I'd like us to consider the second
part of this feast and if you had been reading on
in Exodus chapter 12 you would have seen that it was mentioned
as following from The Passover was to be this feast of unleavened
bread, and all of these feasts are pictures of the Lord Jesus
Christ and His salvation. There were seven feasts. They
began with Passover, as they all begin. Everything begins
with the blood the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world.
And the second feast was the feast of unleavened bread, which
we'll look at this morning, Lord willing. And then there's the
feast of firstfruits, and the Feast of Weeks, or the Feast
of Pentecost, and then the Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Atonement,
the Day of Atonement, and then the Feast of Tabernacle, they're
called the Feasts of the Lord, they're holy convocations, they're
feasts of worship required by the Lord, and they are, and they
were to be conducted in a particular place, in a particular fashion,
and they are They are all physical acts which declare spiritual
realities and they are, for the children of God, appropriated
by faith. So let's read about this feast. Let's turn to Leviticus chapter
23 and verse 6. Why don't we go to the beginning
of the chapter? And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,
Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim
to be holy convocations, even these are my feasts. Note that
in John's gospel, they're declared to be the Jews' feasts. They
were the Lord's feasts. And now pollute the six days.
Verse three, shall work be done. But the seventh day is the Sabbath
of rest and holy convocation. You shall do no work therein.
It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings. These
are the feasts of the Lord, even holy convocations, which you
shall proclaim in their seasons. In the fourteenth day of the
first month, it 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 must eat unleavened bread. In the first day ye shall have
an 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 an holy
conversation. You shall do no servile work
therein. This is a feast that our Lord
Jesus Christ kept. It's a feast that typified him.
He was the only man that ever kept the Sabbath. He's the only
man that ever spiritually kept the Passover. He is the Passover. He's the only man that kept them.
And you've got to remember that the Lord Jesus Christ kept them
on our behalf. He wasn't operating as an individual,
he was operating in union with his people. And these feasts
and the message of these feasts are all appropriated by faith
when the Lord is by grace revealed to the hearts of sinners as our
Passover. That the Lord has seen the blood
and accepted he's passed over us. This feast begins and ends
seven days later as we've read with the Sabbath rest and that
rest of course is the rest of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's ceasing from our works.
It is a feast of unleavened bread where there is a purging out
of the old leaven. I love that verse in Hebrews
4.10 He that is entered into his rest, the rest of the Lord
Jesus Christ, he also has ceased from his own works as God did
from him. That word cease means to rest
and it means to be led, to be led to a quiet place. As we saw with the Passover,
it began at the beginning of months. This was where they were
to mark their calendars on the 14th day was the Passover. The
15th day is this Sabbath rest begins the week of unleavened
bread. And of course, the picture is
plain and clear, isn't it? And the picture, I hope, will
cause us to see why the Lord Jesus Christ expressed such extraordinary
wrath at the Jews' Passover in Jerusalem. See, the only way
into rest is in the lamb slain when God sees the blood because
the lamb bore the wrath and in the Passover you ate the lamb
and entered into rest which is what this glorious picture is
about and I trust that the Lord might work in our hearts so that
we have entered into his rest might enter into it again those
that haven't and look to him in faith and
find rest. It begins with a Passover, doesn't
it? It begins with a Lamb slain.
And I've been thinking about it a lot this week, that in Exodus,
regarding that first Passover in chapter 5, chapter 12 verse
5 it says only a lamb roasted with fire is the Lord's Passover. He says you're not to eat it
raw and you're not to have it sodden, you're not to have it
broiled in a pot. Why? Why must the lamb's blood
is going to be shed if it's killed and eaten raw and the lamb's
blood is going to be shed, it's not sodden. Why? Why is God so particular about
his worship? Well, the answer is really simple,
isn't it? Where there is raw meat, and where there is sodden
meat, there is no fire falling on the lamb slain. It was the
fire of God's wrath. Where there is no fire, where
there is no fire of the judgment of God, there is no Passover.
And there's no Passover, there's no lamb slain, and there's no
exodus, and there's no rest. There's no rest. We have in the
raw and the sodden lands that God won't accept a picture of
modern religion in so many ways. A modern Jesus and this modern
gospel and this modern spirit. See the fire! is a fire that
comes from heaven. The fire that Moses saw at the
burning beds is the fire of heaven on the Lamb of God. The fire
needed no earthly assistance to burn, but the bush held the
fire and was not burned. What a glorious picture of our
Lord Jesus Christ bearing that wrath of God, that infinite,
eternal wrath of God. He suffered hell's fire, brothers
and sisters. And you might say, well, he only
suffered it for a few hours on the cross. Everything the Lord
Jesus Christ did is infinite and eternal. He is the only person
that's ever suffered the complete wrath of God to the satisfaction
of God. That is why hell goes on forever,
because God is never satisfied. But he is satisfied with his
son. So the fire roasting the Passover
as a fire from heaven, the same fire that lit the altar at the
beginning of their worship, where there was a place where you were
to have this Passover and have this Feast of Unleavened Bread.
There was a particular place where God named that place. It's a place, he says in Exodus
20, after giving the law, he says, it's a place in all the
places where I record my name. where I record my character.
I will come unto thee and I will bless thee. He'll only bless
his people, he'll only come to his people in the place. As we saw earlier in Leviticus
chapter 9, the fire came on that altar when Moses had completed
those activities. And if you can read 2 Chronicles
chapter 7 at your leisure, you'll see that exactly the same thing
happened when Solomon had built this temple that the Jews had
now tried to rebuild. There was a fire that fell on
that altar. and consumed that fire. See what
comes from heaven, this fire came from heaven. See what comes
from heaven, this fire that comes on the Passover that brings the
people into the rest of the feast of unleavened bread. See what
comes from heaven bears God's name and bears God's attribute. Only The Passover lamb roasted
with fire will please God, not a raw one and not a sodden one.
So the fire of God represents the wrath of God, but everything
that comes from heaven represents all the character of God. God
is holy. God must punish sin. The wrath of the Lord Jesus Christ
is a holy wrath. The wrath of the Lord Jesus Christ
in that temple John 2, is a sovereign wrath and not a man spoke against
him. Just as when the Exodus, when
the people left Egypt after the Passover, not a dog barked. Not a dog barked. And so complete
and so successful was it, Moses said, not a hoof will be left
behind. Pharaoh said, you won't see my face again. And Moses
says, you're dead right, Pharaoh. The fire of God that fell on
the lamb is a holy fire. It's a sovereign fire. It's a
just and righteous God. Our God must be just. He must
be a just God and a saviour. It's a fire that speaks of God's
faithfulness in his truth. And it brings, as it falls upon
the Passover lamb, it brings mercy and grace. It is like all
of God. It is powerful and efficacious.
It's exactly what was revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ in that
temple. See, the fire of modern religion has no authority from
God. The God of modern religion doesn't
bear the attributes and the name of God. It is the strange fire
of Nadab and Abihu. Just ask Ahab about the fire
from heaven and those 700 priests at Baal that died. The great question in all of
these situations, the great question of this time and eternity and
this gospel age is where that bore the fire that came
down from heaven. And why did the Lord Jesus Christ
bear that fire? There was a cup given him of
his father and he speaks of it in John chapter 18 and in the
other gospel accounts of him in the garden. It was the cup
and what was in the cup that caused this fire to come from
heaven. People say the wrath of God was in the cup and there
was a sense in that that's the case but the wrath of God always
falls specifically and justly for a purpose. and particularly
because the fire of God's wrath fell because in that cup that
the Lord Jesus Christ was given, in that cup that the Lord Jesus
Christ drank, in that cup that was a Passover, were all the
sins of all of the elect of God. All of the sins of all of the
elect of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ His was a perfect temple, but
that day it became a polluted thing. When God the Father made
Him who knew no sin to be made sin for us, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. The temple is cleansed. The temple is being cleansed.
The temple must be cleansed. And if the fire of God's wrath
fell on the Lamb, it's the fire of justice and it's the fire
of holiness. And therefore it can't fall upon
you. The fire of God's wrath can only
fall once and do its work. So we are made now to be a fit
habitation of God through the Spirit. not a hoof left behind. And this Feast of Unleavened
Bread, the children of God, having ate of the Passover, enter into
the rest of God, the sweet rest of the Feast of Unleavened Bread,
because the Passover lamb is eaten You see, the picture of this
feast following the Passover is a picture of the fact that
in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a necessary
deliverance of his people. And they always go together,
the death of Christ and the deliverance of his people. They are joined
together. And as I said earlier, three times in the Gospel accounts
in Matthew 26 and Mark 14 and Luke 22, the Passover and the
Feast of Unleavened Bread as one feast the Passover is the
cause of deliverance the unleavened bread the unleavened bread with
those Israelites carried out of Egypt on that night, that
morning after the Passover, is the believer's new life of faith
and rest in God. That's why it begins with the
Sabbath rest, and this was a particular Sabbath. In the midst of this
week there would have been another Sabbath, the typical Sabbath
that began on Friday evening and finished on Saturday evening.
But in that particular week there were three Sabbaths. There was
a Sabbath that began that week, there was a Sabbath that ended
that week and a Sabbath in the middle of that week. It begins
with rest, this Feast of Unleavened Bread. There is a rest that flows
necessarily from the Passover. It begins with rest and it ends
with rest. And in each intervening day,
as we read in Leviticus, there is to be an offering made with
fire, a sacrifice made with fire. So the Passover continues to
be effectual. The Passover that occurred in
Egypt is typical of the Passover of the Lord Jesus Christ in this
day. The Feast of Unleavened Bread and these other feasts
are typical of the life of faith that God's children have now
that they were redeemed. Turn with me in your Bibles to
1 Corinthians chapter 5 and we'll read Paul's commentary. You might
recall that Corinth was a synonym for evil and the Corinthian church were no model church in any way
whatsoever if you read earlier in this same chapter. In 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse
7 it says purge out therefore the old leaven that you may be
a new lump and look what he's listen to what he says what the
Holy Spirit says as you are unleavened you are without sin We'll look
at what leaven means a little bit later on. Because, or for,
even Christ, our Passover, is sacrifice for us. Therefore,
let us keep the feast, and the feast he's talking about is this
feast of the unleavened bread, not with the old leaven, neither
with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth. The feast is a feast of unleavened
bread that is to be had in sincerity and truth. You keep this feast
by faith in Christ, in sincerity and truth. See, believing in
the Lord Jesus Christ, resting, relying on the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, if God had granted you the
grace to have that, you enter into this feast of
rest with God declaring that you are pure and holy and righteous. I do love that verse in Acts
chapter 15 where Peter is dealing with the Jews who want to go
back under the Mosaic law, want to go back into circumcision,
want to go back into this old way as they thought of dealing
with God. And he says that God sees our
hearts. Real religion is a hard religion.
It's a hard relationship with God because of the work of the
Passover Lamb. In Acts chapter 15. Verse 80
says, God which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, giving them,
these Gentiles, the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us, and put
no difference between us and them. Listen to what God says,
purifying, purifying their hearts by faith. Now why therefore,
now therefore why tempt ye God? Why do you want to test God?
And that word tempt is the same word that's used of Satan in
the garden. Why are you wanting to tempt
God? To put a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear. But we believe, all
believers believe this, that through the grace of the Lord
Jesus Christ we shall be saved even as they This is the finished work of
the Lamb's blood. We rest in who the Lord Jesus
Christ is and we rest in what he's done. In large measure,
the Lord Jesus Christ was saying to those Jews in that temple
that your religion is nothing other than the religion of Pharaoh. over in an exodus and I've come
to take my people out of there which is exactly what he's done
isn't it you just asked Paul when you get to see him you asked
Paul what it was like to be in that religion in that bondage
of that religion and kept captive to it Pharaoh and the religion
and the bondage of Egypt is like the bondage of legalism but our
great God says it is finished you're purified and And at that
feast that began, that feast of welcoming the God's people
into the glorious rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, that Sabbath
rest, they are told, aren't they, in Acts chapter 2 verse 38, those
people who had the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ on their hands
and on their consciences, he says, repent they cried out didn't
they what shall we do what shall we do they were pricked in the
heart they said what shall we do god has made this jesus whom
you crucified both lord and christ what shall we do verse 38 peter
said under them repent and be baptized every one of you in
the name of jesus christ for the remission of sins they are
remitted and you shall receive the gift of the holy spirit he
goes on to say to those people that accused him for having healed
that lame man. He says, repent ye therefore,
repent ye and be converted, Acts 3.19, that your sins may be blotted
out, blotted out, gone forever, when the times of refreshing
shall come from the Lord. It speaks of this feast of unleavened
bread, isn't it? There is a great cry throughout
the children of God, and we echo the Lord's words, it's finished.
It's been paid in full. Whatever God requires of us in
holiness, whatever God requires of us in cursing, in blessing
and cursing, it's finished. It's finished. There's a new
man created in righteousness and true holiness. complete in
him in him is no sin and you cannot sin if you will still
have your finger in Acts in 1st Corinthians chapter 6 is a glorious description of
this rest isn't it he says in verse 9 1st Corinthians
6 having spoken of this Passover
and this Feast for you to keep. He says, Know ye not that the
unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived,
neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate,
nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous,
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit
the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But ye are washed but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We are justified. See, we keep
this feast by faith. We believe God, having eaten
by faith the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Passover lamb. We continually live by faith
in him. We rest as you have received
Christ Jesus the Lord. So walk ye in him. That's that
feast. It begins with rest. Real Christianity
begins where religion finishes. We begin with sins completely
forgiven. We begin being completely justified
and having no sin. We begin with rest. Religion
works its way to rest. We begin with rest. Our work
is to stay in that rest and to rest and to continually rest
ourselves in the Sabbath rest of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why for these seven days there was no work to be done.
No work to be done. for seven days, seven is the
number of perfection, it's the number of completeness, it's
the number of the means fullness, it's the number of grace. You
begin with rest and every day there's an offering made by fire
and you finish with rest and that speaks of course of the
glorious rest, the glorious rest in heaven in the Lord Jesus Christ. We rest in what he says, we rest and promise the Lord Jesus Christ
coming to that temple is a glorious exhibition of his divine authority
but also a glorious exhibition of his faithfulness every word
every word will be completed not a hoof will be left behind
not one of those for whom he died will ever be lost the Passover
signals the beginning of a journey doesn't it for those people that
signals the beginning of a journey over the Jordan and into the
promised land. And the Passover signals that
the enemies are destroyed by God on the way. And during this feast, there
was to be no yeast in your house, and no yeast in your land. That
night they left Egypt. They left Egypt in haste, didn't
they? And there was no time to leaven that bread again. They
had unleavened bread at the Passover feast and they had no leaven
as they left. So what does yeast do? If you put yeast in bread, you
can ask Colin about his days as a chef. I remember him telling
us about the one time he put too much yeast in a batch of
dough and he came back the next morning and the dough had risen
out of the bowl and onto the bench and over the bench and
onto the floor. Yeast puffs up. That's what yeast does. we were
puffed up in the garden won't we by Satan who said you shall
be his gods you can stand in judgment of God and his word
and you can stand in judgment of God and his character and
you can have this reward now because God is withholding something
from you and they took and they ate and Adam and his wife were
puffed up and everyone that's come from their loins come Yeast puffs up. We're to enjoy
this feast with sincerity and truth. But yeast is full of deceit
and lies. Yeast puffs up. Self-righteousness lies at the
heart of all of us. I will be God. I will not have
this man to reign over me. I will not be told what to do. Such was the self-righteousness,
the judgment that those Jews enacted against John the Baptist
and his message from God about the Lamb. The message that they
had, the self-righteousness they had. How different they were
from the people of Israel. In Exodus chapter 12 verse 27,
the people of Israel on that night of the Passover, they heard
of the Passover, before they participated in the Passover,
it says they heard of the Passover and they bowed and worshipped. In the Jews Passover in John
chapter 2, the very temple where this Passover was to be sacrificed
was See the religious, as I said
earlier, the religious self-righteous are equated by these acts of
the law to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. God's children find our Passover,
our anointed Messiah, our Deliverer to come and deliver I do love
that first sermon that the Lord preached in Nazareth, isn't he?
He said, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. This is our great
deliverer speaking of his exodus, the exodus that he'll accomplish.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor. Do you have anything? Are you poor? So the poor have
nothing to offer God. Nothing of their works, nothing
of their righteousness, nothing of their promises for the future.
They're poor. He's going to preach the gospel.
The gospel is good news for the poor. The religious self-righteous
in Jerusalem were not poverty-struck. He has sent me to heal the broken-hearted. That doesn't mean you have a
wounded heart. A broken heart is a heart that
doesn't work. We need a new heart, a new heart from God to heal
the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance of the captives.
Sin is captive isn't it? Sin is a captive. Everyone who
sins is a slave to sin. You try and deal with it in your
own strength and you'll realise how much slavery is involved
and how much bondage it is. deliverer what a deliverer our
great Passover is deliverance to the captives a recovery of
sight to the blind these people were so blind they couldn't see
God when God was in front of them saying I am God they couldn't
see the Word of God spoken by the Prophet of God saying behold
the Lamb of God they couldn't no matter no amount of evidence
will heal No amount of proclamation will
heal a blind man. The Lord must do a sovereign
creative act to give sight where there was none and to set at
liberty them that are bruised. Does that describe you? Does
that describe you? What a deliverer we have! See,
yeast puffs up, but the Spirit of God brings conviction and
humbles people such that they know their poverty, and they
know their brokenheartedness, and they know their captivity.
And all of God's people receive Him, and they believe on His
name, and they're gathered by Him, and they're gathered to
Him. The yeast puffs up. Yeast speaks of sin. But also
the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of these people in this temple that
day. He spoke of the yeast of the Pharisees. You can read about
it in Luke chapter 12 verse 1. It's hypocrisy. That's the yeast
of the Pharisees. It's hypocrisy. It's legalism,
isn't it? They thought they were worshipping
God, but in reality they were really hating God. They thought
they were obeying the law of God, and Paul thought he obeyed
it perfectly. And yet when he met the Lord
Jesus Christ, he realised that he'd done nothing of the sort.
He'd never kept one little tiny bit of it. The yeast of the Sadducees
is the Sadducees were believers in natural religion, of rationalism,
weren't they? They didn't believe in the supernatural,
they didn't believe in resurrection, they didn't believe in angels. and the leaving of the Herodians
in Mark chapter 8. The Herodians by their name indicates
their interest in the comforts and the pleasures and the power
and the status and the prestige of this world. They were politicians
and materialists. The remarkable thing of course
is that when it came to the revelation of God in the to crucify the Lord of Glory.
As much as they separated themselves one from another in various forms
of their religion, they actually have the same religion. There
are only two religions in this world. There is the religion
of sovereign grace in the Lord Jesus Christ in the Passover,
and there is the religion of man and his works. The religion
of the Lord Jesus Christ is a religion And we all know that in our flesh,
in our Adam flesh, we are puffed up again and again and again. And that's why we need to keep
hearing the gospel. We need to keep hearing about
the glorious finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need
to know that we have no sufficiency. And that's what eating this bread
was, keeping this feast was, wasn't it? You keep this feast
without leaven, you do no work. You begin with a Sabbath, you
end with a Sabbath, you feast by faith, you live on a word
believed, you live on a sacrifice made, you feast on the body and
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, a blood that's applied to the
hearts of his people. We bring an offering of fire
to the Lord. We bring the Lord Jesus Christ's
sacrifice to Him again and again. We bring to God what God found
pleasing and passed over in Egypt. I do love reading from Hebrews
chapter 10, because they're God's word, God's word. This is the
rest, isn't it? For by one offering, Hebrews
10, 14, for by one offering He hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified, whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us."
He won't leave us without a witness. He's a witness to us. For after
that he had said before, this is the covenant I will make with
them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws
into their hearts and in their minds will I write them. And
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these
is, there is now, there is no more offering for sin. We have
no more offering. We're at rest. This is one further element of
this beast that was going to be part of that first visit of
our Lord Jesus Christ to that temple in Jerusalem. He came
as the Passover on that Passover day and he stayed for the And
what rest his people must have had in him as they gathered there. Simeon in the temple was looking
for the consolation of Israel, wasn't he? He was looking for
the comfort of Israel. And he held an eight-day-old baby in
his arms and he says, now I can go in peace. I've seen your salvation. His disciples, those that had
been to the marriage feast and seen But it says in Deuteronomy 16,
verse 3, 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. We remember. Do you remember
your exodus? Do you remember the Passover
lamb? Do you remember the blood applied? If you've entered into this rest,
we have a remembrance of it. It's the bread of affliction.
Those people in Acts chapter two were pricked to the heart.
The Lord Jesus Christ looked at Peter and he looked at Peter
in love and affection and understanding and forgiveness and Peter went
out and wept bitterly. The bread of affliction causes
us to cease from our own works and our own hopes. It causes
us to be honest before God. We are nothing but sin and we
have no righteousness to proclaim of ourselves and we look But we mourn with rejoicing,
don't we? The Son of God loved me and gave
himself for me. We look and behold the Lamb of
God crucified and we remember the exodus. The exodus has been
The exodus came when the Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary's
tree and rose gloriously three days later and went into heaven
and when he went into heaven he took all of his people with
him and we're now seated with him and there is the glorious
exodus to come when our Lord Jesus Christ will return in glory
and there will be that final exodus from this world into the glorious, glorious liberty
of the sons of man. I do pray the Lord who took authority
and mastery over that temple It is finished. God has seen
the blood and is satisfied and passes over. Let's pray. Heavenly
Father, we thank you for the glorious way you picture our
salvation in the scriptures and the glorious way Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, you
call on us from the Mount of Transfiguration to hear your
Son. O our Father, we pray that you
would do as you have asked for us to do and cause us to hear
your Son's voice. It is finished. And cause us,
Heavenly Father, to live in that place of We pray in Jesus' name, heavenly
Father, you might bless your people and cause your son to
be glorified, for we pray in his name. Amen. We're going to
finish again, and I long for the day when we can have an exodus
from in these days but we're thankful
at least we can gather in this small way and wish Beth a happy
birthday and all the blessings of God for what lies ahead. Now
unto him says our God now unto him that is able to keep you
from falling and to present you faultless before the presence
of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Saviour,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. May the Lord bless His
words to your hearts and keep you in this journey ahead.