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This is a direct transcript of a teaching that was presented via video. Due to the fact that we often speak differently than we write, the written text may not flow and/or sound strange in some places. There may also be grammatical errors and unintended mistakes. It is encouraged that you to watch the video to complement this written transcript.
HalleluYah! Blessed be the name of Yahweh. And Shabbat Shalom to those of you just joining us. Glad you are with us. And we praise Yahweh for a new day, as always, for the gift of life, and for a new Sabbath that we might rest and enjoy learning about our Savior Yahushua Ha Mashiach and the awesome loving Father, Yahweh our King. HalleluYah!
And we are ready to begin our third segment on the topic of Passover. If you have missed the first two, you have missed quite a lot. We will cover a little bit of overlap from previous lessons, but make sure you do watch parts one and two. If you have not already, you might not fully understand all the points being brought up in today’s message.
So please do watch parts one and two. And that would be important for you.
So, anyway, today’s study topic is: Passover. And this is, again, the third segment.
The Passover topic is an amazing, amazing topic. It is just an amazing feast, an amazing time of year, and it is important that we try to learn everything we can from this topic and what Yahweh has to teach us. And so, we are going to go into more scripture here on the topic of the Passover.
Now there are a lot of interesting ways of applying and bringing Yahushua the Messiah into the Passover service that is mentioned in Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23, and other places.
And there are some who would take the modern Jewish Seder or Jewish Passover Service with the afikoman and different elements of that and try to see how Yahushua would fit into that.
There are some pretty neat things that can happen that way, but it seems to me, at least to my liking, I like to stay as close to Scripture as I can without adding extra stuff to Passover services that are not really found in the Scriptures specifically.
And so, I have developed, years ago, a Passover service that had tried to follow just the Scripture as close as we possibly can. I am not claiming perfection in that. I am always open to other things that I ought to include or things I shouldn’t include in that.
But it seems to be Yahweh’s expectation that the Passover service would be done at this time with Yahushua the Messiah being an important part of that Passover service.
And so, we are going to take some time today and look at the various ways in which Yahushua is brought into the specific meal, the Seder, this order of service (the word “seder” in Hebrew means “order”), and how we can apply that in a practical sense of how we can observe this day of Pesach and Feast of Unleavened Bread.
So we are going to start here again in Exodus chapter 12 and verse 2.
Exodus 12:2 – “This month [shall be] your beginning of months; it [shall be] the first month of the year to you.
3 – “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: `On the tenth [day] of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of [his] father, a lamb for a household.
4 – `And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take [it] according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb.
So this is something that we do. The fourteenth day of Yahweh’s month is the beginning of the day of Passover, but the tenth day is when they actually would select the lamb and when they would actually go out and look for and select this Passover lamb.
And so, that is when a lot of people will go ahead and consider that to be the time that Yahushua was either anointed with oil or the time He entered Jerusalem, depending on your understanding.
But my personal understanding would be that the time when the woman anointed His feet with the very expensive oil, that was the time. It was sort of like an anointing for a burial of some kind.
This is the One who was going to be the Passover for us, and Yahushua alluded to that when He said, “Whenever this good news is preached, what this woman did, will be a part of it.” But either way you look at it, the fourteenth day of Yahweh’s month is the actual Passover day.
And so, if you are looking on the regular calendar (the Roman calendar), this fourteenth day, as we have been sharing here the last couple of weeks, is going to begin here on the very next Sabbath coming up, which is called April the 4th.
And it is that night of April the 4th that I am planning on marking the time when we should partake of Yahushua the Messiah. He died about the ninth hour (three or four o’clock in the afternoon) next Sabbath. But we are going to regard Him to be our Passover Lamb. And so, we partake of Him that night.
And then these are the dates:
4/4 – Passover
4/5 – Feast of Unleavened Bread (holy day)
4/6 – Feast of Unleavened Bread (2)
4/7 – Feast of Unleavened Bread (3)
4/8 – Feast of Unleavened Bread (4)
4/9 – Feast of Unleavened Bread (5)
4/10 – Feast of Unleavened Bread (6)
4/11 – Feast of Unleavened Bread (holy day)
Feast of Unleavened Bread begins on the 5th. And that starts at sundown on the 4th and goes through this whole week in which we should have no leavening in our homes during this week. So that is the instruction in the Word.
Now I do have, as Brother Neil mentioned earlier, these calendars that you can hang on the wall. They should have the hole punched up here for you to do that. If they don’t– I guess there were a few that were missed– you can go ahead and take a hole punch and punch them.
But this is the calendar you can hang on your wall and actually follow along on Yahweh’s calendar. And you can request this. There is a link there at the top of the video screen. Just above the video screen, a couple of lines up, you will see a place where you can request one of these calendars.
And so, these calendars are designed to help you remember Yahweh’s dates. And you will see here in these calendars you have the Roman date there. And, of course, today, we are on this day right here (3/28 or commonly called March 28th). This is the 7th day of Yahweh’s first month.
And you will notice it said on the 7th day of Yahweh’s first month this marks the anniversary of when the Word of Yahweh came to Ezekiel (in Ezekiel 30:20) and the anniversary of this future cleansing (in Ezekiel 45:18-20). And so, biblical events are marked on this calendar, which you can download and print or you can get a printed copy of these.
But come down here to the 14th. This is the day in which Yahushua died for our sins. And then that night is when we are going to partake of Yahushua the Messiah, our Passover Lamb. HalleluYah!
And here is the link for you to print out the calendar: http://EliYah.com/printedcalendar.html. Or you can get printed, spiral bound copies. We will send them to you for free or for a donation. You can also request them through the mail at: EliYah.com, PO Box 1255, Ava, MO 65608.
So I want to take a moment here and look at the various ways that Yahushua our Passover fits into the Passover service and the experience the children of Israel had as they exited the land of Egypt and how we can apply this to our Passover service.
Now we have already gone over a lot of these. So, here are some principles that we can abide by:
First of all, we understand that we are Israel (Eph. 2, Romans 11, Gal.3).
We understand that we, also, were in bondage to Satan as they were in bondage to Pharaoh.
Yahweh demonstrated His superiority over the idols of this world to us, and to them, the idols of Egypt.
They were offered grace and deliverance. We also are offered grace and deliverance as the people of Israel.
They set aside a lamb on Aviv 10. Our Lamb, Yahushua Messiah, was also set aside at that time.
Their lamb was offered on Passover day. Our Lamb (Messiah) was offered also on Passover day.
Messiah is “our Passover” Lamb, according to 1 Corinthians 5:7, and partaking of Him IS partaking of Passover. So if we are partaking of Yahushua the Messiah, then we are partaking of the Passover.
It says that we must “examine” ourselves before we do this service. And so, right now, these next seven days, is a time of self-examination to repent of anything you need to repent of or in any way you are failing. It is a time to renew yourself by the washing of Messiah Yahushua.
And we are also supposed to eat a regular meal before partaking of Messiah (1 Cor. 11:34). We talked about this last week. We don’t want to partake of Him while we are hungry. We don’t even want to be hungry at that time.
The bread does have to be unleavened bread, which we shared last week.
The bread represents the Word. The fruit of the vine represents the Messiah’s sacrifice. So the Word, which is kind of dry; our thirst is quenched by the fruit of the vine. Likewise, the Word of Yahweh, apart from Messiah’s blood to cleanse us from our sins, will be very dry and very difficult to continue to ingest unless we had the washing of Messiah.
So, anyway, moving along here. And we looked again at Exodus chapter 12, verse 2. And I want to take a moment and look at Exodus chapter 12 in full detail and see what we can apply to our Passover service with Yahushua being our Lamb.
In verse 5, it says:
Exodus 12:5 – `Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take [it] from the sheep or from the goats.
6 – `Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.
And, likewise, when Yahushua came before the whole assembly of Israel, they cried out with a loud voice, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Impale Him! Impale Him!” They wanted Him to be destroyed. And so, likewise, the congregation killed the Passover lamb as well in Exodus 12.
Exodus 12:7 – `And they shall take [some] of the blood and put [it] on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.
Likewise, the blood of the Lamb is placed on the doorpost of our heart, taken into our dwelling place, which is our bodies, so that we will be delivered from death.
Likewise, their dwelling places, their homes, they took the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they ate of the lamb.
Likewise, when we eat of the Lamb, we are putting the blood of the Messiah (spiritually speaking, as an object lesson) within us, within our dwelling place. Amazing!
Exodus 12:8 – `Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread [and] with bitter [herbs] they shall eat it.
Now what about us? Should we partake of the Messiah Yahushua with bitter herbs? I think so if He is our Passover. A lot of people do not do this, but He is our Passover. And so, we examine ourselves. We do these things. And what does this mean, the “bitter herbs”? What is this supposed to represent in the spiritual?
Well, first of all, the word translated “bitter” is from the Hebrew word “meror.” Technically, “meror,” but notice that there is one particular herb that is representing what “meror” is all about, “a bitter thing,” and that is the herb known as “myrrh.”
04844 meror {mer-ore’} or merowr {mer-ore’} Meaning: 1) bitter thing, bitter herb, bitterness Origin: from 04843; TWOT – 1248e; n m Usage: AV – bitter 2, bitterness 1; 3.
(1248a) (mar) bitter. (1248b) (moer) myrrh. (1248c) (morra) bitterness.
So in our efforts to get as close to the scriptures as we can, some people use parsley, and some people use horseradish, but what I can gather here, the one herb that is this same family– meaning “meror,” meaning “bitterness”– is the herb known as “myrrh.”
In fact, the word “bitter” is in the word “myrrh” (“meror,” “moer” in Hebrew). And so, in an effort to get as close to scripture as we possibly can, you can go down to your local health food store and usually they will have some myrrh available. Or you can also order some on the Internet. And that can be your bitter herb.
And you will find it is absolutely bitter. In fact, you may find you have never tasted something this bitter until you have tasted some of this stuff. Some people like the taste, but I think it is designed to kind of go along with something else. But you take a little bit of the bitter herb… and it is bitter.
And so, you get these little flakes. People can actually use them for incense, but it is myrrh. So you can, also, maybe next year, grow some in the house, or something.
But, you know, the bitterness. Remember the Egyptians. They made the children of Israel serve with rigor.
Exodus 1:13 – So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor.
14 – And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage — in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve [was] with rigor.
And so, we are remembering the bitterness and the ugliness of our former life when we were in Egypt, when we were in the world. We remember that, and we partake of the Messiah Yahushua with that in our memory (in our memory banks).
And so, this feeling inside, “Okay, I was in the world. I did all these ugly things. And look what Yahushua did for me. Wow! He cleansed me. He made me whole.”
And so, we are going to add this to our “Principles for Passover Service.” We are going to partake of it with the bitter herbs or the myrrh.
And it says that it is supposed to be “roasted in fire.” This lamb is supposed to be roasted in fire.
Exodus 12:9 – `Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire — its head with its legs and its entrails.
We know that Yahushua went through a fiery trial, right? He was brought through this fire, and He was “roasted” by the scribes and Pharisees, right? He went through it. He was brought through this fire and He came out one-hundred percent pure. There was not a single impurity found in Him at all.
And so, we still have the same pattern being observed.
Exodus 12:10 – `You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.
Well, we know the Messiah did not remain on the tree all night. He was taken down from the tree before sundown.
Exodus 12:11 – `And thus you shall eat it: [with] a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It [is] YAHWEH’S Passover.
So we eat it quickly, with a belt on our waist, sandals on our feet, and a staff in our hand.
So we are going to add this: Eat it in haste (quickly). Let none remain until morning.
And we are also going to eat it with a belt on our waist, sandals on our feet, and staff in our hand.
How do you do that? Well, the lamb itself is the Passover. We partake of Him. We partake of Him in haste signifying the quickness with which we want to leave the world and embrace this Lamb that we have eaten that has been sacrificed for us. And so, when we partake of Him, we are partaking of Passover. Eat it in haste. Eat quickly.
And so, actually, when I am partaking of the unleavened bread, representing the body of Messiah, and the fruit of the vine, representing the blood, I actually eat very quickly and I drink very quickly– not in a greedy sense, but in reference to the quickness with which I want to embrace the Messiah and exit Egypt.
We quickly want to turn our hearts to Him and have Him a part of us. We quickly want Him to forgive us of our sins, and we quickly want Him to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so, quickly we want to leave Egypt, so we partake of Him in haste.
And it also says we do so with a belt on our waist, sandals on our feet, and staff in our hand.
What is that?
Well, we go out in the woods. We actually get a staff. We have it in our hands. And I went to the store a number of years ago and bought myself some sandals. I don’t normally wear sandals, but that night I did.
And I get a belt, which I do not even normally wear a belt, but I have one– an old one. And I wear a belt around my waist, and I am ready! I am ready to leave the world, ready to leave Egypt, go to the promised land. And I don’t even want to look back.
And so, we eat in haste, with this belt on our waist, sandals on our feet, staff in our hand. We are ready to go.
And so, part of this object lesson we are displaying and we are participating in is basically that we want to leave the world quickly and we want to partake of the Messiah quickly. And so, this is what He told them to do. And this is a memorial of what they did and also what we have been through. And that completes the picture.
For instance, our baptism is an object lesson of what is happening inside of us– the old man’s death and Yahushua living in us. And so, in the same way, this belt on our waist, sandals on our feet, staff in the hand is what is happening inside– a reasoning and a resolve within our hearts to part from Egypt.
Have nothing to do with it. Have the Word of Yahweh before us, the world and all its yuck behind us, and all the Egyptians ways behind us. And just as we go down into the baptismal waters, the old man is dead, the new man rises up. And we are ready. We are ready to go. We are now a new man.
These are all object lessons for us, for our children, to show them that we don’t want anything to do with the ways of Egypt. We don’t want to be adulterers and adulteresses– right? We don’t want to be that.
James 4:4 – Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with Elohim? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of Elohim.
We have made this place of Exodus in our life. We don’t want anything to do with worldly, sinful things. And so, we are not in friendship with the worldly things. Otherwise, we find ourselves in enmity with Yahweh. And we don’t want to be His enemy. Right?
So we have made this point of separation. Not only are we embracing the Messiah, we are also rejecting the world, which is behind us. We are doing both at the same time.
And there has to be this point in our life where we have said, “That is it. No more of that. Now we are going to follow Messiah. Now we are going to embrace Him. We are ready. We are ready wherever the Lamb wants to lead us.” And that is what this is all representing.
And so, we enter that Red Sea, those baptismal waters to begin that journey. We are following the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. And we are on this journey. Yahweh is instructing us in the Torah along the way, writing the Torah in our hearts. And this man named Yahushua ultimately is going to take us across the Jordan.
As Yahushua says:
Luke 12:35 – “Let your waist be girded and [your] lamps burning;
36 – “and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately.
So let your waist be girded and your lamps burning. The Light of Yahweh’s Word is going to be that pillar of fire that is going to lead you through the darkness.
And so, you yourselves be like men who wait.
We are ready. We have the waist girded. Put the belt around your waist. Have your lamps burning. He is saying, “Be ready! Be ready!” And so, almost like this Passover type illustration here, that when Messiah returns we are not among those who are destroyed.
And so, He is going to decide when He returns who will be killed, who will be with Him, who are His, who are not His. Some will be taken or destroyed. Others will be left. And, of course, those of us who are Messiah’s, we will not be destroyed. But there are some among the unbelievers who will be allowed to remain. And it is interesting.
Who is He going to destroy among the wicked? Will it be maybe the firstborn when He returns, you know, because some are left over who came up against Jerusalem according to Zechariah 14 and those are the ones we are reigning over? Maybe the ones who are the firstborn of each family will be the ones He destroys and the remainder He will allow to live.
I don’t know for sure. It is just a thought. But either way, we let our waist be girded and our lamps burning.
As 1 Peter 1:13 says:
1Peter 1:13 – Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest [your] hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Yahushua Messiah;
14 – as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, [as] in your ignorance;
15 – but as He who called you [is] holy, you also be holy in all [your] conduct,
1Peter 1:16 – because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
So in a spiritual sense, here, especially at Passover, we gird up the belt around our waist. And you do so with your mind as well. It is a representation of what is happening in our minds– that we are ready, we are resting our hope completely on the grace of Messiah and we are refusing the former lusts that were in Egypt.
Just as He has called us to be holy, as He is holy, we should be so in our conduct. And so, the sandals are on our feet and our waists are girded.
Ephesians 6:14 – Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 – and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
This is how we are going to conduct ourselves as believers. And so, we have the sandals on our feet representing we are ready to go share the good news of peace to the whole world and we are ready to depart Egypt and establish this Kingdom that Yahweh wants to set up within us. And with our waist we have truth girded.
And so, this good news is with us. It is going to be proclaimed in the way of truth. And it is a beautiful thing.
Isaiah 52:7 – How beautiful upon the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who proclaims peace, Who brings glad tidings of good [things], Who proclaims salvation, Who says to Zion, “Your Elohim reigns!”
It is the Passover Lamb that enabled us to have salvation. And so, this is all interconnected. And our waist is belted, our sandals are on our feet, and then we have the staff in our hand. What about that?
Matthew 10:38 – “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
This word translated “cross,” the actual meaning is “stake.” You look it up in a Strong’s Lexicon: 4716. stauros stow-ros’ from the base of 2476; Means: a stake or post (as set upright). That is what it means.
So just as ancient Israel was taking their staff and they were making their trek toward the promised land, Yahushua says, “Take up your staff, your stake,” and follow Messiah wherever He leads us. And wherever the cloud may take us, where the Spirit leads us, we need to go. And if we do not do that, He says we are not worthy of Him.
Matthew 16:24 – Then Yahushua said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
25 – “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
26 – “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
Mark 6:7 – And He called the twelve to [Himself], and began to send them out two [by] two, and gave them power over unclean spirits.
8 – He commanded them to take nothing for the journey except a staff — no bag, no bread, no copper in [their] money belts —
9 – but to wear sandals, and not to put on two tunics.
So all this stuff is seen in this Passover service. We are being sent out as presenters and messengers of the good news. We have good news to share. And so, we are on this journey through the wilderness with this land that’s not our own.
As we walk through this wilderness, we are proclaiming the good news of Messiah, and we are manifesting the hope that is within us– Messiah Yahushua our Master. And so, we are on this journey. Just as they were on that journey to cross the Jordan, we also are on this journey.
It is Messiah Yahushua who made it possible, and Passover is representing the beginning of that journey. We are marking this time, this day in which we said, “We are going to follow Yahushua. Today is the day of salvation and we are going to follow Him and we are going to receive Him within us.”
Getting back to Exodus 12…
Exodus 12:12 – `For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I [am] YAHWEH.
Or “elohim” of Egypt.
Exodus 12:13 – `Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you [are]. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy [you] when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 – `So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to YAHWEH throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.
And so, this is our journey. This is our promised land journey.
This night is the memorial– this “memorial supper”– that we partake of Messiah Yahushua. He said:
Luke 22:19 – And He took bread, gave thanks and broke [it], and gave [it] to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
Do this, as a memorial, in remembrance of Him. It is all interconnected.
So when we are partaking of the Messiah Yahushua, there are some things He did that we want to emulate.
It says He gave thanks, and it says He broke the bread. And so, we are going to add these to our list here.
We already have: Eat it with belt on our waist, sandals on our feet, and staff in hand.
We are going to give thanks for the bread. That bread is Yahushua the Messiah. We are going to give thanks for Him.
We are not going to slice it ahead of time. We are going to break it after the prayer, and then distribute it to each one that is at the table.
“So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to Yahweh throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.”
He says:
Exodus 12:15 – `Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.
After we have partaken of the body and blood of the Messiah, we are cleansed. We are cleansed of all sin. And so, we are now unleavened.
And so, now we put into our bodies only unleavened bread, not leavened bread. Because leaven represents sin.
And so, He says, “On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”
Serious words. So we make sure our leavening is all out of the house on this first day of Unleavened Bread, which is, again, going to correspond to, when next Sabbath comes, that night will begin the 15th of Aviv.
And so, we probably want to do all this ahead of time. So before next Sabbath, have all the leavening out.
And then…
Exodus 12:16 – `On the first day [there shall be] a holy convocation, and on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No manner of work shall be done on them; but [that] which everyone must eat — that only may be prepared by you.
So a week from today starting after next Sabbath is the beginning of this first day of Unleavened Bread, and you are allowed to cook, because He says, “No manner of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat– that only may be prepared by you.” So that is an exception made for meals. It is a feast day.
Exodus 12:17 – `So you shall observe [the Feast of] Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance.
So no work on the first day of Unleavened Bread. So we are going to add this: Cease from work on the 1st and the 7th days of the feast. These are things that we have to do as part of our observance.
And then, notice it says:
Exodus 12:18 – `In the first [month], on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
Which is kind of interesting wording here. And when is this? Because some suggest that we actually should have the first day of Unleavened Bread start on the same day as the day of Passover because “on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread.” And that is how they look at it.
But then I want you to look at another verse. But first, let me add this: Eat no leavened bread during the seven days of the feast. That is what it says.
So when is the actual seven days where no leaven should be eaten? Because here we are saying eat unleavened bread when? On the fourteenth day of the month at evening, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
And for this reason, there are some who believe that the day of Passover and the first day of Unleavened Bread are actually on the same day. But if you read Leviticus chapter 23, verses 5 through 8, it sounds differently. It says:
Leviticus 23:5 – `On the fourteenth [day] of the first month at twilight [is] YAHWEH’S Passover.
6 – `And on the fifteenth day of the same month [is] the Feast of Unleavened Bread to YAHWEH; seven days you must eat unleavened bread.
It doesn’t sound like there is a combination happening here.
Leviticus 23:7 – `On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it.
8 – `But you shall offer an offering made by fire to YAHWEH for seven days. The seventh day [shall be] a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work [on it].'”
And so, this sounds a little bit different than what we were reading before where it is saying on the fourteenth day at evening you shall eat unleavened bread. So what is going on here? Because when Yahweh says “the fourteenth day of the month at evening,” what He is actually referring to is the fifteenth day of the month.
Again, when He says “on the fourteenth day of the month at evening,” what He is actually saying is when the fifteenth day of the month begins, eat only unleavened bread.
Now my proof text for this is in the following verse: Leviticus 23:27-32 – “Also the tenth day of this seventh month shall be the Day of Atonement… and you shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate you Sabbath.”
We know that according to Leviticus 23:27, “The tenth day of the seventh month shall be to you the Day of Atonement.” The Day of Atonement is on the tenth day. No question.
But if you scroll on down to verse 32, it says, “And you shall afflict your souls; on the ninth day of the month at evening, from evening to evening, you shall celebrate your Sabbath.”
So identical verbiage here used in both cases. And so, even though the tenth day of the month is when the Day of Atonement actually is, He says “on the ninth day of the month at evening,” that is when you start to afflict your souls. So what is He saying here?
The simple answer is Yahweh is trying to get the children of Israel to recognize when He begins His days. He says “from evening to evening” is when He reckons His days.
And so, they are sitting there in their home, on the ninth day of the month, and then evening comes. That is when the tenth day of the month actually begins. So don’t sit down and eat supper at that time because that is when the Day of Atonement would have begun.
Because normally after their day is over they go in and they eat, and He wants to make sure they don’t go in and eat that night because that is when they are supposed to afflict their souls.
Likewise, we have an eating kind-of-a-thing happening here in Exodus chapter 12. On the fourteenth day of the month at evening, don’t sit down and eat some leavened bread, because the fifteenth day of the month has already begun.
And so, similar verbiage is used in both locations, and one is describing the very beginning of the tenth day of the month (Lev. 23:32), therefore this (Exo. 12:18) is beginning the fifteenth day of the first month.
And so, when He says “on the fourteenth day of the month at evening,” what He is really saying is that is the beginning of the fifteenth day of His month.
Likewise, when He says “the ninth day of the month at evening,” here in Leviticus 23, He is really saying, once again, the tenth day of the month. Similar thing.
“Until the twenty-first day of the month at evening”– if you were to look on a calendar, that would be the very end of the following Sabbath. So that is how it works.
So looking at the calendar here, the 14th day of the month at evening until the 21st day of the month at evening– during this time period right here– this is when we are going to partake of only unleavened bread.
And looking at the Roman calendar, once more, from the time the sun goes down here on the 4th (of ‘April’) until the time the sun goes down here on the 11th, during this time period, we are not to eat any leavened bread.
In fact, He says:
Exodus 12:18 – `In the first [month], on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty-first day of the month at evening.
19 – `For seven days no leaven shall be found in your houses, since whoever eats what is leavened, that same person shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether [he is] a stranger or a native of the land.
20 – `You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwellings you shall eat unleavened bread.'”
Even if you are a Gentile. That’s right.
So do not even have it in your house. Don’t even have it there. It is part of our property. And, in fact, don’t even have it on our property as we are going to see later. So we have to get rid of it.
So as part of our principles for our Passover service, make sure there is no leavening found in your dwelling places and your whole property.
Now in ancient Israel, it was a lot simpler than what we have today. I mean, they did not have all this boxed food that they bought at the local Wal-Mart with the ingredient labels and the ingredient lists and everything being premade for you. They had to make their own food from scratch. That is just how it was.
In fact, that is how it was for the last 6000 years of man being on the earth until the last 50… 60… I don’t know how many years, that has all changed. And so, it was easier for them to get rid of the leavening than it is for us.
And it is a little disturbing, actually, that we are increasingly relying upon the world and its food, whatever happens to be on the shelves at Wal-Mart. Really, we are trusting in Yahweh, but, you know, in a practical sense, we are hoping there is food on the shelf at Wal-Mart. Otherwise, we are all going to starve unless we are farmers.
Now what exactly is leavening? He says: Exodus 12:15 – “Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven <7603> from your houses. For whoever eats leavened <02557> bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.”
This word, 7603– what is that? 07603, in the Hebrew, is from the Hebrew word “se’or” {seh-ore’} and it simply means: 1) leaven. Origin: from 07604; TWOT – 2229a; n m Usage: AV – leaven 5; 5.
It is from 07604 “sha’ar” {shaw-ar’}, which means: 1) to remain, be left over, be left behind 1a) (Qal) to remain 1b) (Niphal) 1b1) to be left over, be left alive, survive 1b1a) remainder, remnant (participle) 1b2) to be left behind 1c) (Hiphil) 1c1) to leave over, spare 1c2) to leave or keep over 1c3) to have left 1c4) to leave (as a gift).
Origin: a primitive root; TWOT – 2307,2308; v Usage: AV – leave 75, remain 46, remnant 4, let 3, rest 2, misc. 3; 133.
What is left over is basically what it is talking about. And so, this Hebrew word “sha’ar” has to do with this remainder– the leftovers. So you get rid of your leftovers on this day. No, what is He actually talking about?
Well, if you look at the second word used here (“For whoever eats leavened <02557> bread…”), this is 2557. We are going to look at that now, which is the Hebrew word “chametz” {khaw-mates’}, and it refers to leaven, leavened bread, leavening.
Meaning: 1) the thing leavened, leaven Origin: from 02556; TWOT – 679a; n m Usage: AV – leaven 5, leavened bread 4, leaven 2; 11.
And we look at the root of that: 02556 – to be leavened or to be sour, to taste something leavened, to be embittered, cruel, oppress, ruthless, and so on.
Hebrew Lexicon: 02556 “chamets” {khaw-mates’} Meaning: 1) to be leavened, be sour 1a) (Qal) to be leavened 1b) (Hiphil) to taste something leavened 1c) (Hithpael) to be embittered, grieved 2) to be cruel, oppress, be ruthless 3) to be red. Origin: a primitive root; TWOT – 679,680,681; v Usage: AV – leavened 5, cruel 1, dyed 1, grieved 1; 8.
And so, this Hebrew word meaning “sour” is actually in some foreign translations. Like, for instance, I once went over these scriptures with a brother from Norway, and his translation read “sourdough.” It read “sourdough.”
And the reason why “sour” could be a possible meaning is because they would have this sourdough ball and it had all kinds of yeast and leavening inside of it. And they would take this sourdough ball and put it right next to the dough that was still not leavened yet.
And all the yeast would transfer from one to the other. And therefore, the bread would rise much faster. And so, that is kind of how they did it.
Now, for us, typically, we buy the yeast in the packages, and there we go. But, you know, that is the way they used to do it in ancient times. That is actually how they would do the bread.
Now the word “chamets” is interesting. It has interesting different meanings to it. In 2556 we find:
Psalms 71:4 – Deliver me, O my Elohim, out of the hand of the wicked, Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.
Cruel man <2556 Chamets>.
Psalms 73:21 – Thus my heart was grieved, And I was vexed in my mind.
Grieved <2556 Chamets>. Very interesting.
What is this all about? This “leavening” and “chamets” and “grief” and “sorrow” and “cruelty” and all these words? It all has to do with sin. And that is why I think there is a connection between leavening and sin.
You can see it very clearly in the Hebrew. You may not see it in the English so much, but you see it pretty clearly in the Hebrew, the connection between leavening and sin.
Now leavening itself is always in the air. Yeast is always in the air, and if you give it some nice bread to go munch on, it is going to eat that bread and the sugars in the bread. And this byproduct, what it is going to create, is a rising of the bread or the air pockets in the bread.
And the more sugars you have in the bread, the more likely it is going to rise because it feeds off the sugars.
In ancient times, they didn’t just throw this package of yeast in there. They would take this remnant– just take a little piece off that dough– and they would set it aside and they would cook the rest of the dough, But what was left over, this remnant, they would just kind of let it get sour.
You would have this big, old dough ball around, and you would use it for the next batch of bread that you would make. And if you actually do it that way, the bread actually has more of a sour kind of a taste. Even the one that it baked, it is more of a sour taste to it than what you might be used to.
And so, all they had to do to get rid of the leavening was toss out the dough ball, burn it, or whatever, and clean up around the house any breadcrumbs or anything, any leftover bread. They would get rid of all that and they were done.
But for us and our much more complicated world, it takes us a longer time. And so, the more complicated the world gets, likewise, the more difficult it can be to get rid of all the leavening and leavening agents, and so on.
And also, myself, I just don’t want to get rid of the yeast. Anything that would cause bread to rise, a yeast substitute– baking powder, baking soda, or any of these leavening agents– I want to get rid of them, too.
Now that is up to you how far you want to go with that, but if you go to http://www.eliyah.com/leaven.html, you will see the different leavening agents that are out there.
Now as far as the unleavened bread that we are going to use to represent the body of the Messiah, I do have a recipe that you can follow here: Unleavened Bread Recipe: 1 cup whole wheat flour (extra for dusting), 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup water.
Combine the ingredients, then put dough onto floured surface. Knead for five minutes, then roll out until about 1/8 inch thick. On either parchment paper or a greased cookie sheet, bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.
And this particular recipe you can also find on the website as well. If you go to http://www.eliyah.com/passoverservice.html, you will see a recipe for making this unleavened bread, and also the full Passover Service, based as close to Scripture as we can get. And you can find it there.
We want to get rid of all these leavening agents, and this is the unleavened bread that we are going to partake of at Passover.
You don’t have to make it fancy. You might be permitted to add salt because Scripture says that every offering was made with salt. And so, you might throw a pinch of salt in there if you want to as part of the recipe. But there you can find it.
If you are getting kind of confused as to trying to remember all the things you are supposed to do at Passover, follow this website page.
There is also a video on there, and you can download the video onto your computer, which I am going to have a video up there soon, maybe later today, that will be an MP4 or an MOV that you can watch on the Apple computer as well.
This Passover service, once again, is not based on tradition. I am not against tradition, but this is such an important time of the year, such a solemn occasion, such a serious matter, I don’t want to add stuff to it that is not necessary. I want to do everything exactly according to what is written– not adding to, not taking away.
The Jewish Passover, which most Messianic services do not include this part, but there is an egg there on the plate. What in the world is that doing on the Passover plate?
As to why it is there, I don’t know if they picked it up from the Easter eggs and stuff like that, or what. Maybe some Christians imposed something on them at some time and they found some way to justify it. Whatever it was, I don’t trust it. And, therefore, I don’t really trust with one-hundred percent confidence all the Jewish traditions.
I don’t know if any of those might be possibly rooted in paganism that I don’t even realize. So I just tend to avoid them for that reason.
So getting back to Exodus chapter 12. It says:
Exodus 12:21 – Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover [lamb].
What are they killing? The Passover. The lamb itself is called the Passover.
Exodus 12:22 – “And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip [it] in the blood that [is] in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that [is] in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning.
Exodus 12:23 – “For YAHWEH will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, YAHWEH will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike [you].
24 – “And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever.
25 – “It will come to pass when you come to the land which YAHWEH will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this service.
That is what we are going to keep.
Exodus 12:26 – “And it shall be, when your children say to you, `What do you mean by this service?’
27 – “that you shall say, `It [is] the Passover sacrifice of YAHWEH, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households.'” So the people bowed their heads and worshiped.
And so, we can relate our own Passover story perhaps to our children at this time– when Yahweh delivered me, He delivered you, He delivered the parents from Egypt. We were all in bondage to sin. Yahweh delivered us by the blood of the Lamb. And so, as part of our Passover service, we want to have the children ask us what this means.
And we explain it is the Passover sacrifice of Yahweh who passes over us, saves us by the blood of the Lamb, just as He struck the Egyptians but saved Israel. And so, we make that a part of our Passover service on the website page that I gave you earlier. And so, the children have the opportunity to ask the adults, “What does it mean?”
And a lot of these things are really about calling our children to remember the awesome works of Yahweh. And a lot of us will tell you, too, our children when they are older, even if they departed from the faith, they look back at the festivals as something they really enjoyed and they really kind of miss.
But these are object lessons. And if you read various scriptures, during the festivals, a lot of the times the Passover and the other feasts seem to accompany the time when the children of Israel were turning their hearts back to Yahweh again. And so, these festivals are there to keep us in the faith.
And so, there would always be this great joy that they would have along with these great festivals. And so, that is the beautiful thing about it. They are a standing memorial and a pleasant time of positivity of the goodness of Yahweh and the good things He has done for us. And these are memorials to His awesome works.
Exodus 12:28 – Then the children of Israel went away and did [so]; just as YAHWEH had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
29 – And it came to pass at midnight that YAHWEH struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who [was] in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock.
30 – So Pharaoh rose in the night, he, all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for [there was] not a house where [there was] not one dead.
Exodus 12:31 – Then he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, “Rise, go out from among my people, both you and the children of Israel. And go, serve YAHWEH as you have said.
32 – “Also take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone; and bless me also.”
33 – And the Egyptians urged the people, that they might send them out of the land in haste. For they said, “We [shall] all [be] dead.”
Exodus 12:34 – So the people took their dough before it was leavened, having their kneading bowls bound up in their clothes on their shoulders.
Actually, they used their garments in those days to carry things. In this case, they carried the kneading bowl. And actually, the Bedouins and some of the Arabs today will use their garments as pockets to carry things. Like Ruth, you might remember, carried grain in her clothes.
Exodus 12:35 – Now the children of Israel had done according to the word of Moses, and they had asked from the Egyptians articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing.
36 – And YAHWEH had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they granted them [what they requested]. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.
And, likewise, the enemies of Yahweh were plundered when Yahushua died for our sins.
Colossians 2:15 – Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
This word translated “disarmed” means “to strip” or “take away” something that belongs to somebody else. So He took away their power through what He did for us.
Exodus 12:37 – Then the children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides children.
38 – A mixed multitude went up with them also, and flocks and herds — a great deal of livestock.
Gentiles joined with Israel.
Exodus 12:39 – And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they had brought out of Egypt; for it was not leavened, because they were driven out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared provisions for themselves.
And so, there was not even enough time for them to leaven bread. They had to go. They had a staff in their hand, sandals on their feet. They are out the door! No time to waste. And that is the whole purpose of the unleavened bread, to show they did not have time to leaven their bread. They had to go. They were driven out.
And so, they were not quite ready and they just went. They thought they were just going to stay in their house until morning, but they were driven out.
And so, the mixed multitude had gone up with them. And as we have shared before, this mixed multitude is also the Gentiles joining with Israel in this new covenant.
Jeremiah 31:31 – “Behold, the days are coming, says YAHWEH, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah —
32 – “not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day [that] I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them , says YAHWEH.
See, this new covenant is with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. But a mixed multitude of Gentiles is permitted to join in with Israel.
A lot of people think the New Covenant is with this church or with the Gentiles, but really it is with Israel, and we have to join with Israel in order to be a part of that covenant. And we join with Israel through Yahushua the Messiah. These things we have spoken at length in previous segments.
Exodus 12:40 – Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt [was] four hundred and thirty years.
41 – And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years — on that very same day — it came to pass that all the armies of YAHWEH went out from the land of Egypt.
42 – It [is] a night of solemn observance to YAHWEH for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This [is] that night of YAHWEH, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations.
And since we are partakers of the New Covenant, we are children of Israel. This is a solemn observance for us throughout our generations. That is what it is for. We join in with them by the blood of the Lamb.
So this day, this time when it says here that “on that very same day, it came to pass that all the armies of Yahweh went out from the land of Egypt,” I presume that was the same day that Jacob and his family came to Egypt, not having any successful harvest of barley or anything, being a big mess with the drought.
And so, there was not enough barley in Israel, so they went.
Exodus 12:43 – And YAHWEH said to Moses and Aaron, “This [is] the ordinance of the Passover: No foreigner shall eat it.
44 – “But every man’s servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat it.
45 – “A sojourner and a hired servant shall not eat it.
Exodus 12:46 – “In one house it shall be eaten; you shall not carry any of the flesh outside the house, nor shall you break one of its bones.
47 – “All the congregation of Israel shall keep it.
And, likewise, we know Yahushua did not have His bones broken.
Exodus 12:48 – “And when a stranger dwells with you [and wants] to keep the Passover to YAHWEH, let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as a native of the land. For no uncircumcised person shall eat it.
49 – “One law shall be for the native-born and for the stranger who dwells among you.”
Exodus 12:50 – Thus all the children of Israel did; as YAHWEH commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did.
51 – And it came to pass, on that very same day, that YAHWEH brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt according to their armies.
Now what about us? A lot of people ask me this: “Do I need to be circumcised in order to partake of the body and blood of the Messiah?” We saw there in Exodus 12:48 that all the males should be circumcised.
Well, what I read in Colossians chapter 2, verse 11, it says:
Colossians 2:11 – In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Messiah,
You were also circumcised in Messiah.
Colossians 2:12 – buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with [Him] through faith in the working of Elohim, who raised Him from the dead.
So this burial with Him in baptism is the circumcision of the Messiah– this putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, that new man rising up. And so, we have this circumcision already. And so, do we need to be circumcised physically to partake of the spiritual Lamb that is Yahushua the Messiah?
Well, 1 Corinthians 7:18 says:
1Corinthians 7:18 – Was anyone called while circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Was anyone called while uncircumcised? Let him not be circumcised.
19 – Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but keeping the commandments of Elohim [is what matters].
So the point being that we have to have a circumcision of the Messiah. The Corinthian assembly, regrettably, did not have that in many cases. They did not know the commandments very well. They were not keeping the commandments properly. And so, it is no good to get circumcised physically unless you are also circumcised spiritually.
And we see this in Romans 2:25:
Romans 2:25 – For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
26 – Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision?
Yes! And so, he is saying a man being circumcised in the heart is the principle thing. And if you needed to partake of a physical lamb to eat— you take it to the priests on Passover and have the blood sprinkled on the altar– yes, I would say, you would want to be physically circumcised.
But here we are talking about partaking of the Messiah who is our spiritual Lamb. His focus was not on how circumcised one is in the flesh, but how circumcised one is in the heart.
And, likewise, that is why he says:
1Corinthians 11:27 – Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks [this] cup of the Master in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Master.
28 – But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 – For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Master’s body.
So we need the circumcision of the Messiah to partake of the Messiah. We need to have the circumcision in the heart. And we cannot even partake of baptism unless our hearts are circumcised.
And so, what I gather here, the best of what I can tell from looking at all the scriptures, do we need to be physically circumcised to partake of the physical lamb? If we have a physical lamb we are going to take to Jerusalem, then, yes, I would say so.
But if we are recognizing the Messiah being our Passover Lamb, then we do need to have the circumcision of the Messiah. And so, I think baptism seems to fit the mold.
If you have never been baptized– I am not asking how correctly you were baptized– I am saying if you never have been baptized, you know, baptism that was based on a sincere heart of wanting to follow the Father and wanting to live as Messiah did. If that was your intent when you got baptized, I would say you experienced a circumcision of the Messiah.
Maybe you were not baptized in the correct name, pronunciation, or something, but that is not the issue as much as what was the condition of your heart when you got baptized and did He cleanse you of your sin at that time. That is the circumcision of the Messiah.
Now if you were never baptized at all, you need to get baptized. If you have to travel land and sea to get baptized, get baptized!
I know one brother that traveled from Norway, another brother from Germany, and a lady from Australia came to our feast one year to get baptized in the name of Yahushua. And so, I recommend that very highly if you have never been baptized.
So examine yourself. See if you have the circumcision of the Messiah. That is the very least thing you can do– examine yourself and see whether or not you are in the faith. And so, very important words for us.
Now let’s say, for some reason, “Here we are Tom, it is only a week until Passover. I am not going to be able to get baptized. I have never been baptized, and I don’t see how I can do it.”
I am ready to baptize you. Come down here to Missouri. We have a nice cool, clean creek here just down over the hill from my house, and I will take you down there and baptize you. Just contact me and let me know. I will do it.
But then, what if you can’t, for whatever reason you can’t do it? You can wait one month and do it in a month.
Numbers 9:10 – “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: `If anyone of you or your posterity is unclean because of a corpse, or [is] far away on a journey, he may still keep YAHWEH’S Passover.
11 – `On the fourteenth day of the second month, at twilight, they may keep it. They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.
12 – `They shall leave none of it until morning, nor break one of its bones. According to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it.
Numbers 9:13 – `But the man who [is] clean and is not on a journey, and ceases to keep the Passover, that same person shall be cut off from among his people, because he did not bring the offering of YAHWEH at its appointed time; that man shall bear his sin.
14 – `And if a stranger dwells among you, and would keep YAHWEH’S Passover, he must do so according to the rite of the Passover and according to its ceremony; you shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger and the native of the land.'”
All one ordinance. And so, if for some reason you are far away from me or from somebody who can baptize you (it doesn’t have to be me– it can be anybody who is a believer in Messiah Yahushua who has been baptized), if for some reason you can’t get together now, then sometime in the next month.
Even if you have to spend your livelihood to get baptized, it is that important to get baptized. It is the first step of a believer. We must be born of water.
Yahushua says if you are not born of water, then you cannot see the Kingdom. You won’t be there. It says we must be born of water. So it is that important. And I know people who have had to travel far to do it.
But, you know, I would hope that, myself, if I had never been baptized and if I had to fast for thirty days or whatever I had to do to save up money to go somewhere and get baptized, I would do it. I mean, whatever I have to do. So, very, very important for us to get baptized.
Now in Deuteronomy chapter 16 and verse 2, it says this:
Deuteronomy 16:1 – “Observe the month of Abib, and keep the Passover to YAHWEH your Elohim, for in the month of Abib YAHWEH your Elohim brought you out of Egypt by night.
2 – “Therefore you shall sacrifice the Passover to YAHWEH your Elohim, from the flock and the herd, in the place where YAHWEH chooses to put His name.
Deuteronomy 16:3 – “You shall eat no leavened bread with it; seven days you shall eat unleavened bread with it, [that is], the bread of affliction (for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste), that you may remember the day in which you came out of the land of Egypt all the days of your life.
4 – “And no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory for seven days, nor shall [any] of the meat which you sacrifice the first day at twilight remain overnight until morning.
And so, all of our territory, all the land Yahweh has given us: Have no leavening.
Deuteronomy 16:5 – “You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which YAHWEH your Elohim gives you;
It has to be in a place He chooses.
Deuteronomy 16:6 – “but at the place where YAHWEH your Elohim chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight, at the going down of the sun, at the time you came out of Egypt.
7 – “And you shall roast and eat [it] in the place which YAHWEH your Elohim chooses, and in the morning you shall turn and go to your tents.
And so, after the Exodus 12 Passover, they would just go to the place where He put His name and there they would observe Passover. And so, that is what they did as we shared in detail last week.
Now what about us?
There might be some of us who feel, “Okay, well, I can’t partake of the body and the blood of Messiah because I am not in Jerusalem. He was offered in Jerusalem, the place where Yahweh chose, but I am supposed to eat the Passover in the place where Yahweh chose.
“And so, how can I do so, eat in the place which ‘Yahweh your Elohim chooses’? How can I do that?”
And some may feel that they are perhaps exempt unless they are in Jerusalem. But I don’t see it that way because the place where Yahweh chooses to put His name is the actual commandment. He never says, “Go to Jerusalem!” He says go where He puts His name, the place where Yahweh “chooses to make His name abide.” That is where we go.
And so, in John chapter 4 and verse 19, the woman said to Yahushua:
John 4:19 – The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.
20 – “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you [Jews] say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”
That is Mount Gerizim.
John 4:21 – Yahushua said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.
John 4:22 – “You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
23 – “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.
24 – “Elohim [is] Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
So the issue is no longer where, but how.
Now the place where He chooses to put His name I believe has been expanded.
Matthew 18:20 – “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
Revelation 14:1 – Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred [and] forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads.
So that is the place where His name abides– wherever His people are gathered. It is for that reason I don’t feel I need to go to Jerusalem or even have a Jerusalem sighting to determine when the new month begins. It is wherever we happen to be, wherever we happen to gather, is where He puts His name.
And so, when Messiah returns, yes, we will all go to Jerusalem during Passover. And so, that is fine. We will do that. But, for now, that is why we do a local sighting here. We are just going to keep it according to local sighting, which we will do a local sighting then, too.
But Acts 20, verse 6, it seems like the early disciples were not going to Jerusalem for their Passover.
Acts 20:6 – But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days.
So where were they keeping this feast? In Philippi. They had to wait for the festival to be over before they could leave, because they were keeping the festival there.
And so, I am thinking, based on what I am seeing, that they did not need to go to Jerusalem in order to celebrate Passover, but they could do it where they were because wherever two or three were gathered, Yahushua was there. He was their Lamb. No mention of going to Jerusalem. Even if they were, they were too far away.
Some may say, “Well, maybe they kept it a month later and went on ahead to Jerusalem.” Well, you know, Philippi is a thousand miles from Jerusalem. A thousand! It would take you fifty days to walk there. And so, they couldn’t have kept it in the second month.
And I don’t think you could get there any faster by boat. There is no way he could have made it even in thirty days. So if you look at the subsequent chapter, there is no mention of him going to Jerusalem. It would be like him going from New York City to St. Louis by foot. I mean, it is a long way.
So another example here is in Acts 18, verse 20:
Acts 18:20 – When they asked [him] to stay a longer time with them, he did not consent,
21 – but took leave of them, saying, “I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, Elohim willing.” And he sailed from Ephesus.
Well, why didn’t he just take them with him because they all had to go to Jerusalem to keep the feast? I guess they didn’t see a need to go to Jerusalem.
And so, from what I gather, they looked at Yahushua’s words, understood what He meant– neither at Jerusalem nor on this mountain. And so, His name was with them wherever they were. It makes perfect sense in light of what Yahushua said. And so, we can still keep Yahweh’s Passover regardless, either way.
Now some think, “Well, what if I am unclean for some reason? Can I partake of the spiritual Lamb?” If we were physically unclean, I would say don’t partake of the physical lamb. If you are not spiritually unclean, then you don’t have to worry about that part of it. So we are talking about physical versus spiritual once more.
Yahushua wants us to keep the Passover.
1Corinthians 11:23 – For I received from the Master that which I also delivered to you: that the Master Yahushua on the [same] night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 – and when He had given thanks, He broke [it] and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
25 – In the same manner [He] also [took] the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink [it], in remembrance of Me.”
It is a memorial of His death.
1Corinthians 11:26 – For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Master’s death till He comes.
27 – Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks [this] cup of the Master in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Master.
So we have to take it with a lot of seriousness and gravity.
Now, incidentally, this word translated “often” can refer to a once per year event, because when you look in the book of Hebrews, this same word “often” is referring to the high priest who goes into the temple “often.” So it can be a once per year event.
And, of course, we are going to do it the night after He died because that is when we are going to proclaim His death. The anniversary of His death would be the time after He died.
Now on the night He was betrayed, Yahushua is sharing with His disciples what to do. And so, in John 13, verse 2, it says:
John 13:2 – And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s [son], to betray Him,
3 – Yahushua, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from Elohim and was going to Elohim,
John 13:4 – rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.
5 – After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe [them] with the towel with which He was girded.
John 13:6 – Then He came to Simon Peter. And [Peter] said to Him, “Master, are You washing my feet?”
7 – Yahushua answered and said to him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this.”
8 – Peter said to Him, “You shall never wash my feet!” Yahushua answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.”
Very serious words here.
John 13:9 – Simon Peter said to Him, “Master, not my feet only, but also [my] hands and [my] head!”
10 – Yahushua said to him, “He who is bathed needs only to wash [his] feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”
Talking about Judas.
John 13:11 – For He knew who would betray Him; therefore He said, “You are not all clean.”
Imagine that! He was washing the feet of the one who was going to betray Him.
John 13:12 – So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?
13 – “You call me Teacher and Master, and you say well, for [so] I am.
14 – “If I then, [your] Master and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.
John 13:15 – “For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.
So He gives us an example of what we should do for each other– washing one another’s feet. And the night He chose to do this was the same night He told them to partake of the bread and the fruit of the vine.
John 13:16 – “Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.
17 – “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.
John 13:18 – “I do not speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, `He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.’
19 – “Now I tell you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am [He].
20 – “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”
John 13:21 – When Yahushua had said these things, He was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.”
So He is having this conversation after having washed their feet. And as a result of this conversation, He was troubled in spirit. And He says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.”
John 13:22 – Then the disciples looked at one another, perplexed about whom He spoke.
23 – Now there was leaning on Yahushua’sbosom one of His disciples, whom Yahushua loved.
John 13:24 – Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask who it was of whom He spoke.
25 – Then, leaning back on Yahushua’sbreast, he said to Him, “Master, who is it?”
26 – Yahushua answered, “It is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped [it].” And having dipped the bread, He gave [it] to Judas Iscariot, [the son] of Simon.
So just to show this event right here took place on the same night that Yahushua was betrayed, we see the same story being told in Luke 22.
Luke 22:20 – Likewise He also [took] the cup after supper, saying, “This cup [is] the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
21 – “But behold, the hand of My betrayer [is] with Me on the table.
22 – “And truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom He is betrayed!”
Luke 22:23 – Then they began to question among themselves, which of them it was who would do this thing.
And so, in light of that, just prior to partaking of the body of Messiah, we do this. We wash each other’s feet. It is an act of humility. And whenever we wash the other person’s feet, one thing I like to do is to pray for that person.
And that helps us prepare our hearts also, this humbling act, to partake of the body and blood of the Messiah, so that when we approach this time period, we are approaching it with the necessary weight and gravity and solemnity and the importance of the time that we are doing this, and so we are not in this attitude of an unworthy manner.
And so, we partake of the bread and of the cup on the same night we wash each other’s feet.
Matthew 26:26 – And as they were eating, Yahushua took bread, blessed and broke [it], and gave [it] to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
27 – Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave [it] to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.
28 – “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Matthew 26:29 – “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
And so, to sum up what we do here at Passover:
We must “examine” ourselves before partaking of Him.
We eat a regular meal before partaking of Messiah (1 Cor. 11:34).
The bread must be unleavened bread.
The bread represents the word; the fruit of the vine represents the Messiah’s sacrifice.
We partake of it with bitter herbs/myrrh.
We eat it in haste (quickly); we let none remain.
We eat it with a belt on our waist, sandals on our feet, and staff in our hand.
We give thanks for the bread (Messiah).
We do not slice it ahead of time. We break it after the prayer, and distribute.
We cease from work on the 1st and 7th days of the feast, which is a week from tonight.
We eat no leavened bread during the seven days of the feast.
No leavening is found in our dwelling places or territories.
We give thanks for the cup, and then we drink from it.
Before all that, though, we wash each other’s feet in preparation for examining ourselves and our service to Yahweh and His people. And we do that prior to partaking of the Messiah.
And so, once again, the Passover Service: http://www.eliyah.com/passoverservice.html. You can download it or watch the video. You can print out the Passover Service page if you desire, and you can keep the service that we are describing on today’s broadcast.
And, also, we do observe this a week from tonight, on the night of 4/4/2015 (just after Sabbath). And if you want more information on that: http://www.eliyah.com/15th.html, as far as the timing of when we partake of the Messiah.
And so, if this is all new to you, or even if you want some kind of thing to lead you along, that is what this video is for. You can download the video and follow along. And I will have a video that you can watch on an iPad or an Apple computer as well here soon, possibly later today, that you can download as well.
And so, we are going to do these things with the necessary weight and remember our Savior, Yahushua the Messiah.
And so, now is the time– today, and the next seven days– to examine yourselves, to get ready to take it seriously. If you are not with Him, you are against Him. You cannot be on the sidelines.
And so, I encourage you, take a look at the Passover Service page if you want to look at how to bring this all together, and maybe watch the video ahead of time.
There is no way for me to do it live here. Because if I took a break for the foot washing, you might have fifteen people in your room, and I have a lot fewer, and so I am ready to go and you are not. Rather than have everybody wait around, just download the video and follow the video.
Anyway, Passover is an amazing thing. It is awesome! It is an awesome thing to behold– the unity of Scripture, the beauty of Messiah being seen in the whole thing.
And just as they were brought out of Egypt and they were baptized into the sea, we are brought out of our own Egypt, baptized in the name of Yahushua and being brought through this time of testing.
Just as Messiah Yahushua was on a pole, they would take the Passover lambs and they would tie it to a pole and they would roast it over the fire.
And just all the many different things that bring to mind our Savior Yahushua.
And so, with these things, we don’t look at Passover as some Old Testament ceremonial thing for “those people back then.” It has a lot to teach us about our own walk, so much about the Savior we love. And for that reason, I encourage you, partake of the Passover.
And if you are not ready in your heart, get ready, and partake of the Messiah Yahushua our Passover.
And so, as you do so, my brothers and my sisters, may Yahweh bless you, and may Yahweh have mercy on us all.