Let us Keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread by Purging away all the Sinful Things!

One of the statutes that God ordained for His people was that they would keep feasts unto God three times a year. In total there were seven feasts, but in Exo. 23:14-19 God ordained three main feasts for His people to keep: the feast of the unleavened bread, the feast of the harvest, and the feast of the tabernacles.

When Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh to ask him to let God’s people go they said, Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel, Let My people go that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness (Exo. 5:1).

The sole purpose of God telling Pharaoh to release His people was that they would come to the wilderness and hold a feast unto Him; it is almost as if nothing else matters. The same in Exo. 10:9, where Moses told Pharaoh that him and all his people with all their cattle and possessions will go out from Egypt to hold a feast unto Jehovah.

These appointed feasts are important to God; they are not just some “holidays”, some Old Testament types, but they are essential and central in God’s desire and plan concerning His people. This week we will dive deeper into the intrinsic meaning of the three feasts God ordained His people to keep, and we will see how they typify the full enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ.

The Meaning and the Implications of Keeping a Feast to the Lord

In Exo. 23:14 Jehovah ordained that “three times a year you shall hold a feast to Me”; these times were the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Deut. 16:1-8); the Feast of the Harvest, that is, the Feast of Weeks (vv. 9-12), or the Feast of Pentecost; and the Feast of Ingathering, that is, the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:34; Deut. 16:13-15).

What does it mean to hold a feast unto the Lord? To hold a feast to the Lord is to worship Him; God desires worshippers, and the worship He desires is by His people enjoying Him in His presence. God doesn’t want us to prostrate before Him or perform some religious duties (according to our natural mentality); He wants us to enjoy God in His presence.

The worship of God involves offering sacrifices of all that we have labored on, possess, and are; this worship is what God desires. In worshipping God according to His way we enjoy God as our provision through His dispensing of Himself into us.

Holding a feast to the Lord is a time to celebrate, enjoy ourselves, participate in God’s joy for Him becoming our provision and dispensing Himself into us through these provisions.

To hold a feast to the Lord means that we rest: we stop all our doing and daily affairs, and just rest with God, with what we have enjoyed of Him. God’s intention is that His people would enjoy Him, feast with Him, and rest in Him. The feast is the rest and enjoyment with God and also with one another; a feast is a “party”, a “celebration” between God and His people.

However, these feasts are not just so that “we may feel good in God’s presence” but they are UNTO Jehovah; they are for us to participate in His joy. These feasts are holy convocations, special gatherings, particular assemblies called for a special purpose by God; they are not common but godly, holy, special unto God.

The feasts are appointed by God – we have no right to start a feast, but we should just join the feast He has appointed. In feasting with God we should do no work and no labor, but we should rest and enjoy God in the principle of the Sabbath.

God wants us to rest with Him, feast with Him, and worship Him, and so we need to stop our doing, speaking, and even serving God so that we may feast on God! These feasts are full of sacrifices: we need to offer Christ as the fruit of our lips and the praise of our mouth, enjoying grace in our heart and praising the Lord.

Also, many of these feasts are of remembrance, causing us to remember what God wants us to remember, that is, realize what God has done in us and with us. Keeping these feasts unto God three times a year typifies the full enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ (2 Cor. 13:14); the reality of all these feasts is Christ, and when we enjoy Christ we keep the feast!

Lord, thank You for delivering us from Satan’s usurpation so that we may keep a feast unto You! Lord, we stop our doing, our struggle, and our labor and we just come to You in Your appointed time so that we may enjoy You, feast with You, and offer Christ as the reality of all the sacrifices! Lord, we want to offer You the worship You desire by enjoying You in Your presence day by day. May we enter into Your rest, feast on You and with You, and enjoy You both personally and with the saints as Your people for Your satisfaction!

Keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread by Purging Away all the Sinful Things

The first feast that God ordained for His people to keep was the feast of Unleavened bread, which is a continuation of the feast of the Passover; the feast of passover lasted for one night (typifying God’s redemption by passing over them in His judgement over Egypt when He sees the blood), but the feast of unleavened bread lasted for seven days (typifying the enjoyment of Christ as the unleavened bread for all the days of our Christian life).

Keeping the feast of Unleavened Bread (Deut. 16:1-8) typifies the purging away of all sinful things through the enjoyment of Christ as the sinless life supply (Exo. 23:15). The children of Israel were to observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days as a continuation of the Feast of the Passover; actually, the Feast of the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are one (12:15-20; 13:6-7; Matt. 26:17).

God’s redemption and salvation from the world is not the end; there must be a continuation of a daily enjoying God in Christ as the unleavened bread.

Exodus 13:7 says that no leaven was to be seen with the children of Israel. In our Christian life no leaven should be seen. It is impossible for us to have no leaven at all, but it is possible for the leaven not to be seen. Although it is not possible for us to be without sin, we must deal with any sin that is manifested, with any sin that is seen. This means that we are responsible to deal with the sin of which we are conscious. Whenever we discover something sinful in our lives, we must eliminate it. This, however, does not mean that we shall have no sin. There may be much sin in our lives or in our environment, but we may not be conscious of it. However, as soon as we become conscious of it, we must deal with it. We must forsake the sin of which we are conscious. We should not tolerate any manifestation of sin. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 850)

There are certain sins we have and are in our environment that we may not be conscious of, and in a sense we may not be responsible to deal with; but the sins that God has exposed, have come to light, and we are aware of we need to deal with immediately, since they are offensive to God, being against God’s holiness.

When we speak of a feast we think of “happy time” and “celebration”, but in our Christian life we need to realize that our real enjoyment is of God in Christ, and sin causes us to lose this enjoyment; therefore, the first thing we need to do if we mean business to enjoy God is to deal with any sins that the Lord exposes.

If we want to enjoy God in Christ and feast on Him day by day, rest in Him, and be satisfied with Him, we need to deal with the sins that God points out in our life and remove any sin that is exposed. The more we deal with sin, the more enjoyment of God we have; sin is an obstacle to enjoying God, and tolerating sin causes loss of the enjoyment of God.

If we do not deal with the sins that God points out, the Spirit shines on, and the word of God clearly disagrees with, we will lose both the enjoyment of God and of the fellowship of God’s people (Exo. 12:19; 1 Cor. 5:13).

As the church, we are a new lump which is unleavened; we should keep the feast not with the leaven of malice, evil, and sin, but in sincerity and truth (both of which refer to the sinless life of Christ, which has become our supply).

God hates sin; a country may legislate certain sins as a law or a way of living, but our highest standard is the word of God in the Bible. We respect the law of the land but we never compromise with God’s holiness and righteousness.

The world is going down in a spiral faster and faster, the mystery of lawlessness is rampant, but we are not here to “reform the society” or for a “political agenda” but we hold the word of God, we are His loving seekers, we worship Him, and we are one with Him in His nature and desire.

We are a new breed of people, those who hate sin and deal with sin so that we may be a new lump, a loaf of unleavened bread.

Lord Jesus, keep us feasting on You as our sinless life supply so that we may be able to deal with any sin that Your light exposes. Lord, we want to keep the feast of unleavened bread by dealing with any sin that You point out, the Spirit shines on, the word of God disagrees with, and it is clearly manifested. We just want to enjoy You more in purity, sincerity, and genuineness. Let us keep the feast of the unleavened bread in sincerity and truth. Oh, God, we worship You and we are one with You in Your holiness and righteousness!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Exodus, pp. 849-850 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (2), week 9 / msg 9, Keeping Feasts unto God Three Times a Year Typifying the Full Enjoyment of the Triune God in Christ.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # When the Lord was resurrected, / All religious things were through; / Christ is now our living temple, / Christ is all our offerings too. / With our Lord in resurrection, / Hallelujah, we’re released! / Pity all the old religion— / All our meetings are a feast! (Hymns #1281)
  # Living water, food supply, Lord, / Thou Thyself art, and didst die, Lord, / All our want to satisfy, Lord; / Now we feast on Thee. (Hymns #78)
  # Lord, Thou art the Bread from heaven, / The unleavened Bread of life; / Eating Thee, with Thee we mingle, / Ceasing from our sin and strife. (Hymns #196)