Observe the month of Abib and celebrate the Passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night. And you shall sacrifice the Passover to the Lord your God from the flock and the herd, in the place where the Lord chooses to establish His name.
You shall not eat leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat with it unleavened bread, the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), in order that you may remember all the days of your life the day when you came out of the land of Egypt. For seven days no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory, and none of the flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day shall remain overnight until morning.
You are not allowed to sacrifice the Passover in any of your towns which the Lord your God is giving you (notice: He is giving you); but at the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name, you shall sacrifice the Passover in the evening at sunset, at the time that you came out of Egypt. And you shall cook and eat it in the place which the Lord your God chooses. And in the morning you are to return to your tents. Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God; you shall do no work on it. Deuteronomy 16:1–8.
To understand the Passover instructions in the book of Deuteronomy, you must realize that Jerusalem at that time was in the hands of unbelievers, and the Israelites were still in the wilderness. It speaks of the cities which the Lord would give them. This was all still a generation away, but the instructions came ahead of time. Much later David took the city of Jerusalem, often called the city of David, and established it as the capital.
To give you an idea of what the Passover observance was like, we read in the records of Josephus and others that at the time of Jesus Christ, the sale of lambs at that particular time of year exceeded two hundred thousand. Imagine two hundred thousand lambs being sacrificed in Jerusalem when the Lord and His disciples kept the Passover. It required a miracle just to find a place to meet, because there were probably close to a million people in Jerusalem. Jerusalem was hardly able to house two hundred thousand lambs, much less all those people. Space was at such a premium that people were crowded into the homes. They slept on rooftops or any place they could find. They had none of the conveniences we know today. They had to walk many miles to get to Jerusalem to keep the Passover, and then it was difficult for them to even find a place to sleep or to prepare and eat the Passover meal.
When the Lord wanted to keep the Passover, nothing short of a miracle occurred. The disciples went through the narrow overcrowded streets of the city and found a man carrying a water pot (which was unusual, for women generally carried the water pots). They followed him to the house and told him, “The Teacher wants to keep the Passover at your house with His disciples” (Matthew 26:18).
In the temple, the business that was carried on under the high priest (then Caiaphas) was extremely lucrative. He had the sole monopoly, like a franchise, sanctioned by the Roman government, to collect temple taxes and to sell the lambs to the people. Thus they made a great deal of money. They could also require a special temple coin so that when people bought things, they had to use their temple currency, making money changers necessary; and all of that was under their monopoly.
Picture their reaction when Jesus, whom they looked upon as a young upstart, came in and twice overturned the tables of the money changers and drove out those who were selling the animals for sacrifice and said, “You have made this house a house of merchandise, a den of thieves, but it is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’ ” (Matthew 21:12, 13). From that time, the Jewish leaders connived to see Him crucified, because He stood in the way of their profits.
As a parallel, why do you think people are opposing this move? The opposition is coming from organized religion, because this walk with God will interfere with the commercial system. It dares to come out against the idolatry of Christmas, the paganism of Easter. Many businesses would go broke if it were not for those holidays, whose sales provide the major profits of a year, not only in clothes and Easter hats, but in the food line, the many presents and knicknacks that people would not think of buying any other time of the year. On the Fourth of July, when they think back to what they bought and received the previous Christmas, they shake their heads; they cannot believe it. But they go right on the same foolish treadmill when it rolls around again. A businessman can sell a worthless product and make a million dollars if he can sell it at Christmas time.
As a body of believers contending for the purity of the early Church we oppose the commercialism of Christianity, the profiteering of church organizations which control millions of dollars in corporations and investments. Using their immunity from taxation, they gain unfair advantage in the business world. The great whore may ride the beast, but according to prophecy, the beast finally has to turn and devour her (Revelation 17:16). The false Christianity may ride the world system, but the antichrist system in turn will devour the false church. The days of the purging of Christendom are just ahead of us. Already we see the agitation by the world to destroy organized religion.
“Lord, give us a pure Passover. Help us keep it with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth instead of the old leaven of malice and wickedness. Deliver us from organized religion and bring us into the humble salvation of our God to be worshipers of the Lord with all humility.”
All the instructions for keeping the Passover were symbolic. Notice first that it was to be kept with unleavened bread, called the bread of affliction, for they had come out of Egypt in haste. Sometimes it seems we go through a great deal waiting and wondering if God has forgotten all about us. How the children of Israel groaned under their bondage, and yet, in spite of the long delays and the ten plagues, the Word says that they came out on the exact day prophesied, 430 years from the time they went down to Egypt. God had the timetable all worked out to the exact day. You may think, “God is slow getting around to me.” Why, He is not slow. He is taking His time in getting you ready. It just looks as if He is late, but when the time finally comes, you too will leave Egypt in haste.
For the Israelites that was no leisurely saunter. There were hundreds of thousands of people, their flocks of sheep, their herds of cattle, their chickens, if they had any. Can you imagine the confusion—worse than any parade—and at midnight! But they were not just parading along; they were moving out in haste. When the time finally comes for your liberation, you will see that God has been busy all the time preparing things. And when the time arrives, you move. It will be a quick work that the Lord does in the earth today, and He is going to cut it short in righteousness.
When they left Egypt in such a hurry, they used no leavening in their bread dough; they could not wait for the dough to rise. That day they ate unleavened bread. The women carried their mixing bowls containing the unleavened dough on their shoulders. They could not stop off for a leisure breakfast at the nearest roadside inn—there were no restaurants along the way. They probably built a little fire and prepared some unleavened bread to feed the little children, because they were hungry from the long march.
Verse 8 contains further instruction that is symbolic for us: Six days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord your God. The Passover is a perfect type of the six thousand years of man’s preparation and the seventh thousand years of the Kingdom of God which is coming up. Although we must make haste to move into it, the preparation in us must be thorough, as symbolized by the eating of unleavened bread for six days.
What do we mean by eating this unleavened bread? Why was the Feast of Passover observed only one day and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days? Why not have the Passover for seven days? God’s part takes place instantly, but there must be a diligent application on your part to continually refuse leaven in your life, to refuse any impurities, to refuse to go back to anything of Egypt. Thus you constantly apply in your heart the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Get rid of the leaven of rebellion. Get rid of the leaven of stubbornness. Get rid of the leaven of deceit—one of the most dangerous things that can happen to you.
Rebellion is also dangerous, but when it comes up, it is so obvious and everyone helps you get rid of it. By its very nature, deceit is not so quickly discerned. Anyone who stumbles will find that there was a period preceding that time of stumbling in which he was reaching out to the leaven of the world, but deceptively, so no one would know it. If he had been honest and open, he would not have gone into the problems as he did. Deceit is so deadly. It can go along until suddenly it becomes destructive and many times beyond remedy.
There must have been people in the early Church who were rebellious, and yet the first judgment came on the basis of deception. Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit. It was deception. They came to Peter and said, “Yes, we sold this land for just so much.” Peter said, “It was in your hand to do what you wanted to do with it, but you have lied to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:1–11). That falsehood, that deception, was the basis of the first judgment in the Church. If you are deceptive, notice carefully what the Lord says: “In that day they will say, ‘Lord, Lord, we prophesied in Your name. We did many mighty works.’ He will say, ‘Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity,’ and they will be appointed their place with the hypocrites” (Matthew 7:22, 23). A hypocrite is one who is a deceiver, who pretends to be something that he is not. When the issue is finally resolved, it is not how much you have moved in the Holy Spirit that is in question; it is how much deceit you have had at the same time.
Some people deceive themselves by rationalizing, “I still prophesy; I still sing a psalm now and then. Nothing can be too wrong with me. What if I am covering up a little here and hiding some things? I really don’t want the Lord to take out this little sin. It is nice. I like it. Besides it is nobody’s business what I do.” Psalm 66:18 says, If I regard iniquity in my heart (if I look with favor at it) the Lord will not hear me. There comes a time when He will say, “Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity.” Nothing is more deadly than deception.
Do not be deceitful! Be honest with God, and be honest with yourself! Apply the principle of the overkill. If you go to extremes in anything, go to extremes in being without guile. Let the Lord make us all like Nathanael, of whom Christ said, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.” He told Nathanael, “You will see the heavens open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. You have not seen anything yet, but it all begins by being a man without guile, without deception.”
If you are saying, “Ouch!” to this word, then ask God to work on the particular sore spot until it starts to feel better.
But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be…..holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected as regards the faith. But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, as also that of those two came to be. II Timothy 3:1, 5–9.
Deceiving and being deceived is also prophesied in verse 13. The object of seduction is usually the woman, because the woman was the first deceived. A woman can be deceived easier than a man. By nature she is far more intuitive than a man. Every young woman should be honest and open before God, so that she does not become a victim of deception. Often those who are deceived try to twist the things that happen to them to make it appear as though they do not matter too much. They do matter. Most of the time self-deception starts with rebellion. Because of their rebellion, they are open to be deceived.
What can we do about this? Persistence and continuation—unleavened bread for seven days—is necessary if you want to get rid of the old leaven. You must work at it every day. You cannot keep the Passover and eat unleavened bread one day and then go back to the old diet. Those who benefit from the Feast of Passover are those who recognize their need of the Lord and continue to apply the truths of the Passover, letting God deal with their heart until there is attained a perfect release from the old nature, from the old walk, from the old tendencies that could corrupt so easily.
Another aspect of leaven to watch for is bitterness. Esau was an immoral person who sold his birthright to Jacob for a mess of pottage. Afterwards he became bitter against Jacob and wanted to kill him. He had to blame someone else, and even though he sought a place of repentance with tears and could not find it, he was bitter against Jacob (Hebrews 12:15–17). Most of the bitterness that I have seen comes when an individual is looking for someone else to blame for his own problems. If you have a rebellious and critical spirit and you become a victim of the lust of the flesh, you would take offense and become bitter if someone merely raised an eyebrow at you in the house of the Lord. But if you came to the house of God without any deceit, with an honest heart before God, saying, “Lord, I am going to follow You no matter what happens,” you could be met at the door by six elders who slapped you in the face, and it would not make any difference; you would still walk in and worship. You react according to the deceitfulness of your own spirit. Bitterness and criticism only arise in a corrupt, defiled heart.
I once knew an old man with the sweetest spirit, who had somehow unintentionally crossed his pastor. The pastor was furious with him and reacted viciously, demanding that the old man get out and stay out of his church. The old man looked at him kindly and said, “Pastor, you can throw me out the front door, but I will crawl in the window or the back door, because the Lord sent me here to bless you.” Suddenly the pastor realized what he was doing, and he began to weep.
A man with a right spirit, who has an honest heart without guile, has defenses that cannot be penetrated. He cannot be infected with bitterness or rebellion, with stubbornness or criticism, or any other kind of evil. It cannot reach his heart. If any of these things have reached your heart, you better have God search it out again. It is not what people do to you that is important, but the way you react to it. What is in your spirit determines your reaction. The world will be filled with offenses, but blessed is he that does not take offense.
You young people who still like to play around with friends in the world, notice what the Word says in II Corinthians 6:14–7:1. Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? That affects everything, including a social relationship. A young girl may say, “This boy is not a Christian, but he sure does turn me on.” What really happens is that he turns you off to the Lord.
Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk among them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate, says the Lord. And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me, says the Lord Almighty.” Now note especially the last verse. Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
We have something to work on. Get rid of the leaven, all the defilement of flesh and spirit, as quickly as you can. There is no place for it in your life. Do not excuse yourself by saying, “Well, the potential is there.” This is talking about defilement that is in your nature, what you know is there. Whether you have committed a sin or not is beside the point. No doubt you have expressed that defilement in many ways.
You know the tremendous potential for wrong in your flesh and spirit. There are two kinds of defilement. One is called the “filthiness of the flesh” (King James version) and we all know what that is. But what about the filthiness of the spirit? Much of the filthiness of the flesh comes out because of the filthiness of the spirit. When the spirit is rebellious, you can fall into the sins of immorality. When you are not submissive to the Lord, which is a thing of spirit, then you can fall into all kinds of problems in the flesh. Therefore we are told to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Just getting rid of all the fleshly habits is not enough. The filthiness of the spirit will lead you right back into the filthiness of the flesh all over again. You may find yourself saying, “I struggle and I struggle, and I cannot understand why I have suddenly fallen into the old ways of the flesh. I thought that was all gone, that I would never go back into that again.” Look to your spirit and you will find that the open door was probably through the filthiness of your spirit, the way you walk before the Lord.
None of the flesh which you sacrifice on the evening of the first day shall remain overnight until morning. Deuteronomy 16:4b. This is another Passover instruction with symbolical meaning for us. Partake of His complete provision now! No word, no light, no truth, no blessing from Christ that we receive should we delay in appropriating. We try to take hold of all of it now. The Israelites were told, “You have the lamb tonight; feed upon it tonight.” When you see a truth, do not wait until tomorrow to appropriate it. Act on it now! Nothing is to remain until the morning. There is to be no unappropriated truth, no sermons that you will do something about some day. By and by do you intend to do something about your lack of a spiritual walk? Move into it now. Today is the day.