All right, brethren, let's turn
to 1 Samuel chapter 6. I told Scott that when you hear
the title of the first message, you're going to think I was guilty
of the second message. The first message is following
two milk cows to Christ. The second message is be not
drunk with wine. Let's look here at 1 Samuel 6.1.
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." The ark of the Lord, you know, It belongs
in Israel. It belongs with the Lord's people.
And here it was in a strange land, and the Lord brought plagues
upon the people, so they wanted it to go to His place. Now drop
down to verse 7. This is what the priests and
the diviners told them. Now therefore make a new cart,
and take two milch 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." Now they wanted to
see this ark go to his place. And so they made this cart and
they tied these two milchkind to the cart. Milchkind means
milk cows. And you see there that these
two cows had calves. and they took their calves and
the Philistines held their calves back, locked them up. And you would think by nature,
what are these milk cows going to want to do? They're going
to want to go back to their calves. And it says here that there had
never come a yoke on these two cows. You put a yoke on these
two cows, and they got calves at home, and they're not used
to a yoke. You can expect they're not going
to walk a straight course. They're not going to go in a
straight direction. They're going to be pulling against each other,
fighting against each other, one trying to go one way, one
trying to go the other way. But these milk cows are a lot
like Lord's people. We're beasts by nature. You know
what the Lord said in Isaiah 1? He said, the ox knows his
owner and the ass knows his master's crib. My people don't know me.
Until he comes in the heart, we don't know him. But when he
comes and works in the heart of his people, he'll make you
forsake your dearest loved one to go to Christ. There have been
many a person try to go in religion and didn't have a new nature,
hadn't been born again. And they forsake Christ and turn
back again and go back. because of a baby, or because
of a loved one, or because of something that comes between
them and Christ. But here you're going to see something different.
And when Christ puts His yoke on you, He'll lead you in the
right direction. Here, you know the old saying,
don't put the cart before the horse? Well, here the cart is
behind the cows, but the ark that's on that cart is really
leading these cows. He's bringing them where He'll
have them to go. And where they go, that's going
to typify who this ark is. That's going to be His place.
And it's going to show His work. And it's going to show something
of who the ark typify. Verse 9, now here's what the
priest says, See, if he goes up by the way of his own coast
to Bethshema, then God hath done us this great evil. But if not,
then we shall know that it's not his hand that smote us, it
was a chance that happened to us. And so the men did so. They put everything, arranged
everything like these men told them. Now we know there's no
such thing as chance. No such thing as chance. The
Lord, in the chapter before this, it says the Lord smote them.
The Lord's the one doing everything here. And we know the scripture
says the Lord works all things together after the counsel of
His own will. He can work two milk cows together
to glorify His Son. Look at verse 12. And the kind
took the straight way to the way of Beth-shammah. They went
straight to the way of Beth-shammah and went along the highway, lowing
as they went. They didn't return to their calves,
but what they did was they bellowed as they went, trying to get their
calves to come with them. Isn't that what the Lord's people
do when the Lord starts calling His people? You don't go back
to them, but you try to tell them, come go with me, come go
with me. Look here. And they turned not
aside to the right hand or to the left. And the lords of the
Philistines went after them unto the border of Bethshema. And
each kind walked eight miles, straight path, eight miles to
Bethshema. That's where they went. And they
never turned to the right hand or to the left. Now they went
straight to the ark's place, to his place. Now here's the
first thing we see. Christ is our high priest. This
word Bethshema, this town Bethshema was a town inhabited full of
Levitical priests. This was in Israel. This Beth
Shema was in the borders of Israel. And it was a town full of Levitical
priests. Christ is our High Priest. That's
His place. He's our High Priest. The children
of Israel could not come to God except in a High Priest. The
High Priest had two jobs. Look at Hebrews 5. Here's the
first thing that the High Priest was to do. And God gave the high priest
these two jobs, to typify, to glorify, to show us what Christ
his son does, because his son's the real high priest. Verse,
it says, Hebrews 5, 1, Every high priest taken from among
men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may
offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins. You see, the children
of Israel is who the high priest represented. He didn't represent
folks outside of Israel, he represented Israel. And Christ represents
God's elect. And there's no way to come to
God except in Christ, just like there was no way to come to God
except in the high priest. And the high priest entered the
holy place. That's where Christ has entered, into the holy place
in God's presence. And the high priest couldn't
enter that holy place but once, one time in a year. And he couldn't
go in except he brought blood into that place. Look at Hebrews
9, Hebrews 9-11. It says, Christ being come a
high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
He wasn't like that Old Testament, it's better than that. He says,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood. He entered in once into the holy
place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. He entered
into the presence of God, and he obtained eternal redemption.
And he only had to do it one time, because he got the job
done. Now, go back to Hebrews 5. Here's
the second job of the high priest. He had two jobs. Here's the second
job of the high priest. He was to comfort and have compassion
on his people. Look at verse 2. Who can have
compassion on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way,
for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. The priest was
one of the people. So he knew the infirmities of
the people. So he could have compassion on those that were
ignorant, on those that were straying out of the way. And
he could deal with them in a compassionate way. He knew how to deal with
them because he'd been there. He'd been through what they'd
been through. That's one of the reasons that the Son of God came
down and took the flesh just like his brethren. So that he
was touched with the feeling of our infirmities, so that he
knows how to deal with those that when we're ignorant, straying,
and passed with all our infirmities that we have. He knows it. He's
been there where we are. So look at Hebrews 4.14. He tells
us this, seeing then that we have a great high priest that
is passed into the heavens, that's the holiest of oaths. Jesus,
the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not
a 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. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. There's the two-fold work of
the high priest. Now go back to our text. Our text says that
this ark, the milch kind, went straight to Beth Shammai. All
right, another thing about Beth Shammai was it was on the border
of Judah. And later this town was actually
transferred to Judah and became a city of Judah. You know who
Christ is? He's the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. That's who he is. The tribe of
Judah pictured God's elect. You had Israel, which was called
Ephraim, and Samaria, And they're a picture of the whole church
in general, the visible church. But within them, you had a picture
of God's true elect people. There's God's true elect people
within the visible church, those that are really here, those He
chose before the foundation of the world, those He sent Christ
to redeem, those He shall save by His grace. The Lord said this
in Psalm 78. He said, He refused the tabernacle
of Joseph. and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,
that's Israel. They went into idolatry. He says,
but he chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved. That's where Mount Zion is, Judah.
That's where we are, in Mount Zion, in the heavenly Jerusalem,
in his church. He built his sanctuary like high
palaces. like the earth which He's established
forever. He built His house. This is the
Lord's people. And look at Genesis 49. I want
you to see this. This is what was told Judah whenever
Joseph blessed Judah. You picture God the Father blessing
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And here's Joseph blessing Judah. I mean Jacob blessing Judah.
And this is what he says to Him. This is what God the Father says
to Christ. Genesis 49.8 Judah, thou art
he whom thy brethren shall praise. That's who Christ is. That's
who Christ is. Thy hand shall be in the neck
of thine enemies. Christ came and he conquered
all his enemies. Thy father's children, that's
all God's elect, thy father's children shall bow down before
thee. They're going to all bow their
knee and confess Him to be Lord. Judah is a lion's wealth. From the prey, my son, thou art
gone up. He stooped down, he couched as
a line, and now as an old line, he's seated at God's right hand.
Who shall rouse him up? He came down. And he conquered
his enemies like a lion pouncing on its prey. And now he's risen
back up. And he's sat down at the right
hand of God. Who's going to arouse him? Who's going to take him
off his throne? Nobody. He's the lion. He's the lion
of our tribe. He's the salvation of his people. The lion of the tribe of Judah.
Now look at verse 10. There's something else here,
Genesis 49, 10. Christ is Shiloh. He's the Prince of Peace. That's
what it means, the Prince of Peace. And when He was given
this blessing, this is what He said about Judah. The scepter
shall not depart from Judah. He's the King. That's what the
scepter means. The scepter will not depart from
Christ. A lawgiver won't depart from
Judah. This tribe, the whole time they
had kings, they had lawgivers. Right up until this time, until
Shiloh come. Shiloh is the great prince of
peace. That's what it means. And when
Christ came, He came through the tribe of Judah. He was...
He came through their lineage. And when He came into this earth,
that ended earthly Judah's rule. That ended that. Now He's...
The anti-type has come. The one in picture. And it says,
unto Him shall the gathering of the people be. Now here's
how you know this is talking about Christ. Binding his foal
unto the vine, and his ass's coat unto the choice vine. He
washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood
of grapes. His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth
white with milk. Christ came into Jerusalem riding
on an ass's coat. And there he went, and he washed
his garments in blood. He laid down his life. And he
was pure inwardly, his teeth was white as milk. And he took
the sin of his people and he laid down his life for his people.
That's the prince of peace. That's how he made peace for
his people. That's what this Beth Shammai town pictured. Then
look here. Here's the third thing we see
about Beth Shammai. It's called the house of the
sun. That's what it means. The house of the sun. They were
taking this ark to his place. They took it to the house of
the sun. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Son of God, S-O-N, and we saw the other day He's the S-U-N.
He's the Son of Righteousness. That's who He is. Pictured by
the sun rising up with healing in His wings. I got that illustration
I gave you from right here. This is where I got it from.
Christ is... His house is at God's right hand
in the heavens, and His house is in His church, in His people.
That's where He dwells. That's this town. That's where
this ark went. Alright, here's the fourth thing we see. We see
what happens when Christ comes to His house. And we saw it somewhat
in these milch kind. He makes you leave the land of
the Philistines. And the Philistines, picturing
God's enemies, they've got your loved ones locked up, like they
had those calves locked up. And unless Christ set them free,
they can't come with you. But these middle kind, they loathed
as they went, calling them, come with us, come with us, come with
us. And they went against their nature, because God gives you
a new nature. He makes you willing in the day
of His power. And here's what happens. Here's what happens
when Christ calls His people. Verse 13. They of Beth-shemei
were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley. And they lifted
up their eyes, and they saw the ark and rejoiced to see it. When
the ark came, it was their wheat harvest in the valley. That means
it was Pentecost. That's the time of the year it
was. It was the time of Pentecost. And when Christ came to his house
on the day of Pentecost, remember after he had arisen from the
grave, before he ascended to the Father, or after he ascended
to the Father, he sent forth the Holy Spirit, he sent Peter
to preach the gospel, and he came to his house that day. on
the day of Pentecost, and he saved 3,000 people through the
gospel that day. Peter said he did this. He's
the one doing this, Peter said. And that's how it is every time
he comes. It's the time of harvest. It's
the time of his harvest. Look here. They lifted up their
eyes. That's what he makes you do.
You got your eyes on the earth. You got your eyes on the earthy.
You got your eyes on everything here below, thinking this is
really life. This is bread. This is clothing. This is really living. And all
this is death. All this is death. You're feeding
on roadkill. You're bathing yourself in just
pollution. That's what this is. He makes
you lift up your eyes. Take your eyes off you. Take
your eyes off the earthy. Take your eyes off this earthy
bread. He lifts up your eyes. And look at what He does. They
saw the ark. He makes you see the ark. That
ark pictures Christ. He makes you see Christ our ark
in whom all the law rests. He makes you see Christ our ark
above which is the mercy seat. He's the propitiation for our
sins. The mercy seat for our sins.
He makes you see Christ. And when He does that, This is
always the result. And they rejoice to see. You
rejoice to see. Quit fighting against God. Quit
fighting against His people. Quit arguing against the gospel.
Then you'll rejoice in that day. Right, here's the fifth thing
we see. Christ is the end of the law. He's the end of the
law for his people. For those who believe, Christ
is the end of the law. Verse 14, And the cart came into
the field of Joshua a Beth Shemayim. It stood there. It stood right
there. It came into the field of Joshua.
He stood right there. He came into the house of the
Son. He stood right there. Joshua is the same name as Jesus. Joshua is Jesus, the Savior. The Savior came to this one who's
name is Jesus, the Savior. That's where this ark came to.
By the ark coming straight to that field of Joshua and standing
there, It's a picture. God's showing us that all the
law and all the ceremony and everything that was typified
in it, moral and ceremonial, it all comes to Jesus, our Savior. And right there, it stands. That's where the whole law comes
to. Romans 10, verse 4 says, Christ
is the end of the law. For righteousness, F1, FB. You just picture, you want to
know what the end is? Picture these two milk cows,
with this cart behind them carrying the heart. They walked and walked
and walked for eight miles. When they came to that field
of Joshua, they reached the end. They stopped. They stopped. That's
what the love God was giving them. It was given to bring His
people to Christ and stop right there. It was given to bring
us to turn our eyes to Christ and stop right there. It was
brought to show us all righteousness, all holiness, all justification,
all redemption, everything pictured in the law, everything required
by the law comes to Christ and stands right there in Him. And
His people that believe on Him stand right there in Him. Absolutely
complete. That ark had the law inside it.
It had the law inside. And it came to Christ and it
stopped. In Psalm 41, verse 6, the Lord
said, Sacrifice an offering thou did not desire. He's speaking
to the Father. You didn't desire all this sacrifice
and this offering. That's not why you created this
ceremony. That's not it. He said, Mine
ears hast thou opened. He's the servant of God. He opened
the Lord's ear. Burn off from the sin of earth
as thou not require it. None of that saved anybody. God
gave it for a picture. Read Hebrews chapter 10. You'll
see that. He gave it for a picture. Just
a picture. Then said I, Christ speaking, Lo, I come in the volume
of the book that's written of me. That's what he said. In the
whole volume of the law. In everything that's written.
It's all written of me. Every bit of it. I delight to
do thy will, O God. Yea, thy law is within my heart."
There's that argument, and there's the law. It comes to Christ. It says, here's what he's been
picturing all along. He told us, think not that I
come to destroy the law. I didn't come to destroy it.
No, no. The law can't just be taken out
of the way. The law just can't be removed.
The law has to be honored. It has to be magnified. It has
to be fulfilled. Christ came to fill the law full,
and He filled it full. He gave the law the righteousness
it required, and He did it for His people. And He did it to
declare God just. and the justifier. He gave the
law the holiness it required. He gave the law the redemption,
the price it required, which was blood, death, the death of
his people. He gave it now, and he did it
for his people, so that now the law is completely satisfied,
it's completely honored. It declares that God's just,
that he won't clear the guilty, that he will by no means clear
a guilty man. and it's taken out of the way
it's nailed to his cross because it's all fulfilled and Christ
the Lord himself now stands and he calls his people to himself
and he says now you follow me believe on me and all that's
taken care of and now just go forth and love your brethren
The number one way we do that is stand with his people and
promote this gospel, preach this gospel, because that's how he's
going to call the rest of his people out and bring us to glory. The law is satisfying. It's fulfilling
his people. Sinner, if you're trying to come
to God by the law, you'll never do it. He won't receive you.
He won't receive you. And above that ark is the mercy
seat. That mercy seat was where when that priest came in with
that blood of that lamb, he came in and he sprinkled that blood
seven times, the number of perfection. He sprinkled that blood on the
mercy seat. And God said, right there, right
there, that mercy seat between God and the sinner. He said,
right there, that's where I'll meet you. I'll have mercy on
you right now. That means propitiation. Listen
to this scripture, Romans 3.25. Christ is he whom God hath set
forth to be a propitiation, a mercy-seeker, through faith in his God. He's the mercy-seeker. He's the
Lamb. Believe in him. Believe that he has accomplished
the redemption of his people. And he's there to declare God's
righteousness. See, and that's what Christ did.
This thing's about righteousness. It's about showing that God won't
clear the guilty man, and that if God's going to have mercy
on a sinner, He's going to do it in the right way. He's going
to do it so that His law is honored, and that sinner has died because
he died in Christ. Now he lives because he lives
in Christ. It's going to be done in a right way. He came to declare
God's righteousness. And then 1 John 2 says Christ
is the refugiation for our sin. He is the mercy for all our sin.
And he says herein is love, not that we love God. He loved us
and sent his son to leave the refugiation for us. He's the
atonement. He's the atonement. He's reconciliation. He's justification. He's our
salvation. All right, here's the six things.
We see the law. We see that Christ came to Beth
Shammai. It's his house. Beth Shammai
is where the high priest was. He's the high priest. Beth Shammai
is the... What else did I say? The house of God is the
high priest. Judah. He's the Lion of the tribe
of Judah. Lion of the tribe of Judah. And
then he's the end of the law. Lead into the law. And now here
we see he's the altar and the offering of God. Verse 14. He
came there and it stood where there was a great stone. 1 Samuel
6, 14. Where there was a great stone.
And they claved 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 Bethshema offered burnt offerings and sacrifices
the same day unto the Lord. It was an altar. That's what
it was. It was an altar. And it was believed
to be the altar of Hebron. An altar was made out of stone,
and it was where God required the sacrifice to be offered on
an altar. You know, churches will build
up a little thing, a little piece of wood or something, where people
come and kneel down, and they call that an altar. We don't
have idolatrous things like that. That's not an altar. Our altar
is in heaven. Our altar is the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Hebrew writer said, we have an altar whereof they have no
right to eat and serve tabernacle and flesh and false religion. They don't have a right to eat
in this tavern at this altar. He's our altar. And that wood
of that cart, they claimed that wood, that wood That car, it
bore the ark to this place where the sacrifice was made. But Christ,
he bore the wood, he bore the cross, and he came to the place
of the sacrifice. He bore it. And then they offer
burnt offerings and sacrifices unto the Lord. I'll tell you
something else you see there too. I thought of this later
after I wrote these notes to him. I saw this later. They burnt
those milk cows. They killed those milk cows and
burnt them there with the sacrifice. Christ's people died with him.
We were crucified with him. We were killed. We were slain.
We died and he died. That's what Romans 6 says to
you. We died with him. Reckon ye yourselves also to
be dead indeed for this sin. You are alive and well. And then
those offerings. and no sacrifices. Christ is
one great sacrifice. He laid down his life for God
and for his people. He did that and he satisfied
justice unto them. And Christ is the burnt offering
in whom all his people are his sweet smelling savor of God.
Listen to this, Hebrews 5.2. We're going to study it here.
Christ has loved us and has given himself for us an offering. and a sacrifice to God for a
sweet smelling Savior. You know what God said we smelled
like before? An abomination. A sulfurous stench,
like rotten eggs, like gas. That's what we smelled to God.
But now, God says of His people, of everyone that's resting in
Christ, everyone robed in His righteousness, justified by His
blood, that has free forgiveness in Him, through faith in Him,
He says of every one of us, you're a sweet-smelling savior. Isn't that good? So brethren isn't it beautiful
when you see God uses these things in scripture. He uses these things
that happen in life. He moves and directs everything
to show a picture of his Son. To glorify his Son. And it's
all through the Old Testament scriptures. The tithes, the shadows,
it's in the book of Acts you see it. All through, he's showing
us that Christ is our great high priest. Christ is our shallow,
our peacemaker. He's the one to whom we lift
our eye. He's the one in whom we rejoice. He's the end of the law for righteousness
to be a believer. He's our mercy seed, our propitiation. He's our offer. He's our sacrifice,
our offering to God. He's our treasure and our inheritance
in heaven. There was gold in that coffin. See those Philistines, they're
trying to offer something to God to appease God. You can't
do that. You can't do that. The gold is
in Christ himself. That's where the gold is. He's
our treasure. He's our inheritance. Because
he's our perfect righteousness and our holiness, our justification,
our forgiveness, our never-ending acceptance of God. He's our salvation. Joshua is Lord. Jesus is God. Now I can't end
without showing you this one thing. Look down at verses 19
and 20. This is a word of warning. Everybody
sitting here, I want you to listen to this carefully. Verses 19
and 20 says, God smoked the men of Bethshem, because they had
looked into the ark of the Lord. Even he smoked of the people
50,000 and three, four, and ten men, and the people lamented,
because the Lord had spit many of the people in a great slough.
And the men of Bethshem, they said, who's able to stand before
this holy Lord God? And to whom shall he go up from
unto? To whom are we going to send
him to and get him away from us? That's what he said. I want you to get the picture
here. That ark is the picture of Christ the Mediator. These
men came up and they began to look into that ark. Instead of
that ark being between them and God, they came between the ark
and God. It's the same as if you could
say, you're trying to come to God without a mediator. Without
a mediator, God killed you. He killed everyone. Everyone. You can't come to God
without a mediator. You cannot come to God without
Christ. He's the only one who is holy
God, so he can reach up to God, and he's holy man, so he can
reach down to man. And he can bring us together. He might reverse that. He's holy
named so he can reach up to God. And he's holy God satisfied. He's just as satisfied so that
he can reach down to his human people and bring us together
in him. That's who he is. These men said,
who can stand before this holy Lord God? Nobody but God. They
wanted him to go away from them. And I pray he'll make you come.
I pray he'll make you cashed and caroled because you can't
cut out him. You gotta have him. I pray he'll make you like these
two. Come where he is. Lowing as you go. Calling everybody
you know. Don't follow up.