Fellowship Baptist Church

We have considered carefully, the furniture of the holy place. We have thought about how each item points us to Jesus… We have filled our minds and our sanctified imaginations with the connections that honor our Lord in the physical space which God the Father commanded Moses to build… Today we will begin to put them together as we consider the work that Jesus came to do, the labor He fulfilled so absolutely as to entirely render obsolete a system which had stood as the only path to God for millennia… The services He renders still as our High Priest echo back to illuminate that older service, even as it resonates forward to help shape our understanding of His great and enduring passion.

In the OT the priesthood kept the people away from God. Being born into the line of Aaron, they served in place of the people and went before God on behalf of the people who could not do so. While the idea of a Christian priest serving in this manner is anathema to the whole plan of salvation… the lure of power and gain is hard to deny. And thus a false priesthood has been created by the Catholic church and imitated by others. Thus with the establishment of a "clergy class" who has the power and the duty to serve as gatekeepers for access to heaven, they have inserted themselves into the salvation promised by Jesus and in so doing nullified His word for all who listen to them. The scripture shows us a promise that God has opened the door and allowed us all access to Him through the blood of Jesus. Further the role of Pastor or Elder is not an elevated privilege which grants power, but rather a servant who labors in love to care for the flock of God as under-shepherds to the great Shepherd, our Christ.

The plans and purposes of God are always laid perfectly for His intention. They are always structurally where and when they need to be, functionally how they need to be, and of course always perfectly aligned for His ultimate intention… The worship of God must always proceed along the lines of what God has ordained, and planned. We must always proceed according to these plans and purposes and NOT according to our own forms, ideas or imagination.

"We cannot now speak in detail"… This is NOT an indication of Gnosticism in the early church, NOT an indicator that the writer of Hebrews is hiding something from the church. This is about prudence and discernment of the things that NEED to be said at the moment. This displays for us a shepherds heart to feed that which is most necessary at the time with an eye to what may come later. It shows concern, knowledge, understanding and willingness to commit to the long labor of systematic instruction. Rather than dump everything he knows, he stays on task and keeps his focus. It is a sign of a thorough and effective teacher.

The glory of God casts its splendor over the mercy seat… this is the highest, truest and most central truth of all that has been entrusted to us. It is the simple yet unimaginable truth that God has, by His grace and according to His own love, has saved a people that He chose before the foundations of all eternity. It is the truth that God will do everything needful to show His heart, His justice, His perfect love and His willingness to forgive - in a word, to display His infinite heart of mercy.

At the heart of all Hebrew worship stood the ark of the Testimony. So too was the mercy seat the heart of the ark itself. It was the place where God met with His people. A place of mercy obtained by sacrifice. A place of meeting through the mediation of blood. It was the place where sin was taken away… it is the place of Jesus.

Wherever God is, glory is manifest… His glory is transcendent, His presence incomprehensibly beautiful. Our ability to clearly comprehend this fact is hidden by our sin. We cannot approach God, we cannot comprehend Him, we cannot satisfy the demands of His perfect law… and the priest who entered once a year on the day of atonement could not even SEE the law he was supposed to be atoning for breaking, it was inside the ark, and the ark itself was under the cover of the wings of glory…

The tablets of the covenant were placed inside the ark as the most precious thing that Israel was given. They were the source of all spiritual knowledge and truth… they were the gift of God to Israel, and from Israel to the rest of the world. They served and still serve very specific purpose in the lives of men and women everywhere… and it is worth our time to understand just what is so special about those old stone tablets. The covenant, the law, the revelation that binds us all to Him.

The reality of God's promises is made abundantly clear by the gifts that He provided in the coming of the Magi. They brought gifts that would be useful for the young family, but more importantly they brought gifts that would declare all the more profoundly to us the person, nature and purpose of the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ. He who was declared to be Immanuel, "God with us".

When we think about the promises of God the idea of content is usually the core of the promise… just what does God promise, to whom, when? These are the usual questions that are asked and which we attempt to answer. But there is a unifying truth that runs through all of the promises of God and that is this: All of God's promises are centered around the display of Himself, around us knowing Him; for God is the chief and highest good of mankind, and of all men. HE Himself is always the answer to our need and the fulfillment of His promises.

God has spoken His promises to mankind for millennia. He has promised us that He will send one who will remove the burden of sin and the dominion of death from His people… and that idea has embedded in it and particular relationship with those people whom He comes to save. The relationship of Regal authority. God promised us that He would send His Anointed One who would provide all that He has promised, and who will lead and protect us. But make no mistake this One is to be KING. And there is no relationship possible with God the Father outside of belonging to the dominion of Jesus Christ the King. As distasteful as the concept might be to some, God promised and delivered a KING.

The historical relationship between the church and Israel has been muddied and twisted by many. Sadly, many in the church are just as guilty of hating those who brought us the promises of God and were the vehicle of God's blessing to the whole earth. For that is what Israel is, they are the people of the promise and the blessing that they carried and delivered is the fulfilled promises of God.

As we consider the purpose of God in creation, we must also reflect on the powerful promises He has made to bind His will into His creative work. God speaks His intent over all that He does, both to inform us of that which we need to know, but further because Christ, the Logos, the Word IS the creative force of all that is; He speaks out what He intends and fulfills all that He has spoken in Christ. "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Corinthians 1:20, NKJV). There is no other name which is given to us which fulfills the promise of God, because all the promises that bind God's work are ultimately made to Jesus Himself. He is the King of Kings and the very reason for all that has been created.

As we enter the Christmas season, we will be thinking together about the purpose, promise and person of God. This triad has always been the stamp of God's dealings with His people and has never changed. The purpose of God has always been exactly the same, it has never changed. He has always been about the purpose of saving a people for His own glory.

The next item given to be before the testimony was the rod of Aaron that budded. Where the manna was the lasting display of God's promise of provision and a lasting memorial of all His great mercies; the budded rod was a resounding declaration of God's power, purpose and absolute prerogative. God WILL lead His people according to His purpose and intent, and no amount of rebellion or grumbling will sway God from His purposes. God has power to save, He has purposed to love and He has the right to choose for Himself who, how and why. And NO ONE may gainsay Him. For salvation and all that it entails belongs to God.

The golden jar of manna was laid up before the ark of testimony in the holiest place. That manna which was the very bread of heaven, the bread of life pictured, sustained by God for the purpose of testimony, for the sake of the generations to come after. It was a shout of triumph, a whisper of hope and a confident assertion that our God will keep every promise he ever made! "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." (2 Corinthians 1:20, NKJV)

The ark of the covenant was, in the end, a box… that's it. It was a box. This object which was the beating heart of Hebrew worship was on its own, nothing more than a box. But it was so much more, not because of any inherent value in it, no… the ark, like us is special because of the fact that God chose to work in His chosen people. Because of what God put inside of it. For the ark was the place where the tokens of the covenant between God and Israel were kept. The ark was powerful because God keeps His promise. It was special because God is faithful, It was precious because God vowed to make and keep Israel for His own pleasure; and the ark was a reminder to them that the covenant which bound them and kept them close to God was kept alive by the hand of God himself.

The Ark of the Covenant is God's reminder to Israel that they belonged to God. It was the ever present symbol of His manifest presence, His unwavering holiness, and His abundant mercy. It was the reminder that God had made them His own for a PURPOSE … and ultimately that purpose was to produce the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ.

The ark of the Covenant was a small box, approximately 42 inches by 27 inches by 27 inches. It was made of wood and overlaid with pure gold. It had a sculpture of 2 cherubim on its removable lid, and between and under the shadow of their wings was the mercy seat. This was the place where God would meet with the representative of Israel to the accept the blood of the substitutionary sacrifice. This object was the beating heart of Hebrew worship. It was the mark of their relationship with God. They were His covenant people and He gave to them His law as a sign of that covenant, as the boundaries which they could never cross. The ark contained that law, the jar of manna, (a reminder of the faithfulness and power of their God); and the rod of Aaron which budded, giving testimony to the fact that God alone was the one who chose who is included in this binding agreement.

The offering of incense was a specifically prescribed act of worship. It was to be done daily; morning and evening and perpetually. There was to be a cloud of incense always in the holy place and drifting into the holiest…But entering the Holiest with incense was specific annual obedience. To attempt to enter the presence of God outside of His commanded time, method and place was to offer strange fire, and to court death.