[Frank McCrady] Well, we're here on the Sabbath day of Unleavened Bread. We have commemorated the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf; partaking of the Passover. We have, for seven days, put out leavened bread and partaken of unleavened bread, symbolic of repenting and rejecting sin as well as, again, taking in the unleavened bread or that of righteousness, wanting to be like our savior, Jesus Christ. 

Romans, chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 are very good chapters to study during this time of the year, during the Passover season, the Days of Unleavened Bread, as well as Pentecost. They go through and discuss many of the concepts, many of the understandings that we have about these days. They are very important sections that help solidify our understanding of the Passover, Unleavened Bread, as well as Pentecost. They discuss being saved by grace; that would be the Passover. They discuss the value of God's law; you can look at Unleavened Bread in that section. It also talks about living by the Spirit, which also involves Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, because we live by the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth made possible by the Spirit that God gives to us. So Paul talks about a number of different subjects and he talks about grace and he talks about law. 

And you will find some writers who will tell you that Paul was conflicted, you know, he wasn't sure what he was talking about at times, because he talked about being saved by grace, but he talks about the value of the law, that we're not under bondage; and you have those who believe in salvation by grace without the law and they'll quote Paul extensively. Then you have some who read the apostle Paul who do believe in law, and they will quote other sections of Paul that talk about the value of law.  Now we, of course, realize and believe that it isn't just grace or law but it's law and grace; that they flow together very beautifully and that Paul was not really conflicted in how he wrote. 

For all of us here we need to understand that when Paul talks about salvation, when he talks about being saved, he writes about the grace of God and that the law can't save you. And, of course, the reason being is the law cannot, what? Can't forgive your sins. And so he talks extensively about the Passover, the grace of Jesus Christ, but then he also writes about the value of law--so he has another subject that he will cover, and when he talks about a standard to live by; how we are to live our lives. He talks again about the value of law. Unfortunately, there are too many (quote, unquote) “educated people” who can't put that together and comprehend that. Now I realize Peter said that Paul's writings are sometimes hard to be understood based on how he expressed himself. Now, I'll tell you this, if Peter says it was sometimes hard for him to understand, where does that put us, you know? But we can understand. 

In chapter 5, still in the introduction--I mentioned chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8.  In chapter 5, Paul talks about being justified by faith; that's the Passover--specifically verse 1.  In verse 20 he says:

Romans 5:20 - ...but where sin abounded, grace abounded...much...more.

Again, talking about the Passover. In verse 21 he discusses being saved by grace through Jesus Christ;  again, Passover. Then he drops on down to chapter 6--now, Paul didn't drop down to chapter 6--he wrote it. We had someone come along and divide it up for us, which I am very grateful they did, personally. But you come to chapter 6 and Paul asks this question--it says he devoted so much time to grace and Christ and salvation through Him, and not so much of the law. He says in verse 1 of chapter 6, shall we then continue in sin that this grace I've been discussing can abound? He says, certainly not; God forbid. How can we who have died to sin, who put the leavening out, live any more that way of life? So now he talks about the value of law. We're dead to sin, he tells us, following verses 1 and 2. We died to sin. And, of course, we know 1 John 3:4 tells us, what? Sin is the transgression of the law. We've died to wanting to transgress and go against the teachings of God Almighty. You drop down to chapter 7. You find now the apostle Paul discussing how the law identifies sin--verses 6 and 7. He also says that sin was the issue, not the law; as a matter of fact, he says the law is holy and the commandments holy, just and good--verses 11 and 12.

And then Paul discusses his dilemma--things that he faced with this understanding--he discusses his dilemma, a dilemma that some of us might face at times. I think all of you know the dilemma I'm referencing in Romans chapter 7, do you not? He talks about how wonderful the law is, but he says, I find myself at times acting carnally. I find myself living after the flesh occasionally, because the things I want to do, I don't find myself doing at times. The things I don't want to do, I what? Find myself  sometimes doing it. He found himself in a dilemma. Now, I don't want any show of hands--have any of you ever been in that dilemma? No, no, none of you, right? (ha ha). I think we all have faced that at one time or another. In Romans chapter 7 and verse 14--I want to read this from the New Living Translation--it puts it really well; because Romans chapter 7 and verse 14 says:

Romans 7:14 - For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin...Paul said; and I really like the way this is put in the New Living Translation. Paul writes, or it's stated here...so the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human...at times...that's the dilemma.

And Paul wanted to figure out how do I deal with this dilemma? How do I deal with this human element? This human flesh that sometimes wants to rise up and this human mind that sometimes doesn't want to flow as it should? I can relate to that. I'll be vulnerable a little bit. A number of years ago, there was a situation that happened that I felt was very, very unjust. It involved someone close to me; I felt something was done that was totally inappropriate, and, uh, I found myself caught up emotionally, after finding out what had transpired. So I sat down and I wrote a letter. Now wisdom would have told me, don't sit down and write a letter. Wisdom would have told me, sleep on it, give yourself a day or two. I didn't do that. Now what I wrote in the letter I thought was appropriate as far as what was stated--the facts--but the emotions and some of the things I said were totally inappropriate, and I had to repent of that; and I had to change myself and learn from that, that I didn't always use my mind the way I needed to--I had a dilemma like Paul; the things I didn't want to do, I found myself doing. And I had to actually, uh, apologize to a particular individual for; and I did, I apologized to his face.

Anybody ever been in that situation? Maybe thinking of something different? I wanted to share that with you. I can understand what Paul is saying here. He wanted to be a part of what God is doing, he wanted to deal with his dilemma, but he knew that sometimes the old flesh raised his head, or his mind got out of control. And then in Romans chapter 7, verse 24--we'll start reading here, where he talks about the law of God being valuable; he talks about another law that sometimes affected him--the law of sin--then he says in verse 24 of  Romans chapter 7:

Romans 7:24 - O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?...who has the answer?

Who's going to move me forward? Who's going to help me deal with these issues that I have so that I don't do them like I used to do, or I perform like I want to perform? Or will help me realize I need to keep myself under control, and if something is unjust, make sure that I deal with it properly? Who's going to help me with that? Who's going to do that for me? And then he says in verse 25:

Romans 7:25 - I thank God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.

He thanked God that God would give him the answers; he thanked God that Jesus Christ would be the One to give him the delivery, or deliver him; he thanked God that through Jesus Christ he could be victorious over his life. That's one of the primary lessons we need to learn during this time of the year; that God gives us the ability to be victorious over our flesh and over the mind; that we don't have to serve sin any longer. Am I saying that we'll always be perfect? No, but it does tell us that we're not to practice sin; that is the direction that God wants us to be going.

Now chapter 8 - I want to spend a lot more time in, because we move on now to chapter 8, which really discusses the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Chapter 8 discusses living by Pentecost, or the teaching of Pentecost--the power of God's holy spirit--not living after of the flesh. If we want to deal with our flesh, we're going to have to learn to live even more by the spirit and the power of God Almighty. That is imperative. So chapter 8 discusses how Jesus Christ would help him (Paul), and help us, and that is the subject of this sermon today; being victorious.

Paul gives the answer to the question that he asks, because he knew the answer. God wants us to be successful in controlling our lives, and successful in being delivered, through Jesus Christ. So let's look at chapter 8 a little more carefully. Verse 1 of chapter 8, we find Paul now beginning to discuss what he meant by, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin--verse 25 of Romans 7. In essence, what he's saying is, if I allow myself to live after the flesh, I'm going to sin, but if I allow myself to live after the spirit, I'm going to serve God. That's the whole sermon that I want to cover with you; I just did it in one verse. But we're going to develop that a little bit, okay? So now after he says, the law of the spirit and the law of the flesh, it says in verse one of chapter 8:

Romans 8:1 - There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but...now walk...according to the Spirit.

There's no condemnation. It doesn't mean that we don't condemn sin--sin brings pain; who walk in Christ, who are united to Jesus Christ; that denotes a close and intimate union, an intimate walk, an intimate conduct, an intimate life with Him. That's what that means; if we're going to overcome sin, and overcome some of the issues that we may still have in our life, it's going to happen because we begin to walk better with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. That's the key, and having God's spirit to work closely within us. And not after the flesh; in other words, we don't live to gratify the corrupt desires and passions of the flesh--verse one is talking about. To walk after the flesh is clearly seen in Galatians 5:19 and 21, 19 through 21. I'll read that to you so you don't need to turn over there. What do the works of the flesh look like? What does walking after the flesh mean? Well, Galatians 5 verse 19 says:

Galatians 5:19 - Now the works of the flesh are evident which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness...verse 20 - idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies...verse 21 - evils...murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like...that's a pretty good-sized list there.

And Paul told the church of Corinth; he says, some of you walked in these, before you were called and had God's Holy Spirit, and began to walk after the Spirit. Some of you lived this lifestyle. Again, no show of hands--any of you ever lived this lifestyle, or had elements of it? Only you can answer that question. So Paul says, if we're going to live after the flesh, then we're going to serve sin, and this identifies that.

So it follows that a man or a woman whose purpose in life is to gratify his own personal corrupt desires, cannot be a Christian, cannot live as a Christian, cannot practice Christianity. And when you understand it and when you look at this section where it talks about the works of the flesh, it's a very easy test to be applied in your life and my life. All I have to do is look at these and say, is this what drives me, is this what motivates me? That's a test of what Christianity is not. It's an easy test when you really understand it. If a man or woman lives this way, there's no need to question his or her character. It is what it is!

Unleavened Bread says this is what we come out of. So he says, if we live after the flesh--these things, we will serve the law of sin. Made very clear in Romans chapter 8 verse one:

Romans 8:1 – but...those...who do not walk...after...the flesh, but...after the...Spirit...will serve God and serve the Spirit.

As the Holy Spirit leads us, prompts us, guides us and produces fruits in us.

Now, what do the works of the Spirit look like? Same section of scripture--Galatians chapter 5, verses 22 through 26. It says:

Galatians 5:22 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness...verse 23 - gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Verse 24 - And those who are Christ's...who are walking after the Spirit...have crucified the flesh...those things we just read...with its passions and desires. Verse 25 - If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

So that's what living after the Spirit is all about. And if a man has these fruits--or any of you ladies out there--have these fruits, Paul says you're living the life of a Christian. You're living the life of following and walking in the Spirit. That also is a test that is easily applied, is it not? Do you see yourself in Galatians 5: 22 through 26? Do you see that as predominantly your character and your life that you live? Again, remember, I'm not talking about perfection--I'm talking about a way of life that we walk. We have to deal with the dilemmas at times. But God gives the power and strength for that as well. Verse two of Romans 8 says:

Romans 8:2 - For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

He talks about the law; the law of the Spirit. All he's saying there when he says the law, is the command or the influence of the Spirit, the rule of the Spirit, what the Spirit does for you. And that the Spirit produces life. In other words, it exerts a control which is here called the law. The law of the Spirit; it's a control, that if we utilize God's Holy Spirit, produces something. So he calls it a law. It's how we're ruled or governed by as opposed to the flesh. And he says, it has made me free from the law of sin and death. In other words, it has delivered me; isn't that what Paul was wanting to uh, wasn't that the question Paul asked when he was dealing with his dilemma--O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me? Paul knew Who it would be. He was making sure that the church at Rome understood as well, because chapter 8 is very clear on whose going to be doing the delivering when we tie closely in to Him. He has made me free, or delivered me from the predominant influences and control of sin.

You see, brethren, you are not under the control of sin. If you are, then you are not utilizing the walk with the Spirit effectively enough. Or I am not, if I am that way. It has made me free or delivered me from the influence or the control of sin; not talking about perfection, but it is talking about what I John 3:9 states. I John 3:9 says:

I John 3:9 - He that walks after the Spirit is begotten of God and does not practice sin.

So that is the walk of a Christian. He's not practicing sin, but he's practicing the way of life that God has given to him. It is through Christ that we're delivered from the influence and the control of what you see in society; and specifically, the law of sin and death, or again the controlling influence of sin, which leads to what? Death. Romans 6:23 says:

Romans 6:23 - for...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. Verse 3 of Romans chapter 8:

Romans 8:3 - For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh...and...on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.

For what the law could not do; the law of God is a moral law. It's a law that God wants us to live by. But the law cannot free us from sin and condemnation. The law identifies sin, but it cannot forgive you your sins. What the law could not do, God did, how? By sending His own Son. He did it or He accomplished it by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, so that the likeness of sinful flesh, or in the likeness of sinful flesh (that is, Jesus Christ coming in the flesh, born of Mary) being sacrificed for sin; then through Him condemns sin in the flesh. In other words, He makes it possible for us to be forgiven our sins; that which the law could not do. That's why He talks about grace and forgiveness of sin through grace, that is a standard of life, living by the law. So Christ condemned, again, sin in the flesh; He came and died for sin, and He died because of sin, and He died because we were sinners.

And I think all of us left Passover sobered, or we left Passover, what? Elated and happy, that we did not have to pay the penalty that Jesus Christ paid in our behalf. That's what Paul's talking about here. The value of Jesus Christ. Verse 4 of Romans chapter 8:

Romans 8:4 - that the...righteousness...of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

So he says, Christ came to enable us to be forgiven our sins; He came in the flesh as a human being; – and he says, one of the reasons that He came, or here is the specific reason in Romans, is that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us. What he's saying is that by the power of God's Holy Spirit, and by walking by the Spirit, we can be confirmed into the law; or we can come to be more obedient to the requirements of the law, with the help of God. And that we, again, are no longer under the influence of the flesh and its corrupt desires, but we are under the influence of God's Holy Spirit. And he says that it might be fulfilled in us, that we might be obedient, and comply with the laws He made us.

Now, those in Dayton, and Cincinnati north, know, one of the primary reasons that God gave us His laws and why He wants us to comply with His demands. If  I were to ask any single person from Dayton or Cincinnati north, they would know the answer to that, right? Ladies and gentlemen from, yeah, I see all the heads shaking in Cincinnati and in Cincinnati north.

God says, I want you to be obedient to Me--Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 12. I want you to live by the commandments that I give to you, and they all would tell you--finish the sentence, Frank--for your good, for your benefit, for your well-being. And that's how we need to look upon the law of God. It's beneficial, it's good. And that Christ says, sin has lead you astray--your old pulls of the flesh and mind of the past--now that you're converted, I'm giving you the strength to walk by the Spirit, because as you walk by the Spirit, it enables you to comply or conform to the way of love, the way of God's law in the spirit--not just the letter--and you will be blessed by it. It will be a benefit for you. Passover, Unleavened Bread--beautiful days--blessings that God gives to us; that we might be conformed to the law or be obedient to its requirements. And we no longer have to be under the influence of the flesh and its corrupt desires.

But you notice, it's who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. It's very, very important. Verse 5, Romans chapter 8, he said:

Romans 8:5 - Because they who are after the flesh, do mind the things of the flesh.

Those who just want to live and have their minds totally focused on what the world desires--the three elements that are in the world-- if they live after the flesh, they do the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, do the things of the Spirit. Those of the world are under the influence of the corrupt desires and nature that mankind does have. God didn't create mankind with that nature, we all understand that, do we not? We all understand that, I hope. When you look at creation, God said, all of those days, including the creation of man; He says, it was good. As a matter of fact, He says, it was very good.

How did this sinful nature, how did this evil desire, how did this corrupt flesh become a part of man? Well, there was an adversary, an individual called, Lucifer, who became Satan, the devil, who was out to destroy man and he came in and he influenced Adam and Eve, and Adam and Eve chose to follow that influence. They chose to partake of Satan's fruit. And they chose to disobey their Father. They chose to decide what was right and wrong, and humanity has decided from that time forward to do that; and we know the outcome, do we not? We know the outcome and others who would be out there called Noah. I'm not going to watch it, I heard it's lousy--but we all know what happened during the time of Noah, right? And why the flood came? It says that the heart and the mind of man was set to, what? Continually do evil! Man had become so perverted and corrupted by this evil nature, that he chose to follow Satan, that mankind had to start over. So God brings mankind across the flood.

And God knew, based on what He said about Jesus Christ there in Genesis, that He would have to bruise Satan's head and bring about a change in mankind's nature. That's why Christ came, and why the Holy Spirit came, that we, who are part of God's way of life, live a different lifestyle. It leads us in a different direction. We reject Satan. He flees from us. That which is in us is greater than that which is in the world. So society is under, you know, the desires of the flesh. They are un-renewed in their approach to life. We are to be renewed in ours. They mind things of the flesh. But they that are after the Spirit, we again see in verse 5, are supremely devoted to the gratification of God; we're under His influence, and we're led by the Spirit. It says, the things of the Spirit, those are the things that the Spirit produces, are which affects the mind. Again, Galatians 5:21 through 23. Verse 6, for these days of Unleavened Bread, Paul goes on to say:

Romans 8:6 - For to be carnally minded...that's a mind apart from God. Anybody here ever had Chili Con Carne? To be carnally minded, that's just means a meaty mind going contrary to God. To be carnally minded...is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace...and is our deliverance; what delivers us.

So again, he's just repeating over and over about the flesh and the minding of the Spirit, making the Spirit the object of our love, and the object of our life. Romans 7, he then goes on to say:

Romans 8:7 - Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. Verse 8 - So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Is he saying, the fact that all of you are human beings--fleshly human beings--you can't please God? Is that what He means here? Or does He mean, based on the context; those again, who are walking after the flesh?

I want to read something to you--in my preparation and my studies the past week, week and a half--I was going through a number of commentaries, getting some concepts about Romans 5, 6, 7 and 8; going through some of my old apostle Paul epistles of Paul notes, and I found Barnes notes to be very interesting; it's an interesting concept, the carnal mind. Let me read this to you. Barnes notes says, it's not, it does not mean the mind itself--the intellect or the will--it does not suppose that the mind is physically depraved. We know that God made us, what? Good. But it means that the minding of the things of the flesh, giving in to them, or giving them supreme attention, is hostility against God. It involves the sinner in a controversy with Him; and hence, leads to death and woe. This passage should be--this passage should not be alleged, according to Barnes, should not be alleged in proof that the person is physically depraved. Sometimes I've heard people say, well, the world is just physically depraved. No, it's not. It's going contrary to God, but the world as a whole is not physically depraved. There are a lot of people who eat from what? Knowledge of good and evil, or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and a lot of people eat from the good side. A lot of people eat from the bad side; eat more (let me rephrase)--a lot of people eat more from the good side, and a lot of people eat more from the bad side. I would say, Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Hitler, Mussolini, kind of ate more from the bad side. But I see a lot of people who really want to help and serve mankind, and they understand that concept of giving, and they're blessed by it.

Mr. Armstrong used to say that God's laws are eternal, and whatever laws you keep, whether you know it or not, you're going to be blessed by it. I have always believed that. I have always believed that. So he says, this passage should not be alleged and proof that a person is physically depraved, but merely that where there is a supreme regard for the flesh, there's hostility to God. It does not directly prove the doctrine of universal depravity, but it proves only that where such attention exists to the corrupt desires of the soul, there is hostility to God. It is indeed implied that the supreme regard to the flesh exists everywhere by nature, but this is not expressly affirmed. For the object of the apostle here is not to teach the doctrine of depravity, but to show that where such depravity in fact exists--and I like this next sentence--it involves the sinner in a fearful controversy with God. Or it exists because we've separated ourselves from God, and we've allowed ourselves to live according to the flesh. Paul says, humanity's gone that way, and now we need to live according to the Spirit.

You want to deal with your issues?  Do you really want to deal with your issues, if you have any? You've got to live by the Spirit of God. You've got to live by walking after the Spirit. That is the fundamental key to the development of a righteous life. We already saw what walking after the Spirit is like.

I wanted to read that to you because I'd never read anything like that in my 45 years in the ministry. The first time I've read anything like that, and I thought, that was interesting, I'm going to share that. Now, not everybody will agree with that, but as I read this, looking--over the audience--I saw a lot of heads going like this too. A lot of people understood and were shaking their heads; aah, that makes sense. It makes sense. So he said, the carnal mind is enmity against God because it walks after the flesh, it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. It's enmity, it's hostile, it's against God and towards, you know, Satan--is not subject--it just isn't going to be, as long as it's walking after the flesh, and neither indeed can be. It's an absolute certainty, that as long as you walk that way, you are not going to be subject to God or His law. It ain't going to happen. That's why we have to learn to live after the Spirit and walk after the Spirit. Romans 8 verse 8:

Romans 8:8 - So then...they...who are in the flesh cannot please God.

In other words, it follows, it leads to the fact that, as long as you're willing to live in the flesh, or how the flesh wants to drive you, you cannot please God. Those who are un-renewed, that supremely follow the desires of the flesh and appetites, are going to be contrary to God; you just cannot please Him.

How are your appetites, brethren? Well, probably some of you are wanting a nice piece of French bread right now, right? But how are your appetites? What is it that you really want to eat and partake of? Is it the leavened bread of sin, or the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth? What is your appetite? What is it you really want to do? What is it that drives you? I have to ask myself those same questions. And in Romans 8 verse 9, it's very encouraging. Paul is talking about how to be delivered and what keeps you separated and in bondage, and what delivers you. Then he tells you this: For you in Cincinnati today, you are not in the flesh--you're not in the flesh. Now you can pinch yourself and say, yes I am; but that's not even what he's talking about, right? He says:

Romans 8:9 - But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit, if so be the spirit of God dwells in you; and if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His.

So he says, those of you who have been called by God, who have been converted, who have given in to that conversion, who have walked after the teachings and values, have God's holy spirit; you don't live by the flesh anymore. It doesn't drive you any longer, because we have God's holy spirit in us. We're now spiritually minded. We're now under the direct influence of God's holy spirit, not the flesh, because it dwells in us.

Now notice it says, it dwells in us. It doesn't say it occasionally passes through, right? The holy spirit dwells, it doesn't make an occasional visit, like we may make an occasional visit to the throne of God in prayer. No, it dwells in us, it dwells in us. And the word dwells denotes intimacy of connection. It means that those things which are the fruits of the spirit are produced in our hearts and in our minds, because it dwells in us. And if it doesn't--again, here's a test of Christianity--then it doesn't apply. We're not a Christian. Drop down to verse 14. Romans 8 and verse 14. It isn't a matter that Christ says the holy spirit is in you and makes you a Christian, that's part of it; but if you want to overcome and you want to move forward in your Christianity, and walk and get rid of the leavening spirit out of your life, then verse 14 Paul says, is also important. Paul understood that verse 14 was necessary for him to be delivered from that wretched man that he was--to have to be delivered from the dilemmas that he faced. It's also needed for us to be delivered from our own personal dilemmas; myself, and allowing myself from being carried away emotionally and saying and writing something I should have never have written. He says:

Romans 8:14 - For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are...the...sons...or the children...of God.

It isn't just having God's Spirit in you, being baptized, and receiving the spirit and saying, done, accomplished, finished. I was baptized, I have God's Holy Spirit; done. No, he says, once you have God's Holy Spirit you then now need to let that Spirit lead you; that's walking after the Spirit. That make sense? Sure, it absolutely does. He says, these are the sons of God. In other words, we submit our lives to God's influence and God's control. In other words, the Spirit is shown to be influencing, suggesting and helping us in the walk that we have. He says, these then are the sons of God; these are the individuals who are part of the family of God, begotten today with God's Holy Spirit. These are the individuals that one day will receive the ultimate deliverance, shown by the way you look at Passover, Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, as magnificent teachings of Holy Days on deliverance. Then you look at Trumpets, Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day as great events; that the first three make possible when you fully understand it. So the deliverance ultimately occurs at one of the great events. What event is that, anyone remember? Trumpets--the great event of Jesus Christ returning; and we are delivered ultimately to being a spirit being. Ultimately being an individual who no longer has the flesh, but is spirit, delivered. Actually delivered from the last enemy, which is death. We are now the sons of the living God.

So now that we've gone through and took a very cursory look at chapter 5, 6 and 7 of Romans, and saw how they fit with Passover and Unleavened Bread, as well as Pentecost, and then took a little deeper look into chapter 8, where Paul gave the answer to his dilemma; who shall deliver me from this body of death? Jesus Christ and the power of His Holy Spirit living His life in us, and showing us that we walk after the Spirit; that's how we're delivered.

Now that we've seen Paul show us how to have victory in overcoming ourselves, and that it involves our hearts and our minds in-tune with God's Spirit, I want to evaluate a particular scripture, maybe two; we'll see if we have time for the second one--I want to evaluate a scripture that's commonly misunderstood, based in the context of what we've covered here. And that scripture is found in Isaiah 55 verse 8 and 9. And I say this is commonly misunderstood--and I'm not going to say where I heard this--but I heard an individual talking with another person, and first of all, he was telling that person that because he's human, he's still carnal; he still has an evil heart. He also told him that you can't think like God, because God's laws are higher than ours; and you know, I wasn't (eavesdripping) but the guy was speaking loud enough, and I was about 5-6 feet away, that I heard this; and I'm sitting there shaking my head, saying, wait a minute; that's not what conversion and having God's Holy Spirit is all about. The human heart, the fleshly heart, God says in Jeremiah 17:9, is evil. But what does He say to you as a Christian? What does He say to me? You become converted, and I've cut the stony part of your heart away, and I've given you a heart of flesh. I now take it and put in your mind and your heart the spirit of My law, so that you can think differently. Romans 8 is talking about a different heart and mind.

Anyway, I walked away, and the following Sabbath I gave a sermon in Cincinnati north on that subject, because I said, people need to understand the difference in carnality and conversion.

Now, don't get me wrong; you can go back and have a heart, you can remake that evil heart. You can go back and resurrect that evil, hard-headed carnality that walks after the flesh. All of us can. Paul says, that's like what? The dog turning back to its vomit? The pig to the miry clay, or the filth. But it's a choice that we make. Individuals can go back to it, but that's not how you are when you're living by God's way of life that He gives to you and by the Spirit that He has placed within you. I will always disagree; there might be ministers who disagree with me, I don't know; but I will always disagree with the fact that you have an evil heart and an evil mind, if you have God's Holy Spirit in you. I'm not saying it's a perfect mind or a perfect heart. I already told you about my dilemma. But that's not how I want to be. That's not how I want to walk. How I want to be and how I want to walk is in service to God, my Savior Jesus Christ--that's what I want.

And that's what John says my M.O. is, you know, don't sin, he says. Your M.O. should be to fall, but if you do, you have a Savior--I John chapter 2, who will forgive your sins, even when you write this stupid letter. Isaiah 55 verse 8 and verse 9 says:

Isaiah 55:8-9 - For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord.

Isaiah 55:9 - For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

This individual was using those two verses to tell these individuals they can't think like God; God's far above our way of thinking.

But why does God say what He does in these scriptures? What's the reason for Him saying these things? Like I said, there are some who believe that we can't think like God because of this scripture. I ask, is that true? Now I think we all know that God's IQ is greater than ours; duh, right? But is that what he's talking about? That's not the point. The point of Isaiah's writing here is that Israel and Judah, as far as that's concerned, were both sinning grievously against God. They were sinning grievously. They were abusing the widow, they were abusing the orphans. The leaders were taking bribes, and they were perverting justice. They were involved with idolatry. Their thoughts and their actions definitely were not God's. As a matter of fact, their thoughts, ideas, concepts and actions were of Satan. And so God says, look, My thoughts are not your thoughts, you're not thinking like I'm thinking, you're not acting like I'm acting. My thoughts are so much higher. You're in the face of the earth; you need to begin to think and set your eyes on those things that are above. Your thoughts are not My thoughts. Your ideas, concepts and actions are not My actions. Notice verse 7 of chapter 55, before he makes the statement in verse 8 and 9, Isaiah says:

Isaiah 55:7 - Let the wicked...man...forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts...in other words, forsake the way you are living and what you are doing, forsake the way you are thinking, because you're not thinking like Me, and instead...Let him return to the Lord, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.

So God isn't saying you can't think like Him, He's saying you are not thinking like Him, Israel, Judah. And so you need to repent and do what? What's the bottom line? What is the context telling us? So you need to repent and do what? Begin to think like Me. You need to repent and begin to act like Me, because My thoughts are up here, and that's where your thoughts need to be. That's where my thoughts need to be, not on this earth, not dealing with the pulls of the flesh and living that way of life.

I pulled a statement out of Matthew Henry's commentary as well; like I said when I was preparing this, on Isaiah 55, 8 and 9; I think he puts it really well. He says, if we look up to heaven, we find God's counsel there high and transcendent. We find His thoughts and His ways infinitely above ours. The wicked then are urged to forsake their evil ways and thoughts, and return to God and His way of thinking. To bring their ways and to bring their thoughts to concur and comply with His; that's the context and the meaning of Isaiah 55:8. For He says, My thoughts and ways are not yours. And they sure weren't; theirs were evil. They were thinking evil thoughts and evil actions. He goes on to say, yours are conversant only about things beneath. They are of the earth, earthy. But Mine are above, as the heavens are high above the earth, and if you would approve yourselves true penitence, yours also must be too, so set your affections, and your thoughts, your minds on things above.

So the point being made by Isaiah isn't that we can't think as God does, but we better think as He does. That is what will lead you to deal with your dilemmas. We better walk, as we've emphasized extensively, after the spirit, and not after the flesh.

So Matthew Henry's correct, walking after the spirit is setting your mind and affections on things above. After all, isn't that what Paul said? Colossians chapter 3, turn over there. You want to walk after the spirit, deal with your dilemmas? Colossians 3 verse 1:

Colossians 3:1 - Since then you have been raised with Christ...our baptismal, definitely symbolic of that...since you have been raised with Christ...set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and set your minds...So we're talking about the minds and the hearts.

Colossians 3:2 - Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things...that's what Isaiah was referencing.

Colossians 3:3 – Because...you died, and your life is...now...hidden with Christ in God.

Colossians 3:4 - and...when Christ who is...your...life appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory.

Then verses 12 through 17 gives us clear instructions again of walking after the spirit, similar to Galatians. If you drop down to verse 12 it says:

Colossians 3:12 – Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly beloved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Verse 13 - bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Verse 14 - and over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Verse 15 - And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace, and be thankful. Verse 16 - And let the word of God dwell richly in you...dwell in you richly...as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom. And as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. Verse 17 - And Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of our Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

How else does walking after the spirit look? How else does it look? Philippians 4 verses 8 and 9. This is where our minds need to be, brethren. Philippians 4: 8 and 9:

Philippians 4:8-9 - Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable; if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things...Have your mind focused on these things. Verse 9 - And whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice, and then the God of peace will be with you.

You might even tie 1 Corinthians 10:5 in with that. You don't need to turn there. II Corinthians chapter 10 verse 5 says:

1 Corinthians 10:5 - bringing every thought into captivity...that is done by fulfilling Philippians chapter 4--bringing every thought into captivity.

We already covered Galatians chapter 5, so we don't need to do that again. So those who belong to Jesus Christ have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires, and since we live by the Spirit, we let the Spirit drive us and keep us moving forward. Romans chapter 12 verse 2--and for time I'm just going to reference these; if you want to turn to read them, that's fine. Romans chapter 12 verse 2 talks of a spiritual transformation. It talks about going from being conformed to the world to being conformed to God. And when you read that section of scripture, that equals a renewal of your mind, how you think--similar to putting off the old man in the renewing of your mind--Ephesians 4:23. Hebrews 8 and verse 10. This is quoted from Jeremiah 31 and verse 33, where Paul tells us according to the New Covenant, of which all of you are a part, all of you are part of the New Covenant; the New Covenant now places God's laws into the mind and into the hearts of the believers, no longer written on stone. It's now a part of us, and as we saw in Romans, by the Holy Spirit, God enables us now to actually live more that way of life, it's now actually within us.

Now as we move forward, getting closer to the conclusion; those are words people love to hear--let's go back to Romans 8. Paul also tells us something very important for something we need to understand. In Romans 8, that's walking after the flesh, or walking after the spirit is up to us. It is up to us. It's our choice. We have the choice in how we will live, because we're all free moral agents. If you will notice in some of my reading, I didn't emphasize it at that time; I will now--there are many ifs in Romans chapter 8. So which choice will you make? What choice will I make? There are many ifs. Notice, Romans 8 verses 7 and 8, it talks about the carnal, fleshly mind that's enmity against God. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God; that doesn't mean as long as we're physical we can't please God. Verse 9--maybe it's a matter of our individual choice. Notice it says:

Romans 8:9 – If the Spirit of God dwells in you, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit...that's a big IF...if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. Verse 10 – If Christ is in you, then the flesh is dead, and the Spirit is life. Verse 11 – If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus Christ dwells in you, it will give life to your mortal body through that Spirit that dwells in you...notice it says the Spirit must reside in you, not an occasional visit. Verse 13, it says:

Romans 8:13 – If you live according to the flesh you will die; but if you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.

IF is huge in Romans chapter 8. IF, IF, IF, IF, IF. All that is saying is, brethren, in Cincinnati and Dayton, we have a choice. IF these things happen one way, this is the outcome. IF they happen another way, this is the outcome. Which side of IF are you going to come down on? Which side of IF am I going to come down on? What choice am I going to make; live after the Spirit, or live after the flesh?

In conclusion, if we live after the Spirit, we will be able to overcome any trial. Paul knew that, that's why he said, who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ, that by walking after the Spirit, I can deal with all these issues. It doesn't mean you won't make mistakes. But whatever issue you face in life can be dealt with, but it takes God in you for some of them. Walking in the Spirit has great benefits. Again, I'm just going to quote some of these for you: Romans 8:37:

Romans 8:37 - no matter the trial or hardship, God says...in all things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us.

We're more than conquerors. More than conquerors. So Paul doesn't leave them hopeless or helpless. He gives them great encouragement. They too, like him, can deal with their issues. Christ said in John chapter 16 verse 33, in the world you will have troubles. I like the expression, in the world you shall have tribulations, or you shall have issues, but we don't put a period there. When you are walking in the Spirit, Christ says, don't worry; I overcame the world. And in Me, walking with Me, walking in the Spirit, you can overcome it too. You can be victorious. I John 4:4, we can overcome the world and Satan because we're told that that which is in us is stronger than that which is in the world; it's that power of God's Holy Spirit. In I Corinthians 15:57--I will ask you to please turn to that one. This will be the last scripture. 1 Corinthians 15:57--the resurrection chapter--the final enemy to be destroyed is death, and I want you to notice the specific statement that can be applicable to whatever we face in life. I Corinthians 15:57; it's here that God gives us the victory through Jesus Christ:

1 Corinthians 15:57 – But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

That's where the victory comes. We've got to have Christ in us. We need to use the Holy Spirit. We need to reject the way of the flesh, the leavened bread, we need to accept the Spirit of God, the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, and of course, that flows right on into Pentecost.

So, brethren, Christ didn't become our Passover; He didn't live His life in the flesh, and go through the ridicule, the abuse, the beatings, and ultimately death, that we should fail. He didn't come here that we should fail. He came here that, what? We should be successful. He came here that we may be victorious; that's why He came.

We want to be on Jesus' side, brethren, because Jesus Christ always wins. He never loses. I want to be on the winning side, that's where I want to be. He never loses, He always wins! And He will give us the victory.

[Darris McNeely] Once we heard in the sermonette, we're very quick to approach the Passover. We're at that season of the year. And every year, we begin to prepare by examining ourselves and our deepest thoughts, way down deep where we really live, inside with ourselves. Mr. Rangel was talking about the first couple of years and really taken off with a good start, and then things catch up to him. Wait until you get to 50 years of Passover services and, you know, you have a whole different perspective here.

But what do you see every year when you examine yourself and how do you react? As I said, I don't always like what I see, especially when I see the same sins and the same problems that I might struggle with come back around every year and that tends to pop up as far as what I might list as a problem. I don't like to see that. And sometimes you think you've made some progress and then sometimes you realize you just haven't. But I don't beat myself up, and nor should you. You shouldn't beat yourself up either.

Turn, if you will, over to Hebrews 9. We ended the sermonette in Hebrews. We'll start this sermon in Hebrews 9, beginning in verse 7. I'm sorry, Hebrews 8, beginning in verse 7. "If that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says, 'Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue with My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall teach… they shall be My people.’"

The essence of the New Covenant is why I don't beat myself up. Every year, as I examine myself for the past Passover, nor should you because God is in the process of writing His law upon our hearts, through His Spirit as an ongoing process. And that is a reality that is the anchor of our life. It's the anchor of a Christian. And that's what keeps me going. That's what helps me to go through the examination, not get discouraged, not want to give up, not think that there's no use to overcoming, that I can't, or whatever it might be because I know that I can and I know that I have. And what might be present or having been with me for some time, I know that by God's Spirit, I can overcome. And so can you.

Every one of us where God is working with us through His Spirit can do that. The Passover is a time to renew the fellowship of the heart, that this Scripture is really talking about, to redouble our efforts to overcome sin. With the help of Christ in us by His Spirit, it can be done. It can be done. The fact that we are here together after so many years, the fact that we are still a part of the Body of Christ, obeying God, keeping His Sabbaths, keeping His Holy Days is a sign of that, one of many signs, but it's an important sign. It can be done.

Today, I'd like to take all of us back to a story that I think will help us to understand this fellowship of the heart that I think is, again, at the essence of this new covenant experience that Hebrews tells us about. I'd like to take us back to a story from the Old Testament to the time of King Josiah and a reform and a renewal that Josiah instituted into Israel that resulted in a Passover to remember, a time when a king brought a renewal to a tired people who had forgotten who they were. And we'll examine Josiah and we'll draw encouragement that I think can help all of us prepare our hearts for this upcoming Passover.

The story of Josiah and his reforms are told back in two passages. One in 2 Kings 22 and 23 and the other in 2 Chronicles 34 and 35. There are a bit of differences in the way the same information is presented.

Go ahead and turn back to 2 Chronicles and we'll start with that particular part of the story in 2 Chronicles 34. Josiah is a story that I think so many of us are familiar with, but when we find the details here, there is a great deal of instruction for us to understand about our current world, and especially our life in the church and the Passover. Josiah, if you remember, was the grandson of another righteous king named Hezekiah. He was actually the great-grandson of Hezekiah. His father… Josiah’s father was named Amon.

Now, Hezekiah was a righteous king who was followed by his son Manasseh, who was a very wicked king, who in turn was followed by Amon, the father of Josiah. And Amon too was a wicked and unrighteous king. So you had Hezekiah who had his own reforms and then two kings in succession who took the nation, again, back into the sewer when it came to their coveted relationships with God. And then Amon was assassinated in his own house, the story tells us. And at eight years of age, his son Josiah becomes the king, eight-year-old king, a boy king.

Now we're told that his mother's name was Jedidah. That's all we're told about her. But I'd like to think that Jedidah steered this young boy at a very critical time. Can you imagine an eight-year-old boy becoming king? Knowing and… I wonder as I look at the story, did he hear the screams of his father when the assassins closed in on him? Did he come across the scene? How did he react when he was told? And then he becomes the king, and how did he sleep at night knowing that his father was killed, wondering, "Is someone going to come and kill me?" What would an eight-year-old think about? I think he'd think those thoughts. It would be a strange new world. His boyhood was over.

Obviously, from age eight, for a number of years, a king like that is going to be… the rulership of the kingdom is going to be in the hands of adults in the court. Maybe even his mother had some hand in that. We're not told. But one might think, in regard to that, decisions were made until he came of age.

Now, it's in chapter 34 beginning in verse 1 that the story begins to unfold where he was, at eight years of age in verse 1, when he became the king and he reigned for 31 years, quite a long time. "He did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and he walked in the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand nor to the left.” A familiar phrase about a righteous king. So he had some training. And I'd like to think that he had it from his mother. And I truly think that she played a very important guiding part in his education, that he chose a different path than his father had chosen. He chose to steer the people back to a righteous path.

And it says then in verse 3, that, "In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young," so that would be at age 16, "he began to seek the God of his father David. And in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, and the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images." The account here begins to tell how he went through turning back idolatry. He “broke down the altars of the Baals in his presence, the incense altars which were above them he cut down and the wooden images, the carved images, the molded images, he broke in pieces. This was an original cancel culture going on for Josiah at this particular point. Truly, we'll talk more about that in a minute.

And he even broke in pieces and made dust of them and he scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. The account in Kings even says that he went to the tombs of the false priests, drove their bones out, ground them to powder, and burned them to clean the land. That's pretty thorough. It says that here in verse 5, "And he cleansed Judah and Israel. And so he did in the cities of Manasseh and Ephraim went up even into the old land of Israel, and Simeon, as far as Naphtali and all around with axes.” The gangs were out.

And when he had broken down the altars and the wooden images, and beaten the carved images into powder and cut them down in incense throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem. Now, this was a thorough cleansing. When he begins to do this, he's no longer a boy. He's obviously engaging in adult actions as he begins to seek God and go through all of this cleansing. If you will hold your place here, let's turn back to the 2 Kings 23 account to pick up just a little bit more of this that is told there as he begins to do all of this, as he cuts down all of the images.

2 Kings 23, it says in verse 2, "They went to the house of the Lord with the men of Judah, and sent with them the inhabitants of Jerusalem— the priests and the prophets and all the people, both great and small. And he read in there hearing the words of the Book of the Covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord." Now the Chronicles account says that, at some point, at a point during this cleansing and purging through the years, frankly, from the time that he started to a number of years, by the time he was aged 26, he not only had purged all of this and it took some time to do it but they had gone into the temple and found the Book of the Covenant and the Words of the Book of the Law.

The verses here began to show exactly what he began to do in more detail of how he cleansed all the altars and the images that took place. I'm going to skip down to verse 19. He “took away the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria,” he even went up into the old nation of Israel to do that, that had provoked the Lord to anger, and according to all the deeds that he had done, he went to Bethel where Jeroboam II had set up one of the calves as an altar to keep Israel from going back to Jerusalem after he had led a rebellion that established the Northern nation.

And he spared only the bones of one righteous prophet that had come out to prophesy against Jeroboam. He left that man's bones intact, according to the Word of God that had been made at that time. And the account here goes down and brings it down to the time where he kept a Passover in verse 23. "In the eighteenth year of Josiah, a Passover was held before the Lord in Jerusalem.” They had “put away the mediums, and the spiritists…” and other abominations. In verse 25, "Before him, there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart… with all of his heart, with all of his soul, and with all of his might, according to the Law of Moses, nor after him did any arise like him.”

The Kings account tells us something about the heart of Josiah that led him to do this. And because he had that heart, he was not only angry in a righteous way against the idolatry and the shrines and all that had been there but he had a tender heart toward God, which, in a sense, stayed the hand of God's judgment upon the people during his reign. Now, let's talk for a moment about the idolatry that he turns back and think about that. In Ezekiel 20, we're told that the reasons… There were two reasons given by God through the prophet as to what led to the captivity of Israel. And God says, "Because of your idolatries and you did not keep My Sabbaths." Two things, their idolatry, which was endemic from almost the beginning. We all know that idolatry plagued Israel from the time of the golden calf at the foot of Mount Sinai through the years and through the generations. They had times when they didn't have idols, but then they had times when they had a lot of idols scattered throughout, even during the times of the good kings.

There were still shrines to the various idols that were going on. And God ultimately said the reason that you went into captivity to the prophet Ezekiel, after it was all said and done, was because of idolatry and Sabbath-breaking. To think about idolatry is very important. At one level, the idolatry that Israel engaged in, it licensed immorality because the rights and the practices of the pagan shrines involved sexual immorality as part of the worship of the particular god or goddess.

And it was pretty vile and it was very attractive. And, frankly, it attracted the Israelites and became, again, the plague among them. The idolatry was at its worst during the age just before Josiah, when Manasseh had brought in child sacrifice to the land, right in Jerusalem, the Valley of Hinnom. And that continued even with his successor Amon, Josiah's father. And so the idolatry was pretty bad, to begin with. Obviously, it violated the commandments, the first three specific commandments to not have any other gods or worship other gods before the true God. That was a violation but it led to an internal, spiritual corrupting of not only individual but the people and the culture as it remained there for so long that it would lead even to a king bringing in an altar to a Molech that people would sacrifice their children there.

It's unimaginable to think about. We still engage in child sacrifice today in a different period of idolatry. It's called abortion. It's a result of a self-deification that has become endemic in our society where we exalt the rights of the self above the law of God, the Word of God, even the nature of life itself. That's one of our forms of idolatry today that is still with us that was a part of what happened then. Idolatry also led the Israelites to essentially worship themselves and put themselves first. We continue to do that today. And all of the jargon that surrounds the issues points to self-deification.

Another impact of the idolatry in the time of Israel that Josiah was aroused against was that it led Israel and had brought them to a point where they forgot who they were. They forgot their history. They had become so drunk on the worship of a Baal, an Ashtoreth, and a Molech, and other gods and goddesses and all that went with it, that they forgot their history and the special unique people that they were. They forgot their story. And in fact, you have to understand that they very likely, through the generations, they rewrote their whole history and repudiated what was truth.

I can well imagine that they rewrote the story of Abraham to call him a slaveholder who mutilated the males in his family through this barbaric act of circumcision and waged war against the peoples of the land. And Jacob? Well, Jacob was a trickster. He cheated his brother out of his legitimate birthright, creating a whole nation of people that were dispossessed. Moses? Well, he was a hard legalist. And the legal code he put in place was outdated. There's no need to hold that to a strict construction. It doesn't fit today. It doesn't fit sixth century B.C. Israel. It's out of date.

And so they wanted and changed the laws. And that Joshua? Well, he was a mad warmonger who stole the lands of the peoples that were already there. The rewriting of story went on. Israel had appropriated the religions of the nations around them. And you have to understand that they brought in the ideas with them and considered the ideas of the other nations as equal to their teaching, equal to their story, equal to their history. They were no longer a special people endowed with a calling and a blessing. And Joshua comes on the scene and he turns it around for one brief shining moment with the thorough purge that he does.

We're living in a time… As I mentioned, Josiah had basically a cancel culture going on there. We're in a different type of canceling that's been going on as we cancel out the remaining remnants of the Abrahamic blessing that is a part of our world and a part of our nation here. And eventually what will be left will be a broken nation that will be open to a captivity by a nation that God will bring. And the lesson for all of us as the people of God is that we must now be smashing our own idols to be able to understand and discern what is happening in the larger world around us as we ourselves prepare ourselves to take the Passover. Because Josiah smashing of the idols at that time dealt with large cultural, religious, political, and spiritual issues of the time that parallel our own time. But at the heart of what Josiah did, for our understanding and where we are right now, is what he did next.

And that was when he learned about the Passover. Because at age 26, he has read to him the newly discovered Book of the Law brought out of the temple precincts, somehow forgotten, somehow neglected. And here in 2 Kings 22:10, it says that "Shaphan showed the king, saying, 'Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.' And Shaphan read it before the king. And it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes." Now, this is at about age 26. For a number of years, he has been on a major spiritual journey of cleansing the land and removing all the idols. And finally, somehow this Book of the Law is brought out and it's read to him.

And at some point, in the hearing of the Words of the Book, look at verse 11, somewhere as he was having this big, long book of Deuteronomy read to him, he comes to a point and he begins to have an emotional reaction that is really a reaction of his heart. Because if you look at verse 19, the prophet says, "Because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I spoke against this place and against this inhabitance, this place, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you,' says the Lord." And this was communicated to Joshua.

His reign would have a righteous impact. His heart was tender and he humbled himself before God. Josiah had a reaction of the heart, at this point, deep and profound at the hearing of the Word of God. That's, I think, the critical takeaway. And it says in verse 25 of 2 Kings 23, as we've already read, that, no other king had that kind of reaction. “There was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart, and soul, and with all of his might, according to the Law of Moses; nor after him did any other arise." What part of the book of Deuteronomy do you think was read when Josiah had that emotional reaction and tore his clothes? I don't know. But here's my guess.

And it's purely mine. In Deuteronomy 30, Deuteronomy 30 this is the passage where Israel has the choice of life and death put before them before they cross over to Jordan into the Promised Land. And God tells the people through Moses that the commandment, in verse 11, that “I command you today is not too mysterious, nor far off. It's not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend and bring it to us that you might hear it. It's not beyond the sea, that you would have to go over the sea and bring it to us." But in verse 14, "But the word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it." The Word of God, the Word of the Law is near. It's not hard to understand. It's not way off someplace. It is near in your mouth and in your heart.

Again, Josiah had an emotional reaction. I like to think that maybe it was at this point in the reading of it that it hit him that something else needed to be done. When you and I hear the Word of God read when we read the Word of God, what is our reaction? It should be a reaction different from anything else we hear, listen to, or read, and all that we engage ourselves with. The Word of God, through the Spirit of God, should engage us, should convict us, should encourage us, should inspire us, should teach us. It should be, as Hebrews says, written on your heart.

And because it is in the process of being written on our heart, we love to hear that Word. And it teaches us, and it nourishes us, and it brings us back. It corrects us. It helps us. And it helps us to remove the idols of our own life that we have when we hear the Word of God at the level of the heart. Josiah was moved by the reading of this at this point to prepare a Passover to remember. Go back to 2 Chronicles 35. We'll read that account of it there. When he heard these words, then he kicked into the next phase of his reforms to prepare “a Passover to the Lord,” verse 1, "in Jerusalem, where they slaughtered the Passover lambs on the fourteenth day of the first month. And he set the priests in their duties and encouraged them for their service of the house of the Lord.”

You read through this, Josiah prepared for a long period of time in advance to get everything just right with the priests, the sacrifices, the ark. He told them in verse 3, "Put the holy ark in the house that Solomon built. It will no longer be a burden. Serve the Lord your God with the people of Israel. Prepare yourselves," in verse 4. "according to your father's, according to your divisions," speaking to the priests. So he got all of the work of the priests lined up there and ready to go, told them to prepare yourselves. It was a busy preparation for the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. And the indications are, as you read through this, is that they had not done it with such care and thought even up to this point.

I would imagine that they had kept the Passover, but not with the care and the precision that this had. Down to verse 16, "So all the service of the Lord was prepared the same day, to keep the Passover, to offer burnt offerings on the altar of the Lord, according to the command of King Josiah." And you have to understand that this is specifically making a point, these sacrifices offered on the altar of the Lord. The altar of God was the only altar available in the land. All the others had been eliminated, finally. Not even Hezekiah had done that. There was only one altar, and it was the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, it seems. And that's where their sacrifices were made.

"And the children of Israel" in verse 17, "who were present kept the Passover at that time, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. And there had been no Passover kept in Israel like it since the days of Samuel the prophet." None of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover. This was a Passover to remember. This was a Passover for the ages, with the priests and the Levites and all of Judah all present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And in the 18th year of the reign of Josiah, this Passover was kept when he was 26 years of age, already having been working for a long period of time.

We've come to the Passover ourselves after having made a cleansing of our homes, putting out the leaven. We're ready to do that as we come to the Passover. Most importantly, we should be having examined ourselves and looked at the spiritual leaven, the spiritual sin of our lives, but we really do come to one altar ourselves when we come to take the Passover service because there's one sacrifice, the Lamb of God, that we come to remember when we take the symbols of bread and wine at the Passover service. And we cling to that sacrifice. We cling to that altar. We cling to that sacrifice in faith, in full faith and assurance.

Now, why do you think that it says here, in verse 18, that there had not been a Passover kept since the days of Samuel? Why Samuel? Why not Hezekiah? That was a pretty good time. Why not something during the time of David perhaps? Why Samuel? I've not found, you know, anything in Scripture to explicitly state this but what I surmise, Samuel was the last judge. Remember, they wanted a king during Samuel's time. "Make us a king like the other nations." God had been their King but God then said to Samuel, "Don't worry. They haven't rejected you and all you've done. They've rejected Me in wanting a monarchy.”

And He gave them a king and that entire system. And that monarchy, beginning with Saul, created another layer between God and His people, a layer that He didn't intend to be there but He allowed it. And if you look at the story of the Kings, you had a few good ones and you had a lot of bad ones that destroyed the nation ultimately. Josiah is the last good one. But they needed somebody that they wanted to see, a king. And that was a form of idolatry if you really break it down. The Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread events was the critical event of Israel's history. It was really the benchmark of God's instruction for Israel. He always said throughout the prophets, that He'd said, "Remember that I brought you out of the land of Egypt. I carried you out. You were in slavery, I brought you out." Every time God would take them back to that event, but they had forgotten it.

And now they remembered it in a unique way. That event of the actual Exodus, the original one, in Exodus 12 was the one event that tied their history, then even further back 430 years earlier to the covenant God made with Abraham of circumcision. And so, that was a benchmark timing and event. And all of that had been forgotten. This is why this was such a unique Passover, one to remember, during the time of Josiah. Unfortunately, the reform that he had didn't endure. A few years later, he died prematurely in battle at Megiddo when there was a tussle, a fight between Egypt and Syria. Josiah got himself involved in it against the Council, and he was killed.

And there was a great lamenting. Jeremiah lamented him. The nation reverted and slid into captivity. There were three more kings, all of them bad. And ultimately, they went into captivity to the Babylonians. The reform that Josiah did, didn't quite go to the heart of all the people. But there were some who did get it. Jeremiah got it. Jeremiah was a prophet, a young man during the time of Josiah's, reign. And we can pretty well piece together as well and realize that Daniel himself, Daniel the prophet, was born during the time of Josiah. And those two sterling examples of prophets, especially Jeremiah, illustrate that some people got it during the time of Josiah and it was not a total loss.

Jeremiah understood the reforms of Josiah. He understood them so strongly, so deeply to the heart, that he wrote what he did in Jeremiah 31. Turn over there. And let's read what Jeremiah wrote, who knew Josiah, who watched firsthand Josiah's reforms, Josiah's reforms of the heart. And in Jeremiah 31:33, here's what Jeremiah writes, "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” What we read at the beginning in Hebrews, quoted from Jeremiah. You can't understand Jeremiah without understanding what happened with Josiah because Jeremiah was a first-hand eyewitness of it. And it even led him to this understanding with God's Spirit, to be able to… and was inspired him to write the essence of the New Covenant, relationship with God right here, which is the only one that counts.

And it is a relationship, an enduring relationship of the heart. The Covenant of the heart begins with the Lamb of God and the Passover. And every year, we get a chance to renew that Covenant. Every year, you and I get a chance to clear out the idols of our heart, the idols of our life, and to make a cleansing as we examine ourselves prior to the Passover. And every year, by the grace of God, we get a chance to get it right again, even when we might say, "Oh, I thought I got it right last year, or two years ago, or five years ago." Now, we get another chance. And thank God that we do. Thank God that we have another chance to cleanse the idols. What idols do we find? Where do you go to kind of examine?

Well, there's a number of places. There's one that is in Galatians 5 that we could go to. Galatians, the fifth chapter, that can be a starting point for us to break down some of the altars, and idols, and stones, and wooden images that might have crept into our lives that we have. In Galatians 5:19 are the works of the flesh described. “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry.” The idolatry that we have today isn't so much… I mean, we don't have wooden images in our backyards or that we're hanging around our necks or hanging on our walls or bowing down to in any way, shape, or form, but we still have idols of self that are part of each of us to one degree or the other that we have to deal with. He goes on to mention “sorcery, hatred.” Who can't we get beyond in our thinking, in our relationships?

“Contentions, strife, contentions, arguments, anger, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambition, dissensions, heresies,” differing ideas that are outright wrong scripturally, but might persist in our mind, for whatever reason. Some people like to have different takes on the Bible or a church teaching or the fundamentals. Sometimes for perhaps just that legitimate lack of understanding. Sometimes it may be a point of pride. I've seen it both ways that people would have because, you know, they're smarter than the church. And they see it differently and perhaps even practice something different than… even maybe spread that. That can happen.

“Envy.” Well, you know, we can come in with an idol of envy, that as we look at others and each other. “Murders, drunkenness, rivalries, and the like; which I tell you” Paul writes, "beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Each of us take a passage like this or something else that we might turn to that we haven't quite yet put off as part of the old man. And like a mirror, we have to hold it up to ourselves because when I read these, I'm looking into a mirror and I'm seeing certain things popping back at me. Do you? Probably do.

And those are the things that strike close to home and become my idol. And, you know, whatever it might be, we have to deal with these things. The great Passover lesson is to put the past behind and to let things go. What has happened has happened. We need to repent and acknowledge our sin, apologize when necessary, but be thankful and recognize Christ's blood covers everything. When we repent, God puts it all from His presence as far as the East is from the West, He says. There's no need to worry about the future and there's certainly not anything to worry about in the past if we've truly repented.

Two things occurred to us this week, Debbie and I. And in thinking about these two instances, they caused a moment of, what will the future bring? Moment of worry, what will the future bring? And you take that thought and you realize, "Well, I can't control that. So I'm not going to let it stay around and put it out. I can't control everything. I can't control everything about the future. I can control certain things that, by my actions and whatever. There are certain things I can't control. So I need to focus on that." Put the past away, let Christ's blood cover that. And don't over worry the future of the things that are beyond our control. Focus on today. Sufficient to the day is what Christ said. Work on the present. And there's enough for us to deal with.

In Romans 7, the apostle Paul… When you look into a mirror of Galatians 5 or maybe it's Colossians 3 that you might turn to or some other passage and some other story that has a spiritual point that speaks to us at any given time, that crashes in and we realize, "Hold on, that's me." What that sermon or this passage is about, that's me.

And that's my idol. And it's that mirror that's in front of us that we see. And we then become kind of like Paul in Romans 7 who says, "I don't want to be that way. But I find this law working within me that drags me into it." And he comes down to verse 24, I won't go through all the ins and outs here of what Paul says that he does. He says he wants to do what is right, and he can't at times because there's another part of his life boring down deep inside. And yet he struggles and Paul writes this after many, many years of conversion, using the Spirit of God, having that law written upon his heart, and he still deals with it. Then he comes down to verse 24 and he says, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

He sees his own idols that still crop up and still come up. Every year, I think Paul saw what he saw and he didn't like the mirror of God's Word that was held up. I don't always, and you probably don't as well. But the mirror of God's Word sees deep into the heart where we each live with ourselves. And that's where our thoughts take place. That's where, you know, those private little conversations that we get into with ourselves, that's where they happen, down deep in our heart, where we have those conversations, where we entertain those thoughts that aren't always good, of envy, or not letting go, or anger, or whatever, a mood, an impulse, something that's just a part of our character and our life, way down to the site that originates the thoughts, a real place where Jesus Himself said that defiles us when they come out in actions or whatever.

You know, Galatians 5 is speaking in part about certain addictions. Drunkenness for one. And there are several types of addictions to physical matters that a person can get caught up in. And there's something that has to be fed, something that has to be satiated. And therapy and other forms of treatment can help to begin to work out of it.

Ultimately, we have to use the Spirit of God, a Christian does, and all the other forms, and overcome. The addictions can be emotional as well. Sometimes, do you ever get to the point you just have to have a daily shot of anger? A daily fix of envy or jealousy about somebody, some situation, something done you wrong, some person, some situation that wasn't fair? And you got to have to have a daily fix of that. That's just as bad an addiction as some other substance or something else or action that a person could be addicted to.

Those are the things we need to help with. Those are the things I think that we see deep down that nobody else may know about, that we really need the deep help of God. That's what Paul's talking about here, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" Never stop at verse 24. Keep reading. Keep reading. Always keep reading. Verse 25, "I thank God… I thank God— through Jesus Christ our Lord!” That's his answer. Who will deliver him? Jesus Christ, God, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of Christ living in us. He talks about that in the next chapter, chapter 8. That's what will deliver us. God will. "So then, with a mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." In other words, he's always going to be subject to it as we are, but with his mind, he says, "I serve the Law of God." Paul knew that the Law of God was being written on his heart, day by day, year by year. He knew who would deliver him from the body of death. Jesus Christ.

And then you have to, as I say, you keep reading. Really, managed to put these chapter divisions here but chapter 8 verse 1, he says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." God does not unplug us, or His Spirit, or His presence, or His love from us when we may sin, when we slip. If our heart, our orientation, our life is toward Him, that began with repentance, and faith, and baptism, then there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk according to the Spirit, not according to the flesh. Because it's a relationship with the heart.

And God's writing His Word upon our heart. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," verse 2, "has made me free from the law of sin and death." Some of those encouraging words. I mean, we can read the rest of the chapter but we don't have the time to do that. You do that because therein lies the answer and the key to the Passover, to the Days of Unleavened Bread, and how we overcome sin, and how we put it out of our lives, and how we are to live. Each year brings us to the mirror that sees into our hearts and we confront ourselves. Like Paul, we see the problem. And we may at times ask, "Well, who will deliver us? God, how will I overcome?" We will. We can.

Like Paul, we come to the solution. God, through Jesus Christ, through the Lord Jesus Christ, through that Spirit within us, will help us to overcome and it can be done. And so we can take the Passover with a clean heart, with a good conscience, not feeling condemned, not feeling wretched, in the sense that, you know, we're hopeless, and before God like that. Those are the thoughts that we deal with in our prayers and in our examination. And then we recognize that we have the help of God to deal with it. And we come to take a Passover that is a Passover to remember, a Passover that begins that process all over again, a Passover like that of Josiah, with the heart of a man like Josiah, who was passionate, who loved God, who kept God's Word and brought his nation back before God for a moment, for a renewal and for a revival.

That's an example for us to study and to understand of the renewal of the heart, that relationship of the heart. Let's keep a Passover to remember, like Josiah, like God wants us to. And let's come boldly to that throne of grace for the help that God gives us to live our lives.

[Mr. Frank Dunkle]: I noticed it's very springy outside now. This morning, it was dreary, wet, and I wondered -- I knew the forecast and I said, “You know, it's rainy and dreary, everybody's gonna have no place else they'd rather be than in here listening to Mr. Myers message.” And that was so. Now, the sunshine is out, people are probably longing to be outside. I learned a lesson about that just before services started. I walked down this hall, and I thought, “You know, I want to clear my head a little bit, collect my thoughts.” And I stepped through the door, and as it closed behind me, it went, “click.” There wasn't a sidewalk there so I ended up circling the building, trying to find a way to get back inside. Even as I knew the hymn was starting up, I thought, “Well, if any of you decide you'd rather be enjoying that beautiful spring weather instead of hearing the sermon, you might not get back in.” It was interesting. I went through a garage where all the golf carts are kept, and there were some men wearing their sweaters and such going out for around. And they looked at me walking through in my suit, and I'm sure they're thinking, “What's up with this guy?” Maybe they're thinking that about all of us. We're here on a Friday morning, now afternoon. If they were to ask us, “Why are you here?” “It's a holy convocation. We're keeping the Days of Unleavened Bread.” Well, these days are described in the Torah. People outside the church hear that and they often go, the first thought is, “Well, are you Jewish?” If not that, we might be described as legalistic. And I can see where they might get that mistaken idea.

You know, the first time you come across a description of these days in the Bible, it's God revealing them through Moses to the children of Israel, and requiring those people in that ancient time and land to do those things. When we teach about the Passover, in the Days of Unleavened Bread, it's always useful to talk about some of the great stories of the Old Testament. It talks about Moses confronting Pharaoh to “let my people go,” and God raining down plagues upon them. I'm wondering, did any of you watch “The 10 Commandments” movie sometime within the last week or two with Charlton Heston and Yul Brynner? Not very many. Well, I didn't watch it either, but I thought about it. On this last day of Unleavened Bread, it's common to give a sermon that talks about the children of Israel going through the Red Sea, which is thought to have happened on this last day or circling walls of Jericho during the Days of Unleavened Bread. And then on the seventh day, the walls fall flat. What a great analogy for God conquering sin in us. I'm sure there are many other days or many other great stories we can tell. But we want to remember something we know that many people outside of God's true church fail to understand is that these Holy Days, though they're listed in Leviticus 23. I would say a book that many people consider the least Christian in the Bible. I don't think that at all, it's my privilege to get to teach the Pentateuch class, and I've gained greater and greater appreciation for Leviticus the more I study it. But all those days that you walk through with descriptions of sacrifices to accompany them, they're Christian celebrations, Christ instituted them, though He was not yet personified, He was the God who dealt with the people of Israel, as we heard this morning, that Rock that followed them was Christ.

When Christ was a man during His earthly ministry, He kept these days. He taught them to His disciples, they kept them afterwards and continued to teach the Church and the Church through the ages, as they've understood them have kept them. And I want to focus today on the symbolic meaning of these days, that they're central, that they're vital to Christianity. They're at the heart of what we're doing and what we're becoming. And that includes the Days of Unleavened Bread, no less than any other Holy Days. Having said that, I do want to turn to Exodus 12, if you'll join me there we'll begin in verse 15. The sermon might go a little more slowly than some of mine. I brought my travel Bible that always makes me find the scriptures less rapidly. Here, God introduces these days to Israel and tells them how, if not all of why to keep the Days of Unleavened Bread. Exodus 12, beginning in verse 15,

Exodus 12:15-18 – “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day, you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day, there will be a holy convocation. And on the seventh day, that's today, there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat, that only may be prepared by you. So, you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread. For on the same day, I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.” What follows shows how closely linked are Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, in verse 18, “In the first month, on the 14th, day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the 21st day of the month at evening.” And they're so inextricably linked that some people have even confused the first day of Unleavened Bread with Passover. And I know it's a sharp debate among some people, but that's an unfortunate mistake. Now, my purpose today isn't to discuss when Passover is but I guess the academic in me slipped in as I started preparing this I thought it was worth addressing some of this because here, some people have read verse 18 that said, “See 14th day of the first month that evening eat unleavened bread.” So, the 14th day is the first day of Unleavened Bread, or is the 15th is the Passover? Well, that doesn't make sense. We're going to come back here, but I want to turn to Leviticus 23, where God does make it pretty clear. Leviticus 23:5. Here in verse 5, it says,

Leviticus 23:5-6 – “On the 14th day of the first month at twilight is the Lord's Passover. And on the 15th day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you must eat unleavened bread.”

If I had the whiteboard here from the classroom, I would write 14 and 15. And if you remember from math, that symbol that means not equals you do the equal sign and the slash, 14 does not equal 15. They're not the same, they're very separate days. Now, we add scriptures to get the full meaning of which day was which. Of course, here it tells us that the Feast of Unleavened Bread is seven days, clearly. If the Feast of Unleavened Bread started on the 14th and went through the 21st, we'd have eight days. And if Passover were actually on the 15th it wouldn't be a separate day, 14 would equal 15. Going back to Exodus 12, I'm going to get there eventually. Exodus 12:18, that's a scripture that causes some people some confusion, says,

Exodus 12:18 – “The first month on the 14th day at evening,” I believe that's addressing the evening that ends the 14th day and begins the 15th. We know very clearly that the evening that begins on the 14th, right at sundown. Actually, if you back up to verse 6 of this chapter, we see instructions for keeping the Passover, “You shall keep the 14th day of the same month. The whole congregation of Israel shall kill it,” -that is the sacrificial lamb- “at twilight.” That's the Hebrew phrase that means between the evenings. So, right as the 14th day began, kill that Passover lamb, and they were instructed to splash the blood on the lintel on the doorpost. And then as it says in verse 8, “They shall eat the flesh on that night roasted in fire with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs, they shall eat it.”

Now, one of the interesting things about that Passover lamb is unlike other sacrifices, it wasn't cut up, and it didn't have the insides removed, and washed, and other things. It was spit whole with the entrails, the insides still in it, and they would roast it over the fire. So, it was a time-consuming process. As it cooks, you could slice off some of the outer meat and feed it to your family. And as we know, they were to be dressed in their traveling gear, their sandals on the feet, staff in their hand, and it would progress through the night. And it had to progress through the night. Verse 22 of this chapter is where it tells them to take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood on the base and strike the lintel on the two doorposts, and “none of you go out of the door of his house until morning.” While it's dark outside the sun hasn't risen, stay inside. We understand that the destroyer came and killed the firstborn in every house that didn't have that blood. And that's why I believe there in verse 18, what we see the 14th day of the first month was very important. God noted the sunset that began that day. And then He also noted the sunset that ended the 14th, which simultaneously begins the 15th. And beginning the 15th then is something new and different, Passover is ended, and we begin a holy convocation. And we keep it as a day to be much observed. Dropping down in the same chapter in Exodus 12:42, verse 42,

Exodus 12:42 – “It's a night of solemn observance to the Lord for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is the night of the Lord, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations.”

I'll add to this Deuteronomy. Now, where do I have it? In Deuteronomy 16:1, I'm not going to turn there because there's a simple phrase I want to highlight where it says, “God brought Israel out by night,” to make it clear that they didn't slay the lamb, do a quickie meal, eat some of it and leave that night, they stayed in their homes all night, the next day, they had time to get organized and ready. But God did bring them out by night, the following night, which is the night we commemorated. I very much appreciated the sermon Mr. Myers gave two, or three, or four weeks ago sometime, about the night watch, certain things God instituted that happened at night that reminded us of the importance. It's something if you're an early to bed early to rise type like me this time of year when the Holy Days fall late, you say, “Oh, man, we don't even get to start the Passover till, you know, quarter past 8:00, 8:18 when the sun goes down.” I bet, a lot of you don't... I try to think my in-laws like to have dinner at about, you know, 12:00 noon. Having a meal starting at about 8:30 at night, it's not always to their liking. But God gives us some things that are super important that we need to note, and we need to remember that He set the timing in a certain way.

And as we compare that to the New Testament, of course, we understand, Christ kept the Passover with His disciples at the time we just described, after the sunset, beginning the 14th, and into that evening. He wasn't changing the time, from an Old Testament observance of the Passover to a different time for a New Testament observance. Now, He was keeping it the time that it was always set to keep. Some of the Jews in the land had somehow gotten mistaken and confused, it seems that perhaps they were keeping it at a different time. But no, there's not an Old Testament Passover and a New Testament Passover. It's worth noting, though, we could appreciate the miracles that God worked for Israel, saving them from Egypt, delivering them. That alone would be a pretty good reason for keeping a commemoration, saying, “Yeah, we appreciate that, and we want to keep it.” But as Christians in this day and age, we're not just looking back, we keep an eye on the past and learn from it. But a lesson we don't want to ever forget from the sermon this morning is we're looking ahead, we're moving ahead, we need an action plan and we want to understand what is ahead and what these days mean. As Christians, we celebrate a much greater meaning than Israel being saved from Egypt, even though that is great.

Now, there are times when looking at the symbolism of the Old Testament and some of the events described there could be a little difficult to understand. But the sacrifice of Passover is not one of those things, is it? It's pretty clear. The sacrifice of Passover always pointed to something great. I'm going to reference John 1:29. And I wonder about this because it's described many times as the very first time John the Baptist saw Jesus Christ. Christ was coming to be baptized and begin His ministry. I'm not so sure about that first-time thing, since they were first cousins. I suspect they'd spent time together. But now it's a public thing, and John sees Him and he says, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Jesus Christ was the Lamb of God. And 1 John 1:7, I won't turn there but the apostle John said that the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. The blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin. And I'm going to follow Mr. Phelps's example and turn to 1 Corinthians 5, actually, he said, we didn't have time to read all of this. I won't read all of it, but I do want to reread 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. Because the Apostle Paul gave us perhaps the clearest statement of the symbolic meaning of these days. In verse 7, he says,

1 Corinthians 5:7-8 – “Therefore purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump since you truly are unleavened.” And He was speaking to the congregation of Corinthians seems right during the holiday season where he assumed they had put leaven out of their homes, but he wants to focus on the spiritual meaning and he says, “For indeed, Christ, our Passover was sacrificed for us.” Christ is our Passover, He was sacrificed for us. “Therefore, let us keep the feast, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, not with the old leaven, nor with leaven, and malice, and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

As I said, this tells us the basic essence of the meaning of both Passover in the Days of Unleavened Bread, and I believe that Passover is the most clear. We know that thousands of years ago, that fateful night in Egypt when God killed the firstborn in every household that did not have the blood of the lamb on the lintel and doorpost. The blood of that lamb symbolizes Christ's blood, the death of that lamb symbolizes Christ's death for our sins. Now, I said that lamb, although when you think about it, there were thousands of lambs, every family, and if the family was too small, they'd get together with another nearby family so that it was about right. But all of those lambs, every one picture Jesus Christ. And through the many, many years since then, every year, all of the lamb slaughtered symbolized the one Lamb of God that really mattered. And my point in this is that Passover was always a Christian Holy Day, always a Christian day with Christian meaning. It wasn't that the New Testament church said, “Hmm, let's see if we can find something that's in the Old Testament and match it up so it can symbolize what we're doing.” It was instituted to be that already.

Fortunately, though, the symbolism has to happen many times, lambs were sacrificed over and over again. And for that matter, once a year, on that anniversary, we take the bread and the wine that symbolize Christ’s body and blood. But the actual sacrifice had to happen, how many times? Just one. Hebrews 10 gives us a clear statement of that. Hebrews 10:10. I know I'm lagging, but I'm going to get to unleavened bread. But I thought, since they're so closely tied, we need to cover these. Hebrews 10:10,

Hebrews 10:10 – “By what will, by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” He only had to do it at one time. Let's drop down to verse 14, “This man,” -this is Christ- “after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by one offering, He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.” I wanted to mention that because of our focus, today we're looking at the Passover and Unleavened Bread, the Days of Unleavened Bread. I think we could look back through Leviticus, and Numbers and Deuteronomy, and look at all of the sacrificial system. And all of that has symbolism that points us to Jesus Christ and His true sacrifice.

I'm not going to focus on that today, but it's an interesting study. I wish the Bible had some scriptures where it says, “When they did this, it exactly represents that. And when they did this other thing, it represents that.” It doesn't do that. It does it very clearly for Christ's sacrifice with the Passover. So, I think God leaves some things vague because it's a good exercise for us to study and learn. I like what Aaron Dean says, “Sometimes God might leave things vague to see are we going to fight about it, or are we going to come together and support what we do agree.” As Scripture tells us, in Christ's own words, I’ll reference 1 Corinthians 11:23-26. We've read it many times where, you know, through Paul, he said, that bread that's broken represented Christ's body, broken and given for us, and the wine that we drink represents His blood. We've heard lots of messages on that. So, let's talk about the symbolism of these days that we're wrapping up, the Days of Unleavened Bread. Sometimes it seems the symbolism is not quite as clear and quite as easy to understand. Sometimes people have questions. And it makes me wonder. Imagine you're an Israelite back thousands of years ago, maybe of the tribe of Gad, or Reuben or Issachar. And you might look and say, “Okay, you know, people have been doing sacrifices for years. I get the idea of I kill this animal, and it represents atonement with God.” So, blood pays the penalty for sin. I understand that symbolism, but what about this flat bread? What's that supposed to mean? Could we just, you know, have some good sourdough and make a full meal, roast beef on rye? No. Of course, I don't think it's not totally lost to us. I want to go back to Exodus 12. It's not totally lost, but I'm not sure how much they fully understood. But they understood some things very clearly because God told them. Exodus 12, beginning in verse 39,

Exodus 12:39 – “They baked unleavened cakes of the dough, which they'd brought out of Egypt,” -or it wasn't leavened because they were driven out of Egypt- “They could not wait, and they nor they prepared provisions for them.” So, they were in a hurry. They didn't have time to let bread rise. So, it is a symbol of just being in a hurry? No. Let's go to chapter 13, and look in verse 7. Chapter 13:7 says,

Exodus 13:7-8 – “Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters. And you shall tell your son that day saying, ‘this is done because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” Okay, it has a meaning, this is done because of what the Lord did for me. Let's look at verse 14. “It shall be when your son asks you in time to come saying, ‘What's this?’” Imagine he's holding up a matzo. “Dad, what is this?” “And you shall say to him, ‘By strength of hand, the Lord brought us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’”

Okay, that's something important because if you think, Israel was enslaved. They went down to Egypt willingly, they were seeking survival. There was a famine in the land. Joseph had become the ruler of Egypt. God had inspired him to prepare for the famine to come. And when his brothers came, of course, you know the story he revealed to them at that time there were yet five more years. And Pharaoh loved Joseph and all the people did. They welcome the Israelites in, gave them the best of the land in Goshen. But then a pharaoh arose who did not know Joseph, and the Egyptians got worried. There's more of them than there are of us, they're gonna turn and join our enemies. Let's put them under bondage. We don't know how gradually it happened, but they became enslaved. And the story becomes obvious when they wanted to leave, they couldn't. The Israelites had no power to free themselves. They were helpless on their own. It required the power of God. And we know the symbolism. I'm going to discuss some of how we derive that from the Bible. Is anybody here not heard that Egypt, in this case, represents a life of sin and that during these Days of Unleavened Bread, the leavening represents sin? We human beings don't have the power to free ourselves from sin. We can't do it on our own. And that's a reminder we have when we're reminded of the Israelites leaving Egypt, they needed God's power to free them.

And I haven't gone through a 12 step program, but I've read enough about Alcoholics Anonymous and the others where one of the important steps is to recognize, “I can't overcome this, I need help from outside.” That's something for all of us to acknowledge. Let's turn to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11, we'll begin in verse 24. And this looks back to that same story. Hebrews 11:24 says,

Hebrews 11:24-26 – “By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy,” -what?- “The passing pleasures of sin.” So, we've got one hand being with the people of God or pleasures of sin. Egypt symbolizing that way of life of sin. And verse 26 it says, “He esteemed the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures of Egypt.” He looked at the reward because they said there's a clear contrast, treasures of Egypt, reproach of Christ, passing pleasures of sin, being among God's people. I think this supports clearly and among other places that symbolism holds true. Egypt and the leavened bread that the Israelites were accustomed to eating, is a symbol of sin, of something to be gotten rid of, and something that they needed help for. So, it makes sense to say that when the Israelites were coming out of Egypt, that served as a symbol of Christians coming out of a life of sin, of escaping enslavement to sin. In a sense, we've been that.

If you'll turn a few pages back to Romans 6. Romans 6 beginning in verse 16. We've all been slaves without the power to deliver ourselves. And for this past week, we've been engaging in symbolism to show that God gives us the power. And again, referencing this morning's message that that power is there and it can be done but we need to take an active part in determining. Romans 6:16,

Romans 6:16-20 – “Do not know that to whom you present yourself, slaves you obey, you are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience, leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves to sin, yet, you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, and having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. And that's a slavery that has no downside. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, that was us. But through repentance and forgiveness, we can be freed from.” And he says, now at the end of part of verse 19, “So, now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you're free from righteousness as a way it could be translated, what fruit did you have in the things which you're now ashamed, the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and in the end everlasting life.” And then there's the common memory scripture, “The wages of sin is death. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Sin is the opposite of living God's way.

Another scripture that comes to mind one my, again, I call it a grandma scripture because my grandma taught it to me starting when I was 10 years old is 1 John chapter 3:4, “Transgression of the law is sin.” I memorize the old King James, or as the new says, “Sin is lawlessness.” I do think it's interesting though when we mentioned that the Israelites didn't have leavened bread, partly because they came out of Egypt in haste. They couldn't let the bread rise, and they were told not to anyways. If that's a symbol of our coming out of sin, I'd like to add that haste factor. When you realize that you're doing something wrong, maybe when God first calls you and you say, “Most of my life is wrong.” God doesn't call us to set up a 10-year plan to gradually move away from sin. You don't set up a long-term thing. You say, “I gotta change right now. I gotta stop doing those things that I was ashamed of, I gotta start on the right path.” We want to do it in haste. And one of the reasons... I think some of the symbolism that we use for leaven, and many of you have heard messages, I haven't done the scientific research, but we know that the leavening becomes intrinsic to the dough that it's in, it permeates and it changes its very nature. That's how sourdough works, especially yeast actually works a chemical reaction. It's not something that you could take it out and the rest of it's okay, it works its way through, it changes the very nature of that dough, and sin will do that to our lives.

So, we can't just take part of it and throw it out, you've got to get rid of the whole thing. I think of that, again, that command for keeping the days that says, “On the first day, get the leaven out of your houses.” I say first day, I spent a week getting leaven out of my house before the first day. But it might have been easier if they were living in a tent and they didn't have shag carpet, they didn't have a car with crevices and they were smart enough to not eat in their car. A lesson I'm still working on. But, you know, back then you might have had in your cupboard a little bit of, you know, your starter, you'd call it, “Okay, unleavened bread is starting, go get it, take it out, throw it out in the field. I'm unleavened.” It could be done pretty quickly. Keeping it out, and maybe looking for where you might have missed some, you know, that's very important. But a major characteristic of Christians isn't just that they eat matzos, it's what that symbolizes. Christians don't sin, or they strive to not sin. We don't practice sin. We don't continue in sin willfully. Let's note, if you're still in Romans 6, the beginning of the chapter, Romans 6 beginning in verse 1. Paul says,

Romans 6:1-4 – “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?” Sort of like God loves to forgive sins so let's sin all the more, to make Him happy? And Paul says, “Certainly, not.” That's not the way it works. “How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Do not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus, we're baptized into His death. Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism unto death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. Even so, we should walk in newness of life.” Newness of life, that's vital. A Christian has adopted a new, a different way of life, a way of life of not sinning, but of living by God's way.

And during the spring Festival of Unleavened Bread, we symbolize that by putting leaven out of our homes, out of our offices, out of our cars, out of all of our lives, as a symbol of getting sin out of our lives. Another way of saying this occurs to me is that the Days of Unleavened Bread represent conversion. We use that term all the time, you're called and converted, you're becoming a child of God. And we often describe conversion as a process. I've sometimes wondered, or I used to wonder, why does the Feast of Unleavened Bread last a whole week, seven days? Most of the Holy Days are one, Pentecost, 24 hours, Trumpets, 24. Actually, I think Trumpets and Atonement are slightly less than 24 because it goes from sunset to sunset, and the days are getting shorter. That's not a big thing. Now, Tabernacles last a week, but it symbolizes the millennium, 1,000 years of God's reign. So, makes sense that that would last a little longer, but why Unleavened Bread? And I have to be honest, the scholar in me wishes I could say, “Turn to this verse, and it'll tell you exactly why.” But I haven't found a place in the Bible that says it in so many words. But if you look at the examples of God's people in Scripture, if you look at the examples of Christians today, you know, there's a bunch of you sitting here looking at me, which is a little intimidating. But I look at my own life, and I've noticed something. Getting sin out of a person's life takes time. You can work and get a bunch of wants, but then you find you haven't got it all. It takes time to become perfect, despite trying to get it out in haste.

I think that parallels in some ways our efforts to get the leaven out in the first place. As I said, I spent a little more than a week, you'll, I like to do a little at a time because even though I claim to like to work hard, I like to work hard for a little bit and then stop and go do something else. So, I set up a goal, you know, one night after work, I'm gonna come home, I'll do this room. The next night, I'll do this room, and I sorta like gradually get through it. And there's some good in that. So, how many of you, men, that are on the speaking schedule have come up with good sermonette ideas while you're running a vacuum? I know I have, you start thinking of parallels, and analogies, and metaphors and other literary devices. That time that you’re de-leavening can be time to think because when we're doing that, we're also looking to Passover and saying, “I need to examine myself.” Okay, as I'm symbolically preparing for a week without leaven, I know I'm supposed to have a life without sin. How am I doing? Am I doing okay in this area, maybe not as well in that area. And, of course, then, even when you've got it all, how many of you this week found some? I don't see many- maybe you did a better job. I think we were getting ready to go to services on the first day and we pulled out, you know, Connor's church bag, and there's a little plastic tub filled with Graham crackers. Like, you gotta be kidding me. I was so careful, though. We were down at Sue's parents, I ran out in the back and throw them in the neighbor's backyard. And the chickens will eat them, nobody will care. But you know we have that to show. I think there's lessons in that.

You know, have you ever been getting in your freezer looking, you're gonna get some ice cream? And there is a brightly colored package in the back. “What is that?” Pull it out. And there's a box with one frozen waffle in it. “Oh, I missed that.” Or the story, this is Sue's story before we were married, and you might have heard it before. But she's driving in her car in the middle of the Days of Unleavened Bread, and a light changes, he hits her brakes, and out from under her driver's seat, rolls a tube of Pillsbury biscuits. Who keeps those under the driver's seat? And Sue doesn't, or must have fell out from grocery shopping or something, who knows how long it was there? You know, we've all had stories like that, and they can be humorous. And they represent the way that we contend to discover sin that we didn't know was there, find weaknesses we didn't know we had. And I'll tell one on myself, it's a little safer than some other things. But I remember, I've got this clear memory. I don't remember when it was but I was a younger man, not yet married. And it might have been leading up to Passover because I was examining my life. And I said, “Boy, you know, I've got some other problems, but one problem I don't have is impatience.” I actually –literally, I was about to reach back, pat my back- ah Frank, you're a patient man. You can probably guess where this is leading. It seemed that it was very soon after that God started reaching down into my life and opening my eyes to some things.

And then I got married. Boy, did I find out that I was not patient. Then later we had a child, and looking back, I found that whereas I thought I was patient, what I was was vain. I was proud of what was actually a weakness. How sad for me to discover that. Now, I'd like to say, “It's all done now. I'm perfectly patient.” But then you'd know where that would lead. I'm working on it still. And I think that's perhaps at least one reason why the Days of Unleavened Bread lasts a week. And again, this is my own personal theory on this. But I think it does help to remind us that overcoming sin takes time. Overcoming sin takes the rest of your life. But having said that, you can't afford to delay. We have to be right now. As we're restocking our shelves and saying what are we going to put on there, it's got to be the right things. Again, I was moved by Mr. Myer's sermon this morning, I thought, “Boy, I wish he was following me because it explained things so much better.” But, you know, we have to do that, we have to focus on our life- changing that, changing ourselves. Fortunately, God is patient. Let me read it from 1 John 2. God is patient and merciful. 1 John 2 beginning in verse 1,

1 John 2:1 – “My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin.” Again, that's a lot of the meaning, “don't sin, you're Christians you're not supposed to sin.” “And if anyone sins” -that could be worded when anyone sins- “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.” He's the sacrifice that pays the price. He's the one that pays the penalty so we can be made right with Him. “He's the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole world."

That reminds us that even though we have the rest of our lives that we have to spend fighting to overcome our physical nature and the temptation to sin, we have to put it out of our lives, we can be forgiven. Remember when I believe it was Peter who came to Jesus and he said, “How many times do I forgive my brother, seven times?” Try seventy times seven. And Christ gave an example that said if your brother sins against you seven times in a day and seven times come back and comes back and says I repent, forgive him. That made me wonder, did Christ mean 70, you know, was 490 times period or 490 each day? I hope I never have to go to God that many times but it tells me... Well, actually it tells me what we see in chapter 1:9, here in 1 John, it's a promise,

1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That should make the Days of Unleavened Bread an encouragement. God is in our corner, He's helping us, not so that we can relax and say, “Well, I don't have to work hard because He's always going to forgive me,” no, the opposite. He wants us to become like Him. I want to become like Him. I want to become a person that, not only doesn't sin but who doesn't want to sin. So, the symbolism makes eating dry matzos a little easier.

So, I think I was down in Lexington visiting on the first day I said, “How many people really like matzos?” And hands went up. “Oh, I'm embarrassed. I don't like matzos, but I like butter.” So, it all balances out pretty well. Let's consider though if leaven pictures sin and we get rid of it, can we be very specific about what the unleavened bread pictures? Now, in 1 Corinthians 5:8, Paul refers to the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Those are very good Christian traits, but I wonder- there are other really good Christian traits? What about love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control? Is there any ABC students here? No, I never get through that list without reading it. I always get shifted around the fruits of the Spirit. Of course, none of these things are mutually exclusive. And I think we can say though, we're justified in saying there's a bit more to it than just saying sincerity and truth when we look at unleavened bread, although I like connecting words because truth reminds me of John 17:17. Christ said, “Thy word is truth.” And we know from the beginning of the book of John, Jesus Christ was called the Word. And that does fit with where I want to go with this. That the unleavened bread, well, during Passover we know, clearly the unleavened bread that's broken, represented Christ's body that was broken for us. That provides some understanding of what Jesus said in John 6. Let's go to John 6 and read verse 53,

John 6:53-54 – “Then Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.’” And we understand that Christ was speaking symbolically. He wasn't suggesting that His disciples become cannibals. We understand that at Passover, we do this, we drink wine that symbolizes His blood. We eat a piece of unleavened bread that pictures His body that was broken. And we're reminded in Scripture that by His stripes we're healed. But is the symbolism of unleavened bread representing Jesus Christ finished with the Passover? I went out of my way to say 14 does not equal 15. So, you can say, “Well, Passover is over. If the symbolism means that then.” I don't think it means the same exactly. But let's continue in John 6. Let's read verse 51, “Jesus said, ‘I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I shall give for the world.’” Okay, that seems to be saying some of what we've already covered, but I think there's more to it. Actually, I think I jumped ahead of myself because I wanted to start at verse 48.

So, don't turn to the next scripture, which I was about to tell you to do. Let's read in John 6:48, where Christ said, “I am the Bread of Life, your fathers ate manna in the wilderness and are dead.” Now, I used to stumble over that and I thought is the manna poisonous? Did it kill them? No, it meant that it didn't give them eternal life, the manna that kept them alive from day to day. It was their daily sustenance, but it didn't give them eternal life. But He's saying of Himself, in verse 50, this He saying “Of Myself, the Bread of Life, this is the bread which comes down from heaven that one may eat of it and not die.” Christ is talking about eternal life, He says, “I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I'll give is My flesh, which I'll give for the life of the world.” Putting this together with some other scriptures can show that there's a little bit more than just the bread representing His sacrifice. The more is related to this process of conversion that we were discussing, to growing and changing, to what happens to us after our initial repentance and baptism.

If you will turn with me to Romans 5. Romans 5 and we'll begin in verse 8. We don't see the metaphor of bread of Christ as the Bread of Life used in Paul's epistles, but we see the meaning of it there. Romans 5:8,

Romans 5:8-10 – “God demonstrates His own love toward us, and now while we were still sinners, Christ died for us much more than. Having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.” That's what Passover symbolized much more. Okay, moving on to the Days of Unleavened Bread, you could say, “Having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Let's be saved by His life. And I think that fits what we read by Paul earlier in Romans 6, which is just across the page for me. We have God's grace, we have His forgiveness so that we can live a different life so that we can not continue in sin, but so that we can become a new people, people who don't sin. But how can we faulty humans do that? As I said, the Israelites couldn't free themselves from Egypt. And I said, we human beings cannot free ourselves from sin, but the answer is here. Actually, if you'll keep a finger enrollments, I want to read a scripture from Galatians 2:20. Galatians 2:20, Paul wrote,

Galatians 2:20 – “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” I think that's an important phrase, “And that Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” The way each of us becomes a new person, a person who doesn't sin and doesn't want to sin is only by Christ living in us. And that happens through the Holy Spirit.

Going back to Romans, this time in Romans 8. Romans 8, we'll begin in verse 9,

Romans 8:9-10 – “You're not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” This is one scripture we cite often as a definition of a Christian, someone who has God's Spirit in them. “And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Actually, I think I wanted to stop. So, we see here in this passage, Spirit of God and Spirit of Christ are used somewhat interchangeably. It's God's Spirit. Christ was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So, the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of Christ are the same. And we have to have it to be a Christian. I'm going to add in John... actually, I'm going to turn, if you'll turn with me to 1 John 3:24. Because I was saying, we need Christ to be in us, now I'm talking about the Spirit. John ties those together. 1 John 3:24.

1 John 3:24 – “Now, he who keeps His commandments abides in Him or lives in Him, and he that is Christ in Him who keeps His commandments, and by this, we know that He abides in us.”

This is how we know that Christ lives in us through the Spirit that He's given us. So, Christ is living in us through the Spirit. That, I believe, ties to the eating the bread, that unleavened bread, that Christ said, “I am the Bread of Life.” Just as we eat bread, and our bodies digest it and it becomes a part of us and it sustains our life. So, when Christ dwells in us through the Holy Spirit, it sustains our life. It makes us into something different, gives us spiritual life. And that's something we want to remember that the Holy Spirit isn't something that we just get at baptism with the laying on of hands. I mean, we do get it then, but it's not like, “Here's the Holy Spirit. Let me put that in my pocket and I'll carry it with me everywhere I go.” It reminds me, I'll share this. When I was ordained an elder, they handed me one of these little things with oil. And so carry this with you everywhere you go. Now, I have the oil, you know, that symbolizes the Holy Spirit. But, you know, I use that up, I anoint people, and then I have to go get it refilled. Similar to that when we think of the Holy Spirit. I'll write down a couple of scriptures, I won't turn there, but Philippians 1:19. Philippians 1:19 mentions having a supply of the Holy Spirit, it's a supply. And in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, 1 Thessalonians 5:19, we're told to not quench the Holy Spirit.

This indicates that God's Spirit is something that we need to continually renew, is the analogy of rivers of living water flowing from God, and through that microphone no, from God and through us, and, you know, going out and doing His works. So, that's something we want to do to live spiritually. Actually, it's interesting. You can turn back there if you want, but in John 6:50, Jesus described Himself as the Bread of Life that comes down from heaven. When I first read it, oh, that's present tense, comes down from heaven. Then, in the next verse He talked about, He was the Bread of Life that came down from heaven. But we could see based on what we saw there in Galatians 2:21, 1 John 3:4. No, 1 John 3:24, sorry. I should put my glasses on before I... “But through the Spirit which abides in us, Christ is coming from heaven into us.” It's not just a one-time thing that He lives in us. And having said that, my Bible is open to 1 John, I want to turn to chapter 4 of 1 John. So, a lesson I remember from it, I bring out in General Epistles class about a Greek word that I didn't realize was there until studying that. I mean, there's one thing to remember that the Epistles of John are some of the last books written in the Bible. And great heresy was extent in the Roman Empire, and even trying to creep into the church. And John was fighting against that, including some teachings that later became known as Gnosticism. One tenet of Gnosticism was that God is Spirit and totally good, anything spirit is great, anything physical and flesh, evil, bad. And God would never associate with something so evil and bad as Spirit. They began even to teach that the Messiah, Jesus the Christ, wasn't really a flesh and blood human being, that He was just some appearance, you know, that He could walk across the beach and not leave footprints, and things like that. So, when you read John's writings, he went out of his way to say, “I touched Him, we handled Him with our hands, we saw Him eat,” and things like that. And we see in 1 John 4:2, he refutes this. He says,

1 John 4:2-3 – “By this, you know, the Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. That's the spirit of antichrist, which you've heard was coming, now it's already in the world.” The Greek word that's translated here in English is has come is erchomai, which I just love saying that, erchomai. But scholars point out that it's actually a present tense verb. Present tense is generally used in an imperfect... and it's been a long time since I did thorough grammar so I might not be describing this perfectly. But they say one way that you could translate this is to say, Jesus Christ having been coming in the flesh, or a simpler version would say He is coming, meaning He came as a flesh and blood human being. But as John said, we know that He abides in us through His Spirit, to Christ through the Spirit is coming into our flesh and blood. He's coming into us as we eat bread and it comes into us and sustains our life. We want to take in the unleavened bread that is Jesus Christ and make that part of us. We want a continual supply of God's Holy Spirit, His power and His presence.

Now, having said that, I'm looking at my watch and reminding, oh, we've got almost six weeks before another Holy Day, and we're going to focus on the Holy Spirit. But that shows us how much these days fit together and strongly portray God's plan and purpose for what He's doing. You know, there is an understanding that was built into these days all along. Christ is the Bread of Life. In John 6:51, He said, “I came down from heaven.” As I said, in the previous verse, He said, “I'm the Bread of Life that comes down from heaven.” What better way to symbolize that spiritual sustenance than by partaking something that's the opposite of sin in symbolism. And so this festival has reminded us we need to put sinful ways, sinful thoughts, any actions out of our lives, and we need to put Christ in. And again, I hope this illustrates, you know, the statement I made at the beginning that these annual Holy Days have always been Christian Holy Days, they weren't adapted. And that's a strong distinction between the holidays that many churches keep, they took these festivals that had this pagan meanings, worshiping false gods, and tried to adapt them. That's not what we've done. We've taken days that had these meanings right from the start, Christian days with Christian meaning.

And so we're here meaning on a date designated on the Hebrew sacred calendar. For people... you know, you saw the full moon about a week ago. These are days described in the Pentateuch, Orthodox Jews keep them quite rigorously. But we are Christians called by God the Father to come to His Son, were reconciled to the Father by the blood of Jesus Christ. And as such, we observe these Holy Days, and the way Christ kept them, the way that His disciples kept them all through their lives, and as the Church that Christ founded kept them, they are days of Christian observance, full of great meaning. You know, for centuries, probably generations, Jewish people have kept these days- kept track of them. But for them without a great understanding of what the meaning of those days were. They didn't understand, you know, that God had them act out on a great stage in the Middle East long ago, you know, sort of a great drama full of rich meaning, portraying events that He knew later on, people would need to understand because it would illustrate what He was doing in their lives. And we're that people, we want to look to the past, and study, and understand and at the same time, look ahead. And again, I can't help it, I felt like the message this morning bring back to your mind is that that's our marching orders. Let's go out, let's restock our cupboards. Let's understand repentance and plan to take Christ into our lives and be renewed and fulfill God's purpose for us.