Well, if you would now, please take a copy of the scriptures and turn with me to the book of Exodus, please. The book of Exodus and the chapter 25. We're just going to read. Well, we'll certainly start in verse number one, and we'll just dip into different verses as we work through this chapter, not reading it all, but at least summarizing it. So Exodus chapter 25. Let's commence our reading at the verse number 1, and just from the outset, let me say this is the blueprint for the tabernacle that would be in the wilderness, and that's something I'm sure you're familiar with. I did hope to have a diagram of it here this morning. I just didn't get it ready in time, so I'll be, God willing, with us for next Sunday morning. So, Exodus 25, verse number 1, and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart. Ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them. So the Lord says to Moses, go and take an offering of the people. They will give you the material to build the tabernacle. Verse 3. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them. gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goat's hair, and ram skins, dyed red, and badger skins, and chitin wood, oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for sweet incense, onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate, and let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Key verse, that I may dwell among them. Verse nine. According to all that I show thee after the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it. And they shall make an ark of Shittim wood. Two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure golds, within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt cast four rings, of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof. And two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it." Now, let me just stop there, because I know we're all human. And when we begin to read verses like this, lots of details, and maybe you don't fully understand what we're reading here, you tend to drift off. Let's try to avoid that. So let me explain, as we stop in verse 12, what exactly this looks like. So you might know, you have an idea of what the Ark of the Covenant is like. So I suppose it'd be similar to the size of the Ottoman in your bedroom, but a little bit bigger. and it will be square. There will be a lid on top of it, and then there'll be two big cherry bin. This'll be big, it'll be heavy to lift. There will be, as we just read there in verse 12, there'll be four rings, a ring on every corner. Why is that? Have you ever tried to lift your ottoman when it's full? Happens in our house. Here's how my wife lifts it. Dear, dear, the ottoman need shifted. And maybe you're the same. It's heavy, it's big, it's clumsy. Well, here we have a big golden box. They had put four rings, one ring in each corner, and they had put big poles through it, so a man would stand at the back and I'll at the front, and they would use the rods to lift it up and walk with it. That was how it was going to be done. That means they would not have to even touch it. They'd put the rods in, lift it up, leave it down again, job done. So let's pick up then at verse 12 again. And thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof. And two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it. And thou shalt make staves, or poles, of chitim wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put the steves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them. "'The staves shall be in the rings of the ark, "'they shall not be taken from it. "'And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony, "'which I shall give thee.'" This is what's going into it, okay, verse 17. "'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 chariot bins of gold, of beaten work shalt 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 shalt ye make the cherubim on the two ends thereof. And the cherubim shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seats with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another. Toward the mercy seat shall the face of the cherubim 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 cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. So that finishes the ark. Then we just mention verse 23, thou shalt also make a table of chateam wood, two cubits shall be the length thereof. And then move down to verse 31, and thou shalt make a golden candlestick of pure golds. And then we move over to the next chapter that begins to deal with the material. What we're looking at here this morning is some of the furniture you find in the ark of, or rather in the tabernacle, firstly the ark. And we'll come back later on in our service, but I trust already you have a little bit of an idea as to what this is dealing with. This furniture, furniture which was highly relevant and important. This was how they worshipped God. And I want to show you today how this is very important for you and me to understand this very morning. Amen. If you would, please turn with me in your Bibles then to the book of Exodus. We read chapter 25, but if you would again, go to chapter 19. Chapter 19, on the book of Exodus, and here you have Israel arriving at Sinai. Exodus 19, and the verse number 1, in the third month When the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. And so here you have the third month. They have left Egypt. Those plagues had come. God had graciously delivered them. He had drowned the Egyptian army in the sea. They had been walking in the wilderness for three months. By this stage, they have enjoyed water which had been made sweet from bitter waters. They have been enjoying the manna. They have received water from a rock. So they have seen by clear, undeniable evidence that God was not only real, but that God was for them. There's not a single Israelite had any grounds to say there was no God, for he was feeding them, watering them, leading them, guiding them, and delivered them. If you're saved today, that's your testimony. God has delivered you. He feeds you, keeps you, blesses you. Indeed, that is the case with all creation. We come then to chapter 25 this morning. And when they arrived at Sinai, soon Moses was commanded to come up the mount, Mount Sinai. And he's been there ever since, chapter 20, 21, two, three, four, five. And he's going to be there for the rest of the book of Exodus. So he was up that mountain for an awful long time, several months, in fact. Now, he was up and down, of course, on several occasions for different reasons. But he's already been there long enough to receive the moral law. You remember what the moral law is? Summarize the Ten Commandments, how we live morally. We have seen the ceremonial law. That's how they should worship God. They have received the civil law. That's how their nation should be governed. And they also made a covenant. They renewed the covenant with God. And now Moses is still up the mount and the Lord breaks into a new subject of dictation here as he shows Moses how he's going to build the ark to worship. Now, like I said, chapter 25 is a blueprint for the tabernacle, for all the furniture in the tabernacle, such as the ark and the tables and the cloth and everything else. Now, before we get into this this morning, I want you to know we obviously looked at this in great detail. I think it was 2013. We spent, I don't know, it could have been half a year, six, seven months going through all the details of the Tabernacle. I don't intend to do anything like that over this week and next week. All I want to do is dip into different parts of these chapters and highlight some of the most important truths. Now, I don't want you to get I suppose, all cold, and think, here we go. Here's our ex-joiner, ex-builder minister, who's going to get into these chapters and talk about different types of wood, different types of joints, and different types of nails, and so on. If I was to do that, I would kind of miss the whole purpose of why this is written. There is certainly a spectacular detail here, much to dwell upon. But the key verse is chapter 25 and the verse 8. This is the key verse, and I emphasize it to you. It says, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. That's the key bit. This is all about God. This is all about the Lord coming to visit them. Somewhere where they could come and learn of him and fellowship and receive mercy and grace and power and help. So, here we are today. 2021. The world's in chaos. Right across the globe. There are difficulties and the pandemic's still going on. Here locally, there's things happening and sins that are marching on and grease our heart and our souls. And then individually today, as he prayed earlier, oh, you may have your cares and concerns as well and your burdens. What in the world has a tent 4,000 years ago got to do with your personal finances? What's it got to do with your relationship with your neighbor? Now, maybe things are difficult. What about, what's this got to do with legislation and law? What's this got to do with the pandemic? How in the world could a 4,000 year old tent be of any interest to us today? Well, here's the reason why. If you're a believer, you will love Christ. Let me illustrate this for you. If you're into gardening and you're into flowers, what do you love to do? You love to look, admire, and learn about flowers. You love to go into gardens and see different flowers and expand your mind and be of yourself, as it were, and everything floral. You'll love to have floral designs in your house, maybe your clothes, or maybe you've got a floral pattern on your Bible cover. You just love flowers. And it's the same with the Christian. In all walks, in all circumstances, yes, there's a pandemic and sins in the march, but what does the believer most need today? Yes, you need guidance and help, but you need to see And in the light of His love and His goodness, all the cares of this world grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and His grace. And so that's what we're going to do this morning. We're going to see Christ. If you would then, in your Bibles, turn to Exodus 25 where we read and go to the verse number 10. And here is where we're going to commence this morning. I have already explained to you what the ark looks like, that big box, that ottoman-shaped square cube with the two golden cherubim and the poles going through it. Well, let's look at these details and see how we see Christ. Verse 10, and they shall make an ark of Shittim wood. Two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold. Within and without shalt thou overlay it, and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round about. Can I commence with the material that the ark is made of? It's not just dull, boring facts that this was made of wood and it was made of gold. In fact, when these verses talk about Shittim wood and they talk about gold, this verse helps to answer one of the greatest mysteries in Christendom. And that's the great mystery of Christ himself. What was Jesus Christ? What is Jesus Christ? He is God and he's man. In two distinct natures, yet one person forever. That's what we learn in our catechisms. And that's what you see in the ark. The ark was made of two materials, wood and gold. But it was one ark. Now, there's two materials, and the wood didn't become the gold, and the gold didn't become the wood. Two distinct materials, but one object. And that helps us a little way in understanding the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, what was the purpose of the ark? We'll go back to verse 8. That I may dwell among them. What was the purpose of Christ? He came to dwell amongst men. He walked amongst us. Why? To be our saviour. To be the one that we could approach for mercy and for forgiveness. The one who loved us. The one who was all together lovely. The one who is sufficient to save us from our sins. Now, as we look at the material here, go to verse 10 and think for a moment specifically about the wood here. Verse 10 speaks about the Shittim wood. Now, this is the only place in the whole of the Bible where you have Shittim wood being used. Now, the people of Shittim are mentioned, the place is mentioned, but it's the only place where anything's made of this wood. Let me describe this wood to you. You can still find it today, particularly in different parts of Africa. Maybe you're going through a very dry, harsh wilderness, and you'll see, well, a very unimpressive tree. And the tree, you'll not hold it because it's full of thorns. It's almost tangled about itself, and it doesn't look very spectacular. You'll never get anyone going to Africa and taking a photo of themselves beside one of the shateen wood trees. Because there's nothing nice about them. They're very ordinary. Very plain. But here's the thing. Like I said, it's rough. It's knotted. It's covered in thorns. And believe it or not, it produces a gum. And that gum is used in medical remedies for different illnesses. So here you have Israel. Where are they? In a dry wilderness. And they're told to gather this rough, knotted, unimpressive looking tree. And straight away, your mind goes to Isaiah 53, doesn't it? Christ, He would be a root out of dry ground. He would have no form nor comeliness. Nothing spectacular. Very ordinary to look upon. And this tree, of course, is full of thorns. And again, doesn't that point you to Christ? Why are there thorns? Because of Genesis chapter 3, the fall. And when the fall came in, what did God say? Part of the curse was there would be thorns. That's what we have thorns today. Thorns in the garden. Thorns in the flesh. Things that irritate us. They're there to remind us and as a demonstration that we live in a fallen world. And of course, Christ. would have thorns impaled unto his brow. His hands and his feet would be kneeled with thorn-like kneels. And there he would bleed and die for us. And here's the one who made the world crowned with the curse. Why? For you and me, or sin. So, a regardless tree, very plain, very ordinary, thorny. But how do you get the gum out of it? Remember I mentioned to you a minute ago, it produces this gum which is used for medicinal remedies. You would heat it up, you would take it, and you would put it under fire. And as it's burning there, or at least as the heat begins to rise, the gum will begin to bubble out. I don't think I need to show you how that represents Christ. The one who went the whole way to Calvary, who went under the fires of the cross. the agony and the pain of all sorrows, dealing with all hell, dealing with all sin. And what happened? When the thorns were placed upon his brow, what came forth? Blood. When the soldier paced aside, what came forth? Blood and water mingled, and that was the remedy. That's the medicinal use, the medicinal remedy for sin, Christ's blood. Can you see here, the Lord just says, make it of Shittim wood, but it's packed with meaning, packed with relevance for you and for me. And so the Lord, like the Shittim wood, a man, plain, ordinary, thorns would be impaled into him, and from his very form would come forth a remedy for sin. But also this ark was made of gold, You see that there in verse number 11, don't you? And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold. Now, gold in the Bible, it speaks of kingliness. Remember when Christ was born? They came and they brought him three gifts. They brought frankincense, they brought myrrh, and they also brought gold. Now, those wise men were most likely royalty, and they were bringing the best gifts that they could bring to this newborn king. And one of them was gold. Gold speaks of kingliness. But furthermore, gold speaks of divinity. It speaks of heaven. Because if you go to the book of Revelation, It talks there about the city built of gold, streets of gold, and so on and so forth. So gold speaks about kingliness. It speaks about divinity. It speaks about heaven. But furthermore, it wasn't any kind of gold. Look at verse 11. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold. What that means is perfect gold, right? How do you make sure gold is flawless? Well, for us, ultimately, we can't make something flawless. But we can make it more flawless by putting it into the fire. And I understand that when you melt down gold, the impurities rise to the top and you can extract the impurities. Again, you have fire in view here. So when you heat up the gold, the impurities are evident to see and they can be removed. Well, let's think about Christ for a moment here. He came under the fire of the devil's temptation. No impurities found to be removed. Christ came under the fire of Pilate, and the Pharisees, and the scribes, and the Roman soldiers there, and the priests as well, and they all hurled everything they could at Christ. Absolutely perfect, no impurities found. He then went under the wrath of God and burned under the wrath of God's fury. And again, he was perfect in all that he did. There were no impurities found. He is better than this pure gold. He is perfect. So this gold speaks about kingliness, speaks about divineness, speaks about perfection, speaks about something else. Speaks about preciousness. Isn't gold precious? I'll tell you how you know. If you went down to the main street tomorrow and you took a gold bar and you threw it out, what would happen? There'd probably be a fight in the street for it. Coronavirus or not. Because it's precious. And that's the idea of gold here. They were looking at something that was most precious. And I mean, you can go through the Bible, but particularly Peter's epistle, 1 and 2 Peter, and Peter speaks about precious things. And he speaks about the precious blood. We're not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He calls Christ precious, and he is precious to us that believe. And so this morning, as we think about the gold here, it speaks about His kingliness, His divineness, His perfection, His preciousness. Let me just ask you a question. Is Christ precious to you? Is He? I mean, could you go out here today and go out into the world and sin against God and it doesn't really bother you. You don't really think about it because Christ isn't precious to you. You could offend Him, but you don't really care. You don't care about Him. If that's the case, I would suggest that you to get on your knees and call upon God for salvation today. Do not leave this house continuing to despise the one who is better than pure gold, Christ himself. He is your savior. The one that from him comes the medicine to cure you of sin. That's something about the materials here, and I'm sure you're conscious we're literally just skimming over the surface of this, but let's move on here as we do so. We'll come to the detail of this ark, all right? So verse 12, and thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in the four corners thereof, And two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings in the other side of it. And thou shalt make steves of chitim wood, and lay, and overlay them with gold. So here you have the rings and the steves, or the rings and the rods by which this will be transported. You understand what this is? This is the most precious object on planet Earth. Because this is where God will meet with his people. It's not fit for your grubby hands or for their grubby hands to handle over sinners. Let's not touch the glory. Let's not touch the glory of Christ. Now, they were told here, you know, put the staves in so that you won't have to touch it. But can you remember the occasion in the Bible when they were transporting the ark and the man called Uzzah, very good man, Uzzah was there, and he was walking alongside the ark, and the ark began to shake. And what happened? Well, he cared about the ark, so he grabbed it. And he wanted to stop it from falling. What happened? Dead. Instantly. Capital punishment. There and there. And you might think, well, was that fair? Yes. Yes. You see, you could be well meaning But if it's disobedience, it's disobedience, no matter how well-meaning you may be. Why did the Ark on that occasion shake? Why did it fall? Because they weren't carring it with rods. Why were they not carring it with rods? Well, like I said earlier, you try carrying your ottoman full of all the bed linen and clothes in your house. You might carry it for a wee while, but you might begin to get sore. You might carry it in your hands, and your hands and arms get weak. You might put it in your shoulders, and your shoulders get sore. So it might be easier, rather than having the burden of carrying this great box, you might let an animal carry it. That's what happened. They had some calves and they made a little cart and they set the ark on a cart and they began to walk the animals bearing the burden. What's wrong with that? Dear believer, sometimes we can get weary of carrying the burden of Christianity. I wish I could let my guard down a bit. I wish I wouldn't have to go into my workplace or my school or whatever. I wish I wouldn't have to say I'm a Christian. Today I'm going to keep my head down. I'm not bother carrying the glory of God. I'm not bother with the highest privilege given to mankind. I'll just leave it to the side today. I'll just do my own thing. I'll have a wee day off. Men and women, this is the glory of God and it was their highest privilege to carry the ark. But isn't the world primarily the flesh? And the devil there promoting us, or rather prompting us to leave it down. Now, where did they get this idea from of the cattle? Where did they get this idea from? Well, remember how the Philistines came and stole the ark. And when they stole the ark, every city they took it to, they took it to Gaza and Escalon and other cities. And everywhere it went, there was mass death. Lots of people died. And so they said, right, let's get rid of this ark. And they got two calves. And they made a little cart, if you like, and they carried it. And that is where Israel saw the idea. And they thought, well, we're going to, we'll do what the Philistines did. Hey, that'll work well. They're stronger than us, but they didn't carry it. Adopting the ideas of the world to do the work of God will always, always, always, always, always, always lead to death. And that is why Uzziah died. That's why. It was sin, disobedience. God said, you carry my ark. You carry the burden. It's your duty. not the worlds and not for animals. You and I ought to be careful, therefore, as to how we live before God and men." So that was the staves and the rings there. Let's move on for a moment to the mercy seat, if you go there. We'll go to verse 20. I mean, there are all the details about the cherubim here as well. They were beautiful. The cherubim, those heavenly beings. A cherub, a singular. Cherubim is singular. Cherubims, that's just a translation issue there, but nevertheless. Verse 22, it says, and there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the cherubim, which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things, which I will give thee in the commandment unto the children of Israel." So it's the word mercy seat I want you to see there. And I'm not going to go into all the details of the Hebrew and everything else there, but it really is an incredible study. And if you want something to thrill your soul today, go and take a concordance, understand what the word mercy seat means, trace it through the Bible. Old and New Testament speaks of your salvation, your redemption, God's forgiveness. It really is magnificent. But just for our purposes here this morning, the Lord said, put a mercy seat on top of this, and then I'll meet with you. If you've ever seen the Ark of the Covenant before, there's no seat on it. It's just a big slab. There's the box and the slab of gold, well, wood covered in gold, and the cherry bin. So where is the seat? Well, the seat is that big slab. All right. And the Lord says, that's where I'll be. That's where I'll meet with you. Now, why is that significant? Well, for a couple of reasons. What's the purpose of the slab? What was that big lid for? Well, what's the lid for in your ottoman? It's so you can throw all kinds of stuff in there and close the lid, and you can't see what's in there. It's covered. It's gone. So what was in the ark? Well, there were three things. There was some manna, a little bowl of manna. There was orange rod that budded. But for our purposes this morning, there was the law. Ten Commandments. Now think this through for me for one moment here. The size of the ark was given, and when it was made, it was big enough to put the tables of the testimony inside, God's law. And when you look at the law, what does it do? It reminds you of your sin. But you put a lid on, and you can't see the law anymore. And it's symbolic of this. God says, I will cover the law and I will meet with you on the grounds of mercy. Now, let's go to Christ. You and I have broken God's law time without number. What do we need? We need someone to cover all of our sins. How we've broken the moral law, time without number. We need someone to come and to cover all of our sins. And that's what Christ does. He came and His purpose was to remove our sin and to give us a righteousness covering all of our iniquity, so that when God the Father looks at us, He sees not us, but He sees His Son and His Son's righteousness. Now here's what's thrilling. The size for the ark is given there in verse number 10. And when you come to the latter part of this chapter, it gives you the size of the mercy seat, and the size of the mercy seat covers exactly the size of the ark. It absolutely covers the ark. It covers the law. The Lord didn't make a lid that half covered it or three quarters covered it. No, the law is completely covered and there's no room for me to be exposed to God's law. You'll remember on occasions, there were people who were very curious and they found the ark and they wanted to see what was inside and what did they do? They opened the ark and when they opened it, they died. Because it was like this, it was as if mercy's here and they went under mercy and were exposed to the law. Therefore they died. We need to be up here looking down on mercy and the law being covered. Otherwise we die too. We deserve the judgment of God. And so, men and women, this ark, as we come to a conclusion here, speaks of Jesus Christ in the most wonderful terms. He who is God and man. He who, in his body, possessed the very remedy for our sin. The one who is our mercy seat. And you see, Aaron, Moses, whoever, they would now commune with God at the mercy seat. This is how they would commune with God. That's how you and I came with God, through Christ. The grounds of mercy. He is our mercy seat. If you and I were to come to God without Christ, without that golden slab, without that instrument of mercy, We die because we're guilty of sin. And so we come through Christ, or Redeemer, or Mediator, or Savior. So men and women today, we have every reason to rejoice. We have a Savior. We have the real ark. Listen, we don't need to go in some archeological dig and try to find the ark and then we'll enjoy revival. I have Christ greater than the ark. But what if you're not saved today? You don't have exposure to this ark. You only have exposure to God's law, God's judgment, God's justice. And I have absolutely no idea why you would choose again today to go out without Christ. Why you would choose to ignore the ark, the one who has the remedy, who covers all your sins. You might say today, you know, is it not an awful thing? for me to ask somebody else to take my punishment, I'm going to man up and take my own punishment. Can I say to that, you just have, I don't mean to insult anybody here, but you have just absolutely no idea how daft such a statement is. I'm going to man up and take my own punishment. You can't take your own punishment. You'll enter into hell and you'll be in the depths of God's indignation forevermore. It'll never end. You can't just man up and take it. It will consume you for all eternity. But Christ came and he says, I'm able to deal with your sin. I invite you, come to me and I will save you. He is the ark and this is what Israel would have seen. God was dwelling amongst them because He loved them. And He wanted to commune with them. And He wanted to be their Redeemer. And can I put this as reverently as I possibly can today? Don't misunderstand me, but understand this. God wants to be your Savior. If He didn't, He wouldn't have sent His Son to die on Calvary. It's His desire to be your Redeemer. That's what this book says. And I want to encourage you today. You come to Christ. And you'll find that His mercy is still available for you. We praise God for the God, man, who is our mercy seat and who covers all of our sins. Gracious God and Heavenly Father, genuinely our worth would not be, our life would not be worth living if we did not remember the mercy seat, Jesus Christ, the one who bore our sins, the one who covers the law, through him we can approach the almighty God on the grounds of mercy. And so, heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for sending your Son. And oh, dear Son, we rejoice in the great sacrifice that was offered there in Calvary and for the Holy Ghost to apply it to our souls. It is good to be saved and it is good today to have an ark It is good to have a mercy seat. It is good to have a sea. If your help is Lord, we have our eyes on thee. Lead and guide and do us good this day. In Jesus' name we pray, amen and amen.