1 Samuel 6 verse 1 and the ark
of the Lord was in the country of the Philistines seven months
and the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners
saying what shall we do to the ark of the Lord tell us wherewith
we shall send it to his place and they said if you send away
the ark of the God of Israel send it not empty But in any
wise return him a trespass offering, then ye shall be healed, and
it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from
you. Then said they, What shall be
the trespass offering for which we shall return to him? They
answered, Five golden emeralds and five golden mice, according
to the number of the lords of the Philistines. For one plague
was on you all and on your lords. Wherefore, you shall make images
of your emerods and images of your mice that mar the land,
and you shall give glory unto the God of Israel. Peradventure
he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods,
and from off your land. Wherefore, then, do you harden
your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts,
when he had wrought wonderfully among them? Did they not let
the people go, and they departed? Now therefore make a new cart,
and take two milk kind, on which there hath come no yoke, and
tie the kind to the cart, and bring their calves home from
them. And take the ark of the Lord,
and lay it upon the cart, and put the jewels of gold, which
you returned him for a trespass offering, in a coffer by the
side thereof, and send it away, that it may go. and see, if it
goeth up by the way of his own coast to Bethshemesh, then he
hath done us this great evil. But if not, then we shall know
that it is not his hand that smote us, it was a chance that
happened to us. And the men did so, and took
two milk kind, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their
calves at home, and they laid the ark of the Lord upon the
cart. and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of
their emirates. And the kind took the straight
way to the way of Bethshemesh and went along the highway, lowing
as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to
the left. And the lords of the Philistines
went after them unto the border of Bethshemesh. And they of Bethshemesh
were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley, and they lifted
up their eyes and saw the ark and rejoiced to see. And the
ark came into the field of Joshua a Bethshemite, and stood there
where there was a great stone. And they claimed the wood of
the cart and offered the kind of burnt offering unto the Lord.
And the Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the coffer
that was with it wherein the jewels of gold were. and put
them on the great stone. And the men of Bethshemesh offered
burnt offerings and sacrifices the same day unto the Lord. And when the five lords of the
Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day. And these are the golden emeralds
which the Philistines returned for a trespass offering unto
the Lord, for Ashdod one, for Geza one, for Ascalon one, for
Gath one, for Ekron one, and the golden mice, according to
the number of all the cities of the Philistines, belonging
to the five lords, both of fenced cities and of country villages,
even unto the great stone of Abel, whereon they set down the
ark of the Lord, which stone remaineth unto this day in the
field of Joshua the Bethshemite. And he smote the men of Bethshemesh,
because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. Even he
smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men. And
the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of
the people with a great slaughter. And the men of Bethshemesh said,
Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? And to whom shall
he go up from us? And they sent messengers to the
inhabitants of Kirjath-Jerim, saying, The Philistines have
brought again the ark of the Lord. Come knee down and fetch
it up to you. Let's pray. Our gracious Father, thank you
for your word. We pray, Lord, your presence and your blessing,
your Holy Spirit, to teach us, Lord, to give us faith in your
word, not just to hear it with these Physical ears Lord, but
to hear it with our hearts and to lay hold of and rejoice in
Christ and trust him alone To see him Lord more clearly tonight
than we did when we walked in here And may it be to his glory
in his precious name. Amen So in the first ten verses
of this chapter we see how that the Philistines they had this
arc for seven months They captured the Ark of God, you remember
from the last chapter from Israel, thinking that they had won a
great victory. You know, the Israelites, this Ark is a big
deal. We take this Ark from them. It
will not only hurt them, but help us. And yet, the Philistines
suffered great consequences for trifling with God, just as the
Israelites had. Described in chapter 5, verse
9, the Lord brought a very great destruction upon the Philistines. And we're told in verse 12 of
chapter five that the men that didn't die, we're not told how
many men of the Philistines died, but the ones that didn't suffered
greatly from this affliction that the Lord put upon them. So now in these first 10 verses,
we see their determination to get rid of the ark. We see all
of their superstitious method of doing so To rid themselves, what are they
doing? You got to think of this? What's
actually happening here? The Philistines are trying to
get rid of God. That's what they're doing and They're they're trying
to make sure that he don't bother them anymore How can we how can
we Get rid of God and the consequences of our sin and just get on with
our lives. We don't want God to have anything
to do with us or us with him. Let's just get on with our life
and get rid of this thing. And this is the religion of our
day, blandly trying to appease God. They don't want anything
really to do with the God of the Bible. But they want to appease him.
They want to make sure that they don't suffer any consequences
for their sin. That's just flesh, isn't it?
That's just flesh. That's not spiritual understanding
at all. That's just not wanting to suffer
for what you've done. But wait, Chris. Religious people
talk about God all the time. What do you mean they don't want
anything to do with God? They use the same Bible we do. Some
of them do anyway. They do what they do in the name
of Jesus. They say. And they do many wonderful
works in his name. What do you mean they don't want
anything to do with God? Well, as I'm sure the language
I just used reminded you of what our Lord said in Matthew 7, 23. He said, depart from me, you
workers of iniquity to people who said that we were preaching
in your name. We're preaching. We're doing
wonderful works in your name, in the name of Jesus. And here's
the thing. Our Lord told us there Matthew
7 that he will say to them depart from me depart from me Does that
ring about that's what they're saying to him in our tech depart
from us Get away from we don't want you And one day he's gonna
say to them. I don't want you And so now in
our text here we see them trying to get rid of God of his son this is this this
ark is Christ now in every aspect of it. We've seen that over and
over. Religion lacks the idea of a Jesus. They lack the idea
of doing things for him. They lack the idea of using his
name. They lack the idea of getting together and talking about him.
But their Jesus is an idol of their imagination. They think
it's the true Christ hence when they meet him they're going to
say we've been we've been preaching in your name. No they hadn't.
They've been doing works of iniquity that they called wonderful. We better make sure whatever
we're doing is acceptable to God and not just us. We may be calling them wonderful.
He may be calling them sin. And the difference is Christ.
It's the honoring of Christ. It's bowing to Christ. It's trusting
Christ alone. It's abandoning ourselves and
our own works and pressing toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. That's the difference
between works of iniquity and well done thou good and faithful
servant. When the true Christ comes to
town, they send him away. We've seen it all through the
scriptures, haven't we? They ran him out of Nazareth. He preached
to them the acceptable year of the Lord He took the scriptures
and opened them and said this day is this prophecy of me fulfilled
in your ears because here I stand preaching the gospel to the poor
and They ran him out of Nazareth and tried to throw him off of
a cliff They bid him depart out of their
coasts in Gadara and Luke chapter 8 where we just looked at just
a Not long ago in Luke chapter 8 They said get away from us
He was despised and rejected, especially by religion, everywhere
he went, by everybody. And finally, by his own design
and purpose, of course, but finally they were allowed to do away
with him completely, they thought. They were allowed to crucify
him in God's good purpose of grace toward his people. They
thought they were destroying their enemy. But it was the Lord
Jesus destroying our enemies. In the Old Testament, in our
text for example, they didn't like him any better. That ark
was Christ and the workings of God. Who do you think was killing
these people? The One that created them. The
One that gives life, takes life. Without Him, without Christ,
without the Son of God was not anything made that was made.
He gives life, He takes life. The Ark pictured the presence
of favor of God for sinners, which is Christ. And Christ himself
acted upon those who despised him and his clear revealed will
as it pertained to that Ark. You know the importance of that
Ark. And God had very clearly revealed his will concerning
that Ark and what it represented and what was to take place. And they didn't want anything
more to do with Christ then than they did in the New Testament
or than they do tonight. What do you mean tonight, Chris?
You go into a Presbyterian or a Methodist or a Catholic Episcopalian
or Baptist for that matter, just pick one. Go into a so-called
church anywhere in this town or just about any town anywhere
in the world. And declare to them the truth of Christ just
plainly from the word of God. And see what happens. Just preach
the effectual nature of Christ and his precious blood. His effectual
redemption. That just means it got the job
done. Effectual. It was effective. It got the
job done. When he redeems, somebody's redeemed. and his sovereign power
and his will to save sinners. If you will, Lord, we'll be made
clean. It's not our will, it's yours. We've not chosen you,
you chose us. Speak of his electing love and
grace as the scripture does all through. Just preach him as he
is and see what happens. You know what would happen, don't
you? They will bid you depart out of their coasts. And who are they running off?
You or the one who sent you? Who are they really getting rid
of? You or the one whose ambassador you are? When Moses was murmured
against, the people of Israel rebelled against Moses, God said
to Moses, it's not you they have a problem with Moses, it's me.
That's still true. We don't need to experiment,
do we, to know what would happen. Today it's not any different
people have always hated christ And that's what we see in our
text So remember god's people now god's elect the remnant within
israel And a few exceptions in the old testament in the gentile
world also But god's people within israel elect of god from the
foundation of the world that remnant According to the election
of his grace the choosing of his grace And I say that remnant now always
because most of earthly Israel didn't fare any better than the
Philistines in our in the context of our verse tonight The earthly Israelites didn't
know God any more than the Philistines did they knew a few more facts
maybe Because they had the outward advantages But they were just
as much of an abomination. They created their own abomination,
didn't they? In Shiloh, under the leadership of Hophni and
Phinehas. But God's spiritual Israel worshiped
God in Christ and by Christ, through faith in Christ. By faith
in Christ, Abel offered the more excellent sacrifice rather than
Cain. And by faith in the Son of God,
sinners have always been saved. God's never saved sinners but
one way. That's by His sovereign free
grace through faith in His Son. By grace through faith, they
don't bow the knee to Baal. You remember how God said, I've reserved to
myself And Paul refers to that story, we've seen that so many
times. And even at this time, Paul said there's a remnant according
to the election. And they don't bow, why? Because
God said, I have reserved them. He loved them and chose them
in eternity before the foundation of the world, and he redeemed
them by his own precious blood, eternal blood. Christ, the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world, came and was actually
slain one day in time. And God gave them life and faith
in Christ, and they will not follow another. But everybody
else, pictured in our text by the Philistines and most of Israel
too, everybody else that's not the elect of God, no matter what
they do, they can't please God. They can make 50 million golden
mice and golden emera. It doesn't matter what they do.
They can slay animals. They're not going to be able
to please God. These Philistines, they went overboard trying to
appease God, didn't they? But it was a waste of time. It
was an exercise in futility. They spent money. They made things
out of gold and took time and were careful. They inquired of
those who they thought were their spiritual leaders. And that's exactly what religion
is doing tonight. And what are they going to do
tonight in false churches where the Antichrist is preached and
believed? What are they going to do on
Sunday with their religious activities? The same thing the Philistines
were doing here. They're trying to please God
by what they do. It has nothing to do with what
God said, I'll be happy with, I'll be satisfied with. Nothing
no resemblance whatsoever to what God had ordained They're trying to please God,
but they're not gonna be able to They never have been able
to they're not gonna be able to listen to what Paul said in
Romans 9 31 But Israel which followed after the law of righteousness
They kept the law they Trusted in the law. They have not obtained
to the law of righteousness though. I They thought the answer was
to be good and to not do this and to do that, just like religion
does now, but they have not attained to the law of righteousness.
Why? Because they sought it not by
faith, but as it were by the works of the law. Instead of trusting Christ, they
trusted themselves, just to put it in simple language. They trusted
what they did, not what he did. They trusted their will not his
will and listen to it the next verse Says this It says let me
repeat part of it wherefore because they sought it not by faith,
but as it were by the works of the law For they stumbled at
that stumbling stone. What was the problem Christ? They stumbled at that stumbling
stone as it is written behold I lay in Zion a stumbling stone
and rock of a fence and Many are going to stumble. Many are
going to be offended. Many are going to turn back. Many are
going to say, get away from us. The fool hath said in his heart,
no God for me. And whosoever believeth on him
shall not be ashamed. If you don't stumble, if by God's
grace you believe on him, you trust him, you bow to him, you
embrace him and don't let go, you'll never regret it. If you put all of your eggs in
one basket, you'll never wish you would have kept one of them
back. If you don't hedge your bets,
if you throw yourself entirely upon Christ, you'll never be
sorry. Without faith, it is impossible
to please God. That's we talked about this last
time. This is what they couldn't please God. Well, Chris, they
couldn't please God with what they did because it wasn't what
God had ordained. That's right. You know why they didn't do what
God had ordained in order for atonement for sin to be had?
Because they didn't believe God. No faith. If you believe God,
then you're going to come God's way by His grace. He gives faith, and those who
have it come God's way. They come to Christ. Because
faith has one object, and that's the Son of God. So who then has
faith? Well, everybody that he gives
it to. Isaiah said, Who hath believed our report? And to whom
is the arm of the Lord revealed? That's who will believe. Everybody
he reveals his power to. Christ, the power of God, the
wisdom of God. And who does he give it to? His
people, his elect, his sheep, his church. The Philistines were
not his sheep. And so they had no faith and
they had no way to please God. It didn't matter how much they
wanted to. It didn't matter how much it cost them to try to. They could not please God. The
things of Christ didn't even pertain to them at all. They
weren't God's chosen. And so they were slaughtered
with great destruction. Most of the Israelites were not
God's true Israel. And they defiled the sacrifice
of God. They despised Christ as he was
revealed in their time. They defiled the sacrifice God
had ordained and they used the Ark as a religious good luck
charm. Instead of honoring Christ by faith. in the ordained means
of the ark and the tabernacle and the sacrifices and all that
God had ordained to show how sinners truly are saved and redeemed
and atonement is made by the precious blood of Christ. They
despised all that. They rejected all that. They
rejected him. And so they were not helped by
Christ in the war against the Philistines. Christ profited
them nothing in the words of Paul because they came in their
own street in their own superstition. There was a great slaughter in
chapter 4 as well as chapter 5. It doesn't matter what you call
yourself. It doesn't matter what your heritage is. It doesn't
matter what your lineage is. It doesn't matter if your daddy
and your granddaddy and your great granddaddy and so on were
all good Baptists and you are too. It doesn't matter. You come to God by Christ or
don't come to God. Now here the Philistines are
getting rid of God. But not without being religious
about it. That's the religion of our day. They're religious
as you can possibly be in everything they do. What are they doing? Refusing God. Hating Christ. That's what Antichrist is. It's
against Christ. And that's what religion is. They made images and they spent
money just like religion does today to try to appease God.
And the best result was, think about this now, the best that
they could hope for is for God to leave them alone. That's pretty
sad, isn't it? If that's the best you got. If
all of their, everything that they did was successful, what's the result?
God goes away. Utterly hopeless. God's power
to his people is salvation. But to these Philistines, it
was destruction. The same power, same God. In verse 16 these philistines
thought they were off the hook. I just want to jump ahead for
a minute and just look at that When the five lords of the philistines
had seen it, they returned to ekron the same day what they
do They said now if these cows if they go straight to beshemesh,
in other words, they go straight back to israel If this if god
truly is in this and the ark belongs in judah in israel Then
that's where they'll go. We're not gonna We're not leaving
them, we're not doing anything. These cows have never had a yoke
on them. They don't even know how to be steered. We're going
to put the ark on them and let's see what happens." And they went
straight to Beth Shemesh without turning to the right or to the
left. And when they saw that and the
people rejoicing down there, the Philistine said, Good on
them. They're happy, we're happy, everybody's
happy, we're going home. We got rid of God, we're off
the hook. But as we study the rest of this
book and study Lord Will and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Chronicles,
1 and 2 Kings, we're going to see that Philistines ain't off
the hook. And here's the truth of the matter. Nobody is ever
off the hook with God. You're going to have to do business
with God. Sooner or later one way or the other you're gonna
have to do business with God Turn to Hebrews chapter 4 Hebrews 4 13 Hebrews 4 13 Look at this neither. Is there any creature? That is
not manifest in his sight You can't hide from God But all things
are naked and opened under the eyes of him with whom we have
to do He sees you and not only that he sees everything about
you everything inside of you everything outside of you everything
about you and There's no creature that's not manifest in his sight
in all things about those creatures. Everything you've done, everything
you've thought, everything you've said is naked and open under
the eyes of him with whom we have to do. We have to do with
him. Whether you like it or not now. You're going to have to do with
him. Seeing them look at there. This is glorious now Seeing them
that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens
Jesus the Son of God Let us hold fast our profession We don't
have to do business with God and he know we can't hide from
him and we can't hide anything about us from him But bless God
we have a high priest to go in our place in this beautiful And
so let's hold fast Here's my profession before God. He's my
high priest. He's my representative. He's
bringing an offering for me. God be merciful, be propitious
on the mercy seat for me. For we have not an high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin. I've got to do business with
God and I'm in trouble unless I have a high priest that has
no sin to offer for me his own precious blood. Let us therefore
come boldly. We can't hide. What are you going
to do, run from God? No, let's come right at his feet.
But don't come there without a high priest. Don't come there
without an offering. Let us come boldly under the
throne of grace. It's the throne of grace. If
you have a high priest, if you have this high priest, that we
may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. We got to do business with God
but not without a mediator, not without an offering, not without
a great high priest to go into that holy of holies
not made with hands and not with the blood of bulls and goats
but with his own precious sin atoning blood. And so instead
of trying to avoid God or run God out of town or appease him
with what we do, let's come to his throne of grace. Let's cast
ourselves upon his mercy in Christ. Let's own Christ as our high
priest and know that by him and what he offered for us, God is
well pleased with us. There is nothing at God's throne
for you and I if we're his for his people. There is nothing
at his throne but grace mercy and grace Because of the precious
blood of the lord jesus christ now, let's read the rest of our
text Well, there's a lot going on in this chapter what a wonderful
study this has been this has been a blessing to my heart already
Verse 11, we read all of it already, but they laid the Ark of the
Lord upon the card and the coffer with the gold, the mice of gold
and the images of the Imrods and those cows, they went straight
to Bethshemesh. So the Ark arrives in Bethshemesh,
which was on the border of the land of the Philistines and the
land of Judah, right on the border. They took it only as far as they
had to. They got right to the border and dropped it off in
Judah. First town they came to in Judah. And then they ran. In fact, they just watched the
cows. They followed them and said,
OK, they're across the border. They watched what happened for
a little while. They said, OK, we're off the hook. And they
went home. And notice in verse 12. And the kind took the straight
way to the way of Beth Shemesh and went along the highway, lowing
as they went. I wonder why it says the cows
were mooing. Why in the world would God take space in his precious holy
word to mention that these cows were mooing while they walked? I think maybe I know. I think
we can know that. And turn not aside. to the right
hand or to the left. And the lords of the Philistines
went after them unto the border of Beth Shemesh. They were following
along, watching what they were going to do. The only ones who
did the right thing, who obeyed the will of God in the whole
chapter, were these cows. You think there's a lesson in
that for us? You have the philistines and
the jews all messing up the only ones who did the lord's will
Without turning the side to the right hand nor to the left was
these cows And we were told specifically that these cows had a reason
not to Their calves were shut up at home verse 10. They took
their calves and shut them up at home so that there wouldn't
be any distraction but they're but these cow their calves they
just naturally They cared for those calves. They wanted to
know where's my calves. And they're leaving and the calves
are staying home. So they had a reason not to go.
And do this. They missed their babies. They missed their babies. If God takes his hand off of
us. You know there are a lot of women that don't have enough
Compassion as a cow. And men are worse, if anything. We can learn a lot from animals. You know the Lord teaches us
about the animals. Consider the ant and insects
even. How wise they are. And how energetic and purposeful
they are. And even the ox knows his master's
crib. God takes his hand off of us
tonight, not them, us. For one second, we won't have
the good sins an ox has. And they were lowing because
they missed their babies. They did what God told them to
do. And you know the truth of the matter is simply this. Why
did they do what God told them to do? Because God caused them
to do it. God didn't whisper in their ear
and then let them do what they wanted to do. You know why you
do, if you ever do anything that God wants you to do, that God
willed and told you to do, you know why you'll do it? Because
he caused you to do it. It is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of His good pleasure. If God doesn't
work it, if He doesn't cause it, you're not going to want
to and you're not going to do it. He's got to cause both. He's
got to give you the heart and He's got to give you the resolve
to follow it through or you're not going to do it. Well notice
where the cows brought the ark verse 14 the ark came to the
field of Joshua You know, you know what that word is Joshua
Deliverer Savior The Greek word for Joshua is
Jesus They brought the ark to the field of Jesus and And they
set that ark on a great rock that was there And they rejoiced in the ark
verses 13 through 15 We won't go back and read them again,
but you remember we read it. That's what happened there. They
rejoiced to see the ark What is that ark? That's christ And
they brought it to the land of jesus the land of the savior
the land of the deliverer Why did they call his name Jesus
again? For he shall save his people. This whole story, this
whole chapter, the message of it is God is going to save his
people by Christ and everybody else is hopeless and under the
wrath of God. That Christ is the difference
between life and death. They rejoiced in the presence
of Christ. They knew what that ark represented now, and the
favor and forgiveness and presence of God. That's good. They knew
that that was a good thing. They knew something about what
the ark represented. Then they broke up that cart.
The cart that the Philistines had built, by the way. They broke
that up and used that for a burnt offering. I don't know what to
think about that. I don't know whether that violated
the law of God or not. I'll tell you this, if I would
have lived in that day, I would have known, or it would have
been my own fault for not knowing. But I think maybe that's all
right. They didn't want that thing around. Who wants a Philistine
cart in the land of Israel? So they broke that thing up and
used that as the wood for the burnt offering. And then they
offered those cows. There wasn't anything special
about them. And who wants them around either? The cows of the
Philistines. So they offered them as a burner.
I'm pretty sure that's okay too. But do you see the problem in
the text? Let's read it again. Verse 15. And the Levites took
down the Ark of the Lord, and the coffer that was with it,
wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone.
And the men of Bethshemesh offered burnt offerings and sacrificed
sacrifices the same day unto the Lord. So there's the The
burnt offering, those animals, the blood, they offered blood
sacrifice. The offering of the Philistines, you know, it was
bloodless, wasn't it? Clearly a problem there. The
only way God can be approached and communion, atonement can
be had between a sinner and God is by the blood of an innocent
victim. And there ain't but one innocent
victim. The offering of the Philistines, though, The jewels of gold were
laid on the altar with the blood sacrifice. It's clearly stated
in the text. The Philistines offering was,
as we said, bloodless. And that offering didn't pertain
to them anyway. If they'd offered a blood offering, it wouldn't
have been any better for them. That didn't pertain to them.
So that was a disaster. But also, just because you honor the Lord
with your lips, Follow his law outwardly and do everything else
right if the works of man is offered with the sacrifice of
Christ It's worthless What business did that have only why they put
that on the rock, too? It's an abomination to God and
the teaching there is clear. It's Christ alone or it's wrath
It's not just Christ. It's Christ only It's Christ
apart from us. It's Christ Not having our own
righteousness And speaking of wrath look again at verse 19 Verse 19 And he smote the god
of israel smote the men of beth shemesh Because they had looked
into the ark of the lord even he smote of the people fifty
thousand and three score and ten men And the people lamented
because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great
slaughter. Why was it a problem to look
into the ark? Well, there's two very important
answers to that. The first one is just as important
as the second one, although it's a lot shorter. The first one
is simply this, because God said don't do it. That's just as important
as the long answer. And here's the long answer. The
mercy seat is Christ. And those objects that the mercy
seat covered within the ark, the ark was like a box, a rectangular
box. And the mercy seat was the lid
of that ark. And inside there, what they looked at, what they
opened, they took the, they had to take the mercy seat off of
it in order to look in there, which may have been a problem
right there, because apparently they, maybe they used the staves
that God had told them. The ark was never to be touched.
And there were staves in the box itself. Rings for the staves
that they put in there. And they touched the staves,
but not the Ark. And carried it that way. Maybe
when they took it off of that cart and all that, maybe they
did all that right. But how are you going to get the mercy seat
off of there without touching it? There ain't no rings in the
mercy seat. I don't know, maybe they touched
it. And that'd be a problem there too. For whatever reason, God
killed them. And I know it had to do with
them looking in there because that's what it says in the text. It looks like there were several
things that they did that would have brought the wrath of God
down on them. But think about this, the mercy seat covered
those objects that were inside the ark, which were the law,
the tablets of stone, the pot of manna, the bread from heaven
that God had given to his people to sustain them in the wilderness.
which was Christ said, I'm that bread that came down from heaven.
The budding rod of Aaron. And here's the problem. It's
very simple. It didn't take a whole lot of deduction or reasoning
to figure out why you can't look at those things. You know what
our business is? Look at the mercy seat. Don't
look beyond the mercy seat. Don't look away from it. Look
at the mercy seat is Christ. You don't need, that's all you
need to know. Here's what this is doing. When you open that
ark up and you look in there, you're not looking to Christ.
You're wanting to see the law kept. You're looking to the law
itself. Not a good idea. We don't trust
the law. We trust the one who kept it.
And we don't have any part in keeping it. So what business
is it of ours to look at it? It wasn't enough to them just
to look at Christ, to look to Christ, to see that as the presence
of God. Now, it was a cause for rejoicing,
but they weren't happy just to rejoice in the presence of God
in Christ. They were more curious than that.
They had to dig deeper. They had to go beyond that. They
wanted more. Christ wasn't enough. Just God
being pleased with them, that wasn't enough. They wanted to
see the law kept, the law preserved and honored in there. They wanted
to participate in that. But if faith, think about it
this way, if faith wants to see the law honored, you know where
faith looks? Christ. There's the honoring
of the law. You don't know what the law looks
like when you look at it. We don't know what the law says.
We don't know what keeping the law is and breaking the law is. But by God's grace, we can know
Christ. And I know by His grace, He kept the law for me. You need
to know anything else? If faith wants to see the law
honored and kept, it looks to Him. The bread in the ark was
the pot of manna. If faith wants bread, if faith
wants to be fed, if faith wants sustenance, if faith wants to
live, where does it look? Christ. The burning rod of Aaron
was a picture of the authority of God in Numbers chapter 16.
You'll recall that Korah and those associated with him and
those who pertain to him rebelled against God's established authority,
which was Aaron the high priest and Moses, the leader, the man
after God, who was called the friend of God, a prophet like
unto me, Christ said, or Moses said of Christ. And so Moses
and Aaron, God's established authority, Korah began to murmur.
And those that were with, a couple of men with him, and those, the
families, and they said, well, you're taking too much on yourself,
Moses and Aaron. You're, you're, you're, why should
we listen to you, God? We're all God's people. We can
do, we, we can do what you do. We've got just as much authority
as you, and God killed them. And in the process of killing
them, he caused Aaron's rod to bud. He said, the one who's rod
buds, that's my priest. And so that's a picture of Christ.
God has one great high priest. There's one mediator between
God and men. If the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, doesn't
offer his precious blood for you, then there's no offering
for sin for you. What? There's my authority, right there. He said, you've given me power
over all flesh. For what purpose? And in what
did he say that? In his great high priestly prayer.
In John 17, as high priest, He said, I'm coming with an offering
for those that you gave me. I'm coming to glorify you. The
only way God can be glorified. But they wanted in on all of
this to look upon that or to open that up is to presume that
that issue has not been settled in Christ. God says, I'll meet
with you at the mercy seat, not at the pot of manna, not at the
law, Not at the budding rod. God has
already established that his high priest is high priest alone.
And our business is to look to him alone. And there's no digging
to do. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. And if you don't
believe without faith, you can't please God. You're going to end
up like everybody in our text. Except God's sheep. Christ is
everything to the sinner. If you want more than Christ,
if you need more than Christ, Christ shall profit you nothing.
The law is not your business. Providing for yourself is not
your business. You have no business in anything that pertains to
the authority of God. Christ is all. And if that's
not true of you, if you can't say honestly and truthfully from
your heart, Christ is all to me, of God I'm in Christ who
has made me everything I need, Then you're dead already, you
just don't know it yet. To trust in anything, to look
to anything for any reason besides Christ is fatal. It is spiritually,
it is eternally fatal. What happened on Calvary? What
happened on the cross? God's law was honored. Look to
Christ crucified. That's the mercy seat. Not just
obeyed, but honored. Christ became our meat and our
drink indeed. He became our manna at the cross. How do I have spiritual life,
sustenance? Christ crucified in his broken
body, in his precious shed blood. That's my meat and my drink.
You see that? Calvary, the cross, the atonement,
What was pictured in that mercy seat that the blood was splashed
upon by the great high priest? It was all Him. What else? God's authority that
gives eternal life is Christ on the cross. Now think about
that. Christ on the cross and risen. He said in John 17 to
as thou hast given his great high priestly prayer go into
Cali. This is the high priest coming into the Holy of Holies
right here. and this is the end this prayer is the incense that
that that's that fill that place with a sweet smelling savor unto
God and he's got the blood with him he's coming with his offering
and he says you've given me power over all flesh authority over
all flesh that i should give eternal life to as many as thou
has given me and as God's high priest he obtained eternal redemption
for all his people he gave them eternal life he Purchased eternal
life for them And where did that happen? Where is that fulfilled? At Calvary Where was that authority
executed? Right there when he bought and
paid for me Redeemed me from all of my sins Did what I couldn't
do honored the law perfectly and paid for what I did do sin
sin sin with every drop of his precious blood. You know, there's a lot of mystery,
there's a million whys and hows surrounding the gospel, and people
love to look into them. But you know who the answer is
to every question worth asking? You know, don't you? If the answer is not Him, then
don't ask the question. And if it is Him, Then why ask
the question? You already know it. You already
know the answer. If you want to understand any
mystery, look to the person of Christ himself. If the simple,
clear preaching of Christ crucified does not answer your question,
you better let them go. You better let it go. I'm talking about the clear preaching
now. It ain't complicated. Christ
is all, it's not complicated. Salvation is of the Lord, that's
not complicated. God is sovereign and he saves
whom he will, that's not complicated. Christ saved everybody he shed
his blood to save, that's not complicated. If you try to have any part in
what Christ accomplished by way of cooperation or as an exercising
of your will, Christ will profit you nothing. And that is the
definition of destruction. Christ profiting you nothing
is the definition, the best definition of annihilation, wrath, punishment,
and destruction. Verse 20, the men of Beth Shemesh
said, who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? And to whom
shall he go up from us? We know the answer to that question,
don't we? Who can stand before this God? Psalm 24, three, who
shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand
in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart,
Christ. There's just one. who hath not
lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, he, he,
that pure holy one, shall receive blessing from the Lord. He received the blessing. And
if you're his, he gave it to you. And righteousness from the
God of his salvation. That can only be one man. The
God-man. Christ alone. Blessed and righteous. And we stand in him or we don't
stand. And then verse 21 shows the vanity and deception and
the tragedy of man-made religion. Those who offer more than Christ, those who are an abomination
to God, what'd they do? They lied, didn't they? They
said, the Philistines have brought the ark back and we're gonna
bring it up to you. They made it sound like a good
thing. God had just destroyed 50,000 of them. They failed to
mention that. It's just like religion, isn't
it? They're gonna lie to get everybody in on their, And what
are they doing? They're making them two-fold
more the child of hell than they were before they preached to
them. That's what our Lord said. They didn't bother letting them
know that God's judgment was on them because they disobeyed
God and God's will as it pertained to the forgiveness of sin by
Christ alone. That's what happens in the places
they call churches. where Antichrist is preached.
Bless God. Like those cows, we obey God
because he won't have it any other way. Bless God, we bow to his will as it pertains to the Lord Jesus
Christ. Oh, but what about our free will,
Chris? Is that what you want? You want to be one of these other
ones? Or you want to be the cows? Let's pray.