Will you please turn to Leviticus, Chapter 23? We begin with Leviticus 23:6-8.
And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the Lord; seven days ye shall eat unleavened bread.
In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein.
But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days: in the seventh day is a holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work therein.
Then we will go back to Exodus, Chapter 12. We read from Exodus 12:15-20.
Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.
And in the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done by you.
And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance for ever.
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even.
Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a sojourner, or born in the land.
Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread.
Then 1 Corinthians, Chapter 5, verses 6-8.
Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, even as ye are unleavened. For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ:
Wherefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
Let us have a further word of prayer.
Dear Lord, as we continue in Thy presence, we pray that Thou wilt speak to us. We have read Thy Word, and now we trust Thy Holy Spirit to quicken Thy Word to our hearts.
Lord, we believe that Thy Word is life and spirit. Thy Word is light and power. So we just trust Thee, trust Thy Word, and trust Thy Spirit to do the work that is necessary in us this day.
We commit this time entirely into Thy hand. In Thy precious name we ask. Amen.
Lately, the Lord has exercised my heart on this matter of the set feasts of the Lord.
You know, it is recorded in Leviticus, Chapter 23, that God commanded the children of Israel to keep seven feasts during the year. And these seven feasts of the Lord tell us the whole story of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They show us God’s work among His people, whether with the children of Israel in the past or with the church of God today.
So far as the children of Israel are concerned, they were commanded to keep these seven set feasts of the Lord through the years. To them, we find the fulfillment is more on a physical level. But so far as the church of God is concerned, we, being the spiritual people of God, find the fulfillment is more in a spiritual realm. Yet the same principles apply to the children of Israel and to us today.
Now, these are called the feasts of the Lord. In other words, God Himself provides us with these feasts. That is to say, these are the works of God.
God has done His work, and now He commands His people to celebrate the feast. So during the feast, you find the children of Israel gather together and celebrate. They offer sacrifices to God, and they have holy convocations, because it is a time not only to worship God but also to fellowship with one another.
So these feasts are corporate functions. They are not just kept by individuals, by each family; but you find the whole children of Israel keep these feasts together. So, brothers and sisters, we feel that in these feasts God wants to teach us something very important.
The first feast, of course, is the Passover, because God makes Passover the beginning of the year. It is the beginning of the religious year of the Jewish people. And spiritually, we know Passover is the beginning of our spiritual life, the beginning of the life of the church.
The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 5, that our Passover, Christ, has been sacrificed.
Now, you remember the children of Israel. God used Passover to deliver them out of Egypt unto Himself. And on that night, every family would prepare a lamb. The lamb would be slain, and the blood would be sprinkled on the doorposts. The children of Israel, as families, would gather within the houses, and they would eat the lamb with unleavened bread. They prepared themselves for the journey out of Egypt into the promised land.
Now, that was the Passover, and the children of Israel were commanded to keep that feast every year. Even today, with the Jewish people, you find Passover is being kept very carefully every year.
But so far as we are concerned, we know that when Christ came, the shadows passed away. So we are now in the reality of the Passover.
In other words, you find when our Lord Jesus had His Passover feast with His disciples, that was the last Passover. Why? Because the Lamb of God was going to be offered as a sacrifice.
By His death on the cross, we are delivered from judgment, from sin, from death, from the world, from ourselves, from everything that is of the old. And so, our Passover is Christ Jesus. He has already died for us.
Today, we do not keep Passover as the Jewish people do. Instead, we find we have the breaking of bread, the Lord’s Supper, because the breaking of bread—the Lord’s Supper—is a celebration. It celebrates the death of our Lord Jesus.
To us, He has already died. To us, the work is already done. So there is no need to offer a lamb anymore, because the Lamb of God has been slain. It is already done.
So we come together just to remember what He has done for us. He said:
This is My body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of Me.
This cup is the new covenant in My blood: this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me.
So, at the Lord’s Table, when we come together, it is the reality of what Passover means to the Jewish people. Christ has already done the work for us, and we come to celebrate it—to offer our praises, appreciation, worship, adoration, and love to Him.
That is the Lord’s Table. So we do that every Lord’s Day, to celebrate the death of our Lord Jesus. And thank God, He not only has died for us; He has risen for us, He has ascended for us, and He is coming back to receive us.
I think we do not need to labor over this, because we all know this. But strangely, you find there is the second feast, which is called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
In a sense, it is a continuation of the Feast of Passover. But more than that, you find that the Feast of Unleavened Bread and Passover are actually one feast.
In Luke 22:1, the Bible says:
Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover.
So you find that even though these are two different feasts, the Feast of Passover is on the fourteenth of Nisan, the first religious month of the Jewish year. It is on the fourteenth day that we have the Passover.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread, even though it begins, as it were, on the fifteenth, already began on Passover. When you read Exodus, you find that it was in the evening of the fourteenth day that they had to eat unleavened bread with the meat of the lamb.
That is why in Luke you find the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is the Passover. It is one feast.
Passover shows us the work of our Lord Jesus for us, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is our response to it.
So, brothers and sisters, in a sense, I feel that we are familiar with Passover, but somehow we do not pay much attention to the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
To the Jewish people, even today, this Feast of Unleavened Bread is very, very important. Because on that day, and all before that, you find they will clear their houses of everything that is leavened.
Usually, you find the father will go through a kind of ritual, and it usually is the youngest son who will be helping him. The youngest son will purposely scatter a few crumbs in a corner of the house, so that the father can sweep them up ceremoniously.
When the father is gathering these crumbs, he will pray and say, “We bless Thee, Lord God, the King of the universe, Who hast sanctified us with Thy commandments and hast commanded us to remove all the leaven in our houses.”
That is the way they prepare for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As a matter of fact, the mother of the house, even before the Feast of Passover—perhaps for days and for weeks—has been doing what they call spring cleaning.
She has been trying to wash all the pans and pots, to be sure there is no trace of leaven in the house before the unleavened bread can be brought into the house.
So, to the children of Israel, even today, they still keep very rigidly the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Why? Because if, during these seven days, anyone should eat anything that is leavened, he would be cast out of the commonwealth of Israel.
So you find it is a very serious thing to the Jewish people.
Now, to us today, we know that we are not in the shadow anymore. We are in the reality. And what is the reality of the Feast of Unleavened Bread?
Christ is our Passover. He is the Paschal Lamb. And thank God, we have received Him as our Savior and as our Lord.
Immediately after that, or in connection with it, when we are feeding upon the Lamb, we should eat unleavened bread. In other words, this is our response to what He has done for us.
Our Lord has delivered us out of everything that is of the old. He has brought us into everything that is new.
You remember 2 Corinthians 5:17-18:
Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new.
But all things are of God.
So, brothers and sisters, as we believe in the Lord Jesus, you know that He has brought us out of all that is past, all that belongs to the old, and He has brought us into the new, into everything that is of Himself.
That is the reason why the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “According as ye are unleavened.” When we trust in the Lord, we are made unleavened. Everything that speaks of leaven, He has delivered us out of it. We have been unleavened—or, put it another way, we have been sanctified.
Brothers and sisters, do you know that we are the sanctified ones? When you read 1 Corinthians, the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers, saying, “Ye are sanctified. Ye are saints.”
Now, you may think that the Corinthian believers did not behave like saints, like those who were sanctified. But still, so far as the Lord’s redemptive work is concerned, they are sanctified, because God has sanctified them through Christ Jesus.
In Christ Jesus, we are a new creation. He has sanctified us. He has set us apart for Himself.
If today somebody said, “Saint Kenny,” probably you would say, “Oh, I am not worthy of that.” You know, the Catholic Church tries to make people saints, and, dear brothers and sisters, actually you do not need the pope to make you a saint. God has already made you a saint.
Now, by saint, it means you are sanctified. You are separated. You are holy unto God.
By the redemptive work of our Lord Jesus, He has sanctified us. He has unleavened us. He has brought us out of the old, and He has brought us into the new.
In Colossians 1:13, it tells us how He has delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
So, dear brothers and sisters, the church is a holy nation. We are a holy people. We are made unleavened. It is only if we live accordingly that we are in agreement with what our Lord has done for us in Passover.
Now, what is leaven? Leaven in the Scripture is the old dough, the old dough that is left over and then begins to ferment.
So in leaven, you find there is a corrupting, inflating nature. Spiritually speaking, that is what is meant. Our old nature, our Adamic nature, is leavened, because there is a corrupting nature in us—not only corrupting, but inflating. You know, it puffs up. That is natural to us, and this is the old leaven.
In the Bible, you find leaven always speaks of something evil. For instance, in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 5, the leaven refers to the sin that one of the Corinthian believers committed. It is a grievous thing, a sin that even the world did not see very often.
This is leaven. In other words, it speaks of wicked works, something that is evil in our behavior, something that is corrupted and inflated. That is leaven.
Also, you find in Matthew, Chapter 16, our Lord Jesus, when He was traveling with His disciples, entered into the boat and said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.”
The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, so they thought perhaps the Lord was speaking of bread. You know, their thinking was always physical; our Lord’s thinking was always spiritual.
So the Lord said, “Do you remember how many baskets were left over after feeding five thousand? How many baskets were left over after feeding four thousand?” The Lord was not referring to material, physical things. He was referring to the spiritual meaning.
The leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of the Sadducees refer to evil teaching. What is the leaven of the Pharisees? The doctrine of the Pharisees is evil doctrine, because they emphasize the letter and violate the spirit of it.
It is hypocrisy. It is just something outward, and they neglect the inward reality. That is leaven.
The Sadducees were the liberals among the Jews. In other words, they looked at the Old Testament merely for moral and ethical teachings. They did not believe in its spiritual aspect. They did not believe in angels. They did not believe in resurrection. They were rationalists. Whatever their minds could not reason out, they rejected.
This is the leaven of the Sadducees. So, in other words, whether it is evil behavior or evil teaching and doctrine, these are leaven because they are corrupting and they inflate our natural man.
Here you find leavened bread is in contradiction to the blood of the Paschal Lamb. So they cannot go together. When they ate the lamb, they had to eat it with unleavened bread.
In celebrating Passover, they already purged their house of all leaven, and since then they continued for seven days eating unleavened bread.
Now, Passover is just one day. In other words, the work is done once and for all. You do not repeat it. But the Feast of Unleavened Bread continues for seven days.
Seven in the Scripture speaks of temporal perfection—that is, perfection in our days. You find a week is seven days. Spiritually speaking, the seven days speak of the whole time in which we are in this age.
That is to say, after we believe the Lord as our Paschal Lamb, all our life on this earth is a continuous feast of unleavened bread.
After we believe in the Lord Jesus, we live a life sanctified unto God. That is our life.
So sanctification is not just a position. We have that position in Christ Jesus; we are unleavened. So far as God’s work is concerned, we have been sanctified by our Lord Jesus. He has separated us from the world that we may be devoted to Him. We are a holy people.
But, brothers and sisters, sanctification is more than a position. It should be our daily experience. We have the position, but do we have that daily experience? Are we really living a sanctified life?
You remember our Lord Jesus when He was on earth, how He sanctified Himself for our sake, that we may be sanctified.
So, dear brothers and sisters, let us remember that today we are keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We are celebrating the feast throughout our life, celebrating what the Lord has done for us.
In celebrating that feast, you find there are two things we must do. Number one, we must purge our houses from all leaven.
In other words, as long as we live today, we need to put away anything that is leavened. Purge out the old leaven.
It is true: only the Holy Spirit can reveal to us whether there is leaven in our lives.
I believe it is not the Lord’s will that we should use our own minds and try to go over our lives to see if there is any leaven—anything evil, anything of the old Adamic origin—in our lives. Because if we do that, we will be under condemnation.
Self-introspection is not the way to holiness. We believe that it is the work of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit Who dwells in us, the anointing that is within us, is going to teach us in all things—small things and great things. He is going to shine His light upon us to show us where there is darkness.
He is going to speak in a still, small voice to us, to show us if there is anything wicked in us, anything that is of the old Adamic origin, anything that belongs to the world, anything sinful, anything of the flesh, anything not of God—anything that is of the old.
The Holy Spirit within us is so faithful in teaching us day and night, in big things and small things, in order that we may yield ourselves to Him, cooperate with Him, and be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, so that we will be clean before God.
Brothers and sisters, this is the work of the Holy Spirit, but it demands our cooperation. So here, the purging work, so far as the children of Israel were concerned, was work that they had to do.
They had to be very careful to see that there was no leaven in the house, because it was so serious. Any leaven in the house, any eating of leavened bread during those seven days, and they would be cast out of the assembly of Israel.
In other words, they were cut off from God and man. It was so serious to them. But, brothers and sisters, are we also serious about this matter?
Sometimes I feel that we are all very careless. Thank God, He has saved us. But then, after we are saved, we feel that we can continue to eat leavened bread.
We think that it is all right. After all, we are saved. We do not realize how serious this is.
The Holy Spirit, no doubt, is so faithful. He must have reminded us. He must have spoken to us. But oftentimes we neglect Him. We do not listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit, and we do not obey.
Brothers and sisters, how much dealing have you had after you were saved? How much apologizing have you made after you were saved?
Is it that your life is so perfect that you do not need to repent, you do not need to apologize to anyone, and you do not need to make restitution of any kind? Or is it that we allow the old leaven to remain in our house?
If this is the case, then you find it will affect our fellowship not only with God but with one another. Just like the children of Israel, to us it is a spiritual reality.
So I feel it is a very, very important thing. Brothers and sisters, living a Christian life is a serious matter.
God has sanctified us, and we should keep ourselves sanctified. So purge out all the old leaven. Whenever the Holy Spirit reminds us of something that is of the old leaven, it is time for us to purge it.
This is not only true individually, in every house. This is true with the whole nation of Israel.
Throughout the whole nation of Israel, there would be no leaven during those seven days, so that their fellowship with God and with one another would not be affected.
So, brothers and sisters, you know the reason why today we sometimes find our fellowship is not full and living and sweet and free: it is because there is leaven somewhere.
If we purge out all the leaven by the grace of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the power of the blood of our Lord Jesus, then you will find our fellowship with God will be uninterrupted, and our fellowship with one another will be full and free.
So this is one thing in our daily life: we need to be careful. Allow the Holy Spirit to remind us, and we should be obedient and cooperate with the Holy Spirit to clear up everything that is of the old leaven of malice and wickedness.
But there is the other side to keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread. There is not only the negative side of purging the old leaven; there is the positive side of eating the unleavened bread.
So in those seven days, what are we going to feed upon? What will give us the strength to live before God? We feed on the unleavened bread.
Now, you know, the unleavened bread is a type of Christ. The life of our Lord Jesus on earth is the unleavened bread.
The Word incarnate—the Word became flesh and dwelt among men. When Christ was among men on the earth, He was the unleavened bread, the bread of life. There is no leaven in Him.
He took upon Himself the likeness of sinful flesh. Ours is sinful flesh, but our Lord’s flesh was in the likeness of sinful flesh. In other words, there was no sin in Him.
It is like the brazen serpent—not the fiery serpent that is poisonous and brings death, but the brazen serpent. It looked like a serpent, but there was no poison there. So if you look at the brazen serpent, you will be healed.
Brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus is the unleavened bread. There is no corrupting, inflating character in Him.
He came to this world, and yet He did not do His own will: “Not My will, but the Father’s will.” Throughout His life, there was no corruption there. There was no inflation there, no puffing up of Himself.
How He humbled Himself, being obedient to the Father even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. This is the unleavened bread, brothers and sisters, and He is our food.
So in our daily life, brothers and sisters, in order that we may keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread, we should daily feed upon Christ.
Now, how do we feed upon Him? You know, when our Lord Jesus said in John, Chapter 6, “I am the bread of life,” people did not understand that. How can we eat Him?
Of course, what our Lord meant was not a physical thing. It is the spiritual application.
How do we feed upon the Lord? We feed upon the Lord by daily feeding on His Word.
Because the written Word gives us the living Christ. The Lord Jesus said:
Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of Me;
And ye will not come to Me, that ye may have life.
So, brothers and sisters, when we read the Word of God, it should not be like the Pharisees or the scribes. They only read the letter of the Word.
But when you really feed upon the Word of God in a spiritual way—that is, in your spirit—you read and feed upon the Word of God, and you are fed by the living Christ. You see Christ there.
As you meditate on the Word of God, you meditate upon Christ. By reading the Word, meditating upon the Word, and seeing Christ in your spirit, you feed upon Him. You are nourished by Him, and gradually you find that you are being changed.
It is like 2 Corinthians 3:18:
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.
So, brothers and sisters, this is something that we need to do daily. This is the way to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
We should not eat any leavened bread, but we are not to starve. We need to feed upon the unleavened bread—daily feed upon the Lord through reading the Word, through meditating on the Word, through prayer, through drawing nigh to Him.
So, looking off unto Jesus, in our spirit we open ourselves to Him and have communion with Him. When we are doing that, you find that we are feeding upon Christ, and His character begins to be formed in us.
That is the way we will live a sanctified life. So, dear brothers and sisters, these are the two things that in our daily life we should pay attention to: on the one hand, purge the old leaven; on the other hand, feed upon the unleavened bread.
To the children of Israel, this matter was very serious, because anyone who ate any leavened thing during those seven days would be cast out of the assembly of Israel. That is to say, they would lose all their privileges.
Brothers and sisters, spiritually this is true with us today. If we do not purge the old leaven, allowing it to remain and feeding upon it, and if we do not feed on the unleavened bread and receive strength, we are not able to live a holy life.
It will affect our fellowship with God. It will affect our fellowship with one another.
So walk in the light as He is in the light, and the blood of Jesus will cleanse us from all our unrighteousness. So may the Lord help us.
Dear Lord, how we praise and thank Thee for Thy perfect work. We thank Thee that Thou hast not only saved us, but Thou hast sanctified us by Thy finished work.
Lord, we do pray that by Thy grace, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we too may keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread according to Thy Word.
Lord, do show us how to purge out all leaven, and show us how to eat the unleavened bread, that we may, in our everyday life, be sanctified; that our fellowship with Thee and with one another will be uninhibited.
For Thy grace is sufficient for us. We ask in Thy precious name. Amen.