Exodus 13:4-9

This is the first mention of eating unleavened bread in context with the events of the day. It is not the first time that unleavened bread is mentioned in context of the days itself—that is, the Feast—because that first appears in Exodus 12. Here we find it in the context of the events of the day and Moses is inspired to write down that we are to eat unleavened bread because of what the Lord did.

I cannot say it any more convincingly than God did right there. We eat unleavened bread because of something the Lord did. Not because we came out of sin, but because of something God did. God released us from our bondage. That is going to be the theme of most of this sermon. Whether or not we understand that is going to determine a great deal about whether we are going to use His Holy Spirit in the right manner. We have to get the horse before the cart. In this case, the horse is God, it is God who did the work, it is God who got us out. The eating of unleavened bread is a memorial of that.

We will feed into this other things that have to do with coming out of sin and so I want to reassure you that there is a direct connection between the eating of unleavened bread and coming out of sin, but that is not the context in which it first appears. It first appears when it is introduced as being done because of what God did. Coming out of sin is something we do. The eating of unleavened bread in its first connection is something that is connected with what God does, not what we do, the eating of it is a memorial of that. We will see this develop as we go on.

Exodus 13:4-10

Here he gives us a Part B of why we keep this particular festival. So he reiterates first with pretty strong language the bread of life aspect of this feast. You shall eat unleavened bread seven days. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and do not let any of the leavening appear anywhere among you. And then he says, this was done because of what the Lord did. So there is an additional meaning that we need to understand. It is about what the Lord did in bringing Israel out of Egypt.

Now the continued explanation in verse 9 includes the Israelites' obligation to keep God's law, that is, His covenant, because of God's redemption of them and freeing them from their bondage in Egypt. The obligation comes because God essentially bought them. We heard about that we are slaves, right? Martin talked about the only way we could be freed from our slavery was to be enslaved, if you will, to Jesus Christ. So we were slaves of unrighteousness. Now we are slaves of righteousness. But that came at a great cost for Israel. The great cost was borne by all those firstborn who died in Egypt. God paid a stiff price for their redemption. And they themselves were only delivered or passed over because the blood of the Lamb covered them. Talk about a type. Otherwise, without God's actions on their behalf, Israel would never have left Egypt.

Exodus 13:4-10

As we go through this please notice both the negative and the positive aspects of leavened and unleavened bread and the eating of them.

So here we have, very early in the course of things, the fundamental meaning of the Days of Unleavened Bread. For seven days beginning in the first month (Nisan or Abib), on the fifteenth day, we must not eat bread that is leavened. And conversely, we must eat unleavened bread.

Exodus 13:2-10

In Exodus 13 we will see the command. But, what we are going to see is that the sense of His commands is metaphorical. It is not actual. Notice how He phrases this:

This is just after He mentioned to them to tell their sons what has been done in Egypt and why. This eating of unleavened bread, then, was to be a sign to the Israelites for what God has done.