Now if you will take your Bibles
and turn back with me to Exodus chapter 25. Exodus 25 verses
17 through 22. Last week we talked about the
Ark of God. We talked about its composition. made from wood
and made, overlaid then with gold, speaking about the humanity
and the deity of Christ. And we talked a little bit about
its purpose and how it pictured the person and work of Christ.
And we talked about its various names, the Ark of the Testimony,
the Ark of the Testament, the Ark of God, the Ark of the God
of History, And tonight I want us to look
at the mercy seat. And I have four things that I
want us to look at, and hopefully the Holy Spirit will teach us
something about our Redeemer in this wonderful time. And the first thing it is that
I want you to see is in the name itself, the mercy seat. What a name for this place where
the high priest would come in and sprinkle the blood. He was
to sprinkle the blood upon the mercy seat. And he was to sprinkle
the blood before the mercy seat. A seat, a mercy seat. Arthur
Pink says that the name mercy seat actually means propitiatory. Propitiatory. That is the place
where God declares Himself to be propitious. What does that
mean? That means He declares His satisfaction. He declares this thing absolved. He declares this thing done,
which enables Him to bless, enables Him to meet with the people,
enables Him to teach the people. It might sound kind of funny
talking about enabling God, but God is perfect in His character. And God can have no communion
with the sinner. Until the sinner learns this,
the gospel means nothing. He must come to see that God
in His perfections cannot come together with a sinful man. Something
has to be done. His sins must be paid for. It
has to do with satisfaction. And in order for God to treat
sinners with favor and blessing, Righteousness and God's justice
must be satisfied. God declared himself to Moses. And here's what he told him.
Moses said, show me your glory. And God said, OK, I'm going to
pass by before you and I'm going to declare my name. He said,
I'll have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. That's sovereign
mercy. Here the preachers talk about
sovereign, the sovereign God, sovereign mercy, sovereign grace.
This is what God said, I will have mercy upon whom I will have
mercy, and I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious. But
he said, Moses, know this, I will by no means clear the guilty. I'm not going to clear. I'm not
going to clear. God cannot simply excuse sin. I remember years ago listening
to a preacher and we had this thing that looked like an artist
easel and it had a blackboard about the size of that piece
of plywood over there. And he had some chalk and an
eraser. And he turned back there in the book and he began to read
the commandments and he said, has everybody in here kept this
commandment? Everybody shaking their head,
no. Okay, put a mark on there. And he went to the next one.
Put another mark on there and so on. Went all the way through
several of the commandments putting marks on there. Now he said,
this is forgiveness. He took that eraser and just
wiped away them sins. I beg your pardon. Sin has to
be paid for. Sin must be atoned. God's justice
must be satisfied. And God's righteousness. He cannot
simply erase the past. The holy law of God demands payment,
and divine justice guarantees that that payment shall be made.
Guarantees. How do I know God will punish
sin? Look at the cross. My soul, if
God was going to spare anybody, he would have spared his son.
He that spared not his own son. I tell you, that brings chill
bumps up on my arm. God is going to punish sin. He
is either going to punish it in the Savior, in the substitute,
or He is going to punish it in you. But He is going to punish
sin. His justice is going to be satisfied. And His justice
guarantees that the payment shall be made. Do you remember our
Lord's exhortation to His followers? He said, if the guy comes to
get you for the debt, he comes and gets you. And you're on your
way to the judge. He said, settle quickly. And
now he said, don't get to the judge. If you go before the judge,
you're not going to be turned loose till the uttermost has
been paid. If forgiveness was simply God
changing his mind because of something we decide to do, then
why must a substitute die at all? You ever think about that? If it was just a matter of God
wiping the slate clean, why must Christ die? Where does this thing of blood
enter into the worship? And I tell you, nothing is more
preeminent in the worship of God as it was given in picture
to Israel than the blood. The blood, the blood, the blood,
the blood. That's all you're going to read
about as we go through Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers It's
just blood upon blood upon blood, rivers of blood. Couldn't worship
God without the blood. He sprinkled the tabernacle with
blood, and He sprinkled the priest with the blood, and He sprinkled
everything. All the furnishings inside the
ark were sprinkled with blood. Even the high priest was sprinkled
with blood, and all the heirs and sons were sprinkled with
blood. And without the shedding of blood, he said, is no remission. There won't be any remission
of sin. And though this propitiation,
this propitiatory was accomplished at the brazen altar outside,
that's where the sacrifice died. That's where they cut its throat.
It died out there before that brazen altar, out there in the
courtyard. That's where it was actually accomplished. But here,
inside the Holy of Holies, is where it's accepted. That's where
it's accepted. And that's why, that's the difference
between that word propitiation and propitiatory. This thing
has made God propitious because it satisfied His justice. It honored His law. And it honored
His righteousness. Let me give you two New Testament
scriptures that I believe will help you to tie all this together.
First of all, over here in Hebrews chapter 9. Turn with me over
there. Hebrews chapter 9. This is the
chapter that talks about the high priest of Israel. And he
describes it briefly and describes the tabernacle and the different
things in there, and the second veil, and the holy place, and
the holiest of all, and all these things. And he goes on to tell
us that these are figures. Figures of the truth. Patterns
of heavenly things, and so on, he tells us in this chapter.
But look, watch this here in Hebrews 9, verse 3. And after the second veil, the
tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, which had the
golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid round about
with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna and Aaron's
rod that budded in the tables of the Covenant. And over it
the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat of which we cannot
now speak particularly. And as I said before, this is
telling us, this is just a statement of fact of the tabernacle and
this propitiation that was accomplished there. And he talks about that
mercy seat over top of that ark where the high priest went in.
And he went in there not without blood, which he offered for himself.
You remember he had to take a bullock with him and he had to take two
goats. And when he came to the door of the tabernacle, the bullock
was for the high priest. He offered that for Himself.
One of these goats was going to be an atonement, a blood atonement
for the people. And so they cast lots to see
which one was going to be God's lot. Whichever one was His lot,
they slayed that goat. Its blood was put in there and
sprinkled on the mercy seat. The other one, the sins of Israel
was confessed on its head. It was called the scapegoat.
And he sent it out into the wilderness. So this is just a basic statement
here in Hebrews chapter 9. I wanted you to see that. See
how he identified that priest going in and talking about that
mercy seat. Now turn with me over to Romans
chapter 3. Romans chapter 3 gives us the
clear teaching of the mercy seat and what this mercy seat is all
about. Romans 3, verse 24. Being justified freely by His
grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Now
watch this. Whom God has set forth. Where? In the mercy seat. Whom God has
set forth. to be a propitiation through
faith in His blood to declare His righteousness for the remission
of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God. Now,
this is not talking about men's past sins. None of your sins
were passed when Christ died. They were all future. This is
talking about the sins of those Israelites who entered into that
tabernacle and by figure and type saw the coming Redeemer. We are taught something about
how to approach God and what salvation is all about. Salvation
is in the blood of Christ. He is the high priest. He is
the mercy seat. He is the ark. And in all of
these things, He pictures this work. And He tells us here, whom
God has set forth. for these sins that were passed,
for these Old Testament saints, is what he's talking about. How
do I know that? Well, it's obvious through the
next verse. In the next verse, he says, to declare, I say, at
this time. At this time. That's what he
declared then. That's what he set forth then. And to declare,
I say, at this time, his righteousness, that he might be just and justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. Now some of you here have a strong
concordance at home. When you get home, I want you
to look up that word, propitiation, in Romans chapter 3. You're going
to find it again over there in 1 John chapter 2, 1 John chapter
4. And then I want you to look up
that word, mercy seat, in Hebrews chapter 9, and see if I ain't
telling you the truth. They're all the exact same word.
They are the exact same word. Propitiation, that propitiation
accomplished by Christ, accepted, honored and satisfied, God's
holy justice was accomplished back there and set forth by God
in that old mercy seat inside the Holy of Holies. That is what
it is all about. The mercy seat, Pink said, is
the propitiatory. It's the place where God can
meet men in mercy, and grace, and their sins be righteously
forgiven. And then also this name calls
this a mercy seat. Only in Christ can mercy be seated. Only in Christ. Paul tells us
in Hebrews 10 that Christ came into this world to accomplish
the redemptive will of God. He set it forth for us in picture
in Hebrews 9. In Hebrews 10, he just flat out
tells us what it is. And he tells us down there in
verse 10 of Hebrews 10, by the which will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Once for all. And every high
priest, he said, back under that law, they stood. They never sat
down. They stood. He said, every high
priest standeth daily ministering constantly, year after year,
offering the same sacrifice, which could never take away sins. But this man, verse 12, after
he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on
the right hand of God from henceforth, expecting till His enemies be
made His footstool. For by one offering He hath perfected
forever them that are sacrificed." Now listen, I told you I mentioned
these verses over in 1 John. If you want to, you can turn
over there with me. And then we'll move on off this point.
1 John 2, verse 1. He said, my little children,
these things write I unto you, that you sin not. Now he knew
they were sinners. John is not saying here that
there is some possibility that you won't sin. You are going
to sin. Somebody would have read a little better if he had said,
when you sin. When you, because you are going
to sin. But that's not what he meant in this. What he meant
when he said this was he wasn't exhorting them. He wasn't giving
them a license to sin. He wasn't encouraging them to
sin. He said, I write these things unto you that you sin not. That
you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Now watch
this. And He is. He is. Can you hear me? We're not talking
about a golden seat with golden cherubs on it now. Now we're
talking about the person of which this was the type. And John said,
for he is our propitiation. He is the propitiation for our
sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the
whole world. There is no other propitiation. There's only one mercy seat for
Jew and Gentile, Catholic or Protestant, religious or heathen.
It's the mercy seat of God, it's Jesus Christ. People, they're sly in how they
say this. Satan is subtle in how he gets
men to word this. But they'll try their best to
get around this thing of the mercy seat. They'll try their
best. They'll come along and they'll
say, well, we believe in the sovereignty of God. We believe
this. We believe that. And they'll go on and on and
on about what all they believe. But, but, and the but is always right
here. It's this person of Jesus Christ. The person of Jesus Christ. And
it's Jesus Christ alone. Alone. There's just one mercy
seat in that whole outfit. There wasn't a half dozen. There's
just one. There's just one. And for those
who'd be taught of God, those who'd approach Him for forgiveness,
those who would come to Him to learn from Him, those who would
know something about the living God, there's just one mercy seat.
Just one mercy seat. Alright, here's the second thing
I want you to look at. I want you to see where this
seat is located. Now you remember the ark. built
of chitin wood and overlaid with gold. And he said, Thou shalt
make a crown around the top of it. There's a crown. It's an ornamental piece. I don't know exactly how big
it was, but it stuck out like a crown, like a king's crown
on this chest. And it went all the way around
it. And this mercy seat sat right down inside that crown. This is the crown. This is the
crowning glory of God in Christ. It is His work. He is the mercy
seat. He is the propitiation. This
work of propitiation is what shows the crowning glory of God. And He wears the crown. He wears
the crown. And all the rest of us throw
our crowns down at His feet. It was to be placed on top of
the ark. It covered the ark. It sealed
the testimony of God inside the ark. God's holy law, honored
and exalted. God's bread. Jesus Christ, our
bread, came down from heaven. He's the heavenly bread. He's
our daily sustenance. The food of faith feeds on Him. Except you eat of my flesh and
drink of my blood, you've got no life in you." And Aaron's rod that budded.
A testimony of God's high priest and God's authority in him to
accomplish the service he was ordained to do. Everything God
has purposed to do and promised to do is represented in these
three things in the ark. And they cannot fail. so long
as they are sealed beneath the mercy seat. They cannot fail. And then thirdly, let's look
at the composition of the mercy seat. It was to be made of pure
gold. It was the most valuable piece
of furniture in the tabernacle. This thing was pure gold. It
wasn't wood overlaid with gold like the boards outside or like
the This was pure gold. Pure gold. You know, the staves of the ark
from which it was covered, they were wood overlaid. The ark itself
was overlaid, but the mercy seat was pure gold. And Jesus Christ
is both man and God. He must be man to represent man. He must be man to be a sacrifice
for man. And He must be man to suffer. God can't suffer. He become a
man to suffer in order to suffer and atone for sin. He must be
man to suffer and die, but he must be God to satisfy God. And satisfaction is what this
mercy seat is all about. And deity, deity takes the preeminence
over the mercy seat, over the ark. He must be God to manifest
the perfections of God required by His holy character. And in
this propitiation, it's pure gold because when we look at
that propitiation, we see the pure deity of the Father. We see His holy perfections in
that accomplished propitiation. Can you see what I'm talking
about? God's absolute holiness. You can't study the death of
Christ, the sacrifice of Christ, and come away with that thing
with a compromise of God's holiness. You can't do it. It ain't there. He must die. He must die. I must go to the cross. As our mercy seed in glory, His
deity is preeminent. He is God our Savior. And pure
gold speaks of the solidity of His work. It's a solid work.
It's not a hollow work. It's solid. This is solid gold. And pure gold speaks of the holiness
of His propitiation. And pure gold speaks of the preciousness
of the mercy seat. How precious is Christ? That's
all Peter talked about when he wrote that letter to the Gentiles.
He said, if so be you tasted that the Lord is gracious. Huh? It speaks of His preciousness.
And pure gold speaks of His victory over all His trials. He was tried
in the refiner's fire and He came forth as pure gold. Pure
gold. And then pure gold speaks of
pure grace. None of man's work in this propitiation
is all of God and all of grace. pure grace, pure mercy, pure
love, and pure righteousness. And then last of all, I want
to spend a few minutes and talk about the figures on the mercy
seat. There's not many figures of things
in the tabernacle. As a matter of fact, I think
this is the only figure of anything in that tabernacle of worship.
And this mercy seat was to have two cherubims, one on one end,
one on the other. So you just imagine, I gave Russell
a site this morning that somebody had referred me to, and over
in Israel, out in that wilderness where they journeyed, the people
of Israel went out there and reconstructed another tabernacle. They did it as a model, simply
to teach what this tabernacle was all about. and that tabernacle
worship of which the Old Testament spoke. But it's very interesting
to look at because it gives you details that we're just seeing
in words and to see them, to be able to look at them and see
them with your eyes visually, you get a picture of what's going
on back there. But there was figures. This thing
was a slab of pure gold, probably about that thick, covered the
whole top of that ark. And then these two big beaten,
they were to be a beaten gold, these two big old things. And
their wings was to come up over top of them and overshadow that
whole ark, that whole mercy seat. So here's these two cherubims.
What's these two cherubims all about? What's their significance? on the mercy seat. What have
they got to do with propitiation? Well, let me give you just a
few things to think about. First of all, I believe they
represent God's holy angels, the angels themselves. Every
part of this propitiatory was witnessed of angels from the
very beginning. Is this not what set Satan off? What caused him to be cast out
of glory? Was the announcement of Christ
to be our Savior, to redeem man, and for His glory to be upon
men? That He was going to adopt them
as sons? That His Son was going to reign
as a man in glory? And Satan couldn't take it anymore.
He said, oh no. I'm going to do this. I'm going
to sit in the seat of the congregation. I'm going to do those things."
Those angels were back there even then. And God's elect angels,
they heard that announcement way back yonder whenever God
first created them, long before He created the earth. Angels were told the will of
God concerning the glory of Christ. And then angels heralded the
birth of Christ, didn't they? They appeared to those shepherds
in the field. An angel came and told Mary that she was going
to have the Christ, the Savior. Angels attended after his, you know, when he went on that
mount and was transfigured, angels appeared. And when at his agonizing
prayer, in the garden. Angels came and ministered to
him. He was tempted for 40 days and after that the angels came
and ministered to him. Angels were involved in this
thing from the very beginning to the very end. An angel came
down and rolled that stone back. He walked out of that tomb. An
angel met the women there at the tomb and said, why are you
seeking him here? He's not here. He's risen. An
angel accompanied Him when He ascended into glory. Angels,
angels. There's an angel on this end
of this propitiation, and there's one on this end. And they look
in the whole distance at this propitiation, these two angels. This is God's witnesses, these
two angels sitting up here. They represent the holy angels
of God. But here's the second thing about
this, you can think about this, and this is what I believe, this
is the figure's true significance. They represent the angel of God's
covenant. You know who that is, that's
Christ. He's the angel of the covenant. He's the surety. He's the one who's going to minister. He's going to minister this covenant. He not only performs the work,
but He also ministers what He has accomplished. And He is the
key to understanding the mystery of this propitiation. He is our
propitiation. Turn with me to 1 John chapter
5. Christ is the angel of the covenant. In Him, the glorious promise
of God's everlasting covenant is fulfilled and made known to
chosen sinners. Look at this here, 1 John 5,
verse 20. And we know, those who believe
do, those who have heard do, and we know that the Son of God
has come and has given us an understanding that we may know
Him that is true, And we are in Him that is true, even in
His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Angels on both sides of the mercy
seat declare that mercy shall be witnessed and declared to
men. It is a testimony of God's faithfulness. This accomplished propitiation
that satisfies God will be testified. That's what these cherubs are
all about. And then thirdly, these two angels,
as ministers of God, represent all God's preachers. God's going to have this thing
witnessed and preached, just as I'm preaching to you tonight.
And these cherubs were a guarantee of that. They faced one another
in agreement. They faced one another, just
as I'm facing you tonight. And they both looked at the same
thing. They both looked at the same
propitiation. Somebody said, well, salvation
is like spokes in a wheel. They all lead to the same place.
Oh, I beg your pardon. I beg your pardon. These witnesses
looked at one thing. They're just one faith. That's
what the Scripture says. One faith. One spirit. They're not 15 different spirits
all teaching different things. There's one spirit and one faith.
and one baptism. There's angels on both sides
and they looked at one another in agreement. And they looked
on this propitiation. They looked on this propitiation. And then I need to tell you this
because I left it out. When I was talking about these
two cherubs being a picture of Christ, who is the angel of the
covenant. These two cherubs were made of
beaten work. They were hammered. They were
hammered out. Hammered out. And so was our
Savior. Beaten. Beaten beyond recognition. It was a beaten work. It was
a painful work. It involved suffering. But these two angels, they represent
all God's preachers. They look at the work from front
to back, and that's how they declare it. The whole counsel
of God. They see the whole counsel of
God right here on this mercy seat. Right there on that mercy
seat. Somebody said, well, y'all don't
preach good works. Sure we do. But not apart from
this propitiation. I see the whole counsel of God
right here. Right here on this mercy seat. God's pastor, teachers
are represented in figures, angels in Revelation 1, verse 20. It
tells you right there. These angels, that's what He
calls them. The angels of the church of Laodicea. And the angel
of this church and the angel of that church. And seeing the
cherubims with covered eyes. Think about this. Some of you
here may be apt to teach. Caleb has already filled in for
me a couple of times. You think about this. In Isaiah
chapter 6, Isaiah saw the Lord, didn't he? High and lifted up.
And it said his train filled the temple. And it said on either
side of him was two seraphims, that same thing as chariots.
There were two chariots on both sides of him. And both of them
covered their eyes. They couldn't look at Him. Couldn't
look at Him in His holiness. Covered their eyes. Covered their
feet. Covered their faces. And when Isaiah saw it, he said,
I saw the King. I saw the Lord. You know what
he said? I can't preach. I'm a man of
unclean lips. What's the Lord going to do about
it? It's His prophet. One of those cherubs. Went down
there on the altar and got a hot coal. And he come up and laid
it on his lips. Now he said, you go. He said,
who will I send? Isaiah said, send me. Send me. I'll go. I'll go. You see how
these things tie in? I was trying to tie this thing
in for you so that you can see what these cherubs represent. What a wonderful picture this
is of the person and work of Christ is our propitiation. And you'll see it as we begin
to go on. You'll see it more and more.
And this ark was to be four rings. Maybe we'll talk about that next
week. These four rings, golden rings, big old golden rings.
And they were to be received right through that crown on top
of that ark. All of this stuff fused together.
And then these big staves were to be run through those rings.
And they were to stay in there at all times. And the only way
that ark was to be moved was by specified individuals called
of God, cleansed of God, anointed of God to that work. And their
work was to pick up those staves and carry that ark. They carried
that message. What a picture of God's preachers
that is. But this thing all by the commandment
of God, all in picture and figure. And as you go along and we talk
about these things, I hope then when we come back to the New
Testament, we begin to go through Hebrews and we're going through
Acts and these different books. These guys are speaking all the
way through there in bits and pieces of this work accomplished
back here in this tabernacle. And how much this is going to
improve your understanding of it if the Lord will open your
ears to hear. you begin to see. Thank you.