The Ark of the Covenant as a profound symbol of Jesus Christ and the church. It details the Ark's construction from acacia wood overlaid with gold, representing Christ's dual nature as fully human and fully divine. The Ark's contents, including the Ten Commandments, manna, and Aaron's budding rod, all point to Christ's perfect obedience, divine provision, and eternal priesthood. The sermon emphasizes that the Ark, and specifically the mercy seat, signifies God's presence and the means by which humanity can approach Him through Christ's atoning sacrifice. Ultimately, the message highlights that Jesus is our mediator, our high priest, and the propitiation for our sins, enabling direct communion with God.
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Studying something that God says is to show the glory of the Lord Jesus. Every word of it is glory. We're studying something that God has preserved for us in great detail. A very few chapters, very little bit of time, are soon telling us how the world came into be. But some sixteen chapters to tell us how the tabernacle came into be. because this is important to God. Not that the building itself was a wonderful, just a portable tent, although a very luxurious one, but because it's a picture to us of the Lord Jesus himself and then of the Lord and his people together, the church.
God had two dwelling places in the Old Testament, the tabernacle in the wilderness, and then the temple in the land. He's never had an earth a dwelling place in it. I know a good many buildings are called the house of God, but he plainly says in the seventh chapter of the book of the Acts that God dwelleth not in temples made with hands. No matter how ornate a building it may be, how very wonderful it may be, it is not God's dwelling place because he dwells in these people. The coming place of the Lord is in His people, the church, and of course in the individuals, our bodies of the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Now the tabernacle was a rectangular tent, three times as long as it was wide, about fifteen feet wide, forty-five feet long. It was divided into two rooms. Two-thirds of it was taken up from the first room called the Holy Place. And the last part of the building, the west end of it, was called the Holy of Holies, or the holiest. And this was the place that had only one piece of furniture, the Ark of the Covenant with the mercy seat leading. This is what we're going to study tonight.
Now in the Holy Place, we've already seen there were three pieces of furniture, a table, which tells us of the communion, the Christian there with the Lord, the candlestick that tells us of light bearing, and the golden altar of incense which tells us of worship. Now tonight we're going to talk about God's role. We turn to the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus. We have gone backwards in our study, purposely, When God gives the direction for making the tabernacle and all his furniture, he begins where we're ending.
He begins with the Ark of the Covenant. And then he comes from there up to the people. But since we're studying with a view to approaching to God, we're beginning where God leaves off. And we've learned about the doorway, how he could come in through the one gate. into the presence of God. We've studied about the praise and order where the sacrifices were offered, and that made us think of Calvary, where Christ offered one sacrifice for us. And we've learned about the labor, and so on we came into the building. Now we've reached the place in the Holy of Holies, the ark of God through.
Verse ten of Exodus twenty-five, and they shall make an ark How shivin wood, two cubits and a half will be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half a height thereof. And I shall overlay it with pure gold, within and without, shall thou overlay it, and I shall make upon it a crown of gold round about. And I shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof. and two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it. And thou shalt make staves of shem wood, and overlay them with gold, and thou shalt put the staves into the rings of the ark, that the ark may be borne with it.
The staves shall be in the rings of the ark, they shall not be taken from it. And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee. I lift up there, because the ark is described separately from the lid, which is the mercy seat. We're now talking about the box itself, which was a qubit and a half high and a qubit and a half wide, two and a half cubits long. Now, a qubit, you remember, is about eighteen inches. We're using that measure arbitrarily because it's easier to figure measurements in feet and inches. This box was made of the same material as the table, the altar of incense, and the boards of the tabernacle, and the altar of burnt offerings on the outside.
Two of the pieces of furniture, the lampstand and the labor were made as solid metal, the lampstand of gold and the labor of brass. Now we've already gone over this, so I'm not going to take time to go back over it again, but just let me say that the wood, acacia wood or sugar wood, was a very hard white wood called by the natives the indestructible wood, which grows in the desert. And it is to help us to understand the perfect humanity of the Lord Jesus. He was pure and perfect.
and sinless. He never sinned. He never thought anything wrong. He was the only person who ever lived on this earth whose life was spotless. He could say to his accusers, which of you convinced me of sin? I would dare say that. Anybody know of me? You wouldn't either. The Lord Jesus could. He was perfect. But he was perfectly man, perfectly human. He was a true man. Of it, he never ceased to be God. And so this was overlaid with pure gold. It was overlaid inside and out.
This box was lined with pure gold, so that no wood was visible. It looked like a solid gold box. But God knew, and those who were in the know, those who understood about this, knew that this was a wooden box. overlaid with pure gold. In other words, a box which is made of two different natures, and the Lord Jesus had two natures, human and divine. He was truly God, just as truly God as God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. He never ceased to be God when he became man. But there was a perfect union of two natures so that he was the God's name.
He didn't cease to be God and become man for a while, and then ceased to be man to become God again. But he was a God man, and he still is. And he will never cease to be that. When you and I see him in the glory, we'll still see him with his human nature and with human bodies. After he rose again from the dead, he permitted them to examine his hands and his side. And he said, the Spirit had my flesh and bones as you see me have, my flesh and blood. his blood had been poured out of the cross. But he had flesh and bones. And he took that human body and that human nature with him back to heaven. Now, it's important for us to understand this.
If we're going to know what it is to have communion with God, we've got to come through this man. Back in the book of Job, Job said, all that there were a day's man, except for the old-fashioned word for umpire, between God and me. Someone who could lay his hand upon us both. Now who could do that? No human being could do it. Because no human being dares to lay his hand upon the throne of God. No angel could do it because angels are subservient to God. They are the servants of God, but they certainly have no communion with God. No one but God can set God.
But of course no one but a man can understand man. We're told in First Corinthians chapter two, What man knows the things of man saves the spirit of man with disease. I understand you and you understand me because we have human nature. I know how you feel. When you lose a loved one, I can leap with you because I've lost loved one. A horse can't do that. No matter how good a horse you have, he doesn't know anything about how you feel when you lose a loved one. He's incapable of understanding your nature. It takes a human being to understand a human being. So Job said, I wish there were someone who could lay his hand in God and on me at the same time.
I wish there was someone who could be a dazed man between me. Now that was a long time ago. Job is the oldest piece of literature in existence. Job didn't know. All that we know, we know that there is a dazed man. We know that there is one who is laid hand upon us both. We know that there is one who is God and man. We're going to come to God. We're going to have to come through him. He said himself, I and Zee would, the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by me. Neither is there salvation in any other, Acts four twelve said, for there is none under him given among men whereby we must be saved.
All right, if we're to come to God, then we must come to one who is pictured by this ark. Now this ark was hollow. It wasn't full of stuff. That's the level of human beings. We're full of stuff. It takes us most of our lives getting emptied out of the things that are in the road in order to let God put a little something back in us that ought to be there. But he says, hollow it for us. Make this box hollow. It's an empty box until something's put in. It is filled with something. We'll talk about that in a little bit. This box is not filled with all the things that boxes are filled with here on this earth.
You've got a lot of boxes in your attic and in your basement, if you're normal. And they're mostly full of things that when you die, somebody else will haul them off to the dump. You're just well faced. Exactly what's going to happen. We're the greatest junk collectors ever made. The human race is just busy collecting stuff. And what's it all worth? And even if you had those boxes full of money, they'd be pretty worthless in some parts of the world. Some places they wouldn't want your money. They'd want shells or beads or feathers or bones. Most anything, a human race is busy collecting things.
My blessed Lord lived here for thirty-three and a half years. He never even collected enough so that he could pull money out of his pocket, talk about it. He said, show me a thing. He didn't have enough to bury himself. They buried him in a bar or two. The clothing that he had on, his coat of possession. Makes me ashamed. I think how blessed Lord was willing to be poor. Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, that he through his poverty might be rich. The Lord Jesus emptied himself. He simply availed his glory.
Came for a little while to hear among us that he might bless us. Now this box had rings in the four corners so that it could be carried by slaves. All of the furniture that we have talked about was to be carried. There was no particular provision for... Some of them, there's no mention made of it, but most of them had these days, and they were made of the same material, covered with gold, wood covered with gold. The purpose of this was that this could go with them every place they went. This represented God's presence. This was God's throne on earth at that time. This was the place where God planned to meet with the people, and he wanted to be able to meet them wherever they were.
Isn't that wonderful? And God's still doing that. God has fixed it so that he can meet you wherever you are. I don't know if you've read Jeffrey Bull's book, On Iron Gate Shield, if you haven't, it'd be a real experience for you. Jeffrey Bull was imprisoned by the communist in China, or he was a missionary. He went through some terrible things over there. One thing that Jeffrey Bull learned, he said, when he was over there, was that God was just as close to him as a communist Chinese prisons, if it was anybody else in the world, or maybe a little closer. I've got many of us to find out how close God could be to us in a sick room.
We find out how close God could be to us in trouble. God wanted these people to know this is going to go with you. Every place that you stop, you're going to stop because this ark stops. This ark is going to go ahead of you. This led to procession. This was the most important thing about their whole camp, God's presence. I wish that were true of God. Do you think of that? That's your first consideration. When you think about going someplace, do you feel like Moses did when he said, if I go not up with this, lead us not up here? Do you feel that way? Do you feel I don't want to go any place? I don't want to do anything that would make me lose the sense of his presence.
This is what I need more than anything. These are some of the lessons we don't learn here. Well, we get stubborn, don't we? And we run away from God. Jacob ran away from God because he couldn't trust God about his problem. Jonah ran away from God because he didn't do what God wanted him to do. Well, he didn't think, well, there's a lot of them did that. The prodigal son and the prodigal daughter and the old pets with Naomi. A lot of people ran away from God, but it wasn't a very happy experience. There's one other thing about this arch, and that was the crown of gold around the top.
They have this lid sitting down inside the crown of gold, which is probably the way it was made. Anyway, there was a crown of gold around the top. Now, this is the first piece of furniture that we've studied that had a crown of gold around it. We studied about the table. It had two crowns. We studied about the altar of incense. It had a crown about it. And crowns, we said, stand for glorification. You and I don't wear any crowns now, but we're promised that we're going to wear crowns. The Lord Jesus wore crowns of horns when he's here. But now we see Jesus' crowns as glory and honor. Crowns belong to the glory. Crowns belong to the Lord.
And the Lord Jesus is not on a cross. And he's not in the... Palestinian too. And he didn't dissolve away into gases somewhere, as one wretched church teaches. The Lord Jesus is crowned of glory and honor. The right hand has it gone. He hasn't on his own throne yet. He's on his father's throne. But he said, just as I have overcome and have sat down on my father's throne, all of you who overcome will be permitted to sit down with me on my throne. The Lord Jesus is already crowned with glory and honor. Second chapter of Hebrews says, we don't yet see all things put under him, but we see Jesus.
Crown with glory and honor. So that tells us that the Lord Jesus is able to be for us what we need because he glorified us. I'm glad he's not here on this earth. When I was a boy, my father used to sing songs, but the first verse went like this. I think when I read that sweet story of old how Jesus was here among men, how they called little children like lambs to be spoiled. I should like to have been living there. And I used to cry. I used to feel that I was cheating. I was just a little tad, you know, and I think about that. Now, isn't that awful? I couldn't be here when Jesus was here. And I just felt real sad about that.
I just felt like it. Something happened to me that was bad that I didn't get born when the Lord Jesus was here on earth. Well, I've learned better, I think, than that. There are much better things than being here on earth when Jesus was here. And that's having the Lord Jesus in the presence of God for us now. When the Lord Jesus was here, he could only be in one place at a time. When he was raising Lazarus from the dead, the other people had missed him in the other places. He wasn't there. He was here. And then when he left here and he went over there, he wasn't here anymore with us. But now he has resumed on the present. And he's able to be with us wherever we are.
And you can know his presence is in us. And that tells you with him. You don't need to feel that you're interrupting me while I'm talking. The Lord is able to be for us when and where we need him now. He's glorified. But it tells me something else. People who wear crowns are influential people. Come to think of it, I don't have any friends who wear crowns, except the Lord's Eve. I have never hopped out of the royal. I don't even have very many friends that have money. Go along and wear a crown. But it's wonderful to have a friend like the Lord Jesus and wear a crown. He is rich and influential.
He is mighty. He's a monarch. In fact, the matter is one of these days, he's going to have the title King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. We have a song about that, too. I have a rich old mighty friend. You know that song? That's what we had. Now, maybe I should say a little bit about the contents of this before we go on to talk about the mercy seats. This box was made, first of all, for just one purpose. To put in this box the Ten Commandments, the stone table, two tables of soul.
That's what he means when he says here in verse sixteen, I will put into the ark the testimony which I shall give. You remember what happened to the first two tables of soul? Moses got them? What happened? What happened? Accidentally? No. On purpose. Have you ever wondered why? I heard a person say a long time, well, Moses sure lost his temper that time, didn't he? You think that's what happened? Right? If he had brought them in, they would have all been guilty and died, didn't they?
You see, when he was up there getting those things, man, the people were down there breaking. They had already broken at least the first three before he ever got down there with them. There are a lot of people who think that God gave us the Ten Commandments as the latter ten runs to get us up to heaven, but that's just simply not so. We're told plainly in the third chapter of Romans that by the law is the knowledge of sin. The law is given in order that you and I might know that we're sinners. It's a measuring stick to show us that we're too short. That's what it's for. It's a mirror to show us that our faces are dirty, spiritually. And it was never given us a means of salvation. the people demanded that law.
They said to God, you tell us what to do and we'll do it. Well, God is a holy God, and the only kind of a law he can give is a holy law. So the law he gave condemned those people, and it broke at least three of the commandments before he ever got down off the mouth with them. So when he came into the camp and saw what was happening, rather than carry those holy commandments into that camp, and called the death of every sinner there, for the law is inflexible. We know that this is true because later on, the men of Bathshebaish, you can read this by the first Samuel chapter six, the men of Bathshebaish took the liberty of lifting the lid in this ark and looking in, and they died.
And if he's brought those commandments down among those sinful people, they would have died. I tell you, when you're dealing with God, you're not dealing with human law. Human laws and human judges have to be a little bit lenient. And a man can say in court, I cast myself upon the leniency of the court. He's often doing his part of things. But God's law knows no leniency. The only way that God can be lenient, no, it isn't lenient. The way that God can be gracious to you and me is by the payment for sin. The answering foresees by the sacrifice, in the Old Testament the sacrifices that pointed ahead to the one true sacrifice, the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God can only forgive for Christ's sake. Ephesians four thirty two says so. God for Christ's sake has forgiven. We never read God forgiving just because he's kind and gracious. That would not be right. That would be forgiveness at the expense of justice. For he said, the soul that sin shall surely die, and I sinned. So I got to die. Or a substitute got to die in my flesh. That's the teaching of the Bible all the way through. In the Old Testament it was animal sacrifices, which never actually put away sin. They only paid the interest, so to speak. They covered it over from year to year.
That's the word in the Old Testament. That's called them. It's kafar. The Hebrew word from which we get our English word covered. God covered sin by these animal sacrifices until Christ came and put sin away. And it says he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. So, the Ten Commandments then were to be put into this box. And thank God they were covered when they were put into this box. But now before we talk about they're being covered, let's talk about the box containing these Ten Commandments. I think this is a wonderful thing. And I think maybe it would help us to appreciate that more if we read a verse in the psalm, Psalm forty.
So someone read Psalm forty and verses seven and eight, fourth please, anyone? Then said I, lo, I come, and the volume of the book is a rift of me. I delight to do thy will. O my God, yea, thy laws within my heart. Thy laws within my heart. Now this is said prophetically of Christ. This is quoted in the New Testament. Later on, you have this very same thing given in the New Testament. So the Lord Jesus, pictured by this ark, contains the law of God perfectly now the psalmist said by by word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee that is a process and I hope you're doing that I hope each of us as Christians every day is putting a little bit of word of the word of God into his heart each of us I hope each of us are doing it you can't you can't do it by proxy you can't let the pastor do it for you can't You can't just say, well, Brother was a good Christian, and she knew a lot about the Bible.
But each of us has to hide in his own heart some of the Word of God. I hope you're doing this. But the Lord Jesus had it all. He accepted it all. And he kept it all. He could say to the people, none of you keep of the law. And yet our Lord Jesus kept it perfectly with all his life. And he kept it not simply in the outward commandments, but in the inward commandments. He kept it not simply in relation to the Solomon, but in relation to God. The Lord Jesus' life was one cup of life, lived by a person whose heart was filled with the word of God.
Now, the stones, the tables, the stones were placed in this ark were not broken. The broken ones, I don't know what happened to them, but God called Moses back up on the ark, above the mount, and he gave him fresh stones, unbroken ones. And those were put in the ark. I broke the law, and you broke the law. And the book of James says that if a man keeps the whole law, say that for me somebody. And in one point in the daily law. One point. That's not one commandment. That's one point. Take the tenth commandment. The tenth commandment says, I shall not tell it. And then there are a lot of points.
My neighbor's wife, his house, his ark, his man, so on. See? One point. You say, well, I don't want my neighbor's wife, I wouldn't have her on a Christmas tree, but I'd like to have his car. See? One point. That's all it takes. He who depends in one point is merely a law. It's a broken law. You've heard the old illustration about a man hanging by a chain of ten links over a chasm? How many links have to break before he falls? How ridiculous it is for a man to say, well, I've never, I've never killed anybody. Well, I'm sure I'll get to heaven. Or I've never robbed any banks.
Or I've never, I've never, but all the time we've got a wicked sinful heart. And we've been, we've been guilty of breaking. I could many of those laws. We wanted to analyze it, but the Lord Jesus, just as this box held an unbroken law, though his life was one without any real faith. Now that was a permanent filling for this box. Now we've got some temporary ones. Maybe we should read about these. First we'll turn to Hebrews nine.
The reason that the book of Hebrews mentions these is because God is concerned here with these wilderness sides of things. As long as this was in the wilderness, it had these two extra things in it. We've seen a little bit that when they were brought into the temple, they took them out. chapter nine of the book of the Hebrews and verse four verse three after the second veil the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all which had the golden censure and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about the gold wherein was the golden pot that had manna and Aaron's rod that budded and the tables of the covenant.
Now we've already talked about the tables of the covenant, but we have two more things now. The golden pot that had manna and Aaron's rod that budded. Now let's read this other verse before we comment on it. First Kings chapter eight. eighth chapter. This is telling about the feast of the dedication. They got the temple, Solomon's temple finished. And then they brought in, verse six says, the priest brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord into his place, into the oracle of the house, the most holy place, even under the wings of the chariot.
For the cherubim spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark, and the staves thereof above. And they drew out the staves, that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the oracle, and they were not seen without. And there they are under this day. There was nothing in the ark. say, the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel when they came out of the land of Israel. Now when they were out in the wilderness, God said, put two more things in this ark, because this is the place where I meet with the people, and there are two things that they need to know when they're down here in the wilderness.
They need to remember the manna. The manna, you know, is the daily food given to us. Manna is Hebrew for what is it? They never did know what it was, and they never did have a name for it. It was angels' food we're told. It was a small, round, white thing that was sweet. All of that tells us of the Lord Jesus. And he himself then, in the sixth chapter of John, your fathers did eat man in the wilderness and are dead. I am the true bread which comes down from heaven, which if a man eat thereof, he shall never die. So the Lord Jesus is the true bread of heaven.
And they said, well, how can we eat a man? What does he need? Well, just as your body eats bread and appropriating and assimilating that bread is strengthened and given life. So when you appropriate and enjoy and take in the Lord Jesus for yourself, trusting him as your Savior, trusting him as your friend and helper day by day, you are eating of the bread of life. That's the meaning of that sixth chapter of John. So he said now these people for four years were fed here in the wilderness. I want you to take some of this manna and put it in a golden pot and put it in here.
Well now out in the wilderness whenever they kept any of that manna over it, even overnight, it began to spoil. And of course the man keeps it at will spoil, but God preserved it and healed. And so that the people had this memorial of God's daily provision. The manna is Christ come down to my need here in the wilderness. When they got into the land, the manna ceased. The next day after they got into the land, the manna ceased. From then on, remember what they ate? Old corner of the land. Yeah. The old corner of the land.
That means not heaven, but entering into the riches and the blessings that God has for us, appreciating our place in the heavenly and enjoyment of God's things, we no longer need the food of the wilderness. Most of those are wilderness Christians. As long as we need the Lord Jesus in this role, he's there for us. But then the Aaron's rod that budded is an interesting lesson too. Remember they were murmuring about Aaron being the high priest. They said, what right does he have to be the high priest? Why does he have the rest of us be priests? And the high priest once in a while, let's be democratic about this thing. They probably didn't know that word, but let's pass this thing around.
Let's all have a part in this. The Lord said, I want to show you who is my priest. He said, give me a stick from each of your tribes. And he wrote the names on those sticks. And then he took them in. this place and he laid them here before the Lord and the next morning Aaron's rod miraculously had budded had blossoms and fruit now of course this tells us that there's only one fruitful high priest the book of Hebrews says we don't have Aaron for high priests we don't even have the ironic priesthood we don't follow the that feeble priesthood of man which failed because the men were failing and which had to be replaced because the men died.
But now he says we have a high priest who is a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a priest before Aaron's day and he had no predecessor, no successor. So the Lord Jesus is the one high priest who will always be a high priest for him. Now this rod of Aaron's was laid up here as a reminder that God's man lives. You and I have a bigger and larger than Jesus. The Lord wants us to know. He wants us to realize God's man is alive. The Lord Jesus is not an historical character. He's a real life person. A man went into, wandered into a place where Bob Ingersoll, I believe it was, was giving a lecture.
And his lecture was, the title of his lecture was, There is No God. And this man stood up in the back room and he said, I beg your pardon, sir, but you just made a statement that there is no God, and I think you're mistaken because I was talking to him about ten minutes ago. And so on earth, the man, he hardly finished his lecture. After all, what now can you argue with the man in his own? And he said, I know I was just talking to him about ten minutes ago. Now, of course, the agnostic would say, well, I stupid. He just went through the motions. He just thought he was talking to God. But any of us who know God, and that answers all prayers, and that fellowship with him, we know that God's man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is alive.
And he's there to be not only our advocate to help get us out of trouble when we get in, but our high priest to keep us out of trouble. Now this was all laid up in this ark, and all of this tells us of the Lord Jesus in the presence of God throughout. But now let's read on a little further. Any questions or comments on this? I know I'm just going right past you and I'll give you a chance to talk. Would it be digressing to ask about that revelation I will give the eat of the hidden man? Could you give it just a remark or two on that?
I believe that the reason he talks about, let's turn to that. This is in the letters to the seven churches of Asia in the second, third chapters of the book of the Revelation. Would you like to read that verse to us? Part two, seventeen. He that happened here, let him hear what the Spirit says under the churches. To him that overcomes, while I give to the hidden manner, and will give him a white stone and in the stone you name it from which no man was saving he that received it that's in the church of Pergamon well my I probably have some good thoughts on this yourself and my feeling about this is the reason that this is said to the people who live in Pergamon is this Pergamon means a bad marriage and this covers that we believe that these seven churches cover the the seven stages of the church historically, all the way from the first century until the Lord comes back.
And Pergamos then covers that period of time, beginning with Constantine, when the church was no longer persecuted, as they had been in the first two centuries, but now were fond upon by the rulers of the world, and they began to be amalgamated with the world. The church then began to be a part of the world. The courtiers of the king were the princes of the church. And now he's saying to them, you're finding everything you have right here. You're pleased with this world. You're satisfied with this. If you only knew, I could give you something from my presence.
I could give you the hidden manna from my presence. I could feed you with Christ instead of this chad that you're having in the world. I think that's why this promise is given. And it's especially good in our day when most Christians are extremely worldly, mixed in with the world, satisfied with the world, interested in what the world has to give. And the same promise is given to us. We need to come to the Lord and find the hidden sustenance, find the satisfaction and the strength. beating on Christ, the presence of God.
And notice that he also would give him a white soul. This comes from the custom of that time that whenever people voted, they were given, every person was given two souls, the white one and the black one. And we still use that in that nomenclature in talking about some of the lodges to say a certain person was blackballed out of the lodge. That is, somebody voted against him. He didn't get in. Now what the Lord is saying, I'm going to cast a white stone in your favor. In other words, you have my favor. You're carrying the favor of the world. You're looking for everything here. Now if you turn to me, I'll give you a white stone.
Would you rather have a white stone from the Lord? Would you rather have his favor than have all the favor that you could get from Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the United States, and the whole world? I think that's what he's saying. That's right? Well, let's turn now to the twenty-fifth of Exodus and read on from verse seventeen. This is the lid for this box. And thou shalt make a mercy seat, or a throne, a throne of mercy, of pure gold. Well, no lid is this now. Two cubits and a half will be the length or all, and a cubit and a half is the breadth or all, just the right size, be a lid for this box.
And I shall make two cherubim of gold. A beat the work shall thou make them, and the two ends of the mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end. Even of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim. That is, out of that one piece of gold. The revised version says, thou shalt make it of the mercy seat. Take this piece of gold and turn up the ends of it, and and begin into the shape of cherubim. Shall you make the cherubim on the two ends thereof? And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat, shall the faces of the cherubim be.
And I shall put the mercy seat above upon the ark, and in the ark I shall put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee, from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim, that are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things that I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. Now, the material of this is pure gold. And since gold tells us of the deity of Christ, we are reminded that we have a mercy seat because Christ is God. There's a wretched doctrine going about today that Christ is a created angel.
If you accept that, you have no savior and you have no mercy to you, and you have no communion with God. But we can never come to God through an angel. The angels themselves sinned against God and had to be banished from his presence, some of them. But you never come to God through an angel. The Lord Jesus is divine. The mercy seat is made of pure gold. It was the size of the ark, and it was held up by the ark. What we've been talking, what we've been saying about the Lord Jesus, in His perfect person, His humanity, and His deity, this is the basis for the mercy seat of God.
You have no mercy seat without a Savior who came down to the earth. You can't have a mercy seat without a Savior who died. You can't have a mercy seat without a Savior who rose again from the dead and ascends into the right hand of God. He sustains the mercy seat. The ark holds up this mercy seat. Now the cherubim on the ends here are not mentioned before this, but one time. Do you recall the other occasions earlier than this? on the cherubim were mentioned. Well, a flaming sword.
Garden of Eden. In the third chapter of the book of Genesis, we're told that when Adam and Eve sinned against God, that he put cherubim at the garden, shining them out of the garden in mercy, really, that they stayed in there and entered the tree of life and lived forever in that wretched state, that would have been awful. But the cherubim shut them out of the presence of God and held them out. Now, we don't know much about the angelic hosts. I can't give you very, very clear teaching about the angels. I've read everything I could find on it, but, and although there are many times in the Bible, there are many things we don't know.
We are told that there are principalities and powers among them. We are told that there are degrees of authority among them. We are told, for instance, that one of these angels was a special angel of the nation of Israel. Two of them only are named Michael and Gabriel. We are told that there were seraphim and cherubim. And there may be other orders, but those two are made. Now, the cherubim were always, as far as I know, always mentioned in connection with God's presence. The anointed cherub that covered, that was the guardian of the throne of God.
The cherubim who guarded the holy presence of God was the guardian. And now, the cherubim who were transfixed in this position, no longer holding swords. I read this in an old book that was written way back hundred years before born. These angels held no swords. That sword was sheathed in the heart of the Lord Jesus himself. The book of Zechariah said, a wakeful sword against the shepherd. And the Lord Jesus took the sword of God's justice, so that these angels no longer keep anybody away, but they're gazing, their faces are turned down toward the mercy seat.
For this was the place where the blood was sprinkled. This place, every year, was covered with blood. Seven times the blood was sprinkled here and seven times in front of the mercy seat. Seven is the number of perfections. The blood was placed here on the throne of God for God's eye to see. It was sprinkled here for the eyes of the priest, but later for the people to see. For this was the same floor. This was part of the desk. when this was picked up and carried away the people who see the blood sprinkled there on the fans of the desert and they would know God is satisfied because sacrifice has been offered so the mercy seat then is a place guarded by the angels but they're not active in keeping anyone away now everyone who manages to draw near this is especially true in the New Testament in New Testament times we're told because we have a high priest over the house of God, we should draw here with a true heart and full assurance of faith.
This was exactly the same height as the great in the middle of this altar of birth sacrifice, the raised altar, just to show that here in this picture. we studied this and we noticed this is three cubitai but there wasn't a half cubitai the same height as this all the animal sacrifices were offered and the blood was brought inside the blood on the day of atonement the blood of the of the goat the lord's sin offering was brought in and sprinkled here and these being the same height tell us that we are able to come to the throne of God because the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ equal that, because they bring us to that place.
I could not come to God if the sacrifice of Christ was lower than God's holy demand. That's why I can't come in my own good work. That's why you can't come in your own good work. How would you dare to bring something to God which is so far short of His holy demand? but because the Lord Jesus met the holy claims of God, we have a mercy seat that we can come to. This is also the same height as the table. This table was a cubist and half high, and this was the place where they held communion with God. This bread sat here before the Lord until the priests were ready to eat it, and then they communed in this table with God.
So you and I have fellowship with God on the basis of accomplished sacrifice and the welcome in the presence of God at the throne of grace. Now, the eightiest psalm, that's an interesting verse that I'd like you to see. I just can't cover all the passages in the short time we have our disposal, but I'm trying to give you enough of them so you go back over your notes and make a study of this. Actually, Psalm eighties. And verse one, this was one of the spring psalms, the Shoshanim psalms, were the psalms that they sang in the springtime.
And they always are connected with the sufferings of death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus, which of course are played in the springtime. Give here, O shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock, thou that dwellest between the cherubim shine forth. This was God's home on earth. But he said that's not a very elegant throne. Didn't Solomon have a throne to be that? Yes, he did. Solomon had a throne that was really gorgeous. He had a gold and ivory throne. He had lions on the steps. But you know that I know that Solomon didn't deserve what he had.
And he turned out to be a mighty poor thing. And there were other thrones that have been much more elaborate than this. This was God's chosen dwelling place. Same thing could be said of God's dwelling place on earth today. The Lord dwells in the midst of his people. And we're a poor bunch ourselves. We're no bright and shining example. We've got nothing to be proud of. The Lord loves us. He's changed the dwell among us. This was God's throne. your own earth. We thus read together here in the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus in verse twenty-two.
There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, or between the two cherubim which are called your ark or the testimony. So God promised to meet them, and he promised to speak to them. He spoke to Moses. He called Moses into his presence. He spoke to him. Then he set up a priesthood, and he called Aaron in. to speak to him. The rest of the priests were never allowed to come that near, and the rest of the people couldn't come that near. But when you turn to the New Testament, you no longer have a priesthood, and we no longer have to come to God through some man. And any sacerdotal system that is set up today, making one man is the go between you and God is wrong.
Because we're plainly told there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And you, you, and you, and you, if you belong to the Lord, can come directly to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you ever let anybody rob you of that privilege. Don't you ever say to some man, well, now you know God pretty well. I wish you'd speak to him for me. Don't you ever do that. You go directly to your Father and go through the Lord Jesus and say, Father, I come in the name of thy son, thy beloved son, and I thank you that now others hear me for his sake. He does here. So we draw near to God to be spoken to.
Now, I've already said that this covers the Holy Law. It isn't simply the gold plate that covers the Holy Law, but the blood sprinkled on that mercy seat, on that golden lid that covers the Law. I wouldn't dare to look up to God unless I knew that Christ had died in my place on the cross. I could never go to God and say, oh God, I know I've seen, but you remember all those nice things that I did. Now you just weigh up my life, weigh those good things against the bad ones, and I'm sure that you'll find that John Walden is very deserving of a place in heaven. Isn't that despicable pride? And yet you'd be surprised how many people really expect that.
They really think because of it. And you ask him, why do you expect to go to heaven? They say, well, I've done this and I've done that and I never did that and I wouldn't do that. So I think that I am, I, I, I, and they're just suffering from my strength. And they don't see what Christ has done for them at all. They don't know about him on the cross. It's I have done so much. I expect God to save me for my sake. Don't remember to think of that. Remember that the only thing that hides that holy law is a sprinkled blood. Do the man draw near before God for that very reason? No, I think maybe I ought to give you some of the passages in the New Testament where the same word is used, the mercy seat.
And not always translated that way, but it will help you to understand what it means to draw near to God by means of a mercy seat. Turn to the Gospel according to Luke, first of all, please. Luke chapter eighteen this is a story you know quite well two men went up to the temple to pray verse ten says Luke eighteen ten two men went up into the temple to pray the one a Pharisee he was a religious man the other a publicist he's not a member of the other political party He was simply a man who was collecting taxes for the Roman government, occupying the country at that time, and it was almost a synonym, synonym for, a synonym, almost synonymous, I mean, say, for a sinner.
They always classed the publicans with the harlots and the drunkards. Now you've got the picture. A very religious man and a very wicked man. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank thee that I am not his other men, are. And I'm sure he opened one eye and looked around and thought he was taking this all in. I'm sure he did that. That's kind of a wrath he was. Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publicist. He must have had one eye open. He knew the public and the same. I fast twice in a week.
I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, was not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breath. He knew where the trouble was, saying, God be merciful to me as such. Now this word merciful here is exactly the same word. that's translated, propitiated, the same root word for mercy seat. He was not saying, Oh, God, have mercy on me. And that's not a scriptural prayer. And I would never teach anybody to pray a prayer like that.
What he was saying was this. He lived in the days of the temple still in existence. He knew about this mercy seat in the sprinkled blood. What he was saying to God was, Oh, God, accept me for the sake of the mercy seat. Oh, God put my sins away because thou hast been propitiated. Now, this is a technical term, but I make no apology for using biblical technical terms. If you were going to learn anything about automobiles, you'd have to learn the difference between a carburetor and whatever else you're in on the automobile. That's all I know about. I don't want to learn. If you were an electrician, you'd have to learn the difference between ohms and watts and volts and whatever else they had.
And when you're going to study the Bible, you have to know the difference between words. And don't balk at this. Study it and learn what it means. The word propitiation means an answering to God for the sins of the world. It doesn't mean that all the sins are forgiven, but it means that what Christ did was enough so that God is free to forgive us and still be righteous. See? It was all the money that's been put in the bank for you to draw. It's as though everything that needs to be done has been done so that when you're willing to let Christ be your substitutes, propitiation has already taken place. Now, you look it up in the dictionary and it says, propitiation means appeasement.
That isn't what it means at all in the Bible. That may be the modern use of the word. But propitiation in the Bible simply means the blood is there on the mercy seat. And any poor sinner who comes to God saying, O God, accept me for the sake of the blood on the mercy seats will be heard and that's exactly what happened I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather than the other now it plainly says in the old testament that God does not justify things and that you must not justify things and yet when you come to the New Testament we're told for the sake of the Lord Jesus he justifies in God it's because of the blood on the mercy Now, let me show you another one along this line.
In the third chapter of Romans, here you have the same word in the language in which our New Testament is written, translated a little different in English. Verse twenty-three says, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Being justified freely, that means without any cause on our part. We have done nothing to earn this, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a, there it is, same words, mercy seat, propitiation.
The Lord Jesus is God's mercy seat. If you have a revised version, you can look this up, you can see it's the same word. Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation of faith by his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed, Old Testament saints, the sins of Old Testament believers through the forbearance of God, to declare, I say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just in the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. So the mercy seat is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. One more, First John chapter two.
First John, the first chapter takes up this problem of sin, tells us that we can come to God in confession if we sin after we're saved. You don't lose your salvation. Some people think that when they sin, they've lost their salvation, they've got to be saved over again. That isn't taught in the Bible. What happens is that your communion is forced. And he says, my little children, these things right, I am to you, that you sin not. And in. any man's sin we lose our salvation we do not we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the same word mercy seat he is the propitiation for the mercy seat for our sins and not for ours only but also for the whole world the sins of or anybody tell us here He is simply the mercy seat from the whole world.
That doesn't mean the whole world is saved. That Pharisee didn't get saved. He never even thought about the mercy seat. He thought about himself. He said, oh God, I'm so glad that I'm better than these other people. And he had no use whatever for the blood of the mercy seat. But the Pharisee appropriated that for himself. And so it is now. The Lord Jesus is the mercy seat for us. And he's a mercy for any in the world who has him. That part of it is that so few will have him. Well, I must say a little bit about what I have on the Blackboard here. These are four names for the art.
And I want to be able just to very briefly say something about it because it's nine o'clock now and I know you want to ask some questions. The class runs from eight to nine fifteen. We try to use the last fifteen minutes for questions and answers. These are all names for the same ark. We don't confuse this with the Noah's ark. We don't confuse it with the little ark in which Moses was placed in the bow rushes. This is the ark of the testimony. An ark is simply a bar.