Exodus 12 (Part 2) Bible Study (The Passover) | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

Exodus chapter 12 verse 14. This day shall be for you a Memorial Day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord. Throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day, you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

On the first day, you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day, a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days, but everyone needs to eat. That alone may be prepared for you. And you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread. For on this very day, I brought your host out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore, you shall observe this day throughout your generations as a statue forever. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty first day of the month at evening. For seven days, no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel. Whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land, you shall eat nothing leavened.

In your dwelling places, you shall eat unleavened bread. Let's pray together, please. Father, we come and we need the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and so we posture our hearts in humility asking that you would open the eyes of our hearts, Lord, to see the beauty of these verses that we just read. Father, we pray for a mind that is clear and sharp. We pray, Lord, that as we teach one another, our mouths would be free from error.

There'd be precision of speech. There'd be clarity, Lord. And we pray that the goal of this study would be a greater love for you, a greater zeal to obey, and a greater desire to dig in this word for ourselves. Father, help us understand what it means to not eat unleavened bread. Help us to understand what this feast means to us.

Help us, Lord, grow in understanding that you, Jesus, are the theme of this book. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. We're gonna take a little different approach today.

From time to time, whenever we come upon a subject that requires great attention and requires us to dissect it. We're gonna we're gonna slow down in our text and be able to really take it, word by word, and we're gonna really see what the whole of scripture says. Because here's the goal of this bible study. It's not to say that we went through the Old Testament in x amount of months or years. That does not mean a thing if we didn't learn anything.

What we want to do is take the truths of God and learn from them. And Paul asked the Colossians, listen, help me by praying for me to declare the mystery of Christ on account of which I am in prison, and then he says, to say it clearly, which is how I ought to speak. And so we wanna take this text and be able to understand it clearly. And so this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna use a PowerPoint today.

You know, it's serious business when there's a PowerPoint. Right? So today, we're gonna talk about the feast of unleavened bread. Whether that takes us half an hour or an hour, the goal is to leave here with a greater revelation of what this means to us. And so remember what we talked about last week.

We talked about another feast, the first feast that God instituted to the people of Israel. What was that feast called? What was the feast called? Oh, no. What was the feast called?

Passover is the first feast that was instituted by the Lord to the people of Israel. And so here we are now transitioning into a second feast that God wants to instruct. But before we do that, we gotta do a quick overview. So Sarah's gonna help me out here.

If you

can go to the next slide for a moment. Actually, go back up for a second. How many feasts are there? You guys all saw it. How many feasts are there total in the Old Testament?

Has anybody read through the Old Testament and noticed that there are feasts mentioned throughout, especially the Pentateuch? So how many are there total? Seven. Seven. How did you guys know?

It's in the next slide. There are seven total feasts, and here are the names of them, and some names differ, but they're all saying the same thing. We have the Passover feast, which we talked about. Yes? Last week.

Correct? And so what was the Passover feast about? Not in light of Christianity, but in light of the people of Egypt.

Freedom from Egypt.

Freedom from Egypt. Yes. What was the whole idea of Passover? I know this is very elementary, but the whole point is to get this so in your mind that whenever anybody comes up to you says what's the Passover, you say boom boom boom boom. And you're gonna be able to say the next one too, unleavened bread.

You're gonna be able to know what to say. Okay. So what's the Passover about? Yes. Freedom from Egypt.

But what was what was the instruction given for them to experience freedom? Eddie. To kill the

to kill, like, an unblemished lamp Yes. By the angel and then put it on your door of the cross. Yes. The angel will confess, passes over you.

Yes. Precisely. Now this might be a little bit harder work harder question. We'll cover it. But when were they supposed to experience this feast and and perform it?

The tenth day of the first month where God instituted the first month of their calendar, and the fourteenth day.

Good job, Marfil. Exodus chapter 12, the Lord instituted a new religious calendar for the people of Israel, and he said on the first month of this calendar, on the tenth day, you are to take a lamb, a spotless lamb, a blemishless lamb, right? But really, it's celebrated on the fourteenth day of that month. That is when the lamb is slaughtered and they apply the blood. So we know that prophetically that is a picture of Jesus on the cross.

And now the reason why I blocked all that out is because every single one of these feasts has a significance to us today. We're going to get to that in a moment. And if you want to see all the seven feasts laid out in chronological order, go to Leviticus 23 on your own time and you will see how these feasts have been laid out for the people of Israel with this thorough instructions. So we understand that there's a total of seven feasts, and you can go to the next slide, please. Seven total feasts of the Lord.

You want to look at it? Go to Leviticus 23. And here are these purposes that we can take out of these feasts. Purpose number one of understanding these feasts is that the people of Israel were to use these feasts as a reminder of God's deliverance and redemption. And really these feasts were acts of worship.

And so it wasn't just God delivering these people, it was to set these memorials for year after year, generation after generation, for the kids and the second, third, fourth, fifth generation to learn about how God has delivered their their people. And so when you go to Leviticus 23, you'll see how God has really instituted these sacrificial systems and these sacrifices that needed to be made in each feast because they were acts of worship. It wasn't just coming and hearing about it, it was a response to what God has done in the past. And so the purpose initially on the surface level is for the people of Israel to remember. Why?

Why? Why do we need to remember? Because by the time the sermon's over, all that information spills out of our ears. That's why. And so we need to institute certain things.

And there are some Christians today, in in light of the prophetic light of what these feasts means, that practice these feasts. I know a family back in Canada, that their family, their kids, their three boys, they they practice these feasts not in light of the old covenant, but in light of the new covenant. And they use, the parents use those feasts as teaching opportunities for their kids to understand what Jesus Christ has done for them. Which is the second purpose, to serve as a prophetic picture of Jesus Christ and his redemption of all humanity. This gets really deep, but we won't we're just doing an overview.

When we see the feast and the calendar that it's placed in the religious calendar, it's not only an immediate thing for the Israelites. In fact, it plays a prophetic role in God's prophetic calendar. The feast play a prophetic role into Jesus' work and his redemption. We'll get to that in a second. But the third purpose is to offer spiritual truths for the new covenant believer.

So when we look at these feasts, like we looked at Passover, we talked about applying the blood, eating the lamb, all these different things, having our belt fastened and our staff in our hand, those are all spiritual truths for the new covenant believer. Note, Passover is not the only feast that has a prophetic implication to it. Every feast of the seven has some prophetic importance and points to a specific work, an element of Christ's redemption towards us. And we're gonna conclude with something, a little teaser. So now we come to the next point, which is this specific feast, the feast of unleavened bread.

You can yes. Go ahead. Let's look at the timing of the feast. You know what? Let's just be honest.

When we were saying we were gonna finish Exodus chapter 12, how many of us looked at the feast and went, okay, unleavened bread? Oh, okay. Yeah. So fair let them go. Awesome.

And mixed multitude went to them. It's true. Right? Here's here's a little bit of help. I hope this helps you.

This is how they helped me to look at this text, to break it up, To really just break up this text and really divide the details and then put them back together. So the first thing I hope this helps just some tools to offer. The first thing that I did just looking at this text is, okay, I'm gonna break this up and see the the timing of this feast. I just wanna see when this feast was instituted. And so you look at verse 14 down to verse 20, and you see here that Passover, as we learned last week, was of the first month, right, of the religious calendar.

The tenth day they were supposed to take the lamb, and the fourteenth day they were the slaughtered lamb. Now if you read very carefully in this feast, it's in the first month as well. But it begins when? What does it say up there? The fourteenth day.

If you look at verse 18, in the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty first day of the month at evening. So how long is this feast? A week, seven days. Right? Seven.

Such a good number. Important number. So I I just learned something just by dividing the the timing from the text. I learned something. What did I learn?

What did you learn from this? Just by hearing when the Passover is and when the feast of unleavened bread is. These feasts initially intersect on the fourteenth day on some level. God could have done and planned this on any other month of the year, but you know what he did? He did it in such a way where on the fourteenth day, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread intersect.

They kiss, so to speak. Do you think that's by accident? We're gonna find out why. And we have to understand that though they are separate feasts, they have been recognized throughout the scripture as something that is connected. And let me give you some evidence for that, not only in the new Old Testament, but in the New Testament, which is in the next slide.

You've probably seen this and people say, hey. Your Bible has contradictions. Look. It says unleavened bread, but it says Passover. It says Passover, but it's supposed to be unleavened bread.

What's the deal? No. It's because the people of Israel understood these feasts almost as one. So here's some verses in the next slide. Ezekiel forty five twenty one.

In the first month of the fourteenth day of the month, when is that? The first month of the fourteenth day. What's what celebration is that? Passover. Right?

You're supposed to celebrate Passover, but look what it says. You shall celebrate the feast of the Passover, and for seven days unleavened bread shall be eaten. See how it intersects? The instructions are given as though it's the same thing. It gets even more detailed than that, look.

Matthew twenty six seventeen. Now on the first day of unleavened bread, what's that? The first month and the fourteenth day. The disciples came to Jesus saying, where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover? Contradiction.

No. It's not a contradiction. Mistake. Somebody messed messed up with the transcript. Somebody messed up with the original no.

No. No. No. It's because they saw the feast, these two feasts as one. It's even more detailed than that.

Luke twenty two one, now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover. And then it clarifies down in verse seven, then came the day of unleavened bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So it's this continuation almost as the same feast, and that's gonna really mean something to us. That's gonna re really mean something for the old covenant and for the new covenant, especially for the new covenant. So we all see clearly.

So when you see this in the New Testament, you understand that there's this there's this purposely done act where God has established this feast to be somewhat connected to the Passover feast. That's not by accident once again. So we come to the next point. So we we look at this text and we dissected the time. So now I got a piece of paper right here and I go, time of the feast.

First month, fourteenth day to the twenty first. Oh, it intersects with the Passover on the fourteenth day. I wonder why. But let's keep reading. Now we break up another element.

So I have the time on my side, now I want to look at the instructions of the feast. So what is this whole feast about now? And so I take my pen and I read the details. What am I supposed to do on this feast if I was an Israelite in this day? So we break it up in the next slide.

Oh, I apologize. This is how the feast would have looked like on a calendar. Okay? So if you were to see this, if you were a June day and you had you got your yearly calendar on your wall, you would look at it and you would see okay. Passover is on Nissan, the religious calendar we see here, the fourteenth day.

Correct? How many feasts do you guys see up here?

Three three. Three three. Three three.

Can you guys see

all the

way in the back? How many feasts do you guys see? How many titles do you guys see in there? Three. Right?

So we have the Passover. Now when you go to Leviticus 23, it tells you that the feast of unleavened bread is supposed to be celebrated on the fifteenth day to the twenty first. Contradiction? Relax. No contradiction.

It's that on the fourteenth day, you were to eat the unleavened bread. K? So it's not a contradiction. This is when the holy assembly starts, so nobody freak out. No contradictions.

Passover, unleavened bread, and on the sixteenth of the same month, we have the third feast on God's calendar, which is the feast of first fruits, which is something we're gonna cover near the end of Exodus. So out of the seven feasts, how many are covered in the first month alone?

Three feasts. Three feasts on the first month. Why is that? I'll look

at it later. K? Three feasts feasts on the first month. Why is that? I'll look at it later.

Okay? So this is what it looks like. So just to give you a visual so all these numbers don't get jumbled in your head, you can see it. Passover, unlimited bread is happening, and first fruits is popping up later on in Exodus. All of that's happening in a matter of a week.

Does something historic happen in a matter of a week? So we move on to the next slide. So here are the instructions for the feast. Day one, Israelites, here we are. Israelites, alright, God gave us a new feast.

Here's what you're doing on day one. We're having a holy assembly, But right off the get go, each one of you guys have to go home, and you gotta get rid of all leaven. Every single hint of leaven has to be out of your house. Go. You go.

Everybody goes home, and they get rid of the they sweep the floors. They look in the cupboards. Families, even to this day, when they celebrate this feast, they play a game with their kids where they they have them go and they get rid of all of this. They hide things in certain places. So this is still implemented on some level.

Between day two and day six, you're not eating anything that's leavened. Anything that has leaven in it, that's not a part of your diet. You and I, we're just eating unleavened bread. That's all we're doing. And on the seventh day, we're having another holy assembly, and still on the seventh day, we are not eating leavened bread.

For seven days, your diet is unleavened bread. Pretty clear. Right? Now if anybody did not obey these commands, they were to be cut off from Israel. If somebody ate leaven if somebody did not get rid of the leaven, they were to be cut off from the nation.

That's a big thing. It's a big deal. Now here's the question. What is leaven? Because it's mentioned many we we heard the word leaven probably eight, nine times or unleavened eight, nine times in these few verses.

Anybody know what leaven is? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So what role does it play in bread?

Mix it. So when you have yeast in bread, I have no experience in this, but I it puffs up the bread. It makes the bread puffy. So that's the it's an additive that helps it become a loaf, so to speak. So if there's no leaven in the bread, what what does it look like?

It's like a cracker.

It's like a cracker. Exactly. It's very thin and, doesn't have yeast in it. So that's gonna be important later on as well. Now we go to the next slide.

Okay. So remember the the first slide? We talked about the three different purposes that come with this feast. The initial purpose was what? The the surface level, right, for the Israelites?

What was the second purpose? Christ. Right? And the third purpose? What it means to to have this in our lives as Christians even today.

So this is where we're gonna just take a break now, and we're just gonna open it up. So for the Israelites, it's already up there, but for the sake of discussion, what did this mean for the Israelites? If you were an Israelite at this time, why did God institute this feast? It's right there in the text. Look at the verses that we just read.

See if you can find the verse where it gives us the reason why. And when you have it, just share it. Yeah, Gil?

Verse 14.

Verse 14. It's a memorial day. Yes. What's the memorial about? It's the verses that we read just in the beginning of the service.

Yeah, Paul.

It's the delivery from the

Yes. Do you see that what verse do you see that in? Yes. Read it out loud for us, please.

So you shall observe the feast of unleavened bread, for on the same day the Lord brought your armies out of the land. So 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 these days throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.

Yes. Now go to Exodus 13 where it gives us a detail of this this consecration of the firstborn. We won't go into it. And the feast of unleavened bread, and go to verse eight of Exodus 13. And somebody read it out loud when you find it, please.

You shall tell your son on that day. It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.

Right. So in verse seven, it says unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. No leavened bread shall be seen with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. It's not even not just in the house, in the territory. No leaven.

Why? You shall tell your son on that day, hey, listen. This is the reason why we do it. It's it's supposed to what? What's the purpose?

Remind the people of Israel of what? What the Lord

did for them. What the

Lord did for them, specifically how he quickly delivered them from Egypt. And so when we come to Deuteronomy sixteen:three, let me read this. You shall eat no leavened bread with it. Seven days you shall eat it with unleavened bread, the bread of affliction. Oh, it calls it the bread of affliction.

The bread of affliction. For you came out of the land of Egypt in haste that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. I want you to remember every year how I brought you out of haste. And so why did they come out of haste? I mean, how did that happen?

It happens later on in Exodus 12. Remember the firstborn die, and then what happens? Emergency protocol. Everybody get out. So they didn't even have time to necessarily bake it with yeast.

There was no time. They had to eat it the way it was. And so it was this it's it's this understanding how God not only delivered them, but quickly delivered them. Quickly brought them out. And they were to remember this year after year after year.

When you go to verse 25 of Exodus 12, and when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he promised you, you shall keep this service. He's talking about the Passover, but also talking about this feast. Why is this important to God? I mean, we see these feasts and we're like, well, that's nice. I mean but why is it significant?

God God repeats these instructions not just here. He's gonna do it throughout the Pentateuch. Why is it important for you and me? We talked a little bit about this last week, about remembering where you came from. Remembering where you came from.

What happens when you remember where you came from? When you really meditate where you came from. Yes. I become thankful. Thankful.

Yes. What else?

You're bound to not repeat the same mistakes that you made.

Sure. You're bound not to go into the thing that bound you in the first place. Humility. Humility. Why humility?

Because I didn't deliver myself. Yes. Yes. So every year they were supposed to do this. They were supposed to take the time, pause on life.

They were just as busy as you and I were, and they were to reflect on the redemption of their God. And it would produce something within them. One, it gives glory to God. That is ultimately God's purpose in these feasts. In anything, God gets glory.

The second consequence is that it does something to us. And what it would have done to the Israelites, we all know, is that it would have humbled them, it would have reminded them, and that's why breaking these feasts had such scary consequences. Because it literally robbed God of his glory. Whenever you read something of a feast and somebody breaks a feast and somebody gets stoned, or somebody's excommunicated or exiled out of the land, you go, well that's kind of harsh. No.

You are literally robbing God of his glory and you are robbing yourself of humility. And you are robbing yourself of thankfulness. This is not something to joke around with. This was something that was so serious to God. So we see that.

They were to not just keep this now. They were to do this when they got into the land for the rest of their days. So we see that. The feast would remind the people of Israel of their quick delivery from Egypt. That's the first purpose.

So we read this and we go, okay. I understand why god gave this to Israel. I understand why he established this. But I'm a new covenant believer, so how does this work for me? And we'll get to that.

Sandwiching between that purpose is this. How does this point to Jesus? How does this I understand the Passover. We all understand the Passover. That that one's a given.

Passover lamb, Jesus we know that, but how does the unleavened bread point to Jesus? So that's the second purpose. You can go down. The prophetic picture of Jesus Christ in this feast, this is where it gets fun. So don't be scared to share your insights.

Yeah, Gil?

Whenever I read this, I'm always reminded that, when Jesus was alive, he did something very similar when he established the communion with them. He said, do this in remembrance of me when you eat the bread and eat the fruit of this, wine, which is his blood. So a reminder of what he did for us on the cross, and this is a reminder of what God did for the Israelites in hastily getting them out of Egypt.

Yes. So when you go to do you guys hear that in Exodus twelve twenty six? And when your children say to you, what do you mean by this service? You shall say, it is a sacrifice of the Lord's Passover, for for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt when he struck the Egyptians.' So we have something like that. What is it called?

Communion. Yes. And people debate this about how the Lord instituted the Lord's Supper, which is a fun debate, but I wouldn't spend all my time on it because I don't think God really wants us to spend too much time on it. When the Lord instituted the Lord's Supper with the wine and with the bread, what do you think the debate was? The debate was that's a whole another debate.

That's a whole another debate. If that's the literal body and the literal I I think that debate's pretty cleared up. No. It's not. He said do this in remembrance of me, Not do this and my body is gonna come into the bread and my blood is gonna come into the drink.

In remembrance of me. It's a different debate. The debate is, did Jesus use unleavened bread when he instituted the Lord's Supper? And there's people that are fighting even, communion, we need unleavened bread. It has to be it does it can't have yeast in it.

We don't know what Jesus used, but it would be pretty significant if Jesus did use unleavened bread. Why is that significant?

Because, leaven, the yeast is, a sort of bacteria. It's unclean. And when Jesus came, he was perfect. He was clean.

Leaven represents what in the New Testament? Sin. So let's back it up before we get to that point. Jesus said, I am the bread of heaven, bread of life. I'm that bread.

Right? And he's speaking of manna, but he can also be speaking of this. So what we know from this, prophetically speaking, is that this bread, this unleavened bread, is Jesus. Why? Because it is unleavened.

What does that mean? Well, when we go to first Corinthians five verse six to eight, it tells us why. First Corinthians five is when Paul wrote to the Corinthian church because rumor has it that a man slept with his father's wife. And Paul says the world doesn't even do such a thing. And the worst part was not the sin.

The sin was they didn't do anything about it. The sin was they were boasting. The sin was they weren't broken over the sin. Yes, the sin was a sin itself, but Paul is coming in as a spiritual father saying, how are you guys not even broken about this? You should be groaning for such a shameful act.

And it comes in first Corinthians five verse six, your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, had been sacrificed has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival celebrate the festival, new covenant, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

So stop there because the third purpose is how this involves us. But let's stay in the prophetic of Christ. Christ is the unleavened bread. He has no leaven in him. There's no sin in him.

There's no evil in him. There's no malice in him. There's no deceit found in his mouth. But that's not the only thing that leaven is represented in the New Testament. Does anybody else know what leaven represents in the New Testament?

Beware the leaven of the Pharisees. The leaven of Herod. And people debate, what is the leaven of the Pharisees? Is it false teaching? They didn't necessarily teach falsely.

Jesus says, listen to what they do, just don't do what they do because they preach but they don't practice. Matthew 23. So what is the leaven of the Pharisees?

It's hypocrisy. Hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the leaven of the Pharisees. Don't live a double life. Don't live one way and preach another way. That's leaven. And and it has the same effect, that when you have a little bit of it, it can affect your whole life.

Don't have a little bit of it. Not only that, according to this context in first Corinthians five, don't hang out with people like that, because a little leaven in that community could affect the whole batch. So it's not just the leaven which is sin, which is sin in general, it's hypocrisy. That's not the only thing that leaven represents. Does anybody else know what leaven represents in the New Testament?

What were the Galatians struggling with? What was the main problem with the Galatian church? What's the whole letter about? Does anybody know? Legalism.

In what sense? What's Paul's premise? Why why is he writing to the Galatian church? He's saying, I'm hearing that you who started in the spirit are now ending in the flesh. Meaning, you who started by grace and by grace alone now want to add circumcision to your salvation.

You want to do grace plus works. And then he comes to Galatians five, and if somebody can go to Galatians five verse nine, what does he say in verse nine? A little leaven leaven is a whole lump. A little leaven leaven is a whole lump. But what's the context?

He's talking about false teachers. So what else is leavened in the New Testament? False teaching. So not just hypocrisy, that's one thing. That's to teach right and live another.

It's to teach wrongly. And he goes, if somebody comes in and teaches a little wrongly, it can affect the entire church. Don't tolerate false teaching. It will affect everyone. And so we see this leaven.

It's sin, generally, yes. It's hypocrisy, absolutely. And it's false teaching. Guess what? None of those are found in Jesus.

He's the unleavened bread. No sin, no hypocrisy, no false teaching. You can trust every word found in this book because he's perfect, and he's spotless, and you can't find fault in him. You can rely your life on these red letters and letters of every single page of this book because he is truthful. He is the unleavened bread.

That's Jesus. And he comes, he says this is my body, breaks it, perhaps it was leavened bread. What else does it signify about Jesus? Think about the timing of the feast. Think about the timing of the feast concerning Jesus's life.

At what period and what specific incidence did Jesus fall in these days? The Passover represents his what? What does the Passover represent? His death. His death.

So following that feast, what does this represent concerning Christ?

His resurrection.

Before that, his burial. This is speaking of his burial. During this week, two thousand or thousands of years later, Jesus was in the tomb. So this feast in some sense points to the burial of Jesus because there's another feast that's gonna speak of his resurrection. We're not gonna get there right away.

And so we have his death, the Passover. We have this week that follows on the same week but extends a little bit longer, which speaks of his burial. Just hold on tight until the last slide until you see how this plays out in all the feasts. So we see Jesus. Is there any other Jesus in this, or do we feel comfortable enough with it?

Now there's Jewish history that talks about how the bread was practiced in the sense where they would take three and there was one in the middle and they would break that one and and all of that. I don't wanna go there too much just because I wanna stick with this. Not that it's not true or anything, I just wanna stick with the text. But is there anything else we can see about Jesus here? So how does this relate in the next slide with you and me as believers?

Let's look back at Exodus twelve fourteen down to 20. Think about first Corinthians five. What does leaven represent again? Sin. Why is sin represented by leaven?

Think out of all the things God Almighty could have related sin to, he picks leaven. Why? Phoebe? Because it

starts very small and it grows.

Starts very small and it has a greater effect over time? Absolutely?

It's perceived as a good thing amongst the world, but it is actually

there is, like, not so it's bacteria.

So it is, in a sense, bacteria, so it has a decaying element to it. It has some kind of a negative aspect. Shouldn't be the high form of food. So it just takes a little bit. It just takes a little bit, really.

We we I okay. Just pause for a second. I don't think we really understand how infectious sin really is. I really don't I I really don't think that a majority of people have that kind of an understanding, that a little bit, it is so contagious. It is so effective.

It is so dangerous in its smallest larva stage. That's why the bible all over scripture says kill it while it's at that stage. Don't let it grow because you're gonna have to deal with bigger problems. Yes, Eddie?

I was gonna disclose that. It's, like, artificial, so it's not like, it, like, it's not natural. The breath isn't right, dries by itself. So the yeast is like

Okay. Maybe there's something there. Yeah. I haven't thought of that. Yeah.

It could be. There's something about the yeast, to the eyes.

Yes.

It rises. So leaven, what does it do to the bread? It puffs it up. You know sin is rooted in pride, pretty much. Every sin is rooted in pride, and a person that lives in habitual sin in a hidden way is a prideful person.

How? What is sin all about?

It's all about me.

Me. Me. Me. How it makes me feel. How it advances my purposes.

How it stimulates my senses. It is so selfish. And so leaven puffs up the bread, sin puffs up your character and my character. It has that effect. It's also, and it's kind of an underlining understanding of everybody's statements, it's it's hidden.

It's hidden. It's not really seen through the naked eye. It's something that's blended in, and you don't really see its effects until later on, but it has this hidden element to it. Really, sin is it's it's in here. It starts in here.

Jesus said in Mark seven twenty to 23, it's out of the heart of man comes all these evil things. This is the sewage. This is the death. This is the thing that holds all those wicked things that is being produced and manifested in the world. And so like leaven, it's something that's not very seen.

It manifests over time, but it has to be dealt with on an internal aspect, an internal level. Yeah. So leaven does represent sin, and we see why Jesus and the Lord himself points to leaven being a picture of sin. So when we come to this now in Exodus twelve fourteen to 20, what does all of this language have to do with me as a new covenant believer? Exodus 12.

Yeah, Paul?

I was just gonna say if Christ represents the bread, unleavened bread, then we're to consume him of him every day Absolutely. Seven days a week. Yes. And so yeah.

And we're gonna get to that as a closing point. But that's absolutely right. If Christ represents the bread, I'm to eat the bread. God loves to use this language of eating because it means something. Sure.

But look at look at verse 15 here in Exodus 12. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses. For if anyone eats what is leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. What does that have to do with me?

What does that instruction have to do with me as a new covenant believer? Very simple. Get the sin out. Get the sin out. It's amazing.

Because we hear this bible study, we've been talking a lot about sin. Sin comes up, I think, on every single bible study. And we're not forcing it. It's just popping out of the pages. Isn't that true?

I don't know how you could ignore it. It's all over the Bible. Because sin is our problem. And so we see here with the old covenant, sin represents it's represented by leaven. In the new covenant, it's the same instruction.

Get this sin out. Get it out of your house. Go into your home, and every corner, every cupboard, every under your bed, wherever it is, get it out. Vacuum. It's time for spring cleaning.

I love seeing somebody get saved. You know why? Because when you when you see them truly get saved, you see them get all the junk out of their lives. That's one of the most thrilling things that you can see in somebody's life. Not that they just repeated a prayer, that one day they came and understood their sin, understood Christ's righteousness, his salvation, his grace, and it provoked them to say, I'm going home, and I'm gonna clean up house.

When you come to when you come to understand how Exodus 12 is brought together concerning these two feasts, Remember how we mentioned in the beginning the timing of these feasts? What did we mention about the timing of these feasts? That though they are separate feasts, they are recognized as indivisible. Though they are separate celebrations, they are something to be seen as one. Let me phrase it this way.

Those who experience the Passover lamb will, as a result, follow that experience by living a life that is free from leaven. It's no accident that the Passover lamb and this feast are almost seen as one. What does that have to do with you and me? As the feasts are inseparable and recognized to be connected, so is salvation and one's change of life. You can't separate those two just like you can't separate these feasts.

Do you see what I'm saying here? Passover lamb, feast, which symbolizes a getting rid of of sin. Those two are intersected because you can't separate those two experiences. You can't tell me that you have the blood applied. You can't tell me that you accepted Jesus Christ in your life and tell me that you did not get the sin out of your life.

The leaven out of your life. You can't say that, yes, I have the lamb, but I still have some leaven at home and I'm completely fine with it. No. It's I have the lamb, and I experience the lamb. And as a response, just like this feast, I go home and I remove all the leaven from my home.

That's the result. You can't separate those two. And there's a gospel, and there's this idea, and there's this new understanding that is spreading, that's saying you just believe in Jesus and live how you want. Because that does not affect your life. So you can just understand intellectually that Jesus Christ died on the cross and it have no effect upon you.

You can live the most rotten lifestyle, and you're still good. And James answers this and he says, So one will say, you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I'll show you my faith by my works. You say God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder.

Even the demons believe in that intellectual ascent understanding that Jesus Christ is sovereign and he is the ruler of the universe and he died on the cross. But you know what the difference between demons and you is that demons actually tremble that truth. You don't even shake. And so, just like these feasts cannot be separated, they are seen as one continuous reality, so is the true Passover lamb, and the result following that, that we are provoked to examine our lives and say in light of the Passover lamb and his shed blood that took away the wrath, I'm going to get rid of all the leaven in my life. And you say no no no no no no no.

That can't be. You are robbing people of that beautiful experience. And we are missing out on testimonies like this because people don't have the backbone to say that. Repent and believe. And so we see here a beautiful reality.

And as brother Paul mentioned, the Passover lamb symbolizes what in light of Christ? Justification. Right? It it it symbolizes justification is only possible by the lamb. And we eat the lamb, we become one with the lamb, and then that continues here.

So if the Passover lamb symbolizes justification, what does the feast of unleavened bread represent as for the believer? Sanctification. So Passover lamb is justification. We see here in the feast of unleavened bread that it's sanctification. Now remember, it was not just getting rid of the leaven from the house.

We forget the other part. It was about eating the unleavened bread for seven days. So it's not just getting rid of sin. It's not just getting rid of it. No.

It's replacing it with righteousness. Because when we go back to first Corinthians five eight, he says we're not gonna eat leavened bread, we're gonna eat unleavened bread, which is sincerity and truth. And so it's this righteousness that replaces sin in our lives. And how do we do it? If Christ is represented by the bread, as Paul mentioned, what do we do?

We eat of him. We eat of him. When they're in the wilderness, what do they do with the bread? The manna? They eat.

What's the what's the understanding? How does one person become sanctified? They don't become sanctified by wanting to be sanctified. It's it's greater than desire. Now remember, don't get it twisted, this feast is not about justification.

That was already covered by the Passover lamb. This is completely about sanctification. And if you and I wanna be holy, you know how we do it? We eat of the bread of life. That's the application right there.

That if we if you wanna be holy, if you wanna overcome that sin, it's telling us here in a hidden way, eat of the bread of life. Commune with him. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put the death and deeds of the body, you'll live.

Where's the Holy Spirit? In me. And so so many people are looking at sin and they're trying to overcome it, and they're trying to do this and do that. And God's main way of you and I overcoming sin, God's mainstream of you and I having a different appetite towards iniquity is to fulfill that appetite by eating of Jesus. And when I eat of Jesus, the more I eat of him, the less I have an appetite for sin.

So I am to daily eat of him because it says seven days you are to eat. Now do you think it's just seven days? In light of the prophetic number of seven, it's greater than just a week. When we look at the book of Revelation about the seven churches and we went through that series, was it just for seven literal churches? Initially, yes, but what was that number seven represent?

Seven represents completeness. It represents wholeness. And so when God, through Christ, through John, speaks through these seven churches, he's not just speaking to seven literal churches in Asia Minor. No. To the universal church.

To the whole church for generations to come. And so when we read that you are to eat of the bread seven days, it's not just seven days, it's every day of your life. All of your life. Seven. The wholeness, the completeness.

You and I are to look at sin in our lives and uproot it, and we are to simultaneously eat of the bread, not just for a week. Seven, for your entire existence. That's the principle. And that's the joy that we just eat of him. And And when we eat of him, the appetite for other things will go away.

It's as simple as that. God made it for us to just enjoy him, to feast on him, to meet with him, to savor him. And our appetite and our desires will change over time. There's so many other things here. There's so many other things here, but for the sake of time, we won't go into all of them.

There's this one instruction here as we end about those who do not obey these commands. They were to be cut off from the people of Israel. And when we fast forward that to the New Testament, that is seen in the first Corinthians five situation, that if there was somebody in the congregation that was not to let go of unrepentant sin in their life, they were to be cut off, so to speak. That at the final stage of discipline and church discipline, if they were not to repent, after somebody's approached them, after two or three people approach them, after the church approaches them, after the leadership approaches them, that they still do not repent, the final stage is that they are to be cut off, and that's the term hand over to Satan. It's a church discipline act where they go over into his realm if they want to live the way he wants you to live.

They go over into his domain. They're not part of the warmth. They're not part of the protection of the church. They are out there for what purpose? Does anybody know?

That realizing after being in his domain without the saints, without the covering, they would run back to the church and say, I'm foolish for sinning. I don't want to live for pharaoh again. I want to live for Jesus. That's the understanding. And so we see this and we go, Lord, you speak in Exodus twelve fourteen to 20 about the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

It's for us. And I said it was gonna end, but I wanna show us one last slide and we're done. Right after. So we look at this seven feast of the Lord. We look at Passover, which is Jesus' death on the cross.

We talk about the unleavened bread, which is Jesus's burial. You have to just come to bible study to figure out the rest of them. But when we look at the other slide, here's a little hint. That Passover, unleavened bread, first fruits, and the feast of weeks, those four first feasts have already been fulfilled in Christ. Guess what?

We're waiting for the last three to still be fulfilled. In the prophetic calendar of God, we are. So this is how it's gonna work, by God's grace. We're gonna cover we already covered the first two in Exodus. We're gonna cover the last one in Exodus, the first fruits.

But you have to stick around long enough to be in Leviticus to see the other ones. And you thought Leviticus was boring. My heart is stirred because we have a mighty God who has given us a living word, who saves people. And when he saves you, he changes you with joy, like Christian, who today is at Bible college, who's studying to be a pastor. He has one baby boy and a wife who got baptized as well.

And we see that to that last part in that thing, to be continued. And I said, man, that was five years ago. That was five years ago. I had a mustache. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea.

You see those confessions of faith and then you see the fruit of it. God is good. And when you walk with him, there is no telling where he can bring you. There's no you have no idea if listen. Can you watch something like that and say Christianity is boring?

What's boring about it? It's only boring if you don't obey all of it. That's why it's boring, because people don't want to be extreme and radical. Well, of course you're gonna be bored. But when you take every word as it is, you'll experience these thrills that drugs, alcohol, ecstasy, all these different things, sorcery, devilish music won't even come close to.

And so is all the leaven out of your house? Or do you still have a little bit in there? Maybe you still have a little bit. Guess what? It will affect the whole lump.

Just give it some time. And don't rob yourself of the experience of getting rid of all the leaven because that's where true freedom is. When you realize I don't want one hint of it in my life, it becomes a celebration. When you have skeletons in the closet, you won't experience true freedom there. Now does it mean that we don't struggle with sin?

No. There's temptation. Oh, yes. There is temptation. But it's this continuous, like, seven days uprooting, identifying and uprooting, seeing it creep in the corner, getting rid of it, seeing it in my cupboard, removing it, and continually eating of the bread of life.

You'll be more than okay in Christ. Gil, can we sing worthy is the lamb again?