THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #91 | THE LIFE OF MOSES #73
Pastor Christopher Choo
Lesson 3775
THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #91
THE LIFE OF MOSES #73
THE FIRST PASSOVER #5
PASSOVER, UNLEAVENED BREAD AND FIRSTFRUITS #2
PASSOVER AS A TYPE OF SANCTIFICATION
Passover ( Pesach ) has 3 feasts in one:
Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and the Day of First Fruits.
These three festivals speak of three stages of salvation: justification, sanctification and glorification.
Yeshua has already fulfilled all three. Now it's our turn!
PASSOVER AS OUR SANCTIFICATION
Chag HaMatztot, the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread which begins on Erev Passover,
is a week of sanctification, being especially set apart for God, to be holy as He is holy.
It is a time for putting away leaven or hametz and keeping it out of lives.
What does hametz
symbolize? Sin or pride, because it puffs up our bread and cake.
In 1 Cor 5:7, Paul says: "Get rid of the old yeast (hametz) that you may be a new batch without hametz--
as you really are. For Messiah, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.
Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old hametz, the hametz of malice and wickedness, but with bread without hametz, the matzah of sincerity and truth."
If hametz is sin, then what does matzah ( unleavened bread )
symbolize? Purity: a sanctified life.
On the day before Passover, many Jewish families search for any remaining hametz
in their house.
They search by candle light, looking carefully for one piece at a time.
What does this careful search for hametz teach us?
1. Sanctification begins with acts of true repentance
Ps 139: 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
2. Sanctification is something that God does in us, when we yield to His Spirit.
So in Philippians 2:12, the apostle urges us to "continue to work out your salvation
with fear and trembling,
for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose."
God in Messiah is working to bring about sanctification, for we cannot make ourselves holy.
Nevertheless, I must cooperate, by continuing to work out my salvation.
3. Sanctification is to adopt an attitude of submission - a healthy not forced "fear of the Lord."
For the starting point for getting my will in gear is what the Bible calls "the fear of the Lord."
Proverbs 16:6, declares, "By the fear of the Lord men depart from evil."
Sin has consequences, and every one of us will give an account of all our deeds to God.
Imagine yourself before the throne of God, having to give an account for every thing you did,
every idle word you spoke...
Thanks be to God, Proverbs 16:6 also says "through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for."
Whose love? Yeshua's! His love covers a multitude of sins!
"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow."
As Hebrews 10:13 says, "by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy."
Nevertheless, I must continue to work out my salvation with fear and trembling.
The Holy Spirit recently showed a believer how he was walking toward a precipice.
He was stumbling around, taking one step forward, two steps back.
If he didn't watch out, like an ox he could fall ponderously over the edge.
Or he could turn around and walk away from that precipice, in freedom, forever.
The Holy Spirit was warning him against complacency about sin and sinful habits of thinking.
Thanks be to God, we have been experiencing victory over the besetting sin of anger and
resentment, actually with good fruit in our relationship especially towards our aging parents.
The Holy Spirit teaches us that when our loved ones say something that gets under our skin,
we can turn the other cheek. We don't have to react in kind, we can respond in love.
But there's still a simmering resentment within us that boils over a bit when things don't go our way.
This won't do, the Holy Spirit is saying to our souls. This won't do any longer!
The Holy Spirit wants to bless all of us, much more!
A new thing, new life, new souls for the Kingdom!
Yet He holds back many wonderful blessings so long as we indulge our flesh.
Indeed "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
Let us pray.
O Lord, give me more of the fear of the Lord! How I yearn to be completely free of all that old bad habits that cling to me,
so that the freshness of the Holy Spirit and Your promises in Your Word would flow through me!
That's why Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:21-23, "Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Avoid every kind of evil. May God Himself, the God of peace,
sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body
be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Messiah Yeshua."
Do you want to kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Messiah Yeshua?
Does Chag HaMatzot ( Feast of Unleavened Bread ) speak of sanctification to you?
