And I'll try to finish up what
I began this morning. The subject is the mercy seat,
Exodus chapter 25. God took Moses up on the mount
and gave him instructions pertaining to making the tabernacle in the
wilderness. He said, that's where I'm going
to dwell. I'll dwell among you, make me a sanctuary. And of course
he will give instructions pertaining to all of the pieces of furniture
in the tabernacle as well as the curtains and all of the hangings,
the priesthood and the offerings and so forth and so on. But this
evening we're talking about the mercy seat. The Lord began giving
instructions to Moses about the Ark of the Covenant and then
He began to speak about that lid that sat on top of the Ark
of the Covenant, the mercy seat. And so we break into our reading
again. Permit me to read the same verses
tonight that I read to you this morning in verse 17, chapter
25 and verse 17. God said to Moses, and thou shalt
make a mercy seat of pure Two cubits and a half shall be the
length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. Thou shalt make two cherubims
of gold. Of beaten work shalt thou make
them in the two ends of the mercy seat, and make one cherub on
the one end and the other cherub on the other end. even of the
mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall stretch
forth their wings on high," kind of hovering over, as it were,
the mercy seat, 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." In other words, they faced
each other, but they were looking down toward the mercy seat. Verse 21, thou shalt put the
mercy seat above or above upon the ark, And in the ark thou
shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee, that is, the
law of God. And there I will meet with you,
and I will commune with you, or 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." This is a most unusual piece
of furniture. As I indicated to you this morning,
it's all to be made out of one piece of gold. It wasn't as though
the mercy seat was first made and then one of the cherubims
was made and then another cherubim was made and then fastened to
the mercy seat. It wasn't like that at all. It's
all made of one big piece of gold. A couple of us were talking
just before the service how heavy that must have been. and it was
certainly a very expensive piece of furniture. But God said, this
is where I'm going to meet you. I'll meet you above the mercy
seat and between the chair beams. That's where I'll meet with you,
and that's where I'll commune with you. Let's ask the Lord's
blessings and we'll go right into the message. Father, we
come to you tonight asking that you minister to us once again
from the Word of God. Lord, show us Christ Jesus pictured,
set forth, prefigured in all of the tabernacle, and yes, in
this mercy seat. May we see Him and His shed blood
that was sprinkled on and before the mercy seat once a year by
the great high priest of Israel, by Aaron. And may we see in that
typical worship scene a revelation of the gospel of our Lord Jesus. For he is the one who shed his
own blood, who was sacrificed in order to save us from our
sins. We're so thankful that there
is the blood of the covenant that indeed hides the law of
God that we have broken. And the blood of the covenant
hides our sins. In fact, our sins have been removed
by the blood of the Lord Jesus as far as the east is from the
west. So may we see this evening a beautiful picture again of
the gospel of the mercy and grace of our God May all of the people
of God be encouraged, and may those who know not our Lord Jesus
be directed to this one who is the fulfillment of every piece
of furniture in the tabernacle, even our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ. To whom be the glory and the
praise forever and ever, we ask in his name. Amen. There was only one meeting place
between God and man, and that was at the mercy seat, which
was the lid of the Ark of the Covenant. One man would go into
the holiest of all, that being the high priest of Israel, and
he, as the representative of all of the nation, having offered
to God a sacrifice back out at the brazen altar, he would catch
in a basin, he would catch the blood, go into the holiest of
all, and take his finger, and he would sprinkle blood seven
times on that mercy seat, and before the mercy seat, making
atonement for the people. This is the only place that God
would meet sinners. That's one of the things you've
just got to understand. Here is a holy God. How can He
be approached? Here's a sinful man. How can
he come to God? Well, the answer is, and our
brother read it there in Romans chapter 5, grace reigns through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. You
see, nothing but perfect righteousness would satisfy God. You got that? Nothing but perfect righteousness
could suit and satisfy God. And nothing but perfect mercy
could meet our case. There's got to be righteousness
and there's got to be mercy. But there cannot be mercy at
the expense of righteousness or justice. That can't be. You've
got to have both. I've got to have mercy. I've
got to have grace. So do you. But we can't satisfy
justice. Therefore, our God, in His infinite
wisdom, He found the way by which His own justice could be satisfied,
and then we could be the recipients of His mercy and His grace without
doing any wrong to His justice and to His righteousness. We
read in Psalm 85 and verse 10, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed each other. And all four of them meet in
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him, the attributes of God
are exalted and honored. He is the mercy of God. He's the mercy promised to Israel. Luke chapter 1 and verse 72 says
that. And He is the very truth of God. John chapter 14 and verse 6 says
that. And He is the righteousness of
God. Jeremiah chapter 23 and verse
6 says that. And He is our peace. Ephesians
chapter 2 verses 14 and 17 says that. You see, all of these four
attributes of God. They meet in one man, one God-man,
the Lord Jesus, and in his sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. Mercy
designs forgiveness. Truth must stand forever. Righteousness will never compromise,
and peace, that's what we have through the bloody death of our
Lord Jesus Christ. You see, when a righteous God,
and this is so important. I wish I could tell this to everybody.
When a righteous God and a ruined sinner meet on the on the basis
of blood poured out, salvation occurs. But that's
the only place it can meet. God must meet a center where
the blood is, where the justice of God is satisfied. That's the
only place it can meet us. When a righteous God and a ruined
sinner meet on a blood-sprinkled platform, all is settled forever. That is, settled in a way that
perfectly satisfies God and perfectly saves the sinner. It's not anything
we do. This is something God has already
done. All of his attributes have met
and been contented with and satisfied with the death of the Lord Jesus. We've got to understand that.
And only on that basis can God show us any grace and show us
any mercy. Therefore, the holiest of all
sets before us a wonderful scene. There is the ark of the covenant.
There is the mercy seat. There's the cherubim, and there's
the glory of God, that Shekinah glory of God. What a sight for
the high priest of Israel to look at. Once a year, once a
year, he goes behind the veil, and this is what he sees. He
sees the Ark of the Covenant. He sees the mercy seat. He dips
his finger in blood. He anoints, or as it were, he
puts that blood on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat,
he sees the two cherubim, and he sees the glory of God. Though
that glory of God had to be in some way tempered or softened,
which is the reason He had to bring burning incense in to the
holiest of all. Because He's looking right toward
the Shekinah glory of God. God will later say to Moses,
no man can see My face and live. You can't see the glory of God. You see the disciples on the
Mount of Transfiguration? They could barely stand to see
the glory of God in the face of the Lord Jesus. There He was
transfigured before them. That which was on the inside
was revealed on the outside. And the Scripture says His countenance
was brighter than the noonday sun. What is that brightness
of His glory? That's His transcendence of all
great things. He is the greatest of all. That's
the glory of His deity. And so when the high priest goes
into the holiest of all, he goes in with the incense and he goes
in with the blood. That's where we meet God. Don't
you dare try to meet God anywhere else, hear me? Don't you dare
try to meet God on the basis of something you've done. You
meet Him on the basis of who Christ is and what He has done. Otherwise, there's no acceptance
for you. There's just judgment for you. The ark of God with the law of
God on the inside is safely kept intact. That law of God is unbroken
and it has on top a blood-sprinkled mercy seat. You see that ark of the covenant
with God's law inside. It cries out, Be ye holy for
I am holy. That's what the law cries out.
The law is not going to settle for anything else. The law can't
show any mercy. The law can't cut any corners
for you. The law cannot lessen its demands. The law of God says, be ye perfect
and live or you die if you can't be perfect. And that's the long
and the short of the law of God. But over top of the law of God
is that blood splattered mercy seat. And the mercy seat with
that blood having been anointed on it or sprinkled on it, that
mercy seat says, God has been satisfied with the death of an
innocent victim. And you stand. But of course
that didn't last long because it had to be done again next
year. And the year after that, and the year after that. But
all of those pointed to the substitutionary sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
And there in His death, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God,
the perfections of God, they all shine brilliantly and brightly. And so does the grace of God
and the mercy of God and God's forgiveness of sins. It all shines
in the Christ of the cross of Calvary. But let me ask you this. That Ark of the Covenant with
God's holy law inside. What if it didn't have a mercy
seat on it? What if it didn't have a blood-sprinkled
mercy seat? What if that mercy seat weren't
there? What's going to happen then?
Well, you know what? You don't even have to imagine,
because the Bible tells us. I want you to turn with me to
the book of 1 Samuel chapter 4. 1 Samuel chapter 4. What if that, what the Bible
calls the glory of God, it shined forth that, that's God's Shekinah
glory. What if that coming forth out
of the ark of God had no mercy seat through which to go? What if the mercy seat wasn't
there? What if there's no blood? What
if there's no atonement? What if there's no redemption?
What if there's no sacrifice? What's that gonna mean? I can
tell you what it means, death. That's what it means. 1 Samuel
chapter 4. Israel, and I'm not going to
read a lot of verses here, but Israel has entered into the land
of Canaan, and on instructions from Joshua, They set up the
tabernacle in a city called Shiloh in Ephraim. Shiloh is another
name for Messiah. We know that from Genesis chapter
49. But it was also a city in the
tribe of Ephraim. And there the tabernacle remained
for a few years. Well, in 1 Samuel chapter 4,
we find the Philistines go on the war path against Israel.
and they had the first battle of the Philistines and the Israelites,
4,000 men of Israel's army were killed. So Israel retreated,
and they said, the reason we lost is because we didn't have
the Ark of the Covenant, which indicated the presence of God.
And so they said word back to Shiloh, and said to two priests
who were the sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas. Those were the
names. They were ungodly men. But the
Hophni and Phinehas, they were with the Ark of the Covenant
back at Shiloh. And the messenger went to them
and said, bring the Ark of the Covenant and then we'll win.
We'll win the battle then. We'll win the war. And so they
did. They brought the Ark of the Covenant
back, and boy, the Israelites were so happy, and they were
so enthused and excited. A celebration broke out, and
the Philistines, they heard all the celebration. And somebody
told them what happened, that Israel had the Ark of God with
them. They said, God's coming to their
camp. And the Philistines, they were afraid. It scared them to
death. But then somebody said to the
Philistine army, come on now, act like men. Be brave, we won
the first battle, we'll win this battle too. And they did. They did. And 30,000 more Israelite
soldiers died. But something happened in that
battle. First of all, the ungodly sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas,
they were killed in battle. But more than that, the Philistines,
they stole something. They stole the Ark of the Covenant
with the mercy seat on top. They took it. A messenger goes
to Eli. And he's back at Shiloh. And
I'm sure he said something like, well, how'd the battle go? How'd
the war go? They said, well, we hate to tell
you this, but we lost. We lost big time. We lost 30,000
men. And Eli, hate to give you this
news, but your sons have died in battle. He said, is that all? They said,
that's not all. The worst of it is they took
the Ark of the Covenant. Eli fell back, broke his neck. He is an old man and the scripture
says he is a heavy man. He fell back and he died from
a broken neck. Not from hearing that his sons
had been killed in battle. but from hearing that the Ark
of the Covenant with the mercy seat on top and the two cherubim
that had been stolen." Well, meanwhile, one of his sons, his
wife, Phineas' wife, she was pregnant. She's expecting, and
when she heard the word that her husband, her husband had
died in battle, and the ark of God had been taken, well, she
just immediately went into labor. In fact, she died in labor giving
birth to her baby, but before she died, she told the women
who were helping her, name my baby Ichabod. What does that
mean? The glory of God has departed
from us. What was the glory of God? That's
the Ark of the Covenant, with the mercy seat on top. So the
Ark is now with the Philistines. They took it to a place called
Ashdod, and they put it in a church. The first church of Dagon, we'll
call it. This was a temple to Dagon, their
great god. He was a fish god. He had a head
and hands and body of a man, but he had a tail like a fish.
And his priests wore head garments, a cap that looked like a fish
head, kind of like this, wearing it like that, like the Pope wears. And that's where they got it
from. That's where the Roman Catholic Church got that idea
that Pope wear a cap like that when he's addressing the Cardinals. So they put it in the first church
of Dagon, the Ark of the Covenant. Next morning, the priests go
in, the preachers of Dagon, they go in, Reverend so-and-so and
another Reverend so-and-so, they go in and they see Dagon and
he's fallen over on his face, and right beside him is the Ark
of the Covenant. And so they prop him back up
Get him all straightened out. Next morning, they come in to
the temple. And Dagon, he's on his back,
his hands broke off. His hands are broke off. And
there's the Ark of God. So they sent the Ark away, got
rid of it. Let's get rid of that. He had
animals pulling the ark. They took it. The ark then went
to Ekron. It brought death and destruction
to the city. And then they sent it away to
Bathshemesh, having put some jewels in a box right beside
the Ark of the Covenant. I said chapter 4. I want you
to look at chapter 6. Look at chapter 6 and verse 19. Chapter 6, verse 19, 1 Samuel. And God smote the men of Bethshemes. Why? Because they had looked
into the ark of the Lord. What did they have to do to look
into the ark of the Lord? They had to take the mercy seat
off. That's the only way you're going to see what's inside. And
when they took that mercy seat off, God, He smote of the people
50,070. 50,070 people died and the people
lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with
a great slaughter. And look at verse 20. 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? Who can stand
before this God? Oh, that's a very good question. Who can stand before this God? You take the mercy seat off,
now you're dealing one-on-one with the justice of God. You're bound to die. Oh, my friends, you don't want
an ark of the covenant without the lid, without the covering
of the mercy seat with blood sprinkled on it. You dare not
come to God any other way except by means of the blood sprinkled
on the mercy seat. God will kill you. You want to
die? You want to perish? You want
to spend eternity separated from God? then just ignore the mercy
seat. And I can tell you right now,
you're a goner. There's no hope for you. And
these people, 50,000, more than 50,000 people dead
just like that. Boom. What happened? They removed the mercy seat.
I tell you that mercy seat is really important. It is really
important. You see, that great Shekinah
glory that blessed Israel, that blessed Israel, that was a life
under life for some, was death under death for others. Now what's
it going to be with you? How are you going to come to
God? You go ahead and say, well, I'll come to God. He'll accept
me because I have lived a good life. No mercy seat. You've just eliminated the need
for the mercy seat. Because your good light stands
instead of the mercy seat. Well, God's Shekinah glory will
catch up with you. The judgment of God. Be wise. Be wise. Young people. Young
people. Be wise. Come to God through
the smitten Christ. wounded, bruised, crucified,
sacrificed, in order that God's justice be honored and satisfied. And we know He satisfied God's
law and justice because He was raised from the dead. It's just
one way to come to God and live. You want to live? You want life?
I want life. That's what I want. I want mercy. I want grace. I want salvation. Where am I going to find it?
In the blood of the Lamb. In the blood of Christ Himself.
Because you see, if you eliminate that mercy seat, now you're dealing
with the holy law of God that demands perfection. And one thing
you can't produce is perfection. The law of God examined you and
it won't have to examine very far before it finds that you're
unholy. And you'll eventually be swept
away in the judgment of God. And what happened to the Philistines
or to these people at Beth Shemesh is going to happen to you. You're
going to perish in your sins. Because the law of God knows
nothing about mercy. to approach God on any other
basis than the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus is to just take the
lid off the Ark of the Covenant. It's just to remove the mercy
seat. There's no salvation except in
Christ. But I want to show you something
else. If you will go back to our text, and there's one other
thing that I want to show you. We've studied now the Ark of
the Covenant, and we've studied the Mercy Seat, but there's something
else we need to give our attention to. The two cherubims. Look here at verses in chapter
25 of Exodus again, and look at verses 18 through 20. and thou shalt make two cherubims
of gold of beaten work, shalt thou make them in the two ends
of the mercy seat, and make one cherub on the one end and the
other cherub on the other end. Even of the mercy seat shall
ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. The cherubims
shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat
with their wings. Their faces shall look one to
another toward the mercy seat, shall the faces of the cherubims
be. And let me just keep reading.
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above the ark, above upon
the ark, and the ark thou shalt put, in the ark thou shalt put
the testimony that I shall give thee. Now watch this. and there
I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee above the mercy
seat and between the two chair bends which are upon the ark,
the testimony. God says that's where I'm gonna
meet you. I'll meet you between the chair bends. I was really astounded when I,
began to research these cherubims and how often the Bible mentions
there's where God dwelt between the cherubims. There are an abundance
of scriptures and you can look them up even as I did. Psalm 80 verse one. Give ear,
O shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock,
that dwellest between the cherubims. Shine forth. Psalm 99 and verse
one. The Lord reigneth. Let the people
tremble. He sitteth between the cherubims. Let the earth be moved. Isaiah
37, 16. O Lord of hosts, God of Israel,
that dwellest between the cherubims. And on and on and on we could
go. There are so many verses, it
would take a long time to read all of the verses in the Old
Testament that speak about where God dwelt. He dwelt between the
cherubims. The cherubims. Now, the language
of Exodus chapter 25 is very clear. These two cherubims are
not attached to the ark of the covenant, but rather they are
a part of the mercy seat. From which I draw this conclusion,
they have nothing to do with honoring or satisfying the law
of God themselves They have nothing to do with the high priesthood
of our Lord Jesus Christ. They have nothing to do with
the provision of God. Christ provides all of those
things. But the Lord seems to be always
in company with these cherubims. And I would challenge you if
you have access to a software program that looks up verses
for you, just type in, type in cherubims and run the references. And you'll see over and over
again, this is where God is said to have dwelt. What do these cherubims represent? That's the question. You see,
all of the tabernacle is like a great picture. Everything is
a picture of something. Everything symbolizes something. The brazen altar, the first thing
you come upon, the biggest piece of furniture of the tabernacle. What's that picture? The sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus. The brazen labor that the priest
would walk to and wash their hands and wash their feet. What
does that represent? The cleansing of Christ Jesus. We've already talked about inside,
the table of showbread, twelve loaves of bread, Christ who is
our sustenance, He's our life, He's our manna, He's the bread
of life, the golden candlestick. He's the one who illuminates
us. The altar of incense, where the incense was burned to God,
it's the prayers of our Lord Jesus. Everything pictures the
person of Christ, or the work of Christ, or the results of
Christ's work. Going to the holiest of all,
there's the Ark of the Covenant, God's law, Aaron's rod that budded. He's the high priest. We have
such a high priest, it says in Hebrews 8. Such a high priest. There's the golden pot of man.
God provides bountifully for us, and there's the law of God,
and then there's the mercy seat. Christ is the one who keeps the
law of God, and He is our mercy seat. Well, what's the cherubim's
a picture of? Gospel preachers. That's what
I believe they represent. They represent gospel preachers. You see, gospel preachers are
always focused on the blood. How do I know whether a man's
telling the truth or not? He's like these cherubim. Every
preacher of the Gospel is like these cherubim. They're focused
in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know how much you need
a preacher? I know today people learn two
or three verses of Scripture and say, I don't need a preacher.
Really. The Bible says, whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall they
call on Him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without
a preacher? It says in 1 Corinthians 1, it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. God has an order to things. And it pleased God that through
the foolishness of preaching, not preaching foolishness, there's
too much of that. But by what men call foolishness,
one man, one sinner getting up in front of other sinners and
telling them about the Savior, that's foolishness to men. But
that's how God saves His people. And He makes His people aware
of the mercy seat, and the ark of God, and the holiness of God. You've got to have a preacher. There's a man in the book of
Acts. He's called the Ethiopian eunuch. He's traveled a long
ways from Ethiopia, went to Jerusalem. And he didn't get anything there
that benefited him. He was there for the, looks like,
the Passover and then Pentecost. And he didn't get anything that
benefited him. And so he's going back and the
Spirit of God comes to Philip, who is in Samaria. and they're
having a revival in Samaria. There are people being converted.
So much so that a couple of the apostles traveled to Samaria
because they wanted to see firsthand the blessings of God upon the
ministry of Philip. And Philip there preaching and
ministering the Gospel, and the Spirit of God took him away miraculously
to this eunuch who's out in the desert riding on a chariot reading
Isaiah 53. And you know the story. Philip
comes up beside of him and they exchange a few words and then
Philip says, do you understand what you're reading? And we're
told right there in the book of Acts he's reading out of Isaiah
53. Reading about the Savior. I'd
be wounded for transgressions and bruised and so forth and
so on. Philip said, do you understand
what you're reading? And the man did not, he didn't
respond this way, well you think I'm a dummy? You think I don't know anything?
You take me for a fool? Oh no. He said, how can I? Except somebody showed me. You
know what God did for that Ethiopian eunuch? Who is one of God's chosen
vessels, a vessel chosen to mercy? One redeemed by the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. You know what God did for that
man? He sent him a preacher. That's what he did. Because how
are they going to hear without a preacher? And he began at the
same passage of Scripture in Isaiah 53 and preached Jesus
to him. The man believed and he was baptized. These cherubims, I believe, are
messengers of mercy. You know, in Revelation chapter
1, when John saw the exalted Christ, He saw that he was standing in
the middle of seven golden candlesticks. We'll get to the golden candlestick
pretty quick in our study. But he had in his right hand
seven stars. Seven stars. And I'm sure John was kind of
scratching his head thinking, what does all this mean? And the Lord told him. Well,
the seven golden candlesticks at seven local churches. And
those seven stars? Preachers. Angels. Messengers sent from God. And I'll tell you, these two
cherubims, I believe, They stand for, they're symbolic of preachers
of the gospel. To tell people of mercy. Where
can I find mercy, preacher? I wish I could find a sinner.
If I could find a sinner, I'd tell him where he'd find mercy.
He'd find mercy of the Lord through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus.
It says of these cherubims, they cover the mercy seat with their
wings as though to protect it. In my mind, these wings hover
over one facing the other now. These wings hover over the mercy
seat as though to say, nobody's gonna mess with this truth here.
That's what God's preachers do. God's preachers are always keeping
us on the right road, and what's important, the glorious gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And when somebody in the congregation
no matter who it is, kind of gives an indication that they
believe something other than the blood of Christ Jesus. The
cherubim of the Lord say, wait! It's the sacrifice only. And they keep focused on the
mercy seat. And they stretch forth their
wings as though ready to go anywhere and preach the gospel. There are two of them, which
reminds me of when our Lord sent His disciples out two by two. And when I think about these
two cherubims, I think, well, He has preachers in the Old Testament,
He had preachers back then, He's got preachers in the New Testament
too. There are two of them to whom
God gives power to be witnesses like He does in Revelation chapter
11 and verse 3. And God communes with and He
speaks to sinners as a result of the ministry of
these cherubims. It's an awesome verse to me.
And I've read this to you already a couple of times, but there
at verse 22, there, there I will meet with thee and I will commune
with thee from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubims. You know where God meets with
sinners? wherever his preachers are preaching
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where he meets
with his people. You say, well, he'll meet with
me by myself. Well, he does meet with his children. But if you're talking about ignoring
the public ministry of the Word, what we did this morning and
what we're doing right now, you got it all wrong. Don't dismiss
as being unimportant what God says is vital. Those two cherubim just looking
toward each other. You know it says in Isaiah chapter
52 of God's preachers, they all see eye to eye. They all see
eye to eye. Oh, I'm talking about major things,
not on minor things, but you show me a preacher of the gospel.
Bill was with us visiting this past Wednesday night. He said,
right over here. Privileged to preach to him. I like to listen
to him. We see eye to eye. All of God's
preachers see eye to eye. Because we're all looking down
at the mercy seat. We're looking at Christ crucified. That's what we're looking at. And we want you to look too.
That's what we want. I hope that's clear. God's gonna meet with us at the
place of perfect righteousness and justice. And we need Him
to meet with us at the place of perfect grace and mercy. There's
only one place. That blood-sprinkled mercy seat. That's the only place. God'll
meet you there and nowhere else. Well, let's pray. We thank you,
Lord, for the glorious gospel of grace and what pictures we
have of our Savior in the Old Testament. And we're just, we
just scratched the surface. We love to see him. We open the
Old Testament Scriptures and we delight to read and see and
perceive Christ crucified, buried, risen again, exalted. We love to read of the blood
of atonement. The blood on the mercy seat.
Thank God we don't have to deal with that law. Our Lord Jesus
honored it in His life. and He paid the penalty for us
breaking in in His death. So that law has nothing to do
with us. It doesn't accuse us. In fact,
the law of God sees in us the perfection of Christ Jesus and
demands that we go free because we are righteous in Him, the
Lord, our righteousness. Give to all who are here and
all who are watching. this saving faith in the Son
of God who loved us and who gave himself for us. For Christ's
sake I pray, amen.