The Passover: Covenant of Eternal Life III

Summary of the First Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread

Fred R. Coulter—March 23, 2024

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Someone mentioned about the red heifer and that the reason that Hamas is so angry against the Jews is because they felt that the Jews were going to take over and demolish the Mosque of Omar and put up their temple. Like I said, if the Jews try that, they will be annihilated. However, they're going to have the red heifer and that is never going to solve the problem of sin. Nothing physical like ashes.

Isn't it interesting that at the same time, there are researchers that are looking for the ancient underworld in the area of the City of David. Right next to that is where the temple originally stood.

Pretty soon I'm going to have a whole big picture up here of what the temple looked like during the time of Jesus. I don't know if many of you have gone online and saw the Levitical singers singing on the south wall. If you continue going south, you'll come to the location of the temple.

What researchers are doing now, they are using muon detectors to track powerful particles so they can make a 3D map of what's under the City of David.

We need to understand this: If the Jews knew where to put the temple, they would have put it up long ago, before it  was time! So, everything's going to be done according to God's schedule.

Now then, all of us have come through Worldwide Church of God or one branch or another of that. Herbert Armstrong used to say, 'The Gospel hasn't been preached in 1800 years.' Why did he say that when he knew better? He was ashamed of the poor farmer people that were in the Church of God!

He always wanted to be with the rich and powerful. So, when he finally achieved that toward the end of his ministry, what did he find out? They are all sinners and they're all carnal!

He had to admit in his last two years of repentance—which he did—that every meeting overseas was not because God opened the door, but they kicked them in with cash! First-person testimony, direct words from Herbert Armstrong!

Now, the truth is that the Church of God Seventh-Day was very active, and he got all of his information from the Church of God Seventh-Day, just like every one of us got our information from Radio Church of God or Worldwide Church of God in the Bible for what we understand today.

If God has given us any understanding beyond that, that's because we are moving forward in the timeline of prophecy. But the Gospel was continuously preached.

• What do you think all the martyrs of the Waldensians experienced?
• the Huguenots?
• the Sabbath-keepers in Germany?
• the Sabbath keepers that were there as a result of Paul's ministry in the British Isles?

After Paul got out of Rome's prison the first time, he went to Britain. There are quite a few testimonies that that is true.

So, here's an article by Elder Williamson in Appleton City, Missouri published by Church of God Publishing House. They published this right here. The Church of God, What Is It?

Well, the Church of God is those who follow Jesus Christ and keep His commandments! Now, a lot of the Churches of God's Seventh-Day did keep the Holy Days. Some of them did not.

Then here is one, The Bible Track Series; here's the one on Passover. Then they have a listing of all of the things that they had. They had a lot of literature. Let me just take a few minutes to read it:

• Reasons Why It Makes No Difference
• The Kingdom of Heaven
• The Change of the Sabbath Who Authorized It? An excellent treatise showing that it was not changed by Divine authority but by the Pope of Rome

and of course they kept the Sabbath! Is that not preaching the Gospel?

• Reasons of Christ
• Not on Sunday
• The Gift of the Holy Spirit
• The Rich Man and Lazarus

That's the one that the Protestants say that the poor beggar-man went to heaven and the rich man went to hell. Not knowing the Holy Days, the Protestants don't have a clue as to the proper chronological setting of those events as they took place.

Even though it's written in sequence there in Luke 16, it does not give you the time sequence because you have to go by the Holy Days.

• The Restitution of All Things

That's the coming thousand year rule of Christ!

• The End of Redemption
• Modern Prophets and Prophecies
• The Approaching Crises, Spiritism and Satanic Delusion

Does this sound like it was a dead church? No!  So, I'm going to tell all of you who are stuck on Herbert Armstrong, put him in the right perspective. He did do a great evangelistic work, but never was he ever an apostle. When he preached the Word of God—

• just like anybody else
• just like the Church of God Seventh-Day
• just like those who will follow us when we're gone
  • IF they preach the Bible
  • IF they follow Christ

they are the Church of God—that's what we need to go by! Here's another whole page:

• From Darkness to Light
• Meat in Due Season
• The Reason for Embracing God's Sabbath
• The Soul
• Baptism and Its Importance
• The Two-Horned Beast
• The End of the Ungodly
• The Time of the Crucifixion and Resurrection
• Claims of Mrs. Ellen G. White

So, they had to fight her as the false prophetess, but she had a lot of things that were true. She even said that the Churches of God need to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

But they didn't end up doing it, did they? Now today, the Seventh Day Adventists barely are holding onto the Sabbath. That's the last thing they have, but they calculate it from midnight to midnight, and they take the Lord's Supper on the first Sabbath of the quarter. So, when you are not keeping the Passover and you are not keeping the Sabbath from sunset to sunset, you lose understanding!

So they embrace Christmas now, and they say they do it for the children. That's exactly what Satan wants. Right? Isn't that true?

• Bible Students Assistant
• Faith, Repentance, and Baptism
• Who Changed the Sabbath

and on and on!

I thank Kip Johnson for bringing all of these to me, and these are all online on Friends of the Sabbath by Greg White. So, we can have full faith and confidence:

• in God the Father and Jesus Christ
• in the Word of God

that it is true, it is the Word of God!

Now, let me give you, for all of you who like a quick summary, okay, I'll give you a real quick summary of conversion so we all understand it. It will involve two Scriptural references.:

• Genesis 6:5

then we will see the finality of all that God wants us to come to in

• 2-Corinthians 10

Here's where we start. Here's how God sees the world today. Remember that Jesus said that as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man!

Genesis 6:5: "And the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

Remember this: God is not only interested in our exterior obedience, He is interested in the mind, and He judges the heart! Is that what He said? Yes, indeed!

Now come to 2-Cor. 10 and we will see the process of conversion. So, how do we get from Gen. 6:5, all evil, to 2-Cor. 10 so we can be in the Kingdom of God? This will tell us the whole process of conversion and the pinnacle of conversion.

2-Corinthians 10:3: "For although we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh."

Now, that's interesting. We don't overcome human nature by using human psychology. We may have modified it a little bit, but we don't overcome it.

Verse 4: "For the weapons of our warfare…"

What are the weapons of our warfare? The Spirit of God, the Word of God!

"…are not carnal…" (v 4). No! They're spiritual!

What does it say in Rom. 8? To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life! So everything that we do is when our weapons are spiritually strong to go against the weapons of Satan the devil and human nature. Not fleshly!

"But mighty through God to the overthrowing of strongholds" (v 4).

Now that's an interesting phrase, isn't it? You ever heard of the phrase that someone is 'stubborn'? Yeah, I've been accused of that.

• If you're stubborn for the right reason, that's good.
• If you're stubborn for the wrong reason, you're in trouble because you won't learn—strongholds!

Here's what it is. This is the operation of overcoming. Now remember where we started in Gen. 6:5. Every imagination of the thought of his heart was only evil continually! That's here! Now let's read there!

Verse 5: "Casting down vain imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God…"

All of those start out with 'Yeah but...' Isn't that true?

"…against the knowledge of God… [here's the work, and this defines growing and overcoming] …and bringing into captivity… [controlling your mind, getting rid of the wrong thoughts] …every thought…" (v 5).

Isn't that what we read back in Gen. 6:5? Every thought he had was evil continually!

"…and bringing into captivity every thought unto the obedience of Christ" (v5).

That's the full expression of conversion from the full expression of carnality and living in Satan's world. And getting from here to there is a lifetime operation!

Now then, let's get into something that we're going to cover today: Everything we do, we have to find based upon the Word of God!

Everything we need to think in our heart and in our mind, God tells us what to do! He's given us free choice, and that free choice is so we can choose God's way!

When we have the Spirit of God, then we are to have the self-control to overcome these evil things that are lodged deep in our mind. See, God is not interested in just converting your behavior out here, He wants conversion

• in your heart
• in your mind
• in your being

That's why Jesus said, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God!'

Isn't that how we cast down vain imaginations? That's how—when a temptation comes along—we put it down. We don't sit there and look at it and say, 'Oh well. that's interesting, you know.' Because as soon as you've done that, you'll find a reason to go against God. Isn't that the way it is?

What happened when they preached from the pulpit in Pasadena that Jesus declared all meats, as the NIV says in Mark 7, clean.' Right after services, they had a crowd down at the Red Lobster and they were eating all of that unclean food.

Let's understand some things about the Word of God. You all know this. Jesus said, 'Your Word is the Truth.'

John wrote, 'No lie comes from the Truth.' That is if it's properly understood.

2-Timothy 2:15:  "Diligently study…." That's to the elders. We need to study. We can tell that Roger studied to prepare for what he brought us today. Very good in choices. {note message: Why the Chastening of the Lord}

Isn't it interesting how every Sabbath that the first message and my message always connect and yet were miles removed? I never picked up the phone and called Roger and said, 'Roger, I hear you're coming down this Sabbath.' Yeah, I'm coming down this Sabbath! 'Well, why don't you do this?' I didn't tell him a thing!

Can God's Spirit inspire him to do something that will fit in with what I'm going to do and I don't have to say a word to him? Or what I have to say fits in what he has to say without conversing? Yes!

Verse 15: "Diligently study to show yourself approved unto God…rightly dividing the Word of the Truth."

That means properly cut and put together, because the Word of God is a little here, a little there, and so forth.

2-Timothy 3:16: "All Scripture is God-breathed…" The Greek word for breath is "pneuma" that means spirit.

So, we could actually say—it's a little awkward in English—it is God-spirited! What did Jesus say of the words that He spoke? He says, 'The flesh profits nothing. But the words I speak to you, they are Spirit and Truth.'

So, now with that in mind, we're going to look at the first Passover in Exo. 12 with the children of Israel. We'll look a little bit in Exo. 10, as well. Remember Gen. 15 and Gen. 22 were also Passover ceremonies happening on the Passover Day.

Here's something that's most important to understand: beginning with the Sabbath and every Holy Day of God. Every Holy Day is based upon what God does!

• Passover: What did that point to? Christ's Sacrifice!
• First Holy Day of Unleavened Bread: God working with us to overcome sin.
• Last Holy Day of Unleavened Bread: that we continue toward Pentecost, which is the next Holy Day, which is what God does, but we participate in, which is the resurrection.

Then we have the Feast of Trumpets, which is when Christ and the saints come back to the earth to take over the world. The action of God!

• The Day of Atonement God puts away Satan the !
• Feast of Tabernacles pictures is the thousand year reign of Christ and the saints

The Last Great Day: That's the great work of God to resurrect all the people who had not committed the unpardonable sin.

Every single day of God, beginning with the Sabbath, is based upon what God has done first! Then we have our participation in it. So, we find this with the Passover.

Exo. 10:28[transcriber's correction]—some are going to say that Moses and Aaron left where they were to go get the message from Pharaoh to get out. We'll see, no, that didn't happen.

Exodus 10:28: "And Pharaoh said to him [Moses], 'Get away from me! Take heed to yourself! See my face no more, for in the day you see my face you shall die.'"

That's what he said to Moses. Now what happened to him?

Verse 29: "And Moses said, 'You have spoken well. I will never see your face again.'"

He and Aaron did not go to Pharaoh to get the message to leave.

Exo. 11—here we have the first instruction of taking riches from the Egyptians. So, that may have started a little bit before Passover.

Exodus 11:4: "And Moses said, 'Thus says the LORD, "About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt. And all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sits upon his throne,.." (vs 4-5).

So, the son of Pharaoh, his firstborn, sat on the throne with him. So apparently the Pharaoh must not have been the firstborn. Some think he was, but it doesn't say that.

"…even to the firstborn of the slave-girl that is behind the mill; also the firstborn of beasts" (v 5).

Think about how many were dead. Firstborn of the beast and firstborn of all the Egyptians!

Verse 6: "And there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there was none like it, nor shall be like it any more. But against any of the children of Israel not even a dog shall move his tongue, against man or beast, so that you may know that the LORD puts a difference between the Egyptians and Israel" (vs 6-7). Again, the work of God!

Here's what Moses told Pharaoh; v 8: "'And all these, your servants, shall come down to me and bow themselves down to me, saying, 'You and all the people that follow you—get out!' And after that I will go out.' And he went out from Pharaoh in flaming anger." Talk about righteous indignation!

Exo. 12—we've gone over this many times, so let's analyze it and we'll look at some verses. Here's the way that we analyze things in the Bible. We don't come up with an idea that we call a supposition or a hypothesis that we want to prove, we go into the Bible to prove what we want! That's how all the reasoning comes about to justify Sunday. They have lots of reasonings and their minds are all twisted because they don't start  out with the Word of God that is Truth. You always start with the Word of God, which is true.

If you want to find out something, which we will examine here in a little bit, you start with the Truth and then you figure out what happened though it wasn't written down.

You know what they were told to do on the first day of Nisan or Abib. God said to them:

Exodus 12:2: "This month shall be to you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you."

Then He gave all the instructions for the Passover and all the instructions for the days of Unleavened Bread.

Remember there were no telephones. There were no computers. How did He get the word to all the children of Israel? Everything that is written up here to:

Verse 21: "Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel…"

So they had it organized. All the elders came to Moses and He said to them:

"…'Draw out and take a lamb for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb'" (v 21).

And He gave them all the instructions up to that point.

Verse 22: "And you shall take a bunch of hyssop and dip in the blood that is in the bowl, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood in the bowl. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until sunrise."

Now we also have online for your education the great attack against the Passover by Lester Grabbe and Robert L. Kuhn:

Paper: The Passover of the Bible and the Church Today by Lester L. Grabbe and Robert L. Kuhn (1978) {https://www.cbcg.org/holy-days/the-passover-of-the-bible-and-the-church-today.html}

It has all my markings on it. They brought in the hypotheses from the Jews concerning the Passover. This was a direct assault on the 14th Passover. Even Garner Ted Armstrong believed it. That's why he said that 'we take the Lord's Supper.' That can never be because:

• Why should we never call it the Lord's Supper?
• Why should we always call it the Passover?
• Remember the Scripture?

1-Corinthians 11:20[transcriber's correction] : "Therefore, when you assemble together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's supper.'

You were not to go out of the door of your house until sunrise, but in order to justify a 15th  Passover they had to say that as soon as the firstborn were killed that they could leave their houses. It doesn't say that!

The King James says morning, but the Greek is sunrise—Hebrew: 'boquer.'

• Why would God choose that?
• Can everybody even the most uneducated know when sunrise occurs?

All you have to do is look out at the horizon! As soon as the sun starts coming over the top of the horizon that's sunrise. And likewise when you come to the end of the day you have sunset—Hebrew: 'ba erev.' And right after sunset you have between the two evenings, which is:—Hebrew: 'ben ha arbayim.'

That's provable if you go through and prove it out of Exo. 16 because God said that He would send quail at sunset—'ba erev'—and you shall eat flesh 'ben ha arbayim."

You can't eat it before it comes! The quail have to come first. So, because it was going to be night God dropped all the quail on the camp. They could just go out and pick them up and skin them and if they had coals going they could roast them. because those quail have very small pieces of meat and you can cook them in nothing flat.

We did that with Skip Emerson with the lamb and also with the turtle doves and it was amazing!

A minister from South Africa came to where my daughter Rochelle attends and says, 'Oh the work of slaughtering a lamb is a lot of work.' Well we found out it's not a lot of work. You can slaughter the lamb and have it ready to go in 20 minutes skinned and on the spigot ready to be roasted.

So, that's the key; stay in the house until sunrise! Now then let's go back and let's read what it was.

Exodus 12:5: "Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You shall take it from the sheep or from the goats."

They had a lot of lambs born in what we call the month of February. Now they couldn't take a lamb  over a year old. Most lambs are born about that time so you couldn't take one that was born the year before, because that would be nearly full grown. So, this is small because it had to be cooked quickly and thoroughly. They're to choose it on the 10th day and then:

Verse 6: "And you shall keep it up until the beginning of the fourteenth day of the same month. And the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it between the two evenings."

How did they do that? Well there in Egypt that area was flat land, and they all had houses with flat roofs. So, we can deduce from this that if they are all going to kill it at the same time then they had to have certain ones stationed on top of the houses—wherever that may be—and they would say 'the sun has set!' They killed all the lambs at the same time. God wanted it that way! And they'll took the blood and put it around the doorpost and so forth.

Verse 8: "And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roasted with fire, and unleavened bread…."

We're going to talk about unleavened bread here in just a minute, because there's still a controversy that I will answer next week, so I want you to call all of those that are in the different Churches of God to be sure and tune in next week because we will answer the question: Why is the Passover Day an unleavened bread day? That's important! Here we have the Passover on the 14th. They had unleavened bread, and

Verse 9: "Do not eat of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire…"

When you read Deut. 16 about what are called the Passover Offerings, these were the offerings offered on the day portion of the Passover in preparation for The Night to be Much Remembered, and the redemption of the firstborn, both combined. But those were not the Passover Sacrifice!

Verse 26: "And it will be, when your children shall say to you, 'What does this service mean to you?' Then you shall say, 'It is the sacrifice of the LORD'S Passover… [It's called a sacrifice] Who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our houses'" (vs 26-27).

Verse 9: "Do not eat of it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted with fire, its head with its legs, and with its inward parts."

Now that doesn't mean all of the guts and gore. That means the heart, the kidneys and the liver. All the rest, everything else was to be burned up. God wanted nothing left but ashes. He didn't want them to take a good luck charm like part of an ear or part of a hoof or whatever and say, 'Oh, I was there and I had the Passover and I've got this lucky charm with me.'

That's what people have today with a rabbit's foot. Isn't that it? God didn't want that. So, when we were doing all of the things in preparation for The Christian Passover book. You've got to have that book and remember this concerning the Passover.

Satan attacks the Passover always, always, always, because if he can get people to not do it correctly. That's the first step of leverage to come with something else.

Verse 10: "And you shall not let any of it remain until the morning. And that which remains of it until the morning you shall burn with fire…. [it would be just a heap of ashes] …And this is the way you shall eat it: with your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in trepidation. It is the LORD'S Passover" (vs 10-11).

Now you will find out in this paper (by Grabbe & Kuhn), the very first paragraph says, "We don't know the origin of the name Passover."

This is what 'scholarism' does with hypotheses coming to what they want to analyze. We take the Truth of the Scriptures and we deduce from the Scriptures other Truths that may not have been written, but had to have occurred. We'll look at that in just a minute.

Then God says that He's going to kill the firstborn of man and beast and judge all the gods of Egypt.

So what are they doing with Egypt now? You can go on the American Science Channel and you can see they're digging up all of the Egyptian tombs.

I watched a little bit of it the other day and here's this woman, an archaeologist, and she's looking for the tomb of Cleopatra. She was so happy, 'Oh, we're going to find the tomb of Cleopatra and I just love her.'

Same way with the Mayans in Middle America. God punished them and put them under the ground. I don't know how many demons were put there as well, but they're going back and digging it all up and saying, 'Oh, isn't that wonderful?'

Verse 13: "And the blood shall be a sign to you upon the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall be a memorial to you. And you shall keep it a Feast to the LORD throughout your generations. You shall keep it a Feast as a Law forever" (vs 13-14).

That is the Passover Day, which is one day. The Passover Day precedes the first day of Unleavened Bread.

I have a man from South Africa that sends me about every six months a long handwritten dissertation about why Passover and First Day of Unleavened Bread are the same. It's not!

• What does it say in Lev. 23? Passover is the 14th day of the 1st month!
• What does it say of the Feast of Unleavened Bread? The 15th day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread!

Two different days!

He gives it all about this because the question is come up, if we have the Passover as an Unleavened Bread day and we put out the leaven, how can we put out our sins before the sacrifice of Christ?

That's not the right question. The question is: Why is that an Unleavened Bread day? I'll answer that next week so you will see!

Now let's talk about Unleavened Bread; v 34: Many times you don't even read this when studying about the Passover and Unleavened Bread, but let's read it because this tells us a lot. We saw over here the first part, everything they had to do in preparation for the Passover, the lamb and the unleavened bread.

They were to leave at sunrise. They were not to take any other food with them. No other food.

Verse 34: "And the people took their dough before it was leavened…"

What does that mean? The way they got leavened bread was they took the dough, they made the dough, put everything in it they needed to put in it, and then they let it sit. The leaven from the air would gradually leaven the bread. That's how you get sourdough bread. So, let's read what they did here:

Verse 34: "And the people took their dough before it was leavened, their kneading troughs being bound up in their clothes upon their shoulders."

Now let's talk about unleavened bread. How do they make it? Well, there's no supermarket to buy the flour, so you have to make the flour yourself.

Let's have a proper analysis based upon this fact. For all the people to have all that dough bound up in their kneading troughs is a lot, a lot, a lot of dough.

What were they doing from the first of the month when they heard about what they were to do in Unleavened Bread? They were grinding the flour. I don't know how they ground it. I don't know if they had something to assist them to grind it, but they had to make the flour.

• How much unleavened bread or unleavened dough were they to take with them? Enough to last for seven more days!
• Did they not keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread as they were going down to the Red Sea? Yes!

They ate the unleavened bread!

Now, is there anything here that tells us that on the Passover Day the day portion there was still leaven around? No!  They were busy going to Ramses to be assembled to leave for The Night to be Much Remembered.

And remember, there were no Wendy's, there were no Taco Bells, there were no McDonald's!

Now then, we'll end with this because this shows that they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread on each day.

On the Passover, God did something we remember: He killed the firstborn and spared all the children of Israel, including the firstborn. They were then to have unleavened bread dough that they would take with them so they could keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread while they were leaving Egypt! So, they assembled at Ramses and at sunset they began to leave. This is called The Night to be Much Observed to the Lord.

• What did God do? He led them, and they followed Him with a pillar of fire by night and cloud by day!
• What else happened? God had to give them extra strength!
• How do we know that God had to give them extra strength? Because that was quite a journey!

They couldn't take any food with them, and it doesn't say that they slaughtered any animals. So, all they had was the dough of unleavened bread.

• What did it say about their sandals and their clothes? They didn't grow old!
• Can we properly deduce from that that God gave them the extra strength as a whole group?

In other words, God strengthened them for this seven-day journey down to the Red Sea, because:

• it doesn't say they slaughtered any animals
• it does say they had unleavened dough

So, we have to take what is here and understand what it is. Therefore, this Passover Day, the first one was an unleavened day!

Scriptural References:

• Genesis 6:5
• 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
• 2 Timothy 2:15
• 2 Timothy 3:16
• Exodus 10:28-29
• Exodus 11:4-8
• Exodus 12:1-2, 21-22
• 1 Corinthians 11:20
• Exodus 12:5-6, 8-9, 26-27, 9-11, 13-14, 34

Scriptures referenced, not quoted:

• Luke 16
• Romans 8
• Mark 7
• Genesis 15; 22
• Exodus 16
• Deuteronomy 16
• Leviticus 23

Also referenced:

• Message: Why the Chastening of the Lordby Roger Tointon
• Paper: The Passover of the Bible and the Church Todayby Lester L. Grabbe and Robert L. Kuhn (1978) { https://www.cbcg.org/holy-days/the-passover-of-the-bible-and-the-church-today.html}
• Book: The Christian Passover by Fred R. Coulter

FRC:bo/po
Transcribed: 3/27/24

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