Leviticus 23:1-3

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'The feasts of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.  'Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings.  Leviticus 23:1-3

This opening shot reveals two very important principles to begin our quest to find out how to keep the holy days.

The first, repeated twice in one verse, is that these festivals are God's feasts, not Israel's, not the church's. He is their Source, He set the times, He gave them meaning, and He is their ultimate Object. We could say they are all about Him—and His plan and our part in it with Him. Our observance of these days is to focus on Him and His teaching, and with that comes wonderful spiritual and physical benefits.

The second principle appears in the command to "proclaim [them] to be holy convocations." These divinely appointed times are set apart for calling together. In today's language, a primary purpose of the feasts of God is to bring God's people together, not just for fellowship, but also for instruction and most importantly, to honor and worship God Himself. These holy times, then, contain a vitally important corporate aspect, producing unity in purpose, doctrine, and relationships within the Body of Christ.

The next verse, Leviticus 23:3, presents a third important principle: "Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work on it; it is the Sabbath of the LORD in all your dwellings." Along with the weekly Sabbath, the seven annual holy days—the first and last days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Hag Hamatzot), Pentecost (Shavuot, also called the Feast of Weeks or the Feast of Harvest), the Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur, also called the Fast), the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Succoth), and the eighth day (often called the Last Great Day)—are also Sabbaths.

Like Sabbaths, they are holy convocations, as can be seen in the ensuing instructions. In most cases, the wording is that the holy day "is a holy convocation; you shall do no customary work on it" (see Leviticus 23:7-8, 21, 24-25, 35-36). This means that we are not to attend to our normal, weekday work—the kinds of activities that we do on the other six days of the week. This includes not only our paying jobs, but also the ordinary work that we would do around the house, on our cars, in our yards, at the local community center, etc.

In the instructions for keeping the Feast of Unleavened Bread, though, God stipulates, "No manner of work shall be done on them; but that which everyone must eat—that only may be prepared by you" (Exodus 12:16). Feasting is part of the holy day experience. God wants us to eat and drink of the abundance that He has bestowed upon us in thanksgiving and joy on His appointed times, so He allows us to prepare food on the holy days. Even so, it is still better to prepare as much of the food beforehand, as on a weekly Sabbath, to get the most from the feasts.

The Night of God's Vigil

We find the only notable mention of what we now call the Night to Be Much Observed in Exodus 12:40-42:

Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that the armies of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night of solemn observance to the LORD for bringing them out of the land of Egypt. This is that night of the LORD, a solemn observance for all the children of Israel throughout their generations.

The Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament says of this passage: "[This night is] a preservation-night of the Lord, to bring them out of the land of Egypt. . . . This same night is (consecrated) to the Lord as a preservation for all children of Israel in their families." Commentator Adam Clarke adds, "[It is] a night to be held in everlasting remembrance."

At least in part, Israel was to keep the Night to Be Much Observed as a night of watching—of watchful vigil—to commemorate the reason they were able to leave Egypt so easily. The reason they could flee from Egypt unscathed was due to God watching over them as His plan unfolded. Their sojourn in Egypt as a slave people disciplined them and prepared them for their journey through the wilderness and for taking over the Promised Land. This was God's plan, and so God watched over them to bring it to its completion.

However, that plan is not yet completed, because we are also part of that plan. It has eternal consequences, and it is an ongoing operation. Thus, we celebrate this significant day too.

Can anyone deny that God was watching out for Israel? On Passover night, God saw the blood on the doorposts and lintels and passed over those houses, sparing the firstborn. No one can deny that He watched over them the following morning as they spoiled the Egyptians and gathered to meet in Rameses. How closely was He watching?

Please understand that "watching" does not mean that He was just passively observing them as they left that evening. No, it suggests that He was actively guarding them. "Watched" is the Hebrew shamar, used in many places in the Old Testament. It is translated as "keep" 283 times, and this indicates "preserve" or "secure." It suggests not just watching, but also keeping, guarding, protecting, and preserving.

Exodus 11:7 gives an indication of the extent of God's keeping watch: "But against none of the children of Israel [as they left Egypt] shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast." We know how excitable dogs are. They protect their territory and do a whole lot of barking. Next door to us lives a female boxer with the strangest bark. It sounds like it has a gravelly sore throat all the time. But no one can set foot in our yard without that dog barking. All a person has to do is step onto the driveway, and that dog begins to yap. That is the nature of dogs.

Yet, God was watching so closely that not even a dog barked as Israel left Egypt. Imagine the din of a few million people walking along the road with their wagons, pans jingling, talking to one another, their animals clomping and making their noises—and the Egyptians' dogs along the way did not even bark!

Notice the rest of Exodus 11:7: ". . . that you may know that the LORD does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel." God was making a witness that He was involved, watching out for His people.

Can anyone deny that God was not watching as they walked out that night in the sight of the Egyptians who were burying their dead? Certainly, the Egyptians blamed the Israelites for the death of their firstborn—their sons, their daughters, even their animals. They would be enraged at the Israelites. They could not see Israel's God, but they could take out their vengeance on His people. Yet, they stood numbly by, burying their dead as the Israelites walked away.

As the children of Israel struck out into the wilderness, Exodus 13:21-22 tells us:

The LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so as to go by day and night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar of fire by night from before the people.

The pillar of cloud and fire was a visible sign that God was with them—watching them, observing them, protecting them. In Exodus 14, Israel finds itself trapped at the Red Sea:

And the Angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud went from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. Thus it was a cloud and darkness to the one, and it gave light by night to the other, so that the one did not come near the other all that night. (Exodus 14:19-20)

The Night to Be Much Observed is the official recognition of God's watchful care. It is good and right to celebrate what God did and still does for His people. It is easy to understand that this portion of the holy day contains great significance. A whole nation of slaves, without having to lift a hand to effect their liberty, walked away from their captors. Most people must undertake bloody warfare to win their liberty, and many lose their lives. Those who do not suffer the loss of life usually lose their wealth. Israel lost no lives, and the people came away rich! In this case, the captor nation was helpless to do anything to keep their slaves because the Egyptians were restrained by God.

That is what happened in Egypt. Through this Feast, God is telling us spiritually that Satan's whole system—spiritual Egypt or Babylon—is supported and sustained by man's slavery to him. His system will collapse, too, when God ends mankind's slavery. Satan knows it, and he wants to preserve what he feels is his. We have been able to walk away from that satanic slavery only because God keeps vigil. He watches over us, keeps us, guards us, protects us—and Satan has to stand helplessly by and watch his "slaves" leave.

Some day in the near future, God's people will walk away from this system to a Place of Safety. Not long thereafter Satan's whole house of confusion and deception, built on spiritual slavery, will collapse. What happened in Egypt is a physical type of what is going to happen—only in that future time, it will be much greater: The whole world will be involved.

This is what God wants us to remember, to observe: that we came out because He keeps vigil.

When is the Passover?

When is the Passover?  Jewish practice and even some with a church of God background say Nisan 15 is the right day. Do we know why the evening of Nisan 14 is the correct time to observe the Passover? Notice the scriptures that reveal when to observe it:

These are the feasts of the LORD, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the LORD'S Passover. (Leviticus 23:4-5; emphasis ours throughout)

Let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time. On the fourteenth day of this month, at twilight, you shall keep it at its appointed time. According to all its rites and ceremonies you shall keep it. . . . And they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight, in the Wilderness of Sinai. . . . (Numbers 9:2-3, 5)              

Now the children of Israel camped in Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. (Joshua 5:10)

Here are multiple instructions that Passover is on the fourteenth day. This is a clear and plain teaching that of itself should overrule any suggestion that includes the fifteenth day.

Not only do these verses tell us what day to observe Passover, but also what part of the day—at "twilight" (NKJV) or "even" (KVJ). (Some versions may also use a variation of the more literal "between the evenings." This changes nothing because in all of the Old Testament verses thus far quoted, it is the same Hebrew word, ben ha arbayim.) Which part of the day, then, is "even"?

Rather than look to human explanations, notice what the One who created it says: "God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day" (Genesis 1:5). God reveals that His days begin with the evening (the night portion) followed by the morning (the daylight portion).

The same Hebrew word translated "at twilight" in Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 9:3; and Joshua 5:10 appears for the first time in Genesis 1:5, where it is translated as "the evening." So Genesis proves that the "at twilight" in the three Passover verses is the time that begins Nisan 14 and comes before the daylight portion. But when does evening start?

. . . but at the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at twilight, at the going down of the sun. . . . (Deuteronomy 16:6; see also Mark 1:32)

So it was, at the gates of Jerusalem, as it began to be dark before the Sabbath, that I commanded the gates to be shut, and charged that they must not be opened till after the Sabbath. (Nehemiah 13:19)

These verses establish that sunset starts the evening, the start of a day in God's eyes. For anyone who observes the Sabbath, these facts should be a no-brainer, yet some who observe the Sabbath—believing their complex and convoluted explanations, and in other cases, preferring tradition over Scripture—reject the Bible's clear teaching.

Additionally, Numbers 28:16-17 requires Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread to be on separate days: "On the fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover of the LORD. And on the fifteenth day of this month is the feast: unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days" (see also Leviticus 23:5-6). Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread are distinct observances; God assigns each a separate day. One spilling over into the other, the result of a Nisan 15 Passover observance, contradicts this verse.

There is one final nail to hammer into the coffin of a Nisan 15 Passover, found in Exodus 12:5-6: "Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight." In an April 18, 1992, sermon, John Ritenbaugh commented on the word "until" in this passage:

[H]ere there was an additional factor. It is the word "until." The Hebrew word is ad (phonetically, in English); and it means "up to a specific point in time"—not through, nor beyond. It signifies "the limit of time itself." That came from Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures.

This means that the Passover lamb was to be kept up to Nisan 14, which, we say, begins at sunset. This creates a line not to be crossed. What always immediately follows sunset? The twilight or evening—the time between sunset and the dark. This is when the Israelites killed the lamb: in the evening of Nisan 14.

Exodus 12:8 identifies when we are to partake of the Passover: "They shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it." Verse 10 then pins down when the observance should be complete: "You shall let none of it remain until morning; and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire."

Exodus 12:6, 8, and 10 lay out a timeline for Passover observance. It begins at the sunset that begins Nisan 14 with the lamb killed in the evening or twilight that immediately follows (verse 6). The Passover is eaten that night (verse 8), and all is to be completed by the morning, the daylight portion of Nisan 14 (verse 10). All this happens on Nisan 14, just as the Bible requires.

A final note from the Internet on Passover observance by the Jews:

There are two differing definitions attached to ben ha arbayim [the "in the evening" of Exodus 12:6].  The Pharisees, in accordance with their man-made Talmudic adherence, defined ben ha arbayim as any time from afternoon to sunset. Conversely, the Sadducees, Karaites, and Samaritans, in accordance with the Biblical Torah (law), all interpreted ben ha arbayim as being the time from sunset to complete darkness.

Clear scriptures should govern the interpretations of others that are open to multiple understandings ("private interpretations," II Peter 1:20). For a word or verse with competing interpretations, the clear scripture is the tiebreaker that points to the correct interpretation. Because of the clear scriptures already covered, we can determine that the Pharisees (current Judaism) are wrong, and the Sadducees, Karaites, and Samaritans are correct.

This raises the question Christ asked the Jews of His day: "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?" (Matthew 15:3).  Are we choosing the Bible as our authority rather than tradition or the complex and convoluted reasoning of men.

Jesus' Sufferings on Passover

The leaders of the Jews—the chief priests, elders, scribes, and Pharisees—had begun early in Jesus' ministry trying to undermine Him and find a way to get rid of Him. However, under Roman rule and with their jurisdiction limited to Judea, they had been stymied at every turn. When approached by Judas (Luke 22:1-6), they had their chance, and they pounced.

Yet, in all of their plotting and scheming, they never realized they were working by God's timeline, not their own. The sequence of events that took place on Passover, from Jesus' arrest through His death on the cross, was orchestrated for our learning so that we could "discern the Lord's body" and to appreciate deeply what God did for us (I Corinthians 11:27-28).

A close look at the individual events that transpired in His last hours will help us understand what Jesus suffered and even what may have gone through His mind as He endured that day.

Betrayal: One of the first things to occur that evening was Judas' betrayal. How many of us have been betrayed by a friend with whom we had spent practically every day for three and a half years—and known all the while that he was going to do it? Would we have been able to wash his feet and serve him food? Betrayal by a friend and brother is difficult to endure after the fact, but how Jesus treated him even with His foreknowledge reveals the depth of His character. How many of us would have been emotionally devastated at this point?

Loneliness: After finishing the Passover meal, Jesus and the disciples walked to the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-46). Jesus now had to endure the mental torment of waiting for the events that were just about to begin. After pleading three times with His friends to pray with Him for just one hour, He had to face the dread of what was about to happen alone. Even though He knew that He had to carry out His purpose alone, and that it would be horrifying and painful, He urged His friends to pray so they would not fall into temptation.

Arrest: When a person is arrested, their liberty is taken away; they essentially become a slave of the state and at the mercy of their captors. But the Jews had no mercy for Jesus. They came for Him with a "great multitude" of soldiers with drawn swords and clubs, ready for a fight (Mark 14:43). Every time they had tried to take Him before, Jesus had slipped away, but this time they came with a mob ready for action.

Isaiah 50:6-7 is a prophecy of what happened to Jesus once He was under the power of His enemies: "I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting." With this in mind, we can continue with Jesus being hustled off to be brought before the Jewish leaders.

Beaten: Wherever Jesus was taken that night, someone was waiting to take a shot at Him. It seems that they lined up to punch and slap Him, and one translation ventures to suggest that He was even beaten with a club! A slap with an open hand was considered a form of humiliation in that it showed disrespect for the victim. It was a sign of His weakness.

Hair Plucked: Another shaming tactic used at the time was to cut off a man's beard. Hanun, king of Ammon, did this to David's servants, shaving off half their beards and cutting their garments up to their buttocks (II Samuel 10:4). With Jesus, they went a step further: They pulled His beard off His face! This is the same as if He were skinned alive. It had to be excruciating.

Spit On: To spit in another's face is among the most unambiguous gestures of shame, hatred, and contempt that a person can express. Few things are more disgusting or humiliating, yet Jesus endured it without a word. He "set His face like flint" (Isaiah 50:7)—so that the very people abusing Him would have a chance to be in His Family!

Stripped: It was customary for a prisoner to be stripped of his clothes. Again, they seemed to be trying to go above and beyond in inflicting pain and humiliation on Jesus. It is quite likely that He remained unclothed throughout this ordeal.

Scourged: Scourge comes from the Latin word excoriare, meaning "to flay." A scourge was a three-corded whip tied to the end of a rod. The tips of the cords had knots embedded with pieces of glass or metal, clearly designed to inflict severe punishment. Jewish law limited punishment to forty lashes, but not Roman law. Many prisoners never lived through scourging. Jesus was beaten so badly He no longer looked human. Isaiah writes, "His visage was marred more than any man" (Isaiah 52:14). It is hard to imagine Him still being able to go on.

Scarlet Robe, Reed, and Crown of Thorns: After Jesus was stripped, His tormentors clothed Him with a scarlet robe and placed a reed in His hand and a crown of thorns on His head. Scarlet is a color of royalty. The reed imitated a scepter, a symbol of authority, but instead, they beat Him with it. A crown symbolizes honor and rank, but He wore a crown, not of gold, but of piercing thorns, symbolizing a curse, vexation, and misfortune.

Mockery: Not the least trying of His tortures was the mockery. Mockery is ridicule, contempt, derision. It can also be a counterfeit or absurdly inadequate representation. Christ's accusers took everything He represented and twisted it to inflict pain, suffering, humiliation, and mental anguish.

Forsaken: Perhaps the worst that Jesus had to endure was His Father's turning from Him when all the sins of mankind fell on Him (Matthew 27:46). Throughout that night and day, Jesus knew that His Father was watching while He suffered and every drop of life was mercilessly drained out of Him. Knowing this gave Him strength to endure, just as it gave Stephen strength and comfort (Acts 7:55). Yet, as Jesus was hanging on the cross, He may have looked up as Stephen had, and He saw His Father turn away. He cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

The Father had to turn away. Sin separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2), and all of our sins separated Jesus from His Father in the same way. To be our High Priest, to be able to relate to us, Jesus had to know what it was like to be separated from God by sin—and maybe even to taste the terror of those who will be separated from Him forever.

The Father was also suffering. Despite it being part of His plan, He was sacrificing the only Being that He could have a godly relationship with. God has deep feeling and emotion, and as His Son bled out, the Father was hurting! Few human fathers can watch their children going through difficult situations without feeling their pain. How much more our heavenly Father?

Yet, God endured this for us. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). The Father and the Son gave everything so that we can live eternally with them! What are we willing to endure to spend it with them?

Luke 21:36

Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.  Luke 21:36


In our day, "watch" has lost much of its original power. Is there anything more passive than watching television? We live in a spectator nation. We watch movies, news, the markets, and sporting events. Watching has become an activity that puts us on the sidelines and not on the field of battle, an idea foreign to the original meaning of the word. At the time of the King James translators, "watch" emphasized the carefulness, attention, and vigilance in the way a soldier kept alert for any sign of enemy movement.

A concept that has more meaning to us today can be found in the word "overcome." This word implies that we watch ourselves to spot our problems, do battle with them, and conquer them. "Overcome" better communicates the battle we have joined (Romans 12:21; I John 5:4-5; Revelation 21:7).

If we watch ourselves spiritually, we are not just watching our human nature, but doing battle with it. We are not just watching the world and its influences as they bombard us, but fighting against them. We are not just watching Satan's devices as they toy with us, but defending ourselves against them. In other words, "watch" as originally intended covers the entire process of overcoming that is our calling. We are to be identifying the problems, engaging them, and putting them to flight (Revelation 3:2; 16:15; I Corinthians 16:13; I Thessalonians 5:6-8).

Therefore, "overcome," more clearly than "watch," communicates to someone living today what Luke 21:36 says we should be doing as we near the end of the age. The premier end-time book, Revelation, repeatedly emphasizes that overcoming is "job one" for us (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21; 12:11; 21:7).

Luke 21:36 suggests that those who alertly overcome and pray always are those that may be counted worthy to escape and stand before Christ in God's Kingdom. In verse 36, Christ ties together all He has said throughout the chapter. If we do not neglect the spiritual (verses 34-35), and instead watch and pray always, we can "escape all these things" (verses 7-33) and enter God's Kingdom.

Luke 21 is a chapter about the end time, and in verse 36, we have spiritual instruction directly from Jesus to anyone living during that time. He is telling us how to escape the final effects of the turmoil that is ahead and to enter God's Kingdom. This, therefore, becomes an extremely powerful verse in helping us to understand exactly what we should be concentrating on at this time. It is a road map to safety and salvation.

What if someone told us where to find two tickets, which if purchased by us, would grant us escape from the end-time tumult and entrance into God's Kingdom? What price would we pay? Two such "tickets" exist, and we have the wherewithal to purchase them. Luke 21:36 shows us the two tickets. One is the "watch/overcome" ticket and the other is the "pray always" ticket. If we choose to be lackadaisical about overcoming or prayer, are missing either ticket, or have only a partial ticket, we will likely be required to "buy" those same two tickets at a very dear price in the Tribulation.

The Bible states quite a few "formulas" for producing certain things. We need to understand that none of these formulas stands on its own. They fit into a whole that includes other factors supplied from other instruction found elsewhere in Scripture. However, there are formulas, and then, there are formulas. Those that Jesus gives tend to be "trunk of the tree" formulas. They must be our base, and then we can stack other instruction on them.

These "trunk of the tree" formulas not only form a foundation that supports everything else, but they also give direction and boundaries for what and how we can add to them. Once a builder lays a foundation for a small, three-bedroom house, it automatically limits what he can and cannot construct on it. Consequently, we cannot build a beautiful spiritual temple on the wrong foundation. Luke 21:36 is an integral part of the right foundation for those of us living at the end.

As we have seen, in Luke 21:36, Christ reveals that the roles of watching—or paying careful attention to overcoming—and praying always are vital to our Christian lives at this time.

God's Goodness and Severity

Near the end of his doctrinal exposition to the Christians in Rome, the apostle Paul writes about God's mercy in calling Gentiles into His church while at the same time rejecting His own people Israel—for a while:

For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either. Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. (Romans 11:21-22)

Paul makes use of a merism in verse 22, "the goodness and the severity of God." A merism is a rhetorical device made up of two opposite elements, with the inference of totality. "I looked high and low" means "I looked everywhere." Or, "I put up with that barking dog day and night," means "I put up with that barking dog all the time." The first merism in the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1), means that God created everything.

In Romans 11:22, Paul uses opposites: goodness and severity. In doing so, the apostle is saying that God's character runs the gamut from overt compassion to utter harshness. This merism provides us a shorthand guide to God's character: He "put away" the brutal sin of David (II Samuel 12:13), while he slew Uzzah on the spot for touching the Ark of the Covenant (II Samuel 6:7). Before the twins were even born to Rebekah, before they had done good or evil, God elected to love Jacob and to hate Esau (Romans 9:11-13).

It is fair to say that this merism, the opposites expressed in God's goodness and His severity, articulate a central, if not the pivotal, theme of God's Word—from its beginning to its end. We see these opposites in narrative after narrative in God's Word. We see examples of them historically and prophetically. Here are just six illustrations:

1. The goodness of God toward Noah and his family, that is, His protection of them through that cataclysm that destroyed the world that then was. Compare Genesis 8:1 with II Peter 3:5-6.
   
2. The goodness of God as He delivered "righteous Lot" from the cities of the plain, which He promptly burned to ashes. See II Peter 2:6-7.
   
3. The severity He displayed to Job in order to teach him an important lesson, and the goodness He showed as He ultimately "blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning" (Job 42:12).
   
4. The severity He exhibited toward Joseph, a bit of a cocky 17-year-old lad, who basked in his father's favor. He soon found himself a slave in Egypt and after that, a prisoner. Psalm 105:18 tells us that his "feet hurt in his shackles; his neck was in an iron collar" (Common English Bible). Relatively soon, however, Joseph had risen as high as he could go in Egyptian society, becoming Pharaoh's vizier.
   
5. The harshness God has promised to display to His modern-day Israelites for their sins, and the compassion He will quickly show them as He returns them to their land Isaiah 54:7 reads: "I abandoned you for one brief moment, but I will bring you back with unlimited compassion" (God's Word Translation).
   
6. The kindness God demonstrated by healing multitudes of sick with the mere shadow of Peter passing over them (Acts 5:15-16) opposed to the harshness He showed Ananias and Sapphira, as they fell dead at Peter's feet (Acts 5:1-10).
   

Paul takes the occasion of God's magnanimity to the Gentiles to issue a stern warning to us in Romans 11:22: If we do not continue in God's kindness, we, too, will feel the sting of His severity. We dare not take His kindness for granted.

Paul's language in verse 22 echoes that of Colossians 1:22-23, where he tells the Colossian church that Christ has reconciled them "in the body of His flesh through death." His gracious gift of reconciliation is wonderful! However, there is an important "if" in verse 23: "if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard." This is sobering.

Hebrews 10:38-39 illustrates the kindness and severity of God as it pertains to us:

"But my righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him." Surely we are not going to be men who cower back and are lost, but men who maintain their faith for the salvation of their souls! (J.B. Phillips' paraphrase)

We need to be aware at all times that we are under judgment (I Peter 4:17). God desires us to continue moving forward in faith to His Kingdom, where we will enjoy the ultimate expression of His goodness toward us. But if "we neglect so great a salvation" (Hebrews 2:3), we will not escape His severity, designed to shake us to our marrow and move us to repentance.

We would do well to remember the goodness and severity of God as we progress toward this year's Passover.

I Corinthians 10:6-11

Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.  And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play."  Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell;  nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents;  nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.  Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.  I Corinthians 10:6-11

Israel's experience in Egypt and in the wilderness is an object lesson that God desires us to reflect on frequently. These lessons are most forcefully brought to the fore during the spring as we begin rehearsing God's plan of salvation in the annual holy days. Once freed from their slavery to Egypt, it took the Israelites but seven days to cross the Red Sea, breaking completely clear of Egyptian control. In dramatic contrast, it took them forty years to walk the remaining few hundred miles! During this trek, every man of war numbered in the first census after leaving Egypt—with the exception of Joshua and Caleb—died without reaching the Promised Land. Will we allow ourselves to match this miserable record by failing to maintain our liberty?

What a costly expedition! Hebrews 3:16-19 clarifies the cause of their failure more specifically:

For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. [emphasis ours]

Clearly, they did not make the right efforts to defend their God-given liberties. Instead, they exacerbated their circumstances by failing to discipline themselves to submit to God's rule over their lives, even though He freely rescued them from their slavery. They were unwilling to pay the costs of directing their lives as He commanded, despite knowing, through the many manifestations of His power, that He acted exactly as Moses had said He would.

Matthew 24:14

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.  Matthew 24:14

We are assured in Matthew 24:14 that the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached. God will see it done. He will preach it through whatever means, by whatever agency, and in whatever time He has already ordained. The question for us, then, is whether we will be in alignment with Him and usable by Him so that we can be directed by Him as He completes His work. However, this will be successful only if we let Him lead, rather than assume we already know what He is doing.

Because God is the One who preaches the gospel, and because He sanctifies and prepares His servants to perform His will, He also determines the results of His various works. For 1,900 years, it was not His priority to preach the gospel in a major way. We know this because it was not done. During the last century, a major witness was made because God had ordained it be so. He controls the results and the effects of His preaching. His word does not return to Him void, but it will accomplish what He pleases (Isaiah 55:11). Thus, when we look out today at the various efforts to preach the gospel—and we do not see the same results—it is because something else is God's priority, not that we are not trying hard enough.

Is it possible that the church is not yet "spiritually worthy" to be involved in making a witness to the world? In its present spiritual condition, could the church end up making a witness against God rather than for Him? If a witness is being made against God, does it even matter if the true gospel is spoken?

The bottom line is that we cannot insert ourselves into God's plans. God already knows what will be done, how it will be done, when it will be done, and whom He will use to do it. Our task is to be close enough to God that we recognize His guidance of our lives and to be practiced in submitting to it. When the time comes for Matthew 24:14 to be fulfilled, it will be, according to what God has ordained.

However, whether or not we play a part in the fulfillment of that prophecy, our focus is to be the sanctification that God has already given us. It is through that process of becoming holy and going on to perfection that we become "spiritually worthy" and able to be used by God in whatever capacity He ordains—large or small.

Our goal should not be to fulfill Matthew 24:14. Our goal is to get to the place where we, like Jesus Christ, "always do the will of [our] Father" (John 8:29)—no matter what His will may entail. God is doing far more than just making announcements. He is creating us in His image (Genesis 1:27), and that requires a lifetime of submission and a level of focus and energy far beyond simply preaching to the unconverted world. "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10).

Is Passover on the First Day of Unleavened Bread?-Part Two

In Part One, we saw that by the lifetime of Jesus Christ, the Jews had two competing ways to determine when to observe the Passover. One of them was observed by the people in their homes in the evening as Abib 14 began, and the other, led by the priests at the Temple, was kept in the late afternoon of Abib 14. In the Gospels, Jesus and His disciples are shown observing the Passover in a private home at the beginning of Abib 14, a meal that tradition calls "the Last Supper."

However, the Gospel writers penned a few verses that seem to contradict God's instructions to Israel about keeping the Passover at that time. For instance, Matthew 26:17 reads, "Now on the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?'" (italics in original). As we noted, this could not be the first day of Unleavened Bread because God says no customary work is to be done on it. If it were, the disciples would not use it to prepare for the Passover.

So how are we to understand this verse? First, notice that the words "day of the Feast of" are italicized, showing that the translators added them to the text. The Greek literally reads, "And on the first unleavened. . . ." The word translated as "first," pr?tos, typically signifies a thing that is first in a sequence or first in prominence. However, it can also indicate an order of events, as well as whether an event occurs before or concurrently with another.

For example, in John 1:15 John the Baptist acknowledges Christ's pre-existence, saying, "He who comes after me is preferred before [above] me, for He was before [pr?tos] me" (see also verse 30). Also, in II Peter 2:20, Peter says of those who become entangled in the world again, "the latter end is worse for them than the beginning [pr?tos]," again showing an order of events.

Matthew 26:17, then, can more accurately be translated, "Now before [the Feast of] Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?'" In other words, this incident happened before the Feast of Unleavened Bread had begun. Since they were inquiring about preparing the Passover, this could have taken place either late in the day on Abib 13 or possibly just after sunset on Abib 14 (since the Passover lamb was to be killed between sunset and dark as the 14^th began).

Mark 14:12 contains another time marker that seems to contradict the Passover instructions: "Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they killed the Passover lamb, His disciples said to Him, ‘Where do You want us to go and prepare, that You may eat the Passover?'" As we have seen, the word first can also mean "before" or "the beginning." The word translated as "day," heeméra, can refer to a literal 24-hour period of time, but it can also indicate a general period of time or a season (see Luke 9:51; 17:24; 19:42; 23:7; John 8:56; Acts:2:20; 8:1; 17:31; Romans 2:5; I Corinthians 3:13; II Corinthians 6:2; Ephesians 6:13; Hebrews 3:8). So the first part of Mark 14:12 could also be translated, "Now at the beginning of the season of Unleavened Bread . . ." or "Now at the beginning of the time of Unleavened Bread . . ." Nothing dictates that in this case heeméra designates a specific 24-hour period, and much argues against it.

We have already seen from Matthew 26:17 that the disciples asked this question before the Feast of Unleavened Bread and before they had kept the Passover. But how are we to understand the explanation, "when they killed the Passover lamb"? In the Greek, the word translated as "killed" is éthuon. It can indeed refer to the singular act of slaying an animal (Acts 11:7), but also to a religious sacrifice (Acts 14:13) or to the entire occasion of which a slaughtered animal was paramount, such as the fatted calf being killed for the prodigal son (Luke 15:23, 27, 30). In addition, in the sentence in question, the verb tense indicates an action in progress but not yet completed.

In other words, the sacrificing of the Passover lamb—or preparations for doing so—was taking place at the time the disciples asked their question! Remember, most of the people did not observe a Temple-kept Passover; in Mark 14:12, the common people were sacrificing lambs throughout the city, not the priests. The priests would not slay the Temple Passover lambs until the following afternoon. But as Abib 14 was drawing near, the disciples observed people around them on the outskirts of Jerusalem in the process of sacrificing—at least engaging in the necessary preparations, even if they did not perform the sacrifice itself until after sunset—prompting them to ask Jesus where He wanted them to likewise prepare for Passover.

Luke 22:7-8 contains this same occasion, but with a slightly different emphasis: "Then came the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed. And He sent Peter and John, saying, ‘Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat.'" As we have seen, God instructs Israel to kill the Passover on Abib 14, not on the first day of Unleavened Bread, which falls on Abib 15. Yet here we have something called "the Day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover must be killed," and it is taking place even before the Passover!

This is easily resolved when we remember that "day" in Greek, heeméra, does not have to refer to a specific span of 24 hours, but may indicate a general period of time or a season. The Passover sacrifice was certainly made within the time or season of unleavened bread—not the specific feast but the food itself. In fact, Abib 13—the day before Passover—was the day that the Jews disposed of all leavening, and they prepared unleavened bread for the Passover meal.

According to the Mishna, on Abib 13 the Jews would burn the leaven by 10:00 am, and they were not allowed to eat anything leavened after 11:00 am. The unleavened bread was baked and ready for the Passover by 3:00 pm. Abib 13 was the beginning of the time of unleavened bread, and the Passover was sacrificed during this time, even though the Feast of Unleavened Bread did not begin until Abib 15.

Thus, Mark 14:12 and Luke 22:7 are about, not the holy day that begins the week long Feast, but the season of unleavened bread, which begins on Abib 13. As that day was ending, the disciples asked Jesus about their own preparations for the Passover, which would begin just after sunset, at the beginning of Abib 14. With these alleged contradictions answered, we see that the Gospels do not support the idea that Passover falls on the first day of Unleavened Bread.

Is Passover on the First Day of Unleavened Bread?-Part One

Matthew, Mark, and Luke, together called the Synoptic Gospels because of their similarities, each contain language that appears to put Jesus and the disciples' Passover preparations and observance on the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Before examining each of these accounts, it is helpful to understand the religious environment of the first century and what led up to it. In so doing, we will have taken a long step toward answering this seeming contradiction.

First, the original instructions clearly stipulate that Passover is a single day—Abib 14—followed by the seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread, beginning on Abib 15 (Exodus 12:6-20; Leviticus 23:5-8; Numbers 9:2-5). These original instructions also direct the Israelites to keep the Passover in individual homes rather than at the Tabernacle or Temple—to catch the blood of the lamb in a basin and smear it on the doorposts and lintel of the house (Exodus 12:22).

Over time, though, the children of Israel moved farther from God and His instructions. During the reigns of the kings, Israel and Judah, now separate nations, adopted many practices from the pagan cultures surrounding them, with the kings often leading the way. However, a few kings of Judah, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, stand out for their dedication to God. Under these zealous monarchs, various religious reforms were instituted to try to bring Judah back to God's way. Among other reforms, they reinstated the commanded observance of the Passover, which the people were not keeping to any significant degree, if at all.

However, these well-meaning reforms also contained a subtle change: Under both Hezekiah and Josiah—at the king's command rather than God's—the people observed the Passover at the Temple rather than in individual homes (II Chronicles 30 and 35). The kings may have done this to ensure that the people actually kept the Passover, and did so without mixing in the Baalism that was so prevalent in the land. These kings' examples introduced a second way of observing the Passover. Now the Jews had both God's original Passover instructions as well as the kings' reforms to draw on when determining how to observe the festival.

While God intended the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread to be separate (though adjacent) observances, the Jews ended up combining the two during the Babylonian exile, as the Encyclopaedia Judaica confirms: "The feast of Passover consists of two parts: The Passover ceremony and the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Originally, both parts existed separately; but at the beginning of the [Babylonian] exile they were combined" (vol. 13, p. 169). This careless and unscriptural merging of festivals resulted in the Jews observing Passover late on Abib 14, just hours before the Feast of Unleavened Bread began. Thus, a third variation of Passover observance was added to the mix.

At the time of Jesus Christ, this mixture was on full display. Philo of Alexandria, in De Vita Mosis, notes that in the early first century, the Passover was not strictly a Temple-kept event, but one in which people also killed their own lambs without help from the priests. In his Wars of the Jews, Flavius Josephus records that in 4 BC over 250,000 lambs were sacrificed for Passover. However, given the limited space of the Temple environs and the fact that Jewish tradition (not the Word of God) held that the lambs were to be slain within a two-hour time slot (from the ninth to the eleventh hour, or 3:00-5:00 pm), it is readily apparent that not all of those lambs could have been sacrificed at the Temple. In fact, Joachim Jeremias, in Jerusalem in the Times of Jesus, calculates that the three courses of priests on duty could slay only 18,000 lambs during those two hours. Josephus records that the rest of the lambs—a far greater number—were slain by individuals at their own homes.

Another critical point is that, despite Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread being distinct festivals, they were commonly grouped together and simply called "Passover." Thus, when the gospel writers mention "Passover," it can sometimes refer to the Passover sacrifice itself (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12), the day when the sacrifice was made (Mark 14:1), or the whole eight-day period of Abib 14-21 (Passover plus Unleavened Bread; Luke 22:1).

In actuality, then, there were really two Passover observances happening at the time of Jesus: one led by the priests at the Temple and the other observed by the people in their homes. These separate observances were also at different times: The Temple-kept Passover was observed late in the afternoon of Abib 14, while the home-kept Passover was kept at the beginning of Abib 14. As the gospels show, Jesus and His disciples ate the Passover in a home rather than at the Temple, observing it the evening before the priests did at the Temple. In other words, Jesus kept it as Abib 14 began, while the priests kept it as Abib 14 ended.

With this background in place, it is easier to understand the seemingly contradictory language of the time-markers given in the gospels. Matthew 26:17 reads, "Now on the first day of the Feast of the Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying to Him, ‘Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?'" (italics in original). This translation introduces an impossibility due to the fact that God's instructions to Israel plainly state that Passover is the day before the Feast of Unleavened Bread—and we can be sure that Christ and the disciples were not late! That the disciples inquired about making preparations—and later that night assumed Judas would be purchasing something "for the feast" (John 13:29)—shows that the time in question could not have been the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Why? That day is a holy convocation on which no customary work is to be done (Leviticus 23:7), if God's instructions are to remain unbroken.

So how are we to understand this verse? The answer to this question and more evidence against Passover falling on the first day of Unleavened Bread will appear in Part Two.

Genesis 3:7-11

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.  Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"  So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."  And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?"  Genesis 3:7-11

This account of Adam's and Eve's reaction to their sin demonstrates that sin destroys innocence.

Were two people ever more innocent at the beginning of their lives than Adam and Eve? Immediately after sinning, though, they felt shame because of their nakedness, and they doubly showed their guilt by hiding from God. Do the truly innocent have any need to hide? Do the innocent need to feel shame?

Sin leaves a tarnish on a person's mind so that he does not look at life in quite the same way anymore. David expresses how this tarnish affected him in Psalm 40:12, "My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up." Paul later explains, "To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled" (Titus 1:15).

A well-known series of scriptures, beginning in Matthew 18:1, touches on innocence and its destruction. It starts with a question from the disciples: "Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" Jesus replies that unless we become as little children, we will not be in the Kingdom of Heaven. Is not the beauty of their innocence and the harmless vulnerability of little children a major reason why we find them so adorable? They produce no harm, shame, or guilt. But what happens as they become adults? They become sophisticated, worldly, cosmopolitan, cynical, suspicious, sarcastic, prejudiced, self-centered, cool, uninvolved, and many other negative things. They also seem to lose their zest for life. Sin does that.

Jeremiah 7:22-23

For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.  But this is what I commanded them, saying, "Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you."  Jeremiah 7:22-23

Jeremiah says that God never commanded offerings and sacrifices when the Old Covenant was made! He is talking about the generation to whom God gave His law and with whom He made the Old Covenant. It is easily understood why no other sacrifices are given in the Old Covenant except for the Passover (see Exodus 23:18). God does not mention them because He did not require them under the terms of the Old Covenant. All He wanted Israel to do was to keep the Ten Commandments, the statutes, and the judgments that He had already given to them with one exception—the Passover, the only sacrifice that He required!

This is one reason why the New Covenant did not perpetuate the other sacrifices, even though the Old Covenant became obsolete: The sacrifices were never a part of it in the first place. In terms of Passover, the symbols changed to bread and wine, but we still keep it.

There are three reasons why true Christians keep Passover even though it is also part of the Old Covenant. First, like the Ten Commandments, they preceded the making of the Old Covenant. Passover was commanded in Exodus 12, enforced, and practiced before Israel ever got to Mt. Sinai. Second, it is commanded in the New Testament and shown by the example of Christ and the apostles. Third, Passover is included within the statutes of God as a corollary of the fourth commandment. It is a festival and therefore to be kept.

Matthew 5:5

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.  Matthew 5:6

Desire is an inward longing for something we do not have but feel we need. Hunger and thirst are appetites God gave humans to make us aware of a need. Hunger for God's Word and His attributes are the spiritual appetite God gives Christians to make us aware of spiritual needs. Do pagans pray to their idols and ask them for love, joy, internal peace, kindness, gentleness, goodness, meekness, or self-control? They ask for other things—material things, material blessings.

God has given us faith to make us aware of spiritual needs. We are aware of our physical needs by nature, but we would never be aware of these spiritual needs unless God, by His Spirit, makes us aware. It is a loving gift from Him. He expects us to think about these needs and ask Him for them. Our very awareness of the need is a proof that God is working with us.

This adds another step to the process of answered prayer: There has to be an awareness of need followed by the desire to have what we need. The desire moves us to make it known to God, and if it is really earnest and fervent, it fixes our minds on the object of our longing, motivating our pursuit of it. In other words, desire sets the will into action.

Galatians 5:19-21

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.   Galatians 5:19-21

Consider this passage in light of the laws and beliefs that we frequently point to as setting us apart from the world. A person can keep the Sabbath, at least in the letter, and still display drunkenness, hatred, contentions, outbursts of wrath, and dissensions. One can reject the Trinity doctrine, the doctrine of eternal security, and the immortality of the soul yet promote and practice heresies, since a heresy is simply any deviation from truth. An individual can tithe yet exhibit selfish ambitions, envy, and jealousy. Someone can observe the laws of clean and unclean meats and still be unclean in his heart and in the decency of his life. A man can be physically pure in his relationships while living vicariously through revelries, which Adam Clarke's commentary defines as wild parties and obscene music.

The warning at the end of verse 21 is explicit: Those who practice such evils or make them a part of their lives will not be in God's Kingdom—they simply would not fit in. Their lifestyle is contrary to the quality of the life God lives and expects His children to live.

To put this another way, what kind of witness does a person make who keeps the Ten Commandments (including the Sabbath and holy days), eats only clean meats, tithes faithfully, and rejects false doctrines, yet has a temper, curses, tells dirty jokes, has a perpetual chip on his shoulder, always has a complaint against another, always looks out for "number one," drinks too much, and revels in perverse entertainment? Such a witness of nominal lawkeeping is useless to God, just as ancient Israel's witness to the nations gave the enemies of God an occasion to blaspheme (Ezekiel 36:20-23).

When Jesus Christ introduces Himself in the letter to the Laodicean church (Revelation 3:14), He highlights the fact that He is "the Faithful and True Witness." He points to this title to show where the Laodiceans fall short. They are so enamored of the world and so much a part of it that it is difficult for an observer to tell them apart from the rest of Babylon! Their lives do not glorify God because they do not demonstrate a separation from the world. They do not demonstrate holiness or sanctification.

In contrast, the result of the Holy Spirit being active in a person's life will be love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness (meekness), and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). These attitudes are not manifested all at once, which is why Paul calls them "fruit." Fruit takes time to develop and mature. Nevertheless, one whose life God dominates, who is led by His Spirit, will be exhibiting these things in addition to obeying God's law. He will be not merely obeying but also imitating God. He will be exhibiting these characteristics because he is a regenerated son of God who expresses the traits of his Father.

Luke 17:21

"nor will they say, "See here!" or "See there!" For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you."  Luke 17:21

"Within" is translated from entos, used only twice in the New Testament. Its primary meaning is "inside," as it is rendered in Matthew 23:26: "Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also." However, when used in conjunction with a plural noun, entos means "among" or "in the midst of." In Luke 17:21, entos is used with "you," and from the context, we can see that Jesus was speaking to a crowd of Pharisees, who had come to question Him about the Kingdom of God (verse 20). "You," then, is plural. "The kingdom of God is among you" is best.

Most modern translations have recognized this grammatical error and translate entos as "among" or "in the midst of." Some texts, like the New King James and the New International versions, persist in using "within," though they note in the margin that "among" is an alternative.

Even without this technical knowledge of Greek, we could have easily understood that "within" is a poor and misleading translation. Christ was answering a question posed by the Pharisees, and He replied directly to them: "He answered them and said, . . . 'For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.'" But how could the Kingdom of God be within His most bitter enemies? How many times did He reveal them to be hypocritical and misleading the people? Theologically, it is quite impossible to think that His Kingdom would be in the Pharisees.

It is only after He had made this remark that He turned to His disciples (verse 22) and explained what He meant. The subject of the entire section (verses 20-37) is stated most explicitly in verse 30: "Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed." All along, He had been explaining His second coming! When He returns, He will set up His Kingdom on earth (Zechariah 14:9).

If the Kingdom is still future, how could He say that "the kingdom of God is among you"? To answer this, we must return to the four common traits of a kingdom: a king, who rules by law over a number of subjects who live within a certain territory. The primary trait is that a kingdom must be ruled by a king; otherwise, the country has some other form of government. A king of any nation is the chief representative of that nation. And the King of the Kingdom of God is none other than the living Jesus Christ!

Pilate specifically asked Jesus, "'Are You a king then?' Jesus answered, 'You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth'" (John 18:37). So as the King of God's Kingdom, He could truly tell the Pharisees that the Kingdom of God was among them.

John 17:9

I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.  John 17:9

Jesus gives the prayer in John 17 specifically for His disciples and for a specific reason. It was not the time to pray for any other than His disciples. However, this does not mean that Jesus never prayed for anyone but a disciple!

If we are supposed to pray only for converted brethren but not for our unconverted countrymen, how can we follow Jesus' many other examples and commands about this topic? For example, Matthew 5:44-45, 48:

But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. . . . Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.

What a statement! He says praying for people outside the church is part of what defines us as children of our Father in heaven! Those who hate us and spitefully use us are certainly not fellow church members or converted believers, yet our Savior commands us to pray for them! There is perhaps no clearer passage on this topic!

In fact, how many of those whom Jesus prayed for and healed were "in the church" or had God's Spirit? Probably none of them! How many were worldly sinners? Certainly most of them, maybe even all of them!

Later, while hanging on a stake, Jesus practices perfectly what He preaches, once more praying for people of the world: "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:34). What clearer example could we have?

In fact, though Jesus did not participate at all in any of the world's evils, He lived His life among the people. As the son of a carpenter, He interacted with the public constantly. He never shied away from the people of the world. He enjoyed people, weddings, and parties enough to be accused—falsely, of course—of being "a glutton and a winebibber." He felt comfortable accepting an invitation to dinner at the house of a Pharisee—He was even bold enough to invite Himself to dinner at the home of Zacchaeus, an ill-reputed tax collector.

How do we fare among the world? Are we comfortable with our "unconverted" neighbors? Would we accept dinner invitations and attend social occasions? Jesus, our Elder Brother, did. Jesus was not like the Pharisees—the very name means "the separated ones"—who acted "holier than thou." Yes, we should separate ourselves from the ways of the world. Yes, we should live a holy life (I Peter 1:15-16). After all, we have the Holy Spirit. But we should not be like those "who say, 'Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am holier than you!'" (Isaiah 65:5). God says of them, "These are smoke in My nostrils."