Exodus 23:14-15 - Living a life rid of sin

The Israelites celebrate three annual feasts stipulated by God. They are the Feast of the Unleavened Bread; the Feast of Harvest; and the Feast of Ingathering. Three times a year all the males of Israel would gather in Jerusalem to celebrate these feasts. Let us go through them, reflecting on them one at a time. We begin with the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. What’s important is the significance of this feast. Exodus 23:15 briefly describes this feast, saying, “You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. And none shall appear before Me empty-handed.”  

 

This feast is always celebrated in conjunction with the Feast of the Passover. The Passover commemorates the night God caused Pharaoh of Egypt to drive the people of Israel out of Egypt. There they were slaves for a long time until God broke through, killing every firstborn of the Egyptians. Prior to that God told them to take the blood of a slaughtered unblemished lamb and smear on the doorposts of their houses so that the angel of death would bypass those houses. That night they were made to leave Egypt in such a hurry that their bread didn’t even had time to rise.

 

This was immediately followed by the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. For seven days they were told to eat bread without yeast. This feast was given to help them to recall their salvation. It helped them to look back on the exodus when God delivered them from their bondage in Egypt. God gave them this feast to remember that dramatic night. Every year they took time to remind themselves of God’s mighty deliverance. It was one of God’s greatest saving works in history. It points forward to the greatest deliverance at Mount Calvary where Christ Jesus died for sinful humanity.

 

Today, much like the Israelites then, we need to take time to commemorate the mighty deliverance of God. He gave Jesus His Son, the unblemished Lamb of God who shed His blood on Calvary. When we apply His blood over the doorposts of our heart, we are delivered from the guilt of sin and death. So on every Good Friday, we commemorate that historic day when Jesus died for us to set us free. On this day, we recall how deeply God loves us. We were not redeemed with perishable things such as silver or gold. So valuable are we to God that it took the life of His only begotten Son to effect our redemption. As we think of what Jesus had done, we must consider the last part of verse 15 that says, “none shall appear empty handed” before God. We must come to God with a gift. The best gift according to Romans 12:1 is the giving of ourselves to Him as an act of spiritual worship. He wants us to yield ourselves totally to Him. It is not just a logical thing to do but a reasonable act of worship because Christ gave Himself so totally to us. Like the Israelites, we must also remove the yeast, which is a type of sin, from our life. God desires that we live a yeast free life. So we must!