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Shall we read now, first of all, from the book of Exodus in chapter thirteen. Exodus chapter thirteen and verse three. And Moses said unto 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 unleavened bread be eaten. Verse seven: unleavened bread shall be eaten throughout the seven days, and there shall no unleavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy borders. And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, saying, it is because of that which the Lord did for me when I came forth out of Egypt. And it shall be a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for memorial between thine eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in thy mouth. For with a strong hand hath the Lord brought thee out of Egypt. Therefore thou shalt keep this ordinance in its season from year to year. And it shall be, when the Lord shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanite, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee, that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the womb, and every firstling which thou hast that cometh of a beast. The males shall be the Lord's. And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb. And if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck. And all the firstborn of man among thy sons shalt thou redeem. And it shall be, when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? That thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage. And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of men and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice unto the Lord all that openeth the womb, being males, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem, and it shall be for a sign upon thine hand and for frontlets between thine eyes, for by strength of hand the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt. And now some verses from the epistle to the Corinthians that we are currently studying. One Corinthians chapter five verse seven. Purge out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For our Passover also hath been sacrificed, even Christ. Wherefore let us keep the feast, not with the old, the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Chapter six and verse nine. Or know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Verse nineteen: Or know you not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have from God, and you are not your own, for you were bought with a price. Glorify God, therefore, in your body. We are currently studying together some of the aspects of the first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. And in particular, we are observing how Paul dealt with some of the practical problems that arose in that church. The last two occasions, we have been hearing him answer the question, what shall we call ourselves? What shall we call our church? And we notice there how Paul takes this practical problem right back to its first principles in the death of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and applies, therefore, not so much legal arguments as the implications of the death of our Lord Jesus. Once we understand what was involved in that death, and therefore what is involved in the Christian gospel, there will be no doubt whatsoever about what we should call our church. Now, in these chapters five and six, Paul turns to another matter, the question of discipline in the church. If and how it shall be exercised. There is no doubt as what his answer is going to be. The Church of God will be called upon on times to execute what surely must be an exceedingly sad thing, but it will be called upon to execute discipline on its members. As Paul sums it up in verse thirteen of chapter five, talking of a man who had professed to be a believer, was a member of the church at Corinth, and had fallen into grievous sin to the scandal of the whole public. Paul enjoins upon the church that they must exercise discipline. They must put away the wicked man from among themselves. There is no doubt, therefore, that the New Testament teaches that grievous sinners must be excommunicated from the church. That is a matter, of course, that has been hotly disputed. And that on two reasons. There are some who tell us that it is strictly forbidden by the Lord Jesus Christ that we should do any such thing. That we are not to attempt any such discipline in the church. We are not to judge who are and who are not sinners, and we are certainly not to attempt to excommunicate them. Such a viewpoint, of course, might strike you very odd when you have just read one Corinthians five, but it is based on an appeal to a parable spoken by our Lord Jesus and recorded in Matthew chapter thirteen. where our Lord describes in this parable a farmer who planted wheat in his field, and then the enemy came and planted tares. And when the tares began to show themselves, the servants were distressed, and they came to the master and said, your enemy has planted tares, would you that we root up the tares? And the master said, no, let both grow together until harvest. Don't try to root up the tares, lest in attempting to root up the tares, you root up the wheat as well. There, say some people, is our Lord's explicit charge. You are not to try and root up tares out of the church, lest in rooting up tares you root up genuine believers as well. But of course, the appeal rests on a grievous misunderstanding of what our Lord is saying. A moment's thought will show us that in the parable of the wheat and tares, our Lord Jesus is not talking of discipline to be exercised on believers who have sinned. The tares are the children of the devil, not believers at all. And another moment's reading will show us that when our Lord taught that parable, the field he was talking about was not the church. He explicitly tells us the field is the world. So that he's not talking about the excommunication of a sinning believer from the church. What he's talking about and forbidding is the rooting up of the children of the devil from the world. And then you notice, of course, that in the parable of the wheat and the tares, he was not addressing the elders of a Christian church and forbidding them to exercise discipline. He was talking about the angels of God. For when the harvest comes, the master's servants will root up the tares. And who will the master's servants be? Well, not the elders of a church. They will be the holy angels of God, to whose solemn charge will be committed the task of purging this world of the children of the devil, binding them, so to speak, in bundles, and consigning them to the lake of fire. And what the parable of the wheat and the tares is saying is that the final judgment has not yet come, and God allows this evil world to go on in its evil ways, and that the angels are forbidden to attempt to gather the tares. The day of the final judgment has not yet come. Will come. When it comes, the angels of God shall be sent forth, the wicked shall be removed and consigned to the lake of fire. Thank God that time hasn't yet come. And there is time to preach the gospel that men might be saved. God is long suffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. What Corinthians five is talking about is not that at all, not talking about rooting up the wicked out of the world. It's talking of what must happen if someone is a believer, a member of a Christian church, and falls into grievous sin. Now you will notice another big distinction. When the angels eventually take the tares and root them up and take them out of the field, they're doing it not so that the tares shall be saved. They're doing it explicitly that the tare shall be confined to, consigned to the lake of fire. You will notice from our chapter that when in this sorry circumstance, with much grief and self-judgment before God, a church is obliged to hand over this offender to Satan. It is done for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit might be saved. It has the man's salvation in view, not his consigning to the lake of fire, but his discipline, that in God's mercy, though it might cost much physical suffering, under God's discipline, it might lead the man to repentance and that his spirit be saved in the day of the Lord. The other argument that is sometimes heard against discipline in the church is that it seems so narrow-minded and cruel that it will put people off. Well, perhaps in one sense it would in our modern permissive society. But pray weigh up the other situation where flagrant sin is allowed to go unchallenged and remain in the church. See how it militates against the very gospel itself. Alas, since the reformers, the attitude has become prevalent, and the parable of wheat and tares has been used to excuse it, so that there have been times in Europe when openly immoral men, whose immoralities have been the butt of every newspaper writer, have not only been leading members of the church, but in some countries, head of the church. And what sincere man is wanting to get converted and enter a church. The very head of which is the butt of popular act- accusation of his immoralities. It is, of course, a denial of the gospel we preach. And for the gospel's sake. The church and her testimony must be preserved, if need be, by this sad, extreme measure. Not only, of course, of the kind of immorality that chapter five mentions that is subject to the discipline of the church. Chapter six talks of what is to happen when grievous disputes arise and believers are chasing one another before the Gentile law courts. But now, in our closing moments, let us turn to what for us must be today and in these moments as we sit around this table, the more important consideration. How will Paul enjoin upon the believer the need for this discipline. Is it narrow-mindedness? Pharisaical hardness of heart? No, indeed not, says Paul. Pray, consider those emblems once more. We thought last week and the week before of the death of Christ under the form of the cross of Christ. He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. And we saw in those studies the significance of that aspect of his death, that is his cross. Now this week, Paul brings to bear upon us another aspect of the death of the Lord Jesus. For even Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. All thank God. We are not talking some cruel legalism that wants to bind men in its chains. We are talking of a God of redemption who loves to set the slave free. Thus, we are reminded that the ancient story of the Passover and Israel's deliverance from Egypt will, if we study it, help us understand what was involved in the death of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our Passover, delivering us from bondage. Listen, therefore, as Paul applies that much to our hearts, chapter six and verse twelve: all things are lawful for me, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Ha. Listen to my old heart when it's bit out of sorts spiritually and wanting to have its own way. I say, why shouldn't I do that? Why shouldn't I do this? I've got a right to do it. Oh, and who are you to criticize me and tell me what to do? I'm going to do it. Oh, and I'm going to be free. Oh. And develop a habit that will enslave you for the rest of your life. All things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful, but, says Paul, I'm not going to be made a slave by it. Ah, what a slave master sin is. When our blessed Lord comes alongside us and counsels us, no, don't do that, don't do that. You know, because he wants to enslave us, the very opposite is true. Pray see that bread, pray see that wine. Poured out to make you a slave? No, to set you free. Blessed Lamb of God, who died to set us free, warns us that there are things in life that will, if we let them, bring us under their power and enslave us. We do well to listen to his voice that we might be, that we might enjoy the freedom that he made possible by his death and resurrection. When Israel were brought out of Egypt, they were not just brought out of Egypt, they were taken to a great inheritance, weren't they? Flowing with milk and honey. Because they spoiled it, I'm afraid, I have to tell you that. It was a nice story, and it was a nice inheritance, but the actual facts are really down to earth. They ruined it, they quarreled, they sinned, they fell into immoralities, they fell into idolatries, they ruined the place until it became godforsaken. We've been redeemed for an inheritance. But let me tell you, says Paul, that inheritance isn't going to be ruined. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. Our permissive society may well give people permission to do these things here mentioned and tell us we shouldn't be narrow, narrow-minded. They won't be in God's heaven. That heaven isn't going to be ruined by that kind of sin. Ah, what a sad place sin makes of our world. We were some like that. We don't speak with superiority in our hearts. We were like it. But we were washed, cleansed, justified, so that, praise God, we may enjoy the great inheritance above. Two other things, and we may consider them very briefly. It's not the understanding of them that's difficult, it's the doing of them. When Israel came out of Egypt, we're told they didn't have time for their bread properly to be made, and so they ate unleavened bread. Then God took it and turned it into a yearly celebration to remind them of their redemption from Egypt. And thus it has continued down the centuries, is celebrated here in Belfast. If you happen to know a Jewish family, inquire of them and let them tell you what they do when their Easter time is coming up, how they search the house diligently to try and find every speck of leaven that there might be in the house, and to make sure that the ladies have done their job well. Not a bad idea, perhaps, I don't know. Husbands hide a little bit of leaven, hmm, on purpose. And then comes the great day when father collects all the family, and they go round and peer in every cupboard, and of course they find what he had hidden, and they take it out ceremoniously and burn it outside in the backyard. In their attempt to get rid of every bit of leaven, and so keep the celebration of Israel's coming out of Canaan, uh, out of Egypt. And if all we had to do was to chase out a bit of moldy bread or leaven from our homes, it would be tiresome, but not difficult. Ours is a more difficult task, isn't it? Not only that severe matter, when it is called for, of excommunicating a believer from the church, but from our own lives, to chase the old leaven of malice and wickedness. Oh, with what difficulty it goes. The bitterness, the corruption. Who of us doesn't know his own heart and all the ugly, bitter things that sometimes ferment and fester there? Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. We are called upon to keep a lifelong festival, a feast of spiritually unleavened bread. You are already unleavened, says Paul. What an encouragement. Yes, because of we have been thinking this morning, God has not only reconciled us, but he has implanted within us the new, pure, holy life, the very Holy Spirit of God. In one sense, we are unleavened. Bits and pieces of the old bitternesses and sins remain, do they not? The old corruptions. And by God's grace, we are to give them no mercy, but to hunt them from our lives. Then when they came out of Egypt, they were told that hereafter every firstborn must be s- consecrated to God. Why? The logic was simple. That when Pharaoh wouldn't let the Israelites go, then God commanded his destroying angel that every firstborn in the land must be executed. That applied to the Egyptians. It would have applied equally to the Israelites. When the judgments of God started, then it didn't make any difference whether you were Jew or Gentile, Israelite or Egyptian. God is no respecter of persons, and when his judgment starts, he judges all equally. And Israel's firstborn would have been lost too, had it not that the Passover lamb died instead of the firstborn, and the firstborn went free. Then you're not your own, says God. Had I not provided the sacrifice for you, you firstborn, you would have had no life, you would have been dead. You owe your life to me. And please, I want it. And we sat round a table. We've remembered the destroying angel of the wrath of God. How comes it you've got a life at all, my sister, my brother. Because the Savior gave his life for ours. The sheer fact is, it's not sentimentality, nor a gush of emotion, but the cold light of logic. We are not our own. We have been bought with a price. We're not free to do what we like with the church. If Christ says, get the leaven out, out it must go. I'm not free to do what I like, even with my such a personal thing as my own body. For it has been bought. And I'm not my own. You say, I don't like the sound of that. All right, you don't like it? Well, get yourself unredeemed then. Stand yourself without a savior under the wrath of God. If you want to be on your own. I want to be redeemed. So that I can have a life to live. Then I accept the redemption that is in Christ Jesus with the logic that we had read to us this morning, that one died for all. Therefore all died, that they which live might henceforth live not to themselves, but to him that died and rose again for them. Christ, our Passover, Castle sacrificed sacrificed for for us. us.