Good evening, brothers and sisters. We come together again. I’m glad to see there’s some new ones here tonight.
I’m sharing from Leviticus 23 on the various feasts, and so we’d like to turn there as we begin tonight.
We know that the basis of the whole book of Leviticus is that, when the tabernacle was built and completed, the Lord came and resided there in the glory of His presence. Out of the midst of the Holy of Holies, He began to speak to Moses, giving him various instructions regarding the ways of approach in their life before the Lord.
When we come to Leviticus 23, the feasts are mentioned in their sequence. Tonight we want to read and touch upon the matters of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. We begin in verse 1, though, just to pick up a few verses from last night.
The Lord spake again unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, The set feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are My set feasts.
Six days shall work be done: but on the seventh day is a sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation; ye shall do no manner of work: it is a sabbath unto the Lord in all your dwellings.
These are the set feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their appointed season.
In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, is the Lord’s passover.
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.
And then we want to turn to Luke 22, beginning with verse 14.
And when the hour was come, He sat down, and the apostles with Him.
And He said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:
for I say unto you, I shall not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
And then I’d like for us to turn to 1 Corinthians 1, verse 9.
God is faithful, through whom ye were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
And then in 1 Corinthians 5, verse 6:
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.
And then finally, in 1 John 1:
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes,
that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life—
and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us—
that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
And these things we write, that our joy may be made full.
And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
My little children, these things write I unto you that ye may not sin.
And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world.
We thank You, Father. We’ve been privileged to understand that Jesus is the Lamb of God who has taken away the sins of the world. How wonderful is our redemption. How great is our salvation.
We want to learn more every day, as we walk in the light, how to live in the fullness of our salvation. So we pray even tonight, as we share the Word of God, that You would strengthen and quicken our bodies, strengthen our hearts to hear, and give us the faith to believe and to lay hold of all that You have promised us.
We thank You that it all comes through, and to, and for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
John’s presence had a fullness to it. He had learned in his long years of experience that He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. He had learned how to be an overcomer.
How do we learn to be an overcomer? We learn from difficult circumstances in which we wait and trust and believe, and see the Lord gain victory through.
This disciple whom Jesus loved stood there and watched his Savior, his Lord, his Messiah, die on the cross, and yet saw the victory a few days later.
He was the man who was the first to see his beloved brother James—the first apostle who was martyred—separated from his inseparable brother. Yet he saw, and it is recorded in the Word of God, that the church multiplied as a result of the martyrdom.
John watched as his other fellow apostles were martyred one by one, as they were dispersed by the Holy Spirit as far as we know—as far as Spain, perhaps England, and as far as India. In their own way, they went from place to place, churches were established far and wide, and one by one they gave their lives as faithful witnesses, including his dear friend and co-worker Peter, who was martyred in Rome.
Through it all, through the years and through the disappointments, he saw something inexhaustible and invincible: greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.
He saw in his days, as he tried to minister to the church in Jerusalem and then more widely to the churches in Asia Minor, that he ministered life. He saw people raised up. He saw people come together. He saw the church in its early days in the first love, and in the latter days with some decline.
Yet he could still rest in the rest, because he had confidence in Him who can overcome. In this day that we live in, this is our portion as well. Do we know that despite all outward appearances, the Lord will overcome? His bride will be ready.
We have to rely on the experience of such a man as John, who comes to the people in the latter part of the first century. As he writes these letters, he calls them, “My dear little children,” because now he is John the Elder.
Of all the things that he could share with these dear ones, he is particularly burdened about sharing fellowship in this life, because this is the key to overcoming.
He opens his letter by saying, “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we have touched regarding the Word of life.” Word of life—this is the key. This is what is sacred. This is what counts: life, life.
“I’ve touched it, and I’ve seen it, and I heard about it. The prophets spoke of it, and it’s been going on since the beginning of time. There’s this life. There’s this life between the Father and the Son.”
The sparks of this life have been traversing between the Father and Son from before the worlds were made. This is a sparking greater than electricity or atomic forces. This is a sparking of love and of light and of righteousness. It went back and forth, because fellowship is a sharing in common.
The Father shared His life with the Son, and the Son has shared His life with the Father. This has been an eternal thing since before the worlds were ever made. But then God, in His love, says, “We need to increase the circle. There’s too much life and blessing here. Let’s create man. Let’s create the universe, that We can also share this fellowship with man.”
So God created man, and man fell to bits—fell into sin—and fellowship was broken. But you know what happened? The Lord sent His only begotten Son into the world, that those who believe in Him would enter into life.
Here is John now as an old man, and here is what he says: “I’m watching. I see the Father. Father, I love You, Son. And the Son says, ‘Oh, I love You, Father.’ Then I see these bolts of life come down in me, for that life between the Father and the Son is now being fellowshipped with me.”
Now I see this triangulation. It is the Father and the Son and me. I adore the Father, and I love the Son, and I share, and They share. This is wonderful fellowship. But no, no, no, no—this is not enough.
It is not just between the Father and the Son and me. No, no, it is between the Father and the Son and all who believe. Now the grid has become not only a square, in fact, but a cube.
If we had a hologram in front of us, we could see these infinite sparks of life going back and forth—Father and Son, down to earth, and between brothers and sisters on the earth—from all different grids and perspectives. This life, full life, is so that your joy may be full. Enter into His life.
When you were saved, you entered into that full life. Sometimes you didn’t know if you were in heaven or here on earth. Sometimes fellowship seemed heavenly—so wonderful.
This is the message John says he has: God’s fellowship has not changed. It is full of life, moving not only between Father and Son, not only between God and man, but between man and man.
Sometimes God fellowships His life by sending, through a man, something that he has received from God right to another man. Life. This fellowship has this dimension. You cannot really call it two-dimensional, because, as you can see from the hologram and the grid, there are a lot more than two dimensions going on.
But there is that which is vertical: a life from God sent to us, and a life that we share together.
It was not too long ago that a young man, a struggling Christian, walked into our meeting in Manhattan at the advice of somebody who said, “You need to go.” He slipped into the back and sat there. After the meeting, some people came up and said hi to him, and then he left. He was struggling.
A few weeks later, I think it was, he came back. Here is what happened. It could not be simpler. He opened the door and walked in, got about ten paces into the place, and suddenly heard his name. Somebody called out, “Hey, brother,” came over, and gave him a hug.
That brother comes to all of our meetings today, and he says, “When that brother knew my name, he was the only person in Manhattan that knew my name. And God touched me and said, ‘This is your home.’”
What could be simpler? Just a loving young brother seeing somebody, remembering his name, calling it out, going over, and hugging him. It touched a young man’s life. Fellowship. Who can define its dimensions? It is so wonderful.
When we see the Book of Acts, when God poured out on man and we see the wonderful effects of Pentecost, we see that life could hardly be defined there. Do not forget: there were no assigned meetings at that time. There were no apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, or teachers to speak of. There was no professionalism. There was no anticipated prayer meeting, nor a special meeting just for breaking of bread. It was just life—everyday life—and nobody would dare miss it.
You know why? Here I am, a young believer. I was in darkness, and I was dead in my sin. Now every time I get together with the brothers and sisters, I enter into this grid—this grid of life.
I’m not sure where life is going to come from tonight. I do not even know if there is going to be an apostle there. I do not even know if there needs to be an apostle there, because Jesus is there.
Maybe it will just be the sister who serves such a good meal and somebody gets saved. Maybe somebody is going to give someone some money and that person is going to get saved. Maybe it is going to be the testimony of a couple of people in the neighborhood who just got saved. But I am going to meet the Lord there, and I would not dare miss it.
They continued steadfastly in fellowship, and fellowship, and fellowship, and fellowship. Now, if the Bible said that, we would say, “Well, that does not make any sense.” They continued steadfastly in fellowship and fellowship and fellowship.
“I define fellowship as apostles’ teaching.” But that is fellowship, you see, when it is in that life grid. Or breaking of bread—ah, but that is fellowship. Or prayer—oh, but prayer is in the grid.
So you do not dare miss it. How is Jesus going to show up tonight? It is so full. It is so wonderful, this fellowship. How do you describe it?
But we also see the reality, even within the Word of God, that the Lord pours out this full life, that our joy may be full, and yet we have a way of dissipating the life. We have a way of allowing life to leak out.
Many times it is just because of ignorance. We do not understand the principles of life, the way life is passed on, and the way life is maintained among us.
So we find Paul, as he writes to the Corinthians. Now, the Corinthians are a precious bunch. I know they get bad press from a lot of preachers. But listen: one thing that would impress you if you ever went among the Corinthians is that they loved the Lord. They worshiped charismatically. They shared, they preached, they prophesied, and they were just going at it.
But already you can see that fellowship is precious and fellowship is full, yet fellowship has to be maintained in a vertical and horizontal dimension. That is more difficult to do than we realize.
The Corinthians were holding on to the horizontal aspects of fellowship with each other to death, but they had not realized that they were called into fellowship with Jesus Christ first.
If you do not have your Sabbath, and you have the rest of life within, then watch out what you share, because this way may cause divisions—preferences of preachers and all kinds of disputes over things. That is where the Corinthians were.
“Called into fellowship,” Paul reminds them. What does it mean to be called into fellowship? Through the first five chapters of 1 Corinthians, Paul is basically correcting their fellowship, bringing back in the vertical dimension, and practically saying, “Here is how you maintain fellowship.”
You have also got to have the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is the cross on your flesh. Otherwise, wonderful fellowship starts leaking away.
Paul uses the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread as an unbroken bond. These feasts are intertwined together, because you cannot continue in the preciousness of the Passover without also partaking in the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
These feasts presented in Leviticus give us a picture of what it means to live with Jesus in this fullness of fellowship. Oh, that our assemblies could have fullness of fellowship. Our young people would be attracted to it.
That fullness—that hologram, that life—is so multidimensional and full that it makes anything on this earth, no matter how small the group is, larger than it is. That is what fullness of life does.
Even the small assemblies in places like Antioch of Pisidia, Lystra, or Derbe—in these kinds of towns where Timothy was raised up—were in fullness of fellowship. What a beautiful thing. But it has to be maintained.
Paul is talking to the Corinthians about the fact that they have gone horizontal. They are looking at each other according to the flesh, and they do not understand that it is Christ and each other. They do not understand that you have got to put away that flesh.
So he says, “Your boasting is not good.” It has no place in fellowship.
But is it not interesting, in perhaps an entirely different way, that here we find the apostle John near the end of the first century appealing to the saints? Let us put a face on these saints. Perhaps they are at Ephesus. At least we know one of John’s letters was written to Ephesus.
In any case, he is writing to saints who have been going on in the Lord for quite a while. You might say they had found the Lord for themselves, but they were losing the horizontal dimension of fellowship.
They all thought they knew the Lord. They all thought they were overcomers, and so on and so forth. But when they saw a brother in need: “I know that brother too well.” There was something perhaps missing on this level.
It is possible to have such vertical fellowship with the Lord that you love the Lord and hate God’s people. But this is not the fellowship that is talked about in the Bible. No, you cannot separate the dimensions.
We might simply define the first love that had gone missing at Ephesus as the lack of this double dimension of love. You can never lack the horizontal dimension without first there being a lack in the vertical.
First love cannot simply be defined as loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. You have to add: “And you love your neighbor as yourself.” When one goes missing, the other goes missing.
Here are the people, perhaps, to whom John is writing near the end of the age. They have been around. They have been down the block. They have seen the saints. They know the flesh.
So they say, “I am just going to have fellowship with God. I love God. Well, I know I do not meet with the saints anymore, but after all, I have all the fellowship I need with the Lord. I am living in the grid—just me. It is just a triangle now: the Father, the Son, and me.”
If that is such a deception, and even worth us laughing about, why are so many people in that state, virtually living alone? Maybe they darken the door of a fellowship when they want, but they are violating all the principles of true living fellowship and the fullness of life.
Their joy cannot be complete. I do not care how spiritual they are. As soon as they take that line, that is false spirituality, because the Lord has decided, in His own wisdom, to speak to you through another brother or sister—sometimes the ones you do not particularly like.
If you cut yourself off from your main source of supply, gaining help from God, you are really in trouble. Sometimes people who have a solely vertical fellowship with God come into delusion and deception about their walk, thinking they are walking in the light. But John tells them, “No, you are not.”
Walking in the light is this: “If we walk in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us.” Ah, now there is the Passover Lamb in the midst of fellowship.
“If we walk in the light”—there is nothing about, “If I walk in the light.” How am I going to find out I am doing something wrong? Does God say, “Dana, you are off track and sinning”? Well, sometimes He does that.
Eight times out of ten, somebody tells me on the horizontal plane, and it gets me upset. “What right have they got to talk about me?” Blah, blah, blah. “Why, I have ten things against them.” Blah, blah, blah.
Then, if I ever get humble about it and go to the Lord, He says, “Well, they were right.” If I want to walk in the light, I have to admit it, confess it, ask the Lord to forgive me, and get back in the light with that very sister or brother who made that remarkably hurtful comment.
Now there is fellowship that overcomes. That is a fellowship that lives in the light. This is what the Lord wants. But we have to abide in the Passover Lamb, observing the holy convocation and, as well, the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
It does not matter whether we are young or old, mature or immature. There is a fullness of joy that can be ours in such fellowship.
Let us look at these matters. They are very simple, and because you all know the Word of God, you know these wonderful truths regarding the Passover.
There were the children of Israel—very independent, even when they were in Egypt. What do you think? Fighting with one another, so Moses had to separate them; fighting with Egyptians. Well, they were just good Jews.
But on that amazing night, when the Lord said, “Now, if you want to live, you better get inside the house, all of you together, and get under the blood, because that is the only way you are going to escape judgment.”
Every member of the house—you are either in, or if you go out, the death angel has at you. On that wonderful night, as they sat in the house, they discovered something: they had a life together that could be marked by a day.
Our family was born. The nation of Israel, in a sense, was born on the night of the Passover—born again by the blood of the Lamb. That was their marker. That was their historic marker.
The Lord said to Moses, “Every year I want you to remember how it began: under the blood of the Lamb. Nobody was better than anybody else—children, everybody, everybody in the household. Get your neighbors in there too. Get that blood over the top, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”
This marked the beginning of their life together. Oh, they were so independent, so individualistic, but now they were stuck in the same house together, and they were under the blood of the Lamb.
That is our only basis for being together too, is it not, as Christians? We have been born again by the same precious blood. That is why we are in the same family. We are all in the same family. We are all protected, and we are all saved by the same Lord.
When the Bible says that the blood is precious to us, we realize that it also entails our reevaluating the preciousness of one another, because we were all bought by that same precious blood.
No one is of greater value than another in the Lord’s eyes. This is the very basis of our life together in fellowship. Our fellowship is based on the precious blood of the Lamb.
We are all one together. So we can appreciate how much the Lord loved my brother, how much the Lord loved my sister, and how much the Lord loved me. We can be gentle and kind toward one another.
The Jews were, as it were, commanded to do this. In other words, they were just a picture of something that was not yet a spiritual reality.
For most of the year, they were very independent in their clans, their families, and perhaps their tribes. They were all doing what was right in their own eyes. Then the Lord said, “On these particular occasions, I am going to ask you to stop work, forget about where you live, and toodle down to Jerusalem with your whole family in tow.”
“Stay there for a week, living in a tent or some accommodation. Mama has got to feed and use the external thing—there is no nice stove. You are going to have to live with a whole lot of other people who are going to be there.”
“Because there is something important to Me. Maybe you do not quite understand, but here it is: you are My people. I have gathered you together. You are one. This is important to Me.”
“I want you to testify to this at least on three occasions every year. I do not care where you live or how far away you live. Three times a year, you are one family. You are there in Jerusalem. You are paying the price. You are standing together. You are remembering the history. You are talking about your salvation. You are eating together, feasting together, living together. This is My picture of fellowship.”
It is all by the precious blood of the Lamb. They would come and feast together, and they always told the story. The oldest grandpa would be asked, “Grandpa, why? Why are we doing this?”
He would say, “Well, back a few years ago, we were there in Egypt,” and he began to tell the story word for word. They rehearsed the story, and it became a living, vivid story before them as this matter of their great salvation was rehearsed.
They would rejoice together. They would stand together as one. They would say, “Oh, thank You for the blood of the Lamb.” Such wonderful fellowship together. We are all one again because of the blood of the Lamb.
Now, not just families, not just tribes, not even just households—we are under the blood of the Lamb as Jacob’s people, as the nation. What a wonderful picture that is.
Jesus was the fulfillment as the Passover Lamb. To me, it adds a certain poignance to that little passage we read in Luke 22. It has a lot of meaning to it, and we dispense with most of the interpretation except to say this: Jesus said, “With great desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you, because I tell you, we will not do it again.”
That was the last Passover. Even the Hebrew Christians continued to go to the Passover for a while, but spiritually speaking, that was the last Passover.
Jesus ate with His disciples and then became the Passover Lamb Himself. Having died, as the High Priest He went up into the heaven of heavens and offered His blood once and for all—the Passover sacrifice. No more Passover. It is done, once and for all, for the sins of the whole world. The Lamb of God died.
Now our testimony is not that we should get together once in a while. Our testimony is that we are one because of the blood of the Lamb. We live under the blood of the Lamb. That is so important. This is our testimony. This is our confession.
I remember, you know, I got saved when I was twenty years old, and I returned to Babylon, New York. This is where I grew up. I know you find that funny, but there it is.
I went back to see my parents. Since the April 1—April Fool’s Day—that I had gotten saved in 1964, in a most wonderful way, during that year my mother was saved first, then my father was saved, then my sister was saved, and then my brother was saved.
I came back at Christmas to New York, and my whole family was saved for the first time. I was taking the luggage into my parents’ house for my wife and myself. It was the first time I had been back, the first time we came together at Christmas, and we were all Christians.
I cannot even tell you what happened in terms of spiritual blessing. But I went back out to the car to get a couple of little things, and my next-door neighbor—a girl my age—happened to be strolling by.
She had always gone to Catholic school. I did not know her very well. She had gone off to a Catholic college of some kind; I could not even tell you where it was. I said, “Well, hi, how are you doing?” She said, “Well, hi, how are you?”
With all the gumption of somebody who had been saved six months, I said, “Well, to tell you the truth, Gwen, I’ve been born again.”
The thing that surprised me was that tears flooded her eyes, and she said, “Praise God. You mean you have been saved by Jesus Christ?” I said, “You know that?”
I had learned in my Baptist heritage that there was no Catholic who could possibly be a Christian. But we had immediate fellowship. We were one under the blood of the Lamb.
This girl knew the whole gospel. I told my story, and she understood every bit of it—getting down on my knees, asking Jesus to come. She understood the whole thing. To me, it was surreal.
I felt the oneness with her that I had not experienced in the eight years I had known her. Here was a sister who was not supposed to be a sister, and I was a brother. I cannot tell you—it wrecked my theology.
But that grid is bigger than theology, you see. All I knew was that we were one under the precious blood of the Lamb. Praise God, that dear sister will get to heaven one day—at least get that life insurance, whatever else she knows about.
Praise God. Is that not wonderful? One under the blood of the Lamb.
But the Passover was not just being under the blood, as precious as that is. May all of you live under the blood of the Lamb. Some people are outside of the blood of the Lamb, and that is when the devil says, “I am going to sift you.”
Because of your own pride and foolishness, you say, “Ah, I do not need the blood and the covering anymore.” Oh boy, the devil loves that kind of stuff.
Probably all of us as Christians have known moments where we stepped out from under and said, “Thank You very much. I can do it on my own.” We find out that we cannot do it on our own—not for long. There is a lot of wreckage in our life before we get back in sometimes.
We are under the blood of the Lamb, and that is where we belong. That is what we believe. Now, positionally, we are always there, but you know what I mean. If you do not live by that confession, if you do not trust in the blood of the Lamb, a lot of problems are going to happen.
But in that feast of Passover, they did not just talk about the blood of the Lamb. You know what they did? They ate the Lamb. They passed around the Lamb.
That is fellowship, put simply: give somebody something of Jesus.
You remember those hard words of Jesus: “Unless you drink My blood and eat My flesh, you have no part of Me.” All those people were wondering, “What on earth is He talking about?” But He made it very plain in John 6 when He says that he who eats His flesh and drinks His blood abides in Him, and He in him.
Do we want real fellowship, real Passover feasting, celebrating fellowship? Then we live under the blood of the Lamb, but we share the Lamb with one another.
There is a principle of fellowship. We do not share ourselves. We do not share a good Bible tidbit or a crummy joke, just stuff like that. It is a fellowship of Christ with one another.
This is the miracle. Is it not a miracle that we can actually fellowship Christ to somebody? That is why we witness. We have something, and we give them a piece. Something we have eaten, we pass on a hunk.
This is what they did during the Passover. They ate the Lamb, and they ate the whole Lamb. They did not leave anything. Oh, for the richness of fellowship—people passing the Lamb.
I remember some of the stories I read about the Brethren back in the nineteenth century, when they were doing those little Bible studies which they called readings. The thing about it was that they were sharing the Lamb. People would come in amazed at the fullness of life. The Lamb was being shared. This is fellowship.
Here again, the Passover is a holy convocation, and it is a Sabbath. Unless you have abode in Jesus and eaten some of Him, what have you got to share?
That is why we said last night, for those of you who were not here, that all the holy convocations mentioned in Leviticus 23 begin with your own Sabbath, where you are fellowshipping with the Lord.
This is sacrosanct to you. This is holy to you—that life that abides in you, your little part of the grid. You guard that.
Paul says to the Corinthians sometimes, “Are you completely ignorant? Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and He dwells within you?”
It is as if sometimes, with Christians, we have this life that we have been given—thank God for the life we have been given—and we profane it, either through neglect or even through challenge of it by our soul.
“I care nothing for the life of Christ in me,” is the way we seem to walk in attitude. It is such a shame, and we will be ashamed if we continue in that way.
There is something that cost the precious blood of His Son for us to have in us. The day we consecrate ourselves to keeping that deposit, guarding it by the Holy Spirit, and allowing that deposit of His life within us to grow—that is the day we will begin to live.
Up until that time, we are a Christian walking in the world. There is something within you more precious than any part of your life, any money you make, or any achievement you accomplish: it is Christ in your life.
One day, that will be what you have to give account of. All the other stuff will be pushed aside. “What did you do with My Son?” will be the one sound that we will have to think about seriously.
There is this Passover feast that we have under the blood of the Lamb. Thank God we are under the blood of the Lamb.
What does John say about this fellowship in 1 John? He says, “Get under the blood of the Lamb.” If you are fellowshipping together, fellowshipping in the light, and you see sin in your life, ask forgiveness.
The Lord is faithful to forgive you, cleanse you, and keep you under the blood as you continue to walk in the light. Do you want fellowship that makes us full of joy? Then acknowledge the importance of walking under the blood of the Lamb.
When something is wrong and there is sin in your life, do not leave it unconfessed. Do not ignore it. Do not hide it. Do not rationalize it. Agree with God that it is sin, put it under the precious blood, and keep walking in the light.
There is fullness of joy right there. There is no condemnation there. The enemy cannot get you there, because you are under the blood of the Lamb, you confessed your sins, and you are walking in the light.
There is no greater salutary moment in your life than when you start doing that. Nobody here is perfect. Like John says, if anybody says he no longer sins, well, he is just kidding himself.
But when you sin, you have an Advocate: Jesus Christ, your covering, your propitiation. He will never shame you. He will never condemn you. He will just say, “Take the blood. Follow Me.”
Wonderful—the Passover feast. Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. Come, let us celebrate the feast.
We find, of course, from Revelation 12 that this Passover feast enables us to overcome the enemy, because he accuses us. How often? The accuser works what—Monday through Friday, nine to five? No, twenty-four-seven. He accuses us before God day and night.
He finds something that we are not quite clear about, and he causes us to fall under some kind of false sense of condemnation. But we overcome by the blood of the Lamb.
“Oh, enemy, you cannot touch me. Oh, I know I am a sinner, but I am under the blood of the Lamb. My sins are forgiven. I have been cleansed.”
The enemy says, “Ah, but you are still a crummy Christian.” Well, I am under the blood of the Lamb. You will have to talk to the Lamb about that.
This is our defense. This is our overcoming. This is our victory. Do not think the enemy will not accuse you in one way or another. He has a weakness in all of us that he is trying to get at, even right now.
Where is your mind about this? Do you feel half-condemned? Get under the blood of the Lamb. Stand in that victory.
There are so many Christians who look like they have been baptized in lemon juice. They are sourpusses. They do not enjoy feasting. “Where is the feast?” “Well, I am trying, but I have this problem and that. I am not sure God can handle that. Maybe if I come back around, the Lord will love me again.”
These are all the overtures of the devil himself. Why are you agreeing with the devil that you are condemned? You are under the precious blood, little lamb. Now live in that feast and live in that celebration.
It is a fact of history in Israel that the Feast of Unleavened Bread began on the same night as the feast of Passover. For seven days they ate matzah, the bread of affliction—unleavened bread.
Historically, it came on the very next night. The fourteenth was Passover; the fifteenth was the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was because on the fifteenth they were skedaddling out of Egypt and did not have time to put leaven in the dough. You remember that.
But the Lord says, “As you look back on this tremendous occasion, let the Feast of Unleavened Bread be a perpetual testimony in your midst of the desire for purity.”
For seven days, “I do not want any leaven. I want you to purge it all out of the house.” Even to this day, the Jews do just that.
The dad goes around and says, “Okay, we have got to get rid of all leaven. We do not want any leaven in the house.” Then the mom takes a candle and a broom and starts sweeping in case there is leaven on the floor. The kids go and search for leaven.
They always find some leaven, because daddy always leaves a little bit of leaven in the oven. The kids come back—it is part of the ceremony—“Oh, we found the leaven.” The father says, “We must put it out.” It is a big ceremony, you know.
Then for seven days they eat matzah, and that is about the end of it for the Jews. I mean, they do not know much else is involved. For us, it means so much more.
If the Passover was a once-for-all event on that night—fourteenth Nisan—when Jesus died on the cross as the Lamb of God, then the seven days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread represent the fact that for the rest of our lives, we live and we feast according to unleavened bread.
That simply means that when flesh becomes exposed in our life—leaven is corruption, of course—we have to deal with it. Now we are thinking about this precious grid of life, this fellowship that we have.
Go back to the Book of Acts. They had to learn about the cross. They had to learn about flesh getting into the midst of things. But the attitude of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is this: we want it out.
You and I, because we have not learned this attitude, tend to be flesh lovers—especially our flesh. We tend to coddle ourselves and say, “Well, I know I always lose my temper, but I am not really losing my temper. I am just expressing my righteous indignation.”
We have so many layers of rationalization on our lives, we hardly ever call things flesh. There is so much religious flesh going on all the time, you can smell the smoke in any regular church. There is so much of the wick that has just gone to smoking, because it is just us.
Even religious things we do may be self-initiated and motivated for reward. If you look there in 1 Corinthians 5, Paul gives a little list as he talks about purging out that leaven.
Paul says, “Here is the first one he mentions in verse 6: boasting is not good.” Here were these leaders. One says, “I like Paul. He is the best.” Another says, “I like Apollos. He preaches better.” Another says, “I like me the best. I think I am better than Paul.”
Whatever it was, your boasting is not good. Who is Paul? Who is Apollos? They are planters, they are waterers; it is God who gives the increase.
Do you want fullness or do you want nothing? If you want fullness, appreciate what God does in each one. At the same time, realize there is flesh, and it needs to be dealt with.
If you just want a particular one, you have taken the smaller road. You do not have fullness anymore. You say, “Okay, no more Paul. We just want Apollos.” Well, next thing you know, you will all look Greek. You will be going down to the gym like Apollos does.
In church life, that is what we have: one man influencing large congregations, and everybody starts to look like him. They start to speak like him. They do things like him. Rather than have fullness, people are confused. They think, “Well, that guy there—that is Jesus.”
But basically, here is the deal: your boasting is not good.
In verse 7, here is the problem: we do not realize we are a new lump. Now, that is something that has to do with Galatians 2:20.
Then he mentions some more leavens in verse 8: “Let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Could you imagine how wonderfully any assembly would grow if it was full of sincerity and truth? Not politics, not little Napoleons dancing around for power, not women fighting in the women’s Bible study. Just sincerity and truth—something pure.
Is there anybody here who does not admit that they have a lot of old leaven around? Well, let us admit it. But then let us say, “I want to have done with it.”
If you point it out to me, as bad as it is, I will have done with it. I do not want that flesh. If it is not sincerity and truth, if it does not edify the saints, why am I feeding it?
Of course, this is our problem. We are supposedly feeding the Lamb to one another, but we are putting our own sauce on it. “Yeah, that is my own spicy sauce. Yeah, try it.”
Some people will like it and some people will not, and then we have a division: the spicy-sauce lamb eaters and just plain roasted.
It is a very sobering thing, brothers and sisters. The fact of the matter is that when we fellowship, when we minister the Word, when we fellowship with people, we share ourselves as well as our word.
It is a scary thing when you look back and see people who have been influenced by you and not by the godly in you.
At least, let us say that if we are going to have the Feast of Passover, then with it we must have the Feast of Unleavened Bread. If we are not willing to endure the cross and deny ourselves, and when called to account for our flesh simply say, “That is right, and that is wrong. I lay it down. Lord, deliver me from this continual and perpetual thing,” then how can we have fullness of fellowship?
When we have fellowship together, does not the Lord always deal with our flesh? I think we need not look at that in itself as a terrible thing. “Oh, we had fellowship, then somebody got upset and they blew up.”
Actually, it is only an opportunity for us to learn forgiveness, for the brother to ask forgiveness, and for us all to go on.
I reckon if we gathered this perfect fellowship of people here, ready to be raptured, all smiley faces—if we actually lived in the same place, we would eventually see each other’s flesh.
But we would also, hopefully, because we are walking in the light, see our own flesh enough that we hold onto one another in mercy.
Do we have an attitude of putting away the flesh as it is exposed? Do we enjoy this feast? Is it not strange? Here is a feast: “Do not eat.”
But actually, what it is saying is, “Eat all the unleavened bread you want when you fellowship together, but just do not stick that yeast in there.”
Most of the time when we fellowship flesh, I will give us the benefit of the doubt: most of the time, you do not realize you are doing it. It is just part of who we are.
But when it gets exposed, what do we do? “I am going to some other fellowship where they will appreciate my flesh.”
Sad to say, there are some assemblies built on the flesh of a man. But that is not what the Lord wants. Here He has created, by His own life, a new lump.
As an assembly, here we are—a new lump. Let us watch out for the leaven. Let us get the lamp out. So be careful.
I think the main point is this: I do not think we are actually supposed to inspect one another so much as inspect our own life.
As far as leaven inspectors go, I am the best at discovering your leaven, but maybe a little blind to mine. I have a feeling you are probably the same way—ready to come after me at the least provocation, but unaware of your own.
I think we need to deal with each other in tenderhearted, forgiving, loving kindness, because it is only as people find that life of Christ—that wonderful Sabbath rest—growing in them, that even these fleshly things can be overcome.
How many fleshly things do we do really out of insecurity? Once we find the fullness of Christ as our provision, insecurity is not such a big deal in our life. The Lord deals with things by His life.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread, together with the Feast of Passover—in both of these, we see the Lord Jesus ministering to His assembly.
I think you want fullness of life for the assembly where you live. Oh, the Lord have mercy on us. There are so many ways of leaking out life, and even now we could be leaking out life.
We enjoyed that life when it was full and free, but we do not understand the principles of maintaining that life. So it is ebbing ever so slowly.
When it ebbs slowly enough, the older people do not realize it is going. The younger people are saying, “There is something wrong.”
Oh, that we might truly say, “Lord, we want that life. We want that fullness of life. We want fellowship when we gather with the Father and the Son, with one another sharing things in common, sharing the Lamb with one another.”
This is richness of fellowship. There is no perfect fellowship, but there are those that are on the increase and those who are on the decrease. In the end, it is all an issue of life.
So I end by asking: Where are you? Decrease? Increase?
That life is John’s message. “I want to share with you this life, and I want you to overcome by this life.” Whatever the circumstances are, greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.
Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. Let us join the feast—not with leavened bread, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity. May this be our fellowship experience together.
Father, we thank You so much that You sent the Lord Jesus and brought us into this great grid of life. We are so glad for the moment we first entered in and experienced that life. Oh, forgive us if we have come to the place where we take it for granted.
We thank You for the times where You have expressed Yourself through a brother, through a sister. How precious it is to see Your face in the face of another one.
In the end, we know that it is because of Your continuing precious blood, which continually cleanses our life, that You continue to minister life to us.
Oh Lord, we want that life. There is nothing that can satisfy us. No fleshly substitute of brain or emotion can satisfy like the true grid of life with the Father and the Son.
Oh, may we be overcomers in this day, as we fellowship together with others who call on the Lord from a pure heart and desire to walk in the light.
Oh, teach us how to live, enjoying the feasts of fellowship in Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen.