In Exodus 25, we're going to
look at the mercy seat, Christ our mercy seat. And the instructions
for the mercy seat begin in verse 17 of Exodus 25. 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, of beaten works, that
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 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 upon the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the
testimony that I shall 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." Now, the mercy seat was a pure slab of
gold. It wasn't wood covered with gold. It was a pure slab of gold. It's
four feet long, two and a half feet wide, and the cherubims
on each end of it were all part of one piece. They didn't make
the cherubims and attach them. They're all one piece. Now, nobody
knows how thick the mercy seat was, but it was a pure slab of
gold. And if it had any thickness at
all, everyone agrees that this, money-wise, is the most valuable
piece of furniture in all of the tabernacle. And it's that
way to give us a picture of the price of redemption. The cost. What did it cost our Lord Jesus
Christ? to redeem sinners, like you and me, is a higher price
than we can imagine. We can't think that high. We
don't even have numbers that go that high. And the most valuable
piece of furniture in all the tabernacle is the centerpiece
of the tabernacle. And it's given to us as a picture
of Christ. And I'll give you a few of those
ways this is a picture. First of all, the mercy seat
is an exact fit onto the top of the ark, an exact fit. It
wasn't too short. It wasn't too narrow. It was
an exact fit. And that's a picture of our Lord
Jesus Christ. Christ is an exact fit. Whatever
it is you need, Christ is the exact fit. He's not too short. He's not too narrow. He's the
exact fit. Christ is an exact fit to save
an exact, precise number of people that the Father gave him in the
covenant of grace. The righteousness of Christ and
the sacrifice of Christ is an exact fit. It's exactly what
it took to save all those people that God elected out of Adam's
fallen race. Christ is not too broad. The mercy seat wasn't too broad,
so it had edges hanging over the ark. It's an exact fit. He's
not too broad, so if there's something left over, waste it.
Christ didn't die for somebody who couldn't go to hell anyway.
None of his sacrifice, none of his blood is wasted. and he's
not too narrow. If the mercy seat was too narrow,
he'd fall down in to the ark. But not too narrow, it's an exact
fit. Christ is not too narrow, so
he can't save everyone that comes to him seeking mercy. He's an
exact fit for God's covenant of grace. Christ did not die
to make salvation possible for as many men as might well decide
to accept him. Christ died to make salvation
certain. certain for everyone God chose
every sinner that comes to him. Salvation is certain because
he's an exact fit. And the mercy seat covered everything
that was in this ark, and one of the things we looked at last
week in the ark was the law. The mercy seat covered that law. It's all everything's covered.
Sometimes I'll tell my daughters, you know, we go out to a restaurant,
they've got some Expense, you know, I expect an expense to
come up. And I tell them, don't worry, I got you covered. I tell
them, that's a phrase I like to use. I got you covered. And
what that means is you don't have to worry. I'll take care
of everything. You don't have to pay anything.
Just don't worry. I'll take care of everything for you. That's
what Christ does for his people. That's what's pictured in the
law being covered by the mercy seat. Christ completely covers
the law for his people. He covered it all. Christ was
obedient to every point of the law. Every jot and tittle of
the law. Everything it required, Christ
kept it perfectly. He covered it. He completely
covered and fulfilled every requirement of God's law. And he freely imputes,
he gives that obedience to his people. We don't have any obedience. We haven't kept one jot, one
speck of God's law. We don't have any obedience.
So Christ gives his obedience, he imputes it, gives it to his
people, so everything's covered. We don't have to worry about
the law. I haven't kept any bit of the law, but I don't have
to worry about it, because Christ has got it covered. But the law
also requires death for sin, and Christ covered that too.
He was obedient, Scripture says, even unto death, to die the death
of the cross. He died the death of the cross,
because that's what the curse of our sin requires. Well, he
bore that curse. He suffered and died the cursed
death that the sins of his people deserved. And his blood covered
the sin debt. His blood was enough to pay the
entire sin debt. His blood covered the broken
law. When the high priest would come in once a year on the Day
of Atonement, he'd sprinkle blood on the mercy seat. That was a
picture of Christ's blood, shedding his blood to cover all the sin
debt, to cover the broken law of his people. I told you the
mercy seat. It's the most valuable piece
of furniture in all the tabernacles. You think of the value of the
person of Christ, the blood of Christ. You think of the value
of the forgiveness of sins. Now, most people don't see any
value in that. And you know why most people
don't see any real value in the sacrifice of Christ? They don't
know they're sinners. If you're a sinner, you see the
sacrifice of Christ as valuable. That it's the only way your sin
can be paid for. To a sinner, nothing's more valuable
than having our sin paid by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And someone will say, oh, you don't know me though. I'm a sinner. I mean, I'm a sinner. I'm a vile,
I disgust myself, I'm such a bad sinner. The message of this mercy
seat to that person is don't fear. Christ has got you covered. He covered the law. He covered
the dead. And all we do is rest in Him.
And all those Old Testament sacrifices, what they did is remind people
constantly, your sin's not paid for. Your sin's not paid for.
Your sin's not paid for. I know it's not paid for because
I offered a lamb this morning, but I got to offer another one
tonight. Sin's not paid for. It's just this constant rinse
and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, because the
stain's not gone. Certainly no animal sacrifice,
animal blood is not going to put that stain away, is it? And
nothing you and I do, nothing we do can cleanse the stain of
that sin. It can only be the blood of Christ
that can put that sin away. And God gave us a picture in
this mercy scene. Someone's coming who is going
to put sin away. Someone's coming who's going
to give away that sinners can have mercy and meet with God. And the mercy seat is closely
tied to the blood of the sacrifice. The high priest only saw it one
time a year. And every time he saw it, what was he doing? Sprinkling
blood on it with a spindle. The blood is what covers the
sin debt and enables God to be merciful to sinners. Now, that's
valuable. if you're a sinner. If you're
not a sinner, you don't think you're a sinner, then that's
not valuable. But if you're a sinner, this is valuable. Now, the mercy
seat, they called it the throne of God on earth. That's what
the Jews called it. It's God's throne. You know,
the high priest, though, could only approach this throne through
the blood of the sacrifice. See how over and over again,
when you talk about the mercy seat, you can't get away from
the blood. He approached the throne through the blood of the
sacrifice. And we don't have the mercy scene,
we don't have the slab of gold anymore. But Roy said in his
prayer, he said, what was true in this day, the day we had is
still true today. We still only approach God's
throne one way, through the blood, through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We come before the throne, cleaning
the blood. Now listen, in our day, people
make it sound like You approach God just like you do some yahoo
down the street. It's like it's no big deal. Approaching
God is a big deal. He's the King. He's the Sovereign. He's on the throne. Now we come
before God as His children, but we're still approaching the throne
of the Sovereign. And we're approaching the Sovereign,
begging Him for mercy, aren't we? We're mercy beggars. He don't
have to give it. We're begging Him for it. But
now listen, we're begging on awful good ground. When we beg
for mercy based on the blood of God's precious Son, that's
good ground. The Father loves the Son. And if we plead for mercy based
on the blood of the Son, based on the righteousness of God's
Son, that's good ground. You can approach the sovereign
God on good ground, begging for mercy based on the blood of God's
Son. Now the mercy seat is a seat.
It's the only seat in all the tabernacle. There's no seat anywhere
in this place because the high priest could never sit down because
his work's never finished. But Christ's work is finished. And he's not just sitting on
a wooden chair somewhere. He's seated on a throne, on the
throne of heaven at the right hand of the Father. And he sits
there ruling and reigning because the work's finished. Redemption
is accomplished, and he's ruling as king. He bought this place,
and he's ruling over it. And we rest in him. It's not
that we did anything so we could rest, or we don't have to keep
working and keep doing things to keep ourselves in a good standing
with God. We rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's seated, and we're seated
in him. That's the only place a sinner
will ever find rest. for our weary souls, is in the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's seated, resting on His throne. And the Shekinah glory of God
dwelt on this throne, on this mercy seat. Between these wings
of the cherubim, the Shekinah glory of God shone there. God dwelt with His people on
this mercy seat. And He said, it's there that
I'll meet with you. It's there I'll commune with
you. But now here's what you wonder. God's holy. How can a holy God dwell in the
midst of this sinful people? And we know Israel's sinful.
I mean, you just read their history. I mean, they're so sinful, rebellious,
stiff-necked people. We are too. They got the same
nature we do. How can God, a holy God, dwell
with people like us? By the blood of the sacrifice.
It's a mercy seat, but you can't get away from the blood, can
you? This mercy seat is where the blood of the sacrifice was
sprinkled. Now this is the throne of God
on earth. And God can meet with sinners
at his throne based on the blood of the sacrifice. And I'll give
you a good illustration of this. The throne of God on earth, that's
what they called this, was literally covered with blood, wasn't it?
Every year the high priest came sprinkling blood on this, the
throne of God, covered with blood. In Revelation chapter 5, the
apostle John said, I saw the throne of God. And on that throne,
in the midst of that throne, seated on that throne, what did
John see? A lamb as it had been slain. And that phrase, as it
had been slain, you know what that literally means? I saw a
lamb freshly slaughtered. The blood was still fresh. It
hadn't hardened up and scaffed over. The blood was still fresh.
John saw a vision of the throne of God in heaven covered with
blood. Freshly slaughtered lamb. Same
as this mercy seat. It's covered with the blood.
And because of that blood, God can meet with sinners and commune
with them and talk with them and have mercy upon them because
of the blood. In the New Testament, the Hebrew word in the Old Testament
for mercy seat is the same as the Greek word in the New Testament
that's translated propitiation. And the word means to appease
or to expiate or to make satisfaction. Look in Hebrews chapter 2. The New Testament has a lot to
say about propitiation. It means the same thing as the
mercy seat in the Old Testament. Hebrews 2 verse 17, I have a
volunteer. Good. To make reconciliation.
And that word reconciliation, a more correct translation of
that would be to make propitiation for the sins of the people. Now,
this thing about propitiation. In order for God to show mercy
to a sinner, God's got to do something for himself first.
God must do something for himself first before he can show mercy
to sinners like you and me. The propitiation is for God.
God can't violate His holiness and His justice and His righteousness
and do something for a sinner and save a sinner by ignoring
the sin. God's holiness, God's justice
must be appeased, it must be satisfied, expiated before God
can show mercy to a sinner. The propitiation of Christ enables
God to remain holy. and still show mercy to sinners.
And the reason he can do that is because the sacrifice of Christ
removed the sin. It took the sin away. Now God
can be merciful by the blood of Christ. Once sin's put away,
God's satisfied. There's no reason for God to
be angry anymore. Now he can do something for a
sinner. See, he covered the sin for himself. He did something
for himself first. Then he can show mercy to sinners.
Now that's the definition of propitiation. You look it up,
that's the definition of it. But propitiation, it's not a
doctrinal idea. Propitiation is not an idea that
we read in a dictionary or something, words on paper. Christ doesn't
just provide propitiation for the sins of His people. Christ
is our propitiation. The propitiation is not a point
of doctrine. The propitiation is a person.
It's the Lord Jesus Christ. If you look in 1 John chapter
2, I'll show you this. Christ is our propitiation because
Christ removed the sin of His people by the sacrifice of Himself. In 1 John 2, verse 1. Little children, these
things write I unto you that you sin not. And if any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,
and he is the propitiation for our sins. Not ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world. Christ is the propitiation. He's got you covered. It's not
something he brought that covered. He is our covering. Look over
in chapter 4, verse John. Verse John 4, verse 10. Do I
got a volunteer? Okay, Brady, read verse 10 for
us. Good. He sent His Son to be the
propitiation. He didn't send His Son to provide
the propitiation. He sent His Son to be the propitiation,
to be the mercy seat, to be the covering for the sins of His
people. Romans 3 verse 24, being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption of the same Christ Jesus, whom
God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood to
declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are
past through the forbearance of God. God set His Son forth
to be the propitiation. And here's how God's reconciled.
Here's how God can forgive the sins of the Old Testament believers
that are past and the sins of New Testament believers that
are all in the future. He did it all at the same time
through one sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
word propitiation that Paul uses here in verse 25 is the exact
same word that's translated mercy seat in Hebrews I believe it
is, Hebrews 9, 5, when the writer's talking about all the pieces
of furniture in the tabernacle, he mentioned the mercy seat.
That's the exact same word that's translated for propitiation here
in Romans 3. God sent his Son forth to be
the mercy seat, and we're saved through faith. That's what he
says here, through faith in his blood, through faith in the blood
of Christ, which is pictured by the blood sprinkled on the
mercy seat on the day of atonement. Now the propitiation was done
by God. I told you it was done before
God, because he had to do something for himself first, right? The
blood was not offered to the people. The blood was offered
before the Lord. The people never even hardly
saw the blood. I guess they could see it if you could be in the
courtyard, you know, and the animal was being slain and they're
catching the blood. But after that, you didn't see
it anymore, because it wasn't offered to me. It was offered
before God on the mercy seat. That blood was offered to satisfy
God, to appease God's holy anger against sin. The children of
Israel never saw the blood. It was just sprinkled on the
mercy seat. When our Lord Jesus Christ came to die, He didn't
die at all for His blood to sinners. You see, would you accept it?
Would you like to be washed in my blood? No. He offered the blood
before the Father. He was sacrificed to please God. He offered his blood before the
Father as payment for the sin debt of his people. Christ died
to make propitiation by bringing his blood into the holiest of
all before the Father. And that's pictured in the mercy
seat. Thousands of times this mercy
seat was covered with the blood of the sacrifice on the Day of
Atonement. And it keeps showing us over and over and over again
that there's a place God will meet There is a mercy seat, a
place to have mercy with God, but it can only be through the
blood of the sacrifice. And now that God's propitiated,
now that God's satisfied, now God can do something for sinners.
In verse 26 of Romans 3, that's what Paul says, to declare, I
say at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and the
justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Now God can still be
just and justify the ungodly because Christ paid for their
sins, because he is our perpetuation. And God said, this is where I'll
commune with you. I'll commune with you. I'll talk
with you. I'll fellowship with you. At the mercy seat. Nowhere else. At the mercy seat.
This is the place that God would meet with men. The glory of God
shown above this mercy seat. In four different times, David
talks about the shadow of thy wings. And every time he does,
he's speaking of the mercy seat. Every time David talks about
the shadow of thy wings, he's talking about a place where a
sinner can come have mercy. We won't turn to all of them.
I'll read these to you. The first one is Psalm 17, verse 8. David
says, keep me as the apple of thy eye. Hide me under the shadow
of thy wings. And what David's pleading for
mercy, hide me under the shadow of thy wings, the place where
the blood is sprinkled. That's where I need to be hidden.
That's where I can be covered under the blood of the sacrifice.
These cherubims, the shadow of their wings, what are they looking
down at? At the blood, the blood of the sacrifice. David said,
that's where I can be hidden. That's where my sins can be covered,
in the shadow of thy wings. Psalm 36, verse 7. David says,
How excellent is my loving kindness, O God. Therefore, the children
of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. Where
can you put your trust of salvation? Under the shadow of thy wings.
What's in the shadow of thy wings? The blood of the sacrifice. You
can have full trust and confidence that your salvation is secure
here, God, because God will forgive sin for Christ's sake. That's
why we can trust there. In Psalm 63 verse 7, David says,
Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy
wings will I rejoice. How can a sinner rejoice? How
can a dead sinner, separated from God in his birth, rejoice? Because of the blood. Because
of the blood of Christ, I'm not separated from God anymore. And
we can rejoice. Now, I want you to look at this
one, Psalm 57. Psalm 57. In verse 1, David says, ìBe merciful
unto me, O God, be merciful unto me, for my soul trusteth in thee. Yea, in the shadow of thy wings
will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpassed.
I will cry unto God Most High, unto God that performeth all
things for me." He's got it covered. He performed all things for me.
He shall send from heaven and save me from the reproach of
him that will swallow me up. God shall send forth his mercy
and his truth. See, there's only one place God
will meet with men today. In this day, he'd meet with men
in mercy and truth under the shadow of thy wings because of
the sacrifice of Christ. We don't have the mercy seat
anymore. Where will God meet with you and me? In Christ. In Christ. Because of his sacrifice,
God can meet with us both in mercy and in truth because of
the person and the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, these
cherubims that are on either end of the mercy seat that form
the shadow here that David is talking about, they're part of
the mercy seat. They didn't make them and then
attach them to the mercy seat. The mercy seat's all one piece,
one beaten work, the scripture said. We read that to open up
our lesson. One beaten work. And we saw this
in the lampstand. Salvation of a sinner requires
a beating. beating of the body of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Mercy to sinners requires that
Christ suffer the beating, the punishment that our sin deserves.
So these cherubims are all one part of the slab here of the
mercy seat. And they're also a symbol of
power. We've seen this a couple of times. We've looked at cherubims.
They're mighty living creatures. Now, if you try to separate the
power, these symbols of power from the mercy seat, You'd destroy
it. You'd break it, because it's
all one piece. They weren't attached, and you could take them off,
and the slab would remain. You'd break it, if you tried
to tear off these children. When men today preach this Jesus,
and you can't see my nose, but that's a little J. That's not
the Lord Jesus Christ. They preach this fake Jesus,
who does not have absolute power, who does not have absolute authority,
who does not have omnipotence, all power. You know what they
do? They destroy the gospel. Just
like you destroy the mercy seat if you try to tear these cherubims
off of it. They don't have any power in any gospel at all if
they take away the absolute authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the leper that came to our Lord begging to be cleansed understood
that. He said, Lord, if you will, you make me clean. See, there's
no question of power. If you will, you can. The question
is, will you? Will you be merciful to me for
Christ's sake? So throughout the history, that's
the mercy scene, kind of what it means, but throughout Israel's
history, we see how important this mercy scene is. One day,
the Philistines attacked and they came and took the mercy
scene, took it away. And Eli was the priest at that
time. His daughter-in-law came and told him, your son's been
killed. All right. She's sitting in an
oxygen tank. The ark and the mercy seat were
taken. Eli didn't fall back in horror because his sons died.
Eli fell back in horror, hit his head and died because the
mercy seat, the ark, was taken from Israel. And his daughter-in-law
said, Ichabod, the glory's departed. The glory of God's departed from
Israel because the ark's gone. And the glory of God only shone
above the mercy seat. I want you to remember this. You might need it someday. How
should we respond if Ichabod happens? If the glory of God
is taken from this place because the gospel has been taken out?
How should we respond? Get out. Don't say because you
grew up in this building. Are you listening to me? Don't
say because you grew up here. Stay because the gospel's here.
If Ichabod happens and the glory's departed, the glory of God is
seen in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If it's not here,
go somewhere where it is. Okay? Get out. That's the importance
of this mercy seat. When it's taken from Israel,
the glory left. The glory of God left Israel.
But one day they brought it back. And David rejoiced. David went
out in front. They had a big processional bringing
the ark back. I'm so happy because the glory
of God returned to Israel. He danced and rejoiced in front
of this big processional. Some people thought David looked
awful foolish dancing out there in front of all the people. His
wife was one of them. Said, you look like a fool out
there dancing. And David said, I'm not a fool.
I'm rejoicing because the glory of God has come back to Israel.
Now, we rejoice when Christ is praised. We should be also praised.
that the glory of God is in our midst. I know the glory of God's
in our midst because it's gospel script. We should be so thankful
and we should rejoice over that. You know, we don't have to go
around like those old Puritans. You know, those old Puritans
are always frowning and just going around, you know. They
look like they're just depressed people. I mean, I read some of
their writings and I was like, well, I can't read that very
long. You know, they're just down to mouth all the time. That's
not the right attitude. A believer should rejoice in
Christ Jesus. Christ makes the heart of his
people glad and happy. But, don't get carried away with
that. You know, people in our day take
that to, you know, one extreme is being like the Puritans, and
the other extreme is being like he's nuts today, you know. You
can get carried away with this happiness business until you
get an unholy familiarity with God. Don't do that either. Now
I'll give you a good illustration. You all love your mom and dad,
don't you? Don't you? You love them. You're not afraid
of your dad when he comes, are you? Say you're not afraid of
your dad when he comes up. No, you're happy to see him,
aren't you? You're not afraid of him. You're happy to see him.
But you care to talk to him too, aren't you? He's your dad. Talk to him with respect, because
that's what he deserves, because he's your dad. Believers are
the same way. Now, we're a happy people. We
speak to our Heavenly Father and about our Heavenly Father
with reverence. And you don't trifle with God's
Ark. Just like today, you don't trifle
with the preaching of Christ. In 1 Samuel chapter 5, when the
Philistines had the Ark, they thought, what are we going to
do with it? Well, we'll set it up in the house of our idol,
Dagon. We'll have Dagon there, we'll
have the Ark there. you know, we have everything
covered, all different kinds of religion, you know, we're
all covered under one roof. Well, they came in the morning, Dagon
was laying on the ground, face down, before the Ark, like he
was bowing to the Ark. And they thought, hmm, that's
strange. They set Dagon back up in his place. He couldn't
put himself back up, he's dead. So they had to set him up there.
Next morning, they came in, Dagon's on his face, before the Ark again,
this time His hands are cut off, just a stump of him remaining.
I guess, I don't know what they did, I guess they stuck that
stump back up there. And then all these strange diseases and
ailments start happening to him. The Philistines are miserable.
And they finally realized, all this is happening to us because
we stole the Ark. Let's get this thing out of here. Because it's
causing us all this pain and agony. Send it back to Israel. And they did, that's what they
did. But they didn't send the priest to carry the ark on the
staves like God told them to. We looked at this last week.
They put it on a cart. Oh, it was a new cart. I mean,
you know, it's the best we got. We're not going to do it God's
way. We're going to do it the best way we know how. And the
oxen stumbled and the ark shook. A man named Uzzah reached up
his hand just to steady it. He didn't want God falling on
the ground and breaking. God struck him dead that instant.
Because you don't trifle with the ark of God. This is a holy
thing. Now, we don't have the ark anymore. But we're still on holy ground.
When we preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are
on holy ground. And you don't trifle with the
preaching of Christ. And you don't trifle with the
hearing of the preaching of Christ either. We do it carefully and
reverently. So we come to Christ that we
find mercy. The Israelites can come to the
mercy seat. You and I have so much better.
We come to Christ. We come to the actual propitiation
that we can have mercy for our sins. Not come reverently, but
come. Because in Christ is where we
can have mercy. All right. The Lord bless you.