Our study this morning is going
to be about Christ, our mercy seat. We've been looking at these
various things in the tabernacle, and last week we talked about
the ark being a picture of Christ and those things that are in
the ark. And today, continuing our study
of the Old Testament types, I want us to look at the mercy seat. What is the mercy seat? We read
about it in the Old Testament. We read all the instructions
and how big it was and how tall it was and what it was made out
of. But what is the mercy seal? It was, most believe, the lid
of the Ark of the Testament. That's what it is. It's the lid. It's what seals those things
which were put within it. That's what sealed those things. the mercy seat. So that the ark
and the mercy seat, when they were set before men, were set
before men as woman. You didn't have the ark sitting
here and the mercy seat sitting over here. The mercy seat was
part of the ark. It was the lid, the covering.
And neither the ark nor the mercy seat alone could fully set forth
the salvation of sinners, but together They're a complete figure
of how God saves sinners. Christ is the seed of all mercy. There's no mercy apart from Christ. No mercy. If the ark and those
things sealed within it were put in there, to me, the ark
without the mercy seat is like preaching Christ without preaching
what he's accomplished, who he is, and what he has accomplished. If you take away his satisfaction
of divine justice, things in the ark are meaningless. He had
to satisfy justice. He had to satisfy God. He had to reconcile us to God. And so Christ is the seat of
all mercy. Now I have four or five things
I want you to consider about this glorious work of God that
God gave to Moses by pattern to put within the tabernacle. And the first thing I want you
to see and consider is that God calls it a seat. A seat, I thought
that grabbed my mind right off the bat. The mercy seat. So what in the world? A mercy
seat. Now a seat is an object designed
to sit on, but I don't believe that's what he's talking about
here. Here, I believe he's talking about its purpose or its station,
you might want to say. If we refer to the capital, then
we're talking about the what? The seat of government. Isn't
that what we're talking about? The seat of government. And this
seat typifies our great Redeemer in that he is the seat of all
mercy. The authority, station, means,
and way are all incorporated in this mercy seat. Paul said, be it known unto you,
therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins. Through this man. There's no
preaching forgiveness of sins apart from the mercy seat. And
that seat is Christ. And if you need to pay your taxes
or renew your driver's license, like I did, I let them expire
the other day and I panicked all the way into Magnolia. And
it was no problem. She just said, OK. And I got
a new driver's license. But if you need to do that, you're
going to have to go to the county seat and get your driver's license. And if you're suing for mercy,
you don't go to the county seat. You go to the mercy seat. You
go where God has purposed to show mercy, and that's in his
son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then also being a seat, it
is the seat of the sovereign Christ. And being the seat of
the sovereign Christ, you might even say that it was a throne
of grace. That's what, if you look it up
in its context, when Paul's talking about the throne of grace, that's
what he's talking about, Christ, Christ. Listen to this, Paul
said, we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted
like as we are yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. Now if you look that up in the
book of Hebrews, you'll find out that he's been talking all
along about that tabernacle. Been talking about the high priest,
the work of the priest, the sacrifice, and he's talking about all those
things. And then in chapter 10, he starts to tell us about Christ
That law being a shadow of good things to come and that Christ
was spoken of throughout the scriptures to come and accomplish
the very will of God, the redemptive will of God. And having done
that now, now we see him as the high priest. And we're able to
come boldly under that throne of grace. Christ sits upon the
throne of grace. And then I want you to think
about this. I read every reference that I could find to the mercy
seat, and nowhere did any earthly priest, king, or prophet ever
sit on the mercy seat. God said, there will I meet with
you. This is a seat for deity, a seat
for deity, and that seat is reserved for the Lord of glory. And he
said, that's where I'll meet with thee and commune with thee
from above the mercy seat from between the two cherubim. When
you talk about this seat as a throne, it was a throne of grace and
a throne of glory. This is where God manifested.
His glory, the glory of His grace, and the glory of His justice,
and the glory of His righteousness, and the glory of His mercy, and
all of those things, His love, everything manifested right here.
So it was a seed of mercy, and a throne of glory, and a throne
of justice. So the first thing we know about
this mercy seed is that it was a seed and it's so called by
the Holy Ghost. He inspired these men to call
it the mercy seed. And then secondly, the mercy
seed is a covering. Well, what did it cover? It covered
those things vitally preserved in the Ark. The authority, the
dignity, and godly sanctification are setting apart of the high
priest of God, and this is signified by Aaron's rod that budded. It
was in that ark, in that ark. God said, you put it in there. I don't know if you know that
story, but Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, especially Korah, he
was a ringleader, and he was of the tribe of Levi. He was
of the priestly tribe. And he was jealous of Moses and
especially of Aaron. And he said, you boys take too
much on yourselves. You take too much on yourselves.
And he raised and went house to house until he got 250 princes
of Israel, the highest, most acknowledged men, wise men, leaders
of the people in Israel, got 250 of them together to follow
him. And he said, you take too much
on yourself, seeing the whole congregation as holy. You've read about Israel, do
you think any of them were holy? No. No. You take too much seeing
the whole congregation as holy and the Lord is with them. Why
then are you lifted up above the congregation? Moses didn't He didn't run for
office. When God told him that he was
going to go down there and deliver Israel, he said, no, don't send
me. He didn't want it. He was afraid. He knew his inadequacy for what
he was being called to do. And God said, Moses, surely I
go with you. He didn't volunteer for this.
God anointed him and ordained him to do this. And the same
thing with his brother Aaron. God set them apart by divine
decree and ordained them to these stations. And when these men
brought to Moses their intentions, Moses fell on his face before
the people and he told Korah and the rebels who followed him,
he said, now tomorrow, tomorrow the Lord's gonna show who are
his and who's holy. God's gonna show you. He's gonna
show you. You and me ain't gonna sit here
and argue and these 250 princes of Israel behind you. They're
not intimidating me. Tomorrow morning, God's gonna
show you who He chose and who's holy and who ain't. He's gonna
show you. So they were instructed to take
censers and put fire in them before the Lord and incense.
Moses said, it's not me. It's you that take too much on
yourselves. you sons of Levi. And God, that next morning, consumed
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and all their families, and all their
possession, and all their cattle, and sheep, and everything. God
opened up the earth, and Barnard said, took them to hell with
their shoes on. He swallowed them up. That those people would
know this was an act of God. He swallowed them up. And the
250 princes of the congregation, Having seen the judgment of God. Now you'd think if somebody,
if we had a big crowd came in here this morning and they were
all against me and I said, well God's gonna show you who he's
chosen and who he hasn't. And God opened up that parking
lot and swallowed up those men who were the leaders and instigators
of the problem. Now there's 250 more standing
out there. They just saw the judgment of
God. It didn't affect them one bit. Those 250 men got angry
at it, and they blamed Moses for the death of those men, and
then God sent a plague upon the congregation. He sent fire down
from heaven, first of all, and consumed the 250 men, and then
the congregation got riled up. And God sent a plague into the
congregation and 14,000 more, 14,700 more got killed with a
plague before Aaron ran out there to make atonement for them and
stood between them and the Lord. And he finally stayed the plague.
So this thing, when it was done, almost 15,000 men lay dead. Lay
dead. That's Aaron's rod. And Aaron's
rod not only budded, he said to the congregation that was
left, he said, now tomorrow, every man, every one of you that
represents your tribe, you're all gonna bring your rods in
here, and Aaron's got a rod, and they're gonna put them inside
the tabernacle. And that man that God has chosen
to be his priest, his rod's gonna bud. And Aaron's rod alone budded,
It had blossoms on it and it produced almonds on that rod. And nobody doubted Aaron anymore. He was the priest. He was the
priest. And God said, now you're gonna
put that rod in this ark as a token to the rebels. That's what that
meant, that rod, that blooming rod. God's sanctification of
his high priest. And then there was a golden pot
that was filled with manna. And Christ is the bread of God
come down from heaven and in a golden pot, in a perfect, sinless,
blemishless vessel. Now Paul said we have this gospel
in earthen vessels, just clay pots. But that bread was in a
golden pot. That gold always has to do with
deity and that gold was in a perfect pot, this golden pot. And then
thirdly, the tables of stone, the commandments written by the
finger of God. And these things are all in here
and then they're sealed. They're sealed within this ark,
which is a picture of Christ by the mercy seat. The mercy seat sometimes referred
to as a propitiation covering. And I'm gonna give you something.
You can go home and prove this for yourselves if you have a
concordance. The word mercy seat in Hebrews
9.5 and the word propitiation. God has set forth his sons as
the propitiation for our sins. That word propitiation in Romans
3.25 is exactly the same word. That mercy seat. And that propitiation,
exactly the same word. In Hebrews 9.5, he's talking
about the mercy seed and the holy of holies. And in Romans
3.25, he's talking about Christ as the fulfillment of that mercy
seed set forth in that tabernacle as a propitiation through faith
in his blood. And the word propitiation is
a great big word and it's confusing to a lot of people. We don't
understand what propitiation means. But what it means is something
that enables God to show mercy. God is love. He is love. But that love, He's not going
to love a man to the compromise of his justice. He's gonna show mercy, but he's
not gonna show mercy and compromise his righteousness, his holiness,
and his justice. God's attributes must be in harmony
at all times. They're in harmony. And the only
place they're in harmony is in Christ. In Christ. So what it means is something
that enables God to show mercy and grace. God cannot simply
forgive sin. This is the biggest error of
religion today. They believe God can just take
a big eraser and come over here and this is all your sins and
he can just wipe them out. That's not how sin is forgiven. Sin must be paid for. And it's
paid for in our Lord Jesus Christ. Man must be reconciled to God. And this he manifests through
the atoning blood which is sprinkled on the mercy seat. So first of
all, the mercy seat is a seat. We know that. The Holy Spirit
inspired Moses to write it down. Call it a mercy seat. And secondly,
we know that it's a propitiation covering. And thirdly, the mercy
seat and the ark were one. They were one. They were never
set up separately. They were set up as one, as one. David prophesied of the coming
Redeemer in Psalm 85, 10, saying, mercy and truth are met together. Righteousness and peace have
kissed one another. And then Solomon writes this.
He said, by mercy and truth, iniquity is purged. And you cannot
separate the ark and its contents from the mercy seat. This is
what religion's doing today. It's saying, this is Christ and
here's the promises, and here's the blessings, and here's all
of this thing, and then they just totally ignore the mercy
seat. So to me, that ark pictures Christ
and that mercy seat pictures his works, the work of redemption. And so you cannot, you can't
have Christ apart from his work of redemption. You see what I'm
saying? You'll take him as he is, and that's how God sets him
forth. He set him forth that way in
the tabernacle, and he sets him forth that way in the gospel. When the Lord Jesus was manifested,
his person and work are always one. He tells us in the scripture,
God hath made him to be unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption. Everything God requires from
the sinner, he supplies in the Redeemer. Everything. And the highest manifestation
of God to men in the Old Testament was the mercy seeker. It's the
mercy seeker. And know this, one part was made
for the other. Nobody else could do that work
but Christ. Nobody else could do it but him. And Christ and his work are one.
All right, fourthly, the mercy seat had two cherubims on either
side overshadowing the mercy seat. Now the significance, The
significance of these cherubims, if you go back to Genesis chapter
three, it says, when God drove out the man, drove him out of
the garden, he placed two cherubims and a flaming sword to keep the
way. So these cherubims are keepers
of the way. If you see the cherubims, they
mark the way. If you tried to get back into
paradise, if you tried to come back into that garden, first
thing you're gonna run into is these cherubim. But if you tried
to get in there alone, if you tried to get into paradise alone,
and that's what people are doing today, they're just ignoring
Christ, trying to get in paradise. You're gonna hit a flaming sword,
and it turns every way. There's no way you're coming
into that garden. That sword won't allow it. And
these two cherubims are keepers of the way. But here on the mercy
seat, there's no sword. There's no sword. These cherubims,
it said, if you read back in Exodus chapter 25, if you read
through those verses where he gives them instruction to make
them, He said, make these chairmen with their wings stretched on
high. They're not, there's no sword
there. No sword there. They're giving all the praise
to God, and they're to face each other. One on one side of the
ark, one on the other side of the ark, and they're facing each
other, but they're looking at the mercy seat. Looking at the
mercy seat. These keepers of the way. They're
marking the way to God, and the way to God is in this mercy seat. That's what's being pictured.
Those cherubims were on the ceiling out there where the common priests
did their works, and the cherubims were on the veil that hung before
the ark, and the cherubims were over the mercy seat looking down
on the mercy seat. This is the way. John said, This
is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this
life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life,
and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. So what is this life? What is
this way? You remember the Lord, He told
them, He said, Now let not your heart be troubled. He said, You
believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father's house are
many mansions. And I go to prepare a place for
you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I'm going to return
again, and I'll gather you to myself, that where I am, there
you may be also. And he said, you know where I'm
going, and you know the way. And Thomas said, we don't know
where you're going, and we don't know the way. And he said, Thomas,
I am the way. I am the way. That's what these cherubims are
all about. They're telling you this is the way. Christ is the
way. I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. And no man
cometh unto the Father. You're not going to enter into
paradise. You're not going to enter into that place prepared
for you apart from Christ. You're going to come by him or
you ain't coming. And that's what these cherubims That's what
they're saying. Eternal life is to know God. And Christ is made of God unto
us, wisdom. Wisdom, that we might know Him.
He, God, manifests in the flesh. In Him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. Well, let me ask you something.
Can God love a filthy sinner? Is it possible? Is it possible
for God to love a filthy sinner? The scripture said, God commendeth
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Can he love a sinner? He loved
this one. He loved this one. Will God save the ungodly? I'm
talking about the ungodly. When we were yet without strength
in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's what the
scriptures say. Can God embrace a sinner? The father ran out to meet the
prodigal. And what did he do? He embraced
him. He put his arms around him. That
prodigal had no thought in his mind, not in his wildest imagination
could he ever vision his father running out to meet him and embracing
him. The cherubims marked the way. And then the last thing I call
your attention to is the posture of the cherubim. And we've already talked about
this. In Genesis 3, 24, they're yielding a flaming sword. In
the Holy of Holies, they're stretching forth their wings on high, covering
the mercy seat and gazing upon God's most glorious work. In
Psalm 3, verses 25 and 26, Speaking of the figure given
for the time then present and for its fulfillment in Jesus
Christ, in Romans, I'm sorry, not Psalm, in Romans 3, Paul
tells us that this work of our Savior declares God's righteousness
in the remission of sins, God's righteousness, that He might
be just and justifier. And those who were given to guard
the way They now gaze upon this way fully made, fully accomplished
in the Savior. And they stand in awe and look
upon this mercy seat and God's most glorious work in total awe. And when Paul talked about that
work, he said, which things the angels. He talked about us gathering
to worship God. And those things which we preach
and those things which God the Spirit enables you to understand,
those are things that the angels desire to look upon. They know
something of the holiness and justice of God. The angels that
sinned were cast out without mercy. That got justice. Justice
with no mercy. And here's sinners and rebels
and and ungodly men, and God's saving them. And they look on
that with total amazement. Total amazement. And that's the
way we ought to look at it. That's the way we ought to look
at it. Ain't you amazed that God saved
you? I'm telling you. Somebody told
old John Newton. He said, did you hear old so-and-so
down there in County Bath, that old drunk down there? God saved
him. He said, I'll never despair again about salvation, knowing
that God saved him. And John Newton said, well, brother,
he said, I've never despaired about salvation since God saved
me. If he saved me, he'd save anybody.
All right, thank you.