[Gary Petty] The last time we did this we had a very good turnout.  A large number of people who joined the Bible study that Mr. Meyers did last month.  And this is the second in a six part series about the Passover that we are going to be going through between now and Passover season.  Each one will build on the one before.  So, if you missed one, that's okay because you can just go on the website and you can see it.  But, if you do miss one, I really do encourage you to go back and watch the one you missed.  We are going to be covering a lot of information over these six Bible studies.  Each one builds; there are bits and pieces of this, sort of, large puzzle on the plan of God that we're going to be putting together.  All six of them work together.  So, I just want to remind you that next month.  Actually, at the end of this month, February 19th, the middle of this month, Darris McNeely will be going through Jesus and Reconciliation.  The third in this series will be in two weeks.  That's February 19th, Jesus and Reconciliation.

Okay, if you'll please rise, bow your heads.
Opening Prayer:  Gary Petty

"Great Father, King, we come before You in awe of the fact that we have this book and this book tells us what you are doing and, Father, we have to have the faith to believe that this book is from you.  But, if we do, then this book is amazing because it unlocks the whole purpose for humanity.  It unlocks Your plan for us when we live in a very confusing and difficult world and yet this isn't the way it is supposed to be and You actually are going to solve the problems of humanity just as you can solve our problems in our everyday lives.  But, we need to understand this big picture and a lot of that ties in, Father, with understanding the meaning of the Holy days.  And these six Bible studies are so important.  We ask You to open our hearts and minds to get out of Your Scripture what You want us to learn and there is so much, Father.  With Your help.  If you open our hearts and minds, we can understand; we can be enlightened.  So we ask You for Your guidance, Your direction.  We thank You and we praise You.  We ask all this in the name of the One who makes it all possible, Jesus Christ.  Amen."

There is a passage in Revelation 5.  We won't turn there, but, it is a fascinating passage where John is given a vision of heaven.  And there they announce that there is a scroll.  But nobody is qualified to open the scroll.  And then, it says that there is a person qualified to open the scroll.  He is the "Lion of Judah" and the "Lamb of God".
Revelation 5:5 "And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."

It is very interesting and, as you go through that entire chapter of Revelation 5 you see that it's Jesus Christ.  And there are a number of hymns in that chapter to Jesus Christ and the Father.  But worshipping Him as the One who is qualified to open the scroll.

Now that's an interesting passage because, why is it, that God says, "I have a scroll.."  and He looks out, over all of humanity;  He looks out over all of the angels; He looks out over everyone He has ever created and He says, "You know, there is only one person who I deem can open the scroll.  And He is the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God."
Now the Lion of Judah is a totally different subject.  It is a fascinating subject on its own, how Jesus Christ is of the seed of Abraham, and comes through Judah, and it goes clear back to prophecies made to Abraham in Genesis.  It carries on through how He is the Lion of Judah.  He is the King of kings, the Lord of Lords. 
What we are talking about, and leading up to, here, the Passover, where Jesus is the Lamb.  So that passage has to do with, when we look at the Holy days, it has to do with Jesus coming.  You know, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles, as the Lion of Judah.  But, when we look at the Lamb, it has to do with the fact that He came as the Passover Lamb.

So, what does it mean, that He is qualified to open the scroll?  Why is He making this point, "only He can do this?"  Now, today we are going to deal with some really big concepts.  Sometimes you give a Bible study and full of details.  And, sometimes you deal with big concepts. This is a concept Bible study.  Big concepts that will help you over the next couple of months as you prepare for the Passover and understanding part of what God is doing and why He is doing it the way the way He is.

This is what amazes me.  I've asked many times, "God, why did You do it this way? Why is Your plan set up this way?  Why didn't you set it up a different way?"  But as you see more and more what God does, for the Holy Days, supply a key, because every Holy day is about what God is doing in His plan of salvation, specifically through Jesus Christ, you begin to realize the absolute genius of God.

There are other statements made in the Bible about Jesus Christ.  It says that He learned. He is the Captain of our salvation.  In another place it says, "He learned through His suffering".  He's also called the "second Adam". 
For years and years the term, second Adam, seemed confusing to me.  I mean I know, we all know that Jesus Christ is the Word and Jesus Christ became a man but why is He the "second Adam"?

Well, all of this eventually ties into the Lamb of God and the fact that He is the Lion of Judah, the King of kings and the Passover.  So, we're going to tie this in and look at it in terms of both of those although we're going to zero in on the Passover.  You can't separate the fact that He is both.  What God is doing through Him is because He is both. 

Here's the problem.  We're presented with a problem as human beings.  When we're born, we're born into a problem.  We're born physical and we're born into a world that doesn't work.  It doesn't work!  We're born into a world that has evil in it.  We're born into a world that is unfair.  We're born into a world where many human beings say, "If there is a God and He made this mess, He's either very weak or very evil."  Right?  I've talked to many people over the years who've said, "If God would allow this much suffering, how can I worship that God?"

Well, let's go back to the root cause of the problem.  Then we're going to look at God's solution because His solution is nothing you and I can make up.  We can never make up this solution.  So, let's go back to Genesis 1:26.
Remember, this is a big concept Bible study so we're going to be going from major concept to major concept, many of them could be a Bible study or sermon in itself.  But sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture to understand where the details fit.  Otherwise, all we have are details.

You know, one of the major problems in the world that you and I live in is context.  The world you and I live in, we are given so much information, it's like someone dumps into our lap a 5,000 piece puzzle but they don't show us what it is supposed to look like.  Not only that, some of the pieces come from different puzzles. And there are thousands of pieces missing.  So we are putting together a puzzle that doesn't even fit.  Pieces are missing and we have no idea what it is supposed to look like.  This is where context means something.  What is it supposed to look like?  What is this supposed to look like?   Well let's go back to why the world that you and I live in is so messed up.
Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."
When God created human beings – now remember we are looking at God's kingdom – God's kingdom is the universe.  God owns everything.  God owns you and I.  This is what, sometimes, we have a hard time accepting.  Every human being thinks that we are our own little god.  I'm my god.  You're your god.  Our lives belong to us.  Well, actually we are owned by our Creator.  God owns everything.  It's His kingdom.  And He took this earth and He said, "Okay, you get to run this.  It's your dominion.  You're in charge of the earth.  So," if you read the story, "do it My way and this will really work."   He told Adam and Eve, "Look".  He told the man, "I'll show you how it works.  Here's a woman."  Adam's like, "Oh.  WOW!  You really know what you're doing.  You're good."  Okay?  Everything they did, you think about it, no conflict between Adam and Eve.  And there's no conflict between them and God.  It all works.  "You're in charge of this.  Just do it the way I tell you and things really will be happy and it will all work out.  Now, if you don't, and you decide to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, then it's not going to work because the moment you do that, your decisions will be made on a mixture of what I tell you and a mixture of what you're going to come up with."  Of course they didn't realize what Satan told them. They had dominion.  This was our earth.

Now, you know the story.  Satan comes along and what does he do?  He says, "God doesn't know what He is doing.  And you're really in charge of this mess.  Or, you're in charge of this but it could be better.  I know it's good.  But it could be better because you could be like God".  So they gave in to him. 

Now this is a long process of how this has worked out through the Scripture so I'll just take you to the end of it.  What happened was he became what Paul called, "The god of this world."   Now Satan, once he became their god, he convinced them that good and evil was better than good.  Human beings had dominion over the earth but it was under God's dominion.  Here's what happened.  We, the human race, we gave our dominion to Satan.  The reason I say that is because, think about something:  If God is the Ruler of the universe and Satan convinces us to give, human beings to give our little part of it, and he says, "Okay, you're in charge of this.  Let's see what you can do with it; this is exciting.  This is great.  Look what I've done."  You know, the first thing He told Adam, "Let's name the animals and you're going to love this.  Look what I've done.  I've created this for you, and you get to take care of this."  Then He kicked them out of Eden and said, "Now you're going to take care of it yourself, and it won't work."  And then Satan became the god of this world.

Does that mean that God was no longer in charge of  His kingdom?  Of course He was.

Does that mean that God was somehow diminished in power?  No.

Was God qualified to still reign over His kingdom?  Remember Satan didn't take God's dominion away.  Whose dominion did he take?  He took ours.

It's time, I think, that we get a little angry with Satan but that's another route to go on.

He took what God gave us and has convinced us that God doesn't know what He is doing.  And only God's way works, so we have messed it up.  And he just keeps helping us mess it up.  We gave him dominion over us and we became slaves.  And here's the problem.  Once Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden they could not break their slavery.  Slavery is the theme of Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread, right?

You and I became slaves of Satan the moment you and I were born.  I think it probably started before we were born that we became his slaves. So we live in a world that doesn't work under his dominion.

But God is still in charge.

Now once, and we're going to go through some Scriptures that talk about this, once Satan, or once we, Adam and Eve (and I say "we"); you know it's easy to say WOW, Adam and Eve.  I can't wait to meet them.  I've heard people say, "Now, boy am I going to give them a piece of my mind."  You've got to understand, if you and I had been in the Garden and exposed to Satan, you know what each of us would have done.  The exact same thing.  If that's not true, God's not fair.  We'd have all done the exact same thing. We're pretty predictable, okay.  We think we're complicated.  God's complicated.  We're not.  We're pretty predictable.

The moment that it happened, there were three things that came into the human experience.  We no longer had dominion.  We were not rulers of our own little world that God gave to us.  We weren't rulers of our own play box anymore.  It was like a bully came into the playground and beat us up and now we all have to do what the bully says.  And we lost our little playground.  And there were three things that happened. 

I am not trying to trivialize it, I'm just saying, we were children.  We are children.  And Satan came along.  And there's three things now that we experience.

1. Satan.

2. Sin.  We all have experienced rebellion against God.  We all have experienced disobeying His law.  We all have experienced our thoughts and emotions against God.

3. Death.  Every human being dies.  It is the result of his dominion.

So, here we are.  Oh good.  What a great story. 

Here's the problem with the Gospel message.  Do you know what the problem with the Gospel is?  It has the good news.  The good news has zero impact until you first tell everybody, "Oh yea, your problem is you gave up your dominion and you're ruled by Satan, sin, and death."  Oh wow, that's a great way to get people all excited.

This is where the Gospel starts because there is no good news except in relationship to this.  Satan.  Sin.  Death.  Now, at that point, though, God immediately had a plan.  It was all prepared. He was going to fix this.  He knew what He was going to do.  He knew how this would work out and this has to do with the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God.

One of the things He told Adam and Eve was Genesis 3:16 that He would "bruise Satan"; He would conquer Satan through one of their seed. 

I want you to remember something.  This is important.  Satan didn't overcome God's dominion.  Whose dominion did he take?  Ours.  He took the human dominion that God had given.  God could have taken it back any time He wanted to.  Do you think God, after He kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden, could have said, "Okay, Satan, you're gone."  Yes.  But it didn't fix Adam and Eve because who gave dominion to Satan?  Adam and Eve.  Not God.  The problem here isn't God (stating the obvious).  The problem is us.  He gave humanity dominion.  We gave it up.  So, He said to Adam and Eve, "Okay I am going to fix this through a human being." 

Now the problem is, and I can't imagine what Satan must have thought then.  It would be like, "Oh, ya.  Try it."    Satan has been defeating human beings ever since.  "Ya, you're going to beat me through a human being".  Well, it wasn't going to be through just any human being. 

These are obvious.  You've probably figured out where I am going on some of this, but stay with me here because we have to realize and put these big concepts into place.  Now the details of the puzzle begin to make sense.
Isaiah 9:6  "For unto us a child is born".  This is one of the great Messianic prophecies, "unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder:" Dominion.  Rulership, which human beings were given and it was taken away from them. So here is a child, a human being and His name will be called – now this just isn't any other child.  This child has to be different than any other human being that ever existed.  "and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."
V.7 "Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this."
So here we have this, and a host of Messianic prophecies, that talk about there is going to come time that there will be a human being.  A descendant of Adam and Eve.  A descendant of Abraham. A descendant of David.  And He wouldn't be just like everybody else.  He would also be Almighty God. 

The battle between Satan and human beings is unequal.  You and I can't beat him on our own. There isn't a human begin who is capable on our own of beating him.

The battle between Satan and God is unequal.  Satan can't defeat God.  It is not possible for Satan to defeat God.  We have to understand you and I can never defeat Satan on our own and Satan can never defeat God.  But it wasn't God's dominion that he took.  I am driving this home because I want you to understand why God made you.  Why you have life.  What is the purpose of your life?  And it goes to back to God who created human beings to have dominion over His earth and there is a reason for that.  And He knew that we can't fix it.  And He knew that we can't beat Satan.  And we knew that He can.

But he told from the very beginning that a human being will defeat him but it won't be a normal human being.  He is also going to be God.  Hebrews, Chapter 2.  We are moving forward in these very broad concepts.  We could go through two hours just going through Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.  And then we could go through another two hours of Messianic prophecies being fulfilled in the New Testament.  But, once again, concepts. Let's go to Hebrews 2:9.  (Now if I was Mr. Meyers, giving a Bible Study on Hebrews, we would spend the next three hours on the next two verses.  But we will move forward.  Laughter.)
Hebrews 2:9  "But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man."
Huge verse.  He became human so that He could die for everyone.  Now we know Jesus pre-existed.  We know that John 1:1 talks about how He, the Word, was with God and the Word was God.  We know that He was divine.  We know that He became human so that He could die – one of the reasons. 
V.10 "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things," This is Verse 10, "in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."
John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Why did God give human beings dominion over the earth? Because we were made in His image.

Why were we made in the image of God?  Because we're His children.

If you can grasp that, your life will never be the same.  You are God's child.  God created us because He wanted kids.  And He gave us our playground.  And we gave it to the bully and we got kidnapped and now we think the bully is better than Dad.

There's the Gospel.  And God's going to take it back and give it back to us. Okay?  There it is.  There's the Gospel.  God has a way He's going to do that.  Now, God could have come down any time and beat Satan up.  He said, "I'm not going to do it that way.  I'm going to do it through one of you."  Why would He do it through one of us? "Well, you can't do it, so I'm going to send the Word to become like you".
"Why would you do that?  Why don't you just beat him up?"
I don't understand.  Why would You go through all the trouble, you know, the Word saying, "Okay.  That's what I'll do.  I will divest Myself of my privileges, as it says in Philippians and I will become a human being.  Why would You do that?  Why not just beat Satan up?  Fight it out?  It goes on here.  Verse 11 says,
Hebrews 2:11 "For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren," Now stop.  Jesus Christ came to become the "captain of your salvation through sufferings."  

Well, what does it mean, "through sufferings"?  I want you to think about something.  What is it like to have memory of being God?  To be in constant contact with the Father in a way that you and I can't imagine, that we've never experienced.  And I don't mean to be gross, here, but we have to understand the enormity of the sacrifice and get hungry, or have to go to the bathroom.  Think about that.  This is God. THIS IS GOD.  And He becomes like us which means that as He was hammering something, as a carpenter, or probably more of a stone mason and He pounds His thumb with a hammer, guess what it does?  It hurts. Right?  Bang.  It hurts!   Had that ever happened to Him as God? No.  So why would He do it?  You don't think He knew it was going to hurt?  He designed us.  So, why would He do it?  You don't think He knew it was going to hurt?  He designed us.  God designed pain.  We also know that Jesus Christ was the Creator by which God created all; through whom God made all things in Colossianss.

Wait a minute!  He designs pain and then He comes and feels it? Why would You do that?  Just go beat Satan up?  Because this is more than just defeating Satan.  He says He is not ashamed to call them "My little creations".  He is not afraid to call them, "the little dirt balls I made".  He's not afraid to call them, "hairless apes".  He says, "I am not ashamed to call them "My brothers".

It's one thing to say, "I'm going to create a family."  It's another thing to create a family.  And you and I can't get to where God is so He came to us.  And that was decided from the foundation of the earth. The moment He let Satan into the Garden of Eden, He knew I have to become like one of them because that was the Plan.  That's what's amazing to me.   Could you have ever thought that up?  I'd have never thought that up?  I'd have never come up with that in my wildest dreams.  And God says, "The only way We're going to get them because, guess what these little kids are going to do, We're going to have to send You, the Word, who has been My companion, forever.  And, You're going to have to go down there and You're going to become like them so that they will understand that they have a Brother."  And He's not ashamed to call us brethren.  God, the Word, is not ashamed to say, "Hey, that's my brother.  That's my sister".  This puts a whole new light on it, doesn't it?  He goes on:

V.14 "Forasmuch then as the children", now He's talking about us, "are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same;" because we are made of this stuff, He became of this stuff because that's family.  God could teach us family.  He did it
There's no greater sacrifice than becoming God into stuff.  He became stuff so He could show us, so He could teach us.  This is what families are like.  This is what life is like.  This is how it's lived.  And you'll never figure it out looking at God.  So, "I'm going to come down there and I'll show you how it works."  But notice He says, "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;"
V.15 "And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

He came to defeat Satan.  And He did.  I can't imagine, when (and this is hard to grasp), there's a point where the Word, eternally at the right hand of God, the Father.  Eternally in this companionship that is so close, that He says, "We are one".  He didn't say "I am one".  He says, "We are one."  In other words, "We are so close, We're in a relationship that is humanly, almost impossible."  (Well it is impossible until we understand.)  He says, "This is who We are and We want to get you involved in this.  So, I'm going to become like you and I'm going to come down, into this bondage and I'm going to beat Satan."  And Satan had to think, when the Word suddenly was an embryo.  I want you to think about that.  I can't imagine what the angels – it says the angels shouted for joy when they saw the physical creation.  It was like, "How's He do that?" I can't imagine what it is to say, "He's there?  There's this teenage girl walking around?  He's there?  He's in there?"  Now Satan has got to be thinking, "Wow, God blew it this time.  I defeated every human being He has ever created.  And I'll defeat Him now."  What did Jesus do?  He said, "Well I'm not just like any other human being. I'm also God."  And He beat him.  His whole life, He beat him.  And He beat him.  And He beat him.

Why?  Because He was going to release us from death.  There you go.  So He's going to defeat Satan, the cause of death and He was going to defeat death.  So, He came here.  He's now the Lamb of God. He's the Lion of Judah only in the way that He is actually a descendant of Judah and of David. He doesn't have any power as King of kings yet, on this earth.

By the way, did Jesus have to come here because, well, He somehow had to beat Satan so He could be in charge?  He already was in charge.  It's we that weren't in charge.  We weren't in charge of our dominion any more.  So, He became like us.  I can't imagine the frustration of Satan.  He beats me as a man.  He beats me as a man.  He really has that much contempt for God.  He became like us so He could defeat Satan who causes death.  So He came to defeat Satan.

How does He defeat sin?  1 Corinthians 15.
As we go through and talk about the Passover this will come up over and over again when we talk about His blood and His body being beaten.  He defeats sin. 
1Corinthians 15:1 "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;"
V.2 "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."
He said, "I gave you the gospel.  Now, if you want salvation, you have to hold onto this gospel.  You have to hold onto this message.
V.3 "For I delivered unto you first of all", that can be translated from the Greek "of most importance".  He says, "I'm going to tell you the gospel", this is most important, this gospel message, "that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;" 
V.4 "And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:"
He died for our sins.  We've already read that He would die for our sins.  So, He defeats sin.  Now, He dies for our sins.  The death penalty.  But there is a problem.  Jesus dying for our sins gives us the opportunity to receive forgiveness.  Okay?  It doesn't change your nature.  Jesus could defeat Satan, which He did.  That was a done deal from the beginning.  He was going to defeat Satan.  It was going to be hard because He was going to experience things He had never experienced as God.  But He was going to do it.  He made us that way so He was going to come be like us.

He defeated sin in that He died for it.  He is the Passover.  So the Passover could "pass over" us so we don't have to pay our eternal penalty for our sins.  But there is a problem still.  And that is God forgives me of my sin but I'm still a sinner.  I have a problem.  The problem is not solved.  Satan can be defeated.  I can be forgiven of my sins and the problem is still not solved because I am still a sinner.  I am still unqualified to be a child of God.  Because I am still, by nature, how did Paul put it, a child of wrath.  I am still by nature a child of Satan whose dominion I've lived under all of my life.  So it's not done yet.  Let's go now to 1 Corinthians 15:14.  Let's skip down to Verse 14.

1 Corinthians 15 is one of Paul's most brilliant arguments.  Paul is amazing to me. I mean, sometimes, he's all over the place.  He's thinking like a Jewish Rabbi and sometimes he is like a Greek scholar and sometimes he leads you into a box that you can't get out of.
V.14 "And if Christ be not risen," so he's talking about Christ's resurrection, "then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."
V.15 "Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not."
V.16 "For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:"
Now Verse 17 knows where we are going.
V.17 "And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain;" notice the last part of his argument, because "ye are yet in your sins."
Oh, His death was for our forgiveness because His life was worth more than all of us.  But if God died, and He is not risen, then He is not God.  If God died and He wasn't resurrected, He's not God.  And, therefore, we are still in our sins.  It takes God now removing sin from us for death to finally be defeated.  For sin and death to finally be defeated.  Here's the problem is that the Protestant world so many times says, "God came and sent Jesus to die for our sins so now, no matter what we do matters.  God loves us."  And they believe in Christ that cannot be denied. "You receive God's grace, it doesn't matter what you do after that."  Repent.  Well, repentance is "accept Jesus in your heart, say ‘I am a sinner, please forgive me'.  You're forgiven.  At that moment you have eternal life."  Well, you could go out and be a mass serial killer.  It really doesn't matter.  You know that's not defeating sin. 

How is letting everybody do evil, while saying, "I forgive you," defeating sin?  When He says defeating sin, guess what He means?  So, if He's already defeated Satan, guess whose sin He now has to defeat?  Mine.  Because I am, by nature, a child of wrath.  I am by nature a sinner.  That has to be defeated.  It's just not forgiveness He's offering us.  It's not just beating up the bully.  It's taking us clear back to the knowledge of good and evil and saying, "Now, which do you choose?"  And, it is us saying, "Good.  I don't want the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  I want Good.  I want to be who I am supposed to be.  I want Jesus Christ as my brother.  I want you as my Father.  I want to be part of this family."  And the Lamb of God makes this possible.

So He has to be doing something now.  I want you to think about what is going to happen during the Days of Unleavened Bread.  Either before or during the Days of Unleavened Bread you're going to hear sermons and sermonettes about ancient Israel coming out of Egypt.  And it will talk about; whoever is giving the message, how that is a type of what we go through. You know Ancient Israel was hopelessly trapped in slavery.  They couldn't get out of it.  And Pharaoh was Satan.  Okay?  Just like we are hopelessly trapped in sin and can't get out of it and Satan's over us.  So God had to send somebody to save them.  He sent Moses and He opened the Red Sea and off they went through the Red Sea, which is a type of baptism.  And then it closed behind them and now Pharaoh was defeated.  And Egypt was defeated.  You say, "Well sin was defeated too".  How long did it take them to start acting like slaves again?  Not very long.  How long was it until they were complaining and griping and turning against God and trying to kill Moses?  Not very long. Satan being defeated doesn't defeat the sin that's in you and me.  That's a whole other work.   Defeating Satan is child's play to God.  It's not an equal battle.  Even taking the Word and making Him flesh wasn't an equal battle.  But, you and me, we're a real project.  This is the proof of God's greatness.  To defeat sin inside you and me.  That's an interesting problem.

So He now begins to defeat sin in each one of us.  So we will talk about taking in this unleavened bread during the Days of Unleavened Bread.  We'll talk about removing sin, right?

Why do we throw out the leavening?  Because it's a ritual?  No.  It's about removing sin.  What's that about?  It's literally about defeating sin.  It is about taking sin OUT OF US.  Like I said, dealing with Satan was child's play to God to deal with this.  This still did not give us back our dominion.  Because Satan is in all of us.  He has infiltrated into our thinking.  So defeating Satan does not give us back our dominion.  He wants to defeat the sin that is in every one of us.
Colossians 1:12 "Giving thanks unto the Father," now Father becomes a very important word, doesn't it.  "which hath made us", He has done something to us that gives us a quality that we did not have.  It gives us a power that we did not have.  That gives us something that we did not have, "who has qualified us to", "meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:"
V.13 "Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:"
V.14 "In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:"
Sin is being defeated in every one of us which means we get an inheritance.

What is the inheritance that God has given Jesus Christ?  The only human being to defeat Satan.  I know Satan was outclassed from the beginning because He was also God.  But what has He given Him?  He says, "I give Him all things."  I want to ask you what is not included in "all things"?  Can someone tell me something, anything that is not included in "all things"?  What's the inheritance that is offered to us?  He says, "I'll give your dominion back but you will worship and you will follow the One who made this possible because, from the very beginning, Satan came and kidnapped you.  From the very beginning I had set up, God the Father says, someone, my Son, my Companion, what was with me and who was Me." The same type, the same kind in this relationship and He said He's going to come and when He does, He's going to defeat Satan and He's going to defeat sin through dying for our sins, which you and I deserve. He's going to take that penalty on Himself to show us that we are brethren. "Okay, you're my brother.  I'm going to do this for you.  And, you're my sister; I'll do this for you."  And He'd going to defeat death and He's going to do this so you can get your inheritance and it's actually a lot bigger than the Garden of Eden.

His original purpose for us wasn't just the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve had no concept of that.  His whole purpose was all things.  Sometimes we think God is holding stuff back from me.  That's okay, "I'll give you all things", He says.  Your inheritance is My family as my children but you will obey Me.  What's He also called?  The Firstborn.  You will obey your brother because He's just not your brother. He's also God.  But He also is one of you.  Because it was His price; it was His suffering; it was His doing; it was His work that made all of this possible.  That's why in another place He says, "every knee will bow to Him". 

Phillippians 2:10 "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;"
Before someone goes into the Lake of Fire, they will still bow to Jesus Christ because the Father is going to make it happen.  Why?  Because He said He is the One through whom I did all of this.  The genius of the Father and the submission of the Word is beyond comprehension.  And the Holy days teach us all of this.

The last thing He says He will defeat is death. See this is big concepts. These are big concepts.  There is more than one.
1 Corinthians 15:20 "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept."
He is the first one to be us from the dead.  It was another part of the plan.  Pentecost will tell us more about that. 
V.21 "For since by man came death," why did death come?  Because Adam followed Satan.  So, since death came into the experience of all of us through our first, physical father, "by man came also the resurrection of the dead."
V.22 "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
V.23 "But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming."
V.24 "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power."
V.25 "For he must reign,"  Now we're actually into the millennium, where He is the Lion of Judah, "till he hath put all enemies under his feet."
V.26 "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."

It's the last of these three things that is destroyed.  It is destroyed in the Lake of Fire.  Remember?  What is thrown into the Lake of Fire in Revelation?  Death.  Death is thrown into the Lake of Fire.  In other words, there are no more human beings around.  There's only the children of God.  We actually have part of what happens on the Eighth Day here, by the way.  The Eight Day of the Feast, what we call "The Last Great Day".  It says that, "When He delivers the Kingdom to God."  There is a point when it's all done and the earth is destroyed by fire and all those who have died who are incorrigible; Satan and the demons are removed when the One we know as Jesus Christ has defeated Satan; defeated sin; defeated death, and then, what does He do?  The Father is coming down to New Jerusalem.  And He says, "Father, Abba, Daddy, here's the kids.  Here it is.  Here's the Kingdom.  Here's the dominion that they gave up.  Just like you had it planned, I got it back.  They gave it up."  But He came and He took it back.

It would have been so much easier for the Father to turn to the Word and say, "Go throw Satan out."  But, you know what?  It wouldn't have saved us. See He could have thrown Satan out but we still had sin and death.  So, if He would have thrown Satan out, we still wouldn't have got our dominion back.  He had to defeat all of it.  And He came and He defeated all of it.  And there is a point in here when He gives the kingdom, the dominion to the Father.  He says, "We did it!  Here it is!  Here's the family. The dominion is back and they get it this time."  And death is destroyed and no longer exists.  Verse 45.  We'll end here.  There's a little passage here; I want to read a couple of verses.

V. 45 "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit."
The word "became" there was not in the original Greek.  It basically means Adam became a living person but the second Adam was an eternal being.  But there had to be two Adams because he took Adam's dominion so God said, "Okay, I'll make another Adam.  You won't get this."  I just can't imagine what went through the angels' minds when He actually did it.  "I'm going to beat him down on his own terms; with a human being because they're our kids and they'll have a Brother and this is the way I will do it." So, He says in V. 46:
V.46 "Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual."
V.47 "The first man is of the earth, earthy:" you and I are still made of dust, "the second man is the Lord from heaven."
V.48 "As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly."
V.49 "And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."
Now let that sink in a minute.  Just you and I were made like Adam.  We failed like Adam but we will be like the heavenly man.  We will be like the Son of God who came to this earth to be our Brother; to die for our sins; to defeat Satan; to destroy death and this is why this is so much more than, "Oh good, I'm forgiven now.  I can do whatever I want."

Sin has to be defeated in you and me EVERY SINGLE DAY He is defeating sin if we're following.  And the Days of Unleavened Bread are all about that.

The Passover tells us all about the death penalty being paid.  The Days of Unleavened Bread tell us all about how He's defeating sin in us every day.  That's why Christianity is at war.  If you became a Christian because you wanted an easy life, you've picked a really bad way to do it because you are in a war and Christ is going to destroy sin in you so that He can give you to the Father as a child.  That's what He's going to do.  He's going to defeat it in you.  He's already defeated Satan.  He's going to defeat it in you, in me.  It's got to be beaten. It's got to be destroyed. It's got to be ripped out so we can be presented to the Father as a child.

We will be like the heavenly man.  We are the man of dust.  We will be like the heavenly man who is there for the children of God.  Because, what happened when Jesus came as the Lamb of God, died, was resurrected and He's very active now.  What is He actively doing now?  Actually not defeating Satan.  He comes back, what's one of the first things He does when He comes back?  He binds Satan.  He's already beat him.

Right now, what's He doing?  He's defeating sin.  He doesn't defeat death until the very end.  He's already going to defeat it.  He knows how He's going to do it.  But He still has work to do.  The work of Jesus Christ is to defeat sin in every one of us.  For us to be following that, to be submitting to that.  Because, when you really get down to it, the Lamb of God is a spiritual being who became flesh so that fleshly things could become spirit.

I want to remind you that February 19th will be the next installment in this series.

Thanks for coming out tonight and have a safe trip home tonight because I know it's sort of messy out there.