No. 44 - CONTINUE IN THE ATTITUDE OF UNLEAVENED BREAD By: John J. Blanchard Monday, April 12, 2004 Today is the Last Day of Unleavened Bread, 2004. We have learned many lessons during this last week starting with Passover and actually the weeks before that as we examined ourselves. What I want to talk about today is to bring those lessons along to Pentecost. Take them with us now as we go forward. Unleavened Bread may be drawing to a close, but our life continues. Our struggle ensues. The cares of this life are soon to be upon us. We have bills to pay. We have jobs to go to. We will have certain stresses in our lives which all add up to “the world.” The world will have a big impact upon us. We are not going to be imbibing of physical unleavened bread each day. We are not going to be getting together a couple of times a week. We are not going to have the holy days and all the joy that goes with them, but we still have our calling. We still have the lessons that we have learned. Those we need to take with us so that we continue to bear fruit for God. We need to continue to be useful in the struggles that we face. COUNTING ON US TO SUCCEED Turn, if you would, to Romans chapter 8. We will see here that we must remember the world as we fight. Remember the world that suffers and groans under the bondage of Satan’s influence. It is a world that really is counting on us to succeed in our struggles against Satan. Romans 8, starting in verse 18. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.” There is a big difference here. We know why we are suffering. We know why Satan persecutes us, and we know what he is after. The world does not. They suffer in confusion. They suffer in ignorance. They suffer in darkness, not knowing they are counting on us to be revealed as the sons of God. We are to help them also to gain the liberty that is ours for being part of the body of Christ. They will have that liberty some day when our job is successfully completed. LIGHTS TO THE WORLD Our job is to be lights to the world. That is our responsibility. Turn, please, to Matthew chapter 5 and we will look at the verses surrounding The Beatitudes to start with. Matthew 5, starting in verse 1: “And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying…” Then He went into The Beatitudes. You will notice it was the disciples who were surrounding Him. It was not the people from the world. It was not the masses that often accompanied Him every where He went. It was His disciples. It was a private lesson for them, if you would. Continuing in verse 13, He concluded after He told them The Beatitudes. Matthew 5, verse 13: “‘You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned?’” He says you are the salt of the earth now. You have a job as a preservative. What is going to happen if you do not do your job? Continuing: “‘It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.’” Our lights should shine in the world, that we would be a beacon to the world. We should be an actual demonstration of a better way of life because we embody The Beatitudes. This is what Christ told His followers, and this is what Christ tells us today. We are part of the light of the world. We are part of that city set on a hill, and we have lamps that should be burning brightly so that all can see. If you have ever seen a city on a hill that is lit up at night, it is a very impressive sight from a long way off. I have had the privilege to travel across Canada on several occasions. When you look out across the prairies that seem to go on forever, you can see a city for hours before you get there because of the light that glows in the sky from that city. That is what Christ was saying here. You are a lamp and a light and a city on a high hill called Mt Zion. You should be a beacon to all men who see it. But if your light goes out and your preservative effect is gone, you are not worth much! We need to strive always to be that light to everyone else. Now I want to read The Beatitudes. Let’s back up to verse 2 of Matthew 5. Read Matthew 5:2-12. Now we see what it takes to be a light to the world. It does not take great finances. It does not take high position. It does not take renown. It takes humility. It takes a merciful attitude. It takes a pureness of heart. It takes a desire for peace and a desire for righteousness. When that shows in our life, we are a light to the world. When it does not, our light has gone dark and our salt has lost its savor. We never want that to happen to us and we constantly struggle against it. That is what Satan wants to stop. He wants to stop the good things that we can produce in our life for God. Christ shines through earthen vessels, and that is the miraculous thing here. His body is made of human beings of flesh and blood made of dirt. If you would, turn to II Corinthians chapter 4. Only God would have the audacity to try such an amazing and marvelous plan through humble and meek piles of dirt - humanity! Only He would have the strength to make this work. II Corinthians chapter 4. Read verses 1-6. It is God who commanded that the light should shine in the darkness and shine into our hearts and convert us. No man can come to Jesus Christ unless the Father draws Him. We should not judge those in the world as somehow inferior or less than us because they have not been drawn yet. We understand here in the last days that the world will get called. It is at this very time that it is important that our lights shine brightly, so that the world can see where the truth is. That is our job, brethren. It is a very difficult time to have been given this task, but God is not weak. He will prevail. UNREPENTED SINS Turn, if you would, to I Corinthians chapter 5. We often read verses 6 and 7 about leaven during the Days of Unleavened Bread, but we skip the context. I want to read a little bit of the context. Read I Corinthians 5, verses 1-8. Here we see that yes, we are told to keep the spring holy days with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth and not of malice and wickedness. But we see that Paul was telling a congregation when there is unrepentant sin, it must be repented of. This is the leaven that can creep into the whole congregation if allowed to be there. We may say we never read that because he is talking about a sin none of us get involved in. That is not true! We understand a lot more about immorality now. Whenever we let Satan into our lives, it is a type of immorality. We will not go into that today, but I want to continue reading in verse 9. I Corinthians 5, verse 9: “I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.” He says I am not talking about the sins that are in the world. I am talking about sins in the Church. He lists a bunch more here. It is all the same. Sin is sin. Any one of these sins left in the congregation becomes a leaven that can puff up the congregation. Indeed, it is our responsibility to put it out of our own lives, but we are also watching out for the body of Christ. Verse 11: “But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner - not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore ‘put away from yourselves the evil person.’” If you were to turn to II Corinthians you would see that this sin was properly dealt with and taken care of. Paul was saying if you want to take the Passover and eat unleavened bread properly, each of you must work on the sins in your own life. Help one another deal with sins in your own life. This is just a partial list. You could go in other places in the scriptures and get a more complete list. As a matter of fact, you can drop down to chapter 6 just for a moment. It is after the discussion about taking your brother before the courts of the land, which he said is a shameful thing. He said do not do that. It is a shameful thing if you take someone in the body of Christ and get judgment from outside, in the world. He said do not do that. The body of Christ is here to love one another, wash one another’s feet and forgive one another. This is how you are going to grow. If you cannot forgive one another, you are not going to grow as a congregation or individually. If you drop down, he even mentions more sins. I Corinthians 6, verse 8: “No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren! Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.” We were baptized. We were washed. At this most recent Passover, we were washed again, but we recommitted our lives and took that covenant. We agreed to do that covenant again for another year. All of us have fallen into some of these categories. Sin is sin, and the discussion of putting leaven out of our lives is in the context of this letter and the things that we are reading surrounding putting the leaven out. We are putting the leaven of wickedness out and bringing in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We need to concentrate now as we go forward in our lives leaving Unleavened Bread because those sins are still going to dog us. They are still our struggle to overcome even when Unleavened Bread is over. As we have said before, we want to be productive. We want to bear fruit for God and concentrate on working and overcoming. Move that goal forward so that we are always improving and growing in character. We need to be pushing sin out of our lives each and every day. DIG DEEPER INTO OVERCOMING In this struggle, God has not left us defenseless. That is important for us to realize. He has given us tools to fight with. We need to utilize them. We often speak of Ephesians chapter 6 and I would like to turn there. We commonly read about the armor of God in verses 10-20 and I want to reread that today, but then we are going to dig deeper into this concept of struggling against sin and overcoming sin. Let us start reading in Ephesians 6:10 and read to verse 20. We concentrate here a lot of times on defense. We put the armor on for defense. But there are several tools that are mentioned here that are for offense and more than just defense. A shield can be for offense as well. A sword is definitely for offense. So God gives us the tools to be protected (armor) and then gives us tools to fight back (the word of God - that is the sword). He gives us the shield to actively keep the fiery darts of Satan away. These are the things with which we fight. It is not physical weaponry. It is not physical defensive capability. It is not a tank full of armor. It is not a battleship. It is not a bomb or a gun. The word of God, God’s truth, His righteousness - these are the weapons that we use to fight and defend. This is what we will struggle with through our earthly vessels, our bodies. I want to note here that in verse 10 we started this whole section of scripture in Ephesians 6 by saying, “Finally, my brethren…” Why do we often read verses 10-20 as if that was all he was talking about, when he said “finally”? These were his last points. These were the last things he had to say in his letter. We need to look at the context here once again. What was he talking about? What can we learn from this whole thing about fighting and about defending ourselves? Let’s take a look. You are going to find that the Book of Ephesians discusses war with these principalities and how to overcome them quite a bit. I want to go back all the way to Ephesians chapter 1, starting in verse 15. We are going to spend quite a bit of time in Ephesians here today. Go to Ephesians chapter 1, starting in verse 15. “Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints…” After Paul greets them and gives his opening statements in his letter, he says after I heard of your faith in the Lord and your love for the saints, I wanted to write you this letter. “…do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers…” He prays for them daily. “…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him…” He is praying for them to have strength. “…the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power…” He wants us to have wisdom and understanding, and then he wants us to understand just how powerful God really is. ABOVE PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS Verse 20: “…which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Let’s reread that in verse 20: “…which He worked in Christ…” God the Father worked this in Christ. “…when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Christ was put above every principality and power. Now you remember in chapter 6 we were reading that we do not fight normal flesh and blood. We fight principalities in heavenly places. God, Jesus Christ, emptied Himself of His divinity, became a man, to redeem us and was successful. The power of God the Father working with Him made it possible for that Man to rise above every power and principality in the universe and is working to do so now in His body, the Church! This is an enormous project! It takes tremendous power. God is not worried about nuclear weapons. He has something far more powerful. He has His righteousness, His truth and the things that we read that are the armor. Those are so powerful that they will defeat everything, even the minds that could conjure up nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and all sorts of mass destruction that is motivated and influenced by Satan. He tries to get humankind to destroy itself. Continuing in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” We were at one point under these principalities. We were children of wrath, motivated and moved by every impulse that would come into our minds. If we could not deal with the negative impulses, we sinned. We fell constantly walking in the desires of the flesh. This was our state before we were called. God worked through Jesus Christ, the head of His Church, to eventually move us above all principalities and powers. We can then help Him rule. Temporarily we are still on this earth, but as we read, you are going to see we have at our disposal tremendous power if we so choose to use it. If we do not, it is to our shame. Continuing in verse 4 read to verse 10. What is this saying? Are we born again already? No! How are we dwelling in heavenly places and able to fight these principalities? Brethren, Jesus Christ rose from the dead. He has taken our sins upon Himself so that we are washed clean, and then He dwells in us through His Spirit. That lifts us up out of a dead state (the world conquered by Satan) into a state in which we are alive. We are physical, but within us is an immortal being working and living in us. He is helping us have a heavenly place. We have a heavenly position even though we are walking on this earth. This is a wonderful thing to comprehend. It is what gives us power to fight principalities. Otherwise, how could a human being fight Satan and his demons? We cannot fight something we cannot see, touch, feel, or hear. We have no ability to do that because those are heavenly places even though they are surrounding the earth. It is the concept of spirituality, so to speak. It is a spiritual place. We are not dwelling in God’s heavenly throne in the universe, but we have a heavenly position already given to us in which we fight others in heavenly positions (spiritual beings above the earth). CHRIST FIGHTS THROUGH HIS BODY We can fight things we cannot see, we cannot touch, and we cannot hear. What can we use? We do not use guns. We do not use physical weapons. We use the shield of faith. We use the sword of God’s word. Christ is fighting through us, His body. This is a spiritual fight to the finish. God is going to win. We are very much involved here, because He lives and dwells in us. He is fighting through us now at this point in time. That is, we who are the rest of the firstfruits, as we studied earlier during the Days of Unleavened Bread. Continue reading in verses 11-15. We can be a new man when Christ comes together in us. Mr. Herbert Armstrong explained how it is a type of the human spirit being joined with God’s Spirit to be complete. When we are complete, we can wage heavenly warfare, because now we have a heavenly Being dwelling in us. We can fight Satan. We fight on behalf of God’s Church and on behalf of the whole world that we were once a part of and did not understand these things. Now it is our job to understand and do something to fulfill our responsibilities. Continue reading in verses 16-18. We talked about this access during the Days of Unleavened Bread previously when we said we have a High Priest. When we fail, our High Priest, Jesus Christ, takes our petitions to God the Father to be forgiven. Christ said I have covered their sins with My blood. When we are fighting spiritually and we go down, this is how we get right back up. We have this Eternal Being dwelling in us. Otherwise the wages of sin is death. We would not be able to get back up. Once you have sinned, you have had it forever! With Christ we can keep getting back up! We can keep fighting. We can keep struggling on. We can bear fruit because He dwells in us. We are a new type of a man. We are a physical being with an Eternal Being dwelling in us giving us the capability of waging spiritual warfare. Read verses 19-22. We are a dwelling place. We are not foreigners to God anymore. We are not citizens of the earth anymore, so to speak. We are citizens of a kingdom to come. We are that kingdom in embryo, and God dwells in us as we are His house. From that fortress that is His (that temple) He wages war with a demonic force of Satan and his demonic principalities. This is what we are fighting against. We are not fighting our fellow man. We do not fear our fellow man. We are fighting on behalf of our fellow man. This is a huge job and huge responsibility that we have been given. We need to take it seriously and work hard on it. Continue reading in Ephesians 3:1-4. He says I am trying to convey this mystery to you. With God’s help you will comprehend. Read verses 5-7. He says I am teaching you this mystery, and I am showing you that God is opening it up to all people! Eventually all people will be converted. It starts with the firstfruits, and those firstfruits can be composed of Gentiles. That is the non-Jew whom God the Father has called and drawn to Jesus Christ and who have been taught these principles. Continue reading in verse 8: “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ…” Let’s pause here for a moment. Paul was a persecutor of the Church, and some said he was a murderer of the brethren and a false accuser working for the other side. He was given the understanding of these things ahead of even the other apostles! He is the one who taught them that this is going to be okay, and we need to go to the Gentiles and do these things. Peter had received a dream that Gentiles could come in, and Paul did this ministry. He understood a mystery. He said I, being the least of the saints, have been allowed to see this. We must say the same. We may be considered the least. We are. We are little in God’s eyes, and we are little in our eyes. That does not mean we cannot know amazing things! When it comes from God, He helps us. He reveals things to us. He helps us grow. TEACHING ANGELS Reread verse 8 and go to verse 11. This is amazing. Think about this. Paul is saying I understand these mysteries, and I was really a persecutor of the Church! None of us have done the evils to the Church to the extent that Paul did. None of us should look at our sins and say God cannot do anything with me. We have a wonderful example here of Paul rising up above his sins with God’s help and getting used by God in amazing ways. He says so much, so that through the things the Church is learning, we are teaching the principalities. Who are the principalities? There is another scripture that says that angels seek to look into the things we are learning! What we are learning as we are learning it, is coming to the understanding of angels both good and bad! In other words, as God reveals something to us, the angels sitting in listening and watching are getting taught too! Satan is getting to know what exactly is going to happen here and how God is going to defeat him. He knows that God has said in His word He will defeat him. Satan does not know every move God is going to make. Certain things are hidden. God the Father and Jesus Christ keep them to Themselves until it is the right time to share them. As we learn these things through the Church, the principalities are very interested in finding out what is going on. Satan tries to counter them, and God only laughs. He will defeat Satan. As we learn these things and understand, we can more effectively fight Satan as he tries to destroy God’s plan. As we learn, we can be more effective as he tries to make a mess of God’s Church. We are given the tools to fight back and overcome. Continue reading in Ephesians 3:12. “…in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.” He says we still have boldness in faith through our High Priest, Jesus Christ. He says do not look at what is happening in my physical life. He is talking about his tribulations. If you finish this whole letter you find out he is in prison at this point in time. He knew that he was going to die a martyr’s death, but he said all of these things are working to the good because I have a greater power in me. We are fighting principalities. He goes on, as you will see, and we end up in chapter 6 where he tells us finally here are the things you use. But we need all of this information back here to properly understand what we are doing with these principalities, how we are fighting them, and how they are watching to see who is winning here. The evil side sees God pulling out ahead, so they counter and make a move against the Church. God makes another move, and if you have spiritual vision, you can see this. You can see God is pulling out ahead again, and then Satan makes another move. He attacks the Church from somewhere else. He attacks one of us. He finds a new way to drive a wedge in or finds a chink in our armor where he can put one of his sinful thoughts in there. We see God always comes out with another way to defeat Satan. We just have to be willing instruments as the body of Christ to allow this huge fight to take place through us. DON’T INHIBIT GOD’S ABILITY TO WAGE WAR It is humanity defeating Satan by the power of Jesus Christ. That is what the battle is. It is a fantastic thing to understand. As we understand this, we are better able to let God wage this fight. When we do not conquer sin in our lives and we do not put the leaven of wickedness out of our lives, we are inhibiting God’s ability to wage this war. We are letting Satan overcome us. That is why it is so important to keep the unleavened bread with sincerity and truth and continue afterwards with the truth of God and all the armor He makes available. As we grow in strength, Satan’s power diminishes. As our light grows in brightness and we become a stronger light for the world, the world sees what to do and Satan’s power is diminished in the world. This is one of the reasons why Satan is so angry today. He knows his days are numbered, and he sees God is winning. He sees God is doing something amazing, and God is pulling it out at that last minute! He is going to win. Satan is very angry and upset with that. He is trying every trick in the book to defeat God. Continue reading in Ephesians 3:14-16. He says I am praying daily that you will be strengthened. I get on my knees every day and I pray to God to strengthen your inner man. That is where Christ dwells. The Holy Spirit dwells with our spirit. Our inner man, this new man, is a combination of physical man and Jesus Christ. He says that I pray that you will be strengthened in your inner man. Read verse 17. Love covers a multitude of sins. Love and mercy are the greatest powers in the universe. Read verses 18-21. He is praying for the Church, and by extension our generation today in the Church. He is praying that we have the strength in our inner man to be able to wage this fight against these principalities. Continue reading in Ephesians 4:1-3. He is essentially going right along with The Beatitudes. This is what makes our light burn brightly on a hill and what gives our salt its saltiness. Continue reading in verse 4-8. We were once captive in the world and God saved us. We were baptized, and He gave us His Holy Spirit. He gave us gifts at that time. We are to develop those gifts. Read verses 9-10. This is what we started with in chapter 1. He has ascended above all powers and above all principalities. Nothing is not under His feet. He is sharing that with His body, the Church! How did He do it? He had to first become a man and die for our sins. He had to have lived a perfect life to qualify to do that. In other words, it was by God the Father’s power and the will that Jesus Christ obeyed that this was done. Marvelous! Now He is doing it through us, His body. He is working in us. Read Ephesians 4:11-16. Brethren, God has given us everything we need. The people we have here and in our other congregations around the world and, indeed, the broken body of Christ are the pieces that will eventually edify the body. God will, in due time, rescue His body held captive. It is our duty, those who understand at this time, to continue to wage the fight. We must continue to put the leaven of wickedness out of our lives and follow the advice and the written word of the apostles and the prophets in this word, the Bible. He has given each of us a part to play in the body to equip the body, to edify the body, and come to the fullness and stature of Christ. That is our job. In our generation we are to make the body of Christ as functional as possible. Those who have gone before us have done an outstanding job! That is why we have the Bible. The Churches in the past have endured persecution of all types. The Church has survived and the truth has survived sometimes to a greater extent than others. Satan was never allowed to prevail, you might say, against the Church. God will be victorious and He is going to use His body. We are weakened and we are in a bad way right now, but He is going to help us. He is going to help us the same way He has helped all of the Church with the Spirit dwelling in us. He is going to help us with the same armor and with the same sword. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. We need to allow Him to work through us individually and as a group to get the job done for the benefit of the whole world. They are all groaning and waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. DON’T LET FUTILITY ENTER OUR MINDS Continue reading in Ephesians 4:17-18. We need to be the same. Do not let futility in our mind. God is not a quitter. He is not going to give up, and we shouldn’t either. We should not let futility enter our mind and the sins of the world enter our mind once again. Certainly we should not let the ignorance of the world come back in. Many in the body of Christ have given up and have gone back to the ignorance. We pray for them that they will once again be enlightened, once again be blessed and come out of this captivity. Read Ephesians 4:19-24. This battle, brethren, takes place in our mind. It is the temple of God where God dwells in us and where He puts His Spirit. We are to put off our old man and our old habits. We need to push out the old leaven that corrupted our bodies. We need to let the new mind blossom and grow. Let the mind of Christ be in us so that we can wage this war with the sword of God and with faith, righteousness and truth. We need to bear the fruit, for God, of peace and joy that the Holy Spirit can give. Read verses 25-27. We have talked about many sins this morning. There is quite a list if you were to be adding all of them up. He talks here now about lying being another sin that would be a leaven and that could harm the body of Christ. He talks about anger. If we have a temper that we have a hard time controlling, that could also be something that could hurt the body of Christ. Everything that we conquer makes the body remove a spot or a blemish. It is getting the bride ready. It allows Jesus Christ to fight through us to defeat the principalities that we are really at war with. We are not at war with Islam. We are not at war with Europe, as some feel. We are not at war with any of our fellow men. We love them, and we want them released into the liberty of Jesus Christ. We are at war with Satan the devil and his demonic principalities. His demons tempt us to sin. They want to put leaven back into our lives. This is our battle. We must always stay focused on this battle and not on the things we see in the flesh. That is not our enemy. In the Church, our mortal enemy is sin and being overcome by this leaven. We are told here if lying is a problem, stop it. Be truthful. If anger is a problem, learn to control your temper. It you lose it, do not let that day end while you are still angry. Get rid of the anger. This way there is no place and we get rid of these sins. The devil has no place to accuse. He has no place to tear us down. Read Ephesians 4:28-32. God knows we are human and we are going to slip in these things. He said if you want the body of Christ to be strong, forgive one another. That is why we started just prior to the Days of Unleavened Bread washing one another’s feet. As we forgive, we get rid of bitterness, anger and animosity and push Satan out of our congregation. He cannot divide. He cannot pull us asunder, because we are strong. The love of Christ is dwelling in us. We have been forgiven of our sins, and we have learned that to the level and to the degree that we judge our brother and not forgive, that is the measure Christ will have to use against us when He returns. But if we forgive much and judge gently, we will be forgiven much. We will be judged gently by Jesus Christ. This is the spiritual war we are engaged in. It is a daily battle. We have just been given seven days of Unleavened Bread to build some good habits in these things so we can fight malice, hatred, the principalities and the powers of wickedness in heavenly places. We do it with the heavenly Being dwelling within us! His word, His truth, His light, His mercy, His love, His humility, and His kindness are the things that counter Satan’s power. It makes him powerless in our Church area and powerless in our lives, as long as we work on this. When we fail, quickly go to Jesus Christ. Ask for forgiveness and get back up and keep going. Do not stop. We have a long way to go in some ways and a very short way to go in others. We do not know how much time there is left. Each of us needs to concentrate on bearing fruit as much as we possibly can. SPIRITUAL SEXUAL IMMORALITY Continue reading in Ephesians 5:1-5. I see here that he lists these sins which we know all of us have fallen into some of these categories over time. We still do from time to time. We do not idolize them. We want them out. We hate them. He is saying if you have these things and you love them, you are in trouble. That is an idol. When we have any of these characteristics and we love it so much we want to leave it in our mind and heart it is an idol. That is idolatry! That, in God’s mind, is sexual immorality, by the way. Because we are letting another being into us instead of Jesus Christ. We need to stay pure and clean in all these wonderful ways in order to wage war with the horrible being that is trying to destroy God’s body. Read Ephesians 5:6-7. It would be our hope, dream and prayer that all congregations would become prepared to wage this war and not waste their time with empty words. They waste their time looking for false signs. They waste their time saving money, building bomb shelters and getting ready to flee to a physical place of safety. It is our hope that they would wage the war that is before us and utilize God’s truth in order to do it instead of false and empty words. Read verses 8-13. Wherever we show what Satan is doing, we are exposing it and putting it under a spot light. We are saying here is what he is doing now! Take a look. Put the spot light on the Church and put the spot light on our individual lives. Look in a mirror and you will see the reflected light of what Satan’s is doing in your life and my life, in the Church and in the world, indeed. It is our job as lights of the world to use that light to help people see what is going on in the darkness so that they can have hope and can fight it. Read Ephesians 5:14-16. In our day and age we could say these are the ten virgins who need to awake, to rise, put away foolish talk and start talking and fighting the fight that God has put before us. Help people overcome the principalities and powers of wickedness. THE DIVINE INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE Continue reading in verses 17-21. Then he goes on to talk about our families. Continue reading in verses 22-33. In the sermon recently that we had entitled “The Divine Institution of Marriage,” we looked at marriage. We saw that it is a divine institution. That is why Satan hates marriage. In our families when we do it right, we are wielding the truth! We are fighting Satan. We are defending the truth in honor and righteousness. We are keeping him out of our families and helping overcome him. We are fighting principalities of wickedness. It is a great mystery how family portrays what Jesus Christ and God the Father are trying to do here on this earth in mankind. It is another subject. It is a beautiful subject. Go back and review that sermon: “The Divine Institution of Marriage” and study that. Here I am leading up to chapter 6. Read chapter 6:1-8. These are acts of service toward one another that count with God. Read verse 9. This applies more in this day and age to employers, except in some countries there is still some slavery. In our day and age you could say for those who have a business do they treat their employees well? Those who are employees, serve their employers well. In the Church we can say those who are over the Church, be kind and gentle to the Church. Treat them gently, lovingly, caringly and not threatening. Do not rule with a tough rod, scaring people, but actually nurturing the flock, teaching them and healing them. THE ARMOR OF GOD Then we find in verse 10 we come to the whole armor of God. That is why after all of this discussion that we had, Paul finally says put on the armor of God. That was just a small part of what he was trying to say. All of this information helps us to understand properly what these principalities are and how Christ has overcome on our behalf. We know He is working through us to overcome on the world’s behalf by putting together a government that will depose these principalities, and why the world is groaning waiting for us to be revealed. You need all the surrounding information to understand how and why to properly use the whole armor of God. This is what we need to do. This is our job. Unleavened Bread has launched us in this direction and we need to continue that way. We need to become part of the hope of mankind and not part of what discourages them. Our job is to help pull down these strongholds. Turn back to II Corinthians chapter 10. Read verses 1-6. When our obedience is fulfilled, our character put in place and we have either died in the faith or are alive at Christ’s return, all disobedience will be squashed. Satan’s government and his demonic principalities will be removed. God’s government will bring peace to the earth. You will notice that the weapons we have been given (Ephesians 6) are for pulling down strongholds and pulling down false doctrines. They are for pulling down sin in our lives. We pull down untruth that the world is confused by. We pull down ignorance and bring light, knowledge and the truth of God. SPIRITUAL MURDER AND ADULTERY Turn, if you would now, to James chapter 4. This is detailed more by James. He says in James 4:1, “Where do wars and fights come from among you?” He is talking to the brethren here. “Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” He is talking to the brethren here. I do not think they were physically murdering one another. Christ said if you hate your brother and you call your brother a fool, you killed him. It is a type of murder. When we divide the body of Christ, it is a type of murder. When we do not like each other, hate one another or deceive one another, we are harming the body of Christ. He says why do you do this thing? Because of your own desires. You have not overcome. You have not put the leaven out of your life, so to speak. Get rid of these things and you will get rid of the carnal desires. Continue in James 4, verse 3: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” Do not ask for what you need physically. God knows what we need physically. Seek first the kingdom and all else will be given to us. Verse 4: “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?” They were not all committing adultery. He is saying when we let Satan in, it is a form of adultery. When we leave these sins in our lives, it is a form of idolatry. This is a much broader concept than what we may have thought of before. Continuing in the middle of verse 4: “Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, ‘The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously’? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’” Be meek and humble, and God will reward that. At the same time, put out the leaven of malice and wickedness because God is jealous. We are His bride. When Satan fools around with the bride of Christ, that makes God jealous. It makes us a type of an adulterer. That is fooling around with the wrong spirit. We need to put that out and get rid of the enmity of God and the leaven of malice and wickedness. Put in sincerity and truth. Continue in James 4 and read verses 7-10. We need not think more highly of ourselves than we are and stare our sins in the face. If we have been double minded, get rid of that double mind. Cleanse our hands, that is our actions. Cleanse our hearts and then we are working towards not only putting the leaven out of our lives, but we are helping clean up the body of Christ. We are waging successful war against the principalities of darkness and wickedness in heavenly places. This is why we fight with the whole armor of God, being truth, righteousness, shield of faith and the sword of God. This is how we fight Satan. OUR SPIRITUAL ENEMY Anything that gets us fearful of something physical is a waste of time. We have a much greater enemy than anything physical. Our enemy is spiritual, and he is trying to defeat the body of Christ and Jesus Christ himself. We cannot allow it to happen. We need to let Jesus Christ live in us, work through us and fight through us. In conclusion I want to turn to Romans chapter 8. We are going to conclude with this scripture and go forward from here, looking toward Pentecost earnestly. We will continue to work on bearing fruit for God. Romans chapter 8, verse 24. “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?” Likewise, we do not fear what we see. We do not fear the physical things going on in the world. We are fighting a spiritual enemy. Read Romans 8:25-33. We have all sinned, brethren. Do not fall for the old guilt trap. Once we have been forgiven, we have been forgiven. Let’s go forward! OUR HIGH PRIEST Verse 34: “Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Who is going to condemn someone else in the Church, or indeed the world? Christ takes on our sins. He is our intercessor. Our High Priest is more mighty than all! He is above all principalities. Who can accuse us once we have given Christ our sins? Verse 35: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That is the fight we are in. We are not going to be defeated, not as long as we love God. All things are going to work for the good when we love God. As long as we strive in any way to overcome, God will be there. He is not going to let us go. He is not going to let us fall. Let nothing separate us from the love of God. With Him for us, no one could be against us. Go forward, putting the leaven out of our lives. Do not look back! Keep moving the goal ever forward. We are going to count fifty, but I want to keep counting. Each and every day is precious now because there are so few left. Let us be pleasing in the sight of our Lord.