The Veil and the Ark

Well, good morning to all of you. And I greet you in Jesus' name.

Seems like last several months I've been away from here more than being here.

And I can say that, yeah, about the marriage relationship, I'm in my first love. And I've told Martha I loved her many, many times. So I feel like this is my family, and I should be saying I love you all.

I think it's something that we have to maintain to love one another and tell each other that we love each other and show it by our lives that we love each other.

Thanks for your prayers.

My thoughts have been very scattered trying to get this together. I have been talking about the tabernacle, the Old Testament tabernacle, all the articles of it, and so on. And today I'm going to try to talk about the veil and the ark and Emmanuel.

I thought about the verse in Revelation 4:11, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created." The thought that God is seeking pleasure sort of intrigued me there. The God of the universe, who is complete in Himself, He just had a desire to make a creation to look at just to, "Wow, I love it."

And I would just like to read from Genesis chapter 2.

Verse 7 to 15. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden.

And there He put the man whom He had formed. And out of the ground He made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden. And from thence it was parted and became into four heads. The name of the first is Pison. That is which compasses the whole land of Havilah where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. There is delium, the onyx stone. The name of the second river is Gihon, the same which compasses the whole land of Ethiopia.

And the name of the third river was Hiddekel. That is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates. And the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."

I don't know. I'm just trying to visualize all kinds of trees pleasant to look at and all kinds of good fruit. He, of course, made all the animals already. He had these beautiful rivers flowing and this beautiful garden.

It seems like these rivers might have been springs. I don't know. It says they're flowing out of the garden. And there was gold there. I just believe that the sights surpass the best scenic things that we can think of today.

It must have been beautiful. And then He placed man and woman right in the midst of that. And He said it's very good. God was pleased with it. And He was walking in the cool of the day in the garden there and fellowshipping with His people that He had created there. And I believe it was God's heart was just like, "Wow, I'm enjoying this."

Webster says that pleasure is a pleased feeling, enjoyment, delight, and satisfaction. And I think God was really happy with what He had done there.

And we can get a picture of God's heart. He was wanting to have interaction with His creation. And He was enjoying it. He wants that. And He still wants that today.

But then Satan came and the picture was destroyed and distorted. And God's heart must have been like it says about what does it say? It's after around the time of the flood. It depended on Him that He made man. I imagine He just like I can't imagine.

I know the disappointments we can feel sometimes when our children make bad choices and so how it hurts our hearts.

And He said, "Adam, Adam, Adam, where are you?" And I just can't imagine the feeling that was in His heart. Adam said, "Well, I heard you and I was afraid and I was naked." And sin causes us to hide from God and to feel uncomfortable in His presence.

I wanted to turn to Isaiah chapter 8. We've read some of this already in the opening. Wesley.

Isaiah chapter 8.

Verse 19. "When they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards it peeps, and that mutter. Should not a people seek unto their God, for the living to the dead, to the law and to the testimony if they speak not according to this word?

It is because there is no light in them. They shall pass through it, hardly bested and hungry. In it shall come to pass that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves and curse their king and their God and look upward. They shall look unto the earth and behold trouble and darkness and dimness of anguish. And they shall be driven to darkness."

Isn't that a contrast to the picture we just read in Genesis? That's where mankind has come through. What a contrast. Then in Hosea chapter 11.

"Rejoice not." Oh, that's not the right chapter there. Chapter 11, Hosea.

A little bit hard to find that book back in the Minor Prophets there.

Verse 1. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt, as they called them. So they went from them. They sacrificed unto Balaam and they burned incense to graven images. I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms." There we can picture a father with his toddler when they're learning to walk.

"But they knew not that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. And I was to them as they that take off the yoke of their jaws. And I laid meat to them. He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king because they refused to return. And the sword shall abide in his cities and shall consume his branches and devour them because of their own counsels.

My people are bent to backsliding from me, though they called them to the Most High. None at all would exalt him. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Adma? How shall I set thee as Zeboam? My heart is turned within me. My repentings are kindled together."

The heart of God to seek this pleasure in His creation.

Now I want to just flip back to Isaiah there and read the verse that Wesley read. Isaiah 7:14.

Here's God coming again in this picture that we've just been looking at. "Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel." God still wants to be with His people. And we have been celebrating that in this season.

Matthew gives us the definition. "Behold, a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel," which being interpreted is God with us. This is the Christmas story. God with us. Jesus in the flesh.

He's with us. Emmanuel.

In the Old Testament, the thought of the soul seeking God was beautifully illustrated in the tabernacle. The returning sinner entered the court and offered up an offering, a blood sacrifice. And then actually the sinner himself didn't go in through this. The priest did it for him. Went into the holy place. And there was the well, before he went in, there was the laver where he washed his hands and feet.

And then he went in and there was the bread and the lamp and the altar of incense. And then beyond that was the veil, a thick veil there. And beyond the veil was God's presence in the ark. While the worshipper experienced so much in the holy place, yet he was not in the presence of God. The entire tabernacle was 45 feet long and 15 feet wide.

And I guess that would fit right inside this room.

The holy place was 30 feet. And the most holy place where the ark was was 15 feet by 15 feet by 15 feet. It was a cube. And that was a type of the holy city. Revelation 21, you might just read that.

Verse 10. "And He carried me away in the Spirit in a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. And her light was like unto the stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal.

It had a wall great and high and 12 gates. And the gates, 12 angels and the names written whereon are the names of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel. On the east, three gates. On the north, three gates. On the south, three gates. And on the west, three gates. And the wall of that city had 12 foundations. And in them, the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb. And He that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city. And the gates thereof and the wall thereof and the city lieth four square. And the length is as large as the breadth. And He measured the city where they read 12,000 furlongs.

The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal." So there we have the holy city pictured as a cube, the same as this was typified in the tabernacle, in the most holy place where God had His presence. The 12 foundations there always baffled me. 12 foundations. I pictured one foundation and then another foundation on top of that.

Just how was this? And my father-in-law said, "No, no, no, no. That's not that hard." And he illustrated it. This is kind of off the subject, but he said, "No, no. You have your foundations.

And then you have the three gates.

You have foundations between the gates."

I didn't get that right. You heard that?

And then you, of course, had arches like they had. That's what he visualized, the 12 foundations. And I'm like, "Yes, that makes good sense."

Anyhow. All right. Well, let's turn to Exodus 25 now and just read the instructions for making this ark. Exodus 25 and verse 10. "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."

Exodus 25, verse 11. "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. 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 of shittim wood and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put the staves in 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 and they shall not be taken from it.

And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee." So this box wasn't that really big. It's probably smaller than this table here. And it was made of hardwood. And it was overlaid with pure gold. And I think the wood typifies humanity and the gold typifies deity. So there we have Jesus pictured in the ark.

And those two staves, if they had left them in there like they said, they may not have been tempted to use a cart to haul it. But somebody took them out, I think. And so they were like, "How are we going to move this?" So they were never to be removed.

All right. The lid, verse 17. "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."

Now that was the lid for this box. They had made a crown of gold around it. And that lid, as I can picture it here, would have sat right down in there so it wouldn't be able to be moved off. And pure gold. "And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them in the two ends of the mercy seat. Thou shalt make one cherub on one end and the other cherub on the other end. Even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof.

And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings. And their faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.

Thou shalt put the mercy seat upon the ark. And in the ark, thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there will I meet with thee and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel."

So now we have God saying, "Emmanuel, I will be with you. And I will be with you in the space between the cherubims above the mercy seat and in that space." And it's interesting to me that God never put Himself into an object. I'll be in this object. But He put Himself into the space. And to me, that's interesting.

So here we have a beautiful picture now of God dwelling with His people in the Old Testament times. There amid their sinful condition, He said, "I'll still be. I'll be with you. But I'll be in this hidden place, in this most holy place, totally you won't be able to get to me. I'll be in there." Once a year, the high priest could go in there. But yeah, He was there. But He wasn't there in a personal way.

He was hidden, as it were, in a dark portable throne room there, so unapproachable to His children. But all this changed the moment that Jesus died. For then we know that the veil was rent from the top to the bottom, that thick veil that separated them from their God now opened up. Emmanuel.

In Psalm 85:10, it's pictured that mercy and truth are met together. I was thinking about that. The two tables of the law were inside of the ark. And the law said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." But mercy says, "I'll make a way that you don't have to die."

And so God was able to well, mercy and truth have kissed each other. What an amazing truth that God devised a way to be just and the justifier of the ungodly. Amazing Emmanuel.

So Hebrews 4:16. "Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

Hebrews 10. I think I'll turn to that one.

19. Hebrews 10:19. "Having therefore boldness, brethren, to enter into the holiest" and that's where the ark was "by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil," that is to say, His flesh. "And having an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience." From that altar outside, the blood sacrifice was made. Jesus went outside of the city to shed His blood. "And our bodies washed with pure water, there it were, as the laver. And let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful, that promised."

There we have the lettuces. "Let us draw near. Let us hold fast. And let us consider one another."

"The curtain is torn and the way into God's presence is open. We need no longer fear to enter the holy of holies. God wants us to come into His presence. It's His pleasure, remember, to fellowship with us. Too often, we're content to live just in the holy place."

I was thinking about how animals sometimes act when we open a gate that used to be enclosed. You try to get the animals to go out and they go up to the gate and veer away. There's nothing there, but they think there's a barrier. And it's sort of that way, I think, with us sometimes, that we really don't feel real comfortable coming into the presence of God. That we would rather just take a little bit easier way and just live in the holy place, in the light, and partake of the bread. And just we know as a fact, we know the fact, but have we entered in like we should sometimes? Our carnal natures are uncomfortable in the presence of God.

And I've sensed that in my own life already. Just sometimes maybe hesitate to speak the name of Jesus. I notice different times when people will pray, they'll just say, "Well, in Your name." And I never hear them say Jesus, the name of Jesus at all. There just seems to be a little bit of a hesitancy there, just a little uncomfortableness. And the veil is torn and God wants us to come right in there and fellowship with Him and talk to Him and talk about Him and learn to know Him and He with us. He wants to sup with us and we with Him.

Jesus said, "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone." And when was the veil torn? When Jesus died. And I think that that's, in our experience, if we do not die to ourselves, if we do not take up our cross, then we still just live in the holy place.

And we don't come into the presence of God. And behold, as in a glass, this is one of my favorite verses, 2 Corinthians 3:18. "But we all with open face, behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord."

We go into the veil, through the veil, the ark, God's Shekinah glory there. "We with open face, behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

Amen. That's where God wants us to live. And my encouragement this morning to us all is to do that. Our faces should shine with His glory like Moses did when he was in the presence of the Lord.

Too often, we're satisfied to believe this only in theory and to not experience His presence actually. Emmanuel, God with us.

It's a powerful thought. God with us. The psalmist expressed it as a deer panting for water.

Desperation. We want to come into God's presence. We're not complete in ourselves. We just are not what we need to be outside in the holy place. We need to be in the presence of God. Jeremiah said, "You shall seek for me and find me when you search for me with all your heart." So we have to be diligent to draw near to God and He will draw near to us. Lingering in His presence will cause our hearts to be enlarged and to burn away our impurities. It's more than a doctrine to believe. It's to be experienced. The fire must glow within our hearts or it is not God's presence.

You can't be in the presence of God without it showing.

There within the ark was the pot of manna.

There in the wilderness, God provided for them. And God will provide for us. And there was Aaron's rod that budded new life. Life springing from a branch, a dead branch. Yes, that's the resurrection. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life."

God dwelt in their presence in the Old Testament time, but not in a personal way like when the veil is opened. So let us come in. Let's come in boldly. Let us draw near with a true heart. The great fact of the Old Testament tabernacle was that God was with them.

And the great fact of Christianity is that God is with us.

So let's press in through the veil and have His glory fill us.

The self-life is as a close woven veil that can be upon our hearts and hide the presence of God from us. The threads of this veil are made of fine threads of self-life, self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love, self-promotion, and the list goes on and on.

The threads of that self-life make a veil that hides us from the presence of God. Self is the opaque veil that hides the face of God from us. The old rugged cross is the only instrument that can rent the veil of our hearts.

And the cross will do to us what it did to Jesus. It wasn't a pleasant thing. The cross is rough. The cross is harsh. And it's not something that we naturally desire. But without taking up our cross, we will not enter into the presence of God. Paul said, "I might know Him, that I might know Him." And that's the desire that I want for my life. That I might know Him and the power of His resurrection, fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death.

May we press into the most holy place and there allow the Spirit of God, who is in us, to change us from glory to glory even by His Spirit. In Revelation 21 there, God's desire to fellowship with us is still the same today.

And He's saying, "Come." The Spirit and the bride say, "Come. Come."

I don't know if the cherubim were holding out their hands. Come. Let him that heareth say, "Come." Let him that is the thirst, come.

And whosoever will, that's the blessing, isn't it? It's up to us. If we live outside of the presence of God, it's not His fault. The veil was torn on the cross. And we can come boldly into the throne room of God and be with Him there.

Come. That's all I have. May the Lord bless us and help us to really enjoy God's presence and spend time with Him in prayer and in reading and in fellowship.

Shall we come to prayer? Brother Harlan, would you lead us in prayer?