and she said, can you help with
some of the lack of gospel truth in that song? And so I wrote
a couple of stanzas for that and doctored on it a little bit. That was a blessing. Thank you
for singing that. Let's go to Exodus chapter 25. The book of Exodus chapter 25,
and you can leave your Bibles open there, and I will get to
this portion of Scripture in a little bit. But in the Word
of God, there are three arcs that are mentioned, and each
one is designed to set forth our Savior. And of course that's
not surprising because all of the Old Testament is written
to point us to our Lord Jesus Christ. And so when it comes
to these three different arcs, they certainly show us a place
of safety, a place of preservation for the people of God. The first
ark that is mentioned in the Bible, of course, is the ark
of Noah. God told Noah to build an ark,
gave him the dimensions, he gave him the blueprints of how to
build that ark. It wasn't a boat, it wasn't a
ship, it wasn't designed to navigate waters, it was designed to float. and to be a place of safety for
Noah and his family. This was a divine provision of
God. God had looked, He had seen the
wickedness of man was great, and therefore God, He determined
He would send a universal judgment of water upon this earth. He would open up the fountains
of the deep, and He would open up the skies above, and water
would come from beneath, and water would come from above.
But there was one of God's sheep there who, by the grace of God,
loved our Lord, and that man's name was Noah. and God instructed
Noah to build this ark. It was large enough for Noah
and his family, and they had plenty of room for
all the different kinds of animals that God instructed Noah to take
into the ark with him. It was for the family of Noah
and for all of those animals. It was a place of safety. Safety
from the wrath of God. Safety from the judgment of God. Our God must punish iniquity. He will punish sin. The wickedness
had become so great that it's though God was saying, I'm not
going to put up with this much longer. 120 years. That's the days of man upon this
earth. But Noah, the Scripture says,
found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And they went into the
ark, Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives. The eight
of them went in, having taken the animals into the ark, undoubtedly
led by the hand of God. Those animals became meek and
manageable for Noah and his sons. They were all safely in the ark,
and then God called them into the ark, and then God shut the
door. And when God shut the door, after
a few days, then the water came up from beneath and the water
from above, And everyone in the ark, every animal in the ark
was absolutely safe. God did not hold back His judgment. This world was very much deserving
of the vengeance of God, the wrath of God. But God had provided for His
people a place of safety, Oh, the judgment
of God still fell on the ark. And those people were in the
ark, but there's no judgment that fell on them. And that picture
is our Lord Jesus. All of the elect of God are in
Christ. We were put in Christ before
the world began. God still had to punish our sin.
Had to do something about our sinfulness. And so He opened
the floodgates of His judgment upon our substitute, upon the
ark of our salvation. And our Lord Jesus bore all of
the vengeance of God that our sins deserved. And we were in
it. But not one drop of wrath has
ever or will ever touch us. We're safe in the ark of God's
salvation. Of course, the ark had one door,
one way of entrance. Didn't matter how big the animals
were, all went in the same door. And Noah and his wife and sons
and daughters-in-law, they went in the same door as did all of
the animals. Our Lord said, I am the way,
I am the truth, I am the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. He said, I am the door. By me,
if any man enter in, he shall be saved and go in and out and
find pasture. And I'll tell you, that ark,
Noah's ark, did its job. It did its job. It preserved
those occupants inside. And our Lord Jesus, He came into
this world to do a job. He had a work to do. And He finished
that work. He said He did. And in John 19.30,
He said, It is finished. I've saved my people. I've justified
my people by my bloody death. And there is therefore now no
condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not
after the flesh, but after the Spirit. We walk after the Spirit. Where do you think the Spirit
of God leads us? We walk after the Spirit. Where does the Spirit of God
lead us? He leads us to Christ Jesus.
He leads us to the ark of our salvation. And in the Savior,
We're safe. He's our ark. And then the second
ark mentioned in the Bible is the ark of bulrushes. The ark
of bulrushes. It's in Exodus, the second chapter. Of course, an evil Pharaoh had
taken over the reigns of Egypt. And he was angry with the Israelites
because they were multiplying and he determined he'd get rid
of all the little baby boys. And there was a couple of Israelites
down there in Egypt, Amram and Jacobed. And they had a little
boy. And his name was Moses. His name
became Moses. and they hid him as best they
could for three months. But when they couldn't hide him
anymore, they made an ark of bulrushes. And then, having pitched it within
and without with some kind of asphalt, they put Moses in, and
set him out among the, Scripture calls it, the flags of the river,
that is, the reeds of the river. They didn't put him out in the
water where the current would take him away. He's kind of right
there along the banks of the river, among the reeds, the flags,
where he couldn't be swept away, but he could be seen. The ark
of bulrushes kept him safe. He's God's chosen man. Moses. Protected by God. Pharaoh would
have killed him. He would have done away with
him. Pharaoh being a picture of Satan, the evil one. And he
would do away with the Lord Jesus. He would do away with us. But
as God protected His Son, so He protects us. And He protects
us in His Son. the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
no way that the evil one can have us. He can't touch us. He can't kill us. Because we
belong to God. We're the children of God. We've
always been the children of God. He can harass us, and He does. He can tempt us, and He does. He can, if God's pleased to use
him this way, make life difficult for us, and God does do that. But He can't have our souls.
He can't destroy us. Why not? We're safe in the ark
of Christ Jesus. And neither the Nile River will
swallow up Moses, Neither shall the river of this world swallow
us up, and Pharaoh won't get his claws into us, even as Pharaoh
didn't get his claws into Moses, though he wanted to some 40 years
later. God kept Moses safe. But then
it's this third ark that we're talking about now, the Ark of
the Covenant. Read with me here silently as
I read Exodus chapter 25, verse 10. And I told you this morning
that this is the very first piece of furniture that God gave instructions
about making, and later we find this is the very first piece
of furniture that was made. Exodus 25, 10. And they shall
make an ark of shittum wood, acacia wood, very durable. Two cubits and a half shall be
the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof,
and a cubit and a half the height thereof. Thou shalt overlay it
with pure gold within and without. It's the only piece of furniture
in the tabernacle overlaid within and without with gold. And then this has a crown of
gold round about to hold the lid of the ark. And thou shalt
make four rings of gold for it, put them in the four corners
thereof, and two rings shall be in the one side of it, two
rings in the other side of it, and thou shalt make staves of
shidom wood and overlay them with gold. and then thou shalt
put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that
the ark may be borne with them." The staves shall be in the rings
of the ark. They shall not be taken from
it. Nobody's going to put a hand
on that ark. They put a hand on the ark, they're going to
die. One fellow did much later, Uzzah. He laid his hand on the
ark, and you can't look in that ark. As a lot of people in Beth
Shemesh looked into the ark, God killed over 50,000 at one
time. This ark is to be borne by the
Levites. They're to put those sticks of
wood, those rods covered with gold through the rings and then
hoist it up and carry it. Verse 16. And thou shalt put
into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee, God's law. And then, here's the lid, 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 seed." And of course, we saw
this morning the very pattern for this back in Genesis chapter
3. 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. The
cherubims 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 shall give thee. And there, Moses, I will
meet with thee and speak or 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. This is the Ark of the Covenant. I'm so thankful that God has
not had anybody find the Ark of the Covenant. Because if they ever found the
Ark of the Covenant, they would do with it just exactly what
they did to the brazen serpent. You remember when Hezekiah took
the throne of Israel. or of Judah, excuse me, this
was after the king divided. Hezekiah took the throne. And
he started doing away with idolatry. And he found that brazen serpent
that had been kept and honored from the days that it was used
back in Moses' time in the wilderness. Moses had lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, a picture of our Lord Jesus being lifted
up as found in John chapter 3 and verse 14. But that brazen serpent
had been kept and revered, honored. This is sacred. And Hezekiah
found it. He broke it to pieces. He said,
this is just nehushtan. Nehushtan. What does that mean?
A worthless piece of brass. That's all it is. And if they
found the Ark of the Covenant, oh, don't you know men would
worship that and honor that? Just like they say they found
pieces of the cross upon which our Lord Jesus died. A stain
with His blood. It's just idolatry is all that
is. Idolatry. And God will have nothing
of that. This Ark of the Covenant, it
was very special back then because it was a picture. A picture of
the Lord Jesus and in Christ the law of God is preserved. In Christ the law is kept. In
Christ, as was in the Ark of the Covenant, the golden pot
of manna. In Christ, every provision that
His people need during our lifetimes and even throughout eternity,
He meets every need. That golden pot of manna, it's
in Christ. But my God shall supply all your
needs according to His riches in glory in and by Christ Jesus."
That's where the abundant supply is. It's in Him. There's a golden
pot of man in there. And there's Aaron's rod that
budded. He is God's high priest. And
as Aaron's rod laid down in the holy place, in the Holy of Holies,
along with 11 other rods, representatives of the 11 other tribes. And here's
Aaron's rod. Each rod had the name of the
respective person on it. And it put it in before the Lord,
all 12 rods, and the next morning, 11 of them rods just like they
were when it was put in there. But one of those rods, wow! It budded. and bloomed, it blossomed,
and bore almonds. Almonds. God said, that's my
high priest. Aaron's my high priest. And God
said, put that in the ark. Put that in the ark of the covenant.
Our Lord Jesus is the great high priest. He is the one who does
business with God. I read to you there in Hebrews
9, when Aaron, when the high priest, or whoever the high priest
of that particular year happened to be, he offered the blood of
a bullock and the blood of a goat. He offered the blood of a bullock
because he himself was a sinner. He's got to have a sacrifice
for Himself. But our Lord Jesus, He had no
sacrifice. There was no need of a sacrifice
for Himself. He's the perfect Son of God. And the blood that He offered
to God, the blood of atonement, was not the blood of bulls or
goats or rams or turtledoves or any other kind of animal.
It was His own blood. And by His own blood, He entered
in once. into the presence of God. So
inside that Ark of the Covenant, as a place of preservation, there's the law of God. He kept
it. He honored it. And because He honored that law,
and He saved us by His grace. That law has absolutely no claim
to any of God's people. We sing that song, free from
the law. Oh, happy condition. That's a
happy condition to be free from the law of God. Free from bondage. We have liberty in Christ Jesus
to worship. And when we sin, which we do
numerous times every day, we're not scared that the law of God's
going to come after us with judgment. We're not scared that God's going
to beat the fire out of us. He chastens those whom He loves,
no question about that. But that's the loving chastisement
of a parent. But there's no punishment to
the people of God. There's no judgment to the people
of God. And the law of God is satisfied
with us. Because the law of God is preserved
perfectly in our ark, Christ Jesus. Aren't you afraid that God will
come after you in judgment for your sins? Aren't you scared
that when you appear before the Lord that the Lord is going to
embarrass you before all the people who've ever lived and
all of the angels of God and all of the demons there? He's
going to embarrass us before them all at the judgment and
say, you failed me here. You sinned here. I'm going to
take more rewards away from you. Aren't you afraid of that? Not
in the least. My Savior answered every demand
of divine justice for me. The law is silent. In fact, if the law of God could
speak, it would say, let him go. I found a ransom. Somebody's already paid for his
sins. You show me anywhere in God's
Word where a child of the king was afraid, afraid to meet God
when he died. Fearful of embarrassment. Fearful
of being shamed. Put to shame because of their
failures during life. No! They all look forward to
seeing the Lord. And so do I. And you should as
well. Because the law of God was not
made for a righteous man. Are you righteous? Huh? Are you? I am. That's big talk. That's big talk
for a sinner. It is. And if it wasn't so, it
would be terrible to say it. But I'm righteous in Christ Jesus. His name is Jehovah Sid Canu,
the Lord our righteousness. And guess what? That's our name
too. What is it that God demands? Perfection. What is it that the
law of God demands? Perfection. I'm righteous in
Christ. I don't have any sin. In that
day, the sins of Judah and Israel shall be sought for, the iniquity
shall be sought for, every rock turned over. Is there any sin
to be found, any transgression to be found against these people?
No! Why not? Jesus paid it all. All the debt I owe. Sin had left
a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. The ark. The law is safely preserved in
there. The golden pot of manna is in
there. It reminds us that through all
their wilderness journeys, God met every need of the Israelites.
Even their shoes didn't wear out, that's what it says. Their
shoes didn't wear out. Don't you worry about God taking
care of you. He has the ability and He has
the strength and He has the willingness to take care of His children.
You don't have any idea, nor do I, of how much the Lord loves
His children. And the very best illustration
of His love is that He gave us His only begotten Son. herein
is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and gave
His Son to be the propitiation of our sin, the satisfaction
of divine justice. He spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all. How shall He not with Him freely
give us all things? Everything we need. Let me tell
you something. All you need is Christ Jesus. If you have Him, you can rest
assured you have all spiritual blessings in Him. You have everything. That's the reason this idea there
are going to be different levels of heaven. It's the reason that idea is just
foolish. Some are going to get more than
others. That's a crazy idea. The works mongers raised that
up idea. That's what that's all about.
Giving glory to the flesh. If you have all spiritual blessings,
and I have all spiritual blessings, and everybody else has all spiritual
blessings, nobody's going to get more than anybody else. The
fact of the matter is, all we want is Christ. That's all we
want. And having Him, we have everything. We have everything. And you see this Ark of the Covenant. It's not only a place of safety,
but it's a place where God said, I'm going to meet with you. That's
what He told Moses. I'm going to meet with you here.
And He did. He met Moses at the Ark. And
he spoke to Moses at the ark, and then a little later, then
Aaron the high priest, God's going to meet him at the ark
of the covenant, and God's going to speak with him too. And if you want to speak with
God, you better go to God through Christ Jesus. Otherwise, He's
not going to hear you. Not so as to receive you. I mean,
He hears everything. But if you seek something from
God, you come to Him the right way through Christ Jesus. He's the meeting place. He's
the one you've got to speak to. Not Mary. She can't help you. Not some other dead child of
God. They can't help you. They found
all they needed in Christ too. Only one who can help you with
all your neediness. And I'm telling you, you and
me, we're very needy people. But everything we need's in Him. Everything. We meet God in Christ Jesus.
We meet God with broken hearts over sin, and He meets us with
perfect forgiveness in Christ. It's amazing, isn't it? We meet
God with sorrow over our guilt, and He meets us with acceptance
in Christ. We meet God in our misery, and
He meets us in His mercy. We meet God in our filthy rags
of righteousness, self-righteousness, He meets us with the righteousness
of His Son. We meet Him with a hungry heart
and He meets us with the bread and the wine of the Gospel. We meet God with the thirst for
His presence. He meets us with the water of
life. We meet God in our darkness. He meets us with light from on
high. We meet God in times of sorrow. He meets us with words of cheer.
We meet God in our weakness. He meets us in His strength.
He meets us in our loneliness. You know anything about loneliness? He meets us with His comforting
presence. We meet God in our neediness.
He meets us with the riches of His grace. What a glorious message is to
be found in this Ark of the Covenant. And I'll just tell you this,
what it's made out of. This Ark of the Covenant was
made out of, first of all, Shittim wood, or acacia wood. This was a very durable, it was
the most durable wood that could be found in all of the wilderness. These are the trees that grew
in the desert, in the wilderness. And picture the humanity of our
Savior. It was the only, I'll give you
several things. Number one, it was the only real
timber tree of any considerable size in the wilderness. And it
actually thrived. It thrived in the desert under
the most adverse conditions and circumstances. Our Lord Jesus,
He's pictured by this acacia wood, this acacia tree. He tabernacled
in this dry and thirsty land. And while there was nothing here
to sustain Him, He was kept by the strength of
his father and provided for, and he was sustained himself
under the most adverse circumstances. These Shittum trees, they were
very unattractive, we read. They had a kind of a gnarled,
gnarled trunk, sometimes at least two feet thick, twisted branches,
which But some of the old historians say that those acacia trees kind
of look like a twisted umbrella. Not a very beautiful tree at
all. And so we read, you read this
morning, there's no beauty about him that we would desire him. I'll tell you this, every sinner
who gathers under the branches of Christ finds Him to be an
umbrella. He's an umbrella from the wrath
of God. And the boards that were cut
from this tree were very hard and close grained. It'd be hard
to split, I suspect. But it made them very durable.
and virtually incorruptible. And that teaches us the Son of
God, He could not be corrupted by sin. He did no sin, no sin
was in Him, and even when He died, He was not corrupted by
the sin which He bore in His own body on the tree. He couldn't
be corrupted. That's why his offering to God
was a sweet savor. A sweet savor to God, because
it was a sinless offering. And to further prove that his
was a sinless offering, even in his death, his body didn't
see corruption. Something else about these trees,
they had very long, sharp thorns. And though Christ is crowned
with honor and glory now, this world had a crown for Him. And
it was a crown of thorns. And the bark of the tree. I found
this to be interesting. The bark of the tree, when pierced
at night, it's like they would milk the tree at night to draw
out the sap. The rosin of the acacia tree
was used as medicine called gum arabic. Christ was bruised by the Father
in the darkness for our sins. His blood's the only cure for
what ails us, our sins. with his stripes were healed.
His blood is the balm in Gilead, Jeremiah 8.22. His blood makes
atonement for the soul. And then the ark, this wood was
covered within and without with pure gold. Certainly the acacia wood pictured
his humanity, real man. The gold pictured his deity.
He's more than a man. Oh, He's all man without sin. He's all man, but also He's all
God. He's not half man, half God. He's all man. He's bone of our
bone, flesh of our flesh. He's our elder brother. He's
not ashamed to call us brethren. Yes, He's one of us. One of us. It took one of us to suffer,
bleed, and die. Death is the penalty. God can't
die. Christ died. The Son of Man died. But He's more than a man. He's
God. Manifest in the flesh. Great
is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. He's the source of life. He's
the source of all blessings. And in Him, we're safe and secure
forever. Do you know who put us in Him? God did. And He did it before
He ever made this world. In fact, we've always been in
Him. Isn't that right? We've always
been in Christ Jesus. So therefore, we've always been
safe. Safe in the Son of God. United to Him by sovereign grace. And we shall last as long as
He lasts. And that's forever. And nobody can break this relationship
we have with Christ Jesus. God did it. To God be the glory. Great things He has done. Let's
pray. Lord, how shall we find the words
to fully express our thanksgiving for that one who is pictured
by the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat, the mercy seat
being the propitiatory where the blood was sprinkled. Oh,
thank you for Christ. Thank you for the Son of the
Highest. Thank you, Father, for our blessed Savior. We've tried
to honor Him and you today, We've tried to exalt the Lord our God,
and if we've been able to do that, we certainly give You the
glory. No honor, no glory is to go to
any flesh in this building. Anything that is done here that
blesses us is of God, and we thank You. We thank You for Your
Word. We thank You for Your people.
and we thank you for the privilege to meet together to worship our
God in spirit and in truth. Guide us as we go home, and may
all of your people go home rejoicing. Oh, how safe and preserved we
are in the ark of our salvation. the Lord Jesus Christ, in his
name I pray, amen.