Days of Unleavened Bread 2025:

Well, good afternoon, everyone. We’re on the last Day of Unleavened Bread. Just thinking about seeing you, everyone, this has been, if I can speak a little bit more personally, just one of the most wonderful Days of Unleavened Bread, Passover.

Thinking about you, we saw each other during Passover, it was a sober event. Then we cried together during the week and we laughed together during the dinner dance. And here we are, a lot of lessons that we’ve learned, a lot of messages that we’ve heard, a lot of self-examination that we’ve done in our lives. It’s from my end seeing you Brethren. This is very special, to speak to you this afternoon. Thinking about the brethren that, hopefully, will not have time to hear it. But there will be people in the field, ministers speaking to their congregations today as well.

As I begin to just lay out the message everyone and thinking a little bit about stories, everyone loves a good story. Not that I’m going to tell a story. You might fall asleep after a wonderful meal and I just begin to lay out a story. Children love to hear stories, don’t they? Even if they are very little. You take them to bed, they had their bath, and thinking about our children, had to dry their hair, and now it’s Storytime. A time to hear a story and to listen to a story. That’s always what they want to hear, isn’t it? They are ready to hear. They are ready to listen, to snuggle next to Mom and Dad, and to begin to listen to a story. Sometimes, it’s a story out of a book. Other times, it might be just one that dad or mom made up out of your head.

Interestingly, about the stories that the children hear is the fact that when you tell the story, sometimes it looks like to the parents that they are not really listening. Might be the story of the Bible that you told them, or just a story that you read out of a book, or a made-up story you think they don’t listen, but the next day, the next morning, you begin to just talk about it, and they all at the breakfast table, they will begin to recite what they’ve learned. Children are excited. They are engaged when parents tell a story. Just think about yourself hearing stories, and maybe as when you were younger, or telling your stories to your grandchildren or children.

But Brethren, thinking about stories, we could say that the Bible is a story that God gave us from Genesis to Revelation. Now the question can be, do we say it’s a fiction story, like when I tell the story to our children, the next evening, the story grew a little bit longer and longer, and later on, you fall asleep. I can remember many evenings falling asleep telling a story to the children and the next night, maybe the story go on a little bit longer and it just get one tale after the other. But thinking about God’s word from Genesis to Revelation, this is not a novel. It’s not a fictional story that we think about. God’s word is not like a story that we tell to children.

Imagine God giving us the Bible, Brethren, for one moment thinking about it. How fast do you think God could have written it? It took Millennia to write through people. God used people. Imagine for a moment the Father sat there with Christ, and they spoke. They had a conversation about getting the Bible on paper, writing it down. Maybe the Father could have said, “We just have a little bit of fun here.” In the beginning of the message the Father could have said, “Well, I’m going to write the Old Testament, and Son, I will delegate to you to write the New Testament.”

And they could have done it maybe in a wink of an eye. Just write it down, have it ready, and just pass it on to human beings to begin to listen. They could say, “This is my word. This is true, and you have to follow it from Genesis to Revelation.” How many people would have wanted to listen to that story? No, Brethren, God used people. God was willing to use people. When He wrote the Bible, He used people to do that. He was willing to go and allow people, people with mistakes, people with their own nuances, so to speak, their own issues, their own upbringing. God used people to write His word. He made it possible.

He could have held it unto Himself and said, “This is my word.” But the message that he wanted to convey to us, He wanted to make it personal by using people. Now, Brethren, we are on the last Day of Unleavened Bread. We think about God using real people. Think about Israel coming out of Egypt. Imagine that wasn’t real. God just wrote it down. He said, “These lessons to learn from these examples.” But it didn’t really happen. How would we be able to listen to it? If He wanted to get His word done quickly. Now He was willing to use people.

We had messages about the victories of Israel and also their shortcomings, the mistakes that they have made all through the time that they’ve been in Egypt, coming out of Egypt, coming out of sin, going through the Red Sea, their time in the wilderness, and also going into the promised land. It was a challenge with people. God had to deal with people and allow people to make certain mistakes. But He used them, through their mistakes, and through their victories, ultimately, to give us His word to make it personal. Brethren, here on the last day and on the Days of Unleavened Bread, there is a purpose, specific theme in God’s word during the Days of Unleavened Bread that we’re going to look at.

And please turn with me to Exodus chapter thirteen, we touched on this morning through these verses. But there’s one that’s written on paper, that’s obvious that we read and you have read many times during these days, and there is a lesson for us, a theme, a principle, a purpose that God has. You are in Exodus, chapter thirteen, everyone. We will pick up just from verse six, Exodus thirteen, and verse six. God says, “Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread.” This is now, at the time that Israel is coming out of Egypt. They’ve never heard these instructions, thinking again, God could just, we could read a couple of thousand years later, God said something in the Bible, but it never happened.

We know He had to bring a physical nation. He had to raise them up. He had to bring them physically out of Egypt so that He could give these personal instructions to them. He says, “Seven days, you shall eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord.” We’ve done that Brethren, we have fulfilled that command. Eating that bread of affliction each and every day, struggling to swallow it down. Maybe putting Nutella on it or making some pizza from it, oregano and black pepper, and mozzarella, or maybe sometimes you’re in a rush, you just eat it dry, and it is very dry. Then you realize that there’s a lesson in there that makes it personal.

Imagine this was something that God just wrote down, and it didn’t really happen. He had to use people. He instructed the man, He instructed the nation, to do this. “Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and there shall no leavened bread be seen with you.” I think the message in the morning already asked anyone that slipped, so I don’t need to ask that question this afternoon, but maybe you have that in your mind, no leavened bread in your homes. This is a special time of year. We never do things like that in any other time of the year.

“Neither shall there be leaven seen within all your quarters. You shall show this to your son in that day.” We teach our children as we heard, and tell them stories that this is not just a fictional story, but this is real. It’s non-fiction. God’s word is non-fiction, we could say. “This is done because of which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt.” Now, in our mind, we can think, “Okay, that’s a few thousand years ago God used physical people, that doesn’t apply to me.” We know that Brethren, during this time, we more than anyone else thought about us coming out of spiritual Egypt, coming out of sin.

The make mistakes, the things that God showed us about ourselves, we came out of them, and we are now, we have a lot of notes in our notebooks. We have a lot of thoughts about in our mind of the things that God showed us, maybe that He repeated to show us a second time, maybe a third or a fourth time, or maybe it’s the very first time about ourselves that we learn something, but we have those notes. Now we have it in our mind, it’s personal, “…and it shall be for a sign unto you, upon your hand and for a memorial between your eyes that the Lord’s law may be in your mouth.”

Now, this verse begin to show a little bit, it’s something in our mind as we already touched on a little bit, the things that is on our mind right now between your eyes, “that the Lord’s law may be in your mouth.” We talked about each other or to each other, fellowship during, after Passover, the night to be much observed. We talked about our stories. We talked about how God brought us out of Egypt, or maybe a close friend that you talked about, the things that you might be struggling with, and how God is showing you how to overcome that. God’s law is in our mouths. We were reminded to put for seven days unleavened bread in our mouths. “For with a strong hand, as the Lord brought you out of Egypt, you shall therefore keep this ordinance in His season from year to year.”

Let’s go to a similar verse, but this now, in Deuteronomy jumping all the way many years, the forty years that Israel walked in the wilderness, and God had to repeat a very similar instruction to them, but a little bit, He phrased it a little bit differently. Maybe He looked at those lessons that Israel went through and He thought to Himself, “Maybe I should state it in a different way on paper so that people can understand it more clearly.” The very same principle. And He says here, if you are in Deuteronomy, chapter six, and we will pick up in verse four.

Deuteronomy, just meaning the repetition of God’s law. “God instructed Moses before they went into the promised Land, ‘remind my people of my law.” He says in verse four, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord, is God alone. He’s the only God that we should serve, and they as well. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” With your soul means with your life. Everything that you have in you, meaning it is personal. It’s not just words on paper that we are reading, Brethren, it’s God wanted us to make His word personal. Here we see, “And these words, which I reminded you... Verse six, “...this day shall be in your heart.”

That is a theme Brethren, that came out not just for Israel during the Days of Unleavened Bread, that it should be in the frontal parts of your mind, thinking about it in your mouth. As you think about it, you begin to talk about it. Maybe you pray about it, during fellowship, talk about it. You talk to yourself maybe about what you learn, maybe the mistakes that you made, the victories that you had, but it is supposed to be personal. It should be in your heart. In your heart means in the front, the midsection of who you are right there in your heart. That’s where God wanted His word to be not just for Israel, but also for us Brethren, God’s people.

We could simply say, one of the central purposes for God’s plan everyone, is to take His Word from paper, what is on written on paper to people. That’s why God used people. He wanted to show something about Himself. He wanted to show us lessons that we can learn and how wonderful it is for us to be at the end of the Days of Unleavened Bread, to think about a theme like that, that God, His goal is to take what is on paper and to put it in us, to make it part of us. That is one of the lessons.

So Brethren, today on the last Day of Unleavened Bread, we will explore how the truth of God extends beyond mere words on paper, and connect with us on a very deep and a personal way. God don’t want His word just to be on paper, He wants it to be in people. A very simple concept to understand or to think about, but again, God could have just given us His Word and said we had to obey it, but He used people that we can learn from, that we can grow from.

Let’s look Brethren, we are going to just break this message into two sections, and for the first one, we are just going to explain what it means just from God’s Word looking step-by-step in God’s Word, what it means to go from paper to people. God’s Word, His law, His way of life, going from paper to people. So what does that mean? We can think about, it’s not just on paper. We read God’s word and you can put it on your bed, next to your bed. You can have it on your phone.

God’s Word is on paper for us each and every day, each and every Sabbath or Holy Day, we have it on our lap. That is the word of God on paper, but that’s not enough. When God said, “I want to have it in your mouth, I want to have it in your mind, I want to have it in your heart.” That’s a different process that needs to take place. And specifically during these Days of Unleavened Bread, we can think about that more than any other time of the year.

So let’s turn to James, chapter one. It’s not just academical knowledge that God wants us to have. It’s good, we have to have the knowledge, [clears throat] but it’s a little bit different than a story that you just tell and you can recite or just knowledge that we have, but God wants His Word, every word that He gave us to be in our heart. That is part of His plan for us, Brethren. And we can be encouraged that we are people that He chose and use for that purpose.

There are many millions of people that will read the verses that we will read right through the Bible and through this message, they don’t have the understanding that you and I have. Let’s read James one, and verse twenty-two. Very familiar passage. Everyone, nothing new, nothing mysterious in a sense, straightforward from God’s Word. James one, verse twenty-two. “But be you doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” Straight away, James gave us instruction there that we need to not just to read God’s word, it should not just be academical knowledge that we assemble.

How many years did it take for Israel to come out of Egypt or what those things, those things are interesting and we should know them, but it shouldn’t stay just with that knowledge, oh God gave us genealogies, or He has given us certain things that can be edifying to us and it should be there, but it should not just be knowledge. He had a purpose with every word that He had, had written down for the purpose, Brethren, so that we cannot be just hearers, but also doers, for if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer.

Think about that little child that just hear the story, they recite the story and they just go on for the next day. Now, sometimes the story will have an impact on them and they can maybe remember it for a while. But for us, the instruction go further, it should not just be academical knowledge. And that should excite you and me, Brethren, when we think about it, that God has chosen us. He’s used people. He’s using you and me to take something that can be just on paper and is placed in, on paper so that it can become part of people. Again, “for if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.”

How much did we do that during this week that we went to the glass, to the paper? That is the glass that we went to. We didn’t go to our mirror in the house. Maybe you did see if your hair all parted correctly before you came to the night to be or before Passover, your tie straight, everything we did that. But this is the spiritual mirror that we went to, paper that we could go to. And God says, if you read it, the next verse in verse twenty-four, “For He beholds Himself.” He can see, we can see in the pages, the words of this nonfiction story, so to speak. We can see ourselves. He behold Himself. He doesn’t see anyone else. He’s seeing Himself. That is the purpose from paper to people. Make that personal.

Put your name there, Brethren, that that is what God wants to do with you and me. And he’s doing, and He did do that during these days, and we will see that a little bit later, but it goes and goes his way and straightaway forget what manner of man he was. That is just telling that story about children. Often they will just forget the story. How often do you and I as well read the Scripture, then five minutes later, what did I read or what did I hear in that message? We all are people. That’s one of the things that we should realize. Our memories are not always the best.

Why does God say over and over we have to keep the Sabbath, we have to keep the Holy Days every year? He wants to remind us because we are people. But here it says, you should look at yourself and he goes away and forget what manner of man he was. “But whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty…” looks to the paper, looks to God’s law, looks to his way of life, look to the truth, “and continues therein. He being not a forgetful here, but a doer of the work. This man shall be blessed in his deed.” What we’ve done throughout the days of Unleavened Bread, Brethren. And when we looked and went to this mirror over and over, this wasn’t just academical process that we went through.

“Oh, this is my fifth year that I have the opportunity to keep Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread or this is my tenth year or this is my first year.” It’s not just a route process that we went through. This is God writing His word in our hearts. We went and looked at Him. But it’s not easy to do that. It’s not easy for us not to be forgetful. We all forget, just like children. We can easily forget, the older you get more you have to be reminded. Write reminders for yourself. I have a app on my computer where certain days, even with the Passover, I had it count down the days and then the night to be and certain other days just have a countdown for you to remind yourself.

There are so many things that we need to remember. We can easily forget. But just the point here, Brethren, to think about explaining this concept from going from paper to people that it means just keeping it on paper is just academical knowledge. But God instructs us otherwise here in James, but He has given us an example. Let’s go to John chapter one. Looking at this verse a little bit from a different angle. John chapter one. And we can begin in verse one, and then we are going to go to verse thirteen. “Everyone in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

The same was in the beginning with God. John one, verse one, and verse two. “All things were made by Him,” verse three, “and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” You and I have read that verse and that passage maybe so many times that we don’t realize from the get-go, maybe somebody will read that and don’t understand it. We get the opportunity to understand the verse speaking about the Word, the logos meaning the Bible, the Word, and it begins to speak about a person. And here we go to verse thirteen, obviously speaking about Christ, “Which were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh of a person of people, nor of the will of a man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh.”

The Word went from, as an example, from paper to people, to a person, to an example that you and I have. God didn’t want just His word to be academically understood. He didn’t just want His words to be spewed out. He could have done it in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, but He decided to take a long time to do that, to work with people. And one of those people is the one that we were thinking about during Passover, the one that gave us His blood and His body that you and I can go through the days of Unleavened Bread and to learn the lessons that we are learning, but also to bolt His truth, His word into us to have it, make it possible for us to do that because He was that example.

He dwelled among us. Again, personal, Christ was personable. You could talk to Him. You could go and have a meal with Him. You could ask Him questions. People hated Him. They had ideas about Him, good and bad, but you could go to Him. He was made flesh. You could touch Him. And we behold His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace, full of favor towards us, and truth.

Christ was filled with God’s word. He was God’s word. He was God’s word going an example, and we’re going to hammer it over and over for us to simply walk out today and to remember this simple example, this simple lesson, Brethren, that God wants His word in us, in you and me. That is His purpose as we become like Him, He is writing His word within us and Christ was full of it. He was full of favor. He had favor towards trees, that He had favor towards plants. Certainly, He liked plants, He created them. We read that He read created them. He created animals. He created butterflies. He created everything, but He was full of grace towards people and filled with truth, filled with God’s Word.

He was that example that you and I want to mimic going forward. Thinking about now that the Days of Unleavened Bread are ending, what do we need to do to fulfill this lesson? You’ll see you’ve been doing this all through the days, coming through the Days of Unleavened Bread pre-pass right up to now rather than what you and I have been doing, but how will we remain? We heard so often, how will we remain deleavened going forward when our memories maybe begin to fail what we wrote down on paper, who and what we are.

Let’s go to John seven and we will pick up in verse fifteen. The more you read it, the more you see little things thrown out there that God wants us to understand that He wants His word from paper to people, even those that hated Christ. Here in verse fifteen says, “And the Jews marveled saying, how knows this man letters, words, how does He know how to read even?”

And they looked down on Christ at that time. He didn’t go to the colleges or the ministerial colleges or whatever they had, universities. In their mind, He was unlearned. “How can he know letters? How does he know learning? He doesn’t. We don’t even think that He has knowledge.”

Having never learned, Jesus answered them and said, “My doctrine is not my own, but His that sent me. If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.” So those that are doing God’s will, those that are actively living it, those that are going from paper to people, they could discern that Christ was the true Christ while others were in the dark.

“He that speaks of himself seeks his own glory, but he that seeks His glory that sent Him the same is true and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not Moses give you the law and yet none of you keep the law?” “You have it on paper.” Christ said.” You are misunderstanding the whole point. Can’t you go back to the lesson from Egypt? Can’t you go back to the fact that Israel was called out of physical Egypt for a purpose to come out of bondage? Can’t you remember those lessons?” Christ say to them, “You have it on paper, you read probably each and every day. You meditate about it. You write articles about it.

You are so learned you can have conversations about it, but it’s not in your heart. It’s not part of you. It’s not who you are.” Christ said basically to them, “So did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keep the law? Why go you about to kill me?” They forgot... Those very intelligent men forget Ten Commandments. They forget that God said that you should not kill. And they were deceived, deceiving themselves, and wanted to kill Christ. Verse twenty-two, “Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision, physical circumcision, not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers, and you on the Sabbath day, circumcised a man, you fulfill the letter of the law, Christ said. “You do what Moses told you to do. You can read it and you act upon it.”

“But if a man on the Sabbath day receives circumcision that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry at me because I have made a man every whit?” I think we heard that a little bit earlier today as well with the, “every whit whole on the Sabbath day.” Christ wanted to talk about, not physical circumcision. He showed them maybe with His wisdom as God says, “We have to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” He showed them. You talk about physical circumcision, I’m talking about circumcision of the heart. You don’t understand. You either learned and you do not understand what I’m trying to say.

I’m trying to give you a simple concept, to understand you should go from God’s word, should go from paper to people, but they rejected that. Not you and I, Brethren, you and I accept that. We’ve gone through the Days of Unleavened Bread. Now we should not forget the lessons that we’ve learned. Passover, yes. As I started, we were together in a sobering mode and then specific things happened where we cried together and we laughed together. We went through emotions. What does it mean? We are people. God is using His people to bolt His word within us. And He is and has been doing that, and I’m just showing you through the Scripture, simple ways where God speaks about it.

And we’re going to look a little bit later on how to act and continue to remind deleaven during the hours ahead of us and the days going forward as well. Matthew twenty-three. Mathew chapter twenty-three, and we pick up in verse twenty-three. It says... Wait a moment. Matthew twenty-three and verse twenty-three. I want everyone to be able to read the Scripture with me. “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites.” Now, Brethren, we can easily look at the Pharisees and say they are hypocrites because Christ said they are hypocrites. They are the Pharisees. We want to make sure that we know that.

We can read that. But there’s a lesson for us as well. When you and I look into this mirror during the Days of Unleavened Bread, we didn’t just read over “Pharisees, you hypocrites.” We stop for a moment and say, “Wait a minute. This is a mirror that I’m looking where... Maybe there might be a hypocritical attitude in me. Or I might act sometimes.” And God might show it to you and you can be blown away and didn’t see that. And then we thank Him for the fact that this principle worked in our lives during this week, “for you pay tithe and mint.” These were not people that didn’t obey God, they went to every little detail of the law.

So they read the law from every angle and look at every meaning. Christ said, “and anise and cumin and have emitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought you to have done.” You should have done the judgment and the mercy and the faith.” Thinking about people, Brethren, to learn, to have judgment. You can read about judgment. You can go to a definition online about judgment. You can read books about it. But to really have it within you takes a lifetime. To learn to work with people, to talk with people, to make mistakes, to have victories and shortcomings.

Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong, but you learn judgment. You learn to discern between what is right and what is wrong. You begin to learn what it means that God’s word is within us. Those things, the Pharisees, they didn’t want to hear. They had no mercy in their mind because they didn’t need mercy. “I’m higher than and I’m holier than thou.” They looked down on Christ, we already saw that. And faith, what is faith? We believe what we read and we do it, so we are righteous. They forgot about the lessons, but Brethren, just those three words you and I might have caught during these days and they might have blown you away where you are doing well and where you and I maybe are falling short.

Christ said, “These things you should have done and not leave the others undone.” So the letter of the law to know it is obviously important. We have to read and we have to study, we’ll see as we go on, Brethren, but we have to go further. We shouldn’t just stay with the academical. We shouldn’t just stay with the letter of the law. We should go to the weightier matters of God’s way of life, and those are personal. Those are the things where people are involved, either us as God’s people working or dealing with each other, or us towards God, who is a person as well, or other people in the world.

Those are the things that come to mind. And that becomes a little bit more tricky, isn’t it? To learn how to have judgment, and faith, and mercy. These are personal factors. More difficult for us to work maybe with a unconverted spouse or with an employer that you ask for the... Or going to school asking days off for the Days of Unleavened Bread, that becomes a personal thing that you have to do. “How do I approach my boss or my school teacher to ask those things?” We have to learn to do that. It’s personal. It’s not just something on paper. But then God decided to use people from the beginning.

Second Timothy, let’s go. “The Father and Christ...” The Father could have said, “I am busy with

X, Y, and Z. I’m not going to... I don’t have enough time to write the Old Testament, son. You go and You write the Old and the New Testament.” Or Christ could have said, “Father, I’m busy creating, please you can write.” Or they could say we can write chap... We have a little bit of fun with this, Brethren, but God didn’t decide to do that. He decided in Second Timothy three verse fifteen, maybe we pick up in verse fourteen there just to get some context. “But continue you in the things which you have heard.” We’ve heard a lot during these days, Brethren, “...and have been assured of, knowing of whom you have learned them.” From a person, you’ve learned it from Paul or from Timothy in their case, or from God’s word or The Pillar Magazine or a recent message from a minister. “And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus.” All scripture is given by the inspiration of God.

Now just thinking about our theme and our purpose today, God had a plan in mind. He had a plan in mind that it should be inspired. Again, He could have done it himself, but He didn’t. He used men to write it down, think about Moses. He had an anger problem. At one point, he didn’t have confidence in his life. Maybe he was overwhelmed, but at one point he had to work with and make judgments. He had to learn to make judgments when God called him. In the bush, he said, “I cannot talk. I cannot think and I cannot talk. My mouth doesn’t work and my mind doesn’t work.” God said, “No, I want My law to be in the frontal parts of your head and in your mouth and you’re going to act and you’re going to be the one that’s going to take the Israelites out, and then you’re going to judge over millions of people every day.”

That was an account that God wrote down for us, that he had some anger problems, that he wasn’t allowed to go into the promised land due to mistakes that he had made. But is Moses going to be in the kingdom of God? Is he going to be in a high position that God’s going to use a person that had that experience? He wanted His law, His word, His way of life in him and that’s one example. Israel, that was used to write, and all the apostles that were used to write God’s Word, they had some problems. Peter, very confident in himself, but when the tire met the road, we read about that example that Peter struggled. He didn’t have the faith that he needed at that point or the confidence that God required of him. He did not have God’s Word yet from paper, he listened to what Christ said. He was there with him, but it wasn’t, yet, in him as it should have been.

It’s also a process that we all grow, Brethren. We get that down payment of God’s Spirit at baptism, and then we can grow it. But again, God used, He inspired people.

Now, speaking about God’s Spirit, let’s go to John fourteen. One of the lessons, Brethren of Israel, that we can learn from them is the fact that God gave them His law, and He wanted it to be in the inner parts. He gave them that instruction, but they were never offered to have God’s Spirit. Here, we read what God’s Spirit does in verse twenty-six of chapter fourteen. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, which the Father shall send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

Whatever I wrote down, Christ says to us, but to the disciples, the things that you have heard, when God’s Spirit is going to come and you’re going to receive It, It will help. It will take what is on the paper and what is written within you to help you on a personal level to live God’s way of life. That it’s not just academical knowledge, but how do you do judgment or have mercy or peace or anything that we’ve developed during these days? How do you implement it in your own life? We are not specifically speaking about how we are doing it. We are just speaking about the fact that God is... He’s willing and He wants us to have it within us.

And God’s spirit, Brethren is the key, the more you and I have of it and that’s what happened during these days as we put sin out of our lives. The more we have of it, the more it will help us to remember. If you are young in the faith or many years in God’s way, it will bring those words back. But you have to go and read. You have to go and look at the paper, so to speak, for His Spirit to actively, the one we’ve heard Mr. Pack mention in his messages, we have the Bible on your lap and the one in our mind that where God gave us His Spirit in the frontal parts of our mind, and during these days we will walk away with more of that. We actually built through a process, we have been building more of what is on paper into us, more than any other time of the year and we will see why this is so difficult and the lessons we learn from that, Brethren are many.

You can be in any situation and you don’t even have a Bible with you and you can call upon God, a scripture can come to mind. You experience that often. Maybe before the Days of Unleavened Bread, God’s Spirit might have dwindled a little bit in us but He gave us these days and we rekindled it again and you begin to remember, “Oh, yes, I remember that scripture.” You go down the road or you are talking with somebody in a difficult situation, “How do I deal with this or that?” And a scripture just jumps to mind, “This is how you should handle somebody.” Or, “This is how you should think.” Or, “This is how you should act.” Or, “No, we don’t do that.”

That is God’s Word within us, Brethren. You didn’t even have the paper with you, it is within you. That should encourage us to know that God’s Word is already in us and He is building it more and more within you. Let’s look at an example in Matthew chapter six. Just an example. One of the themes of these days, Brethren through, Passover. The things that we cried out to God for on our knees. Matthew chapter six verse fourteen, it says... in the model prayer, at the end, Matthew chapter six and verse fourteen, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” If we work with people in a certain way, He will forgive us. If we forgive each other. He said, “But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses.”

Let’s go to Colossians chapter three verse thirteen. When it goes from paper to people, whether these things become real in our lives and we can learn those lessons and we build the character that we so much need in the days just ahead of us. Colossians three verse fourteen, “Forbearing one another,” meaning... what does that forbearing mean? It means to put up with. Sometimes people have to put up with me. You’re laughing too loud.

You know that we are people. Certain times people have to put up with you, with the low things, quirkiness that we have, or the challenges, or the things that we fall short, Brethren. But God says we forbear each other. We put up with each other. Why? Because we are all in that process, building God’s Word, taking it from paper to people.

“Forbearing one another,” as I continue, “and forgive one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, also do you.” Now, imagine we were reading this verse at other time of the year, we could think about, “Yes, Christ forgave us during the days of Passover.” That was five months ago, but now it was a little over a week ago. This is fresh in our mind. It’s fresh in us.

It just went from paper to people, but it’s not necessarily growing yet. It might be, but we think about that more often than other times. But we have to actively do what these verses say, Brethren, to make that possible, to grow God’s Word in us. “Even as God forgave you, so also do you.” Brethren, God’s Spirit helps us. Again, if you look on paper, it’s important to look in that mirror, and we’ve done that, to see that beam in our own eyes, and then the mote in somebody else’s eyes. You can only see something that’s four by four, eight feet long. I can remember my son and I, a couple of weeks ago, maybe two months ago, we wanted to build a table, and we had to go and buy certain lengths of wood. And one of the table’s feet is just a thick... I cannot remember if it’s four inches by four inches, but imagine that sticking out of my head here while I’m speaking. And I’m looking around, and I’m hitting the microphone and the water, and you can see it in my eyes, but I’m just enjoying myself here in front.

But that’s what God wants us to see, Brethren, the beam in our own eyes, and maybe what your brother or sister has is just a mote, but we are sometimes just focusing on that mote in their eyes. But when we realize that, and we act upon it and do what God instructs us, then we are building, Brethren, and going from paper to people. Let’s look at the process that I’ve mentioned, the very intense process that happened, before we go to the second part of the message.

First Corinthians five. First Corinthians chapter five. You probably read these verses on paper now a couple of days, many times. First Corinthians chapter five, and we will read in verse seven, “Purge out, therefore, the old leaven, that you may be a new lump.” At Passover, we were made a brand-new lump. “As you are unleavened. For even Christ, our Passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven.”

The first time I learned, Brethren, about God’s holy days, this struck me, to see in the New Testament that there’s not just that they kept or went here on Pentecost like Paul said, but there’s instruction that says, “Keep the feast of the days of unleavened bread.” It’s an instruction.

“Not with old leaven,” we put that leaven out. The physical leaven we put out of our homes. They stayed out. Maybe we slept up and saw something there in the cupboard that shouldn’t have been there. “Neither with the leaven of malice and of wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” Christ is the bread of sincerity of truth that we partook in if we partook of the Passover.

But let’s go to Second Timothy. We were there a little bit earlier, thinking about the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We received that we were made a new lump, but then, Brethren, during this whole process, something happened here in Second Timothy, and we will read verse two and verse... chapter two, excuse me, and verse fifteen.

“Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” “Study to show yourself approved.” We know that that’s, the Greek word for that is dokimos. And what does it mean? “To put to the test, through test and trial...” think about what you and I went through the days of unleavened bread, the self-examination, that trial when we went to the mirror, the paper of God’s Word.

“And to produce sincerity and truth.” That was a process that something went from paper, that you and I read, and when you did that, when you examined yourself, you actually started to produce something within you, and that is sincerity and truth. It’s God’s Word. It’s God’s truth. It’s God’s law, that He wanted that... We said in Exodus, we read in Exodus, that God wants even Old Testament Israel to have, you and I have done it. Through what we went through, we built already certain things into our lives, but they can remain, and we can strengthen them, or we can forget and they can fall by the wayside.

It is up to us, Brethren, to continue to act. And that’s what we want to continue to talk about the second half of the message, is just to go through a couple of things, Brethren, that will help us to remain deleavened. That process that took place, we put the physical sin out, and we put the sin... or, the physical leaven out, excuse me, and we put sin out of our lives. Now we want to continue to be able to go from paper to people, continue to build God’s word and His law within us. Continue to grow, continue to have more of God’s spirit.

Like Christ was full of truth, we want to be filled with that on a daily basis, not just during the Days of Unleavened Bread, but each and every day of our lives, and that is a tremendous challenge. That is not easy to do. The first thing, everyone, is very simple. Remember, God is using people. What type of people is God looking for to write His laws, His truth in their hearts?

Let’s look at Romans. What type of people? Again, thinking about these days that we went through, you will immediately recognize what I’m going to read to you, Brethren, and realize you are that people. I am one of those persons. Nothing strange here.

Romans chapter seven and verse fourteen. “For we know...” verse fourteen. “For we know that the law is spiritual, and I am carnal.” I am flesh. I can make mistakes. “Sold unto sin.” That was Paul, an apostle of Christ not just saying that, but again it was a person that God used to give us that lesson. God could have just written down, “There’s a person called Paul in my Bible, in my Word, and he said the following,” but that wouldn’t have made it personal.

Now we are looking at the real person that lived. This is non-fiction. That was a man that was living. He felt that way. He thought this way. Verse fifteen, “For that which I do, I allow not.” That is things that come to our mind, Brethren, during these days, things that you find yourself doing something, and then as you walk through it, you realize, “Why did I do that? Why did I allow that?” “For what I would, that I do not.” You are a person. We are people. This is how our mind naturally function. The things that we want to do, we typically don’t do. The things that we don’t want to do, those just come naturally, and that’s a battle that you and I fight, Brethren, each and every day just like Paul did.

That should give you a bit of comfort, Brethren, that God used a man that’s again, just like Moses, going to have a higher rank in God’s government, in His kingdom and He’s actually giving us an insight into his mind, not just what is on paper. What was in his carnal mind, maybe where there were not so much of God’s word in his life yet.

“If then I do it which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.” He says what is on paper is good. This is spiritual. When you go to it, you can know that you’re looking at the truth. Now, we have to learn to discern, but this is the truth. “Now then it is not more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.” That’s something that you and I deeply can recognize, Brethren. We have the struggle. We are Christians, we have God’s spirit, but there’s still this carnal mind that clash with our spiritual mind, the spirit that is working in us.

And the stronger we grow from paper to people, the more you and I will be able to resist that mindset that is described here by Paul. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh),” I’m a human being, “dwells no good thing: for to will is present...” We want to do the right thing. You and I, when we talk to each other, we will say, “I want to do the right thing. I want to do the right thing,” but when I found myself, I did it not.

But then you can recognize that’s the old man, Brethren that should die. God helps us to cut through that to know that man, that’s the one that when I went through Passover, that’s the one that wants to come up here through the baptismal counseling tank that he’s sneaking up and he’s taking a breath again and he wants to pull himself out of the baptismal tank. He wants to take a breath again. He wants to be part of my life. He wants to write his thoughts into my mind again and we are with that battle in our mind constantly.

“Within me, there are no good thing: for the will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not,” almost a tongue twister, spokesman slurp. I should begin to prepare for a message, that what I want to do, I don’t do, “but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law that when I would do good, evil is present with me.”

Evil sometimes, Brethren can be right there in our mind when you want to do the right thing and then we have to learn to discern between the two. That’s judgment that Christ said is the weightier matters of the law and we all struggle with that. And we can sometimes be good at it and sometimes maybe not so good. “For I delight in the law of God after...” what? Just by reading? No, I delight within my heart. I have the desire to obey God and that’s the people that God is looking for, Brethren, that want the word of God in the inward parts.

“But I see another law in my members,” verse twenty-three, “warring against the law of my mind,” that struggle, “and bringing me into captivity,” taking me back to Egypt, wanting to take me back to bondage. That’s the goal. Israel, we heard this morning about lessons from them. They wanted to turn around, they looked at the nice things. They forgot that they were in bondage. We can learn from that as well. “O wretched man that I am.” Something that Paul started to realize about himself, “Wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of death. I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So then with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin.”

Brethren, it’s sometimes good to know we are people, but that battle will remain and it’s only with God’s help, Brethren, that we can continue to think about those three enemies that you and I battle each and every day: self and society and Satan, that we have to battle on a constant basis. But we ask, what type of people is God looking for? Psalm thirty-four, we saw a little bit of Paul. That was a man that God’s eyes were on.

Let’s go to Psalm. Psalm thirty-four, verse eighteen, everyone, and nineteen. “The Lord is near unto them that are of a broken heart and saves such as be of a contrite spirit,” a broken heart, a contrite spirit. Have you and I done that during these days? I’m sure with that, Brethren, because what we see sometimes bring us to that point.

And that is what God is looking for when He writes. Not just when it’s in us, but when God’s Word begins to grow in us. It shouldn’t just be in us, Brethren. It shouldn’t just be in our mouth, in our mind. It should be in our heart that we want to do it and we should do it as well and then it’s when we begin to build character. But that’s the heart that what God wants for you and me.

Verse nineteen. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous.” It’s a trial to go through. Just through the Bible study and the self-examination that we went through, it can be an affliction. Sometimes we go through other afflictions in our lives. “Of the righteous.” That’s encouraging to hear that God says righteous will go through afflictions, but the Lord delivers him or her out of fifty percent of them, or twenty percent of your afflictions, God will... maybe ten per... If you are righteous enough, He will maybe go above fifty percent. Or maybe if you are really righteous, He will go up to seventy-five percent, but the rest is up to you or up to me. No, He says out of them all. Every affliction that you and I have, Brethren, to be able to continue to build God’s law within us, to continue to go from paper to people. He needs to deliver us. That’s a promise. That’s personal. That’s something that He’s giving you and me a promise that you and I can hold onto.

The second one here, Brethren, let’s go to Isaiah sixty-six. Tie in the two thoughts here. Remember that we are people. God is using people. We looked at what type of people He’s looking for. Let’s tie this in with this next point here and read Isaiah sixty-six, verse two. We’ve read these probably multiple times during these days. “For all those things that my hand has made, and all those things have been, says the LORD: but to this...” and that man is in italic, so God says to this. He calls us friends, Brethren. He gave us to participate in Christ’s blood and in His body during Passover. He says, “You are small. I am God. To this, will I look.” He will look to you and me, “even to him that is of a poor and a contrite spirit.” There we saw the people that he’s looking for, but now, “and trembles at my word.”

You and I during these days got into a position, Brethren, where we tremble. Tremble to think about if I don’t cut this out of my life, if I don’t keep this sin, we took out the physical sin out of our homes. That was difficult already.

Sometimes we slip up and we can joke about it, but then we look at spiritual sin and we say, “I don’t want this back in my life. This thing is coming. I’m dragging it like a prisoner with that ball behind the ball and chain. I’m dragging this for too long. It’s impairing my growth. It’s impairing that my ability to grow from going from paper to people to grow God’s law within me. This thing, I don’t want this year to continue with.”

That we fear, we tremble, we hate evil. We hate that so much that you tremble physically before God’s word when you read it on paper. When you read it, you begin to fall down before God, and you physically tremble in front of Him, because of what you read, what you understand, how personal it is, and how strong he feels for you and me to be able to overcome. But with his spirit, Brethren, we are able to do that. He wants and will continue to help us to remain deleavened, but you and I have to remain in the fear of God. That is the second point.

Go back to Psalms. Psalms thirty-three, and we will just read verse eighteen. You can go, Brethren, and read the whole psalm for your own Bible study, but verse eighteen, it says, “Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope in his mercy.” That’s what we hope for when we fear Him, is that we will ultimately receive what God promised. That’s why we remain in the fear of God, remain to allow Him to write His words within us, but we have to remain in the fear of God.

Let’s look at another point here. That one was shorted. The truth we build this week, Brethren, will be tested. It must be tested. We read about the tests in Second Timothy. When we go through that documents process, when it produce truth and genuineness in us, whatever truth you and I have built, it must be tested. Let’s look at the example of Israel. Get a little bit of confidence Brethren and encouragement from that nation, and to know that you and I can be encouraged through the lessons that they have left for us.

Exodus thirteen verse seventeen. “And it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines although that was near...” God decided to take Israel the more difficult path because He wanted to test them, “although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return...” they want to return back to Egypt. He had to change the path.

Let’s look at Deuteronomy eight verse two. The reasons, Brethren, God takes us sometimes the long path, the more difficult path as well, and we must be willing to walk on it. Deuteronomy eight and verse two. “And you shall remember all the way which the Lord God led you these forty years in the wilderness to humble you, and to prove you to know what was in your heart. Whether you would keep this commandments or not.” God took them the long path, Brethren, for the purpose that what we are talking about today to see what was in them was genuine, and he had to test it.

Let’s go back to Exodus. He wanted to see what was in their heart. He wants to see what is in your heart. It’s already there, the faith that you’ve built. Think about Galatians, the fruit of the spirit, the faith, the patience, the love that you built, the goodness, the meekness. Those things must be tested. There will come times again where God needs to test that to see that it is real.

Exodus one, as we begin to draw to a close, Brethren, Exodus one verse eleven. Thinking about the start of Israel in Egypt. “Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens, and they built the Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses.” But verse twelve, look at it here. Read these words, Brethren, and make it part of your vocabulary and make it part of who you are. “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew.”

Don’t think about I’m mentioning growing physical. Yes, we want to see more children in the congregations, definitely, but this was a physical nation. The more they were afflicted, the more they grew. For us, Brethren, that example is, sometimes God wants us to be afflicted. Why? Because he wants his word to go from paper to people. He wants it to be in you. He wants it to be part of you. He wants it to be who you are, and then He will test it.

And when you are in affliction, He says you will grow by it. You will get stronger. You will grow more faith. You will grow more love. You will grow more outgoing concern. You will have more courage. All the things that you thought about that you built, the things we don’t just look at the areas where we fell short during these days, but also the character that we did build, He’s going to make those even more, Brethren, but sometimes it is through tests and trials that that happens.

Go to First Peter one and verse seven. Just an example of that. Just speaking about one, fruits of the spirit, but you can basically put in all of them there, Brethren, and ask that… get the same answer. First Peter one verse seven that says... Let’s pick up in verse six just for a little bit of context. “Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through manifold temptations that the trial of your faith...” you can put in the trial of your love, the trial of your peace, “being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory unto the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

I want you to be encouraged, Brethren. It might have been a difficult time that we through, but God’s purpose was the purpose that he had from the beginning is to build his character within us, to build his word, his truth, his way of life in us, and we have done it. We’ll look at two final verses here. Just go to Psalm fifty-one. The final shorter point, Brethren, just look for the great byproduct of joy. Look for when we go through and we continue to remain deleavened, look for that great byproduct of joy.

Psalm fifty-one and we will read verse twelve. Again a psalm. A lot of the points that we covered today and things that we talked about is covered in the psalm, but here David said, “Restore unto me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with your free spirit.” Restore the joy. The joy within us. Brethren, it’s also a fruit of God’s spirit, but as we went through these days, building that, going through that process within us and continue to remain deleavened, look for that byproduct of joy, knowing that God is busy doing and building, taking His word from just paper to you, and that joy is a byproduct that you can hold onto a result, so to speak. Brethren, lastly, never forget our inheritance. Let’s go to a final verse here in Acts chapter... or let’s go to Peter. Let’s go to Peter. Tie in here First Peter chapter one and verse three and verse four. We’ve been here before in First Peter. First Peter chapter one and verse three.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope...” that hope that should be in us. Never forget your inheritance “by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that faith is not a way reserved in heaven for us.” That inheritance that we will receive, Brethren, will help us not just to remain deleavened, but ultimately, to continue this process that we heard about today of the simple theme that God is busy, Brethren, to take us take His word from paper to people. Brethren, as these days end, let’s strive, every one of us with our whole heart, to remain deleavened.