Dear Brethren,

Each year we look at how Jesus delivered Israel from Egypt.  The question today is who will deliver me?  Paul asked and answered the question for us:

Romans 7:24-25  Who will deliver me from the body of this death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This year, the First Day of Unleavened Bread, which is a High Day, falls on a weekly Sabbath day – a Saturday – making it a double Sabbath (John 19:31).  Passover and the Night to be Much Observed have deep spiritual meaning for us.  When the sun sets and the Night to be Much Observed begins we begin to observe the Feast of the First Day of Unleavened Bread—picturing coming out of Egypt/sin – putting sin out of our lives – and picturing Christ coming into our lives to deliver us – the true Unleavened Bread of Sincerity and Truth.  Jesus Christ is the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.  Each person must realize the need for deliverance.

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

The ancient nation of Egypt had been to Israel a land of great distress.  Israel was in slavery and bondage there.  Israel’s plight was so grievous that ‘Egypt’ became a synonym for sin.  Coming out of Egypt has become synonymous with coming out of sin.

Having escaped the destroyer by putting the blood of the Passover lamb on their door posts, the Israelites were led out of Egypt, a type of sin, as the Feast of Unleavened Bread was beginning.  As the children of Israel fled Egypt in haste, there was not time enough for the bread dough to be prepared and rise.

Exodus 12:34, 39  The people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders... And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened; because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any victual.

Leaven (yeast) is often used as a type of sin.  The children of Israel left Egypt, and ate only un-leavened bread as they headed out for the Promised Land.  The picture God is giving to New Testament Christians is that in the same way Israel was delivered from Egypt, Christians are taken out of sin.  By the gracious act of God, the called out Church of God brethren do not have sin imputed to them any longer because they have renounced sin through repentance and accepted in faith the blood of Jesus Christ for forgiveness—and have the righteousness of Christ imputed to them.  They have been delivered from ‘sin’ by Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the Deliverer.  Paul said it this way, “Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.” (Romans 4:8)

There is no way Israel could have escaped from Egypt and Pharaoh’s army.  In the same way, there is no way we could have escaped on our own from sin and its death penalty when we were in the world.  We had to be saved and delivered by Jesus.

Ephesians 2:1  You hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.

Through the Feast that we celebrate today, God has retained the symbol of unleavened bread for the Church brethren today.  This Feast is reenacted each year by the removal of all leavened products from our premises—a direct picture and type of keeping sin out of our lives.  This Feast day is filled with significance in the Plan of God as Jesus Christ is the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.  We eat unleavened bread as a sign of putting on Jesus Christ.

Exodus 13:7-9  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. (8) And thou shall 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. (9) And [unleavened bread] 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.

This sign is a memorial of God's deliverance.  If we disregard this sign, we despise God's deliverance and are in imminent peril of falling back into sin.  God’s intent is for us to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread in both its physical and its spiritual expressions.