. Here it was to be done before God in the place that He chose. These are simple things but it’s amazing how many people and ministers got to a point where this was “Duh.” They lost it.

…but at the place which the Eternal your God shall choose to place His name. How we’re to come before God and when we’re to come before God, God tells us, and sometimes things are done differently to see what we do, to see where we are so we can see ourselves. I think of a time when people were told to attend half of a Feast and the other half at home. That was a toughie. Too tough for some.

…but at the place which the Eternal your God shall choose to place His name there, you shall sacrifice the Passover at even. So again, that which could not take place until the sun had gone down. …at the going down of the sun. We understand what that means.

Some put great study into this. You think, “Going down of the sun”? Some of the Jews came up with a concept of where does it start going down? Well, after noon it starts going down. Some in God’s Church started thinking in that way because the Jews thought that way and they must surely understand.

You think, you know, what a horrible thing where we get to a point where we begin to look at other authority other than the fact of what God reveals to us of the truth. Because when He calls us He shows us what He wants us to see. By His holy spirit, we begin to see what is true. And where do we continue to grow? By what is given to us in the same way, from that point forward there is a way that God works. Incredible how these things have been lost by so many.

So, I want to pause here in one respect to take a look at something else because it fits into what we need to grasp and understand because it’s a part of something that has been sin to many, many people, and there are many people in PKG who have stumbled in this area. Stumbled. I don’t know if that’s a good word or not. But sinned, definitely, and because of that no longer with us. And yet we’re to come out of sin, we’re to eat that which is unleavened, which means obedience to God.

Deuteronomy goes on and shows some other things here that are a part of our coming before God on these High Days and worshipping Him in the manner, in the way that He’s shown us to do it, and if we don’t do it that way, we do it some other way, it reveals a lot.

So, we’re going to interject something else here in the sense of what follows these things that are given. Let’s go on here and, again, notice this last part here because it starts with the Passover. Not the Passover itself, but the first day of Unleavened Bread, if we understand that. The Passover is passed, we’re going into the first day of Unleavened Bread and there are other Holy Days to follow.

So, it goes on to talk about here, notice the next verse, verse 7—You shall roast and eat it in the place which the Eternal your God shall choose. So, what’s it talking about? Well, we know that the Passover lamb was to be roasted. That’s how it was to be prepared. But here is a place where if people don’t understand God’s plan and God’s purpose and what it says in other areas of scripture it’s easy to mistranslate. Many places are highly mistranslated through scripture because they never grasp it, and some in God’s Church have even become confused in some of these things, sadly.

So, when you read that verse 5, you understand it’s talking about a very specific moment in time here, the first day of Unleavened Bread, and we continue on here, and if you just if you have a question, there is a simple thing here. The word “roast.” It’s not the word “roast” in Hebrew. It’s simple to find that in a Strong’s Concordance. Today, we should be able to find such words very easily. We ought to have that kind of ability if we have a question.

It’s the word that literally means in Hebrew “to seethe or boil.” Well, you can’t do that to the Passover lamb. You had to roast it. They didn’t understand the time here. They thought this was about Passover and so they just put down “roast” because that’s what it says back there in the beginning in Exodus. Crazy. Amazing, isn’t it?

You shall seethe or boil, whatever the instruction was that was given by God, especially in the book of Leviticus, how you do certain kinds of sacrifices, when they’re to be sacrificed, when things are brought to the altar or how you did or bring them before God, how you were to prepare them, what you were to do with them and the feasting you were able to do with so much of what was brought.

You shall seethe or boil and eat it in the place which the Eternal your God… So again, you automatically know, if it’s in the place God chose to place His name. The Passover was to be kept at home. But here it’s in the place that God chose to place His name. There’s only one place where the altar was. There’s only one place where the temple was. Not too hard to figure out.

You shall turn in the morning and go to your tents. So, we see it again, of what we read a moment ago there. But again, when you read about this in Exodus 12:8 it uses the word “roast” and they get confused then because they confuse the two because it uses the word Passover.

That’s because people don’t understand Passover in the afternoon. They don’t understand even what Christ fulfilled in the afternoon. He died in the afternoon. His blood was spilled out on the earth in the afternoon, just like the sacrifices. When they were sacrificed in the afternoon preparing for when the sun went down and their feasting. There are things he had to fulfill in that area as well of his life.

Verse 8—Six days… Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. Do you believe that some people got tripped up on some of this? So, what is it, six or seven? “Well, it’s whenever you want to eat bread it needs to be unleavened.” No. All it’s done here it’s gone through here and shown the first day and now it’s going on with the rest of the remaining six. Because when the first day was over you’re supposed to go to your tents and so forth, as it said here, and you’re not to keep feasting on that day, throughout the daylight portion there.

So, it gives this example. It just continues with the story flow. Six days you shall eat unleavened bread. Not difficult. It’s the remaining six days. …and on the seventh day is a solemn assembly to the Eternal your God. You shall not work.

Verse 10—You shall keep the Feast of Weeks. Pentecost, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Firstfruits as it’s referred to in different places. So, we know what that’s about. It’s showing here a capsule, in that respect, of God’s Holy Days, but in their seasons, in their times because it’s building up to something else that God is revealing and showing. All that and the order of everything is very clear in Leviticus 23, so it doesn’t take a lot.

You shall keep the Feast of Weeks unto the Eternal your God with a tribute and a freewill offering of your hand. Now the reality is this was to be done at every Holy Day, but Pentecost is showing something different. The Feast of Weeks, it’s pointing out something that needs to be focused upon and added to and to make sure that’s a part of their thinking for them in the Old Testament. It’s to be a part of our thinking as well in our understanding of what God has given to us because of what He’s getting ready to tell us.

…with a tribute of a freewill offering of your hand, which you shall give according as the Eternal your God has blessed you. So, everybody has that thinking to choose because it’s different from a tithe because that’s what we’re coming up to. It’s something that’s up to us as to how we see God in our life and our response and it’s a personal thing then between us and God.

Verse 13—You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days, after you have gathered in your corn and winepress, the grapes in other words. It’s time now, the harvest is through there, and whether it was grape juice or wine that they make because they made both of what you could have. It’s just showing that season of the year when the harvest is done in a massive scale in the fall, a greater harvest.

So again here, is there a need to mention Atonement? Is there a need to mention Trumpets? Because it’s going through three seasons of the year, and it should be very clear to us that this is what’s being done. It doesn’t have to mention every one. We automatically know what we’re to keep. Leviticus 23 makes it very clear. And not only that, but very early on in Philadelphia God’s apostle told us what this was.

You shall rejoice in your feast, you, your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow who are within your gates. Seven days you shall keep a solemn Feast unto the Eternal your God in the place which the Eternal shall choose; because the Eternal your God shall bless you in all your increase and in all the works of your hands, therefore, you shall surely rejoice.

Sometimes there may be a bit of a battle in thinking sometimes in the human mind that we tend to look at this more physical than we do at what God wants us to see, especially in the Church. We are the wealthiest people on earth. The greatest of wealth is not in the physical things that we have, and yet God blesses us mightily in that if we grasp and understand it. It’s hard for us to grasp how blessed we are even on a physical plane. Because you didn’t live two hundred years ago or four hundred years ago or six hundred years ago or a thousand years ago.

What a terrible thing to have to come up to a garage and press a button, and if the electricity goes out how horrible a trial that is. You just multiply that thousands and thousands of times over and it’s hard for us to grasp that we live better than David ever lived as far as physical things. They might have had some light at night because servants came around and torched various things, but they had nothing like what we have in here, you know, in a flip of a switch. And on and on it goes.

But that which so exceeds that is what God has given us up here, and now in God’s Church more than any other time. During the time of Herbert Armstrong, especially starting there, God began giving to the Church more than it had ever been given. A lot was given through the apostles, a lot was written that was given through the apostles, but the understanding of much of that still wasn’t to a level of what it was when Herbert Armstrong was called, and on a same plane there. There was so much more that was added as time went along.

I think of all the writings of John. What we’re getting ready to go through this Sabbath and the Sabbath after, things that we know to a point and know fairly well and better than the rest of the Body that was scattered, obviously, by far. But still, there is more that God wants us to see and wants to share with us. All that wealth. I marvel. 18 Truths and all that’s been added that God has blessed us to experience and know about, to learn from things that were written in scripture that the Church in times past, no era understood. Because it wasn’t time for them.

All the spiritual principles that come off of all that? I marvel at thinking about and understanding things about an end, and an end to a being and to those who have followed Him, that in God’s plan that that’s going to be taken care of, that once God’s Family is complete those beings will no longer exist. That was never known that there comes a time of judgment that they shouldn’t exist any longer. There is no purpose any longer. But there’s been a purpose up to now and there is still a purpose now, and even in a third world war and what’s going to take place and at the end of the Great White Throne.

There’s a purpose in all that, why God’s going to allow them to do what they’re going to do. They’re going to be like a part of a giant vacuum cleaner that just draws everything into it. All that that doesn’t want God, doesn’t want to give their lives to God and want that way of life. So be it! And suck them up all together to where they’re gone and never remembered ever again. That’s a blessing.

And so, how blessed are we with what we see, with what we know? So, those are the things we’re to really to see and grasp and understand with all that God has given to us.

He goes through here and talks about some of these things. Again, I’ll just read it again, verse 13—You shall observe the Feast of Tabernacles seven days; after you have gathered in the wine, the winepress, the corn, and so forth. You shall rejoice in your Feasts. Then it goes in to say, everyone, in essence, is to rejoice before God, and seven days to keep a solemn Feast in the Eternal… you choose. We also know there’s an eighth day. Why? Because it says so in Leviticus 23.

It’s not trying to make a point here of going through every one of the Holy Days, Atonement, or Trumpets. It’s going through a capsule here. It’s the giving of the law a second time. Does he have to spend as much time as he did before in Leviticus 23 and explaining everything again? That wasn’t Moses’ purpose.

Verse 16—Three times or seasons, if you will, in a year shall your males appear before the Eternal your God in the place which He shall choose. Then God revealed to Herbert Armstrong this is about all baptized members. This is for us in a higher plane than something that happened there physically.

In the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which has two High Days, in the Feast of Weeks, one, separated in time. In the Feast of Tabernacles, in that season, in that time of the year. But we know there is more. Trumpets, Atonement, two High Days with the Last Great Day.

And they shall not appear before the Eternal empty. So, it’s going back to what it introduced concerning how they were to think during the Feast of Weeks. Does that mean it’s not applied to the others? No, it applies to all of them.

Everyone shall give as they are able according to the blessing of the Eternal your God which He has given you. So, it’s saying exactly the same thing except now it’s reiterating it and stating it in such a way that we should understand it’s three seasons. And what happens in three seasons? We have seven High Days.

So again, that was given to Herbert Armstrong to grasp, to comprehend, and to teach to the Church.

So, what is a shame though is there have been so many who have not obeyed this, who have gone under the water and either didn’t start the process or quit at some point in time. It’s a telltale sign. It’s a very easy thing to see, as a whole. When someone quits you know there is trouble. There is trouble brewing. It’s been brewing for a long time. This puts the finishing touch on it. Thank God it’s made manifest.

Not hot. Not even lukewarm. Just cold. That’s easy to deal with, easy to judge. It doesn’t belong in the Body. It doesn’t belong in the environment of God’s Church. So, that’s happened here of recent times still—STILL! Mind-boggling. All you can do is kind of shake your head. How? Why? Well, it didn’t happen overnight. Sometimes when things like this happen in different areas and people say, “Doesn’t make any sense. I talk to them so much and so often and everything seems fine.” Yeah, they’ll talk to you on a physical plane but something else is going on in the mind and there is disobedience and eating leavening, participating in sin, and disguising themselves in the midst of God’s people.

But God won’t take that – especially now at the very end. It’s getting cleaned up totally top to bottom.

So, most of what we have focused upon to this point was given during the period of the Israelites preparing to leave Egypt and their journey, obviously, in the wilderness. Then moving forward in time God revealed His Passover, a Son. His Son, who was to be the Passover, who was to fulfill what they pictured in Exodus 12, the beginning of that process. Awesome!

For hundreds of years and they never knew what it was all about. They didn’t know what they were living. They didn’t know what they were picturing. That’s why I love some of these scriptures that follow.

1 Corinthians 10:1—Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our Fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. So again, going back and talking about this process of being brought out of Egypt. Now, Paul understands the spiritual purpose and intent of these things and is teaching about that here. He’s taking them back and saying, “Look what happened.” They understood what he was talking about when it says they passed under, you know, through the sea. And so, they were under the cloud. They knew immediately what he was talking about.

…even all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. In other words, immersed in that environment as they were being brought out. It doesn’t mean they went under the water and were baptized like we are. We know they weren’t under the water. The Egyptians were but they weren’t.

…and all did eat the same spiritual meat. They didn’t know it. That’s the point. They ate of something, they participated in something, they lived something they never knew. They never grasped what it was all about. But the Church knows, and Paul is telling them about that.

…and all did eat the same spiritual meat, and all did drink the same spiritual drink. But they didn’t know what it was because of what they were doing! Because the point of all this is all these things mean something, just like the seven days I talked about, and eating all of our life then that which is unleavened. That’s what we’re supposed to focus upon and do. Whenever we see leavening we’re to get rid of it, we’re to get it out of our lives. So simple. So basic. So clear. So plain. So beautiful, really.

“And all did drink the same spiritual drink.” So, in all that they did and participated in, in leaving Egypt and the blood on the doorposts, and all those things, they were experiencing something they never grasped. But it was great because it was all spiritual. It all had spiritual meaning. That’s what the point of this is. It all happened by design so that we can relate to things that are physical to learn things spiritual more easily and in a greater plane as time continues on. We learn from this. We’re able to relate to those things because we’re very physical. And so, God gives us very physical things to look at, to see and say, “Wow. That’s awesome! Incredible!”

For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them. I’m amazed at this, of how we saw that in times past. It was like, “Ah ha! There is proof. Christ was there with them. He was with them. He was leading them out of Egypt.” No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t born yet. He didn’t exist yet. But we were still in that part of the darkness because God hadn’t brought us out of that portion of it yet. He hadn’t brought us out of that portion of the trinity. It took some time, in God’s time. He wasn’t going to do that until PKG. Awesome!

“For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them.” It followed them all right, in time. That’s what it was all about. It was about Christ! It was about what he was going to do. And so, in time, yes, he followed them, and he fulfilled what that pictured, the Lamb of God. Awesome! Beautiful. But until God gives us ability to see we can’t see it. We couldn’t see this and understand this until God just gave it to us.

So, that’s why I say, we live in an awesome time to live now when we’re blessed with wealth that we don’t grasp the level of it. No one….no one who has ever lived except one that grasped things on this plane and on this level the way God’s Church does today. Only Joshua did.

…and they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them. And that Rock was Christ. Beautiful. Passover.

But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for indeed they were overthrown in the wilderness. We shouldn’t lose what that’s talking about. Absolutely. They didn’t get by with their rebellion, so much so that to a specific age everyone had to die in the wilderness. Powerful.

That’s why I know and know that I know what’s happening here at the end. God did that on a massive scale with thousands and tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. It’s not too difficult for Him to do that with a small size that the Church has been, that there is going to be that which is in absolute unity and harmony with God. That which is not is not going to live into a new age, the Millennium.

So, it says here, But with many of them, God was not well pleased. With many since the Church began God has not been well pleased and they will not be in the first resurrection, and they obviously, are not going to live in the Millennium either because they’re dead and waiting for the Great White Throne. Well, they don’t know that, but we know that.

Until that time there will be no life again, but then they’ll have life again and there is going to be a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Because can you imagine being resurrected and being told, and all of a sudden, you’re shaken out of a spiritual sleep and you’re given the ability to see what you did, to see what happened and what has transpired through time that you could have been a part of if you’d held on and fought to the end, if you desired to remain unleavened seven days, to eat only unleavened, to work at that, to fight for that? And if people could they’d kick themselves in the butt very hard, truly, to think “What an absolute fool, what a shame what I did.”

And you know what? They’re all going to be known. It’s going to be a lot of potential to be humbled. Whether all will be or not is another matter because we don’t know yet until that time comes. It’s in their hands. But that would be a very shameful thing. Because people are going to be known for when they lived and what they did. People are going to be known. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people, the many who in the past two thousand years have been separated from God’s Church. They’re all going to be known for who they are. “You did what? You lived when? You lived at a time when there was more understanding, and Herbert Armstrong and all that he did, and you did what?” There are going to be some shocked people because a lot of people aren’t going to understand how that can happen, and that’s what they’re to learn. Even with God’s spirit you can do exactly what happened during Laodicea.

So, those who are going to be dumbfounded by some of that, that someone could possibly do that, they don’t see themselves yet. But they’ll learn. They’re going to grow in that at some point during that hundred years.

…but with many of them, God was not well pleased, for indeed they were overthrown in the wilderness. That’s the proof.

Verse 6—Now, these things were our examples. See, as much as the blood on the doorposts and everything that took place, all the things that happened in that forty years, they’re there to be learned from as much as those things were on a spiritual plane. To the intent, we should not lust after evil things.

We shouldn’t be eating leavening once God begins this process in us. Don’t we see what happened to them? Can’t we learn the spiritual lesson that you don’t get by with it? You can’t have your own way.

Do you not see how blessed you really are? And that’s the problem, it’s not being able to see. And if we don’t see how blessed we are we’re not as thankful and grateful to God and we don’t value God’s Church and God’s people and what God is doing with us as much and we begin to lose those things. The more we begin to lose those things we begin to drift and we’re unhappy and we become miserable. Sad. Sad. Sad.

Now, these things were our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And so, what does this mean to us? We’ve had so many people through time who have lusted after evil things. They wanted something different. So much so they became separated from God and from God’s Church. Wanted their own way, something that opposed God’s way. That’s what this is about.

That’s what the Israelites did and that’s what the majority of those who have ever been called have done too.

Neither be idolators as some of them. Lifting up other gods. What is it we want?

That’s why I’ve always marveled at sometimes even smoking, it can become a god. Idolatry. Something so stupid, smoke in our lungs and how great that is, you know. Or what else that people do today. A little “merry-juana.” “Yeah, I feel good.” Sorry, but we’ve had that in God’s Church as well. Just to be real candid with you. And I believe, other drugs. Because some people have been called out of that world but began to go back to it. That’s a choice. And when that’s done, sayonara, auf wiedersehen, dasvidaniya, goodbye.

Neither be idolators as some of them. As it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. That’s how it should be seen. You go and do your own thing. Aren’t you happy now? You’re rejoicing in that kind of stuff? Aren’t you fulfilled and happy now? And what’s ahead? Do you see the future now? Can you see it clearly, how you’re screwing up your mind, how you’re going back to that which is an unsound mind, you can’t see things clearly? There is a reason for that. Only God can give us a sound mind and give us real peace.

And drama, drama, drama? Fear. Fear. Fear that comes out of that.

Verse 8—Neither commit fornication as some of them committed. The biggest problem ever in God’s Church. Number one thing! Sex. It’s a huge pull. It’s in the mind of human beings. It’s one of the most powerful things there is as far as something that pulls at human beings. It’s so easy to follow that. That’s why we have the kind of adultery that exists in this nation and around the world. That’s why there are so many divorces in this country. People see something else and want something else and so something has got to be better than this and they try to find something else and they’re just in this mad, mad world. Never happy, never fulfilled because that’s the way they think. They can’t help it.

A majority of the people who have left, this has been their problem. Someone else. Someone else. Age is no factor. Probably the most startling thing I ever learned – I knew someone that was committing adultery and they were old. Much older than I was because I was pretty young still. You’ve got to be crazy. You’ve got to be totally nuts. Here they’re going to be put out of God’s Church for this, obviously.

You think, it doesn’t matter what the age is, you’ve got to fight wrong thinking. Because those thoughts are going to come into your mind. As a whole, especially for men, I think, more than women. But it can be for women too. It just depends. We’re not all the same. You’ve got to fight. You’ve got to say no. You’ve got to want what God offers. You’ve got to say no to the carnal mind, and especially the crap that’s out there today on the internet. You’ve just got to say no to that crap. Call it what it is. That’s what it is. It’s so easy, you know.

It used to be that people might sneak into a store and sneak a magazine under their coat. Boy, they’re going to play. Playboy. Turn on words. Or some other stupid magazine, you know. And now today, no, it’s on your phone. Nobody is watching. People do this. Don’t deceive yourselves. A lot of people. That’s the way the world is. That’s just the way the world is. It’s so easy.

That’s what’s so bad about technology today, it’s so easy. And mankind, what are they noted for? Misusing everything. Why? “Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” And so, these things have crept in at times in God’s Church. You have to fight and conquer and overcome them and say, “No. I want to eat that which is unleavened.” That’s a choice to clean up your life, to work at getting it cleaned up.

All you have to do is repent. Repent before God of whatever great weaknesses, whatever thinking it is you have in your life. Alcohol. Drug abuse. Sex. Those are the big pullers in people’s lives oftentimes that pull people away. Wanting something different, whatever that difference is. Sad.

So anybody engaged in any of those kinds of things, better become unengaged real quick like because we’re down to the wire now and there is going to be more cleansing take place because God’s doing it. I’m amazed at some of the things God is bringing to the surface. I am and I’m not because I marvel at God and the power of Almighty God and the way He does these things. But we’re in that time. It’s going to be cleansed. We’re either a part or not.

Neither test Christ... A lot of people just don’t understand what this is talking about. …as some of them also tested, tested God. What does that mean, “test”? Well, it’s not a test to them, it’s the individuals that are doing it. It’s something in their mind that God is making a point about here.

So, the testing comes to believe somehow as Adam and Eve did in the garden, hiding from God like God doesn’t see it. It’s like thinking you can do something without being exposed. I mean, the Israelites did this over and over again. They didn’t really care. Until God did expose it. But they tested God. And what is the answer? They didn’t get by with it. They went out and made a golden calf, said this is the god that brought them out of Egypt.

You have to scratch your head at some of these things. But they were carnal—carnal, carnal, carnal, carnal, carnal—and so are we, though we have God’s spirit. That’s the key that makes us different. We’re to use it; we’re to fight the fight.

…as some of them also tested God. People that don’t give Holy Day offerings, don’t think that somehow you’re going to get by with that, that God doesn’t see it. It’s going to be addressed. He might let people do things for a time.

If you’re going down the computer screen and looking at things you shouldn’t be looking at and dwelling on things and fantasizing about things you shouldn’t be doing, you’re going to get caught. It’s going to come out. Time to clean everything up. On and on it goes, whatever it might be.

…as some of them also tested and were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur as some of them also murmured. I hear murmuring sometimes and it’s like, “Don’t you get what you’re doing?” Complaining about how things are being done in the Church. “Why don’t we do something this way? This year, are we going to do this?” It’s like, well, what did we hear? What did we hear in the sermon? That’s what we’re doing. What did we hear in the announcement? That’s what we’re doing. It’s pretty clear that’s what we’re doing.

You want something done a different way? Keep your mouth shut. Just shut up! You don’t like it and you want to go complain to someone else? Shame on you! Because that’s sin. You start causing division in God’s Church by your blabbing something out and saying, “Are we going to do something different now?” Just, if you’re going to do something different it’s because you’ve been told. You don’t have to worry about it.

Don’t we understand what murmuring is? We’re complaining inside that we want something done differently. “Can’t you do this this way? Can’t you see something here?” Anyway, testing Christ, testing God. We don’t get by with it. We don’t get by with it! God sees and knows everything, knows what’s going on in the mind and it will be addressed, especially at this age and this time because we don’t have much time. We don’t have much time.

Neither murmur as some of them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now, sometimes things that happen to some people when they’re no longer a part, they don’t know what they’ve put themselves to. Because those beings are greater than any of us of and by ourselves. It’s only by God’s spirit living in us, “Greater is He that dwells in us than he that’s in the world.” You see minds that go sometimes just nuts, wacky, weird, totally off base, totally unsound. Too many cases, totally demonic. Do you have fear in you?

Now, all these things happened to them for examples, for us to learn from, and written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world have come. Especially if you’re looking… This was written at a time that Paul wrote to the Corinthians. How much more now?

So again, examples, admonition, that no one should think they’re going to get away with testing Christ or testing God, disobedience, disobeying, in other words.

Therefore, let whoever thinks they stand take heed lest they fall. Isn’t that amazing to understand what that’s saying? You think you stand and you’re living something different, you’re doing something different and you’re testing God. They’re not being tested. Please understand. But by your actions you’re “testing God.” It’s like, “How long?” Because God will address it. Rest assured it’s going to be addressed. Either we repent and repent quickly because we’re supposed to leave sin in haste, quickly, and if we get into a habit of not doing that and not repenting on a regular basis we’re going to get caught in the quagmire. We truly are.

So, no one should think they’re going to get away with anything. That’s why it says, “Therefore, let whoever thinks they stand.” What is that? Pride. Haughtiness. To think we stand when we’re still sinning. That’s what it’s all about. Be careful. You think you stand and you’re doing things in the Church you know you shouldn’t be doing? God will expose it. God will reveal it. That’s exactly what this is all about.

Verse 13—No temptation has taken you… This is another one that’s been highly misunderstood. There is no temptation has taken you but such as is common to man, which is partially, it’s not the best translation. But it’s basically saying that nothing has happened to you that’s different from any other human being. We all have weaknesses as human beings. What is it? “Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life.” This is what it’s talking about. So, it’s just, Paul is just saying it in a different way, “This is just what’s common to human beings.”

So, it goes on to say, but God is faithful. Awesome! What does that mean? To us, once we’re baptized, once we have His spirit dwelling within us. …who will not… Not the word “suffer” but in the King James, New King James it says “allow,” but it literally means “leave you alone.” …who will not leave you alone. He is faithful. He’s going to give you the help you need but you’ve got to do it. You’ve got to make the choice.

Because sometimes people read this and think, “Well, there is not going to be anything that’s going to happen to me that I can’t take.” Well, what does that mean? Because the majority of people have left and it was definitely greater than them, whatever it was that got them. So, it’s not like God’s going to put this little bubble of protection about you and you’re just going to do whatever you want to do. That’s not what this is about. This is about we have choices to make, and God is faithful and there is a way to escape it, everything, every temptation that’s just common to human beings. And what is that? Well…?

…who will not leave you alone to be tempted above what you are… and the word “able” is not right here. …to have power is what it literally is in the Greek language. To have power. You need some power that you don’t have.

We as human beings, temptation will get the best, whatever that is, “Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” The only thing that can combat that is God’s spirit. That’s the help. We have that because we’re part of the Body of Christ. That’s what Paul is saying here.

But with or together with the temptation will also make a way to escape. What is that? Passover. Starts with Passover. We have the ability to repent when God shows us we’re on the wrong track, we’re doing the wrong thing – and you know when you’re doing the wrong thing. You know when you’re doing the wrong thing! You know when there are wrong thoughts in your mind because there’s a being out there that broadcasts and you just know. You ask God for help to fight in those battles, to be able to continue to fight, because the power and the strength has to come from Him.

You want to be close to Him. You want to be filled with His holy spirit. So, there is a way to escape. There is a way to come out of sin. Marvel at that. There’s a way to leave Egypt. That’s a no-brainer. God’s faithful. When He calls us we have it made, we really do as far as God is concerned, it’s just up to us and our choices.

So again, it’s through repentance, the ability to be forgiven through our Passover, and with the holy spirit to be able to fight whatever it is, to keep fighting. Because we have to be involved in that.

…that you be, as it says here, “able,” no, that you have power to bear or endure it. Because it’s a battle. It’s about enduring and fighting against this, and we have this carnal nature, and we have to live through this. The reality is you’re going to be bombarded in your mind and the carnal mind because we’re all carnal. Surprise, surprise. Do we have to be reminded of that? We all have “lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” and the only thing that can combat that and conquer that is God’s spirit. Repentance, forgiveness of sin, and drawing closer to God. Beautiful thing.

We will finish this in time. Verse 14—Therefore, my dearly beloved… See what he says? …flee from idolatry. Come out of sin. Come out of Egypt. God’s opened the door, He’s given you the ability, the power to come all the way out of it if you do all those seven days, all your life, fight the fight, look to God for His help and strength, repent, all the things that we’re taught.

I am saying to be sensible in judging what I say. The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? So what is all this context about? It’s about how we come out of sin! It’s about how we can change, how we can conquer, how we can overcome, have the power that we need in our lives in order to fight this fight, to flee, as it says in one place, fornication. Here it says, “Flee idolatry.”

The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? We just went through this.

For we being many are one bread. We’re to be at one with God, and that means unleavened. And where there is leavening it must be gotten rid of. …and one body, the Body of Christ. For we are all partakers, or we all share in, as it says, that one bread. That’s what we’re to do, the unleavened bread of life.

The power comes from God through His Son, Joshua, and given to us if we cry out for it, if we pray for it. We have to ask. Ask and ask and ask and ask. If we don’t ask you’ll not receive it. That’s what God says. That’s a battle. That’s a fight. It’s up to us.

John 6. So, we obviously understand we’re to be coming out of sin, becoming unleavened as we seek and work to get rid of the leavening in our lives. It’s just our life.

John 6:49—Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die. What a beautiful, beautiful thing that God has given to us to see, to understand on a spiritual plane.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven. That life that we can have, Christ in us. That’s how we change. That’s how we conquer. That’s how we overcome. That’s how we continue to come out of Egypt. That’s how we continue.

If any eat of this bread they will live forever. So, it’s our choice to eat of it. That means there is work to be done the way God says to do it – eat unleavened bread seven days. There are things in that unleavened bread, the truth that God gives to us we are to eat, we are to live, we are to practice, and we’re about to learn even more so that we need to practice it more.

…eat of this bread they will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.

1 Corinthians 5:6, we’ll close here, finish here. Your glorying is not good. You know, to want our own way, to be lifted up in pride, and to disobey God. That’s what these things are about. To raise something up above God.

Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? That’s why the body is better when leavening is gone. We’ve got to get rid of it individually. And if we don’t? …and collectively, obviously. If individually one doesn’t do it, it will be gotten rid of.

Therefore, purge out or “to cleanse thoroughly” as it says in the Greek. I love that, cleanse thoroughly the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. Physically, he’s saying during Unleavened Bread, just like you are at that time, you get rid of the leaven, do that spiritually.

For even Christ, our Passover, is killed for us. That’s what it means. “Killed for us.” “Put to death for us.” Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. That’s what is to be in us, that which is sincere and filled with truth. All that comes from God.

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