Exhortation Station

“Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. ⁸ Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” — 1 Corinthians 5:7,8

I thought I’d share something I’ve been encouraged with during this season of Yahweh’s spring feasts.  Whether you’re celebrating the feast now or in April, I pray you’ll find this edifying.  Let’s look at a verse in Matthew.

Matthew 26:41 — “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

This verse was an instruction from Yahshua to His disciples when they were in the garden of Gethsemane, shortly before Yahshua was to become the ultimate Passover Lamb.  Why this instruction?  Was there a particular temptation the disciples were about to face?  It’s very interesting that later in this chapter, after Yahshua was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, we read that “all the disciples left Him and fled” (v. 56).  A little later, we read about Peter’s denials of Yahshua (v. 69-75).

Could it be, then, that the “temptation” Yahshua was referring to in verse 41 was the temptation to shrink back from faith?  Back in verse 31, Yahshua had told His disciples, “You will all fall away because of Me this night…”  Then, in verse 35, we read, “Peter said to Him, ‘Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.’ All the disciples said the same thing too.”  It wasn’t that the disciples didn’t wholeheartedly want to stick with Yahshua even when times got tough, but Yahshua knew the weakness of their flesh.  What a convicting reminder this is of how easy it is to be overconfident in our own strength.  May we remember to keep watching and praying that we may not come into temptation!

This dovetails with another thought I’ve been pondering.  Exodus 12:39 says, “They baked the dough which they had brought out of Egypt into cakes of unleavened bread. For it had not become leavened, since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves.” 

Notice it says, “since they were driven out of Egypt and could not delay.”  In addition to the reminder to “clean out the old leaven,” the unleavened bread has been a reminder to me of the importance of responding quickly to Yah’s direction.  When Yahweh tells us to do something, are we going to say, “wait a minute, my bread hasn’t risen yet,” or are we going to drop what we’re doing, let our bread be, and follow His lead?

Let us conclude with the words of Yahshua in Luke 21:34-16 — “Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life, and that day will not come on you suddenly like a trap; ³⁵ for it will come upon all those who dwell on the face of all the earth. ³⁶ But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

(All Bible passages NASB; Hebrew transl. added.)