In the Feast of Passover we are concerned about the Scriptural foundation only in relationship to what God is now doing and speaking to us during these days.
Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the Lord thy God: for in the month of Abib the Lord thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. And thou shalt sacrifice the passover unto the Lord thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the Lord shall choose, to cause His name to dwell there. Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt, all the days of thy life. And there shall be no leaven seen with thee in all thy borders seven days; neither shall any of the flesh, which thou sacrificest the first day at even, remain all night until the morning. Deuteronomy 16:1–4.
The “first day”—notice, “the first day at even”—the Feast of Passover began in this way: the first night they partook of the lamb, but they did not leave any of it until the next morning, all of it had to be partaken. But they continued for seven days to partake of unleavened bread. This is significant. The Jews in this day have abandoned the lamb in the Passover. At the Passover Feast they will eat chicken because they have discarded the lamb. They point to the unleavened bread, the bitter herbs, and point to the meaning of each of these things with a “what means this?” and go through the rituals, but they do not point to the lamb. I think they do have one bone, but they do not point to the bone and say “what means this?” they point only to the other things, for everything about the lamb is forgotten, only the bone or the symbol of the bone is there; and that symbolism is supposed to be the hip bone of the lamb in commemoration of Jacob, whose thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with the Lord. There is no pointing to the bone and saying, “What does this mean?” because the blood is forgotten, the sacrifice is forgotten and there is no high priest to officiate in Israel among them. At the time of Christ they were partaking of the lamb, until after Christ became God’s Passover Lamb. I think it was by divine intention, for the Jews can no longer look to a lamb apart from the Lamb that God provided.
You notice that they were not to leave any of it until the morning, as though the power and the strength of the lamb was to be consumed at the transition of night and day. Do you know that we are coming into the power of the Lamb, and in this time of transition between night and day we are to partake of all the benefits of the Lamb? Nothing was to remain of it until the morning; it was all to be consumed. This means it is the will of the Father that we should appropriate the fullness of Christ right at this conjunction of night and day. We are not children of the night, we are children of the day. We are set free; for in the day that comes, we will go forth manifesting the strength of that Lamb that was consumed in the will of the Father: the strength of Christ that we have appropriated at this moment. God is not pleased with our holding back, not claiming all that He wants us to claim. He wants us to see the fullness that is in Christ, and take all of it.
Thou mayest not sacrifice the passover within any of thy gates, which the Lord thy God giveth thee; but at the place which the Lord thy God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell in, there thou shalt sacrifice the passover at even, at the going down of the sun, at the season that thou camest forth out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 16:5–6. Do you know that the Jewish people are working feverishly to uncover the foundation of the original temple, because they want to rebuild it? The only part of the temple that remained visible is what they call the wailing wall, for they remember that the old wall of the temple was once part of the glory that was in Israel. But underneath the present Jerusalem there is a honeycombing activity taking place continually for they are discovering many rooms. One of these days we will be able to visit Israel and actually walk in the very spots where the Lord walked, not in proximity, or a few feet above, but perhaps in some of the very rooms.
And thou shalt roast and eat it in the place which the Lord thy God shall choose.… Deuteronomy 16:7. The temple being gone is the basic reason every Jew gives why they cannot kill the Passover lamb; because when they observed it before, it had to be in a certain place that they would kill it. In the book of Ezra you will notice that when they rebuilt the temple, the only ones allowed to kill the Passover lamb were the priests who had never failed to keep it, even during the days of captivity, and they killed the Passover for their brethren, the priests who had not been as faithful before the Lord. There was a continuity that was necessary—and thou shalt turn in the morning, and go unto thy tents. Six days thou shalt eat unleavened bread; and on the seventh day shall be a solemn assembly to the Lord thy God; thou shalt do no work therein. Deuteronomy 16:8.
This is what I want you to understand—notice that it was said earlier that they came forth out of the land of Egypt by haste—they came out of Egypt by haste because they were literally thrust out. And the Egyptians were urgent upon the people, to send them out of the land in haste; for they said, We are all dead men. Exodus 12:33. When Christ was keeping the Passover it was reversed. He said to Judas, “What you do, do quickly. Make haste.” It was a time of betrayal. What Pharaoh did, he did in haste. He repented and went after them, and was destroyed in the Red Sea.
If the Feast of Passover is meaning one thing to me in the revelation of the spirit, it is that we are rather startled by what is coming. As the Lord has been meeting my own heart it is like a deep repentance—like keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread—a sweeping out of the leaven to have the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth—something deep that God has done, but with it has come the impression of the haste with which God will move. We can linger and linger in a thing, but suddenly God opens the door and says, “This is it, we are going to move.”
In Exodus 12:41 we read, And it came to pass at the end of four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass—they left not one day late. God timed it exactly how they were going to leave. Four hundred and thirty years ended on the very day God brought them out. God knows exactly what He is doing, and we sometimes think God is slow. God is working something out and at the right moment it is there, and then you have to run to keep up with it; you have to make haste. This is the only time in the Bible it says to make haste.
Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread occurred for two reasons: seven days they ate bread unleavened, because the unleavened dough did not have time to rise when they put their kneading troughs on their heads and left; and because they were traveling too fast along the way for their bread to rise. Unleavened bread means two things: sincerity, truth and purity of heart on one hand, and it also means traveling fast. Would you like to have that happen after the Feast of Passover—just take a big sigh and there would be the Feast of Tabernacles, meanwhile living a millennium, seeing the things happen one after another as God has them fall in place? We are anxious for it, while God is doing a work in our own hearts: teaching us how to apply the blood of Christ and to trust Him.
One of the things said in this chapter was that … no manner of work shall be done in them.…Exodus 12:16. Do we scrub the floors? No, just sweep the leaven out; only the bare essentials. Whenever God makes such a command, it isn’t the rigors of a Sabbath that He is concerned about, but the teaching us of grace. All of the rigor of the law was to bring us to Christ that we might understand grace. The law was not an end in itself but it was teaching. It was required absolutely that it be a lamb without blemish, a male of the first year for sacrifice. Why such a rigorous demand? Why did it have to be repeated thousands of times a year, year after year, generation after generation? Because every one of those lambs had to point to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God without blemish. Why does God say in the Passover, in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, “No servile work—nothing”? Because this is to be a deliverance that is wrought by God.
Apply the blood; come under the protection and into the immunity that the blood of Jesus Christ can mean to you. Put it over your doorposts—get ready for the time, the set time for deliverance and judgment to come. “Then, I would like to go out and help that angel.” “No, better not.” “Is there something I can do, Lord, to help bring this to pass?” “Just the initiative and aggressiveness of faith: enough that you kill the Lamb, put the blood on the doorposts, and you stand with that personal preparation.” “What is it?” “Loins girded, staff in hand, shoes on your feet.” In all the East, you take your shoes off in the house. This time, put your shoes on your feet.
Would you like to know where the idea came from of not having shoes on in the house? Ours is a direct change of custom. Back in the days before present sanitation, which is very recent, the streets were littered. That is why they washed feet. As they came in, the lowest slave scrubbed the dung from their feet; because that was what they were walking in continually. Maybe that is why perfume and incense were so important in Old Testament times. The Lord required an altar of incense because the stench from the butchered animals and the burnt sacrifices was so great.
Picture in your mind, as we come in this hour and say, “Lord, here we stand with our shoes on in the house.” That doesn’t mean much to you today, but it meant a lot then—“staff in our hand”—it did not make any difference, they were going to leave that house forever anyway.
Shoes on, staff in hand, loins girded, chewing on a lamb bone, and there you are eating it; eat it slowly, digesting it; it will yield its strength to you for a long time. You’re getting ready to travel. That’s all the effort you give, no other work. “Well, don’t you think we should plot out our journey, get out a road map, call the automobile club? ‘Which way to the wilderness—what is the best route to Canaan—how many shall we take—how is the weather out there will there be plenty of water—will there be plenty of rest stations along the way—what will we find?’ ” You don’t need a road map in this, because you will wake up some morning and there will be a cloud of glory ready to lead you. You will look up at night and see a pillar of fire moving slowly in the direction that you are to go. You don’t need to worry about it, because it is God’s initiative; God is going to lead.
Only one thing you must have, and you must have it now, “Lord, let the blood be over me, I’m ready for the hours of judgment. I judge my own heart, I put myself under Your mercies, under Your protection. And my guilt, O Lord, is laid upon You, for I will not be partaker of the judgments that will sweep over the whole earth. O God, judge me within as I stand waiting before You.” (We can’t add to what God will do. All we can do is be ready and prepared to walk in it.) “Thank You, Lord. You love me and are delivering me. You will take me by the hand and lead me. You will bring me out, give me promises, test and try me; see me through and bring me into all the promises You set before me. You will do it, Lord.” We don’t know what will happen, we don’t know how it will happen. We could anticipate a thousand crises that could come up one after another, but we won’t do it. “Today I don’t work at it, Lord, I rest in it.” My aggressiveness is an aggressiveness of faith. My labors are not the labors of dead works. The battle is not mine but it is the Lord’s—I rest in it today.
Here is another step, so that we might understand what is taking place. At the Feast of Unleavened Bread, or as it was called, “Passover,” when John referred to it he said, Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand. John 6:4. The New Testament viewed the Feast a little differently. They did call it the Passover, but the meaning of the names seemed to change. I would say that they are technically two separate feasts, but they are simultaneous. The Feast of Unleavened Bread or the Feast of Passover is one of the three great feasts. The Feast of Pentecost is another and the Feast of Tabernacles is the third. Involved with the Feast of Tabernacles is the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fell, which was the feast of the first fruits of the year; the indwelling of the Holy Spirit came on that feast day. The Feast of Tabernacles, as God tabernacling in man again with His glory, speaks again of the great end-time visitation of the Lord upon us individually and collectively as the Body of Christ.
You see the threefold experiences in these three feasts. Nevertheless, they were required year after year to repeat them, which would indicate that while it is a definite experience in our life, it is also a renewed process. My salvation is not only an experience, but is a process that is going on. My repentance may have been a very definite thing when I accepted Christ; but I am continually brought into repentance. I may have had a “Pentecost Feast” when the Lord filled me with His Holy Spirit as a boy, but I have a new Pentecost continually; it is being renewed.
None of the experiences we receive are total and final and exhaustive, so that there is nothing more to be added to them. All of these experiences are like the promises of God; they can have a fulfillment today and another fulfillment tomorrow: an ever expanding salvation, an ever expanding Pentecostal experience, an ever expanding Feast of Tabernacles experience. That is what I like about God—you can’t exhaust Him. When I come to the Feast of Unleavened Bread, I come also to an experience that is inexhaustible. I can experience God searching my heart. The following week I can go through it again. I can go through seven days of it and still not see it all accomplished—God emptying me out, preparing me.
What deep preparation God is making for this coming of His moving in the earth. It is coming so deep in our hearts! It is not by chance that God has been dealing with us on repentance. Have you been repenting? Have you been sweeping out the leaven? Are you desiring to keep the Feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, with the leaven of malice and wickedness removed from you? Have you reached a place where you don’t know which way to go? Would you like to know what the Lord is revealing to help you in your next step of repentance? I would like to tell you.
Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when He had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. “Aphete” is the Greek word here for remit and it means “to send away.” “Repent and be baptized everyone of you for the remission of your sins,” for the sending away of your sins.
We have much to learn about the Day of Atonement and we want to find out what God was really talking about—the confessing of sins over the head of a goat and sending it out into the wilderness, the sending away. Two goats were necessary for the Day of Atonement, and one of them was for the confessing and leading of it out to the abyss. It has been said that this is symbolical of the work of the devil; but we will study it to find out what it means here. Suffice now for this statement: I believe that where repentance has been made, authority was given to the apostles to literally send away the body of sin and all that it meant, and completely uproot it: not only pull out the nails, but to pull out the holes as well. I believe that God intends that people be so set free that you will not look at them and say, “Well, there is a big change in their lives,” rather, “They are new creatures.”
Our initial salvation experience is glorious and wonderful; but when we go into repentance, one of the greatest things that can happen is the completion of our salvation experience. Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever lived to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25. We don’t want to be half saved. We don’t want to be delivered from so much, and yet have basic things in our nature that are tripping us up all the time. We want to be saved from sin, from the responses to sin, from our response to the evil things that have been done to us. For example, if we become angry when someone borrows and doesn’t pay back, we should pray for the Lord to forgive us, because the Bible emphasizes lending, not expecting again. That’s what a good Christian should do; give it to them and forget it.
When you forget all the good things people have done for you, and you remember one or two instances where they got the barb out, it colors your whole response to them: but God will deal with you for that attitude—He who has forgiven you so much—if you can’t forgive others. If you want to come to the place where everything in your old nature is put away, repent of it. But you will make even faster progress if you ask for help, saying, “I have been repenting, will you minister the forgiveness to me? Will you minister the remission of it, the sending of it away? Loose me from it.”
It sends away not only the guilt, not only the force of it, but those responses, the conditioning of mind and spirit. It isn’t done all at once and may take a dozen applications before the things brought to mind are done away with, because you do not know how much of a weight you are carrying in your heart. Do you realize that in your thinking, in many areas you are not even Christian?
There should be such a general concern, and such a specific revelation and concern for each heart, that whoever in the congregation, irrespective of who they are that have the need, they are the ones that should receive attention. People who do not need it should not get it, and there should not be ministry to the same ones over and over again. Some are louder and make more demands than others, and are more persistent about their need.
Do you feel like fighting back and becoming rebellious when the Lord puts His finger on a sore spot? You reach a place where you become critical, something is working on you, you have one thing that defeats you, one place where you are being hurt, one openness to something in your spirit that has to be corrected; and all the time, “O God, aren’t You going to do something about all these things that are happening to me, all these things I’m suffering from?” Maybe He is building the resistance in you against seeds of defeat—He is working at you until you open your heart to what He is trying to do, and to the new things we are going to move into.
There is one thing I noticed: when the Lord came, it was, Repent … for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Matthew 3:2. Whenever God brings a new step to the Kingdom it requires new people to walk in it. How are we going to become new people? We will have to be new wineskins if we are going to fit into the new day and into the new steps. How do we become new wineskins? Nothing will do it except repentance, opening your heart to the Lord and saying, “Lord, I want to be that new wineskin, I want to really walk with You.” Otherwise, you are conditioned, you are set, you are so absolutely in the old rut that you can’t get out of it. God moves and you miss it. The Pharisees had no repentance, so they didn’t come into the things of God. The publicans and the sinners came in ahead, because they could repent and thus could become new wineskins. It isn’t how set you are in certain questions of religion and patterns of your life, or even in sin. It is how you repent until God moves you out of that set pattern and brings you into flexibility as a child of God where you can really walk with Him. Let the repentance be very deep, and then will come the remission of sins.
I’ve never been so serious in my life, and have never had such a deep earnestness and sincerity of really wanting to walk in the perfect will of the Lord with all of my heart. “Lord, we want to have the remission of sins, to take the hyssop of the Passover, the sprinkling of the blood and put it all over us, over the lintel and the doorposts of our being; so when judgment comes there won’t be anything in us responding that needs to be judged. We want to be judged now, Lord, to be under the blood, to be ready for the march, to be prepared and set.
This is a liberating judgment that God is bringing to the world. He is bringing it, for He is setting His people free. Do not focus on the days of judgment being terrible—that there may be earthquakes and persecutions, we may lose our savings, inflation will wipe us out, we won’t have nice comforts, we won’t have nice clothes. Don’t think that way! If we wander around in sackcloth and we are able to do the will of God, if judgment comes to set us free, let us stand and shout “Hallelujah,” and worship the Lord; because we are at the end of everything that is bad, everything that is vile and hypocritical. We are at the end of a false structure that has been built, of this system’s way of life that is phony. Whatever God has to do is all right. We will walk free, do what God wants us to do and be what God wants us to be. Prepare to live it, to die for it. What would happen if you had to give your life for Jesus Christ now, when you are almost at the end of the age? Just think, you would have the pleasure of being a martyr and you would be soon resurrected. It makes no difference, so let’s go after it with the attitude to live dangerously, wholeheartedly for the Lord. What have we to lose?
“Search us, Lord; loose us, put the blood over us. We don’t care about Egypt. We’ll not miss those fleshpots, the heavily spiced meats that cover up the ptomaine poison within.” That is what the world is feeding us—stuff that is highly spiced to camouflage the deadness. Sometimes they become so obnoxious they can’t stand themselves any more and pass certain rules about advertisements and want to put crossbones and skull on the packaged cigarettes—make that much of a concession—they are such slaves of the dollar.
Who are we? We are walking with God. We don’t need to be hypocrites. We don’t need to phony anything. If there is something wrong with you, so what were you trying to be, anyway? Who are you trying to kid? Come right out with the thing that is wrong and say “God, forgive me.” We don’t have to create some image for people who will despise us if something shows up to be wrong with us. There are people that I know more about than they know that I know, and there are some people who have forgotten things about themselves that the Lord has allowed me to remember; and I have come to the conclusion that the Lord has a wonderful people, washed in the blood. It doesn’t make any difference what you were. What counts now is, “Are you open to God?” Who cares about the rest. When you come across something, open up. And when you hit a snag, say, “Pastor, I want to come to confession.” Don’t consider that only Roman doctrine; the Bible teaches confession. “I would like to have absolution.” Don’t back off from that either. “I would like to have my sins remitted.” If you can’t handle it yourself, because it is something for which you can’t forgive yourself, then you had better come and receive help. Let nothing stand in your way; not one thing. Realize what you are looking for; you are looking for the thing to be remitted, sent away, sent to the pit. This was taught in a previous movement; and if there had been apostles and prophets it would have worked. Instead, they preached self-condemnation to the people so much that they didn’t have the faith to believe it would be sent off, sent away. They would condemn until they made unbelievers instead of people who would believe for entire sanctification. Do you believe in entire sanctification: both the nature and the act of sin to be removed? We are believing for divine perfection to be ministered to the Remnant of God’s people: a church without spot or blemish or any such thing, wholly without blame before the Lord.
Are you believing for that? Don’t let the magnitude of it frighten you—we will work at it—we will feel ourselves cleansed by the washing of water by the Word. We will find ourselves adorned in fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of the saints. We will enter in. This is our heritage; to be holy, to be like Him, to be conformed into the image of His Son. This is the whole destiny: to be clean, to keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread: Sweep out the things that are wrong—walk with God in a constant, increasing, heart perfection to do the will of God, set on His will in every way.
There is a big difference between the power of God that blesses you and that which is reaching down, pulling out, and sending away sin. Don’t expect to feel it, although it will still be devastating and deep if you will take it by faith and walk in it. If you want the blessing you can feel, you can have that any time you want it. But if you want to get rid of deep rooted things; pull them out, send them out.
Watch—day by day and week by week you will be freer and freer. It will dawn on you what God is doing. You will walk with God. That is what Israel did. They walked with God because they had been freed. The liberation had come and they could walk and go with God.
If you come for a blessing with a vagueness, the blessing is vague. You will receive something; but what you receive will be even more positive if you are definite and specific. Get something definite. Know what you want to be free of: some response in you; some rotten thing in your spirit. You know what they are, the things that should not be there. You may be walking with God in a marvelous way and yet find one or two things you have to be rid of. Rome wasn’t built in a day. The Lord has been patiently building and ministering to the sons of God and there is much He is going to do in your life. Just get rid of one thing, or name a couple of the most difficult things to your mind. Have that there when the time comes, so that is what you get help with and are able to go ahead—some lack of initiative or something.
A few were talking about the things that they had done and said, “This was always in my spirit, but I was waiting for an excuse to justify doing it.” That made me realize how people are. Let’s get rid of the things that are waiting for some justifiable reason to happen.
As time goes on there will be some of you that will be met again and again until every definite thing you are praying for is met. This is the time of Unleavened Bread and we can’t keep the Feast with the bread of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? I Corinthians 5:6. We don’t want that little to spoil the whole of what God is doing.
AN EXCELLENT SPIRIT
Do you remember the story of Daniel? And how he got into the lions den? This is the way it begins, …Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him. Daniel 6:3.
If your spirit is right before God, really excellent, it is the greatest defense you have. The reason that the enemy or anyone or anything can overcome you is because there is some flaw in your own spirit. So do not blame another, though they may be many times guilty of aggression against you, or there may be many other things involved; but do not look on that, keep your eyes on the Lord and the way that your spirit is to be excellent in your worship. In that excellency of your own right spirit reaching up to the Lord and worshiping Him, you will find your greatest protection.
The Feast of Passover is the feast of betrayal. Everything of trouble and the very spirit of antichrist, the spirit of Judas generally comes against people of the Lord after the Feast of Passover. It was after the Feast of Passover that Satan entered the heart of Judas and he went out and betrayed the Lord. It was after the Feast of Passover that Pharaoh became a hypocrite and said, “Go out and worship God and pray for me,” They had no sooner gone than he decided he was going to kill most of them and take the rest back as slaves; and so he went after them. But it was God’s opportunity in that betrayal of Pharaoh, even after the judgments, to destroy him.
The total judgments that God will bring in the earth can be looked for after the beautiful spring season when God’s people have kept the Feast of Passover and opened their hearts to the Lord. We are not to worry, but we are to be concerned that an excellent spirit be in us, like it was in Daniel. As Daniel worshiped with his windows open, he did not care that his enemies were of the greatest psychic development that existed in ancient Babylon. The second chapter of Daniel tells about Nebuchadnezzar, the head of gold, who had complete psychic control over man and beast: control over every living thing under his dominion. Daniel was able to exist under the strongest psychic development and devil power in the world and survive because an excellent spirit was found in him. The men who were against him were eaten in the lions’ den instead of him. Through all their plotting, Daniel openly worshiped.
O God, give us the grace. We will not only worship in the presence of our enemy, but You will spread a table before us in the presence of our enemy and make our cup to run over. O Lord, we want to worship you undistracted, with nothing able to reach us. And if the enemy comes against us, we will say all the more, “Give us grace to ignore all, except that we love You and we are in Your will, and we will worship You and serve You. Everything is all right, Lord, because we are Yours.
Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his Holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalm 103:1–5.