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. I Corinthians 5:6–8.
There is a dual significance in the unleavened bread. At the time of the Exodus, the children of Israel left in great haste. The Egyptians demanded that they leave. So they quickly took the dough before it was leavened, bound it up with the kneading boards in their clothes, and placed it on their shoulders, ready for travel. They didn’t mix yeast in the dough, for there would not be an opportunity to stop along the way and bake the bread if it were raised and ready for baking.
In our text Paul speaks of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, which means there is no leaven of sin. The Lord has been leading us into days of repentance and carefulness and heart searching. You may not realize it, but you’ve been doing what the Jewish people do symbolically as they take a little broom and sweep the corners of their house when they keep the Passover, in case there might be some leaven there. With them it has little meaning; but to us it means we’re being purged, cleansed and prepared to move out and spread the word. We’re ready to move into every good thing that God has for us.
It would have been interesting to have seen the Passover and the Exodus out of Egypt. It was this event that Jesus referred to when He gathered with His disciples for that last Passover and the Last Supper.
And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and make ready that thou mayest eat the passover? And he sendeth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him; and wheresoever he shall enter in, say to the master of the house, The Teacher saith, Where is my guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he will himself show you a large upper room furnished and ready: and there make ready for us. And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the Passover.
And when it was evening he cometh with the twelve. And as they sat and were eating, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you shall betray me, even he that eateth with me. They began to be sorrowful, and to say unto him one by one, Is it I? And he said unto them, It is one of the twelve, he that dippeth with me in the dish. For the Son of man goeth, even as it is written of him: but woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had not been born. And as they were eating, he took bread, and when he had blessed, he brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take ye: this is my body. And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Verily I say unto you, I shall no more drink of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out unto the mount of Olives. Mark 14:12–26.
The events of betrayal and crucifixion followed in rapid sequence. So the Passover was a very important part of the ministry of Christ. I believe it was ordained for Christ to die during the time of the Passover Feast. This was the will of God, for Christ was the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world.
We read in Exodus 12:41, that the Passover occurred to the very day, 430 years after Israel had gone into Egypt. I understand that it was exactly 430 years ago to this day that Martin Luther delivered his message on “The Just Shall Live By Faith.” There is a certain sequence in the schedule of events that take place, and I believe this is a time God has appointed for real deliverance for His people in an end-time Passover. When we read the book of Exodus we often get the idea that somebody was stalling. Pharaoh was always hardening his heart, and there were so many delays until it seemed that God took them out of Egypt most reluctantly. But no—they were expelled out; the Egyptians begged them to leave, there was an urgency for them to depart just at the exact timing.
We are living in a day when there is much we can appropriate at any moment, but there is an exact timing to this also. God has a schedule for our lives and there are times when we can’t push it, we can’t get ahead of it; it is just there waiting at a certain moment to come forth for us. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be pressing in eagerly; God has something special scheduled for every day of our lives, if we only understood it. Our steps and our days are ordered of the Lord. Do you have that sense of destiny in your heart? Do you know that God loves you and that it doesn’t matter what you’ve been through; He had it all planned out to the very moment, the very hour? It’s like shooting the rapids: you have reached the point where you throw your paddle away because it doesn’t do you any good; you are just being carried along in something that is wholly of God.
What you should sense is that God has something special for you which you will obtain if you just open your heart and press in. The timetable doesn’t guarantee that you are going to get it; it only means that it is the appropriate time for you to have it. You have to be at the right place at the right time, and you can get the thing that God has for you. I believe this is the day, this is the time that we can reach for things that are very, very precious, that God has ordained for us to have today. Have faith and reach with an appropriating heart that says, “Lord, I’m believing that You have something more for me.”
The children of Israel had a set day when God was going to thrust them out of Egypt with a mighty hand. God had a certain moment that He was going to let his Son die on a cross. Jesus had a great desire to keep that last Passover, because of all the beings in the world, no one knew better than our blessed Lord the significance of that great Passover, that He was going to be the Lamb, “roast with fire.” His blood over the door-posts of millions of hearts would avert judgment and give immunity from all the terrors and evils of the world. In that set moment Jesus knew what He was going to be.
Today God’s people have a real privilege. God has something special for us in keeping the Feast of Passover as we are keeping it now. As we come to partake of the precious blood of the Lamb, it will be with a new sense of the immunity from the judgments that are coming upon the world in this hour; it will be with a realization that it is God’s set time and hour of deliverance; and He is going to thrust his people into a new place that they have not filled spiritually before.
How much change can take place overnight? One night the Israelites were miserable slaves in humble dwellings with a bloody door, eating a lamb in haste. The next morning they were marching out of Egypt as God’s free people, decked with the jewels and spoils of the Egyptians. What can happen overnight? What can happen in the Communion service? In some way you may be a slave who can partake of this Lamb and leave the service adorned and enriched and beautiful in the treasures of God.
Freedom comes by degrees, I believe. Every time you hear a message, every time you partake of this Holy Communion, take a little more of this wonderful freedom in the Lord. Be His free people. Free yourself from the deep responses of the past, from the things that war within your own mind and spirit; free yourself in your own mind from harassing circumstances. The blood will set you free. You do not need to be a slave in circumstance, impulse, desire, or habit. There is no relationship or circumstance that is to bind you and make you a slave. In Christ you are to be a free person.
Father, we look to Thee for the marvelous things You have promised and declared we are going to have. Christ, our Passover is crucified for us, and by His precious blood we are appropriating and entering into a new level of freedom. We want the past to be ended. We want the night of Egypt’s bondage to be past as we move on into a new day and a new walk with Thee. We open our hearts to appropriate fully the things that you have for us. We are reaching for something, Master. We are like pilgrims, standing ready for the march, partaking of the precious Lamb of God, that strength might be within us to say good-bye to every form of bondage, and enter into complete liberty and glorious deliverance. The walk with God, led and sustained day by day by the Spirit of God is what we aspire to. As the unleavened bread of old, so Christ has given His body to us, a body completely unleavened because it was without sin, without defilement, without corruption. We partake of that incorruption in Christ Jesus that we might be made whole.
The Lord has brought days in which thou hast not suffered defeat nor been retarded in thy progress, but He has blessed thee to be the house of the Lord that continueth to build the walls of Zion, and to repulse all the attackers. Thou hast not been detracted from that which the Lord has set before thee. No distractions shall come to thee that shall be effective when thy heart is set upon the Lord. It is an hour when thy worship comes up to the Lord and the Father shall give thee strength and immunity, for thy worship shall continue to flow and none shall hinder.
Oh rejoice in the Lord; be thou His worshipers exalting His name together. Let the praise of the Lord fill the earth. Let the blessing of the Lord rest upon thee that thou shalt continually exalt His name together, that His house shall be a house of worship, that it shall be filled with praise, that the Lord shall be glorified in the midst of His people.
The Lord shall anoint this house; and in these days before thee, as ye shall keep the Feast, the Lord shall bless thee. The flow of prophecy shall be great; but there shall be the anointing of the next step. Thou shalt not prophesy unless the Lord shall give thee a word, and thou shalt know that thou art ready to enter into the new thing. Yea, the Lord has brought thee to it; thine hearts have been rejoicing in the beginnings of it, and the Lord shall cause the prophecy and instruction by the Spirit to come to guide thee in the way that ye shall go now: the way of judgment, the way of immunity, the way of blessing and the way of appropriation. Amen.