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Spring Holy Days—2007

Tape #4

Last Day of Unleavened Bread 2007

Fred R. Coulter – April 9, 2007

Greetings brethren, welcome to the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, a Holyday. Let's just do a little review, let's come to Exodus 13, because as I mentioned before the first holy day of the feast of unleavened bread has to do with the dedication of the first-born. So let's review, let's come to Exodus 12:51, because verse fifty-one is really a part of chapter thirteen but because men did the separation of the verses and the chapters, it just happens to fall that way. Exodus 12:51; 'And it came to pass the self-same day, that the Lord did bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by their armies.' Now chapter 13:1; 'And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Sanctify [that is set apart for a holy purpose] unto me all the first-born, whatsoever opens the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine.' Now we can take that and look back on that and we can look forward on that. Abraham was first-born, Isaac was first-born, Jacob was first-born and when you put it all together, Christ was the first-born, first-born of the virgin Mary, the first-born from among the dead. And all of this fits into sanctifying of the first-born and as well, as we will study for the Feast of Pentecost, we are the church of the first-born. So this becomes a very important thing. Now verse 3; 'And Moses said to the people, Remember this day, in which you came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the Lord brought you out from this place: there shall no leavened bread be eaten. This day you came out, in the month Abib.' So beginning on the fifteenth day of the first month, which then begins right after sunset on the fourteenth. And that is why we have the Night to be Much Observed at the beginning of the fifteenth. So there is to no leavened bread be eaten. He says down here in verse 5; 'you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day there shall be a feast unto the Lord.' So it is a holy day. Now we will read this again in Leviticus twenty-three in just a minute. Now let's understand this, whenever God repeats something that shows its importance. You go back and study concerning the Sabbath, how many times is the Sabbath mentioned, throughout the whole Bible, Old Testament and New Testament? How many times does it say, 'Obey My voice?' How many times does it say, 'keep the commandments?' How many times does it say that God will bless you for obeying Him? How many times does it say that you will receive the curse of God for not obeying Him? How many times does it say to worship the Lord your God only, and not have other gods and graven images? Over and over and over and over and that is why with the Feast of Unleavened Bread it is repeated. Because it is important and there is a purpose for it. And the first day is for the dedication of the first-born, but the whole feast is for a dedication and holiness and sanctifying and set aside before God. Now he says in Exodus 13:7; 'there shall no leavened bread be seen with you, neither shall there be leaven seen with you in all of your quarters. And you shall show your son that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did to me when I came forth out of Egypt. And it shall be a sign for you upon your hand, and for a memorial between your eyes, that the Lord's law may be within your mouth.' That is what it is, so that God's law will be in our minds, how we think and in our hands, how we work. Then you can take that and you can apply many, many other scriptures to it. You can go through the Proverbs, and how to control your mind, use your mind and how to work and all of that. It can all be expanded on from this one verse. Continuing in verse 9; 'that it may be in your mouth; for with a strong hand the Lord has brought you out from Egypt.' And with a strong hand God has called us out of spiritual Egypt and spiritual Sodom, hasn't He? So you see, whenever we read these things in the Old Testament, we do not need to take the attitude that the protestants have, 'well that is old, that is the Old Testament and it is not for us today,' because everything here in the Old Testament, the laws and the commandments of God are a foundation for the spiritual application in the New Testament. Continuing in verse 10; 'You shall therefore keep this ordinance in its season from year to year.'

Now let's come to Leviticus 23:6, he says; 'And on the fifteenth day of the first month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread unto the Lord.' Now it is not to a church, it is not to yourself, it is not to a man, it is not to a minister, it is; 'unto the Lord.' Then he says; 'seven days you must [under obligation] eat unleavened bread. Then he says; 'On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall do no servile work therein.' Then they were to make offerings at the temple and so forth. These were the official offerings and you can read of that in Numbers twenty-eight, the offerings that were to be given on each day and on the Sabbath and on the feast days. Continuing in verse 8; 'In the seventh day is a holy convocation; you shall do no servile work therein.' And we always take up an offering on the Holy day, because when we come before God, on these special days, we are to examine our lives, we are to see how God has blessed us, we are to look and see the spiritual things that God has given, the physical things that God has given and we are to be thankful in giving an offering to God, it is commensurate with how He has blessed us. Let's read that in Deuteronomy 16, and he says it in other places, but this is important for us to always keep in mind, and you know the thing that is important to God, is your heart and your mind and your attitude toward God, when you bring an offering or you give your tithes and offerings, it is what is your heart and mind, do you believe God, do you trust God, do you thank God, do you recognize God for it? And after all, what is the most important thing that you receive from what you are working in and laboring in, conducting business in, whatever it may be, it is the value and the money and the funds that you receive. And God says, He is the One Who gives power to get wealth. So that is why, we need to have the kind of attitude toward God in thanksgiving and in rejoicing and giving in the way that God delights in. So let's read it here, Deuteronomy 16:16; 'Three times in a year shall all your males appear before the Lord your God in the place which He shall choose.' And today, it is wherever two or three are gathered, there I am in your midst. He has chosen that. He has chosen to be with us. So it does not matter if you live way away and you are alone or whether you are with a group of two or three or ten or twelve or twenty or thirty or forty or fifty, it does not make any difference, if the Spirit of God is there and in you, that is the place that God has chosen. And if you are there to love God and worship God and serve God and obey Him and thank Him for what He is doing and the great work that He is doing in each one of us, which is really the true work of God. Continuing in verse 16, he says; 'in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles; and they shall not appear before the Lord empty. Every man [or everyone] shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you.' And so, when we come before God on these Holy days, to bring an offering before Him, we need to consider everything. And we need to understand that it is an expression of our love to God, our thankfulness to God, our expression to God, to honor Him because of what He has done for us and blessed us and watched over us and called us and given us understanding of His word and all of those things are all combined together. So we will go ahead at this time and take a pause and take up an offering.

Now let's continue on with the meaning of the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, because it has great meaning for us. And this helps us understand our relationship with God and what He will do for us. And how He expects us to respond to Him and doing the things that please Him, but also looking to God to intervene for us in our lives. Now, let me ask you the question: "Are you, where you thought you would be, when God first called you?" No, you are not. I do not think any of us are. Who would have ever dreamt that we would have gone through the things that we have gone through? Likewise, with the children of Israel, when God was bringing them out of Egypt, in their own minds, they figured, well God is going to take us right to the Promised Land, because He promised to give it to us. And there was a really easy road or highway from the Delta region, in Egypt that went along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and went right up to the Holy land. And, I am sure, that all the people thought, God is going to take us there, this is great, this is marvelous, but God had other things in mind, because He wanted to show them His great power. And He also needed to test and to prove them, just like God does with everyone of us, to test us and prove us. So what happened here, God said; 'No, I am not going to take them that way.' Let's come here to Exodus 13:17; 'And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines.' Or that is not on the highway going to the land of the Philistines, which is, like I said, right along the coast of the Mediterranean there, although that was nearer. 'for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt.' Now here is the thing this way, God wants to know what we are going to do. Now let's put this in terms of spiritual things for us, because all of these things are written, as Paul said, as examples for us, that we do not do like they do. Now, you say, 'well we don't see war,' well, yes we do. Because we are at war, let's put it this way, Satan the devil and the world is at war with us and we must fight back. And we also must let God fight our battles for us. So here, they were going to see physical war and God knew what Pharoah was going to do. God knew that Pharoah was going to come and He caused him to come, for the very purpose of glorifying Himself and showing the children of Israel, what He would do for them. And that also shows and demonstrates this, how much God loves you, how much God loved them and how precious they were in God's sight. Because He was going to do and perform a marvelous work and wonder among them, in bringing them through the Sinai and bringing them to the Promised Land. All they had to do was trust God and believe God. And so here is the first test, :18; 'but God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red Sea.' Down toward where they would have to come to the Red Sea. 'And the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt, [and so forth.]' And God had the pillar of fire at night and the cloud by day and they followed wherever they would go. Exodus 14:2; so, 'God told Moses to tell the children of Israel, that they were to turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal-zephon: before it you shall encamp by the sea.' Now as they came down there, you have the Red Sea, and when they were in their marching columns, it was approximately, for that number of people, about eight to ten miles long. So, here they are all encamping by the sea. Now Pharaoh said, he got word, the children of Israel were tangled in the wilderness, 'Aha, I've got them, they have trapped themselves.' Well, God said here in chapter 14:4; 'And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honored upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord. And they did so.' Now, let's understand something important here, in history, from that time forward, Egypt never was a great power. When they rose to a certain amount of greatness, God always brought war against them and brought them down. And when Nebuchadnezzar came in and conquered Egypt, after he conquered the Jews in Palestine, he wasted them, just like God wasted them with the exodus. And then he sent in those who, in history, were called the Huxsos and the Huxsos ruled Egypt for four hundred years before it recovered any amount of prominence, that it had before God dealt with them, bringing all the plagues on them and killing the first-born and leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. So here is the last act to absolutely break the power of the Egyptians. So Pharaoh said, we are going to take all of the chosen chariots, we are going to get all of the horsemen and we are going to go after them and bring them back, because, look what we have done, this is a silly thing that we have done, we have let all of our workers go. And how can we go out and do it? You see, it would be like today, if you immediately had to give up everyone of your appliances and have no electricity and no running water and no grocery store to go to, you would think, what on Earth have we done? Well, that is similar to what it was with Pharaoh. So they came and pursued and they came with a high hand, they said, they are trapped, we are going to get them. Now let's see the reaction of the children of Israel and we are going to learn some lessons here, because this is the lesson of the last day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which we need to go over and rehearse and do lest we fall into the same attitude toward God that they fell into. Continuing in verse 10; 'And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: [terribly afraid].' There were very few weapons that they had and here comes the hardened soldiers with their chariots and their spears and their swords and everything to kill and destroy. They probably had their bludgeoning thing that they also used too. So they were afraid. 'And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said to Moses.' Now, you see, the same thing with human nature, when you just look to a man, when things get going tough, you blame the man. Same way as Adam and Eve. What did Adam say? He said, 'well it was the woman.' What did the woman say? 'Well it was the serpent.' Now, here in this case, they come to Moses, because he was the one who was the physical man that they could see. And they accused him and they said; 'Because there were no graves in Egypt.' Well, there were plenty of them to bury us there. 'Why have you taken us away to die in this wilderness? Why have you dealt with us this way to carry us forth out of Egypt?' And they could have also said, 'well, why didn't you take us the easy way? Why is it so hard?' Well, you know, we are also told that the righteous shall have many trials and we have to say that many of the things that we have gone through in our Christian walk, which is likened unto the exodus of the children of Israel leaving Egypt, so we are to leave this world and walk in the way of God, so we come across many difficulties and problems and things that come upon us even much like Pharaoh and the soldiers coming from Egypt to get them right at the last, so here is the excuse, they are ready to go back, they are ready to turn against God and turn against Moses. Exodus 14:12; 'Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, Let us alone,' now they did not say that, they said, 'Oh, God, rescue us,' so God rescued them. Now they had a change of mind. So this is going to tell us something very important. When trouble comes upon us and it is difficult, do we have a change of mind? Do we have a change of heart? Do we blame the minister? Do we blame God? What do we do? Or do we look to God with an attitude saying, 'Oh, Lord God,' which they could have said, 'Look Pharaoh is here and we remember all that You did when we were in Egypt and the awesome plagues and everything that You caused, the killing of the first-born, surely You could rescue us from this. Oh God, help us.' No, they didn’t, they said; 'For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness. And Moses said to the people, fear not, [do not be afraid].' And that is what we need to understand. This day tells us that with the Spirit of God, with God fighting for us, we do not need to be afraid of anything. We do not need to fear men, we do not need to fear even those who can even kill us, because God is for us, because they can not take our eternal life away from us. All they can do is kill the body, that is what Jesus said in Matthew ten. Continuing in Exodus 14:13; 'Fear not, stand still, [don't get ready to run away, make your stand] and see the salvation of the Lord.' You put it all into His hands and you say, 'Oh, Lord, deliver us, fight this battle for me, it is too big for me, I don't know how to handle it, it is overwhelming, emotionally, I can't cope with it, and that is when you go to God and pray, and pray words like that. Continuing in verse 13; 'stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show to you today.' And I want you to stop and think, in your life, from the time that you were called and received the Holy Spirit of God, and the time that you started walking in God's way, to keep the Sabbath, to keep the Holy days, to keep all of His commandments, how many times God has intervened in your life? How many times God has led you with His Holy Spirit? How many times has God done things for you that only God could have done and worked out circumstances for you? Many, many times and the longer you have been in the church of God, the longer you have had the Spirit of God, the more times you can see that yes God has delivered me many, many times over and over and over again. So He will fight for us. Continuing in verse 13; 'stand still, see the salvation of the Lord, which He will show you today.' Now at this time it had to be today. Sometimes you need help immediately. Other times the help will come later. But here this had to be immediate. 'For the Egyptians whom you see here today, you shall see them no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you.' Now I want you to take this promise of God and I want you to expand upon this in your life. And I want you to ask God to help you in all of your battles, all of your difficulties, all of your confrontations, whether it is on the job, whether it is with people in the world, whether it is with people in the church, whether it is with your children or your husband or your wife, ask God to intervene and work out the circumstances for you and claim the promise that He will fight for you. That is important to understand. Now we will look at some other scriptures in a minute, but let's finish the lesson that is here. Continuing with Exodus 14:15; 'And the Lord said to Moses,' because Moses was even complaining a bit. "Why do you cry unto Me? Now you speak to the children of Israel and tell them that they go forward." That is the key. Don't complain, hold your peace, go forward and whatever your circumstances are, you go forward, in the strength and the power of God. Now it may require a miracle to do it, like happened here, where He told Moses in verse 16; go hold up your rod out over the sea and God caused a strong east wind and it just opened up the sea. And He also sent an angel to put a barrier between the Egyptians, to where it was like night on their side and day on the side of the children of Israel. So it blew the rest of that day and all that night. So Moses did it. Now think of this, it had to open up eight or ten miles wide. Now I have often thought that in that, maybe God even raised the floor of the ocean a little bit, so you wouldn't go down in like this, but raise it up so they could walk across on dry land. So that is what happened. And you know the rest of the story. The Egyptians got in there and they looked to the north and they looked to the south and they all went in there with their chariots, because they thought, well if they did it, we're going to do it. And it is very interesting when they got out into the middle of where the Red Sea was, on the dry land, that the Hebrew gives an indication that the waters came and circled them first, left them with water all around and put them into confusion and God even took off the wheels of the chariot. So there they were because if God fights for you, He is going to fight for you. And when He does so, He is going to do it in a way that is going to be better than any plan or scheme that you can think of. Always remember that. Yes, the children of Israel had their part to do, they had to march across and get over there. So it was from the time just before the sun rose, remember it was light, it was light for the children of Israel, so they could see going across the Red Sea. And they all got on the other side and stood on the seashore and they were looking across the expanse of where the Red Sea was all the dry land there and then God lifted the veil from off the Egyptians so they could see what it was and they came into the sea. The sea came around them this way, when they were in the middle and God destroyed them all. And I imagine all the chariots were all just torn to bits and ripped apart so there was hardly a splinter or anything left. Amazing isn't it? Now notice what they said after this, and how they looked to God for fighting that battle. After that happened, Exodus 14:31; 'And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the Egyptians.' Now let's understand that whenever God intervenes in our lives, it can be a great work, it can be a small work but it is the work of God to fight for us. And if we look to God in faith and we believe God and believe His word and believe Jesus Christ and ask Him to help us, He will. That is a promise, that is a guarantee. We are going to see it in just a minute. Continuing with verse 15; 'which the Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord, and His servant Moses.' So that is why you get into things like this in your life too. So it is going to drive you to your knees to pray to God to see whether you are going to believe Him, to trust Him, to see if you are going to let Him fight your battles for you or whether you are going to complain and gripe and accuse people and get mad and angry or whatever it may be. Now they were all happy. Then Moses and the children of Israel sung this song, I won't go through the whole thing here in Exodus 15, I will let you read it, we will just read a couple of verses here :1; 'Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord, and spake, saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously.' Now I want you to think about the triumph of the resurrection. What that is going to do for you. Always remember, keep your mind focused on the goal. Continuing with verse :1; 'The horse and the rider He has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song,--and He is become my salvation: He is my God, and I will prepare Him a habitation; My father's God, and I will exalt Him. The Lord is a man of war: the Lord is His name.' Then you can read all the rest of it here.

Now let's come to the book of Psalms and let's see how David relied on God. And remember this, it is important to understand, whenever the children of Israel went out to battle, it was because God told them to. Because God was the One Who was going to lead the battle. Whenever they went out to fight on their own, they lost. They got defeated. Now here, look at what David said after one of his great victories that he had, even though he was on the verge of what he thought would be death. Psalm eighteen and what is this to do for us? Let's look and see what this is to do for us, and how this is to give us the faith and understanding and hope and trust and reliance on God. Psalm 18:1; 'I will love You, Oh Lord, my strength.' For what strength do you have but what God gives you? 'The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, my deliverer; my God, my strength, in Whom I trust; my buckler [that is shield], the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.' Now all of these things are talking about the defenses that you had in the ancient world when they had warfare. And so he looked to God for all of it. Now notice what he said here in :3; 'I will call upon the Lord.' And that is what to do in any one of your trials or difficulties. Don't complain to men, don’t gripe about men. Now if God needs to change them, He can. If God needs to change the circumstances for you, He can. Continuing in :3; 'I called upon the Lord, Who is worthy to be praised.' Now notice; '…so He saved me from my enemies.' We are going to talk about the enemies we have to fight today and there is a great enemy out there, with his horde of workers, Satan the devil and the demons. So we will talk about this a little bit more. Let's just read a couple more verses here. 'The sorrows of death compassed me.' Just exactly like the circumstances the children of Israel were confronted with. 'And the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me.' He could just see; I'm staring the grave in the face. '…compassed me about; the snares of death prevented me.' It was coming after him. He couldn't go out and do the things that he wanted to do because that was right there. 'In my distress.' Now remember this whenever you are stressed or in distress, do as David did. '…I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple.' Now this is talking about the spiritual temple in heaven above, because there was no temple yet built, because David's son Solomon built the temple. So this is out of His temple in heaven above. 'And my cry came before Him, even unto His ears. Then the earth shook and trembled.' What a tremendous answer to prayer. Now how is the enemy going to stand when the ground is quaking under them? 'The foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was wroth.' So then; 'He bowed the heavens and came down and fought.'

Come over here to Psalm 27:1, here is a tremendous psalm and this also has a wonderful solo song; 'The Lord is My Light.' Now, think about the emphasis toward God in all of this. 'The Lord is my light and my salvation;--whom shall I fear?' We have nothing to be afraid of brethren, nothing to be afraid of from any of the situations that we are going to be confronted with. Now, they may be difficult, they may be trying, they may be taxing but we have nothing to fear. Now notice the confidence that David had here. 'When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh,--they stumbled and fell.' I can look back on my life and I am sure you can look back on your life where God intervened and virtually caused the same things with your enemies coming after you and even some of those enemies within the church, because there have been false brethren and false ministers within the church of God. Now he says; 'Though a host [which is an army] should encamp against me,--my heart shall not fear; though war should rise against me,--in this I will be confident. One thing I have desired of the Lord,--that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord,--and to enquire in his temple.' And this has to be, in the resurrection. So, one of the keys to always remember, as we have emphasized during this Feast of Unleavened Bread, always keep your focus on God. Never lose that. Now notice :5; 'For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His tabernacle [or the secret place of His tabernacle] He shall hide me; He shall set me upon a rock. And now shall my head be lifted up above my enemies round about me: therefore I shall offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice: have mercy also upon me, and answer me.' Well you can read the rest of it. This is a tremendous, tremendous psalm. So God is going to fight the battles for us.

Now let's come to the New Testament and let's see what Jesus said, to show what we need to do. Now let's come to Matthew seven and here is something really important, a principle that we know, we have gone over this many times, but now is the time to go over it. So what we are doing here, as Jesus said; when a scribe does his teaching, he takes from the word of God, something old and something new, and so, this is what we are doing here. Now let's come to Matthew 7 and let's see what Jesus said. Now this is compared to those who are false prophets or you can say false brethren, or those who have false Christianity. Let's pick it up here in verse 21; this is important. Now and also this is important to understand, when you look out and you see the wicked prospering, don't look to just the circumstances that you see in the immediate moment, keep your mind on God and look beyond that. "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but the one who is doing the will of My Father who is in heaven." That needs to be the focus. Loving God, serving God, believing God, trusting God, looking to Him to fight our battles for us. Looking to Him to comfort us, to watch over us, to lead us. Verse 22; "Many will say to Me in that day, [that is the day of the resurrection], 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy through Your name?" Well I gave umpteen number of sermons, Lord. I had this many in the church, Lord. We met every Sunday, Lord. We did good works, Lord. We built hospitals, and we had missionaries and we had great numbers of followers, Lord. "Did we not cast out demons through Your name?" See it wasn't because of them but it was because of the power of God. "Did we not perform many wonderful works of power through Your name?" Now notice, Jesus said; "Then I will confess to them, I never knew you." Isn't that something? That's pretty powerful, isn't it? "Depart from me, you who work lawlessness." Because you didn't believe God, you didn't trust God, you didn't keep His commandments, you didn't do the will of the Father in heaven above. Whatever is the will of the Father, it is here in the Bible, the words of God, that tells you what it is. Now notice He gives this comparison; verse 24; "Therefor everyone who hears these words of Mine and practices them, I will compare him to a wise man who built his house upon a rock." Now we are building a spiritual house and Christ is that foundation. And we are, each one of us, a small temple or tabernacle for the dwelling of God, with His Spirit, in us. We are building a house. So how are you building a house? Is God building it or are you building it? Remember what it says there in Psalm 127:1; 'the weary builders toil in vain, unless the Lord builds the house.' So if you are doing the will of God He is building the house. If you are doing the will of God and loving God and looking to Him for everything, He will fight your battles for you. He will help you. Now notice Matthew 7:25; "…and the rain came, and the floods came, and the winds blew." Now recently, at the time that I am recording this video, just several days ago, they had this unexpected tornado with winds of 250 miles per hour, come through Florida. Devastating and the thing that is really sad is that they have been hit so many times, over and over and over again, with hurricanes and tornadoes that now most of them do not have any insurance at all. So it is going to be a tough thing. And a lot of the homes that were destroyed with those hurricanes in 2005 have not even been rebuilt. And it was interesting, there was one man, who went out and he put special bands of metal over his house and secured it to hold it down: over his roof and over the sides. And the winds came through, and there was hardly any damage to his house because he was wise and prepared. Then there was the example of the church, they built a magnificent church to withstand winds of 150 miles per hour, but these winds were nearly 200 miles per hour and it was just kindling, nothing left. So the one man was wise and let's read on and see this here, because this also becomes important for us. Verse 25; "…and beat upon that house; but it did not fall: for it was founded on that rock." So if you are founded upon Christ and this tells us how to be founded upon Christ. Verse 26; "For everyone that hears these words of Mine, and does not practice them, he shall be compared to a foolish man, who built his house on the sand: and the rain came down, and the floods came, and the wind blew upon it, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it." You can go back and read where Jesus with His temptation of Satan said man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God. Here He says if you practice the things that I compare you, you are going to be like a wise man, build your house upon a rock, and when the difficulties and troubles come, it is not going to come upon you. And when you have problems and things that come upon you, God is going to hear you and fight for you, in spite of the circumstances. Now that doesn't mean that you won't have some close shaves, as it were, or some difficult times, but He is going to see you through it.