The Meaning of Atonement to Us

If I say the Ark of the Covenant, I wonder how many of you, the first thing that comes to mind is the 1981 movie, The Raiders of the Lost Ark. I actually saw people raise their hands. Of course, that movie was a total fictional account in which the Ark of the Covenant contained strange, uncontrollable powers, and if you've ever had it, they could release that power and control the world.

It really was a travesty when you look at what the Scripture says about the Ark of the Covenant, the place where in the Tabernacle, eventually the Temple, where it was the mercy seat of God, and here you have a movie in which, you know, if the Nazis could grab hold of this thing, they could control the power of God, and that would help them rule the world. Well, there's a lot of legends about the Ark of the Covenant. It's known that it existed where it is today.

Some people claim that it's in Ethiopia, and there is actually in Ethiopia a temple with an inner room in there, where they claim the Ark of the Covenant is, and they have special guards around this little temple. Of course, they won't let anybody in to see it except the priest, and they say, yes, it's there, but you can't go see it. So, nobody can confirm, but for a long, long time, there has been this little place in Ethiopia which claims to have the Ark of the Covenant.

We know that some people say it's buried under the Temple Mount, and there have been some archeologists that claim it's buried there, but once again, nobody has absolute proof. According to 2nd Maccabees, what happened was, they took the Ark of the Covenant and hid it in a cave, and it's hidden there, and God will miraculously bring that out before the coming of the Messiah, and the Ark of the Covenant will once again be in Judah. The Ark of the Covenant actually has an important meaning for this day. In fact, the Ark of the Covenant, after the Temple was built, the Ark of the Covenant had very little to do with the day-to-day activities of the priesthood of the Israelites, except on this day.

Now, it had more to do with the travel through the wilderness. We'll talk about that in a minute, but we'll talk about the Ark of the Covenant today, and we'll talk about its importance in this day in ancient Israel, but then we'll talk about its importance today, what it means to the New Covenant Christians.

I always find it interesting that when we keep each Holy Day, we live in a society that has two extremes in their viewpoint. One is a Christian belief that we don't have to keep this day at all, that somehow these Holy Days that were established by God have no meaning to Christians.

The other is the Jewish belief that they attempt to do these days under an old Covenant administration. This day, it is a very frustrating day in how the rabbis talk about how to keep this day. Now, it's a very ritualistic day in the synagogue, because they can't keep it the way they're told to in the Bible.

It's like when we talked about on the Feast of Trumpets. That day can't be kept in the way that they're told to do it, because the old Covenant had to do with having a tabernacle or a temple, and it had to do with the land of Israel, and it had to do with a priesthood, and those things don't exist. So when we look at it, we have a unique viewpoint. Yes, Christians are to keep these days, but they are to keep them and observe them in the way that the New Testament instructs us to keep them. It's showing us the real meaning of these days. Now, one reason that's important in understanding that is because you realize the way we are keeping the day of the Tobin, except for a few things like fasting and having a holy convocation, is dramatically different than the way they kept it in the Old Testament.

Dramatically different. And it's dramatically different than the way Judaism tries to keep it today. And the reason why is there's something...the key to this day is not understood in Judaism.

So we're going to look at today why we do this, and how we, as Christians, understand the unlocking of what this day really means, as we observe it today. Now, we do fast. In the Jewish world, they fast today. We have a holy convocation. We don't do any of the rituals that they do on this day. There's reasons for that. They're not biblical, because they can't do the biblical rituals. We can't do the biblical rituals either, unless you have a Levite and you're in Jerusalem, and you have a tabernacle, and you have to bring animals. We don't do that either. Let's look at the Ark of the Covenant. Back in Exodus 25, and we're going to show a couple slides here. Let's show this first slide. The Ark of the Covenant. Now, this is an artist's rendition.

It wasn't a very big box. It was just a little over a yard long. But it had...it was overlaid with gold, except the very top part.

The top part was solid gold. And you had on it two angels with outstretched wings. Now, we don't know exactly what it looked like. Here we have an artist's rendition. You'll see different renditions of what people think it looked like. But this gives us an idea. There's poles at which the Levites had to carry it. These poles where they could pick it up and carry it. It had to be taken care of and carried in a very special way. Now, if you remember, about seven months ago when I started the series of Sermons on Holiness, we talked about the Ark of the Covenant and why God killed the man who tried to protect the Ark.

Uzzah, remember God tried to protect the Ark by touching it. God killed it. It was because this particular box had to be taken care of in a very special way. And there's reasons for it. We'll look at those reasons. Now, inside this box, we'll look at the next slide, there were three... eventually there were three things. At the beginning, we had the tablets of stone, and which the Ten Chemamis were contained. Eventually, you had Aaron's rod. Aaron the High Priest. But what was special about this rod is that it always bloomed.

Now, a dead piece of wood does not bloom. But this rod continued to bloom the entire time that it existed and it was inside of the Ark of the Covenant. Then you also had a jar of manna. These three things were put inside the Ark of the Covenant. These things actually represent an important aspect of God's relationship with ancient Israel.

You have His law, you have His government, you have the fact that He is their sustainer, their protector, that this supernatural rod that keeps budding. You have the manna, that God blessed them, that God took care of them, God fed them. So, all these things... and each one can be studied individually. All three of them contained an enormous amount of information about how God is revealing Himself to those people. And they're inside this Ark. Let's go to Exodus 25 and read a few verses here starting in verse 17.

Starting in verse 10, they were given the explanation about how to build this very specific explanation. What it was to be constructed of. Verse 17 says, you should make a mercy seat. Now, this is very important. This day has to do with the concept of a mercy seat.

You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit a half in its width. And you shall make two carabim of gold, of hammered work, you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one carab at one end, the other carab at the other, and you shall make the carabim at the two ends, as if one piece with the mercy seat.

And the carabim shall stretch out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they shall face one another. The faces of the carabim shall be toward the mercy seat. Now, this is very important. The very top of this ark symbolized something that was vital for them to understand. And there were two angels that represented two actual beings that exist at the throne of God. And their wings are outstretched, and they're looking toward the middle of this ark, the middle of the top of this ark, which is solid gold.

Verse 21, And you shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you, the testimony with the ten commandments. And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two carabim, which are on the ark of the testimony, about everything which I give you in commandment to the children of Israel. So this is very important.

He says, When I come to talk to you, this is where I will come. This is the place. Now, this mercy seat now represents the presence of God. And we know as they traveled across the wilderness with the tabernacle, that when God appeared in a pillar of fire and a cloud by night, it moved and they followed. And when it stopped, that's where they put the temple, because that pillar of cloud and that pillar of fire would rest inside the temple, right down into the top of this.

Right on the top of this. If you were one of the children of Israel, you would come outside of your tent every morning and you could see where the tabernacle was. And the tabernacle had a fence around it and a building was actually made out of a tent in the middle of it.

And that tent had two compartments. And at the back of that tent, you would have been able to see that pillar of fire or that pillar of that cloud during the day. It came down and actually went inside the tent. It went inside the tent into the room at the back of the tent. They saw that every day. And then it would leave that tent and move and then they would follow it wherever it went. Let's look at the next slide here.

This is, once again, an artist rendition that gives us an idea of what it looked like, the tabernacle. There's a fence around it. This, of course, had a covering on it. It's cut away so you can look inside of it. And this, in here, is the holy place. But in the back, there's this little room called the most holy place, or the holy of holies. The high priest, this is the garb that he would wear on this day. We don't have time to do that today, but one of these times. I'll just go through. I'll have to do a sermon or Bible study on what this high priest wore on this day. It was very special. He actually changed clothes a couple times this day, as he did different rituals that he did. Everything he did as high priest was to be an intercessor between those people and God. If he did not do his job this day, the children of Israel were cut off from God. The high priest actually was taken. Now, this is exactly in the Scripture, but what they did was the high priest was taken. And he was for days, he was isolated and just prepared through Washington prayer for this duty.

Because this duty today would make the difference of whether the people were accepted by God or not accepted by God. And so, once a year on this day, next slide, once again, most holy. This is where the Shekinah would come down into, this glory of God. When Solomon built the temple, the same thing happened. The glory of God filled the temple and drove all the people out. They couldn't even stay in it. So, the very presence of God on earth was of this day inside that holy place. Now, remember, through those 40 years of wandering, it was there every day, but they couldn't go inside there. They had to wait until it left. But on this day, the high priest went in to the very presence of God. Now, you can see why he would spend days preparing, praying, going through washings. Because on this day, he was going to go inside. That veil was going to be opened up, and he was going to walk in there, and it was going to be shut behind him. And he had to sprinkle blood. He had to do all kinds of things inside that holy place during this day. Alone, interceding for all the people in the very presence of God. One last slide here.

So, he would enter into this and sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat. But I want you to understand, as this drawing sort of tries to picture, there's no way for us to even grasp what's going on. This, of course, this smoke, the presence of God, fills this little room and rests right on top of the mercy seat. He's the only one that would ever see that of all the Israelites. Nobody else would see that. Only the high priest. Only on this day. Only when those priests pull back that covering, and he walked in and they shot it, and there he was, alone, in the very presence of God. He could see it as it rests upon the mercy seat. It looked like a cloud. I mean, he didn't see a figure. He didn't see a being. He saw what looked like a cloud, the presence of God, for that mercy seat. And so, of course, this is what they did every day of atonement. They can't do that anymore. In the Jewish world today, I read last night, I was reading up on how do the rabbis explain atonement on this day? Because atonement required a sacrifice, and there's no sacrifice to give. So there are about 15 different ways that rabbis describe how you can receive atonement on this day. One of them is do some good deeds, or trust in the good deeds of the patriarchs.

But there's all these concepts. How do we receive covering of our sins today? Because on this day, either their sins are covered, or they stay in their sins.

And so, it is a struggle within Judaism. How do they receive atonement?

We are here today to commemorate that you and I have received atonement. To atone means that your sins are covered. Literally, in Hebrew, that's what it means. Kepor means you're covered. Your sins are no longer visible. They no longer exist in the mind of God.

So what happened on this day was extremely important. There are more activities, more rituals this day. And usually on the day of atonement, I try to pick a couple different rituals to cover. So there's a lot of them I won't cover today. I'm not going to cover the Azazel goat. I've covered that, I believe, last year. I just want to cover this concept of the mercy seat.

Now, when the high priest would go into that holy of holies on this day, he was to bring the blood of some sacrifices. Now, let's look at those sacrifices in Leviticus 16. And now we're going to go to the New Testament. Okay, Leviticus 16.

Because if we're still under the Old Covenant, you and I would have to have some lemite. High priests do this today. Let me make it 16 verse 1. Now, the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered profane fire before the Lord had died. And the Lord said to Moses, Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat, which is on the ark, lest he die, for I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.

He said, So don't have him come in there, because I'm in that cloud hovering above that mercy seat.

He goes on to tell them that he was to do it on the day of Atonement. And he's given very special instructions on what he is to wear, how he is to wash, how they are to pick out the animals. Let's go to verse 11. Now, if you're the high priest, and you're about to go before God for the sins of the people, you have a problem, because you, as a human being, have also sinned. So the first problem that they had to deal with here is not the sins of the people, but the sins of the high priest. So on this day, before the people could be forgiven, the sins of the high priest could be forgiven. If the high priest's sins weren't forgiven, he would die. He would go into the holy place and die, and now the people were without an intercessor.

And they did not have the right to simply go before God in their sins. God would not accept them in their sins.

So this was the most solemn occasion, because everybody waited to see if that priest was going to come out of there or not. Everybody had to come and wait and see. First of all, did God forgive him of his sins, and then did God forgive us of our sins? So the first thing he has to do, verse 11, And Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make a tome and for himself, and for his house, and shall kill the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself. He shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, which is with his hands full of sweet incense, beat and fine, and bring it inside the veil. And he shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat, that is, on the testimony lest he die. So he had to go in there more than once. The first time was just to bring an offering for himself and his family, and for the Levites.

Now, that being accepted by God, how did he know if it was accepted? He lived. He walked outside of the Holy Place. So now he leaves the Holy Place, and it's all good. These Levites are okay, the rest of you I'm not sure about, okay? Because the rest of them have not been forgiven yet. So now he has to take. There were two goats that were picked. One was the Azazel goat. The other goat, verse 15, Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering. One goat was taken out into the wilderness, and that's a different meaning, different symbols. But he was to kill the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, and bring his blood inside the veil. Do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat. And so he shall make a tobit for the Holy Place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, because of their transgressions for all their sins. And so he shall do for the tabernacle of meaning, which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of meaning when he goes in to make a tobit in the Holy Place, until he comes out, that he may make a tobit for himself, for his household, for all the assembly of Israel.

That's quite a job that this man had to do. But it was flawed.

There was a flaw in what they were doing. The flaw was themselves, was the people. And the flaw was that, this is the flaw, that it was the part of the plan of God, that the plan of God, what they were doing was simply symbols of the reality.

They were symbols of the reality. And as symbols, they could symbolize something, they couldn't make it happen. They couldn't make it happen.

So now let's go to Hebrews chapter 9.

If you want to understand the Day of Atonement, you read Hebrews 8, 9, 10, 11. The entire Day of Atonement is explained in these four chapters in the New Testament.

Because here, the writer of Hebrews tells us what the symbols mean.

And just like all the other symbols of all the Holy Days, all the Holy Days picture what God is doing with His plan for humanity through Jesus Christ, starting with Jesus Christ as Passover. This is why you and I do not slay a lamb at Passover. It's why we don't have a Seder service at Passover.

What do we do at Passover? Jesus said, Take, this is my body, this is my blood, I am the new covenant, I am the Passover. The Passover symbolized the person. We celebrate, we commemorate the actual being, the Word who became Jesus Christ.

So we have actually different symbols. We keep the Atonement today in a few ways like they did, fasting, as I said, is one of them. But in so many ways it's different. So many ways it's different, and it's totally different than what they do in a synagogue today. Totally different than what they do in a synagogue today.

Because they don't understand what the symbols mean. First one, we're going to take a real detailed look here of Hebrews 9. Hebrews 9. And indeed, even the first covenant had the ordinances of divine service at the earthly sanctuary, what we've been talking about. For Tabernacle was prepared, the first part of which was the lampstand at the table of the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. This was the holy place, not the most holy place. And behind the second veil, the part of the Tabernacle which is called the holiest of all, which had the gold center and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, and which were the golden pot that had mana, air, and straw that budded in the tablets of the Covenant. So here, the writer of Hebrews is talking about something that his entire audience would have known about. This is written to Jewish Christians. He's writing to Jewish Christians, and he says, You know when you keep the Day of Atonement, you know these symbols. But I'm going to tell you what they actually mean, what these symbols actually reveal, the reality behind them. And above it, verse 5, where the caribbean of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things, we cannot speak in detail. That's a lot of detail, but he says, I'm not going to go through all of Leviticus and all of Exodus to talk about these things. Now, when these things had just been prepared, the priest always went into the first part of the Tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part, the high priest went alone once a year, and not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the people's sins committed in ignorance. And we just read, he had to go in twice. So the writer of Hebrews says, well, he had to go, you know, he did one for himself, one for the people. So his audience has a large amount of information, of knowledge, of what went on during the Day of Atonement. So he sort of summarizes it. Verse 8 says, The Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while the first Tabernacle was still standing. The way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest. A mercy seat symbolizes the very throne of God. The holy of holy symbolizes the place of God's presence. His throne. What this symbolized was that the average Israelite did not have yet complete, total, spiritual access to the throne of God.

They had to have a high priest intercede for them. That's what it says. It wasn't. When they prayed, God heard them. But they did not have direct access to a personal relationship with God that evolved the Holy Spirit.

They worshiped God, they knew God, they were taught by God, they saw God's presence in the pillar of fire, in the cloud. But they did not have a direct, personal, internal relationship with God. Because that's not what was offered under the Old Covenant.

Notice what it says in verse 9. It was symbolic.

All these things that happened on the day of Atonement, that we're here commemorating now, were symbolic for the present time. You and I are not living in the symbols, we're living in the reality of this day. That's why we're supposed to still keep it. This day pictures a reality for the present time. In fact, there's actually a lot of prophecy that ties in with this day too. This day hasn't been totally fulfilled. That's another subject. But this day hasn't been totally fulfilled. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot make Him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. The high priest on the day of Atonement could go in, do everything perfectly, and it didn't change his heart.

It didn't change his conscience. In fact, you know, one of the big problems with the day of Atonement was that your sins were atoned for one year. You had to go back and do it again the next year. Your sins were only covered for one year. You had to go back. That's why every year it was so intense. Do we get a year reprieve, or do we not get a year reprieve? You can see why Atonement, and how to achieve Atonement, is such an intense issue with the Jewish community today. How do we do this? Well, we know they were symbols of something that a reality. Let's look at verse 10. Concerning only with foods and drinks and various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation. These things were important, but the actual rituals were imposed until the time of Reformation, until the time when the Messiah would come and show what the symbols meant.

But Christ came as high priest this day with all of its meaning, the center part of this day. It's how do you and I get before the mercy seat?

Is it a matter of doing good deeds? My wife was listening to the radio the other day. A Jewish teacher was talking, and someone asked him, he said, well, as a Christian, I believe that you are forgiven to the blood of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. How do you achieve forgiveness? You know, this idea of atonement that your sins are covered. And he said, simply by good deeds, you have to do enough good deeds that you're atoned. Which is a real problem if you commit, break one of the Ten Commandments in absolute... You go out and murder somebody. First-degree murder. How can you ever be atoned? Because there's no good deed you could ever do to make up for murdering somebody. There's no good deeds. And that's why on this day, there's the idea, well, you draw on the good deeds of the patriarchs, or you draw on good deeds from different ways. You have some kind of ceremony. Whether it's... there's not to be synagogues to do this, but a very strict orthodox synagogues. They'll kill a chicken on this day. They'll rig it around their head. Others take a bag of money and rig it around their head. They're trying to, okay, God, here's my atonement. Here's my gift, my ransom. You know, it's an honest attempt. How do I ransom myself? How do I pay my back or buy back myself from sin?

The writer of Hebrews, talking about this day, says, that Christ came as high priest of the good things to come, with a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands. That is not a discretation. He came from the real mercy seat, the real temple of God. The tabernacle not made by hands, the throne of the living God. Christ came from that tabernacle, so that you and I can be covered. We can be forgiven.

Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, He entered the most holy place, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. Symbolically, the blood of Christ was taken and sprinkled before God at the mercy seat.

The most holy place, which is God's throne. That's where you and I come today. I don't know if this doesn't motivate us, I don't know what can. If we live our lives halfway in the world, if we live our lives in rebellion against God, if we live our lives just sitting and not caring, if we live our lives with our own personal idols, whatever our idols are, money, your husband, whatever we make as an idol that we put between us and God, our kids, sports, people make all kinds of things idols. If we don't understand this, you'll never be motivated. That you, when you pray, when you go before God, you go before the mercy seat, the literal mercy seat, the real mercy seat, the very throne of the living God, and there you kneel, and the blood of Christ has been sprinkled for you, and He says, I forgive you, I atone, your sins are covered, go, and sin no more.

If that doesn't motivate us, nothing will. If we can't be motivated by that, nothing will. He says, enter the Most Holy Place, verse 12, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption for us. This is eternal consequences. To take this and to cheapen it, to cheapen it by saying, well, it doesn't matter what we do now, you know, sort of the cheap grace idea, I have God's grace so I can do whatever I want, to cheapen this as eternal consequences. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctified for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? How much more if these people, year after year, seriously went out and surrounded the tabernacle by the billions and watched that high priest go in and they prayed and prayed? It's interesting, in some synagogues, they won't let people kneel or get down to pray. They have to stand to pray, except on this day. You can get down to pray to God on this day.

Because if God doesn't atone, you have nothing. And they understood that. If that drew people to God and they didn't have God's Spirit, how much more coming before the very mercy seat of God should we be driven to, because our conscience can be clean? That's what's scary. We can scald our own consciousness so that we literally, we literally will disobey God and think it's okay, because we forget this. We forget what a tobit really is. And as he said here in verse 14, at the end part of it, he says, clean your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. It's a question. If this doesn't motivate us to serve the living God, nothing will.

Fear will motivate you for a while. Fear will motivate you for a while. But if we can't accept our worthlessness without this reality, that this day pictures. That's why we still fast on this day, by the way. You think, well, why do we keep that ritual? First of all, the New Testament, it's called the fast day. So, they fast. But there's a dramatic spiritual reason we fast today. It's because if we're not humbled, we won't get this. We are humbled today in our weakness to understand what it really means. That the real high priest stands before God right now. In the reality of the temple, the real high priest stands there. It is his blood that saved us. And if he's standing there saying, yes, God, accept these, my brethren. And if he doesn't say that, your God will not accept you. Understand that. Just like Israel could not be accepted. If that high priest didn't go into that Holy Apollis, if he wasn't accepted by God, they weren't accepted either. You and I are not accepted unless Jesus Christ says, accept them.

And the Father says, come. If that doesn't drive us to live godly lives, nothing will. Nothing will.

We can't take this lightly to understand what God is doing. The Apostle Paul talks about this in 2 Corinthians 3. Well, I'll tell you what. Instead of going to 2 Corinthians 3, let's read a few verses here. I'll skip that 2 Corinthians 3. Let's go to verse 24. Here in Hebrews 9. Once again, I just want to stay on this point. Drive this point home. For Christ does not enter the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the truth, but it to heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. If you won't let go of your past sins, God has said He's forgiven you of your past sins. Now, we still suffer consequences of the past sins, but He forgives us.

Then He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world, but now once at the end of the ages. He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment. So Christ has offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him, He will appear a second time apart from sin for salvation. Notice what He says. He doesn't just say, as those who accept this.

It's those who eagerly wait for Him. This is a personal relationship with God and with Christ as your High Priest. And that's what this day is all about. It's that personal relationship with Christ as your High Priest. And if you're out living every day, eagerly waiting for Him, you don't understand what it's all about.

Because we are waiting for Him. Why? Because what He has done for us and what He's doing for us right now. What He's doing for us right now.

This is the beat of the matter. I have to laugh at what sometimes people call beat, spiritual beat. Sometimes what people think of spiritual beat is nothing more than fluff. This is the beat of the matter.

So what happened to the Ark of the Covenant?

Now something happened. Interesting. Let's go to Mark 15.

Now this is an event that happened at the death of Jesus Christ. Mark 15.37 It says that Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed His last. Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Now this veil in the temple there that was Herod's temple was a lot bigger than the one we saw on the slide for the tabernacle. Because the temple was a much bigger edifice. So you have this big veil that separates the Holy Place from the holiest of all.

Now to rip that would be... You'd have to take some kind of sword or something and saw through it and rip it. It was heavy. It was thick. It was huge. But it didn't rip from the bottom up. It ripped from the top down. Supernaturally, God ripped it open and suddenly everybody that was there in the temple could look right into the Holy of Holies. Right into the holiest place. And guess what they saw?

Nothing.

There was nothing in it. One of the Roman generals who had visited Israel, or Judah, had barged in there to see what was in it. He came out and said, Why is everybody so excited about an empty room? There was nothing in it.

The Ark of the Covenant had never been brought back from the Babylonian captivity.

Judaism was empty. The Messiah was there. And they were rejecting the Messiah.

Now, the way to the Holy of Holies is directly to the real Holy of Holies.

Where real Atonement takes place.

Where we are forgiven in reality.

I always find that interesting. The shock that must have been for those people to look inside there. And there's nothing there. Once again, where is it? I don't know if it still exists.

It may be under the Temple Mount. That would make sense. It may be in a cave, as the second acobe says. Someplace I don't think it's in Ethiopia. Okay, that's just my personal opinion. But I don't think it's there.

I don't know whether it exists. I tell you one thing, it's not in a warehouse. Someplace in the United States. You know, right? Just in case you thought the Raiders of the Lost Ark was based on fact. I want to tell you that. It's not in some warehouse in the United States.

But we do have an interesting comment about the Ark of the Covenant in Revelation 11.

Revelation 11.

Here the Apostle John is given a vision of Heaven, the throne of God, the Holy of Holies, the most holy place. Verse 15.

I'm going to read all of this. It's a little long. I want to capture the sort of the little bit. We can just visualize a little bit of the majesty of what he's seeing here. The seventh angel sounded. We just went through the Feast of Trumpets just a few days ago, where we celebrated the sound of the trumpets and the events that are going to happen at the return of Jesus Christ. I blew the shofar on that afternoon service.

It's not only a warning to the world, but a warning to the church to be prepared. Because there is parable after parable. Jesus gives instruction after instruction that says, it will catch you unawares. Many in the church will not be prepared for what's going to happen. They will be spiritually prepared. They'll be too much in the world. The seventh angel sounded. There was a loud voice in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. It shall reign forever and ever. The twenty-four elders who sat before God on their throats fell on their faces and worshiped God. These are twenty-four angelic beings that are called the twenty-four elders. They sing this song to God for seventeen and eighteen and then verse nineteen. That the temple of God was open in heaven. The temple of God. Now we know that the church is also called the temple because it's where God's Spirit is residing. But we're looking at how what we see in the tabernacle, the temple of the Old Covenant, in the Old Testament, is just a copy of the reality in heaven. It says that the temple of God was open in heaven and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, the earthquake, and great hail. The real ark of the covenant, not the copy, the real ones in heaven. The real mercy seats in heaven. The real carob people are in heaven. There's two carobs, two archangels there on each side of the throne of God. And the real ark of the covenant is there.

When Jesus Christ returns and sets up God's kingdom on this earth, then He is going to have to bring everybody into this personal relationship with God that could not be achieved except by a few under the Old Covenant. Because only a few people under the Old Covenant received God's Spirit. Promise after promise, in the Hebrew Bible, says, Ezekiel says that, Jeremiah says that, the Minor Prophets say it, Joel says that, the moment Messiah comes, He will pour out God's Spirit and open their eyes. And not only the eyes of Israel, but the eyes of the world.

That's what this day pictures. A tome meant for everyone.

When the high priest stands before God and says, accept them, the high priest will be on this earth ruling from Jerusalem, setting up God's kingdom on this earth. He'll be King of kings and Lord of lords to us. He'll still be the high priest. He isn't giving up his position as high priest. He's still going to be going before God, always and saying, accept them. Use my blood for their substitute, for all those who truly repent.

This is an enormous reality, because the real mercy seat is where Christ will be.

He'll be on earth, too. However he goes back and forth, as I don't know, I'm stuck in a spirit, in a physical realm. I don't know how God does stuff, but what he does, he'll do. Because we do know, at the end of the millennium, God's throne is coming to earth. Heaven comes to earth, as it says, as we talked about on the day of the Feast of Trumpets, on that afternoon service. I talked about how His throne is coming to earth. There's an interesting verse in Jeremiah. Let's go to Jeremiah 3, last scripture here today. Jeremiah 3. Jeremiah 3.

Here is a prophecy that is about... He's calling out the Israel and Judah to repent. We can apply this to all peoples. He's looking into the future. Verse 14, he says, Return, O batch-sliding children, says the Lord, for I am married to you.

This phoster read that scripture where he says, I no longer will be known as your master, but I will be known as your husband.

God wants a personal relationship. If we only respond out of fear, then it's a very immature relationship.

If we use His grace as a license to sin, that's a rebellious relationship.

If we use excuses, you know, my background, my biology, my friends, my family, my weaknesses, whatever, you know, other people in the church, whatever excuses we use. If I just had a better pastor, we could all be stumbling blocks. But God says, no, it's between you and me. He wants this kind of personal relationship with every one of us. And that wasn't possible to the average Israelite under the Old Covenant.

Because the Holy Spirit had not yet been poured out. And He says, For I am married to you, I will take you, one from a city, two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. At the end of time, the physical people of God will be so scattered and destroyed, just a remnant will be coming back. And I will give you shepherds, according to my heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. Then it shall come the past, when you are multiplied and increased in the land of those days, says the Lord, that they will say no more the ark of the covenant of the Lord. No more will people will be concerned with the physical ark of the covenant. Why? You think about, well, why is the physical ark of the covenant so important? It is important in its symbology. It is not important in its reality. The reality of the real ark of the covenant, the real mercy seat, the real high priest. Notice the rest of the sentence. They will say no more the ark of the covenant of the Lord. It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore. The ark of the covenant is going to have no purpose in the future. The physical one. Why? At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all the nations shall be gathered to it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem. No more shall they follow the dictates of their evil hearts. This prophecy isn't just about Israel and Judah. It's in the midst of a prophecy about Israel and Judah. It's to all nations, he says. They won't need the physical ark of the covenant. They will be coming to Jerusalem as the throne of the Lord. You see, this is a... in many ways I'm just doing a second part to what I covered on the Feast of Trumpets. That's because all these days are connected. So this is sort of the second half of what I covered on the Feast of Trumpets. It's the throne of the Lord. The Messiah will be raised on earth. At some point in time, you and I have to catch this vision so that it motivates us. It motivates us a whole lot more than having fun today. It motivates us more than our careers today. It motivates us more than our trials and tests of today. It motivates us more than all the things that we think are important. At some point, we believe that our High Priest covered our sins. The Passover was real. Now, we do have a High Priest who stands before God and intercedes for us. And that we are here now, humbled in our fasting. Not because we go to a physical place, but we go to the literal Holy of Holies in Heaven.

To take that lightly is to remove yourself from the blood of Christ. We can't play church. Christ is going to return, and He's going to gather His people together. He's going to pour out compassion and mercy, and He's going to pour out His Spirit. And you and I have the privilege and honor. It's not because we earned it, we deserved it. We get that now. That didn't pour out into the whole world. We just read in Jeremiah, that's not poured out into the whole world until the Messiah comes. And you and I have, because we're the weak of the world, the honor and privilege of having that given to us now. What a great privilege. What a great honor to humbly come before our God and have Him say, come, child, because your brother is saying, accept this one, accept this one, because that's what Jesus says. That's what the high priest does, he intercedes. And this day is all about intercession.

And He's doing that for you right now. If you have a problem between you and God, if you let the world creep in on you, if you have some issue with your husband or your wife, or you have some issue with somebody else in the church, or you have some sin that you're holding on to and you're hiding and you're trying to justify, or if you're living partly in the world, now, today, right now, is the time to remember who you are, because God called you before His throne, and the high priest is interceding for you because His blood was shed for you. And I just can't drive that home enough, because that's what this day is. That's what it's all about. That's who you are, if you'll accept it.

And it's what the ancient Israelites never fully could understand or grasp. It's what can't be understood in the Jewish world today. I was going to read from 2 Corinthians, where Paul says, today in the synagogue, when they read from the Old Testament, there's still a veil over their hearts. That veil into the Holy of Holies is not open. They don't know, even though they're keeping the day, they don't understand what's beyond the veil.

We do. We're reminded that this isn't just about us. It is about a time when Christ is going to reconcile all humanity to His Father by setting up His Kingdom on this earth. Establishing Himself, not just as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We're going to celebrate that at the Vise Serenach. We're celebrating now how He will function throughout time. As long as there's a human being, Jesus Christ will be standing beside His Father as an intercessor, as the High Priest, saying, Father, accept this one.