PASSOVER AND THE DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread are the first holy days in the beginning of God’s new year. We should prepare for this solemn service, PASSOVER. It is to be a memorial forever; NOTE: Ex. 12v14; “And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance (statute, commandment, law, set time, decree) for ever. NOTE: Ex. 13v6-10; “Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters. And thou shalt show thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt. And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the Lord’s law may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt. Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year.

The Days of Unleavened Bread require a thorough spring cleaning, remove all leaven (a type of sin) from your homes before the Passover season; NOTE: Ex. 13v7; (above) and; NOTE: Deut. 16v3-4; “Thou shalt eat no leavened bread with it; seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread therewith, even the bread of affliction; for thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt (Egypt represents the sinful world, and leaven represents the sin in a person). The world today is a very sinful world, and every one that partakes of this worlds ways, the ways that are not Godly, have become sinners. God tells you to come out of her, the world, my people, and this feast represents putting sin out of your life (start obeying God’s ways) in haste: that thou mayest remember the day when thou camest forth out of the land of Egypt all the days of thy life. And there shall be no leavened bread seen with thee in all thy coast seven days;”

Egypt was the sinful world of that time, and the Lord brought them (Israel, all 12 tribes) out of it, and to His promised land. He will do the same thing in the end for us, bring us out of this world and to the marriage supper of the Lamb, then give us this world again but under His rule in the liken as when He brought Israel out of Egypt, as long as we obey Him and put sin (leaven) out of our lives. If you want to read where the feasts of the Lord (not mans feast, or as a Jewish feast as we are taught) are, you can read them in Ex., Lev. Deut.. When you read them, you will see with your own eyes that the Lord says that they are His Feasts. NOTE: Lev. 23v2, 5-6; “Speak unto the children of Israel, (all twelve tribes) and say unto them, Concerning the feasts of the Lord, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations (assembly, they might not be holy to man, but they are holy to the Lord), even these are MY FEASTS (The Lords). In the fourteenth day of the first month at even (twilight, not yet dark) is the Lord’s Passover. 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.

“In the first day ye shall have a holy convocation (assembly): ye shall do no servile work (your daily job that you work for wages) therein,” Lev. 23v7-8. The next five days you can work. The last day is also a holy convocation (verse 8). You should also have an offering (not of fire as they did then, but an offering with what you feel that the Lord has blessed you with) on the Holy Days. This is some what of the feasts that are in the books of Moses, there is a lot more pertaining to the FEAST OF THE LORD, please read them all so that you can see and understand the whole meaning of them, and how they are brought fourth in the New Testament for us to keep today in remembrance of the Lord, as He says.

The Passover of old was symbolized by a Lamb and Blood, which was symbolic of something to come at a later date. The Lamb and Blood of old represents the Lord today and the sacrifice in which He shed His Blood for us. Paul tells us to keep these feasts today; NOTE: 1 Cor. 5v7-8; “Purge out therefore the old leaven (the old sin that lays there and ferments, and swells up more and more), that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened (the putting of sin out of your life so that there's nothing there to swell up). For even CHRIST OUR PASSOVER IS SACRIFICED FOR US: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven (old sin), neither with the leaven of malice (injurious) and wickedness; but with the unleavened (obeying the Lord and His ways) bread of sincerity and truth.

Some people today say that we are only to view this as symbolic only and don’t have to keep the feasts, most say that they were done away with. What if the Lord said to do this, would you do it, or just tell the Lord that you don’t have to? The one word that the Churches out there don’t use or express on is the word OBEY, because that means that they will have to give up there ways for His, (and most people think that the worlds way is more pleasing than the Lord’s). Paul said to keep it, and so does the Lord; NOTE: 1 Cor. 11v24-25; “And when he had given thanks, he broke (unleavened bread) it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this DO in REMEMBRANCE OF ME. And after the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: THIS DO YE, as oft as ye drink it, in REMEMBRANCE OF ME. He is giving you a command to do something isn’t he? People today are under the impression that they have to see the word command or commandment before they think they have to OBEY Him. He told you to DO this, not, if you want to, but an active word, TO DO.

Not only did Paul tell you to keep it, but Luke has the same command in it as 1Cor. did; NOTE: Luke 22v19; “And he took bread, and gave thanks, and broke it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this DO in REMEMBRANCE OF ME. If you say that you are the Lord’s, and don’t want to OBEY him, then you are not one of His. You can find all the other apostles in the New Testament keeping it, for your reading, look at Matt. 26v26-30; Mark 14v22-26; Luke 22v15-20. The Passover is a Special Day, you are to do this as a memorial of His death for us till He comes back as he says in, 1 Cor. 11v26. You keep it on the anniversary date of His death. (He didn’t die once a month, or three times a year, or twice a year, but He died only on the date of the year the bible states, THE PASSOVER.) It is only taken during the evening (Ex.12v6, Lev. 23v5). That is why He says to remember me this day, the day he died on. The Passover must be taken by those who believe, and are baptized, otherwise, you have no part in Him. Read (John 6v53-58, John 13v6-10). The Passover season is for God’s people (Ex. 13v9). There is much more about the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread in the bible if one wants to learn, the key word is, if one WANTS to.

If a person is unworthy of the Passover, then he must not partake of it; NOTE: 1 Cor. 11v27-29; “Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” Unworthily means if someone is taking it out of the manner in which it is done, or taking it wrongly, or taking it at any other time than God says, or with lack of respect, or not befitting or becoming, or if we do not really accept the Body and Blood of Christ. It is sacred to the Lord because of what he had to go through for us on that day, so lets keep the respect of that day for the Lord (He suffered and died for you, you did nothing for Him). That person himself should look at his own heart to see if he should partake of it, because we don’t know what is in mans heart, only God knows; NOTE: 1 Sam. 16v7; “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature: because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” We should remove the hidden sins from our lives, and turn to the Lord and OBEY him.

Read Psalm 51, here is but a part of it; NOTE: Ps. 51v9-13; “Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities (violator of the law, God’s law). Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presents; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.” This holds true to His feast days that he chose, if you disobey what He says about them, then how much more are you really doing away with so that you can have what pleases you instead of Him. All of His feasts have prophetic meaning to them, it helps you to understand His plan for salvation, and the world to come.

When we look at those pictures that they say are of Christ on the cross, you see a man hanging there with a crown of thorns on his head with a few drops of blood running down his head, and the nails in his hands with a little slit on his side, is that what he really looked like? NO, for one thing he did not have long hair, and he was beaten so badly that the only ones that knew him were his own friends. Read Isaiah 53, it is about the Lord and his suffering he will endure for us, then see what Isaiah 52 says; NOTE: Isaiah 52v14; “As many were astonished at thee, his (Christ) visage (his appearance) was so marred (disfigurement, beat out of shape) more than any man, and his form (his body) more than the sons of men:” Think of the worst beating you have seen on a man, all the torn skin and blood running out of the cuts on the eyes and nose and mouth, with the busted lips, and maybe some teeth knocked out, then read this and see that Christ’s was more than this. This is just his head, pretty picture huh!

Then we see that he was marked well, as the movie “Jesus” shows the king telling his guards to do. When you look up the way they marked someone in the Bible dictionaries of meanings, you see that the guards took the blunt end of there spears and jabbed them in the persons sides, back and front. If any of you have ever had your kidneys hit, you know how painful it is. Then He was subjected to scourging, which was done by a whip that had three strands on it with nine hooks on each strand made of either bones, or metal. The guard was trained on how to use this whip in order to inflict the greater amount of pain without killing the person, because if he did, then he in return would be killed. He gave Christ 39 lashes with the whip, each one tearing out the meat on His back, shoulders and sides. It would rip the skin open making the raw meat exposed, and if anyone has ever had a cut and touched the meat of it, you know how badly that hurts. By the time they got done with Him, He was probably blood from head to toe.

One can only imagine the amount of pain He was in, and how weak He was when they made Him carry the cross bar through town. The cross bar weighed about 75 pounds, and with that on His back and pressing into the open meat from the whipping that they gave Him, plus the beating He received from the guards put Him in such pain that would probably be more than you or I could take. From the loss of blood from the beating and whipping that He received made Him to weak to even carry His own cross bar, and had to have another carry it for Him. To make matters worse, is when He fell on the road with that weight on His back added greatly to the pain not only to His back, but now to His knees also. He could hardly walk now without bending over with pain.

When they laid Him on the stake and drove nails into His hands and feet, they done it in such a way that it severed the nerves and made it to painful to either pull Himself up, or to push Himself up by the feet in order to breath. They put them on the stake in such a way that there arms are over there head, causing them to die a slow death by suffocation, and by the blood dropping to the lower parts of the body caused the blood pressure to drop. The drink, which was mixed with myrrh, that they tried to give Christ, was made by the women, and it was a kind of sedative to kill the pain. Christ refused to take it because He wanted to feel the pain in order to be able to see how much we could bare. Now you know why He said that He would never give you more than you could bare, because now He knows the pain that one can inflict on another, and how much the body can stand.

This is what Passover means to Him and is supposed to mean to you. That is why He said to do this in remembrance of me, and as he said in John, I give you an example to follow. He says to remember Him on that day (Passover), but the churches teach that it was done away with, or that it is a Jewish feast, so the people out there today are taught to worship a pagan feast called Easter, which is the worship of ASTARTE (Ashtoreth in the bible), a pagan goddess of sex, or fertility, as Jeremiah states, the queen of heaven, and the Lord calls it an abomination, they call it the worship of the resurrection of Christ. Jesus nor any of his disciples kept nor told anyone else to keep that pagan feast, because His resurrection didn’t do anything for you, it was His death that saved you from your sins, and that is the day He tells you to remember Him on (PASSOVER, HIS DEATH). With all this in mind, have you ever wondered why nobody has ever painted His picture as He really looked? One reason is because they would say that it was to gross, or to horrible to look at, but I feel it is because people don’t want to be reminded or see just how much torture He really went through for us. Please think about whether you really OBEY Him or not, because He went through all this for you and me and ask you to remember Him on this day, not to push it aside for a pagan day. It is time to call Christ, Christ’s, and pagan, pagan’s.

I love the Lord very much and respect what He did for me, in return, I try to keep His Holy Days holy for Him (because they are His). If they were to do to me as they did to Him, I know that I would not be able to bare it as He did, and knowing that He went through all this for me, makes me want to OBEY Him all the more. I hope that you will please take this in a nice way, because I don’t put these letters together to make you angry, but to try to give you some knowledge and help to open your eyes to His true word, and the way He says it in His book. I mean all this in Godly Love and want you to take it that way please.

In Godly Love Leslie Alan, Winters