[0:00] Would you turn with my love to the Old Testament to the book of Exodus, chapter 25. The book of Exodus, chapter 25.
[0:18] And we shall read, this is 17 to 22.
[0:28] Thou shalt make thy mercy seat of pure gold. Two two percent and a half shalt thou make thy length thereof, and two percent and a half the breadth thereof.
[0:41] And thou shalt make two cherubins of gold, of beaten watch, shalt thou make them in the two ends of thy mercy seat. And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end.
[0:56] Even of the mercy seat shall be made the cherubins on the two ends of thy heart. And the cherubins shall stretch forth their wings up high, covering the mercy seat with their wings.
[1:08] And their faces shall look one to another. Towards the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubins be. And thou shalt put the mercy seat and burn upon the ark.
[1:22] And in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I shall meet thee, and I shall commune with thee from abandonment, from between the two cherubins, which are upon the ark of the testimony.
[1:41] Of all things which I shall give thee in commandment, and to the teaching of Israel. We have already have said a revelation, spoken of the tabernacle, the wilderness, and the various articles of furniture that it contains.
[2:09] And this morning I would like to say a little to you concerning the mercy seat. Now the mercy seat was not a seat to sit on.
[2:25] It was a lead that covered the ark of the testimony, which was inside the Holyest Abode.
[2:37] This lid or crown or covering for the ark was exactly of the same dimensions as the ark itself.
[2:53] And it was joined to the ark by a crown or rim of gold. So that nobody could distinguish that the two things were two different pieces.
[3:09] They were, as it were, used into one, at least to the eye, by this will of pure gold that joined them.
[3:25] Now, we have spoken about the ark itself by form of recognition. The ark, as you know, was the most important part, the most important article of furniture, in the whole of the typology of the Old Testament.
[3:49] This was the center of importance. You cannot say that it was the center of attraction, because nobody ever saw it, except the high priest once every year.
[4:05] And it is doubtful that he saw very much of it, because when he went into the holiest of all, the smoke of the incense which he carried with him would cast a veil between him and the ark and the mercy seat.
[4:25] And he didn't see all that much. But the ark itself was the most important article of all.
[4:39] Everything set to the road, everything derived its meaning from it. Now, we have spoken about the ark already. I am not going to take about time on it today.
[4:54] But the message has also its typical significance. It had a meaning, and it has a meaning all its own. It is heard to time and again in other parts of the future, and we see that the writer of the Hebrews, when he spoke about the tabernacle, did not hear it out.
[5:16] Now, let us look first of all, and briefly, at the construction of it. It was made of purest gold.
[5:28] Now the ark itself was not made of gold. The ark was made of sheet and wood, overlaid with gold.
[5:41] But the lid, the covering, the merciless, was not made of sheet and wood, overlaid with gold. But it was all of gold.
[5:55] Now, the meaning of this is, we believe, that the ark typifies Christ in his true nature.
[6:07] The shitten wood typifies his human nature, and the gold that overlaid it typifies his divine nature. The shitten wood, whereas the merciless, it typifies his eternal deity, and that alone.
[6:27] There was nothing but the purest there. In the divine, in the human nature, there was nothing but what was pure.
[6:39] But the divine nature, the human nature, was inferior to the divine nature. Human nature cannot be superior or cannot be equal to divine nature.
[6:53] But here, in the lid, or in the covering, there is nothing but the purest gold typifies the divine nature, and the essential deity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
[7:13] Now, I told you that, although the ark and the lid of the merciless had spoken of, at least in one piece of scripture, separately, they were part of a whole.
[7:29] You couldn't distinguish between the difference. And the lady of the covering, made the purest gold, typifies the essential deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, forms one of the cardinal and the most important doctrine in the whole of the Bible.
[7:52] All the truth of it, hangs the truth of everything else. If there had been a flaw, or a speck of impurity, in this gold, then the lid of the covering would not have served its purpose.
[8:15] Now, my friends, it is no wonder at all that the doctrine most attacked by skeptics, instigated, we believe, by the devil, is the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[8:40] There is no doctrine that has been assaulted more than that. Because, it is as it were, if I may use the words, it is the peg on which all God's revelation hangs.
[8:55] It is the nail in the sure place. And if there is anything proved wrong with the revelation of scripture, regarding its teaching of the person of Jesus Christ, the Lord falls down.
[9:13] If this gives way, all gives way. If this is not a sure foundation, then there cannot be a sure foundation.
[9:25] So, we see how serviced we ought to be to defend the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, especially the doctrine of his essential deity, which is what has brought into doubt more than anything else in our day and age.
[9:46] We know that we are living in an age when a doctor of divinity or an ecclesiastic derives fame and popularity from his denial.
[10:01] He can do it in clear, with clear diction, with quotable words, his denial of the eternity of the person of Jesus Christ.
[10:17] Let a man say that the virgin birth is an impossibility, and that this person who was born in Bethlehem had no pre-existence, that this person was not before he was begotten in the womb, and that the doctrine of the deity of Jesus Christ, the doctrine that is the co-equal with God, cannot be true.
[10:46] Well, let a man say that, and say it well and hopefully, and the truth becomes a bestseller, and the same goes out through the ecclesiastical world.
[11:00] Now friends, we go not by what people say, we go by what the Bible says. And if there is anything stressed at all in the Bible, and if there is anything that is present precious to the Christian with a sense of sin, it is the doctrine of the essential deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[11:26] I try any man to trust a soul, any man under a real conviction of sin, to trust a soul to a mere human, or to trust a soul to anyone else, even to an ancient.
[11:45] To trust a soul to the divine, or to the human person, of whom we read in the scriptures, who is the centre of all revelation.
[11:58] But you couldn't trust, he would not be sufficient for you, if he was not divine, as well as human. Well, no. That is what the Saint Dickey did, and did the divine by the construction of the covering, by the material of which it was made.
[12:21] It was the purest gold. Now look at the design of it. And there are several thoughts which I would like to take in here.
[12:32] The design of it, everything was significant, even the very position in which it was placed. You see, the tavern, the after in the tavern, the bracer not, in the outer court, was facing east.
[12:51] Now that is not without its significance. Did we not sing together to tame one of his pavers?
[13:04] As far as the east is from the west, so far had he removed out of his presence from us. And did that be not the meaning of the octave on which the offering was made for atonement, facing in one direction, and the arch with the mercy seat, facing in the opposite direction?
[13:31] I don't know what they were meaning to give it. They were facing in the opposite direction. And this indicates just the best exposition of it is in these very words.
[13:43] As far as the east is from the west, so far have he removed out of his presence from us.
[13:54] The second thing that I want you to note about the design is that everything connected with the, with the, the perreted in the carbon-necule, including the mercy seat, was divinely appointed.
[14:12] Every little thing. See, the construction of earth being of the purest godness was divinely appointed. The way in which it was to be put down, the way in which it was to face, everything was divinely appointed.
[14:30] And see, said God to Moses, that they'll make all things according to the path and look to the in the mount. Now friends, the most important thing that a man can do in his life is to worship God.
[14:46] You cannot do anything more important than that. And I think it would be highly probably for anyone to think that he knows how to do it by his own intelligence or by his knowledge.
[15:06] No man can do it except as he is that divinely directed to do so. There are things which we might think are an improvement on what is divinely appointed.
[15:24] No doubt there would be people in Israel who would fight for the construction of the tabernacle and of its furniture and so on. And who were of the opinion that if they had their way they could improve upon things.
[15:41] And there are people today who think that they can improve upon what God has divinely appointed to. Now I could take in the holy damned of worship as we know it.
[15:52] And people say, well why did you worship the way you do? What is the meaning of your mode of worship? Why do you do things this way? Why haven't you got an organ? And things like that.
[16:06] And their answer to that is that we have no right whatsoever to put our hand to the worship of God unless except as we have directed by God.
[16:21] It is what God appoints that matters. It is what he says that counts. And here we are coming before the infinite majesty, before the deity.
[16:34] And we don't know how to approach. It is left for him to tell us how to approach. It is left for him to teach us how to worship him. And we must do it in his way, whatever way that is believed in the scripture.
[16:54] It was also a place of instruction. It is hard to say and I cannot tell how much the people, how even the high priest, understood of the type in which they saw and in which they were engaged from time to time regarding the tabula here.
[17:14] But the most enlightened, no doubt, could see through the type, through the figure, through the anti-type, through Jesus Christ.
[17:26] Back hundreds of years before, before everything was a tabula, Abraham saw the day of Christ and he was glad. And it would be hard to see that Aaron also didn't see the day of Christ.
[17:41] His mind would have been enlightened and he received instruction to withstand at least a measure of the things he was doing. And to know that they prefigured one who was yet to come, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
[18:01] But the main part about this, please, the main part about the mercy seat, and this is what I want to bring before you, is that it was the place of propitiation.
[18:16] That is the essential feature of the mercy seat. It was here and on it that propitiation was made on the Day of Atonement once every year by the High Priest from the people.
[18:33] Now you have two elements, two faster in the making of propitiation. You have the mercy seat made of purest gold. And you have another element without which the purest gold, the material of the mercy seat would be of no use for this purpose.
[19:00] The other factor, the other element is blood sprinkled seven times on it. And if you were inside the holiest of all that day, this is what you would see. You would see the mercy seat made of the purest gold and donning the judgments of glory.
[19:23] And you would see the high priest coming in with the blood of the gold that was slain. And he would take the blood and sprinkle it with the tip of his finger seven times by the mercy seat.
[19:39] And what is what made the mercy seat. Not the blood without the mercy seat. Not the mercy seat without the blood. Both things had to come together.
[19:54] Now what is this purest gold? What does it represent? What does it typify? It typifies in a word the righteousness, the elixir of the righteousness of God. The spotless righteousness of God.
[20:14] As for this righteousness, even in a measure, it requires judgment. As for this perfect righteousness, it requires perfect judgment. That necessarily follows. It follows, of course, in the very nature of things. Of course, in the very nature of God.
[20:41] The claims of righteousness, the claims of righteousness, cannot be compromised. God will not, if I may choose the word, God will not belge one fraction of a millimeter to accommodate the sinner in his sin.
[21:01] God will not belge one fraction of a millimeter to accommodate the Lord. God will not move. His righteousness cannot be lowered. The standard that he has set is inviolate. And it doesn't matter what people think. The divine righteousness stands forever immune to the efforts of man.
[21:20] And there is no art of man. And there is no art of man, no power of man, that can avert the divine judgment that divine righteousness demands.
[21:31] And there is no art of man. Though hand join in hand. Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go punished. And without dwelling and large on this particular aspect of it, because it is a chepit question, it is a moral impossibility in the nature of God not to punish sin.
[21:55] If God didn't punish sin. And if God didn't punish it according to his own capacity, then that could be proof positive that the righteousness of God is not there. Or if it is there, that it is not perfect.
[22:11] And either thing, of course, either thought would be blasphemy of the most horrible kind. There is divine righteousness and was typified by this mercy seat of purest gold.
[22:28] This righteousness covered the tables of the law which man had already broken, which man could not fulfill. But this divine righteousness demanded punishment and demanded judgment, which man could not make.
[22:47] Now then, how was proficiently made? How would God and man meet together in friendship? How would they meet together in peace? How would God's anger be turned away? How would it be said, Lord, I will praise thee though thou wast dite with me, thine anger is turned away?
[23:09] How would it be turned away? The answer is this, the blood. The blood that was shed and spread upon it. This was the means of proficiency. And this is what we read about in the ninth chapter of the Ezekiel to the Hebrews today.
[23:31] How Christ said, how Christ did God once and for all into the holiest of all. Not with the blood, with the blood of a goat or a heifer, but with his own blood. He ate it in once and for all.
[23:50] And here now then, the majesty of God and the sinners in his sin, reconciled together. As sinners in his sin, enabled to stand up in the very presence of the majesty of the most righteous and holy God.
[24:14] This is the blood. This is the blood that is the blood that is the answer. And it is the devil Christ that is the answer to propitiation. There was the Lord demanding vengeance and the strength of sin is the Lord.
[24:29] But here you see sinful laden or whatever high priest that was coming into the presence of God. Standing in the presence of God. God accepting him and proving this by not destroying him.
[24:47] Because if any man had to do without the blood, that soul was to take her down from a man's feet. And so by the blood, God marches him. And in absolute consistency with his whole being, dispenses mercy to the indescendant and to the sinner in his presence.
[25:09] Now my friends, this has all the meaning of the world for you and me. It just simply means this, that without the shedding of the blood, there is no remission.
[25:21] It means that it is only by the death of Christ, since his death was the paying of a debt and the bearing of a penalty, that it is only by the death of Christ that God is propitiating to us.
[25:37] And it is only by the death of the death of the death of the death of God. And it is only by the death of Christ that we can make every peace with God. There is no other way by which peace can ever come to the stilled, to the awakened conscience, but by the shedding of the blood.
[25:53] And here you have the answer in the cross of Christ. Where you have purest deity in the nature of man, shedding his human blood. And it is called in every part of the Bible, because of the, because of the two natures, because his deity and his manhood were in the one's different.
[26:17] The blood that shed, the blood that shed, which was ordinary human blood, the blood is called the blood of God, by his own blood, by the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood, the blood of God.
[26:34] So precious blood. So my friend, if you are laboring under a sense of sin, and you want to make your peace with God, there is only one person.
[26:46] That there is only one way which he can be done. And that is by coming to him who shed his blood, once and for all, to the God-man, the eternal Son of God-made man, who died on the cross and lives forever.
[27:06] And there is no other way in which peace and pardon can ever come together but that. Let me just say a word about the sufficiency of the profession. I told you that the tables of the covenant were in the yard, covered by the mercy seat.
[27:30] Therefore, for they show what God's righteousness required. Thou shalt do this, thou shalt not do that. But man had already broken that. He had already broken the law. Now, when Aaron came in on the day of the atoll net, the law, the tables of the covenant, they were covered by the gold and by the blood. By the two tables. And this, as I said to you, this is how propositionation was made.
[28:06] And remember, the law was made. And remember, the law was there in its entirety. The whole Mala Law was inside the eye. And the law was covered in its entirety by the mercy seat. And so the law is fulfilled in its entirety. For you and me, by Jesus Christ.
[28:29] The Lord said, our Savior is an all-sufficient Savior. There wasn't a nook. There wasn't a hole through which you could peep. There wasn't a hole the size of a pin point between the mercy seat and the ark.
[28:46] And the ark contained the ark contained the tables. And the tables were fully covered. Completely, sufficiently covered. So we have the sufficiency of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[29:01] And this is just what the apostles, one of the apostles says. It is said, by the original words, the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanse others from all sins.
[29:15] That is an expression of the sufficiency of the atoning work of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. The evangelical prophet Isaiah puts it in another way. He puts it, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
[29:30] Though they bread like crimson, they shall be made white like wool. Think with yourselves of the examples you have in the Bible to show the sufficiency of the atoning work of Jesus Christ.
[29:43] You can just glance at this. There was an evil that cried. How was he forgiven? A man who was on the very verge of hell having spent his life in the service of the devil.
[29:58] And there was a step between him and dead. How was he forgiven? He was forgiven by, how could he be forgiven? By the sufficiency of the work of Jesus Christ and of the power of Jesus Christ.
[30:15] How could Mary Magdalene be changed into a trophy of grace from a demon-possessed woman? There was sufficiency of Christ to work the change.
[30:29] How was Paul of Tarsus the moral Pharisee? How was he changed? How was his mind and his disposition changed? So that he counted the things that were gained to him lost or trust? By the sufficiency of the work of Jesus.
[30:45] Oh my friends, I hope and I plead with you in the name of God that whatever you will doubt in this night, you will never doubt the sufficiency of Christ for your soul.
[31:01] You may be the biggest sinner that ever was in this world. You may think you are. And you may be. No, you are not. I don't know. But you may be. But even if you are.
[31:14] I want to put this word, my words get jumbled and I want to put them as possibly as I can. But your sins are infinitesimal. Your unworthiness is nothing.
[31:27] In comparison with the sufficiency of Jesus Christ to be cured. Never disbelieve. Never let that doubt pass even through your mind. momentarily concern the sufficiency of Christ to be cured.
[31:44] Now there is another thing here regarding the mercy. And this is really the crux of the meaning of the mercy. It was like covering indicating the completeness of the atonement. In fact, that is the way the original word is.
[32:04] In the Hebrew, it is a covering. The emergency is a covering. And in the New Testament, the emergency is sometimes translated, prophesiation. And prophesiation just means that. It means a covering. So here you have now the covering over the law that I mentioned to you already.
[32:27] You see, if you came to the ark, supposing that you came to the ark, Aaron, or the high priest of the day, came to the ark, on the day of the atonement.
[32:40] And he knew what was in it. He had only one thing in it. That is the law. Aaron's thought that at the manor, Aaron's thought that the golden thought that at the manor were not in the ark.
[32:57] They were laid there beside me. But inside the ark, the high priest knew very well, were the two tables of the cabinet. But he never saw them. He never saw them because they were completely covered by the lid, by the scavenger that was on them.
[33:17] And so, my friends, if I may speak humbly and boldly, and with all reverence, there is a sense in which the high priest of the Lord profession, in which God himself cannot see through the nurse to approve good law in your case and mine.
[33:40] The law is fulfilled. The law is fulfilled. The law is fulfilled. The law is fulfilled. The law is fulfilled. In your case and mine. Because of the covering that is on it. Spring into the ground.
[33:52] This is the crux of the matter. This is how God says in the Bible that he sees no liquidy in his stake, but the deafness is Israel. This is how he says to his church, Thou art here, Thou art here, my lad, there is no spot in me. That does not mean that God's omniscience does not see the spots in us. But what it means is that in a moral sense, God sees nothing wrong with those who are troubled with the blood.
[34:24] All their sins are removed, all their sins are taken away, they are whole and beautiful and priceless and spotless before the throne of God. That is by way of justification of God. They are as spotless before them as they shall ever be.
[34:44] So we see then what is meant by the covenant. And you find this expressed by the psalmist in one of the psalms, psalm 32. He says, All the blessedness of the man whose sin is covered. This is the meaning of it. The man who has made his peace with God. The man to whom God is propitiated. The man who is reconciled to God. All the blessedness of the man whose sin is covered.
[35:23] And what my friends of the man who has made his peace with God. And what my friends of the whole universe could cover sin from God. For that is the meaning of the psalm. Not whose sin is hidden from man whose sin is covered. But whose sin is covered from God. That is the meaning of it. And no wonder the psalmist says in an exact expression, All the blessedness of the man who is the psalm. All the blessedness of the man whose sin is covered. What would you want today more than anything in this life? More than a million worlds?
[35:58] What would you want more than to have your sins covered from God? For this is the way that you cover them. This is the only way in which they are covered from them. By the covering that was on the ark. By the mercy. By Jesus Christ. Who was still divided by him.
[36:18] By the mercy. Of course with respect to obedience. Of course with respect to obedience. To the obedience the law required. The ark was the type of Christ. The ark in which the tables were contained. Was the type of Christ.
[36:32] But with respect to the curse. But with respect to the curse. The mercy. It was the type of Christ. It was here the curse was taken away. Not by the ark of sin. But by this lid of purest gold. With blood sprinkled upon it seven times. Indicating perfection. The curse was removed. Sin was covered forever. From the eye of God.
[36:57] Sin was covered. There was another thought that I wanted to bring before you. Let me mention it very briefly. It was the place of communion. Here says God. There will I meet with you and I will commune with you from above the mercy seat. It was the place of communion between God and man. There was a whole relationship established.
[37:24] There was a difference in the relationship that sin had destroyed. There was a difference in the relationship that sin had destroyed. That was before God. That was between God and man before. Sin had destroyed it. And man became the enemy of God. And God became the enemy of man.
[37:40] But God says from this. Here I will meet with you. And God can commune with you. And God can commune only with those who are reconciled to him. Communion means reconciliation. It is the consequence of reconciliation.
[38:00] And so our relationship is established. The enmity is the enmity is the enmity. And it also is an indication of peace. That is the peace that flows into the soul.
[38:13] As this mercy seat was the enmity. As this mercy seat was a covering upon the eye. You could refer to it as the divine benediction upon the sinner. In his relationship with God as he approaches him. It is God as it were covering the sinner with his everlasting arms. With his wings. So that nothing will ever befall him to his heart.
[38:35] God can have a covering the earth. God can have a covering the earth. God can have a covering the earth. It was a place of peace. For the sinner is made aware. That God can have a covering the earth. And so peace entered into the soul.
[38:48] Oh friends. If you all knew about it. And some of you do. If you all knew about it. You would know that peace can never enter into your heart.
[38:58] Real peace. Real peace. That will never be shaken by the very gates of heaven. Until you know by faith. That your sins are covered from the eye of God. By the gold and the blood. By the mercy seat.
[39:14] And once you know that. A peace that passes all understanding. A peace that will be forever shaken. That will be forever established in your soul.
[39:26] Although the earth be removed and the hills be casting to the sea. You would not lose that peace in its entirety. You are covered by God.
[39:38] And thus I will close. I will close. Let me just say these one or two words to you. By way of encouragement. I would like to say to you that the mercy seat was surrounded by sinful people. All the congregation of Israel was gathered together that day of atonement.
[39:57] And I saw Aaron entering into the world. And I saw Aaron entering into the holiest of all. They were all sinful people. And Aaron himself was a sinful man as he approached that place. But with the blood he was able to withstand.
[40:12] And my friend. And my friend. You in your own heart. If I may put it like this. The mercy seat is surrounded by the sins of your own heart. You are full of corruption from head to foot. There is nothing but putrefying soul.
[40:29] But remember. It made no difference. To not be reconciled to God. Representatively and ceremonially. That these people were full of sin. Because the mercy seat was there. Right in the center.
[40:46] And it would make no difference. And it would make no difference. My friend. To your relationship with God. Although you feel your heart surrounding as it were everything that's good. Surrounding everything that you hope is good. You feel your heart and its sinfulness surrounding it. But there is the mercy seat. And because it's there. Your sins will not be seen. And they will not be counted anymore.
[41:14] But there is another thought. And this is. You have a direct access to the mercy seat. As these people are not. This is our privilege and to the New Testament. By the cross of Christ.
[41:31] You don't need to come to a priest. You don't need to come to a minister. You don't need to represent it as the people of Israel. You don't need to come to a church. You don't need to come to a minister. You have a direct approach. And you have a direct approach. And you must see it. Who is Christ Jesus?
[41:50] You have free access to it. Oh, won't you avail yourself of it? Won't you come to it even now? Won't you come to it even regularly? Every time that the prophet of sin passes through your soul, every time you think you're making confession, you have free access to the mercy of God. It is always there.
[42:13] And finally, just to show you the responsibility, there are only two attitudes that you can take up to the mercy seat. That is to Jesus Christ as your representative. And that's the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. And one attitude is to come to Him. The other is to stay away from Him.
[42:39] There are only two attitudes. And regarding this New Testament mercy seat Christ Jesus, if there is no new trouble with the latitude at all, you are coming to Him or you don't come to Him.
[42:54] My friend, what is it in your case? How do you treat Him? What do you do with Him? What? Do you come to Him? Well, if you do, if you come to Him, you'll go away without peace and assurance, you'll be with you.
[43:16] If you come to Him, you'll be with me, you'll be with me, and you'll be with me, and you'll be with me. If you come to Him, you'll be with me. Amen. Let us pray. Amen. O Lord, we can only, in a very inadequate way, bring before the people the sufficiency and the completeness of the atonable work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[43:40] Do thou bless our forthering worlds, and grant that we may be used as instruments in thine hand to lead people to an acquaintanceship with Him, who is able and ready to meet with Him, and who has said that whoever comes, he will in no wise cast out.
[44:05] We ask it for a saying. Amen.