Striving To Be Unleavened

Willem Henderson

April 19, 2014

Welcome, everyone, to this Sabbath Day.

As we all know, God has a plan for mankind, and that plan begins with the Passover, the sacrifice, His only born Son, Jesus Christ, given by God for all humankind. He has an awesome goal in mind for all of us and for all humanity with this sacrifice – to be born into His Family, to become sons of God, to be part of His household. It's hard to grasp if you come to think about it, but that is exactly what God says in His word and what He has been doing from the very beginning, from before anything was ever created. So before even the angels were created, God had this master plan ready to go. And that is exactly what it is, a master plan!

Let's go to Exodus 12:6. The Passover sacrifice is described in the Old Testament. This Passover sacrifice was a reference to the future, to the ultimate final sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. Let's go to Exodus 12:6 – You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at evening ("between the two evenings"). They had to set the lamb apart until the fourteenth of the month Nissan, and then after having pampered it for four days they were to slaughter it "between the two evenings.” In the past, there was some confusion about this in God's Church, because we thought that this meant that the slaughtering should be done during the twilight portion of the evening.

I'd like to quote part of the seventh and last chapter of the book, The Prophesied End Time, titled “The True Messiah.” In the past, our understanding of this "between the two evenings" concept was an evening that started at sundown, and another evening that started at the end of this twilight portion of the evening, when the darkness of night entered in. This was and is rather vague, because it's really impossible to determine when that complete darkness occurs.

In the book the explanation for this "between the two evenings" is that it is the time between one sundown and the next sundown twenty-four hours later, just as it is the case with Atonement, which is a full 24-hour period. We can read about this in Leviticus 23:32. We won't turn there, but you can write it down if you want to do it. It shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict your souls: in the ninth day of the month at even, from even unto even, shall you keep your Sabbath.

Verse 8. Now (we are again in Exodus 12) – They shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread. They shall eat it with bitter herbs. They had to eat the flesh of the lamb the same night. This is talking about the 14th of Nissan; the 13th of Nissan had passed, and the 14th had begun. Christ kept the Passover at exactly the same time, when He first added the foot-washing ceremony and introduced the symbols of the bread and the wine.

Numbers 33:3. Only when the 14th of Nissan had fully passed, the Israelites were allowed to move out. This was on the 15th of Nissan, after sundown. Numbers 33:3 – They traveled from Rameses in the first month, on the fifteenth day of the first month; on the next day after the Passover… This is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread… the children of Israel went out with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyptians. Christ sacrificed Himself on the 14th of Nissan. The veil was torn, and ever since we have direct access to the Father. We can go into the 15th of Nissan, into the period of Unleavened Bread. Only after that He sacrificed Himself we can become unleavened, because our sins can be forgiven thanks to that sacrifice. And we can receive eternal life thanks to the resurrection that took place 3 days after His death, as we all know.

Before I go on with the sermon I want to read part of the sermon that Wayne Matthews gave on the Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread last year (the Sabbath during the feast, just as today):

Now, we have gone through that process of deleavening our homes before the first day of Unleavened Bread. When the sun went down at the end of that Passover day we will have removed all leaven from our homes. We've gone through our cupboards and we've searched for leaven. Now, that is also a process of searching in our lives; it is symbolic of something. So as we go around our homes and have deleavened our homes, looking for leavening, that's what we would do when God tells us to examine ourselves. We are to look for leavening, and leavening, of course, is symbolic of sin. Leaven is symbolic of sin. It is an expression of pride against God's laws. That's what leaven is. The symbolism in the observance of seven days of Unleavened Bread, is that leaven puffs up just [like] pride puffs up. We look for leaven in our homes and that is a reflection of us with our desire to look for leaven (look for sin) in our lives... which it is, it is hidden away in small areas that we don't often know.

In times past I know that I have searched for leaven in my home, and during that process of looking for leaven in my mind I'm looking to see if I can find sin that I'm not aware of. And of course only God can reveal sin to us, the deep meaning of sin, the intent of our life and the why we do the things that we do. And I know that I've gone through the periods of Unleavened Bread and some years I've been successful in not eating any leaven. Other times, I've mistakenly started to eat a piece of something that was leavened and then halfway through gone, "Oh no! This is leavened!" Well, it's no different than in our lives that we do. We can go through not seeing sin and then all of a sudden we go on, "Oh no! This is leaven! This is sin in me!" Other times, I thought I've done a really good job around the home and then maybe six weeks or eight weeks or even three months later I've gone to a particular area and all of a sudden there is something that's leavened sitting there, and I think, "How did I miss that leaven?" Well, that's no different than in our lives where there is obvious sin’s that maybe others can see in us but we don't see it... yet it's there and it can take often weeks or months or even years later, we look at it and go, "Oh no! This is sin! This is leaven!" We've found it. Well, that's God revealing it to us. We've overlooked this leavening in our lives when we've searched. We just don't see it.

Eating unleavened bread symbolizes our desire to obey God and eat of His way of life, the spiritual unleavened bread of life. This symbolism is also about Jesus Christ, who was without sin. He was unleavened. The Church pictures this on Passover night when unleavened bread was eaten as a symbol of Jesus Christ's broken body. Jesus Christ explained that if someone did not receive the Passover, and there was a statement, "eat His flesh" or "eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood," they could not have life, the life of God dwelling in them. "You have no life in you," Christ said. Through the power of His holy spirit, that's how it comes about.

Everyone is still in sin until this is a reality in their life, until they have taken Passover. Everyone must first receive the Passover in order to come out of sin and to live God's way of life, become unleavened. After baptism, we come up and raise up as a new man, our sins are forgiven, we begin to change our life. We are not to continue living the same way as we did before baptism; however, we will have the same nature in us, that natural carnal mind as outlined in Romans which we still have to resist all of our lives.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread teaches us that after the forgiveness of sin through Christ, we begin a journey out of spiritual Egypt, out of sin, out of the bondage that holds our lives. We are to begin a process of change, a change of thinking to a new way of thinking, a new way of living.

When scripture speaks of being converted, it really means we are to change from our old ways of the natural human nature, natural carnal mind, to a new way of righteousness in God's way of life. Coming out of spiritual Egypt, coming out of sin, becoming unleavened in our lives takes a lifetime. Once called into a relationship with God there is a constant battle against this human nature, this human way of thinking that is in us; but this is a phase of God's plan that shows us the beginning of this process, of being freed from bondage. That's what Unleavened Bread is about, being freed from captivity.

As we enter into the war to fight against ourselves we have to fight against our own human nature to strive to live by God's true way of righteousness. It is through this process, this struggle, this battle in the mind that holy righteous character can be developed in us. That's the purpose of life.

Just as God commands us to be unleavened, or to put leavening out of our homes, to eat only unleavened bread during these seven days of the Feast, we also put out sin during that period in our minds. This is the time when we examine ourselves more deeply than possibly normally. We would look at leavening in our lives, where to put it out. We're only to look for a new way of life, a better way of living, a better way of thinking, a better way of doing things, because that's what Unleavened Bread is about. It's about searching out the leaven, the sin, and casting it out and changing, changing the way we think, change the way we do things. And in that I'm talking about attitudes, attitudes and the way we behave, the way we think. Because once we look at the way we think, which is a reflection or is reflected by attitudes, we can identify them. With the power of God's spirit we can identify our thinking then we can fight to bring it into unity with God, the way God thinks.

So much for the quote from Wayne's sermon on March 30, 2013.

So we could say that through Christ's death and His resurrection we are assured of everlasting life, IF we strive to live an unleavened life – with trial and error of course. We can do this by repenting and with the help of His holy spirit that became available when Christ gave His body for all of humanity.

Repenting means to think differently, to turn away from the ways of the world. Repentance is starting to live according to the way of life that God has ordained. God grants us this repentance through the Passover lamb. He must give us that repentance. God leads us to repentance with His spirit.

Romans 2:4. You don't need to turn there, I will read it to you. Romans 2:4 – Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? It states here that God grants repentance. You can also read about this in 2 Timothy 2:25.

Today's sermon is titled, Striving To Be Unleavened.

Let's go to Galatians 2:20. In order to be able to be unleavened we need Jesus Christ's help, who just like the Father, started living "in" us upon baptism. Galatians 2:20 – I have been crucified with Christ… We are crucified with Him. We know that it wasn't a cross but a stake. Christ was nailed to a stake. …and it is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me. Paul says this. Paul says, "Jesus Christ lives in me together with the Father, as we all know, because we believe Him. We believe that He gave His sacrifice for our sins." This life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. In other words, at baptism we accept His perfect sacrifice for us, and we submit ourselves to Him so He can live His perfect life in us.

We also know that that after we've been baptized we're forgiven and washed clean of all sins that we've committed in the past. By the laying upon of hands by an ordained minister of God, we receive the holy spirit. And again that spirit is our guarantee that we can be born into God's Family and receive eternal life. It is awesome! It is such a beautiful plan, and we should thank God every day for this beautiful truth, for the plan itself, and for His sacrifice that He gave for us. He gave His only Son up for the sake of all of humanity. Christ was prepared to sacrifice Himself for the sins of all people that ever lived.

One day all people will hear about God's plan and the sacrifice and how it's really structured. It is not set up as most worldly religions picture it, as if this sacrifice would be some kind of "free ticket" to not have to live the way of life that is required to attain to eternal life. No! Just like all of us, they will have to make that choice. They will either choose life, or death, but choose they will! We, and the rest of humanity that will be born during the Millennium, and those in the second resurrection, who will live a second time, must never give up on God's way of life. Because if we do give up that way of life there is no salvation possible, but eternal death will follow.

When you're baptized, you are at the beginning of a lifelong process of repentance and of doing the works that God desires from us. Then He can mold and fashion us, to prepare us to be able to enter into His Family. We must keep on stirring up God's spirit in us, and keep up using it. We must strive for perfection in our daily lives, and that will always be through trial and error. But we must fight against Satan and overcome him. And we can only do this with God's spirit in us.

Striving to be unleavened must be engraved in our mind. With help from our Father and Jesus Christ we can remove the leaven out of our lives. But even with the best of intentions in us, we can still stumble and sin and thus cause the death penalty to be upon us, which is the automatic result of breaking God's laws. But then, because we've engaged in this lifelong process of overcoming, and because we ask for forgiveness time and time again, that death penalty is taken away by the Passover lamb. And so doing, we can keep on striving to be unleavened.

To attain to being unleavened, we must examine ourselves, and as Paul says "die every day." We must put our own "self" aside and start caring about others. We must examine our own way of thinking and change. And as we learn to conquer and control our human nature more and more, God will give us more of His spirit. And in turn, that enables us to act and think more and more like God.

Let's go to Ephesians 4:13 to see what [is] the result of striving to be unleavened and examining ourselves, because then we can start to think differently and repent. Ephesians 4:13 – Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, a unity of knowledge and faith, then we can become more like Jesus. He is our example. He had no sin at all and lived a perfect life. He has been as an example for us. And then, it says, we can grow unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. If you really let these words sink in you realize what a beautiful scripture this is, and I'm speaking for myself, too.

Verse 22 – that you put away your former way of life… to no longer be as we were when we were in the world with all its temptations, when we weren't called yet, and weren't baptized, and we only possessed our carnal human spirit; we were ignorant concerning Gods plan for mankind. …that was corrupting (destroying) you according to its deceitful lusts.

In verse 23 it states and that you be renewed; we must be renewed in our mind and in the spirit, in the spirit of your mind, in your innermost being. Your character, your mentality, your attitude can all be changed with God's spirit.

And then we can, verse 24, put on the new man, which is created in the likeness of God, created after His image and kind, in righteousness and holiness. Then we can be just like our Father and Jesus Christ, made righteous and holy and set apart.

But we can fail at this spiritual growth. We can become lukewarm, slow, and off guard. We can be off guard. In verse 27, it says, neither give place to the devil. Don't give any opportunity to Satan. Don't allow him in your mind. Watch out for his broadcasting and ask our Father every day, "Father, give your spirit, for I don't want to fall into the hands of my adversary. I want to stay close to You so You can remain in me. Lead me towards You! I want You and Your Son. Convert me and protect me, for without Your spirit I am utterly lost."

So often we are no match for such spiritual attacks, and then we have to pray in this manner and beseech God to keep Satan at bay. God will protect us if only we stay close to Him, then He will not allow this to happen to us. We will be able to withstand spiritual attacks (if only we keep at the fight), then we will prevail, and we will suffer far less attacks because Satan will flee from us.

God's desire is for everyone to enter into His holy Family, into His Kingdom. And that is why we must strive to be unleavened. And we can, because a perfect sacrifice has been made. Every year during the Passover and Unleavened Bread season God asks us that we renew our baptism vows.

We must examine ourselves as to where we stand concerning others in the Church. We must examine what sins still remain in us, and we must repent of those, and thus strive for perfection. We must become like Jesus Christ – perfect. And that can only be achieved after God is able to say to us, "Now I know you! Come and inherit My Family." And then (and only then) when you are spiritual and you can no longer sin, you will have reached the same perfection that was in Christ Jesus also.

You don't need to turn there, but in I Corinthians 6:20 it says, For you were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. We must glorify God in our body. We were bought with a price, it states in this verse, so glorify God in your spirit. But how can we glorify God in our spirit and in our body?

Let's take a look at how we use certain parts of our body.

I want to discuss seven areas of our body and take a closer look at how we must use each of these areas in our striving to be unleavened. There's multiple scriptures that tell us about how we are to use our eyes, ears, mouth, mind, heart, hands, and feet in a right way, according to God's will. And as mentioned before, now is the ultimate time to do so. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do so the rest of the year! No! Let's now examine ourselves. Let's take a look at the condition of our spiritual life, and at how we are to use these parts of our body in a spiritual sense. If we do this in a serious and honest way we will see things in ourselves that we didn't see before, things that need addressing in order to be able to survive spiritually.

1. The Eyes

First we'll take a look at the eyes. Do we use them to be pleasing to God or please ourselves? Do we use our eyes to see the truth? The world cannot see the truth, as we know.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Satan has blinded the world. Please turn to 2 Corinthians 4:4 with me. In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, he has blinded the eyes of the non-believers, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine upon them. They cannot see the gospel about the Kingdom. We can see it. We can see what He has done for us, so that we can enter into that Kingdom, God's Family. We can see it through God's spirit, and because He called us. That is awesome! That is truly awesome!

Satan controls the minds of people in the world without them realizing this and manipulates their eyes so that they cannot see any of the things that God does show us. He has a plan for us, but we're not better than the people in the world! Because of His grace and His purpose we are being called now. We can see the truth because He has opened our eyes for all the things that are important to know. Paul says in this verse that the people in the world "are blinded and cannot see the truth." The world is blind and has only false teachings and false knowledge.

1 John 2:15. We must use our eyes according to God's ways. We must make sure that we do not covet!

1 John 2:15 – Do not love the world, neither the things that are in the world. Heed your eyes for the temptations of the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love is not in him. Strive to have God's love in you.

Verse 16 – For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, with our eyes we covet things… like pornography for example. We're faced with that every day, in ads, on TV, in bookstores, in petrol stations, and then we have to avert our eyes, and that isn't always easy. We can also strive for materialistic things too much and lift them up as idols. Then we break the 2nd Commandment.

Back to verse 16 …and the pride of life, all physical materialistic things that are so important to the world, is not of the Father, but of the world. We must be on guard. We must control our eyes and thoughts. If we tend to look too much at physical things, then we want, that we desire. We must take heed that we don't start lusting after them, because then we are using our eyes the wrong way.

Verse 17 – And the world is passing away with its lusts. Everything will pass away. It's all physical, but those who do the will of God will remain forever.

In Psalms 101:3 David says… Let's turn to Psalms 101:3. (I took the Webster translation for this scripture.) I will set no vile thing before my eyes. The eyes take in offensive things that then end up in your mind, and then sin follows because you take it a step further and you act in a vile way. Because that is what a sin really is, a vile thing. We must reject vile things, because we reject sin. David says that his goal is not to look at vile things. And we could add to that, that we ask God to protect us from looking upon things that will make us sin. Because when we see vile things, we take them in, and then lusting after them kicks in and sin follows.

Please keep you place here in Psalms 101 while we quickly turn to James 1:14. It says, But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust. When you are tempted, this comes from your own desires, your own lusting, and the eyes certainly accommodate that.

And verse 15 – Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown… Through the eyes, the eyes that see things you really don't want to see, lust emerges and then sin follows. It grows in us as follows: First, the eyes see something, and then lust follows, and finally, the result in sin. And James continues by saying, it brings forth death. And he speaks here of eternal death.

That's why finally he says in verse 16 – Don't be deceived my beloved brothers. What can we learn from these scriptures we just read in James? We must have a will-power to avert our eyes from those things that can harm us. And if we sincerely ask this of the Father, He will certainly help us, for He promised us that all that we ask of Him in and through His Son Jesus Christ He will grant to us. You don't have to doubt at that.

That doesn't mean that Satan won't still at times lash out at us to try and seduce us anyway, to try and use our eyes to make us stumble and sin in the end. And then it's up to us to get up again and to go on and strive to never do it again. That is how we grow. Each time we repent, we grow and we allow the Father to mold and fashion us more so that He can finally accomplish His goal in us – the specific goal He has with and in each of us individually. And that goal will only be fully accomplished in us when we are made to fit perfectly into His Temple by the molding and fashioning He has done in us during our lifetime.

Psalms 101; we turn back to Psalms 101, where we can read in verse 5 – Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor secretly… How do we look at others with our eyes? To slander them? To bring out the wrong things in them, the bad habits that we see in each other, and to see only that? To push the good things in others out of sight? Or do we look at others with compassion like the Good Samaritan did? And do we give others time?

Continuing in verse 5 …him I will destroy. God destroys everyone that slanders others! Him that has a high look… haughty, thinking you're better than others… and a proud heart (we'll get to that later) I will not suffer. Be diligent so that our Father doesn't have to say this about us. Ask Him to help you not have such an attitude. Pray and beseech daily, "Father give me a humble heart, and help me to keep my eyes in check. Make me unleavened, for I want You and Your Son, and therefore, I desperately need Your spirit to make this all possible in me."

Verse 6 – My eyes… God’s eyes are fixed on the faithful of the land, on those who are faithful, those who are faithful and keep going forward and never give up. And then we can achieve the objective, God's goal for us. That they may dwell with Me… to live with Him forever and He in us for all eternity. Wow! Isn't that great! Isn't that beautiful! We cannot imagine this, all that will happen once we're made spirit beings and are in His Family!

And at the end of this, verse 6, He who walks in a perfect way, he will serve Me. We have to be perfect in our ways. The dictionary tells us the following about this word "perfect”: “having no mistakes or flaws, completely correct or accurate, without fault."

If we use our eyes correctly, then God can help us to be unleavened with this bodily feature, our eyes, and He can help us to finish our course of life positively. What are we allowing our eyes to see? Light or darkness?

2. The Ears

We'll take a look at the ears now.

Through our ears many wrong things can enter into us, for example, through music. That is the main tool that Satan uses in this world, the way it is these days, to seduce, to influence lawless, ungodly, and sex prone mankind (especially young people) with all sorts of filth, and to give them the impression that everything is permissible.

Before he became the adversary of God, Satan was very talented in the art of music. You don't have to turn there, I'll read it to you from Ezekiel 28:13 – You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz, emerald, chrysolite, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and beryl. Here we can read about how he was adorned with all sorts of precious jewels when he was in the Garden of Eden.

Gold work of tambourines and of pipes, this means music, was in you. In the day that you were created they were prepared. God had given a special talent to him, music. Undoubtedly, when he was still named Lucifer, he must have handled this in the right way and produced beautiful music. But once he became Satan, he started using music, a certain type of music of course, to make man even more Godless and to pull man further away from God.

As Ron mentioned in a few sermons before, Elvis was quite a shock for people in the beginning. But then later, The Beatles came on the scene, and people considered them to be even worse. And slowly but surely even different music came on the scene that made Elvis and The Beatles look innocent. That's how Satan's works with music, to pull man further and further away from God. So we must be careful of what kind of music we listen to. And we must also protect our children in the Church from listening to the wrong kind of music that the world today considers normal.

Satan is also called "the prince of the power of the air." He can use people in the Church or outside of it (for example, people that are disfellowshipped) to say things to us that are not good. I'm thinking of the 57 Truths, for example, and how some people may have their doubts about them and by their words to others can cause others [to] doubt them too. Satan uses these words to influence our thinking so that we start to think differently about one of the Truths. We must steer away from this, for that is what the Church teaches us. We must not have any more contact with those who are no longer in the Church, in God's Church.

That is what we must protect our ears from. You could say that we need to strive to be unleavened in our hearing, and that we must only listen to things that are right, edifying, clean, and good. We mustn't listen to deadly words that keep us from the truth, because then we listen to false knowledge. And therefore, we must thoroughly consider everything that we hear and assess it correctly.

Luke 8:18. Jesus tells us to be careful about where and how we listen to something. Luke 8:18 – Be careful therefore how you hear, He says. For whoever has, to him will be given; and whoever doesn't have, from him will be taken away even that which he thinks he has. Hold on tight to the truth that has been given to you, and more will be built upon that truth. Every time we receive a little more, more knowledge about a Bible verse, for example, as I mentioned before. You can read through a certain verse 99 times and then the 100th time you suddenly can see what it really means.

Don't listen to those who want to pull you away from the truth. Don't accept the things, the false things that people want to make you believe, because then the truth will be taken away from you. That is what happens when you start to think like those that try and feed false things to you, when you start to think that "you have something," too.

Psalms 26:4 – I have not sat with the deceitful men, neither will I go in with hypocrites. We must be careful what we listen to. We must remove ourselves from those that try to make us believe different things than the truth that God gave to us.

Verse 5 – I hate the company of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked. Don't go near those who want to pull you away from the beautiful truths the Father gave to us. God calls such people evildoers! Don't have any contact with them and do not consort with the ungodly because that is what they have become, unGodly and antiChrist.

So it is very important that we get rid of the leavening in our hearing. And we desperately need God's help to always be on guard when we hear something that doesn't sound right enter our ears and our mind. Also, when someone says something wrong about a brother in the Church, or when someone slanders someone else in the Body, we need to immediately stop listening to such. It then is our duty to admonish that person doing so and to tell them to stop slandering others. Avoid any such conversation, and when it occurs, act upon it and "nip it in the bud" immediately.

Proverbs 22:17. We must use our ears to listen to the things that we do need to hear, to be inclined towards those things that will help us grow in God's way of life. Proverbs 22:17 – Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, wise words, words that we can hear in the sermons that we hear every week, wise words from God that our ears can receive every week. And you can never hear too much of that! And apply your heart to My teaching. His words are wisdom. We must surrender to that knowledge.

And in verse 18 (this is such a beautiful verse), For it is a pleasant thing if you keep them within you, if all of them are already on your lips. This knowledge, this truth must be at the tip of our tongue so others can be in awe of God after they hear such words, and can thank, honor and exalt God.

Verse 19 – That your trust may be in the LORD, I teach you today, if only we turn to Him, trust in Him, He will give us all the teaching that we need, even you, everyone individually.

Verse 20 – Have I not written unto you excellent things of counsels and knowledge. Everything comes from God. All knowledge, all counsel, everything comes from God. It all comes through Jesus Christ to His Church. God gives truth. And as I stated before, for me personally, this is an awesome experience ever since I've been asked to give sermons. Every time ,when I read the words that He has just given me to write down for a sermon, I'm in awe of God the Father.

Verse 21 – To make known to you truth and reliable words, that you can give back words of truth to the ones that sent you? Because God gives it into our mind through His spirit, we know that what we hear is the truth, is right and reliable. We can share the words that we receive with others if they, too, have God's spirit and know that what they hear is true and just. Do we listen intently to the weekly sermons? To God's word? Examine yourself and ask God for help to listen to that which is right and to avoid listening to what is false and vile.

What do we allow our ears to hear? Wise words and true knowledge? Or false and unreliable words?

3. The Mouth

The third part of our body that we also need to address, and that needs to be unleavened, is our mouth. Through our mouth we take in physical food, and on a spiritual plane, spiritual food. In Psalms 81:10 (you can jot this down, we won't turn there), God tells us: I am the LORD your God…open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.

With our mouth we communicate with others, whether it is about important things or less important things, or even pleasant things. But under Satan's rule and influence, man uses his mouth wrongly.

On a spiritual level, we need to have the right eating habits. We must follow God's laws on clean and unclean food in order to keep our bodies clean and pure. When I look at myself, I can tell you that implementing the eating of clean physical food proves to be lot easier for me than the eating of clean spiritual food only, and I end up praying at times like this, "Father, please give me the same zeal to be alert about the spiritual food that I take in as I am with physical clean and unclean food." Because I remember well that after I was baptized I knew that I had to start eating only clean foods, and it happened sometimes that I did unknowingly eat something unclean. And back then I totally overreacted like "Ooh! I just ate pork! Ooh, (or whatever). How terrible!"  These days I'm happy that I'm more balanced about such things. So that when I do accidentally eat something wrong, I think to myself, "Wish it was the same as with the sins I have that God shows me! If so, I would be doing really well!"

Let's go and have a look at how sharp our mouth (our tongue) can be if we don't control it. And coming back to being unleavened, we must strive to control our mouth (our tongue) and work at achieving that with the help of God's spirit. The tongue is one of the most difficult "parts" of our body to control. Let's look at what James has to say about that. Let's turn to James 3:1-10 and read about how we can misuse our tongue and fall into sin.

James 3:1-4 – Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. For in many things we all stumble. If anyone doesn't stumble in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. Indeed, we put bits into the horses mouths so that they may obey us, and we guide their whole body. Behold, the ships also, though they are so big and are driven by fierce winds, are yet guided by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires.

Verse 5-6 – So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how small fire can spread to a large forest! And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by gehenna.

Verse 7 – For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and thing in the sea, is tempted [tamed], and has been tempted [tamed] by mankind.

Verse 8-9 – But nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the image of God.

Verse 10 – Out of the same mouth comes forth blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

In these verses that we just read we have seen that if you can control your mouth (your tongue) you are like a perfect man or woman that has control over his or her whole body.

We just read in verse 6 that the "tongue is like a fire" and like "a world of iniquity" in us. That's quite something, if you consider it. Also the tongue is "a restless evil" (verse 8), in others words, unfathomable. It can lead you anywhere. And also in verse 8 "full of deadly poison" and "nobody can tame it." But with God's help, everything is possible. We can work at controlling our tongue with the help of God's spirit. And also with God's help we can start using our mouth in the right way. If we humbly ask the Father to help us in our striving to make use of our mouth in an unleavened way, then He will do so. And yes, we'll stumble a lot along the way, that's for sure. But by getting back up and going forward, sooner or later you'll stumble less and less.

Pray and ask, "Father, help me to use my mouth in a right way. Give me Your spirit, because by myself I cannot fight this fight. Because I know that Satan will use very opportunity when I'm weak to also make me fail in the use of this part of my body, to make me use it against You and to sin. Satan wants most of all to see me give up, but I know that You will pull me through so that I can conquer with You by my side."

With our tongue, we can also spread rumors amongst ourselves. With the tongue, we can slander. With the tongue, we can make promises that we don't keep. With the tongue, we can lie… and so on, and so on. In Proverbs 10:14 it says, Wise men lay up knowledge, but the mouth of the foolish is a present destruction. Be wise. Cherish and keep the knowledge that we've been given when we came into God's Church. When we're called and receive God's spirit (which we received at baptism), we can start doing what is stated in this scripture, to contain this "present destruction" brought forth by the tongue. Then we can get on top of this "present destruction" thanks to the indwelling of the holy spirit in us.

In verse 19 – In the multitude of words there is no lack of transgression, but he who restrains his lips does wisely. Here we read that it is more often wiser to keep your lips together, and that talking a lot is not always the wise thing to do. It can get us into trouble because we say something that can be taken the wrong way. We can easily offend someone when we don't consider what we are saying anymore because of the multitude of words that proceed out of our mouth.

Verse 20 – The tongue of the righteous is like choice of silver. Our tongue must be as silver. This means that we must use our mouth (our tongue) for the right kind of information, for encouragement, to extend help and love. The heart of the wicked is of little worth.

Verse 21 – The lips of the righteous feed many. For example, when someone who is over you in God's Church corrects you and tells you you're doing something wrong then you can take advantage of that. And when you correct someone, you also strive to use your lips in the right way. That is like silver. That's constructive. That's herding God's sheep the right way. Then we use our mouth in the right way. And also in the weekly sermons we can hear the words that point us in the right direction, that show us the way we must follow.

On in this verse… But the foolish die for lack of understanding. Fools have no wit; they do not use God's spirit and they can't use their mouth the way God instructs us to. They do not control or restrain themselves, and therefore, they die spiritually.

Skip to verse 31 – The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom. Here it is again, "out of the righteous mouth the words of wisdom" and knowledge come forth, that we need to come ever closer to God and His final goal – to enter into His Kingdom. But the perverse tongue shall be cut off, or will die as we read in verse 21.

Verse 32 – The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, what is constructive, what brings joy and brings us closer to God, but the mouth of the wicked is perverse.

Proverbs 25:11 – A word fitly spoken, when we use our mouth the right way, when we work at making our tongue to be unleavened, then our words are …like apples of gold in settings of silver.

4. The spirit in man

The fourth part of our body that we'll discuss is the spirit, the human spirit in our minds.

Our human spirit is the powerful source and force of all our thoughts. And based upon that source, upon those thoughts, we determine our actions, our way of life. Romans 8:6. Both our thoughts and our actions need to be molded according to God's will. That is not easy, because Satan always influences our natural carnal human mind.

Romans 8:6 – For to be carnally minded is death, we should not be thinking physically, for that leads unto death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. If we want to have unleavened thoughts, unleavened thinking, we'll have to work at it!

Because in verse 7 it says, Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, it opposes His laws, His 10 Commandments, neither indeed can it be.

Further in verse 8 – So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Our carnal human thoughts cannot be pleasing to God.

But in verse 9 we read, But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if it is so that the spirit of God dwells in you. We can learn to control that carnal thinking when God's spirit lives in us. At baptism, we were begotten with that same spirit, and from that moment forward we came out of the watery grave as a new man. That's when we're no longer in the flesh, but in the spirit; God's spirit dwells in us. But if any man doesn't have the spirit of Christ, he is not His. If we allow that spirit to be quenched, then we no longer belong to Him, then we can no longer work to make our whole body unleavened, and we can no longer live according to God's laws, according to His way of life.

We won't turn there, but in Galatians 5:16-17 it says, This I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to each other, that you may not do the things that you desire.

Romans 8:13 – For if you live after the flesh, you must die. "Living according to the flesh" means you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live (eternal life). We've been discussing "the deeds of the body" today, how we use our eyes, our mouth, our mind, and how we use our heart, hand, and feet. Do we strive to use every part of our body in an unleavened way? Do we apply God's laws in our life?

Through our Passover, through the sufferings of Christ, through His resurrection, thanks to the dwelling of God and Jesus Christ, and thanks to their spirit in us, we can conquer our human nature.

If we pray, fast, and meditate regularly, if we study God's word, listen to sermons, and practice what we learn as doers and not just as "hearers of the word," then we can stir up God's spirit in us and truly strive to be unleavened. Then we repent and change our way of life. Without Gods spirit we grow weaker and are no longer capable of disciplining ourselves.

Especially now, in this Passover and Unleavened Bread season, we must examine ourselves, to find out what fruits of the spirit (which are the opposite of the fruits of the flesh) we possess. We must "bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ," is what Paul told the Corinthians. And we do so by not giving up, and by going forward. We must ask our Father daily to help us remove not only the physical, but more importantly, the spiritual leaven from our "house." The purpose of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is to make our body, the temple wherein God lives (God's temple), unleavened with the help of His spirit and the sacrifice, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Don't give up! Don't be swept away by the things of the world. But let your mind be led by the spirit in order to fulfill the will of the Father and to grow unto a perfect man, ready to enter into God's Kingdom, into Gods Family. Don't give up! Use that spirit that lives in you to fight and to overcome the temptations of the world. Don't give Satan any opportunity. Bring everything before the throne of God and reason with Him in prayer. Live an unleavened life and go forward. And if at certain times of weakness you fall into the tub of acid, climb out of it again and ask for forgiveness. And the Father is faithful in that He will wash us clean and will remove the leavening from us through the precious blood of His Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Please turn with me to Galatians 5:19-25 – Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like this; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts. If we live by the spirit, let's also walk by the spirit.

5. The Heart

The fifth part of the body that I want to take a closer look at is the heart. If the heart doesn't function, if it doesn't pump the blood any more, we die.

There's a lot written about the heart in the Bible. Our attitudes come from the heart. The heart can produce bad thoughts, greed, pride, foolishness, and deceit, to name only a few. Our heart needs attention too. Repenting is, as we all know, to think differently, to change. We could actually say that we need a change of heart.

Mark 7:21. Jesus says the following about the heart, Mark 7:21 – For from within, out of the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, sinful thoughts that come forth from our heart. Jesus names three specific sinful thoughts that come from the heart, adulteries, sexual sins, murder.

And in verse 22 He names another nine sinful thoughts: coveting, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. The "defiling of man" comes from within. We must cleanse ourselves, make ourselves internally unleavened. Only God knows the heart through and through. In His word we can read, "The heart is deceitful above all things…who can know it?"

In the world people have an expression saying, "His/her heart is in the right place," but you cannot look inside someone. You have no idea about what someone might say or do out of the blue. And then people say, "I could never have imagined he or she could do this." To truly change the heart you need God's spirit, and even then things can happen when sometimes Satan gets the better of you, because at that moment in time you're not fully in control of your spiritual household …maybe because of neglect. Sometimes it happens within your heart. So, concerning your heart, you also need to go to the Father daily, to ask Him for help. With His spirit, He can change our heart, if only we are diligent and want to change with all our heart. If we keep going forward and don't look back, we must succeed!

Our heart can get in trouble when we're not watchful, as we just heard, if we're not on fire and diligent, and when lust raises its ugly head. People in the Church often say, "It's almost as if everything became a lot harder since I got baptized." And that's right! Most of the time I'll reply with, "God is showing you who you really are. Through His spirit He's showing you what really makes you tick. And the fact that you experience more difficulty is actually a good sign." Because this means that God is working with you. Truly, if you wouldn't experience things getting harder after being baptized, there would really be something wrong with you!

We go to Mark 12:30. We must fight the fight every day, and that fight is a spiritual one, as we all know. If we allow Satan to influence us and let a wrong attitude develop in us that leads to sin, we can actually say we've experienced a "spiritual cardiac arrest."

Mark 12:30 – You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul. That is something that we cannot do of and by ourselves. It's a lifelong struggle. But persevere because our Father is concerned about us and loves us. He helps us to get through this life full of testing and trials. We can grow to love God more and more, because through the tests and the trials we come to realize that we need Him in our innermost being in order to change our heart.

Going on in verse 30 …with all your soul. That's what we're discussing in this sermon today: "…with all our soul." That means we must learn to love God with all of our body, with every part of our body that we're discussing today: our eyes, our ears, our mouth, our mind, our heart …and our hands and feet (those we will cover shortly). Every part of our body must undergo a thorough cleansing, getting rid of the leavening.

Still verse 30 …with all your mind, God's spirit works with our mind so that we can come to love Him more than self. …and with all your strength. We must do all of this with all the strength in us. This is the first commandment.

Romans 8:28. Do we put Him first in our lives? Are we on guard and do we answer to His voice, His will? Do we have a positive attitude towards trials? Do we see them as something coming from Him, our Father, to mold and fashion us? Romans 8:28 – We know that all things work together for good for those who love God. "All things work together for good," this says. Our daughter, Caroline, and I experienced my wife Engelien having a stroke some 2½ years ago. That wasn't easy. But we said it would work for the good of all, of us, all three of us, and so it is. Later, when I talked to Ron, he said to me, "Right now you don't know why this happened, but later God will show you why this happened." When such a thing happens, it's pretty hard to think like that. But I know that God has led us in this way, to know that this has happened for the good of the three of us, and that we had to come to see the positive side of this trial for us.

And the rest of this verse reads …to those who are called according to His purpose. You have to be called, otherwise you can't think this way. God's spirit must give you the ability to think this way.

1 Peter 1:22. How is our attitudes towards others? Do we love the members of God's Church fervently, with a pure heart? And do we love our neighbors, our family and friends in the world …and random people that we meet? 1 Peter 1:22 – Seeing you have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth through the spirit. We must be obedient to the truth. In Wikipedia the word "obedience" is described as "the act of following instructions." That means that you must pay full attention to the message that contains the instructions. Do we? Do we focus fully on God's instructions in God's word? Do we love Him in the first place and our neighbor as our self?

I'll be honest and tell you that that is my greatest battle, because it is still hard to stay on top of "self." It is in all of us to think of self first. Our own self is at the core of our heart. It "sits on the throne" so to speak, and that throne must make way for others. That's what God wants from us. That's the way our life should be. That's what we should strive for.

Verse 22 …in sincere brotherly affection, to be open and honest, to open your heart without pretending. We shouldn't put on a show of pretence …love one another from the heart fervently. That's what we must start to do in our life with God's help. We must engage in the battle against self every day, the battle in our heart. From the heart we should be forgiving. Our heart should be tender, and certainly, not hateful. Ask our Father to change your heart. Ask Him to help you get rid of all the leaven in your heart and to cleanse you thoroughly. If you ask so of Him fervently, He will certainly do so in and with you.

6. The Hands

We work with our hands. With our hands we pick up objects and move them about to use them. With our hands we write, build, plant, eat, play, and do sports. We should work with our hands. We shouldn't be lazy, but make good use of our hands.

You don't have to turn there, but in Proverbs 10:4-5 it says, he who works with a lazy hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent brings wealth. He who gathers in summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps during the harvest is a son who causes shame. God makes it clear that we must work for a living. God also says so in the 10 Commandments. In the 4th Commandment about the Sabbath it states that man is to work for six days. Lots of people are just not successful in life because of laziness.

2 Thessalonians 3:10. Paul cautioned the Thessalonians because they were not willing to work, that they were on the wrong path and that they needed to start working. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 – For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: "If anyone will not work, neither let him eat." No work done means no food. And I'm thinking of family. If you don't make sure that there's food on the table for your family, then in fact you're sinning with your hands. You allow your hands to be leavened because they are not doing what they're supposed to do. God desires from us that we take care of our family, as He does day in/day out. He takes care of feeding His people, His Church. God feeds His family with spiritual food.

Verse 11 – For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don't work at all, but are busybodies. You see? Your hands have to be unleavened, too. This means that they have to be put to use by doing the right things with them, "to work for a living," as the expression goes.

Verse 12 – Now those who are that way, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread. Paul admonishes and commands them to work, by authority of Jesus Christ, and to work at making their own living. Engelien was 21 and I was 22 years old when we got married. Yeah, I know, that's very young. But anyway, we immediately started working in the flower trade. In the beginning, when we just started out, we worked 60 to 70 hours a week and we didn't go on a vacation the first few years. We were both very driven to establish our business, and after some time our hard work rendered its fruit, and also gave us satisfaction. Because, as we just read in Proverbs, "the hand of the diligent brings wealth." And not only on a physical level, but also spiritually. Because when you have pleasure in your work, it gives you satisfaction and happiness in your life.

Personally, I've always worked with pleasure, and when you do, everything works out. And when you do have a job, you have to be honest. You shouldn't try to cut corners or take it easy at your job and receive wages that you haven't worked for. I do want to add here that I know that there are a lot of people today that are unemployed and can't find work; they are sitting at home against their will. And of course, you cannot help that. If you've tried everything and asked God to help you find a suitable job, and that job tarries, then that's just that. You can't help it. But you can still make yourself useful by helping others with your hands.

Ephesians 4:28. God said in the 7th Commandment, "Thou shalt not steal." And Paul states in Ephesians 4:28 – Let him who stole, steal no more…  If you are a thief, stop stealing. Make sure your hands are unleavened, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. We should use our hands for the good of others. We must help others where we can by sharing with each other. We give by doing work for others. And that is something God the Father wants to see in us, a giving attitude. With our hands, we can give. If we make the right use of our hands, we benefit others. We must strive not to use our hands in sinful, leavened ways, but use them in an unleavened way, without sin.

7. The Feet

The seventh and last part of our body that I want to discuss concerns the feet.

We do a lot of walking on our feet during our lifetime. The Bible says that we must use our feet to walk on the right path. Jesus admonished us to go through the narrow gate that leads into God's Kingdom, the path to repentance, and not on the way towards the broad gate, the path that leads to destruction. We have to go through the gate whose road is narrow.

God's laws should be our guide in all that we do, and the only right way of living unleavened. That's how we can achieve the goal, to enter into the gates that leads to the Kingdom. And that is a lifelong process. Jesus tells us that there are only few people that find this way, and that a lot of people (most people) go through the broad gate. So we must consider where we go, and not roam around aimlessly without vision.

Proverbs 4:25 – Take a look at the goals you have in your life right now. Do they all lead towards God's Kingdom? Christ says, "Seek the Kingdom first." Proverbs 4:25 – Let your eyes look straight ahead. Our goal is spiritual growth. Fix your gaze directly before you. Be confident and focus on our goal. Have an attitude of service towards the Church and towards your family. Have an attitude of service towards others in the world.

Verse 26 – Make level the path of your feet. Live according to God's way of life. Walk on the narrow path according to God's commandments and statutes …and let all your ways be established. You must be resolute to certainly endure. God lives in us, and His way of life must be engrained in our memory.

Verse 27 – Don't turn to the right hand, nor to the left. Don't deviate to the left or the right. We must hold on to the truth that we received and move straight ahead. Remove your feet from evil, from what's leavened. We must walk in the unleavened way. That's what we must do. We understand that that is spiritual, but you can also fall into the physical pitfalls of the world. Don't walk towards the things that will make you sin. Run away from them. I'm thinking of wrong literature and magazines that you bump into all over the place that are shamelessly displayed in shops and gas stations, etc. Walk away from that. It is certainly the broad way and not the narrow. Of course, there are many other things that you need to flee from. I'm thinking of wrong friends that can tear you away from God's Church, who can make you do things that you really don't want to do, things like drug use or other excesses that are inadmissible.

Proverbs 6, a few chapters ahead, in verse 16 God tells us that there are seven things that He hates, that He abhors. Proverbs 6:16 – There are six things which the LORD hates; Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him.

Verse 17 – Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, something we looked at earlier today, the eyes, the mouth and the hands that murder that shed innocent blood.

Verse 18 – A heart that devises wicked plans. We've looked at the heart, too. These are all parts of our body that are an abomination to God if we use them wrongly …feet that are swift in running to evil. Speaking of our feet that run towards the wrong spiritual things, towards evil, towards leavened things. Also, physically, as we just covered.

Verse 19 – A false witness who speaks lies, lies that come from the heart (from our mind) and from the human spirit and that come out of our mouth …and one who sows discord among brethren. With our mouth, we can cause strife and discord in the Church. With our mouth, we can spread false doctrine.

As we covered, there are many things we need to examine that make us unleavened. And that is what these seven days that we are observing right now picture. The Feast of Unleavened Bread symbolizes "coming out of Egypt." The world is ignorant. The world cannot see what we see. We must examine ourselves during these days, and that should render positive results. Because when we examine ourselves, we can change positively, and qualify to enter into God's Family, to be born again and to be with the Father and our Elder Brother forever.

We must pray to God and ask, "Help us Father. Let Your spirit make us less and less leavened. Please make us use our whole body the way You desire. Help us and forgive us for the things we do wrong. Make us unleavened so that we can be pleasing to you and so we don't deny the sacrifice of Your Son. We want to repent and change, because for that cause Your Son died. We want to inherit eternal life. It will be with trial and error, Father, and at times difficult. We've engaged into the battle with our enemy Satan the devil with You on our side. With Your help we can conquer this world, the world we live in now, and also our human nature, and become unleavened. We can become unleavened through Jesus Christ's sacrifice. He is our High Priest that took the punishment away for our sins – eternal death – by going as far as giving His blood for us, spilling it on the earth. And not only for us, but for all humanity, for those who have heard the truth, and for those who still have to hear the truth in their time also. All those will also have to choose to strive to lead an unleavened life."

Examine yourself, and face your faults. Choose to overcome them with the help of God's spirit. Search for imperfections in your life, in all those parts of your body that we reviewed today. Use God's spirit to remove those imperfections and to grow towards perfection. And when we do work to achieve this goal in our life, we can be prepared by God to enter into His Kingdom – into God's Family - to become children of God, sons of God. Awesome! Truly awesome is everything that God has in store for us if we do as He says and asks of us – to live by His Commandments and statutes.

Let’s go to 1 Corinthians 5:7 and take a look at what Paul says about becoming unleavened. 1 Corinthians 5:7 – Therefore, purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place. Those things that are still in us, "the old leaven," our sins must be removed from us because for that very cause Jesus was slaughtered as a lamb.

Verse 8 – Therefore, let us keep the Feast…Which Feast? We can read that a little further in this verse …not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. And I ask by myself, while reading these verses, how any priest or vicar (if they are honest) explains these verses.

Leviticus 23. Let's keep the Feast according to the words that Moses wrote down in Leviticus 23:6-8, and let all the different parts of our body that we discussed today function in an unleavened way. Let's be joyous and rejoice in this Feast that was made possible by the Passover sacrifice that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ provided.

So, in closing let's read Leviticus 23:6-8 – On the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. In this first day you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no servile work. But you shall offer an offering made by fire in the LORD seven days. In the seventh day is a holy convocation: you shall do no servile work.□