No. 03 - PREPARE FOR PASSOVER By: John J. Blanchard Saturday, March 16, 2002 Passover is eleven days away. Are you and I ready? Are we ready for the Passover, 2002? Are we ready to renew our covenant with Jesus Christ and partake of the bread and drink of the cup and wash one another’s feet? We are all very familiar with the routine. Most of us have done it many times. That is part of the problem, brethren. For too many of us it is our spring ritual. We do the Passover routine, go into the Days of Unleavened Bread, have a nice Night To Be Much Observed, get ready for the Feast because it is coming fast, right? We get used to these annual occasions that God has and we partake of them way too leisurely - way too mechanically. We do not grow year to year. Year to year what are we producing for God? We must never let God’s holy days become routine. Each Passover should actually become more important to us - more real and better understood, more meaningful. It should help us so that we can give something, offer something to God in the holy days that immediately follow. As you know, we take up an offering on the First Day of Unleavened Bread and the Last Day of Unleavened Bread and often we start laying aside some extra money so we can give God of our bounteous blessings from Him. Give Him some money. Is that what God wants - our money? Or, does God want our time? Or, does God want a sacrifice of a bountiful harvest in our lives? I think God would rather see something in our lives, in our hearts, something growing, producing - spiritual fruit. We need to offer up God something that is lasting, eternal, spiritual gold and silver this coming holy day season. Passover is that opportunity when we sit down, we examine ourselves - not our bank accounts, not our physical blessings. That is easy to examine, easy to see what we have done and how we have prospered. Then we give Him an offering. No, we sit down and take stock of the last year of our lives. How have we changed? How have we grown? How have we improved? Offer this to God. Examine ourselves, prior to Passover, and see where we fell short. What have we not been doing right? What have we not changed year to year to year? Every Passover are we looking at the same problems, the same faults, the same sins? If that is true, are we really producing a crop for God? Or, are we nonproductive? So we need to examine what we can offer God in reality, what is real. Yes, it is nice to give God of our sustenance; but God wants to see a sacrifice of the heart. A sacrifice of the individual. What we want to do today is administer to ourselves a test- a test from God’s Word. Is not a test called an exam? So, we are going to examine ourselves. We are going to learn how to examine ourselves so that we can properly take this upcoming Passover; and it will be one of the most fruitful, one of the most wonderful experiences we have ever had. That is what we want to do this year. Let’s turn first of all to the most common scripture, the one that we read year by year at the Passover - I Corinthians 11. Let’s refresh our memories from those words we hear every year. I Corinthians 11:27: “Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will 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 who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep.” Verse 31: “For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.” We all want to take this Passover worthily, don’t we? When we think of the past experiences we have had at Passover, none of us wants to say of ourselves, there are a number of Passovers that I have taken unworthily. But, brethren, that could be the case. Have there been those of us who have died or those of us who are sick? I am not saying every sickness is a judgment from God and God allowed whatever for a specific reason. But, I am saying we suffer; and I am sure some of that suffering is unnecessary for this very reason otherwise this would not be written here. I think it is always important when one looks at one’s self that we use these scriptures to examine ourselves and not point to other people. So let’s take this test and let’s see just what we have done or haven’t done or could improve upon this year. That is probably a better way of stating it. What can we do to improve things this year? Let’s look at I Corinthians 11:29-32: “For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged.” That is a very, very important concept from God. If we do not want to be judged, then we must judge properly. It says if we judge, we would not be judged. We are talking about examining ourselves. So, when we judge our condition, we have to do it correctly in order to not do it unworthily. If we do it incorrectly, we have done it unworthily, which means then God has to step in and do it for us. Once a year, it has to be done at the Passover. I never thought of it in those terms before but now just patching things up with somebody or being nice for the week or two before Passover seems pretty late. I think it goes far, far deeper than that. When I look at myself I must say, “God if I do not want You to judge me, You told me what to do - judge myself.” Judge by Your Word, judge by Your righteous standards and then You do not have to, and then maybe I will not have to get sick. Maybe I will not get hurt. Or, I will not have problems come my way. But, here is the other thing, all who love God have those things constantly. So, what is it that we want? We want deliverance. When we are ill, we want to go and get anointed and be healed. When we have financial difficulties, we want to pray and get them straightened out. When we have injuries, we want to go to God and get them healed. When we have a problem with so and so or whatever, trouble at work, we want God to intervene when we ask for help. So, God is saying I want to make you well. I want to take care of you in every way. I want to be your refuge, but you do not judge yourself, so I must. I must allow trials for you to learn. We could be our worst impediment. That is what it is saying here. If we take the Passover unworthily, we are the worst impediment we have when it comes to having answered prayer. So, when we come close to the Passover now, we must examine ourselves in no routine way. We must examine ourselves and examine the whole circumstances surrounding Passover in a much deeper, more profound way and measure ourselves by God’s standard. When we use His standards of judgments, we find that they are far different than ours. When I want to examine myself, and this is probably true for most of you as well, there are a lot of times things you cannot even see about yourself that you do that hurt other people. Also, we tend to be a little lenient on ourselves. We cut some slack. We make excuses, we rationalize. I reacted this way because so and so did that to me. We rationalize the issues away or we blame someone else. That word “examine” in verse 28 is an interesting word. “But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.” Because that word, according to the Strong’s, means: to test, to approve, to assay for approval like you would a metal - a precious metal. You have to assay the metal to determine how pure it is and are we not striving to develop fruits of gold and silver as stated in I Corinthians 3? We need to look at ourselves and see what kind of metal is God smelting out of us? Are we full of impurities? Are we full of rottenness? That is how we have to look at ourselves. What kind of impurities are deep within the metal, deeply mixed up in them? It is a test to determine the quality and the purity. We need to look at ourselves to determine the quality or the purity in our lives. King David took this test and I want to show you his test, his examination, where he stood before God and asked for it. Then I ask you, would you like God to use this test on you today? Because if we do not judge ourselves for the Passover in our examination properly, God will judge us. When He judges us it will be by a perfect, just standard so we better give this our best effort. Turn to Psalm 26 and we are going to see the kind of test David endured from God and willingly brought on himself. He willingly brought this examination on. We are going to read all of Psalm 26. “A Psalm of David.” Starting with verse 1: “Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity. I have also trusted in the Lord; I shall not slip. Examine me, O Lord, and prove me...” When I looked those words up that is to assay me God. Assay the quality of my metal. Check me out. “Try my mind and my heart.” There is the key. Go ahead God, look into all the corners of my mind. Check my heart out. Check my attitudes out. Put me under a microscope. Verse 3: “For Your loving kindness is before my eyes. And I have walked in Your truth. I have not sat with idolatrous mortals, Nor will I go in with hypocrites. I have hated the congregation of evildoers, And will not sit with the wicked. I will wash my hands in innocence; So I will go about your altar, O Lord, That I may proclaim with the voice of thanksgiving, And tell of all Your wondrous works. Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, And the place where Your glory dwells.” Brethren, God dwells in His temple and works from His altar and we know we are part of the temple. David was saying I love where You dwell and He knew God dwelt in him through the holy spirit. He said check the place out that I have given You to dwell, essentially is what he is saying. Look at my mind and my heart. Look where Your glory dwells. Aren’t You comfortable in me God? I am asking You to test me. I am asking You to examine me. Continuing in verse 9: “Do not gather my soul together with sinners, Nor my life with bloodthirsty men, In whose hands is a sinister scheme, And whose right hand is full of bribes. But as for me, I will walk in my integrity; Redeem me and be merciful to me. My foot stands in an even place; in the congregations I will bless the Lord.” Now that is quite a test. David was willing to tell God to examine him like that. That is the kind of exam we need to give ourselves prior to the Passover so that God can deal mercifully with us. We notice that David concludes with God be merciful to me, because he knew he was not perfect. But, he knew the intent of his heart was to try to be good. He was not willingly sloughing off. He was not being mechanical in any way shape or form. He was taking great care of the holy days. You can tell. He wanted to properly proclaim God’s glory, be around the altar and take care of the house where God dwells. That is what we need to do with our minds, with our hearts. Assay the metals that we are made of. What are we producing: wood, hay and straw or gold, silver and precious jewels? When you look up the term, the house of the Lord that David was talking about, it is (in Strong’s 1004 and 1129) a family built to obtain children, to build; so David knew that God was building a family and that family is His house. David was a member of that household of God, the body of Christ. If God is building a family and that family is what comprises the spiritual temple, that is the body of Christ. We must always be watching for what is best for the body of Christ, in us and in the brethren around us. I would like to go back to I Corinthians 11 once again. Let’s look at verse 29: “For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself…” And what do they do if they do not do it worthily? They do not discern the Lord’s body. That is one of the problems. If we do not take the Passover worthily and we do not examine ourselves properly and take it in an unworthy manner, we do not discern the Lord’s body. When we have that problem, it leads to very poor judgment of ourselves and of other people. That leads to the exact problems we do not want to have: unanswered prayer and God being forced to judge us. You will see as we go along here and talk about this. We need the clear vision to properly judge ourselves and to have a good relationship with our brothers and sisters and recognize the body of Christ and what harm we can do if we are not careful. If we do not examine ourselves properly, we can possibly not discern the body of Christ and hurt the body of Christ and then Christ must judge us. We do not want to hurt the body of Christ but we can do that. Let’s continue now and take the test itself. It is a harsh test. I am warning you but we all are mature Christians, and we need to do this before Passover. Turn to Matthew 7 for the first part of the test: how we judge. Matthew 7:l - “‘Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck out of your eye;” and look, a plank is in your own eye?’” Verse 5: “‘Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye. Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.’” Well, is that a harsh thing or isn’t it? Actually it is very easy. If you do not want to be judged harshly, do not judge harshly. If you want to be judged middle of the road, judge middle of the road. If you want to be judged leniently, do not judge much at all. Do not pass harsh judgment on other people. Do not always be looking for the speck or the beam in someone else’s eye. Work on the specks and beams in our own eye. If you go on to think about this for a moment, it says, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.” Now why would that be? Aren’t we talking about judgment? That is what he is talking about - judgment. That goes right along with the rest of what we read in I Corinthians 11. If you do not want to be judged, do not judge. If we judge harshly and we do wrong, we help who? The chief accuser - Satan, and we have thrown righteous judgment right in the direction of Satan. He is using the body of Christ to judge the body of Christ and that is the sort of thing that will not only get the body torn to shreds but the person doing it. That is what that means right there. That is a harsh thing. Do you want to judge? That is the first part of the test. How quick should we be to judge? Now let’s go to Luke 6:37. It is a similar take on the same vein of thought that was covered in Matthew. “‘Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.’” The same measure - can you imagine? If we give goodness and encouragement, it comes back to us in the amount we gave. But if we gave judgment and harsh criticism, God has no choice. We just read that. He has no choice but to judge us the same way. Verse 39: He spoke a parable to them: “‘Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, “Brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye,” when you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye.’” Remember David said, look at me God I was not a hypocrite. He did not judge his brethren looking for the speck in their eyes until he had first humbled himself. We are taking a test here. It is hypocrisy to point out the faults in someone else when we have faults ourselves. That leads to blindness. Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t not being able to discern the Lord’s body a form of blindness? So we examine ourselves and we do not look right, we cannot see right. We do not examine ourselves by God’s measure of judgment and standards. So, we miss the mark and discern not the body of Christ. Then we go into the Passover and we wash each other’s feet and we start another year. God looks and says, well you finished a year, you brought Me a crop and now I have to judge you because I kept telling them to examine themselves so I will not have to judge. They did not do it. He wants to heal us. Look at the long list of prayer requests. There are thousands of people in the Church it appears who need healing. Why aren’t we being healed? Why aren’t their prayers being answered? I think we are looking at the answer here. We do not discern the body. We do not examine ourselves, and we are quick to judge one another. How else can you explain 319 groups or 320 groups or 400 groups, whatever we are up to now? There is no other explanation. It is a scary thought, brethren. We have gotten ourselves into a real conundrum, and I am afraid that many people are going to the Passover year after year in a worse state than the year before. They are not even realizing it because they cannot see. They are blind. We have to do something. We have a part to play. You can see right here that we have to start with each individual. Examine ourselves properly, assay the metals and see the quality of gold, silver and the jewels or just how much is wood, hay and stubble in our lives Then as quickly as we can, before this Passover, get it straight with God so we can give at least some kind of an offering this spring holy days that is of the heart. And, next year we can produce a wonderful crop. We have to get through Passover and we want to do this right. Because after this Passover, we want more healings, we want more people’s prayers answered, we want to be able to intercede for people in the church and around the world. We have to examine ourselves first then these fruits will be ours. Now let’s turn to Romans 1:30. This is another harsh part of the test. God is talking about evil-minded people and then in verse 30 he says, “...backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” Obviously talking about the Church. How could they be haters of God? If you do not discern the body and you judge each other and accuse one another, that is hating the body of Christ. We can find ourselves in a very serious situation and then actually go to God and ask Him for intervention, healings and different things. Romans 2:1 - “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. But we know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practicing such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgment of God?” Verse 4: “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” We can actually be storing up God’s anger against ourselves if we do not do this right! If we judge, we are going to be judged the same as we judge. Verse 6: “Who ‘will render to each one according to his deeds:’ eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness - indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God.” So God goes the other way too, He is extremely fair. If, on the other hand, rather than judging and being critical and dividing and not discerning the body of Christ; if we are doing things to God’s glory and honor and peace and are humble and grow, He wants to work with us and help us in any way He possibly can. We have a loving Father and wonderful High Priest who will do literally anything for us if we are willing to at least go part way and be willing to examine ourselves and do the right thing. Now I want to read to you a quote from Mr. Armstrong from the 1972 edition of Just What Do You Mean - Converted? “If you see a Christian do something wrong, don’t sit in judgment and condemn. That is God’s business to judge and not yours. Let us have compassion and mercy. We do not know the inner heart of the others, only God does. “If you yourself have stumbled and fallen down, do not be discouraged. Get up and press on! God looks on the heart - the attitude, the intent. As long as one, in his heart, has the real desire to walk God’s way with Him, is deeply sorry and repents when he commits the occasional sin and is seeking to overcome sin and to make God’s way his habitual way of life (he still will stumble on occasion); and if he confesses it and repents, he will be forgiven. If he is diligent in his Christian life, his occasional stumbling will become less and less; and he will be making good progress - overcoming and growing spiritually and in righteous Godly character. “What is your attitude? When have you sinned? Have you been carelessly indifferent about it? You are on dangerous ground. Do you justify it? Do you feel others are to blame? That will never justify your sins. If you still desire to go God’s way, then it is not too late to turn from sins, confess your sins to God. Repent, pick yourself up with Christ’s helping hand and go on to overcoming and growing spiritually.” It is not too late. Brethren, we still have eleven days until Passover. How long does it take God to forgive us? The speed of thought! We have a lot of time when you stop and think about it that way. Let’s really examine ourselves. But, on the other hand, eleven days can go by awfully quickly. There is a lot to do isn’t there? There is nothing more important we have to do in the next eleven days than to properly examine ourselves and judge ourselves so that God will not have to judge us. Let’s see what we have learned from this test. We are going to exercise a little bit of judgment right now. If you want to write this down on a piece of paper you can. List your two worst enemies. Has your name been slandered in the Church, at work, at home? Now, of the church groups which are out there, which one is the most Philadelphian do you think? Which one is the most Laodicean? Which groups are the most likely to be martyred? Which groups are the most likely to be protected? All of us have been around the track a few times in the past, which minister offended you the most? This is in the true Church of God now. Which minister deceived you the most? That is it for our little test to see what we have learned. Now I want you, just by yourself, to compare how quickly these answers came to you and how judgmental you have been over the years. Why do these answers still come quickly? Is it because we have not forgiven and forgotten? Are you still hurting? Are you still justifying yourself? Are you still holding others responsible for the things that happened to you? I think you get the point. All of us have had all of these things happen to ourselves and most of us have done some of these to other people. That is what Christ is trying to say. I forgive you and I died for you in your sins. How can you continue to judge the rest of My body? How can we dare say to someone else that he is more likely to get martyred? How can we dare say who is more Philadelphian and who is more Laodicean? Only God knows the heart. Those labels hurt. Now, look at the condition of God’s Church, which is a mess. Look at the upcoming Passover and say do you think there is a whole lot of people out there who do not know how to examine themselves? Are we like that? I think we can make this the most important, productive Passover we have ever had. Just, right now, unfortunately, the body of Christ is tearing itself to pieces just like we read earlier. We tear ourselves to pieces by judging, accusing, pointing out faults. Then we return to that same God, God the Father and Jesus Christ whose body we just slammed, and ask for healing and ask for blessings and help. His answer: I cannot deliver you, I have to allow you to suffer because you cannot see to judge yourself. You have not examined yourself. You have not repented because you cannot see these things. So now discerning the body is very important and what we say toward the body and how we act toward the body. It is very, very important. These are incredibly important lessons that we must learn. You can write down I Corinthians 12. It is the discussion: we are one body with many parts. Those parts should be unified and working together as a whole and full of love for one another. Instead there is so much hatred and bitterness in the body of Christ. It is literally like a body decomposing - covered with putrefying sores. The only way we can fix it is spiritually by examining ourselves and begging God at this upcoming Passover to please cleanse us and renew His covenant with us. Make us clean. During the Days of Unleavened Bread, put the spiritual leaven out. Let’s offer God an offering of the heart, and our love for one another and our love for Him. I would like to go to James now. We will read all of chapter 3. Starting in verse 1: “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body. Indeed, we put bits in horses’ mouths that they may obey us, and we turn their whole body. Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.” Verse 5: “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God.” Verse 10: “Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring can yield both salt water and fresh.” Verse 13: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing will be there.” I would say the Church is horribly confused today. Verse 17: “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” It is a beautiful chapter to read when examining yourself. But, I want to point something out in verse 9 regarding the tongue: “With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.” That word “curse” and “cursing” there means to execrate and to doom. So it is not just cursing with foul language. Execrate means to call down evil. So when we say that group of God’s brethren over there deserves to go to the tribulation and most of them will get martyred, that is an execration. It is calling down doom on part of the body of Christ! See how serious that is? It is extremely serious. I told you it was a tough test but I know you are all up to it. We have eleven days left until Passover. Let us use that eleven days wisely and have the most profitable Passover we have ever had! Let’s get closer to Jesus Christ and His body than we have ever been and understand the full meaning of what it means to be discerning of the Lord’s body.