Herbert W Armstrong

   It all happened way down in the land of Egypt. Thousands of years ago, a nation was born, and in 40 years of wandering after crossing the Red Sea in a series of miraculous events, that nation finally was taken over into the promised land and history as it affects our peoples, our countries, our world right now in the space age was being written.

   A religion was being born, a way of life was being given to humankind that still in this modern day, we fail to understand: what does the Exodus have to do with Easter? Absolutely nothing but the Exodus, and what happened back then those thousands of years ago has everything to do with the daily way of living a Christian life as it is revealed in the New Testament of your Bible.

   And believe it or not the analogy, the exact simile, the representation of what happened, the children of Israel as they were called and coming out of Egypt in 40 years of wandering, the giving of the 10 commandments at Mount Sinai and entering over into the promised land is one of the most in-depth and beautiful stories of what the Christian life is all about that you could possibly read in all of the Bible.

   One of the very chief of all Christian holidays so-called is the Easter Sunrise service. Easter services held in outdoor bowls and big arenas and on football fields on mountain tops all over the Western world of professing Christianity.

   And what do bunnies and rabbits have to do with portraying to you any meaningful series of events from your Bible? What does Easter, the very name of it, the accompanying paraphernalia that are associated with it have to do with the way you live your Christian life? What does it teach you? And what does it teach your children?

   The answer is nothing, hunting for eggs doesn't teach your kids anything but the perpetuation of a fable, a myth. And along with it a lie, a lot of little kids grow up, I guess until they're at least five or six or seven. And someone tells them otherwise believing that rabbits lay eggs.

   Why all of the mystery, the pagan accompanying paraphernalia of pagan superstitions? When if we would merely look to what the Bible says, we would see a breadth and a depth of a story that would absolutely be moving almost beyond belief, our very society, the notion we have of freedom, of freedom under law of the responsibility of one man to his neighbor, of the responsibility of a human being toward his God.

   The entire awareness of what the term civilization as we have come to understand it means to us, all of this was born back at a time long ago when the Eternal creator, God, chose a nation in slavery, released them from slavery by a series of fabulous miracles, made them his own people, proposed to them, gave them laws called the 10 commandments and expounded those laws to them.

   And then in 40 years of teaching them one lesson after another, which are more for us today than even for the people who live that life then, that Eternal creator, God, began to reveal a plan, a program of what he had in mind in human life. Why is that plan, that purpose lost to us today?

   Let's take a look at his scripture in the book of Exodus in the 14th chapter in the 12th verse (Exodus 14:12), where we'll find a little bit of what God's word says about that event. When those Israelites were way down in the land of Egypt, they were slaves in a society that was a very wonderful fabulous society. You can almost like an ancient Egypt to the modern-day United States of America right now.

   In verse 12 of Exodus 14, you see the people saying is not this the word we didn't tell you in Egypt saying let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians. They are now in the wilderness. They're arguing, it would have been better to stay there and serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. Those people didn't want to come out of slavery.

   The Bible strongly reveals over and over again and God's word in the book of Ezekiel actually takes issue with the attitude of those people who though they were in a condition of slavery and though it took miracles to get them out of that condition, to make them a nation, give them righteous and holy laws, greater laws than any other country had ever been given in the history of all of humankind. Still in their very heart of hearts.

   They wanted to stay right back there in Egypt where they had been. God's word says that while they were still in Egypt, they began to rebel against him. Take a look at Ezekiel 20 verse eight (Ezekiel 20:8), but they rebelled against me and would not hearken unto me. They did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I said, I will pour out my fury upon them to accomplish my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.

   God's word says his people rebelled against him even before the Exodus was a completed event while they were yet in the land of Egypt. Now let's take a look at the New Testament and realize that your Bible, the New Testament Christian Bible says over in I Corinthians, the 10th chapter that all of these events happened unto them as an example unto us who are alive right now in this day.

   In I Corinthians 10th chapter, you will read that all of these things happened unto them, for example. And they, that is the story of the Exodus, the story of the giving of the law, the wandering in the wilderness, the fact of their clothes, not rotting, the fact of their shoes, not wearing out the facts of the death of the older generation and the entry into the promised land by the younger generation, the death and the burial of Moses in the wilderness, Joshua and his leading of the children of Israel across that river and into the promised land of those things that happened. And that entire book of Exodus Deuteronomy, Joshua, those books of the Bible that has to do with that story, those things happened unto them, for examples.

   And they are written for our admonition instruction upon whom the ends of the age as the Greek word should be rendered there, the ends of the age. Our times are come examples in the Old Testament from which we ought to be learning valuable lessons.

   The Exodus was done in the context of one of God's annual Holy Days. It was done in the context of the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. What is Passover? It's just what it says. And though it may shock many Jewish people and Christian people alike, the Passover is a New Testament ceremony that was observed by Jesus Christ of Nazareth, by the Apostle Paul, by Timothy, by Philemon, by James and John by Aars Secundus and Gaius men who worked with the apostle Paul by the brothers, blood brothers, as well as those who were brethren in the spirit of Jesus Christ of Nazareth by the writers of the gospel and by Gentile Christians on down into the first centuries following Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

   And here's the point, the lessons of the Old Testament of your Bible, which your New Testament says were written for our examples and our instructions, are beautiful similes, like parables, like analogies, like a type if you will, a type, a typical picture of what happened to them in actuality, which really did happen to them for our spiritual admonition as we live our lives right here and now, so here is God's annual Holy Day revealed which portrays a part of the very purpose and the plan that God has in mind for you to be on this earth and drawing breath into your lungs.

   But it's been supplanted by this completely and totally pagan idea of Easter. I've shown you in the last couple of programs at Easter is 100% pagan. But all the accompanying paraphernalia of rabbits, sunrise services and eggs are pagan to the core. And I have answered the question, why should we do it? Why shouldn't we do it and so on? If there is no God, let's go ahead and do it. But let's keep God's name out of it.

   But here's the question: since the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread are a Christian ceremony and they are enjoined upon Christians, why is it almost no one you know of in the entirety of the Christian world keeps the Passover today?

   The New Testament of your Bible says that many of those Old Testament examples are living testimonials, witnesses historical events from which we should get elected. The only word of history that should ever be contained in writing of any kind is only so we of this generation can learn from both the errors as well as the triumphs of those who did live in the past. And the Bible is no different. It's very hard on its heroes. And in this case, the very detailed stories of how those ancient Israelites had to be pried loose from Egypt, taken to the juncture of the Red Sea, delivered by a miracle taken to the waters of Maraba, grumbling and arguing, delivered again by a miracle dragged around through the wilderness year after year. Given God's laws had this riotous abominable festival Moses comes down and breaks the commandments and goes to the rewriting of them again, God's own finger doing that as the Bible plainly says, the wanderings in the wilderness.

   Well, take a look at the scripture in I Corinthians 10th chapter which shows that all of these events were an example for us. Here's the story of that passing through the sea (I Corinthians 10:1-6). Moreover brethren, I would not that you should be ignorant. The Apostle Paul writing to the church in Corinth in I Corinthians 10 and one through six. He doesn't want us to be ignorant how that all our fathers were under the cloud. There was a big cloud cover and that cloud rumbled and boiled with black clouds and thunders and lightning. And also a pyre of flame was visible at night as the Old Testament shows and that was the God of Israel making his presence known, and all passed through the sea. Now notice that he uses that miracle as a type to illustrate a very deeply spiritual ceremony that is revealed in the New Testament and we're all baptized. They were baptized as it were by simile. Yet the water didn't cover them. But the apostle Paul draws on the story of the Old Testament to show that coming out of Egypt is a type of coming out of sin. And that going through the Red Sea is a type of being baptized and did all eat the same spirit meat and that was Manna that came down from heaven. He likens that the spiritual meat being from the source of God in his word and all that drank the same spiritual drink for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. If you want to be technical for a minute, take a look at that scripture. How many of you have ever heard that scripture quoted in a service in a church? How many of you have ever had a minister read that scripture and show you a New Testament scripture that says very plainly the Being the member of the God family, the one who wrote the 10 commandments, the one who sustained the Israelites in the wilderness, the one that gave them water to drink by way of analogy, that Rock was Christ, the very one who became Jesus Christ of the New Testament. I doubt if you've ever heard that before in all of your life. And it shows that God does not please that many of them were overthrown in the wilderness.

   So, here's the apostle Paul using the step-by-step example of an historical event that really happened. Yes, it really did for a spiritual lesson and an example to our lives in these times. Now again, I ask the question, what lesson do your kid get out of rolling eggs around in the yard of eating a chocolate bunny. They get no lesson at all except a lesson of lust of desire. For interesting, pretty little gimmicks. But what kind of a lesson did God's word intend that we get out of these annual festive occasions, Holy Days, special seasons of the year? He intends that we get the unfolding and the revealing of the plan and the purpose of God in our lives and a very great purpose in your life.

   The development of character, the overcoming of sin growing toward the place where you can become a very member of God's own family of being born by a resurrection from the dead. All of this has been so completely submerged in a trashy sea of Folsom and Jetsam of Pagan superstitions, half-truths lies ignored points concealed mistruths, misinterpretations and superstitions and the like that most people wouldn't even recognize it.

   Let me draw the analogy now between physical ancient Israel as the Apostle Paul did and spiritual Israel of the New Testament, which the Bible does. They were slaves in Egypt. And the Bible uses that slavery in Egypt as a type of our slavery to our own lust, appetites, our drives, our passions, slaves to sin. That analogy is drawn in the Bible.

   The Pharaoh is typified as being Satan, the devil, Moses in a sense is showing up and saying, let my people go is almost typified like a type of Christ. And so is Joshua because of her in name, Joshua is interchangeable in the New Testament and Joshua is typified as a kind of a savior leading those people out during the time of the Exodus. Egypt was a very fabulous, fully developed, sophisticated, enormously wealthy and developed society, believe it or not.

   There were buildings, there were canals, there were agricultural projects and programs. There were cities in Egypt at that time, that would have been the marvel of the world if they were still standing today. And all we see is just some of the pyramids, many of those have been destroyed. But there were a lot more than that. At that time, there was even one huge lake that was something like 100 some odd miles around. There were two huge pyramids in the middle of it and an artificial lake over 300 ft deep of those two pyramids coming out of it.

   You ever heard about the labyrinth, not just a maze but an actual building underground about one mile square in Ancient Egypt that Herodotus wrote about and told us about the marvels of that fabulous building. Much of this destroyed, not even remaining today, but it was a captivating society as well as being a society that practiced slavery in that day.

   So the New Testament analogy shows that we have to be virtually pryed loose from that in our sophisticated society and environment which captivates us. Israel at first, as I showed you in those scriptures didn't want to come out of Egypt any more than when God begins to call a person and deal with him begins to unsettle and make him think that some of the things he's already thought some of his cherished traditions and beliefs are not true that he begins to fight.

   I remember one time I had a gopher big enough holes and making little mounds in my front yard. And so I sucked the holes down there like a lot of people do and tried to drown the little rat out of there. I kept watching and watching and he had several holes. He had to watch which one was going to come up. And finally the water is gurgling and I just caved in the house and drowned the whole neighborhood and everything. The water had been running for something like six or eight hours. I don't know.

   But this little rat finally came crawling out of there and I had this towel in my hand and he tried his best to get back in there. That light just blinded him. And so, I did the little guy in. Now, it was just because I didn't want him big up my yard. So, all of you go for lovers. Sorry about that. But he reminded me of me. He reminded me of human beings. We come out of our little caves, our labyrinth full kind of devious ways of maneuvering around in the world.

   And God's light of His truth begins to kind of shine on us. It hurts our eyes. We're looking around for a place to hide. We want to get right back down in that hole again. And maybe God needs to wrap us over the back of the head with a towel or something and wake us up and bring us to our senses and make us really want his truth.

   It took miraculous events to free those people back then from Egypt and it takes miraculous events and that's a point of doctrine. That's why my job is so great because you see, I know that and I know that you, if God is not calling you that you yourself cannot not of your own volition of yourself and by yourself, you can't choose Christ because God's word and Jesus Christ himself said none can come to the Son except the spirit of the Father, draw him.

   So, I know you see that it takes a divine miracle from God in this new Testament time to pry loose somebody from his own set ways from that which holds him captive. And in slavery, I know it takes a miracle from God to do that. And that's a miracle. It is a complete outside separate event that has nothing whatsoever to do with any clever arguments of mine or anything else.

   God Himself has to get hold of your life and try you loose from whatever it is that holds you captive. I can't have much to do with that at all. All I can do is tell you let the chips fall where they may and let God do the rest. And if He's not calling you, it's not your time that shouldn't make anybody upset, that shouldn't hurt anybody's feelings. Because I know that unless God Almighty has some miracles in mind to unseat, unsettle, to unblock your mind and to clean it up and to show you some truth that you can't come to Him unless He calls you first.

   Now to the point I made about the Passover and I hope you listen awfully closely because I've got to go very fast. I'd like to get all this in, in the last few minutes remaining in this program. What does the Passover mean? It means what it says pass over when those people were in Egypt. God told them to strike the blood of the lamb on the lintels of their doors, their houses, their windows. Why? Because God was going to send all sorts of plagues and curses on those Egyptian people. And it involved ultimately not only the lice and the frogs and all of this, but it involved also the killing of the firstborn and that did occur.

   And it's a matter of history and I can sit here and read you an ancient Papyrus that absolutely paraphrases the book of Exodus and Deuteronomy of your Bible that shows the very plagues that God caused to fall upon the land of Egypt did occur from an eyewitness account. But those plagues pass over the homes in which those Israelites dwelt. Now Jesus is called our Paschal or Passover Lamb. When he broke that bread and said, "Take eat, this is my body." When he poured a little bit of wine in a cup and gave it to his own disciples.

   And that famous scene, you see that is completely pagan and superstitionalized and institutionalized in the famous last supper painting, he was pouring wine, handing it to them and giving it to them saying take drink, this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you. And that's an exact New Testament representation of the shedding of the blood of the lamb. In the Old Testament, the striking of it on the little of the door. So the death angel would pass over why? Because all of sin and come short of the glory of God because sin is a transgression of God's law I John 3:4, because the wages of sin is death. Romans 6:23.

   And unless you repent of that sin and accept the blood of Jesus Christ as our Passover, Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us. And that's a New Testament scripture. I don't know why the broad mainframe churches don't believe in observing the Passover. I can't explain, I can't protect them. I can't shield them from the facts. I cannot sort of keep them from finding this out. So, I don't know how to explain it for them. But broad mainstream churches completely ignore the Passover. They may teach that ancient Jewish people they think might observed it. But it's a New Testament scripture.

   It's a New Testament custom. It's something Christ said this do as I have done to you. You do it in commemoration of me. So why they don't keep it? Don't ask Garner Ted Armstrong, he's dumb about that. I don't have the faintest idea why they wouldn't want to do something that is such a beautiful commemoration of the death and the burial of their Savior. And ties directly into the entire story of how sin is expiated from our lives of how God does forgive of how that one life, which was worth more than all the sum total of all of the human life altogether could be sacrificed and therefore be expiation, proper expiation for the sins of all of society.

   Next, they ate unleavened bread and they came out of that Exodus, that enslavement in Egypt and we in the New Testament are commanded to do the same thing in I Corinthians the fifth chapter, it says, "Let us keep the feast, not with the unleavened bread of malice and so on. But with the, with the leaven bread or leavening rather the old malice, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." And it shows in the New Testament that the early apostles did observe the Days of Unleavened Bread. That's all through the book of Acts cleared down to the latter part of it written in 59 to 61 A.D. And you find it is enjoined upon Gentile Christians.

   But the eating of flat unleavened bread teaches a Christian a lesson of putting sin, sinful activity, vanity, ego, pretentiousness, pomposity out of their lives. In that case, leaven is typified as sin and you put the leaven out of the bread. So, it teaches you something. Now, in these analogies, kids learn, people learn and there is a beautiful lesson in it. What do you learn out of eating eggs? Nothing. It just clouds. It conceals a very deep truth that we ought to know. There are so many others.

   Israel given God's law on Mount Sinai. Christians commanded to keep God's law today, the wanderings in the wilderness for a lifetime of 40 years to humble and improve them. And we're called sojourners and wanderers and dislike to humble and approve us that God had to lead by a pillar of fire at night in a cloud by air. Israel wouldn't have made it. They would have died. And now we as Christians have to lean supernaturally spiritually upon God continually that he has to sustain us, how they were fed with Manna.

   As we read in I Corinthians 10, and we are fed as the Apostle Paul says with the milk of the word, I couldn't feed you with meat because you weren't strong enough yet. He told Christians and the Bible talks about itself as being food for a Christian how water was scarce in the wilderness and how God's Holy Spirit is pretty scarce in this world today. But it is the water that flows out of us as Jesus said, "him, that comes unto me, out of his belly with for rivers of living water."

   Those who endured to the end that made it on over into the promised land. And that's what Jesus said of us. Those who endure to the end shall be saved. Joshua meant Savior in Hebrew. He led those people through the wilderness. Jesus is Savior in the New Testament and he leads his people through the wilderness of this life. The promised land, the kingdom of God. Israel rebelling against God. Nations rebelling against God and suffering punishment as a consequence today, the analogies are there back and forth. Many of them Old Testament and New Testament are inextricably allied and united together.

   It is not an Old Testament doctrine or custom to observe the Passover. Jesus observed it. He changed the ceremony of slaughtering a lamb to the ceremony of breaking unleavened bread and of giving a little cup of wine to his disciples and saying you do this just like I've done it to you. He instituted it. He began it. He gave it New Testament weight and authority of scripture. He gave it his own custom, his own example. He put his blessing on it.

   Why doesn't the Christian professing world who takes the name of Christ appropriate the supposed personality of Christ. Why doesn't the Christian professing world do what Jesus said to do? I can't answer for these other people. I mean, that's their problem. Not mine, but I know that I do it and those associated with me in the Worldwide Church of God, which is the basic background behind Ambassador Colleges and this worldwide telecast and broadcast, they also do it.

   And if you want to find out that, The Resurrection was not on Sunday and that's a fact that you can prove in your Bible in all history book. Also, The Plain Truth About Easter, you write for these two booklets because they will just about shock the socks off the most time-honored traditions you maybe have always clutched and held dear to your breast in this modern world of professing Christianity.

   I can't help it if God's word is shocking because I wasn't the guy that began the, I didn't tell you about Easter, did I, I mean, I was born in an already made world too and Easter was already there when I came along. But I began to look and research and study some of these things. I had to prove them to myself. I didn't just swallow them wholeheartedly and hook line and sinker. I had to go and check them.

   Why don't you do the same thing write for these books? Check up? Prove it to yourself one way or the other. There is no way for you to figure three days and three nights between sunset, good Friday and sunrise Easter Sunday. Even though it is a vast commonly taken for granted Western Christian religious ceremony. And even though millions of people do it, even though you may have done it all your life. And even though you may determine you're going to do it, this and next year, tradition still is not evident.

   And if you're concerned about knowing whether or not the things you do are really right and pleasing in God's sight, you'll want this booklet because very few professing Christians have ever thought to question or to prove this Good Friday Easter Sunday tradition. The entire question is whether you're willing to accept the testimony of the Bible or human tradition. And this booklet, "The Resurrection Was Not on Sunday," will make it clear to you.

   Now, this booklet is a very short one. Actually, it's only about 12 pages long. You can read it in one sitting in probably 15 minutes or so, but it is caulked full with the scriptures that you can turn to in your own Bible. You can make marginal notes, you can absolutely prove this to yourself. Now, your pastor is going to want you to do this. The pastor that preaches and teaches to you is going to want you to come to him with all kinds of questions because these pastors just love to answer questions about the Bible. Does anything that a preacher or a servant of Christ likes to do is to talk about the Bible and to have people bring difficult questions to him about how to reconcile some of these traditions and beliefs of Christianity with what the Bible actually says.

   So if you want to get some scriptures, it will just blow your pastor's mind. I'm just kidding. Of course. But if you want to get some scriptures that will really get you in trouble. No. If you want to get some scriptures that will get you kicked right out of your church. No, now. Come on. I know there's some right way to say this. Let me figure out what it is. If you want a booklet that tells you the truth and then it just leaves it up to you as to what you want to do with that. Maybe that's the best way to say it just because you learn the truth and you come to know more than your own pastor or your own minister does by writing for this booklet doesn't necessarily mean you ought to go and share that with him. Maybe that's the best way to say it. But this booklet does tell you that the resurrection was not on Sunday and it's not my idea. It's not speculation, it's out of your own Bible and you can prove it to yourself by looking up each one of these references.

   You just have to ask the question, which day was the resurrection. What does the Old and the New Testament alike say about it. Did Jesus Christ fulfill his sign? Which day was the crucifixion upon what are the honest objections to it? And they are examined in his booklet and the final clinching proof is given on page 12 or 13. And then there's also the address to which you can write for the Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course. And the mailing address is worldwide.

   Now, this is a booklet that we cannot sell. We give it away. It's absolutely free of charge. There is no price for it. If you write for your copy of "The Resurrection was not on Sunday," just mention the resurrection booklet and all you need to do to request it is to send your letter to Box 345 Sydney, New South Wales. Be sure to tell us the call letters of your station. That's all we ask and nothing else you need to tell us no other information about yourself. We need just the call letters of your station and then your own name and return mailing address.

   There is no hitch to this. No cost. There is no one that is going to call on you. Your name is not given to someone else. The Plain Truth magazine free of charge. 52 pages, full color. Very interesting straight from the shoulder, hard-hitting articles that pull no punches at all. All you need to do is jot down the call letters of your radio station, then print your name and return mail address. So until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye, friends.