Our Old Testament reading is Exodus chapter 25, verses 10 through 22. And this is the infallible and inerrant word of God. Exodus 25, 10 through 22. They shall make an ark of acacia wood, two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. You shall overlay it with pure gold inside and outside, shall you overlay it, and you shall make on it a molding of gold around it. You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it and two rings on the other side of it. You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. And you shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark by them. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark. They shall not be taken from it. And you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you.

You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length and a cubit and a half its breadth. And you shall make two cherubim of gold. Of hammered work shall you make them on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another. Toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

Keep your place there in Exodus and turn with me to Romans chapter three for our New Testament reading. Romans 3, 21 through 26. Romans 3, 21 through 26. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

It’s been a couple of weeks since we were last in Exodus. And so just to review what’s happening at this point in the book, we’ll just set the context for you. The Israelites are at Mount Sinai. The Lord has just made his covenant with them. And God has called Moses by himself to come up to the top of the mountain to meet with him and to receive these instructions that he will give to him. And Moses tells us that he entered the glory cloud, that cloud that was on top of Mount Sinai in which God’s presence dwelt. He went into the presence of the Lord there. He was there for 40 days and 40 nights.

And the first thing that the Lord told Moses was that he was to take up a special offering of all the various materials that would go into making the tabernacle and all the various parts of the tabernacle. And then in verses eight and nine, the Lord tells Moses to tell the Israelites to build this tabernacle exactly after the pattern of the one that the Lord showed to Moses on the top of the mountain. And so in verses eight and nine, which we did not read this morning, but just right before our passage, verses eight and nine say, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell in their midst, exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.

And so the Lord tells Moses how to build this tabernacle. And then verse 10, chapter 25, and all the way to the end of chapter 30, almost all of that consists of the very detailed thorough instructions that the Lord gave to Moses on how to build the tabernacle, how to construct its furniture, that is the various items that were in the tabernacle, how to build the priest’s garments, how to make the altar of incense and the anointing oil and all of that. Many people have made the observation that whereas it took God only six days to create the entire universe, it took him 40 days to explain to Moses exactly how the tabernacle was to be constructed.

So clearly, this is a matter of great importance to God. And one reason for that, one reason why the Lord gave Moses such detailed, such lengthy instructions on how to build this sanctuary was because this would be the place that the Lord would dwell among his people. Only God could determine what the sanctuary or the tabernacle would be in which he would dwell with his people here on earth. And so this was not to be constructed by the imaginations of the Israelites or by their own design or thoughts, but it was God’s house and He would build it, or He would have it built according to His design.

But not only that, but the tabernacle and everything in it and everything associated with the tabernacle also served another purpose, not only to be the dwelling place of God among his people, but the tabernacle was a source of revelation. It was revelation to the people of Israel concerning the truth of God. The tabernacle not only communicated the truth concerning the character of God, what kind of God he was, what he was like as God, but it was also symbolic in many ways of the salvation that one day God would accomplish for his people through his son, Jesus Christ.

And so the tabernacle revealed to the Israelites the truth concerning the gospel, concerning Christ. In fact, one author says this, he says, every detail points to some aspect of the character and work of the person of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and in its complete form, it is probably, he’s talking about the tabernacle here, it is probably the most comprehensive, detailed revelation of Jesus, the Son of God, and the plan of salvation in the entire Old Testament. Now, whether that is true or not, perhaps, but whatever we may think of that, the truth is that the tabernacle was indeed a revelation of Jesus Christ and of his coming, of his work, of his person, all that he would do for our salvation. And so it is very significant, very important for us to spend some time looking at the details of this tabernacle.

Now, just by itself, as a structure, just taking it for what it is, the tabernacle wasn’t particularly awe-inspiring. It wasn’t a particularly imposing or impressive building. Our family, one time, was able to visit a life-sized recreation of the tabernacle. It was in Amish country, in Pennsylvania, and someone had built, as best as he could, a replication of what the tabernacle might have looked like, according to the dimensions and everything that are given to us in scripture. And it was very interesting. It was very beneficial to see it and to walk into it and see what that might have been like in those days.

But the building itself didn’t leave the kind of impression on us that you might have after you see some magnificent structure like the Cathedral of Notre Dame or the Taj Mahal or the Burj Khalifa. That’s the world’s tallest building in Dubai. And so the tabernacle itself was rather modest in size. It wasn’t awe-inspiring just by virtue of its appearance. But what makes it truly awe-inspiring, what makes the tabernacle truly the most glorious structure that has ever been built by human hands is this, that it was both the dwelling place of God on earth among his people, and it was a revelation of the Son of God, Jesus Christ, before his coming. And so that’s why we will take some time to study the tabernacle because of what it reveals to us about God and about the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we’ll start with what is the most important part of the tabernacle, the place where the Lord started in giving his instructions to Moses, and that is the Ark of the Testimony or the Ark of God, the Ark of the Covenant. And so first of all, let’s just get a picture in our minds of what this ark looked like, because it’s described for us here. And so let’s try to get a mental image of what this ark would have looked like to us. In verse 10, the Lord says to Moses, they shall make an ark of acacia wood, two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height.

And so the ark was basically a chest or a box. It was made from the wood of acacia trees and getting wood from acacia trees would have been very easy for the Israelites where they happen to be in the wilderness at this time. The dimensions of it are given in cubits. A cubit is about 18 inches. It’s the length from the elbow of a man’s arm all the way up to the tip of his finger. About 18 inches, give or take, or so. And so the ark, if you can imagine, it would have been just under four feet long and just over two feet wide and two feet tall.

It was covered with pure gold. It rested on four feet, and on each of these feet was a ring so that poles could be inserted into the ring so that the ark could be carried without being touched. And the reason for that, as we’ll see, is the ark was holy and no human was to touch it. God designed the ark to contain the two tablets on which he had written with his very own finger the law, the 10 commandments that he gave to the people of Israel. That’s why it is called the ark of the testimony. Look at verse 16, or that’s why it’s referred to as containing the testimony. Verse 16 says, and you shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you. And so the testimony—those are the two tablets with the Ten Commandments.

And it’s also why the Ark is called the Ark of the Covenant, because the Ten Commandments were the substance of the covenant that God made with his people Israel at Mount Sinai. And because the Ark contained the Ten Commandments, it is called the Ark of the Covenant. We know from other scripture, from the book of Hebrews, that the Ark also contained the jar of manna that the Lord instructed the Israelites to set aside, and it also contained the staff of Aaron that budded.

On the top of the ark is a lid—was what was called the Mercy Seat and we’ll talk more about the Mercy Seat in a few minutes. But this lid or covering was made of pure gold and on top of the Mercy Seat were two cherubim which were also made of pure gold and they were all made of one piece with the lid or the cover, the Mercy Seat. Well what do we know about these cherubim? Well they’re not the cute chubby little creatures that may come to your mind when you hear the word cherubim. These were angelic creatures. They were very often in the presence of the Lord. So they were there with the Lord in the presence of his holiness and they kind of served as guardians of holy places.

The first time that we meet the cherubim is in Genesis chapter 3, after the Lord cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. If you remember, to the east of the garden at the entrance, he placed cherubim there to guard the entrance. He also placed a flaming sword that turned this way and that in order to guard the way to the Tree of Life. And so the cherubim were God’s angels, they were God’s attendants, and they guarded that which was holy. And in this case, they guarded the Ark of the Covenant. The most outstanding feature of these two cherubim is that they are looking down. They are not looking up, but they are looking down, and that’s because God was above them. They are bowing their heads in reverence and awe before the Lord. So these two cherubim are looking down as they guard the Ark of the Covenant.

Since we are considering the Ark of the Covenant this morning, I just can’t help but mention that when I was a kid, my very favorite movie of all time was Raiders of the Lost Ark. I wouldn’t rely on that movie for a lot of factual information about the Ark of God. No, the Ark wasn’t almost captured by the Nazis. And no, the Ark isn’t being stored in some government warehouse in the deserts of Nevada. As cool as that may be, that is not true. But if you can remember from the movie what the Ark looked like, you get a pretty good sense of what it probably looked like in real life. It seems that the producers of the movie tried to make it as close to the biblical description as possible. And so if you can picture for that—picture in your mind what the Ark looked like in that movie, you get a sense of what it looked like at this time as well.

But far more important than what the Ark looked like was what the Ark represented, what it stood for, for the people of God. And there are two truths, two spiritual truths that the Ark symbolized that we will consider this morning. And the first truth is this. The Ark signified, it represented to the people of Israel God’s presence among them. In fact, God was with them right there above the Ark of the Covenant. So God’s presence with his people. Look at verse 22. The Lord says, there, I will meet with you. And from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

And so the Lord would make his presence, he would be, he would cause his presence to be right on top of the ark, above the cherubim. That’s why the Old Testament refers to the Lord at times as being enthroned on the cherubim. Psalm 99.1, he sits enthroned upon the cherubim. Let the earth quake. And that was the whole point of the entire tabernacle was to tell the Israelites that the Lord was with them. It was where the Lord was actually with his people, in the tabernacle. And the specific place where the Lord dwelt was in that most holy place in the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies. And in that Holy of Holies, the place where his presence was, was on top of the Ark of the Covenant.

And if there was anything that set apart the people of Israel from all the nations of the world, it was just that, that among them, God was with them, that Almighty God, the God who is infinite and eternal, the one who created the heavens and the earth, the one who is Lord over all that he has made, the one who is high and lifted up, the one who is enthroned in heaven, the one who inhabits in eternity, that this God, he graciously chose to live, to dwell among his people, that his presence would be with them on earth, among the people of Israel. And that is one of the spiritual realities that defines us as the people of God today, that as Christians, as those who have been redeemed by God through His Son, Jesus Christ, we have the blessing, the privilege of being a people among whom the Lord dwells.

God is with us. He is with us as our God, and we are His people. We saw a couple of weeks ago from the Gospel of John that John says about Jesus, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And if you remember that word that is translated dwelt among us in the Greek, in the original Greek, it literally means he tabernacled among us. He made his tabernacle among us. And so God is with us even in a far greater way than he was with his people Israel. Now he was with his people Israel in the Old Testament. He truly did dwell among them. They saw his glory. He was present with them in the tabernacle, but in a far greater way, God has come to make his dwelling among us.

When he took on human nature, when he became one of us, he became man and lived among us. And although Jesus has since been exalted to the right hand of God in glory, although he is now at God’s right hand, reigning over heaven and earth with all the dominion and authority and rule that the Lord has given to his son, Jesus, nevertheless, Jesus is still truly and really as present with us as he was with his disciples when he walked among them in the world. He is with us by his Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says, do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you?

And this is the truth that is a tremendous comfort to us when we experience suffering in this life, in times of adversity, in times of confusion, when all seems dark, when we are grieving, when we are suffering, God is always with you in all of that. He promises that as a believer in Jesus Christ, he will never leave you nor forsake you, that he is as truly with you as Jesus was with his people when he was here on earth. And so as a Christian, you are never God forsaken. It may feel that way at times, it may seem that way at times, but Christ is always present with you.

Robin and I went to a funeral yesterday morning, a funeral for a young Christian woman. She was 22 years old. She died after a five month long battle with cancer. And her dad asked her before she died if she was afraid to die. And her answer to her dad was, I’m not scared to die because I know that I’m going to be with the Lord. And that was her hope as a believer in Jesus Christ, that at her death, which at the time was coming very soon for her, that she would be brought into the glorious presence of her savior, Jesus.

And so it was a funeral that was very sad, but it was also very hopeful. But what she said was true even before she died. She was yet to be in the glorious presence of Jesus, but as a believer in Jesus Christ, the Lord was with her even in this life, even in her suffering. He was present with her through all that she endured up to the day that she died. And if your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the promise that he gives to you as well. The son of God who loved you, the son of God who came from heaven and earth to save you, to redeem you, the son of God who gave his life for you, who offered himself on the cross in your place for your salvation. He is with you. He has not left you. He has not abandoned you, but he is with you throughout your days in this world. John 14:23, our Lord says in that verse, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. Jesus, the Son of God, the Father, they come and they make their home in you as a believer in Jesus Christ. And so God is with us just as he was with the people of Israel then.

And there’s one particular aspect of this truth that God is with us that is represented by the Ark of the Covenant, and that is this, that the Lord is with us as his people in order to give us victory over our enemies. The book of Numbers tells us that whenever the people of Israel moved from one location to another in their wilderness wanderings, that Moses would proclaim these words as the Ark of the Covenant set out to go with the people of Israel. This is what Moses would say. He said, arise, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you.

Later when the Israelites crossed the Jordan River in order to go into the land of promise to begin driving out the Canaanites who lived there in order to take that land that God had promised to give them, it was the Ark of the Covenant that led the way as a general leading his armies into battle. And when the Israelites captured the city of Jericho, as they marched around the walls of that city, before they blew the trumpets which caused the walls to fall down so that they took over the city of Jericho, the ark of the covenant was in their midst.

And so the ark stood for the people of Israel, not just as the presence of God, their savior with them, but as the presence of their conquering king, the one who would fight their battles for them, the one who would give them victory over their enemies. And so the truth that the Lord was with his people to fight for his people, to be their champion, that was also signified by the Ark of the Covenant.

However, it was not as though the Ark itself was a kind of magic charm that forced the Lord to do the will of the Israelites. That was a mistake on the part of the Israelites to view the Ark in that way. And they found that out the hard way. You remember from the book of 1 Samuel, how one time the Israelites were fighting the Philistines, and the elders of Israel, apart from any direction from the Lord, they took it upon themselves to take the Ark of the Covenant and to bring it into the camp of the Israelite armies, thinking that that would be a certain destruction for their enemies.

And the Philistines thought the same thing. Everybody thought that the Philistines would certainly be destroyed because the Ark of God was with the people, the armies of Israel. But you know what happens? Instead of certain victory, Israel suffered a resounding defeat from their enemies. They were routed. Worst of all, the Ark of God was captured by the enemies of Israel.

I mentioned the movie, The Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the whole premise of that movie was that if the Nazis could only get their hands on the lost Ark of the Covenant, they could then rule the world because none of the armies of the world could stand before this Ark that they had found. And that’s exactly how the Israelites thought. If we can have the Ark, there is no military force that can stop us. But they misunderstood. The ark was only a means of showing forth the power and presence of God when he was pleased to dwell with his people and to bless his people when he was pleased to do so. And if the people of God were unfaithful, if they were unbelieving, if they were like the Philistines, an ungodly and unbelieving people, the Lord would not be with them with his ark for their victory.

And there is a parallel in our own lives today and that is this, that we cannot presume on the presence of God to be with us for blessing simply because we profess to be Christians or simply because we say we believe in Christ or because we wear a cross or because we have some superficial association with the church. God will not be used as a magic charm in order to fulfill our desires or to accomplish our will.

But the good news is, is that if you truly belong to Christ by faith, if by the grace of God you have repented of your sin, if you have turned to Jesus, if you have entrusted yourself to Him as the only one who can save you from sin and guilt, if you are resting in Him as your Savior, then the promise is for you that Jesus is with you. He will always be with you. And He is with you in Jesus Christ as your conquering King. Just as the ark signified for the Lord or for the people of Israel that the Lord fought for them, so Jesus Christ, he is your victor over your enemies. Christ has conquered for you sin and death forever. He has conquered for you the powers of Satan and hell forever. And so he is with you, he is for you, for your blessedness and joy forever and ever.

So that’s the first spiritual reality that was signified by the Ark of the Covenant, that the Lord was with his people. Secondly, the Ark of the Covenant signified that God provided atonement for his people. So God was present with the Israelites, but he was present with them as he truly is, that is, as God. He was present with them in the fullness of his divine holiness and righteousness. And that was a problem for the Israelites, because by nature, they were not righteous, they were not holy. Just like us, they were sinners.

That explains the reason that the poles were put into the rings on the side of the Ark, never to be removed, because the Ark was never to be touched. No human hand could touch the Ark of God, because it was a place where the Lord dwelt. It was holy. It shared in the holiness of God himself. In fact, the holiness of the Ark is shown by the fact that it was never even seen by ordinary Israelites. It was only seen by one Israelite and that only once a year when the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifices there.

Most of you are familiar with the story of Uzzah in the Old Testament. When King David was bringing the Ark up to Jerusalem, Uzzah was one of the men who was driving the carts that the Ark was placed on as it was being transported to Jerusalem. And that in itself was a mistake. The cart was not, or the Ark was not supposed to be carried on a cart, but it was supposed to be carried with its poles. But the second mistake was much worse. When the oxen stumbled, the cart tipped, and to make sure that the ark didn’t fall off the cart, Uzzah, instinctively, he reached out his hand to touch the ark to steady it, and as soon as he touched it, the Lord struck him down dead. And the Israelites learned their lesson. The next time they carried the ark, they were using the poles to carry it, just like the Lord had told them to do.

But the ark was holy because God is holy. This was the Ark of the Covenant. As long as the Lord dwelt among his people in the tabernacle, this was the location, the presence of a holy God on earth. So how could a holy God dwell among a sinful people? Well, the answer was in the Ark itself, or better yet, the answer was on the Ark itself. The answer was that covering or lid that was on top of the Ark, what is called the mercy seat. The phrase mercy seat, that is a translation of a Hebrew word. The root of that Hebrew word and its verbal forms means something like to cover over sin or to pacify or to make propitiation.

And so the word that’s translated mercy seat denotes something that satisfies the wrath of God, something that propitiates or deals with the wrath of God in order to put away sin, so that there can be true atonement, true reconciliation, true restoration between a holy God and a sinful people. That’s why in the New International Version, if you read that version, it’s not called the mercy seat, it’s called an atonement cover, which is a very good translation, because it was the place where atonement was made between God and his people.

And we know that that is the case with the mercy seat or the atonement cover because of the yearly sacrifice and cleansing that the Lord commanded the Israelites to do on the Day of Atonement. On the Day of Atonement, among other sacrifices, the high priest would take the blood of a bull that he had slain as a sin offering for himself, and he would take that blood of the bull that was slaughtered, he would take it into the most holy place of the tabernacle, and there he would sprinkle the mercy seat seven times with the blood of the bull. And then the high priest would take the blood of a goat and he would sacrifice that or he would sacrifice the goat as a sin offering for the whole people of Israel. And he would take the blood of that goat. And again, he would go into the most holy place and he would sprinkle the mercy seat with that blood in the very same way.

Leviticus 16:16 says, thus he shall make atonement for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the people of Israel and because of their transgressions, all their sins. And so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which dwells with them in the midst of their uncleannesses. In other words, because of the blood that was shed and then was sprinkled on the mercy seat, the sins of the people of Israel were atoned for. They were forgiven so that a holy God could dwell in the presence of an unholy sinful people.

And when you consider that it was the Ark of the Covenant where this mercy seat was placed, and at the same time, it was within the Ark of the Covenant that the 10 commandments were placed, you have this most wonderful combination of symbols. In the Ark, you have the 10 commandments, which represent the righteousness of God, the holiness of God, and at the same time, a reminder to the Israelites that they have broken God’s law, that they are not holy.

But on top of that was the mercy seat. The mercy seat that was sprinkled and covered with the blood of sacrifices, that turned aside, that propitiated the righteous wrath of God against an unholy people. One author put it this way, when God came down to dwell with his people, he would not see the law that they had broken, first of all, but he would see the saving blood of an atoning sacrifice. And so here’s a wonderful picture in the ark itself of God’s grace towards his people. We have broken the law that was in the ark and yet the blood shed on the mercy seat makes atonement for us.

And of course, this was only a—this was only a picture of a greater spiritual reality. That is the promise that one day God would provide the blood of a greater sacrifice, blood that would not need to be shed year after year after year, but blood that would be shed once for all. The blood not of a bull or a goat, but the blood of a man, a holy man, a divine man, a God man, the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed upon the cross when he suffered and died there, that is the blood that makes true atonement, that truly brings the forgiveness of sins, that propitiates, that satisfies the wrath of God against us for our sin.

Earlier, I read to you from Romans chapter three. In Romans chapter three, the Apostle Paul speaks of the death of Christ for our redemption. And in verse 25, he says this, speaking of Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Propitiation—it’s a big word. It is something that satisfies the wrath of God. And here it is the blood of Jesus or Jesus who satisfies the wrath of God because of our sin.

And here’s the wonderful thing. The Greek word that Paul uses to name what Jesus has done, the word propitiation, that word in Greek is the very same Greek word that is used to translate the Hebrew word for mercy seat. In other words, what this verse in Romans, Romans 3, verse 25 is saying is that the true mercy seat, the true atonement cover was not the lid on the ark, but it was the one to whom it testified. It was Jesus Christ. He is the true mercy seat, the one who takes away our sin, the one who atones for our sin.

And so the Ark of the Covenant then, it was a declaration of the gospel to the people of Israel. It was proclaiming the good news that one day there would be bloodshed that would take away their sin forever. And Paul says that God put forward Christ to be that atoning sacrifice. God put him forward. Another way to say that would be that God publicly set him forth. God publicly declared he has set forth Jesus his son as the means of redemption for sinners. No more is the mercy seat hidden away in a tabernacle behind a veil. No more is it hidden so that no one could see it except the high priest. But God has publicly put forth his son Jesus for all to see, so that all who come to him, everyone who believes in him, might have eternal life.

And that is true for you, for you who hear my words today. If you belong to Christ by faith, if you have come to him as your savior, your sins are forgiven. The blood that Jesus shed atones for your sins. God’s wrath has been propitiated. He’s been satisfied. He no longer looks upon you as you are in your sin, but he looks upon you as you are in Jesus Christ, forgiven, cleansed, and restored to him.

And all of this shows us one of the most important truths of scripture when it comes to our salvation, and that is this, it is God who saves us. When we consider what God had done for the Israelites in showing them the work of salvation that he would accomplish one day through his son, when we consider what Jesus Christ has done for us, all we can say is, to God alone be the praise, to God alone be the credit for our salvation. It is God who designed the ark. This was not the product of Moses or the Israelites. It was God who provided the sacrificial blood. It was God who sent his son, Jesus Christ, into the world. The incarnation, the life, the obedience, the suffering, the death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ for man’s salvation from beginning to end, it is all the work of God. It is not the work of man.

And so your part in all of this is simply to come to Jesus, to entrust yourself to him, to believe that he is the one who alone can save you from your sin. And having come to him, you have the promise that he dwells with you, that his spirit abides in you. And so Jesus, he is our mercy seat. Go to him and find mercy and grace with God. Let’s pray.

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