Sermonette: The Way, The Truth, and the Life

How Christ Fits into the Days of Unleavened Bread
#1095Bs
Clyde Finklea
Given 07-Apr-12; 20 minutes

We are going to begin again in Exodus 13, on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Moses explained the purpose of this feast and we will begin in verse 3 of chapter of chapter 13.

Exodus 13:3 And Moses said to the people: "Remember this day in which you went out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of this place. No leavened bread shall be eaten."

Exodus 13:6-7 "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there should be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days. And no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall be seen among you in all your quarters."

Exodus 13:9 "It shall be as a sign to you on your hand and as a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord's law may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt."

Now, God has revealed to Israel that the purpose of the Feast of Unleavened Bread was 1) to be in remembrance of their release from bondage in Egypt and how only God has the power to deliver them. 2) they were to eat unleavened bread for seven days. And 3) was that it was to be as a sign that the Lord's law may be in their mouth.

Throughout the Bible, God shows that Egypt is a type of sin as well as a type of this satanic sinful society. Thus, in keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread today, it presents to us a great spiritual lesson: how only God can release us from the bondage of sin and grant us salvation and lead us into His Kingdom. I hope to show you how these three instructions actually apply to the church, that is, spiritual Israel today, and how Jesus Christ fits into it all.

Keep in mind that from Genesis to Revelation, the focus of the entire Bible is Jesus Christ, the Savior of this world. In John 14:6, Jesus replied, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Our first instruction is to remember how God delivered us from bondage. Now, the word exodus means the way out. The Exodus was Israel's way out of Egypt, which was symbolic of sin and bondage to sin for spiritual Israel. Jesus said, "I am the way." Now, the Greek word for way is odos, which sounds very much like the last part of Exodus. It means a way. And Jesus said He was that way. He is our exodus from sin and the bondage of sin.

Now, last night began the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. The children of Israel were commanded to observe the Night to be Much Observed in commemoration of their exodus from Egypt and their deliverance from the bondage of slavery. For us, that is, for spiritual Israel, the Night to be Much Observed is really a night to be much remembered for what our God and Savior did for us.

You see, it was the first night that Jesus Christ's dead body was lying in the tomb beginning His three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. And we are to remember our calling in Jesus Christ. Because of His awesome sacrifice, we are delivered from the bondage of sin and death.

Now, it is by His grace that He called you and I out of this bondage. When God delivered Israel out of Egypt, they did not know the true God nor did we know Him when He drew us to the true Jesus Christ.

God bestowed His grace on us before we repented. The Bible actually has several examples of this. We know Saul before he became Paul. There is the example of Job and there is also the example of David. Remember David's sin with Bathsheba. When God revealed his sin to him through Nathan the prophet, Nathan told David about it, and David said, "I have sinned against the Lord." It was almost like he just woke up. And Nathan said, "Well, you're not going to die. The Lord has put away your sin." As far as we know and can tell, God had forgiven him before he even repented. It is through God's grace that we actually come to repentance or because of His grace we come to repentance.

Now, as it says in Romans 6:18, the apostle Paul says,

Romans 6:18 And having been set free from sin [by God's grace], you have become slaves of righteousness.

This leads us to the next instruction to eat unleavened bread for seven days. Remember, the number seven pictures perfection or completion. Now, the apostle Paul again instructs us in,

I Corinthians 5:8 [to keep this feast] with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

What is truth? Well, let us turn over to Psalm 119.

Psalm 119:142 Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth.

We heard this morning what this law was. And look over at verse 160.

Psalm 119:160 The entirety of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

Jesus is the Word. In the gospel of John, chapter 1, it says,

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And in verse 14 it says,

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, . . .

He is the entire Word. Jesus said, "I am the truth," and unleavened bread represents truth.

The question is, how much do we love truth? The apostle Paul reveals to us what happens to those who do not love the truth.

II Thessalonians 2:9-12 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders; and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason, God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they may all be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

I want to inject this little story here. It is about me. Ronny Graham brought out in one of his recent sermonettes that back in the days of Worldwide, we all thought that Herbert Armstrong was going to lead us to the Place of Safety and we would be trained there for the last 3½ years before Christ returned. Did not happen; Herbert Armstrong died. Now, after he died, almost immediately it seemed like the wolves started coming in with sheep's clothing and with me, I began to see things as, this is not the true church anymore. I guess maybe I had become a little bitter. I do not know.

But anyway, to make a long story short, I left the church. I remember thinking about Peter. Remember what he said when Jesus died? "I'm going fishing." Well, I wish I would have just went fishing but I did not. But now I remember now when Evelyn and John left the church and started the Church of the Great God. It was about this time I was working at Savannah River. I was a pipe welder; we are putting in this piping system. And there were some guys working close by and I heard as we were working that day somebody say The Plain Truth. It was like over all the noise I just heard that, Plain Truth, and I looked around to see who was talking, and he said it again. The guy was sitting there talking to another guy and he said something about The Plain Truth. I said, "Wow, that's interesting. I think I'll ask him about it."

So I went over and asked him about it and I said, "Do you you know about The Plain Truth? Do you read The Plain Truth magazine?" And he said, "Yeah, do you read The Plain Truth too?" I said, "Well, I was a member of the Worldwide Church of God. We're the ones that publish The Plain Truth magazine." And when I said that he went, "I can't believe I'm talking to somebody that knows the truth!" And he just kept saying that, "Oh, I can't believe it. I finally met somebody that knows the truth."

Oh, he was just so excited about the truth. He could have just taken a dagger and turned it because I felt about that high (as tall as Danny DeVito). I was lower than that. Anyway, so it got me to thinking, you know, what am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing giving up something as precious as this? But I was transferred almost immediately to another area and it was not very long after that, that he came over there too. I was at a tool room and I heard somebody hollering my name, and I looked around and there he was, walking that fast pace, waving his arms and he was screaming my name. And again, I went up to him and shook his hand and said, "Hey man, I'm glad to see you transferred over here too." He said, "Man, me too. I just can't get over the fact I met somebody that knows the truth. I'm so excited about it. There is so much I want to talk to you about because you know the truth!" And he just kept saying that to me, you know the truth, and when we parted ways that day he said it again. He said, "I'm so thankful I met somebody who knows the truth."

I thought he would be working there with us, but I never seen him after that. Never seen him again. Period. I worked there for three more years and never seen him. As a matter of fact, I asked around about him. Nobody knew him. They did not even know who he was. You know, the interesting thing about this whole thing was his name. His name was Bill Armstrong. But anyway, he is the one that got me thinking again. And now I have no doubt that God sent this guy with these thoughts and with these things to stir me up again, to get me to thinking what awesome gift I was about to blow. We have been given an awesome gift.

II Thessalonians 2:13-15 But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. [And you know this is written for us today. He said] Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.

We have been given an awesome gift. And you know, out of all the billions of people that has lived on this earth, maybe 40 billion people or something, only just a little fraction of people have this truth, have ever had it—and you have it and I have it. You know, as a matter of fact, I believe the first booklet that was written by John at Church of the Great God was Guard the Truth. So to love the truth then is to love Jesus Christ. John 6:63 says that Jesus said, "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit, and they are life." And again, Jesus said back in John 14:6, I am the life.

The third element of keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread was to be as a sign that the Lord's law was in our mouth, or their mouth. Now, we know from Exodus 19:6, that Israel was to be a kingdom of priests. Now, I want to look at a couple of verses in the book of Revelation, chapter 1 and I think we will see that spiritual Israel also is to be a kingdom of priests.

Revelation 1:5-6 And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever.

And now I would like to read verse 6 out of New English Translation. There is something I want to point out to you here.

Revelation 1:6 (NET) [Jesus] has appointed us as a kingdom, as priests serving his God and Father—to him be glory and the power forever and ever!

Now this word kings, most of your commentators, your language, Greek experts or scholars or whatever you want to call them, they all agree that this word should be kingdom and not kings. Now, it is not that there are not going to be kings in the Kingdom of God. There are, because we know that David is going to be the king over Israel. And I am sure God is going to appoint kings over the Gentile nations such as Joseph, Daniel, and guys like that. But I do not think we are all going to be kings. I think we all are going to be priests. We are definitely going to be ruling priests.

He says this again in chapter 20. Flip over there real quick.

Revelation 20:6 Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

We are priests who are going to reign. Well, what do priests do, what will we be doing as priests? We will be instructing the world in the Lord's law, and we understand what that law is referring to because we heard it expounded so well this morning.

In Isaiah 2—I was just going to mention this, but I really want to turn over there instead. (If I am on too long, I have learned from two of the best. *laughter)

Isaiah 2:2-3 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord [we are in the Millennium here], to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

We are going to be in Jerusalem with the Lord and we are going to be teaching God's law, that is, the entirety of His Word to the world. That is going to be your job. And that is why you are in training now. And that is what these days mean to us today.

These are special days for us. The Feast of Unleavened Bread, as I see it, pictures the plan of salvation for the firstfruits. God draws us to Jesus Christ, our Exodus, our way out of the bondage of sin, and the eating of unleavened bread for seven days pictures the eating of Jesus Christ, that special unleavened bread, perfect unleavened bread from heaven, and He is the perfect and completely true bread from heaven.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Unleavened bread represents truth. And as long as we are feeding upon Him, we have eternal life in us. And it serves as a sign that we will be priests of God with the Lord's law in our mouth.

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