Have a Joyous Last Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread!
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Category Archives: Feasts
Video: Let us Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread
How to Overcome Sin!
Dealing With the “Leavening” in Our Lives
Throughout Scripture, leavening is a spiritual metaphor for sin, pride, hypocrisy, malice, bitterness and false religious doctrine (Pss 71:4; 73:21; Hos 7:4; Matt 16:6; Mark 8:15; Luke 12:1; 1 Cor 5:8–6; Gal 5:9). Even as a small amount of leavening agents in bread (e.g., yeast and various chemical agents) will quickly permeate bread dough causing it to rise, so a little sin can rapidly infect our lives (or like a quick spread cancer disease) and take us away from Elohim’s path of righteous-living.
The Scripture teaches us to be overcomers (Rom 12:21; 1 John 2:13–14; 5:4) eradicating the leavening of sin from our lives. We must overcome the world, the flesh and the devil (Jas 3:15). Yeshua admonished each of the seven Messianic assemblies to be overcomers (Rev 2:7,11,17,26; 3:5,12,21; see also Matt 24:13). For those who overcome, there will be great rewards—a spiritual inheritance; they will be sons of Elohim (Rev 21:7).
The Greek word for overcome is nikao (Strong’s G3528) meaning “to conquer, to get the Continue reading
The Feast of Unleavened Bread: Points to Ponder
The Feast of Unleavened Bread Is a Commemorative Ritual
Passover going into the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is the birthday of the nation of Israel. In ancient times, universal Israel came together in Jerusalem to celebrate this event. Today, redeemed Israelites come together to celebrate these divine appointment sacred convocations.
Abstaining from leavened bread for seven days is symbolic of Elohim’s people separating themselves from sin and turning towards a holy relationship with him.
Removing leavening from our homes is a symbolic activity just like taking communion, being baptized for the remission of sins, or building a sukkah during the Feast of Tabernacles. As humans, we need symbolic commemorative occasions for several reasons. They give us a sense of history by helping us to understand the past, so that we can move forward into the future knowing who we are and where we’ve come from. They give us guidance so that we’ll learn from the lessons of history, both the good and bad ones. Our American culture is full of symbolic rituals and commemorative acts and markers (Christmas, Easter, birthdays, anniversaries, Independence Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, statues, historical markers, monuments, museums, heritage sites, etc.). Likewise, Biblical commemorative rituals help us in several ways.
They help us to both recall and commemorate past and future events.
They help us to understand who we are by recalling where we’ve come from which in turn helps us to understand where we’re going.
They can be something physical that helps us to wrap our minds around difficult-to-understand spiritual principle.
They are something physical that help to point us toward a spiritual reality. They help to raise our hopes and our eyes above our mundane existence and strengthen our faith as we move toward the higher goal or reality to which the ritual or commemorative event points.
They help us to teach and to pass on to each new generation not only about our past history, but our future hope.
Leavening Is a Picture of Sin
The observance of the Feast of Unleavened Bread is a symbol of our commitment to turn towards righteousness and turn away from sin. How serious we are about removing physical leaven from our homes in compliance with YHVH’s commands is an indicator of how serious we are about removing sin from our lives.
While leavening makes bread rise and is therefore a symbol for pride, leavening is also a Continue reading
Video: Why Celebrate Passover? The Seder Explained
Video: Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread Overview
How the First Passover Perfectly Pictured Yeshua the Messiah
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Messiah, for it is the power of Elohim to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. (Rom 1:16)
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. (1 Cor 1:18)
Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved [except the name of Yeshua the Messiah]. (Acts 4:12)
According to the laws of statistical probability, what are the chances of an event happening and then fifteen hundred years later another event occurring bearing an uncanny resemblance to the first one? Now suppose that not only did fifteen hundred years separate the two events, but that they occurred in two different countries several hundred miles apart, which in the ancient world considering the difficulties of travel and communications may as well have been halfway around the globe. Now suppose that the second event involved the death of a person, and that the events leading up to their death including the manner and timing of that death was beyond the control of the individual dying so that in no way could the person dying stage his death to mirror the first event. In fact, those killing the individual possessed no foreknowledge of the event that had occurred fifteen hundred years earlier. What are the chances of this occurring? Well beyond the laws of possibility!
This is not a fictional story! Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. The details of these two events are chronicled in the pages of the Bible. The first event occurred in ancient Egypt and is recorded in the Book of Exodus chapters eleven and twelve. There we find recorded the details of the children of Israel’s first Passover while they were yet slaves in the land of Egypt. A whole series of events led up to this first Passover, which culminated with each family’s ritual killing of a lamb, smearing its blood on the frame of their doors, roasting the lamb, and then eating it. Doing this insured that YHVH would pass over their homes leaving those inside alive. The firstborn of those whose homes did not have the blood on them were killed.
The second event involved a descendant of those ancient people who was born in a different land fifteen hundred years later. His name was Yeshua of Nazareth, a Jew, and viewed by many of his day as the long-awaited Messiah of Israel. One of Continue reading