The Ark Of The Covenant

The Condescension of the Transcendent God 3:08

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?”

— Psalm 8:3-4 (NKJV)

Now, the psalmist in Psalm 8, he told us this. None of this is a shock. He said this in Psalm 8. He said, when I consider the heavens, when I consider the heavens, when I consider the work of Your fingers and the moon and the stars, that which You have ordained, what then is man that You would be mindful of him and that You would visit him?

See, the psalmist, he might not have had access to Google. He might not have had astronomy.com at his fingertips. And yet, he's asked the same question. He says, in the scope of all that, against the backdrop of the created realm, what in the world is man that You, God, that made all that, should care about me?

Or that You should bother to visit, deign to visit, condescend to visit, that which is infinitesimally smaller than not only the universe, but especially smaller than You? Who is man that we're worthy of this? You know what the answer to that is? Man is nobody except that God, out of His volitional love for us, has made us somebody.

He's formed us in His own image and has determined to love us and save us, to redeem us. But we take that for granted all the time. We have no real grasp how big He is, and we have no real grasp how small we are. If anything, if anything, modern evangelicalism has probably narrowed that divide.

Pictured Him as a cosmic good buddy in the stars. This guy sits on the clouds just above us. Or worse yet, just this genie who does what prosperity teachers think He should do when He should do it. Even the church world that should know better across the past hundred years has deflated the air out of God, so to speak, and lowered Him and simultaneously raised us up.

Like, who are we? Here in heavens, if there's any shock we will have when we cross the threshold of heaven, is when we first get the faintest hint of the scope of our God and of His kingdom, and in which we fully have the air deflated out of us to understand who we are against that backdrop.

And yet, and yet, even though that's true, yet still He loves us, and He proved that love for us by giving that which was most precious to Himself: His own Son's blood shed on Calvary. We are small.

God's Design to Dwell Among His People 5:22

“And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it.”

— Exodus 25:8-9 (NKJV)

He is great — and yet, and yet, He's given that which is most precious to Himself. Now, in today's passage, what we're seeing is that this God, who has the right and the authority, the privilege and the transcendent power, to reign from on high and only to look down on us at a distance — although He could do that, He doesn't do that.

And today's text, God tells His people, let's make a tabernacle, let's make a meeting place, and I will dwell amongst you, my people, there. Although I am a God whose transcendence and immanence fills all of creation, I'm going to dwell in a very special way, intentionally, purposely, with you. Now, if you look at the whole Scripture, that's not a new concept.

In the Garden of Eden, God could have just created mankind, spun it like a top, stood back to see how things turned out, said, oh my, what's that snake doing, and the like. He could have been, from a distance, just aloof, looking down to see how we would turn out. Spoiler alert: we wouldn't have turned out very well.

And yet what did He do? He looked down, He made us, and then — then Scripture says that He went and dwelt with those that He made. We know that because Adam and Eve were accustomed to hearing Him walking in the garden. He walked with him in the cool of the afternoon.

He walked and talked with His first people. And across the Old Testament and certainly in the New Testament, we see that this is a God that although He's great and transcendent, He wants to be with you. He wants to be with me. He wants to be with His people.

We see that in the Garden of Eden. You see it in the tabernacle. You see it in the temple. You see it when the God of all glory came down from His throne to be born in a manger and to go to a cross.

We see that this God, whose name is Emmanuel, which means what? God with us. We see that that's not incidental, that that name fits like a glove. God with us.

That's the tabernacle. I will be with you. I'm not going to be a satellite in orbit of you. I'll be with you.

So let's build the tabernacle. All right, let's return. Let's see about this tabernacle.

The Blueprint of the Tabernacle and the Regulative Principle 7:32

Let's see God's blueprint for this. As we look at verses one through nine, I'm going to read these and then we'll work our way through the balance of today's text. Verse one, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the children of Israel that they might bring Me an offering. From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering.

And this is the offering which you shall take from them. Gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, scarlet thread, fine linen, goat's hair, ramskins dyed red, badgerskins, acacia wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, for the sweet incense, onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.

And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them, according to all that I show you. That is, according to the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of its furnishings, just so you shall make it. Just a quick note there. God says, all right, we're going to build the tabernacle, and here's the components of the tabernacle, and I'm going to tell you exactly how it is to be measured and arrayed, right down to the T. This is the basis for what we call the regulative principle.

Does God care how you approach Him in worship? Yes! Yes, I know that's a leading question. John Fitch, does God care how we worship Him?

Absolutely. Pastor Fitch, does He care how we worship Him? Yes, from one end of the book to the other. God cares, and He has told us how we are to approach Him, and we see this in verses 1 through 9.

All right, so as we said at the outset, the God who transcended the people of Israel was not content just to stare at them from above. This is not the God of the deists, the God that you can't know who's out there somewhere in the ether. Rather, this is the God of theists, theism.

This is the God who wants a relationship with those who he's made. And so verses 1 through 9, he gave them a blueprint for this tabernacle.

Giving God Our Best, Not Our Least 9:21

Now, as you consider the building materials that are there, what stands out to you about these building materials? Well, there's at least one thing that should stand out. What stands out is the quality of that which was to be willingly offered. What stands out is the quality.

See, the objects in verses 1 through 9, they represented the finest materials of the age. God didn't ask them for aluminum. He didn't want a linoleum floor. God had a very clear picture of what He wanted, and it was costly.

It was the gold, the bronze, the silver, and the like. He told his people, he says, hey, hey, give that which is best, not that which is least. Now, why is that? Is God like the televangelist who just wants to get their hands on the people's money?

Well, no. The cattle on a thousand hills are his, right? All the gold's already his. Let me ask you, in heaven, what's the asphalt of heaven? What are the streets made of?

Gold, right. In heaven, it's like the least building material. Think about that for a minute. In heaven, the asphalt is made out of gold.

The least building material that they pave the streets with is this. Here, it is of great value to us, and he says that's what you should bring, not because he needs it, but because the people needed to give it. The people needed to learn to give God their best, not their least. And that would be a mistake they'd make throughout the ages.

Remember the book of Malachi? I don't know, like two years ago, we did a study of Malachi. The number one problem — well, they had a lot of problems. But among them was this.

When the people would make offerings to God, they were like, we love God. He's our man. God's our God. He's awesome.

So what are we going to give him? And they thought, well, we do the sacrifices. We give the sheep and the goats and such. However, in the time of Malachi, they would seek out those sheep and lambs that were the most worthless ones in their flock to give him.

The idea was that God wouldn't care so much, right? It's a lamb. It's a lamb. It's going to be dead in a minute.

What's the difference? Why do I take my prize lamb or goat or what have you when this three-legged buck-tooth thing will do? Its death will be satisfactory, won't it? So that's the thought process they had.

That's also the thought process by which people would give God aluminum or something, some talc or some terrible composite in order to build his tabernacle in this context. God doesn't want that. God wants your best. Do you give it to him?

Now, sometimes that's financial. Absolutely. It doesn't have to be, though.

The Costly Sacrifice: Abraham and the Precedent of Calvary 11:53

Think about Abraham. God says, Abraham, Abraham, will you give me a sacrifice? Abraham says, yes. What was God calling upon Abraham to sacrifice?

His son. Now think about that for a minute. Give that which is best. Give that which is the apple of your eye.

It's not like God said, hey, Abraham, you know that guy over there? I think he's got a kid. It didn't say, give some other dude's son. He says, give yours.

Give that which is costly. That's what you would offer. Now, of course, in that picture, God substituted a different sacrifice for the son, which ultimately points us to Jesus. But the point is this.

Abraham, or God's people in this case, or throughout Scripture, they're called to give God our best. It's our time, our treasures, our resources, what have you. We usually don't. We give them the equivalent of what we found in the couch cushions often.

Maybe not monetarily, but sometimes with regards to our time. We give them that which is left over. That's not the point here, and it wasn't the point then. The point then was that what you worship God with should involve giving Him your best, sacrificing that which has some meaning to you.

Otherwise, what kind of sacrifice is it? And that's the picture here. And if you take issue with that — that God would ask you to give that which you don't want to give — remember this: when your life was on the line, He gave that which was best for you. If you would withhold from God that which has meaning to you, if you would treasure up and hold and hoard and store that which has meaning to you, consider this: when your life was on the line, that's not what God did.

He gave that which was most precious to Himself. His own Son's blood poured out on Calvary in order to save you and to redeem you. That is a precedent that's reasonable to follow. Give God our best.

And that's what we see in these first nine verses.

The Construction of the Ark of Acacia Wood 13:57

Let's look at verses 10 through 16. And they shall make an ark of acacia wood. Two and a half cubits shall be its length. A cubit and a half its width.

A cubit and a half its height. See this specificity here? God cares how they approach Him. And you shall overlay it with pure gold.

Inside and out you shall overlay it. And you shall make it a molding of gold all around. You shall cast four rings of gold for it and put them in the four corners. Two rings shall be on the side, two rings on the other side.

You shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark that the ark may be carried by them. Remember, no one was supposed to touch it. They carry it with the poles.

And the poles shall be in the rings of the ark and they shall not be taken from it. And you shall put into the ark the testimony, the tablets that were going to come, the testimony which I will give you, meaning it was yet to come that the tablets would arrive.

The Ark as the Centerpiece of the Tabernacle 14:47

You know, when a bank is being built in a new city or a new community, do you know what the very first consideration is as they're planning? Are you going to build a bank, the First Bank of Gulfport or Wiggins or what have you? Are we going to build a bank? What is the first consideration that's given with regards to that construction and the engineering and the like?

Well, it involves the vault. When you think about the nature of the bank, the first thought is where is the vault going to be and how is it going to be situated, and then they build out from there, or at least they engineer out from there. The vault is the centerpiece. The focus is on the vault, not where you're going to put the bathroom, not where the water cooler is going to go.

Where the vault is going to go is that which is most important. Well, in the same way, the very first thing right out of the gate in God's blueprint, before He gets to the lampstands and showbread and like, is the ark. The object that was to be the centerpiece of the tabernacle is the first thing that God addresses when talking about the tabernacle.

You know, for all the beauty of everything else that would be in the tabernacle, the ark was the centerpiece. Why? Because that's where the glory of God would come down. The glory of God would reside between the two cherubim, facing inward, upon the mercy seat on the ark.

That set it apart from everything else.

The Mercy Seat and the Cherubim of Gold 16:04

“And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, of all things which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.”

— Exodus 25:22 (NKJV)

All right, let's read about this mercy seat that was upon the ark as we look at verses 17 through 21. All right, verse 17: You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width. You shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.

Make one cherub at one end, and the other cherub at the other end; and you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it one piece with the mercy seat. I mean, it's all this one piece. Verse 20: And the cherubim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another.

The faces of the cherubim shall be towards the mercy seat, and you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you. You know, I alluded just a moment ago to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Obviously, in a work of fiction, there's going to be issues that theologians and the like will have with it, and they'll say, that's not right, and so forth.

Well, one thing definitely stands out with regards to the ark. If you remember in the movie, you know, the ark sitting there — and that's, you know, the mercy seat and everything. Mercy seat's the afterthought. The concern with regards to the ark was, well, what happens when you open it up?

Well, dear heavens, did you read what this says? What's going inside is the tablets, and later in Hebrews 9 we would read that Aaron's staff and a pot of manna would go in. And — and there's a lot of important meaning to those things as well. But the glory of God didn't hide in the ark; the glory of God was manifest on the mercy seat on the top of the ark.

The movie put all the thought to what goes in and no thought to really what was on the top. And that was the focus of what we see here in this passage. This is the emphasis. The mercy seat is the focus of the ark itself.

Now, why? Well, like I just said, it's because that's where God dwelt, between the cherubim on the top. All right, let's consider the significance of this mercy seat. We'll linger on it with our remaining time this morning; we're going to linger for a little while in verse 22.

Verse 22: And it is there on the mercy seat that I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony, about everything with which I will give commandment to the children of Israel. So God has told them this is how the ark is to be constructed.

This is what it's supposed to look like. Here's the precise measurements. Here's how it's to look like. And then in verse 22, he gets to the capstone statement.

He says, when you're done with it, when it's completed, it is there that I will meet with you. And it's there that I will speak with you. Now to Moses — Moses had just run half marathons up Sinai for the past little while. Moses had had to travel to go to seek God.

Much like the ancient Greeks had this picture of the gods on the top of Mount Olympus or what have you, and you got to travel on bloody kneecaps to crawl up to get to him. Well, what does God tell Moses here? He says, no bloody kneecaps. He says, I'm coming to you.

You make this, and it's there that I will meet with you.

The Holiness and Power of the Ark 19:11

Now, let's briefly — I'm going to return to the mercy seat in a moment, but let's briefly remember that the ark itself, the ark itself was a holy throne, so to speak, for God. And because it was His throne here on earth, so to speak, God had imbued it — as He did very rarely; He did this with a physical object — He imbued it with a certain gravitas, or a certain power, a certain holiness, right down to the touch, and right down to the effect it would have when it was carried from place to place.

Do you remember, do you remember when the walls of Jericho came a-tumbling down? What was at the front of the procession around Jericho? Again, it's a leading question. The ark.

When God's people, the armies, took out the Midianites, fierce Midianites, what led the way? The ark. You see the ark crossing the Jordan. You see that the ark is God's presence.

It represents or typifies God's presence, and He did indeed meet with him on the mercy seat of the ark. The ark, therefore, was something you don't mess around with. The ark did have, did have a power that was granted to it. It was holy enough that you just didn't touch it.

There was a guy, you might remember his name. His name was Uzzah, poor Uzzah. One day, Uzzah's helping on the transport team of the ark, and it begins to slip and to fall towards the mud. And poor Uzzah, thinking fast, he reaches out and tries to grab the ark and tries to touch it.

And what happened? He died. Now, that seems like, wow, here's poor Uzzah trying to help this ark from not getting muddy. He didn't want a dingy, dirty ark.

He was just trying to help out. The mistake that Uzzah made was to think that his sinful hands were somehow more clean than the mud on the floor beneath him. That's not the way it worked. He was far dirtier than the mud would ever have been.

The ark led the path for God's people. The ark was at the front as they went around Jericho. The ark was not to be touched, for it was holy.

The Ark Captured: Ichabod and the Departed Glory 21:22

Now, the ark at one point, do you remember the story of the ark being captured? The ark was captured. We think, how can this be? You know, heavens to Betsy.

The ark captured. How can this be? Do you remember who captured it? It was the Philistines.

Now, how did that turn out? First, you have to remember with the ark, God had told the people that He would meet with them there in the ark, which set them aside from every other nation on the globe. As an aside here, there was no other nation that could point to their own campsite and say, God lives here.

Israel could say that. There was no other nation on the globe that could say, you see that tabernacle, you see that tent of meeting, God dwells there. Everyone else had to appeal vertically. They could point and say, this is where God dwells.

They had been given — have been granted — a privilege that no other nation had had, and yet it was a privilege that they frittered away. What happened with the Philistines? Well, as you remember — I think it's a First Samuel chapter six, the First Samuel chapter six — the people had gotten naughty.

That's the best way I can put it. The people had gotten naughty. And even there, the main leader, the judge — his name was Eli. Poor, chubby Eli.

Eli was filled up on the fats of the land, and his sons, the priests, were just worthless. With that said, in 1 Samuel chapter 6, the Philistines are going against God's people, and God allowed the Philistines to take the ark. And when the messengers came back to tell poor Eli this, the messengers said this, said, Eli, put down the sandwich.

Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter amongst the people. And your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, they're dead, and the ark of God has been captured. Then it happened, it says here in 1 Samuel 4, then it happened when the messenger made mention of the ark of God that Eli fell off the seat backwards by the side of the gate, and his neck was broken, and he died, for he was very heavy.

Even when word had passed that his own sons had died, that's not what caused him to stagger back off his seat and to fall and break his neck. It was when the messengers said that the ark is gone. The ark is taken. You see, even though the people were derelict, even though they were wicked, even though they had lost the plot, even though this was true, they still knew what the ark historically had represented.

It was God's presence among His people. And so what did it say, that the ark was gone? Eli knew what it said. It was the equivalent of Ichabod — the glory has departed.

Eli knew the significance of what this would mean, and he died moments later. Now in time, the ark would be returned. Remember the Philistines, they brought the ark into the temple of Dagon, this, like, half-fish god. You know, it's funny how all the pagan gods were always like half-person, half-animal.

Well, this was like this fish god that they had there in the temple of Dagon. The ark is there, and this thing keeps falling over, and ultimately its head and hands are cut off at the threshold of the temple. And then they begin to realize that maybe this ark and the god of the ark is more powerful than Dagon and all of our other idols.

And in due time, I think, boils and other terrible things broke out. And so ultimately, the Philistines said, this is terrible. We're cursed because we own this thing, not blessed. We are cursed.

Stick it on an ox cart, slap the oxes, and send them back to Israel with this thing. The point is this, that the ark was significant. The ark had power that had been imbued within it because of the manifest presence of God.

The Mercy Seat Sprinkled with Blood 24:55

With that being said, let's return to the mercy seat. When we think about the power of the ark, the power was in the presence of the One who dwelt upon it. Now, the mercy seat was not only where God met with Israel, but it had one other function. It was not only where God met with the high priest, it was not only where God met with His people, but yearly it was sprinkled with blood from the sacrifice upon the seat itself.

Now, when you think about it, think of the gold and the onyx stones and all those badger skins and all the amazing things in the tabernacle. Think of the ark itself, how pristine and beautiful this thing was, and yet God says at these intervals we're going to sprinkle it with animal blood. Sprinkling something with any blood doesn't sound that appealing, but with animal blood.

What was this about? Well, here's the thing, and this is going to be, I guess, the balance of our time here. The ark was more important than just being an ark and just occupying the seat at which God would meet with His people. It was also a shadow and type of something greater than itself.

Now, what do I mean? Well, let's wrap with this thought.

The Empty Tomb: The Mercy Seat Fulfilled in Christ 26:04

One week ago, we celebrated Resurrection Sunday, which is the day, of course, when we celebrate that our Lord Jesus Christ defeated death, that He was crucified, died, and was buried, but He didn't stay buried. Three days later, He arose. The stone was moved. Jesus was gone.

Now, do you remember who was the first one to see the risen Jesus? Mary Magdalene. Remember, she saw Him there in the garden. In John 20, we see it was Mary Magdalene.

Early Sunday morning, Mary had gone out to the tomb, only to find that the stone had been rolled away, which was the first shock that she had. The second shock was probably even greater, that at least initially, the tomb was empty. Except that it wasn't really empty upon closer inspection here. In fact, it was quite full for a tomb.

Why? Because who was there? Two angels. Ah!

So Mary Magdalene looks into the tomb. Jesus is not there, but there's two angels. Now where are they seated? Well, the Scripture says in John 20 that they were positioned at either side of the very burial slab that still held Christ's blood.

The very slab in which His beaten and scarred body had been placed — clearly the blood would have speckled all upon it. That's where the two angels were seated, one to either side. What do you think this is a picture of? It's a picture of the mercy seat.

Think about it. The mercy seat where God met with His people was to be sprinkled with blood, the cherubim on either direction facing inward. Here, the moment Jesus is resurrected, He has risen. Mary Magdalene looks in.

She sees the slab on which His own blood has been splattered, and she sees angels on either side. This was the fulfillment of everything we're seeing in Exodus 25. John 20, this picture of the two cherubim, two angels sitting on the very slab on which Jesus' dead body — His blood had been spattered.

This was a picture of everything we see in Exodus 25. In fact, it's more than a picture. It's the fulfillment. The mercy seat pointed forward to this.

This moment in time was the culmination of everything that the mercy seat was about. The mercy seat was about God meeting with His people. Well, God never met with His people in greater clarity and with greater authority and presence than He did when He met with them in the person of Jesus Christ in their midst.

That was a far greater revelation than Him meeting with one guy behind a veil periodically. You understand that? When Mary, of all people, when Mary Magdalene looked at the grave slab bracketed with these two angels, you have a woman who would have had no chance or opportunity to have met with God before.

A woman who would have had no chance to meet with God in His tabernacle is the first to see the fulfillment of what the priesthood had long anticipated. In other words, when Mary looked at the bloody stone, one of the people who would have been kept at arm's distance prior was invited not only to see where Christ's blood had been shed, but moments later, she heard Christ speak her very name: Mary, Mary.

Jesus, the True Temple and Better Ark 29:13

Again, John 20 is a great fulfillment of Exodus 25. This morning, when it comes to the ark — you put the ark of the covenant in your sermon title, everyone wanders away. Are we going to talk about where the ark is and the like? Actually, I did a whole class on that last — I think last spring — if you're, if you're interested.

But if you're one of those people who's caught up in, where is the ark today? Those people who are interested in finding the lost ark, don't be. And here's the reason why. The ark was never the end in of itself.

Even if you found the ark today, which you won't, it'd do us no good because we have the fulfillment. This is why I don't want another temple. This is why no one should want another temple in Jerusalem. You understand this?

Jesus is the temple. We did study this in our study of Ezekiel. The old shadows and types, if they were to return and start sacrificing goats and calves and animals and heifers and donkeys and pigeons and whatever, if they were to sacrifice all those things again in a third temple in Jerusalem, it would be no good to your eye.

Why? Because Jesus said, it is finished. He is the final sacrifice. The book of Hebrews talks about this at some length.

The temple was never an end to itself. The Passover was never an end to itself. The ark was never an end to itself. All of it pointed forward to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

And because of that, I don't care where the ark is. Well, here's the thing. I know where it is, and so do you. Do you know where?

You confessed it earlier this morning in our call to worship. You can look at your bulletins. You can find where. Let me read to you.

Revelation 11:19 — we're given a peek into the heavenly realm. And that passage tells us this about the ark: Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there was great lightnings and noises and thunderings and earthquake and great hail. The ark of the covenant is not in Cairo.

It's not in Tanis. It's not in Ethiopia. It's in heaven. And you know what else is in heaven?

God's people. For all of eternity, for all of eternity, the Ark will continue to represent there what it did here. The access, the access that we have to God the Father through the person and work of His Son. You and I do not need another Ark.

We do not need the original Ark. We have that which is better — Jesus Christ. Let's pray.