Celebrating Freedom from Bondage

INTRO

We’ve made it to Lesson 100! Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and now, the book of Deuteronomy. One hundred lessons of plowing through the Pentateuch. Moses was the writer for the last 100 days. We’ve been through some tough stuff, like Leviticus. In Deuteronomy 16, we’re going to talk about festivals and feasts again. The first section of Deuteronomy 15 feels like Leviticus again as it covers debts being cancelled, the requirements for lending to the poor, and about releasing the slaves every seventh year (vv. 1–18). Then in verses 19–23, there is a discussion of giving up firstborns.

TEACHING

Deuteronomy 16: The Importance of the Calendar

Why the emphasis on the calendar? Warren Wiersbe explains, “God gave Israel a unique calendar to help His people remember who they were and to encourage them to review all He had done for them.”1 We are a people of forgetfulness, but God doesn’t want the Israelites to forget what He did years ago, decades ago, or even centuries ago.

On the calendar, some dates were already established. On the seventh day of the calendar week, no one was to work. Every seventh year was the Sabbath year, and no one was to work. Every fiftieth year, there was no work, only celebration! There are three specific feasts the Lord said were especially important. There are seven festivals total, but we will talk about three of the feasts here.

Deuteronomy 16:1: The first instruction to the Israelites is to observe the month of Abib, which is the first month of the religious calendar (their Independence Day). They would observe the celebration of their release into freedom from Egypt (v. 1). The first festival is The Passover Feast which celebrates their freedom from slavery and from Egypt (Exodus 12:8).

Deuteronomy 16:2: The Israelites were to sacrifice a Passover animal. How does this point to the Messiah? The hyssop flower was to be dipped in the blood of the sacrificed lamb and spread on the doorposts and lintel of each home. That blood allowed the spirit of death to pass over a household so that the death of the firstborn of that family did not occur (Exodus 12). God had set His people free and wanted them to celebrate life! Tom (on staff with TTR) gave me this sheet of paper that says: “The angel of death made his way through the land killing the firstborn of every home. But, he ‘passed over’ all the homes covered by the blood of the lamb.”

Passover was really about Christ, but the Jews don’t know it yet (1 Corinthians 5:7). For us, the Passover Feast is about remembering the death of Christ on the cross at Calvary. Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament Passover because that death has already taken place. Remember that some of the feasts have not yet been fulfilled. Now the Passover Feast occurs during our calendar months (the Roman/ Gregorian calendar) of March and/or April. Abib is also the first month of the religious new year.

Deuteronomy 16:3–8: The Israelites were not to eat leavened bread with the Passover, but should eat unleavened bread for seven days (v. 3). The Festival of Unleavened Bread reminds the Jews of how they had to leave Egypt in a hurry and couldn’t wait for the leaven to make the bread rise. Unleavened bread meant “bread of hardship.”

The unleavened bread of Passover points us to Jesus. Leaven represents sin. Not having “sin” present in the bread represents the sinlessness of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ had no sin, but He became the representation of sin for us. Israelite homes were to be free of all yeast during this time. Back to the sheet of paper Tom gave me: “Sin and a Holy God cannot abide together, nor can a Holy God allow sin to go unpunished. The feast lasted seven days. The first and last were special Sabbath days.” All males were expected to participate in the Passover festival and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Verse 4 says no yeast could even be in the territory for the seven days of Passover and no meat that was sacrificed in the evening could be kept until morning. Further, the Israelites were told not sacrifice in any town God was giving them (v. 5). They were to sacrifice only in the tabernacle, the place “where Yahweh your God chooses to have His name dwell” (v. 6).

And they were to do this at twilight, the same time of day they exited Egypt. In verse 7, they were told to cook and eat the meal at the place of God’s choosing and then return to their tents in the morning. In verse 8, they were told to eat no leavened bread for six days. The Passover Lamb represents Jesus Christ. Christ is the lamb who died for us. John 1:29 identifies Jesus as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John the Baptist was preparing the way and said to look––Look! There He is, the Lamb of God who takes away our sin!

Note how “the Lamb” and “sin of the world” are represented together and how the festival of the Passover, the lamb and the unleavened bread overlapped! First Peter 1:19 says, “but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish.” Over and over in Scripture, this is the picture of Christ taking upon Himself the punishment we deserved.

Deuteronomy 16:9–13: The Festival of Weeks was scheduled seven weeks from the start of harvest and was a celebration. They were instructed to give in proportion to how God had blessed them. Everybody was to celebrate the harvest “—you, your son and daughter, your male and female slave, the Levite within your gates, as well as the foreigner, the fatherless, and the widow among you” (v. 11).

We, too, are to celebrate! We are to celebrate going from the old life to the new life. We are to celebrate going from this point of being slaves to having been set free. Wiersbe says it’s celebrating what we were and what we now are.2

CLOSING

Why do we celebrate (1 Corinthians 5:7–8; Matthew 16:6; Mark 8:15; Galatians 5:9; 2 Timothy 2:19; 2 Corinthians 7:1)? We are no longer celebrating with old yeast. Malice and evil aren’t an option for us anymore. Wiersbe says to beware of the yeast of compromising with the things we used to do. We are no longer celebrating how we lived in hypocrisy. Even though our past was lived out in malice, evil, hypocrisy, and unbelief, we now celebrate our freedom. We can now celebrate walking free of all these things. The Israelites were physically set free from Egyptian bondage, and we are physically and spiritually set free from sins of the past. Christ is always the one that does the cleaning up.

Going back to 1 Corinthians 5:8, I leave you with this: “Therefore, let us observe the feast, not with old yeast or with the yeast of malice and evil but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”