UNLEAVENED

(Without Guile)

Read. Exodus 12:15

We often make the mistake of thinking because we have seen signs and had experiences of the Kingdom that we're therefore in the Kingdom. When we get a little nervous about where we stand with God, we reassure ourselves.

"After all, I must be all right with God. Look at all the prayers He has answered. Look at all the miracles I have seen."

The Israelites in the wilderness said to themselves, "Why, of course, we're all right with God. Didn't He take us through the Red Sea? Didn't He give us water from the rock?

Hasn't He fed us with manna from heaven all this time?"

But those people never entered the promised land … there will be many on Judgment Day who will cry;

"Lord! Lord! Don't you remember us? You healed our bodies. You fed 5000 of us with five loaves and two fish. We ate and drank in your presence! You taught in our streets!"

He will send them into the outer darkness.

- the fact that God has answered some of your prayers,

- the fact that you felt the power of God sweep over you as you stood praising God in the fellowship one night,

- Or the fact that your body has been healed,

these are signs ... wonderful signs ... signs of God's fathomless love for you.

But you can see all kinds of signs of the Kingdom and still be outside the Kingdom. You are in the Kingdom;

- when you know Jesus alive from the dead,

- when you are in Him and He is in you.

He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life.

You are in the Kingdom,

- not because you knew Jesus yesterday,

- not because He spoke to you five years ago,

but because you know Him right now, at this moment. And to know Jesus right now,

to know that Jesus is in you and that you are in Him,

to know that His blood shed twenty centuries ago now covers your sins,

to know that He is interceding for you before the Father even while He stands in our midst and breathes on us the breath of heaven.

To know these things there is one absolute requirements:

God draws a sharp line between those who are allowed to see signs and those who are permitted to really come to know His Son.

Everybody there saw Jesus heal the sick, raise the dead, feed the multitude.

Everybody saw Jesus ride into Jerusalem on that donkey.

Everybody who wanted to could go out to Golgotha and watch Him die.

But who saw Jesus after He stepped out of that tomb? Only certain people. Mary Magdalene, the apostles, two disciples on the road to Emmaus, "500 brethren at once."

What was special about those people? "Why they were believers!" "They had faith!" Faith?

- Who had faith after they saw Him crucified?

- Who was expecting Jesus to rise from the dead?

- Did Jesus show Himself to doubting Thomas because he had faith?

Yet, there was one characteristic that marked every single person to whom Jesus made Himself known after He rose from the dead. Every single one of them was without guile - without pretense. Their lives were not without sin - but they were without guile. Their last pretenses had been broken when they saw their Master die that awful death. They weren't trying to kid anybody anymore. It was to these people that Jesus manifested Himself - they were the only ones in all Israel who were keeping the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

After the Lord ascended, He continued manifesting Himself to women and men through the Spirit. But again only to certain ones.

- The signs were for everyone.

- But the self-revelation of Jesus Christ was only for those who divested themselves of guile.

For instance: On the day of Pentecost a sign was performed for all in Jerusalem to see. The apostles were out there in the street proclaiming the wonderful works of God in languages they themselves hadn't even heard of. A crowd gathered. All that crowd saw was a sign of the Kingdom, they didn't see the King.

Then Peter stood up and began to speak. And as he spoke certain people in that multitude began to respond to what Peter said by taking off their masks, dropping their pretenses.

"Brethren, what must we do?"

They admit their need. They cry for help. To these Jesus manifested Himself, enabling them to believe.

Those who received the word were baptized and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

When the Lord showed Himself to Saul of Tarsus, Saul was way off on the wrong track. His heart was loaded with boiling hatred for these disciples of Jesus. But there was one thing about Saul: he was out in the open.

No one has ever met Jesus Christ alive from the dead who was not out in the open. Nor can you continue to have fellowship with Jesus Christ after you start putting your mask back on and covering your tracks.

The one requirement for meeting Jesus, walking with Jesus, and abiding in Jesus, is that we come out in the open, stay out in the open. That we quit hiding things.

And, there is no one who is more inclined to hide things than the religious person. When we start getting religious we want so badly to be sincere,

committed,

compassionate,

pure, and of deep faith, that every time the opposite qualities appear in our lives we shove them in the closet and lock the door. Or, we get a fancy blanket and toss it over the mess. After a while, we have so many stuffed closets and decorative blankets hiding our sins that we can hardly move or open a door. And every time the wind blows we fly into a panic for fear that our secrets are going to be popping out.

The symbol that Jesus uses for this condition is leaven, that foreign substance you put in dough to make it rise. On the outside that lump of dough looks the same. But once that leaven is in there the dough is no longer pure. The leaven works through that dough - even the smallest amount of it - pervades it with an atmosphere that puffs it up.

Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops. Luke 12:1b-3

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you are really unleavened. For Christ, our pascal Lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleaved bread of sincerity and truth. I Corinthians 5:6-8

How often the phoniest day of the year in the professing Christian churches is Easter. How often the whole thing is a production.

- We dress joyfully.

- We try to sing joyfully, and preach joyfully, and pray joyfully,

and underneath it all is that leaven.

- The service was beautiful.

- The music magnificent.

- The sermon inspiring.

And we walk out the door with a "wonderful feeling" but the leaven is still there. The thing that should have happened when we gathered in Jesus' name didn't happen. The real refreshment we needed didn't come, because of that leaven.

You can't celebrate the feast with leavened bread. You can't celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead when you've got things covered up, when beneath the mask of devotion to God the leaven is still at work.

- In order to penetrate beyond the same old "church thing" and really enter the dimension of Heaven,

- In order for us to pass out of the realm of religion and come into the region of divine glory,

- we have to get rid of all the leaven that's still working in our lives.

God will do everything else.

- God will send the Spirit upon us with power.

- God will open our eyes so that we can really see Jesus.

- God will break those chains that bind us to earth.

- God will cause the old things to pass away and make all things new.

- God will send upon us a Spirit of Praise that will lift us into the very company of the angels.

But, we have to get rid of the leaven!

Either we purge it out now or our hidden secrets will be exposed on that Day when it will be too late to clothe ourselves in Christ's blood and righteousness.

For there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. – Nothing!

It will all come out on that Day when kings and princes will be trying to claw their way into the earth to hide themselves from the glaring light of God.

Are we hungry enough for God's righteousness to take off every covering before His glory, open every closet, tear away every mask, remove every screen, and throw open the doors and windows of our hearts to the Spirit of God so that the Spirit can enter any room within us He wants to?

Are we willing to confess to God, this day, every vestige of -

lust,

pride,

greed,

bigotry,

deceit,

everything the Spirit puts His finger on?

Are we desperate enough for God's life to make an actual start right now by confessing definite things to God that we know haven't been pleasing to Him?

"Lord, you know I've been walking around pretending to be right with that brother while I've been wrong - I confess it."

"Lord, you know how my talk of total commitment and my soft, easy, self-indulgent, private life just don't match."

"Lord, you know I've avoided for two years taking that step of faith, telling myself I didn't feel led. But I was led. You showed me. Lord, forgive."

"Lord, you know how I've been nursing injured pride."

"Lord, you know how unbelief has been lurking beneath these words of faith."

"Lord, you know how I've been ashamed to confess the name of Jesus before men."

To every person reading this who yields to the call of the Spirit right now to come out into the open,

To every person who purges out the leaven, Jesus will come.

- Not the Jesus of sign and symbol.

- Not the Jesus of other men's testimony.

- Not the Jesus of doctrine.

But the Jesus who actually died on that cross, who actually rose from the dead, the Lord who rules with all authority in heaven and on earth, will come to you afresh,

manifest Himself to your heart,

flood your soul with His glorious life.

Will you, right now, lay aside your pride, admit what you are, and draw near to God with a heart that's unleavened?