Let's go to the book of Exodus
this morning, chapter 25, and we'll go to chapter 25. And I
want to speak to you this morning on the mercy seat, which is the
reason I selected that song that we sang earlier. And because
it is about the mercy seat, Exodus chapter 25, I'm going to pick
up reading at verse 17. Verse 17, Exodus 25, and God
told Moses, and thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold. two cubits and a half shall be
the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubims
of gold, a beaten work shalt thou make them in the two ends
of the mercy seat." This was a tremendous design and the ones
who made this had unusual wisdom because both the mercy seat and
both the cherubims were out of one solid piece of gold. As far as what we would call
the intrinsic value of each of the pieces of furniture in the
tabernacle in the wilderness, this was the most expensive.
This is just pure gold, both the lid and then both the chair
bends that were fashioned out of the same piece of gold. Quite
remarkable. Continue reading verse 19 and
make one cherub on the one end and the other cherub on the other
end. Even of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubims on the
two ends thereof. and the cherubim shall stretch
forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings,
and their faces shall look one to another. Toward the mercy
seat shall the faces of the cherubims be. And thou shalt put the mercy
seat above the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony
that I will give thee, And there I will meet with thee, and I
will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between
the two cherubims, which are upon the ark of the testimony
of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the
children of Israel." Let's ask God's blessings now upon the
service. Again, we come into Your presence
through the new and living way of our Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, it is such a glorious
privilege that we have to come to the heavenly mercy seat, that
is, Your very throne of grace. And there at the throne of grace,
at the heavenly mercy seat, We receive grace and mercy to help
us every hour of our lives. We're so thankful, Father, that
you do receive us through the merits of the Lord Jesus. And
as we've just been reminded again through the song of the blood
of the Lord Jesus, oh God, this is all of our plea. Nothing that
we have done but the Savior and His work of redemption. And we
love to sing, what can wash away our sins? Nothing but the blood
of Jesus. And Lord, thank You for sending
Your Son into this world. And thank You for Him being the
sacrifice that fully put away the sins of all who will ever
believe on Him. Thank you for this time together.
May we render glory and honor to your name, and bless all of
us with an understanding of your word. Grant unto us faith to
believe. Give us, O God, a good hope through
grace. And may we examine ourselves,
each of us, to see if we be in the faith. And so believing that
you're with us by your Spirit, we go forward with this service.
We ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. of old, Israel in the Old Testament. They were a typical people, a
picture of another people, and that is they're a picture of
all of the people of God of all ages. They were indeed a chosen
people. God chose Israel above the other
nations of the earth. They were a redeemed people. He redeemed them by the blood
of the Passover lamb. And then they were a people delivered
from their bondage by the great power and strength of God. They were a people who were abundantly
provided for. They were a people to whom God
said, I will be with you and I will bless you. And they were
a people who had to travel through wilderness, just like we're traveling
through the wilderness right now, each of us. And they were
a people to whom God said, I'll give you a land of promise. And
He's given to us that promise. We'll have a glorious inheritance
awaiting us, and we shall wind up in heaven one day. Imagine
if you can hundreds of thousands of people as they go through
the wilderness for 40 years. They lived in tents. They were
just sojourners. They were travelers. They had
the same sort of difficulties that all the other nations of
the Earth had. They had their sicknesses. They had their diseases. They
had their enemies. They had their foes. In many
ways, they were very much like all the people who observed them
as they wandered through the wilderness for 40 years. But there was a big difference.
And it wasn't a difference that was very obvious. It wasn't obvious
to the nations through which they traveled and other nomads
who witnessed their journey through the wilderness. There was something
different about Israel that outwardly no other eye could discern. Here's the difference. God was
with them. That was the only difference.
But what a difference! What a big difference! The Lord
was with them. Do you remember shortly before
the Lord took Moses up on the mountain to take his life? Moses couldn't go into the land
of promise because he represented the law of God. The law of God
can't take us into the promised land. That's the grace of God. That's the salvation of God.
That's Joshua. Joshua, which is, he stands for
Jesus, our Savior. He's the one who can take us
into the land of promise. And of course, Moses had disobeyed
the Word of God the second time when God said to speak to the
rock, and he spoke the rock out of rebellion. So he couldn't
take the men. But shortly before God took him
away, He said to them, he said, I have led you, had all the children
of Israel together. He said, I've led you these 40
years in the wilderness. And then he reminded them of
God's great abundance of blessings on them. They didn't have everything
they wanted, but they had everything they needed. And Moses reminded
them of this in Deuteronomy 29.5. He says, I've led you for 40
years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not waxed old. And he said, your shoe is not
waxing old upon your foot. Amazing. They wash their clothes,
take care of their sandals. Forty years. And then they looked
at their clothes and they said, look brand new. And looked down
at their sandals. They hadn't bought new sandals.
Wasn't anywhere to buy them anyway. But God provided for them. And
do you as the people of God, do you not find that your God,
He has abundantly supplied all of your needs? First of all,
He supplied all of your spiritual needs. And you are blessed with
all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
He's blessed you with salvation. He's blessed you with forgiveness.
He's blessed you with righteousness. And He's blessed you with temporal
gifts. He's blessed you with families
who love you. Moms and dads who loved you and
taught you the Word of God. the children that you brought
up, or you're bringing up, who bring joy to your heart, and
all the material blessings, food and drink and clothing and a
roof over your head, all of these things, God has abundantly supplied
you with them. But in many ways, we are just
like people who are unbelievers. We're like them in the fact that
God gives to them too, right? The Scripture says He sends the
rain upon the just and what? The unjust. And His sun shines,
His sun shines on you, and His sun shines on your next door
neighbor who curses the name of God, perhaps. He's good to
everybody. The goodness of God is over all
of His works. But there's a difference between
us and unbelievers. What is the difference? It's
not so much an outward difference that's seen, though we do seek
to behave ourselves and honor God in our walk. But we pretty
much look like and conduct ourselves like everybody else in the world.
But we're different. What is the difference? The Lord
is with us. That's the difference. He has
taken up His abode in us. Just like He took up His abode
with Israel. And there was something that
was such a blessing to them, that presence of God, that word
that got out among the heathen nations. In fact, when they get
to Jericho, and some of you have studied the book of Joshua, it's
a blessed book to study, and we'll do that one of these days,
the Lord willing. They got to Jericho, And Joshua
sends one representative from every tribe to spy out Jericho. They go there and they find lodging
in the house owned by Rahab the harlot. And Rahab the harlot,
she said to them, she said, I know that the Lord has given you this
land. and that your terror is fallen
upon us, and that all of the inhabitants of the land, they
faint because of you. For we have heard," now listen
to what she says, for we have heard how the Lord dried up the
water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt. and
what He did to the two kings of the Amorites that were on
the other side of Jordan, that is Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly
destroyed. And as soon as we heard these
things, our hearts did melt. Neither did there remain any
courage in any man because of you. And here's the reason, because
the Lord your God He is God in heaven above and in the earth
beneath. We've heard of your God and he's
with you. Later, Joshua would tell the
people, The Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan from
before you until you passed over. You remember how that the Lord
had the ark of the covenant, the Levites carrying the ark
of the covenant, and as soon as their feet hit the waters
of the Jordan River, the Jordan River parted, and they took that
ark of the covenant all the way to the other side, and then stepped
over to the side still in the water, God having divided that
water, and all of Israel went through on dry ground, and then
Joshua said, now you bring the ark of the covenant out, and
the ark of the covenant out came out, and then the waters came
back together. They said, we've heard what you did to the Red
Sea, what your God did to the Jordan River, that all the people of the earth
might know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and that you fear the Lord your
God forever. And then listen to this. This
is Joshua chapter five. And it came to pass when all
the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of the Jordan
westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by
the sea, when they heard that the Lord had dried up the waters
of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we passed
over, that their hearts melted. Neither was there any spirit
in them anymore because of the children of Israel. We've heard
what your God can do. And we know that your God is
with you. And our hearts have melted within
us. Yes, they were traveling through
the wilderness to get to that land of promise. And they lived very much like
the other travelers through the wilderness. They lived in tents. They didn't have houses made
of mortar and stone, wood. No, they lived in tents. In fact, here's an amazing thing. The God of heaven and earth,
the God who said, the heavens can't contain me. The God who
said, heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. God
said, I'm gonna dwell among you. And I'm going to dwell in a tent
that looks just like yours from the outside. Isn't that amazing? That's what he said. I'm going
to live among you, I'm going to be with you, and I'm going
to set up my throne in a tent which from the outside will look
like all of your tents." Our Lord Jesus came into this
world. Guess what? He lived in a tabernacle. He lived in a tent. He lived
in a body. Looks just like the bodies of
any of these men in here this morning. And people said, we know who
he is. He's the son of the carpenter. We know his mother, Mary. We
know his brothers. And we know his sisters. and
they could see no glory about him because all they could see
was from the outside. They had no spiritual life to
discern his real identity that he's God. Very much like that
tabernacle in the wilderness. You see all of the tents in the
wilderness, they had badger skin roofs. That tabernacle in the
wilderness, the tabernacle where God said, I'm going to dwell,
it had badger skin roof, kind of a dull gray and sand blows
up on it from the winds of the desert. Looked very much like
any other. But there was more to that tabernacle
than met the natural eye. Because underneath that, there were ram skins dyed red. That represents the blood of
our Lord Jesus. That dull gray from the outside,
that's his humanity. He'd go walking down the street.
He didn't have a halo over his head when he was preaching in
Galilee or preaching in Jerusalem, going into the synagogue, going
into the temple. There was nothing special about
him outwardly that would make people think he would be any
different from any other man. And yet, it's his bloody death
that's going to wash away the sins of sinners. the sins of
his people. As typified by those ram skins
dyed red. All the natural eye saw was the
badger skin. But underneath that, oh, bloody red, the blood of Christ
Jesus. And then underneath that was
black goat skins. What did that represent? the
sins of His people. Thank God the blood covers the
sins of His people. Then underneath that black, white,
white, white linen, that's His perfection, that's His righteousness,
that's His glory. And embroidered in blue and purple
and scarlet, wonderful, beautiful cherubims. But nobody could see that except
the ones who were inside the tabernacle. Everybody else, what'd
they see? The neighbors, what'd they see?
Yeah, look at all those tents down there. And can you imagine
how many tents it would take to accommodate hundreds of thousands
of people, over a million people? Well, that'd be mind-boggling.
But as you looked upon them, and of course, each tribe was
in a different section, and the tribe of Judah, which this is
interesting, to get to the tabernacle, you go through the area of the
tents of the tribe of Judah. That's the entrance into the
tabernacle. Our Lord Jesus is, He's shallow. He's the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. and all these other tribes, they
had their sections, and then right in the middle, well, there's
another tent. Looked just like all the rest
of them. What's so special about that? That's where God dwells. That's God's home. God has set
up, as it were, His throne of grace, His mercy seat inside
that tabernacle. but nobody can see it but the
priesthood. And of our Lord's glory, nobody
can see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ unless God the Spirit
shows them His beauty, His divinity, His holiness, His justice, His
righteousness, who He is. He's the Son of God. That's who
He is. But outwardly, looked just like
any other man. Well, the Lord gave them a brazen
altar. Here was seven pieces of furniture. He said to put two outside the
tabernacle and then five within the tabernacle because really
the tabernacle proper was the tent. And then there was the
outer court. In the outer court, there's the
brazen altar, and that's Christ crucified. That's a place of
slaughter. And then a brazen labor, where
the priest, after he had offered a sacrifice, hands is all bloodied. He'd go there and wash his hands,
and from walking from the brazen altar to the brazen labor, his
feet, though he wore sandals, his feet get soiled, wash his
feet. And then he's fit to enter into the holy place. And there's
a table of showbread, 12 loaves of bread, changed every Sabbath.
That's bread for the priesthood. That's our Lord who provides
for our daily needs. Give us this day our, what does
it say? Daily bread. Now it says, give
us this day our daily bread. And he does, doesn't he? He does. Then on the other side, on the
other side is the golden lampstand or candlestick. That's Christ,
the light of life. Christ, the light of the world.
Then the altar of incense. That's where incense was burned.
That represents the intercessory work of our Lord Jesus. He prays
for us. He said in John 17, I pray for
them, those that you've given me. I don't pray for the world.
I pray for them. He's praying for you. I pray for our congregation every
day. And as the Lord brings your names
to my mind, I pray for individuals within this congregation. But
there is one who knows intimately every detail about each one of
you. and he prays for you. Isn't that
marvelous? And you are always on his mind. We sometimes will say to one
another, I've had you on my mind lately. I've been thinking about
you. Well, I'm gonna tell you something
you can't possibly comprehend. the son of God, your mediator,
your great high priest, he always has you on his mind. And he thinks
of you. He's had thoughts of love for
you since before the foundation of the world. You've always been
on his mind. That's why he visited this world,
to redeem his people, to save his people. The altar of incense. And then back behind the veil
is the Ark of the Covenant. Is there anybody that hasn't
watched Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark? Hey, I like
that. I like that movie. After the
Ark of the Covenant. Well, the Ark of the Covenant,
thankfully, has been lost. Nobody knows where it is. But
that Ark of the Covenant pictures our Lord Jesus because it was
made of Shittam wood or acacia wood, very durable. That's our
Lord's humanity. Couldn't be corrupted. And that
box overlaid within and without with gold. That's His deity. And inside the golden pot of
manna, He abundantly gives to His people. There's Aaron's rod
that budded, blossomed and bore fruit. He is our Great High Priest. He's our Mediator. And inside
is the Law of God preserved in that Ark of the Covenant who
is Christ Jesus. He kept the Law of God. And then, Over top of that, a
pure slab of gold, the mercy seat. The mercy seat. Notice this with me about the
Ark of the Covenant. And I just want to point this
out to you, and then I'm going to go into the mercy seat more
fully. Look at verse 11 here in chapter
25. And thou shalt overlay it, that
is the ark of the covenant, with pure gold within and without
shalt thou overlay it, and thou shalt make make upon it a crown
of gold round about." Now, imagine a box about so big, about so
wide, kind of like a cedar chest. You know what those are. Kind
of like that, about that size. And overlaid within and without
with gold, this acacia wood was, And then there's a bead of gold
up above, right around the rim of the Ark of the Covenant. And
it is specifically said to be the crown. That's the crown. And of course into that crown
will be fitted the mercy seat so it won't slide back and forth,
that sort of thing. It's kind of a built up solid
gold edge and the mercy seat is fitted in there. And the Bible
calls it a crown. And well, it should be called
a crown because our Lord, He wears the crown of creation. He wears the crown of providence
and He wears the crown of grace. And then on top of that was the
mercy seat. The mercy seat. One of the things that was very
obvious, and you've thought about this before, and you've heard
this preach, one piece of furniture that seemed to be missing and
was missing from the tabernacle, from those seven pieces of furniture
that I just mentioned to you, one piece of furniture was missing. You wouldn't see it anywhere,
and that was a chair. A chair. And the reason for that
was because the work of the priesthood and the work of the high priest
was never finished so that they could sit down having finished
the job. The job was never finished. And
therefore, we read in Hebrews chapter 10, every priest standeth
daily, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which could never
take away sin. But this man, Christ Jesus, this
man, He offered Himself unto God, and when He offered that
one offering to God for the salvation of His people, He sat down, having
finished the work. Nobody else sat down in there,
but He did. And you see, the mercy seat is
God's seat. There's no chair in there for
man, but there is a seat. But that's God's seat. That's
God's very throne. And it is the throne of mercy. And I tell you, when we come
to our God in prayer, when we come to God for salvation, we come to a throne of grace. A throne of mercy. No wonder the children of God
are admonished in Hebrews chapter 4, come boldly to the throne
of grace. Come boldly. Our Lord Jesus sat down having
finished the work of salvation, having said it is finished. Now, mercy seat means appeasement or satisfaction. Now know this, the mercy seat
was not where the blood was shed. The blood was shed back out there
as soon as you walked in through the gates into the outer quarter
of the tabernacle, the blood shed out there at the brazen
altar. But that blood is going to be taken, blood on the Day
of Atonement is going to be taken by the high priest. He'll catch
the blood and he's going to go in, he'll go past every piece
of furniture, all five pieces of furniture, two in the outer
court, and then the three that are inside, or the three that
are inside the holy place, but he's going to go into the holy
of holies, called the holiest of all. And he's going to go
in there with blood. He must never go in there with
blood. And he can only go in there one time a year. And he'll
take that blood, he'll take his finger. He walks in and he goes
around the Ark of the Covenant and he faces back toward the
east. and He dips His finger in that
blood and He sprinkles blood on the mercy seat and before
the mercy seat seven times. As though saying, Oh God, this
blood is for You. It's for You. You see, before
God can save us, before He can pour out His wonderful salvation
on anybody, First of all, there has to be something done for
God. His justice has got to be satisfied,
which demands death for sin. Well, he gets death there at
the tabernacle. And the high priest goes in with
that bowl of blood, that basin of blood. And he takes his finger
and he sprinkles that mercy seed, sprinkles before the mercy seed
seven times. Perfect atonement. Perfect redemption. That's what this picture is.
This is for you, Lord. Read the book of Leviticus. It
talks about the Levitical worship and the sacrifices that were
offered to the Lord. And you'll all the time read
this phrase, the blood before the Lord. The blood before the
Lord. And you see, that's what Aaron
is doing. This is for you, Lord. This is for you. Because the
only way God could in justice save sinners like you and me
is for the bloody death of Christ to come to pass. And that blood
covers the ark of the covenant that has the law in there. Our
Lord Jesus, regarding the law, He did two things when He came.
Number one, He kept it. He said, I didn't come to destroy
the law, I came to fulfill it. I came to keep it. And the second
thing He did, He died to pay the penalty of the law, death. Because that's the penalty the
law of God demanded because of our sins. Mercy seat. It means appeasement. Or in the
New Testament, here's a word for birth, secede in the New
Testament, propitiation. Propitiation. It's used in Romans
3, and it's used in the book of 1 John. That is used by the
Apostle Paul and used by John. Propitiation was really a heathen
word, a word that the heathens were familiar with, because they
felt whenever there was disease hit or a flood happened or a
terrible storm or earthquake or something like that, they
attributed that to one of their gods. And so they would offer to whatever
God it was that they felt like was perturbed with them, they
would offer to that God some kind of sacrifice, maybe even
one of their children. And they did. Many of them offered
their babies to the God of, say, water or
the God of fire. to appease the anger of that
God, and they would call it propitiation. The satisfaction of justice or
the appeasement of anger. And so both the Apostle Paul
and John made use of that. And whenever you read propitiation
in the New Testament, such as in Romans chapter three and verse
24. He is the propitiation for our
sins. 1 John 2 says that as well. It means the satisfaction of
God's justice. They just made use of a heathen
term and then made a biblical term out of it. God has got to
be satisfied. His justice cries out for death. It cried out for your death,
but you had a substitute, and that's Christ Jesus, who died
in our stead, and he redeemed us from the curse of the law. He obeyed it outwardly, and then
he died to fulfill the penalty of the law. God has made him to be a mercy
seat. In fact, I want you to turn to
that passage in Romans 3. Look at Romans 3 in verse 24.
Romans 3 in verse 24. And I'll start with verse, actually
I'm gonna start with 23 and then read down two, three verses here.
Romans chapter three, verse 23, for all have sinned. Hey, you're
in there. You're in there. And I'm in there. We're all in this little three-letter
word. That's all of us. I don't care
who you are. Preacher? It's me too. I'm in there. You're in there.
The whole world's in there. Everybody who came forth as a
result of the union of Adam and Eve. For all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. You don't hit the bullseye. The
bullseye is perfection. come short is to miss the mark. Sin is to miss the mark. It don't
matter whether you miss it this much or you miss it a mile. If
you miss it, you miss it. See, the only way we can have
any perfection, any righteousness is in the Lord Jesus. With all
sin come short of the glory of God, verse 24, being justified
freely without a cause in us, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God has set forth to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood to declare His righteousness. Propitiation. And you know you can write one
word or two words, in the Old Testament it's two words, in
the New Testament it's one word. You can write this in there.
Whom God has set forth to be a mercy seat. That's it. Mercy seat. It's mercy to you because justice
has been satisfied. God set him forth to be a mercy
seat. Now, one more thing. I'm going
to let you go. Go back to that passage Ron read
to us. See how good your memory is. Need a little help? Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. I'd probably
forgot it if I hadn't written it down. Luke chapter 18. And this is a very familiar story
about the publican and the Pharisee. Not a republican, but just a
publican. A tax collector, okay? Verse 10 says, two men went up
to the temple to pray, to worship. That's commendable, going to
worship. One was a Pharisee. Everybody
had held the Pharisees, most everybody held the Pharisees
in high esteem. Pharisee comes from the root
word separated. They were separated people, very
strict. in living, in something. Of course,
they didn't mind devouring widows' houses. That's different. But
before people, they tried to put on a cloak of goodness and
holiness. Verse 11, the Pharisee stood
and prayed thus within himself, God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican. I fast twice in the week. I give
tithes of all that I possess." Sure is a lot of I's in his prayer,
isn't it? You'd do well to get rid of the I's in your prayer. And the publican, standing afar
off, would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breast, saying, Be merciful. Oh, here's the word
again. Really, he's saying, God, be
a propitiatory or be a mercy seat. I need a mercy seat. I need a mercy seat that's been
fully sprinkled with blood. That's what he's saying. Why? Because I'm a sinner. You get it? God, be a mercy seat. Who is the mercy seat? That's
Christ the Lord. That's His blood. That's His
sacrifice. That's His atonement. That's
His work of redemption. God, be merciful. Be a propitiatory. Be the mercy seat to me, a sinner. Now listen to this. I tell you,
who's talking? The Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to listen to what he
has to say. I tell you what you're going
to tell me, Lord. This man went down to his house
justified, righteous, forgiven, rather than the other. For everyone
that exalted himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth
himself I should be exalted. I need a mercy seat. I need a
mercy seat covered with blood. I found one. Only one. That's the Savior of sinners,
the Lord Jesus, who lived and died and buried and rose again
the third day and gone back to glory. He's ascended to His throne
in Heaven. God help us to believe Him. to
rest you. I'm going to go right back to
this subject tonight, the mercy seat. Hope to see you then. Let's
pray. Thank you, Father, for giving
us an understanding of the Scriptures and showing us again our Lord
Jesus, who tabernacled in human flesh, looked just like all the other
men, but oh, there was something different
about Him. For He's the Son of God. And by grace, though outwardly
we look pretty much like everybody else in the world, we have our
troubles and our struggles and our trials and our sicknesses
and diseases and disappointments, we very much look like everybody
else in the world, primarily, But there's this big difference
between us and an unbeliever. Lord, you have said, I will never
leave you and I will never forsake you. We have the presence of
God. Thank you, Lord, for saving us
by your grace. We ask these sayings in the name
of our Savior. Amen.