Sermon # 50 Leviticus Sermons

Title: The Feast of Unleavened Bread

Text: Leviticus 23;6-8

Subject: The Life of Faith

Date: Sunday Morning—December 8, 2002

Tape # X-32a

Reading: Philippians 3:1-21

Introduction:

Leviticus 23 gives us God’s instructions to Moses and to Israel about those seven annual feasts, or “holy convocations,” which he required the children of Israel to keep throughout their generations. These “holy convocations” are called “the feasts of the Lord” because they were feasts of worshipped required by the Lord, because they were feasts of worship by which men and women symbolically came to the Lord, and (primarily) because they were feasts of worship that portrayed and typified the work of the Lord in saving his people.

These were material, carnal feasts; but they pointed to that which is altogether spiritual. We no longer keep the material, carnal feasts; but all who believe God, all who are born from above, all the Israel of God keep these feasts spiritually and continually in the exercise of faith in Christ.

Sabbath Rest

The chapter begins with instructions about the keeping of the sabbath (v. 3). This, of course speaks of the blessed rest of faith in Christ. When sinners come to God by faith in Christ, they cease from their works of self-righteousness and find rest in Christ’s finished work as our all-sufficient, all-glorious Substitute (Matt. 11:28-30; Heb. 4:9-11). Christ is our Sabbath. We keep the sabbath by faith in him.

The Lord’s Passover

In verses 4 and 5 we are given instructions about the feast of the passover, which, as you know, portrayed Christ our Passover, who is sacrificed for us. The only way sinners can ever find rest in their souls, the only way we can find peace with God is by the sin-atoning blood and substitutionary death of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God.

Come, now, to Christ. Come to God by faith in his Son, confessing your sin, trusting Christ alone for righteousness, redemption and acceptance with God, and you shall find rest for your soul. Oh, may God grant you grace to trust his Son.

The Feast Of Unleavened Bread

In verses 6-8 the subject is the feast of unleavened bread.

(Leviticus 23:6-8) "And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD: seven days ye must eat unleavened bread. (7) In the first day ye shall have an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein. (8) But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD seven days: in the seventh day is an holy convocation: ye shall do no servile work therein.”

Notice the very close connection between the feast of unleavened bread and the feast of passover. The feast of passover was to be kept on the 14^th day of the month of Abib (the first month of the Jewish calendar). The feast of unleavened bread began the very next day, on the 15^th day of the month. There is a reason for this. The two feasts refer to two things that can never be separated—The death of Christ in the room and stead of his people and the deliverance of his people.

The feast of unleavened bread was but a continuation of the feast of passover. The passover portrayed the cause of deliverance. The feast of unleavened bread portrayed the experience and the effects of deliverance. The passover was a picture of redemption and pardon by the blood of Christ. The feast of unleavened bread portrayed the believer’s life of faith in Christ and our experience of grace in this world. The Holy Spirit makes this crystal clear in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8.

(1 Corinthians 5:7-8) "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: (8) Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

Paul’s exhortation here is often applied to the observance of the Lord’s Supper. But that is not what Paul is referring to when he says, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." We know this does not refer to the Lord’s Supper precisely because Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11 that the Lord’s Supper is not a feast. It is a remembrance of redemption and has connection with the Jews’ passover and the feast of unleavened bread, in the sense that the Lord’s Supper is the remembrance of that which those Old Testament ceremonies typified. But the connection ends there.

When Paul says, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth," he is telling us that since Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, we can now and ought to spiritually keep the feast of unleavened bread in sincerity and truth, by faith in Christ.

Five Aspects

Now, go back to Leviticus 23:6-8. Carefully notice the five specific words of instruction given about the feast of unleavened bread. These are the five aspects of this feast.

1. The feast began with a sabbath day observance.—The Rest of Faith.

2. No servile work was to be done. This cessation of work was to be maintained throughout the seven days of the feast.—No works of our own could ever bring us to God; and we must never look upon our works as in any way commending us to God now.

3. Throughout the feasts, every day a offering made by fire was to be brought to the Lord (Rom. 12:1-2).

4. The feast of unleavened bread lasted for seven days.—The number 7 represents grace, perfection, and fulness. Here it speaks particularly of the full age of a man, the whole span of our lives in this world.

5. The feast ended with another sabbath day observance.—The Rest of Heavenly Glory.

How does all of this apply to us? The Apostle Paul tells us to keep this feast. But how are we to keep this feast? Spiritually, of course. But how do we keep it spiritually?

Proposition: The feast of unleavened bread typified and represented the life of faith, the believer’s whole experience of grace in this world.

· It begins with the experience of deliverance from the curse of the law by the blood of Christ.

Everything in our experience of grace is based upon and arises from the sin-atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot worship God, we cannot come to God, we cannot have peace with God except upon the ground of Christ’s sacrifice as our Substitute. Once we have received the atonement by faith in Christ, we enter into the blessed sabbath of faith, cease from our own works, and find rest in Christ.

· Resting in Christ, being accepted in the Beloved, we are unleavened, without sin, before God, because “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7).

But Israel’s redemption did not stop with deliverance from Egypt. It continued until Joshua brought them into the possession of Canaan. And our redemption is more than just deliverance from the curse of the law. It is also deliverance from our vain conversation, our vain, empty, meaningless way of life (1 Pet. 1:18), as well as from our state of condemnation and death.

(Titus 2:14) "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

· We keep the feast of unleavened bread as those who stand before God as unleavened in Christ.

Being received in Christ by virtue of his blood, we feed on and apprehend the unleavened perfection that is ours in him. “As he is so are we in this world.” Yet, we are required to put away the old leaven, that we may keep the feast.

Now, let’s look at out text and see what the Lord is teaching us in this passage.

Two Sabbaths were always involved, plus the weekly sabbath. It didn't make any difference which days of the week they fell on; it was the day of the month which counted. It began on the fifteenth day, lasted seven days, then ended. This feast, like the feast of passover, looked back to Egypt, to the command God gave in Exodus 12 that the Israelites purge all leaven from their houses. To this day, orthodox Jews meticulously do this in preparation for the passover season. (In fact, this is the origin of the custom of Spring cleaning.)

I. In this life of faith, we must constantly purge out the old leaven of malice and wickedness.

Obviously, you know and I know, indeed, all who are born of God know that we cannot, so long as we live in this world, purge sin from our lives (1 John 1:8-10). Yet, it is our responsibility and our hearts’ desire to put away sin, to put off the old man, to say know to ungodliness and worldly lust and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is what Paul is talking about when he says, “purge out the old leaven.”

(1 Corinthians 5:7) "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"

A. Leaven comes in many forms.

Leaven is yeast. It is a symbol of that which tends to puff us up. That is what yeast does in bread. It makes it swell. And there is something at work in us, God says, which makes us swell up, puff up.

A medical doctor once said, "The strangest thing about the human body is that when you pat a person on the back, the head swells up."

Why is that? It s because there is a principle at work in us constantly driving us to be self-sufficient. One of the earliest struggles we have with our children is in this area. Who has not had a child push away saying, “I can do it myself”?

We don't want any help. We don't even like to tell people our problems, to let them know that we are not sufficient in ourselves. We all have this tendency within us to want to protect our images and to look as if we've got it made and don't need help. And if someone makes us mad by offering aid we tell them so: "Get lost!" "Drop dead!" "I don't need you!" That is leaven. It comes in many forms.

1. The Leaven of the Pharisees

Our Savior often spoke of leaven. He said, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy" (Luke 12:1).

2. The Leaven of the Sadducees

The Master warned us to beware of the leaven of the Sadducees, which was rationalism and self-sufficiency, the denial of the supernatural, the proud assumption that everything can be explained in terms of what you can see, taste, touch, smell, and feel, that there is no power beyond man and that man is sufficient to himself, the proud assumption that we do not need God, do not need grace, and do not need a Savior (Matt 16:5-12).

3. The Leaven of the Herodians

Our Lord spoke of the leaven of the Herodians (Mark 8:14-21), who were materialists. They lived for pleasure, for comfort and luxury, and for status and prestige. The Herodians lived to be seen, recognized, and applauded by men.

4. The Leaven of Malice

Paul tells us to keep the feast without the leaven of malice, that is without that natural, sinful, proud self-love that makes other people contemptible and disposable to us.

5. The Leaven of Wickedness

The leaven of wickedness refers specifically to those sensual lusts of our hearts that are reflected in sexual immorality.

B. If we would worship and serve God our Savior, we must put away the old leaven of malice and wickedness, materialism, self-sufficiency and hypocrisy.—In other words, we must cease to live for ourselves, after the lusts of our flesh!

Perhaps you are thinking, “How can anyone be expected to do that? It makes for good, pious sounding religious talk; but surely no one is really expected to live like that.” Not so! Indeed, this is not only what is expected, it is normal, everyday Christianity.

II. You see, the keeping of the feast of unleavened bread involved a daily offering of fire unto the Lord for seven days.—“Ye shall do no servile work therein. But ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord seven days” (vv. 7-8).—The life of faith, true Christianity is a continual offering made by fire unto the Lord.

A. To trust Christ is to cease from all servile work for acceptance with God.

B. Faith in Christ is the giving up of my life to him, the surrender of lordship over myself to Christ as my Lord.

(Mark 8:34-35) "And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. (35) For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."

(Luke 14:26-27) "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (27) And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple."

(Luke 14:33) "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."

C. This voluntary, continual, lifelong surrender of my life to the Lord Jesus Christ is the most reasonable thing in the world to the believing heart.

Illustration: “My daddy died for me.”

(Romans 11:33-36) "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (34) For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? (35) Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? (36) For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen."

(Romans 12:1-3) "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (2) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (3) For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”

(1 Corinthians 6:9-11) "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, (10) Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. (11) And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God."

(1 Corinthians 6:19-20) "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (20) For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."

III. Living in this world by faith, this life of faith in Christ is portrayed as a continual eating of unleavened bread, a continual feast of unleavened bread.

I must confess that this is the part of our text that kept giving me trouble. Believing on Christ is feeding upon him as the Bread of Life, that manna which came down from heaven. Certainly, the text can be properly applied to that; but it is not so applied in the Scriptures. It may be properly applied to the Lord’s Supper. But, again, that is not how it is used in the Scriptures.

I got some help on this in Deuteronomy 16. There the term used for unleavened bread is very enlightening.

(Deuteronomy 16:1-3) "Observe the month of Abib, and keep the passover unto the LORD thy God: for in the month of Abib the LORD thy God brought thee forth out of Egypt by night. (2) Thou shalt therefore sacrifice the passover unto the LORD thy God, of the flock and the herd, in the place which the LORD shall choose to place his name there. (3) Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days shalt thou eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction: for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life."

Did you catch it? The unleavened bread is here called “the bread of affliction.” Why?

· Because it is thick and heavy.

· Because it is hard to digest.

· Because it is unsavory, unappealing.

Certainly all those things are true. But there is more to this than the physical characteristics of unleavened bread. It is here called “the bread of affliction,” because it represents the same thing as was represented in the bitter herbs with which the passover lamb was to be eaten.

The believer’s life, the life of faith, so long as we live in this world is eating “the bread of affliction.” This does not refer to outward, providential affliction, but to inward grace, the affliction of our souls. That’s it. That is what it is to keep the feast of unleavened bread. It is continually eating “the bread of affliction.”

Yes, we rejoice in Christ. We are to live in this world in the joy of faith. This is not the bread of doubt and despair, but “the bread of affliction.” It is bread we delight to eat, but it is heavy and hard to digest. It is the very bread of life to our souls; but it is still “the bread of affliction.” We eat “the bread of affliction” when we…

A. Cease from all legal works and legal hopes before God.

B. Under the weight of Holy Ghost conviction confess our sin with mournful hearts.—“Blessed are they that mourn.”—“To this man will I look, even to him that is of a poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my Word.”—“Blessed are the poor.”—There is more to this than the remembrance of our sins, more than looking to the hole of the pit from whence we were digged.

C. To eat “the bread of affliction,” this keeping of the feast of unleavened bread involves the unceasing, growing, bitter-sweet remembrance of the price of our ransom.—It begins in conversion, but continues throughout our days in this world.

(Zechariah 12:10) "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn."

(Philippians 3:10) "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death."

Nothing is so humbling as this. Nothing produces contrition before God like this. Nothing produces consecration of heart like this. Nothing produces sincerity and reflects truth like this.

(Galatians 6:14) "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

IV. Soon we will eat the bread of affliction no more, and there shall be another sabbath!

(Revelation 21:4-5) "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. (5) And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful."

AMEN.