Instead of talking again, give it for me. And I understand that I have a lot more than sympathy. I have commiseration among several of you. You were in misery with me.
I’m not supposed to appreciate that, but you know, when one member suffers, all the others suffer with it. I assure you, I was suffering. So, if you pray this morning, I think the Lord will see us through this time.
We started last time a series on the Ark of God—the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Testimony. This entire series was precipitated by the fact that we came across, in the study of our Psalms one morning, just the astonishing fact that when Solomon went to the tabernacle of the congregation at Gibeon after he became king, he made a thousand sacrifices before the Lord.
Then he was asked by God what he would like to have, and he said he wanted wisdom and an understanding heart. And the Lord said He would give him just that.
Solomon did something that many of us had not taken real note of before. He went back to Jerusalem, and he found the tent in which the Ark was housed. There he made further sacrifices before the Ark.
And we suggested that the wisdom and understanding heart that God had given him is like that measure of spiritual understanding which very few of God’s people have today. So that while they sometimes go where the people are, where God’s people are—there are various kinds and areas and houses of worship and denominational groups—those who have that wisdom and understanding heart know that something is missing.
And what is missing among God’s people at large today is the Ark of the Testimony: the real testimony of Jesus; the power, the impact, the life, the sense of His presence, the glory, the speaking.
The tabernacle of the congregation is still there. The laver is still there; you can find some cleansing. The altar is still there; souls can be saved. The showbread is still there; there is some food. The candlestick is still there; there is some light.
But the Ark—that most comprehensive type of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament—the real testimony, the life, the impact, the glory, the speaking of God, so that we can come away saying, “God has really spoken to us”—is just not there.
Some of us have gone into various areas of this country, and we have searched. We have gone from place to place. We have gone to small groups. And sometimes we have found, but most of the time we have not found, that tent which housed the Ark, where the impact and the light and the speaking and the glory of the real testimony of Jesus are to be found.
That tent—the Ark. Well, in one place the tabernacle of the congregation was in another.
So this led us to a study of the Ark. Our first consideration was a beginning to look at the history of the Ark.
Now, the suggestion was made to me that we should have spent at least one hour on the Ark itself. We will spend more time on the Ark itself. The final message of this series will be the meaning of the Ark at rest in the temple—in Solomon’s temple, in God’s temple—at which time we will see more of the significance of the Ark itself.
But without saying it, without delineating and elaborating, I’m sure most of us here—a great many of us—have spiritual intelligence enough to know the meaning of the Ark. Words cannot really express what we know in our hearts God wants as the testimony of Jesus among His people. There are no words for it.
Many of us have that sense and that understanding and that response to the Lord. Wherever we really find His testimony, we know when it is there and we know when it is not. Amen.
We started out looking at the Ark itself in Exodus 25. I’m not going to take the time to read. I want to try to finish the second session and get right to Revelation, our last look at the Ark in the Bible this morning. I have to go rather fast.
We also want to get whatever spiritual lessons we can out of the history that we did not cover last time and will consider this morning. Just a very free recapitulation: we looked at Exodus 25 and took a look at the Ark of the Testimony, the Ark of the Covenant.
We saw that it was built first. After the people brought all the material together for the building of the tabernacle, the Ark was constructed first. It was constructed of acacia wood—that is, hedge apple, Osage orange, beautiful wood—overlaid with gold.
Its cover was the mercy seat of gold, having the two cherubim. God said He would speak to His people from between the cherubim, and He did.
Inside the Ark at that time were the tables of the testimony. So that is why it became the Ark of the Testimony, and sometimes it is called the Ark of the Covenant. Also, Aaron’s rod that budded and the manna were in the Ark at that time.
We will find later on that there is nothing in the Ark but the testimony, and we will look at something of the reason for that: the express will of God for His people.
We did not take much time to go into the fact that only Christ, only the Lord Jesus, can express the will of God. It is to be found nowhere else. That is very significant.
And that speaking from between the two cherubim is very necessary for God’s people.
We traced something of the history of the Ark, and there was one Scripture we did not read: Numbers 10. Let’s look at that right now—Numbers 10:35-36.
And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said,
Rise up, Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered;
And let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.And when it rested, he said,
Return, O Lord, unto the ten thousand thousands of Israel.
Now, we all know that the people were led through the wilderness by the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day. But what we are not so aware of, like many other things about the Ark, is that if you look at the real history of their journey, you see it was not merely the traveling of that army. They had their eyes, really, on the Ark. When the Ark moved, they moved; and when the Ark rested, they rested.
We will see more of the significance of that later. And we looked at the last mention of the Ark in the wilderness, in Numbers 14. We saw them when they turned back at Kadesh-barnea.
This is the last time the Ark is mentioned for thirty-eight years. People in the wilderness who fail—refuse, fail—to enter into the land have no testimony.
Brothers and sisters, that applies, I am sorry to say, to a large portion of God’s people in the earth today. They have not entered into the land. They are not enjoying anything of the fullness of Christ, who is the land. The real testimony, the impact, the life of Jesus Christ Himself, is not to be found in their lives nor among them.
For thirty-eight years we find no more mention of the Ark. And this last mention of the Ark is, alas, a sad one. It is an account of after their refusal to enter into the land. Then there is a plan from the Lord. They are spoken to by Moses and Joshua and Caleb. Then they get a little bit heavy and say, “Well, we will go. We will face our enemies, and we will go into the land.”
And the Ark of God remains in the camp, and they go out to face their enemies, and they are defeated.
The next mention of the Ark you find in Joshua, after the thirty-eight years of wandering. They come to the River Jordan. They are about to cross it at last into the land. That whole generation has perished, with the exception of two men: Joshua and Caleb.
You are going to have to read some of this and search it out on your own. It is not going to hurt you to get your Bible and get familiar with it. Look into some of these things, and you will come across some things I have not seen. I hope you will come back to me and say, “Look here, brother, you might have been a little bit mistaken about this,” or, “Here is something you didn’t see.” You will not make me one bit angry if you tell me that, provided you have been looking into it.
So we finished up last time saying that the method of crossing the Jordan was that the priests, bearing the Ark on their shoulders, stepped first into the waters of the Jordan. And the Jordan parted, and the people passed over on dry land.
And we said at the time—and you responded very well to that word—that God is after a people who can exercise this priestly function of bearing the Ark on their shoulders, bearing the real testimony of the Lord Jesus, and learning to stand in death, Jordan being a type of death, so that God’s people may pass over into the land.
This is a ministry that is badly needed in this house. And the Lord is teaching us. Some of us are going through some very hard times, and we are learning some very deep and real lessons. This is wonderful. You will not get a bit of sympathy from me or anybody else who knows about that.
You are learning to stand, bearing that testimony in the midst of death, when there are conditions of death all around. You are going to be surprised how many people, because you were able to do that, crossed over into the land and are fit for the use and service of God.
You are going to say, “I stood there. I sensed nothing of God. I felt nothing of God. But I stood in faith.” And you are going to really be surprised what the Lord did as you stood there in faith.
You did not feel strong. As a matter of fact, you felt very, very weak. And that was your strength. People who are strong know nothing of what I am talking about, nor will they ever know until that strength is broken.
So the Ark came into the land with the people. If you will turn to Joshua 18, we will look very quickly at a number of Scriptures this morning. It is almost an academic consideration, but if you will stay alive, I think the Lord will speak to our hearts, and you will find some spiritual lessons and several real messages in them.
The next mention we find of the Ark after its coming into the land is Joshua 18:1:
And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of the congregation there; and the land was subdued before them.
And inside the Holy of Holies, they had been instructed to put what? The Ark.
Now, the Ark, while they traveled, was right in the midst of the camp. The tabernacle of the congregation was outside the camp. And there is a real message there that we have heard preached a number of times. The Ark itself is right in the midst.
And after they came into the land, for three hundred years, that is where the Ark was: at Shiloh. That is where they went to worship. There was still that union between the Ark and the tabernacle of the congregation.
Well, at what time then did that division occur? Let’s see. In 1 Samuel 4—this is three hundred years later.
And what about the history of those three hundred years? It is not a very illustrious one. What would your conclusion be? If I say it was the time of the judges, that is enough, isn’t it? What characterized the time of the judges?
“There was no king in Israel, and everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.” That’s right, John.
First Samuel 4:
And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle, and pitched beside Ebenezer: and the Philistines pitched in Aphek.
And the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines: and they slew of the army in the field about four thousand men.
And when the people were come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies.
So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from thence the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth between the cherubim: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.
And when the ark of the covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.
Now, the people here were making a woeful mistake, were they not? A mistake that we have a tendency to make many, many times.
God is jealous for His testimony. There is no question about that. And we often think that the Lord should come in on our side and do something because of our enemies in a particular situation. It would be interesting for us to consider at times who these enemies are.
When we ourselves are in a position where, if He would do so, He would compromise His testimony, one of the hard lessons of life that we have to learn as individuals and as a people is that the Lord simply will not do this.
Well, you might think that for His honor and His glory He certainly will. God has other ways, as we shall see, of looking out for His own honor.
These people were not really listening. They saw the Ark, just like a good many people today who have Scripture, you know, for some of the things that they do. They had no understanding that they were in a position where they were not morally or spiritually suitable to bear the Ark.
One of the points that we made about these priests who could stand in the midst of death and see God’s people go over on dry land is that they must have a moral conformity to that which they carry. We cannot do too much with that today, except to say that it was missing here. And the Lord had no compulsion about it.
Let’s look at verse 17:
And the messenger answered and said, Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there hath been also a great slaughter among the people, and thy two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken.
This was the message to Eli, the high priest. Now, we are going to take a very close look at Eli—who he was and what he represented—but not today. Our next message will be on Hannah, and we will consider Eli along with Hannah.
And we will very seriously look at some things because this, I may reemphasize again, is very, very serious business. Many of us have been in a position a number of times when we had to stand against what seemed to be God’s rightly constituted authority among His people in order to bear the testimony.
This is true. This is right. It happened many times in the history of God’s people—I mean, in the history of the Word of God. But you have to be very, very careful, because the end result will soon show whether you were right or whether you were wrong.
In Samuel’s case, there was a rectitude there that God had to stand up with him for. In our case, many times there has not been this.
But now, let’s look a minute at Eli. Eli was not so tense as you might think. Verse 18:
And it came to pass, when he made mention of the ark of God, that he fell from off the seat backward by the side of the gate, and his neck brake, and he died.
This is the testimony of Scripture. Was his reaction to the death of his sons, Hophni and Phinehas? Well, his reaction was to the fact that the Ark of God was taken.
Now, there are two lessons to be learned. One: that God will not stand up for His people when He would compromise His holiness and His truth in order to do so.
The other lesson is that the Lord does not commit Himself to us many, many times because the history of God’s people is such that, when He comes near to them without their prior proper preparation and training and His dealings in their lives, they only put Him to shame. They dishonor Him. They try to use Him.
The Israelites thought that they would use the Ark to win a battle against an enemy, when they themselves were morally and spiritually unsuited to it. We will see more of that later.
Look at chapter 5. The Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. They took it from city to city, and finally they put it before their god Dagon.
Now, what the Israelites did not do because of their lack of spiritual understanding, commitment to the Lord, and submission to His ways, the Ark could do. God has His own way of preserving the honor of His testimony.
So, although it fell into the hands of the Philistines, it undid them. They moved it about from city to city, but it was in one city alone and there was a plague and a judgment. They moved it into another. They put it before their god Dagon, and they found him the next morning fallen flat on his face, with his hands broken off.
Now, it is a message in itself. You look at these five cities, the meaning of their names, and the contest there between God and Dagon.
But the end result was that the cry of the cities went up to heaven, and the Philistines said, “Let’s send the Ark back where it belongs. We can’t handle this thing.”
Is it not so in the history of God’s people that the testimony has been in the hands of the Philistines? At last they want to get rid of it.
And how are the Philistines trying to get rid of the testimony today? We call the whole movement simply liberalism. Once, when there was a great testimony for the Lord, now you find liberal teaching. They want to get rid of the whole idea and the whole thought that God could become a man, could atone for the sins of the world, could send the Holy Spirit and indwell people, and become the King of their lives.
So the Philistines said, “Well,” and they consulted their own priests. Their priests told them, “If you are going to send it back, you had better send it back with some kind of a trespass offering.”
So they made some emerods of pure gold. I have no idea what shape those would be in, because the affliction that came upon them was probably, historians tell us, bleeding hemorrhoids. This is the word used in King James English. I do not know what your version might say.
They made some golden emerods. They made some golden mice. And they put them in a coffer beside the Ark.
They put the Ark on a cart, and they took two cows that had just had calves. They kept the calves in camp. They put the Ark up on a cart with these two cows, and they said, “If these cows go to the camp of the Israelites while we hold their calves back here, then God is in this thing, and He is returning the Ark to its proper place.”
And that is exactly what happened. Contrary to their nature, these two cows, lowing all the way, returned the Ark, and it came to Beth-shemesh.
Now, I want us to take a very quick look at Beth-shemesh. Did Philistines live there, or did Israelites live there? Look at that.
The Levites took down the Ark. There were Levites there. That’s right. It is very probably one of those cities allotted to the Levites.
Now, I have heard and I have read several messages on this second portion of Scripture, just like the messages I have heard about the conquest of Jericho. Let’s look at that for one minute. Let’s clear up one of those things here. In Joshua, then we will come back to this. I do not know how far we are going to get today.
Joshua 6:11:
So the ark of the Lord compassed the city, going about it once: and they came into the camp, and lodged in the camp.
So the Ark of the Lord compassed the city. Why, the emphasis there is that the thing that was really going around the city was not all the people, but what? The Ark. Think about that.
And if you ever have responsibility for ministering on the conquest of Jericho, please bring it in, because I have never yet seen—I have several books at home on the people coming into the land and the conquest of Jericho—and not once is it mentioned that the emphasis in Joshua 6 is the fact that it was the Ark that compassed the city.
Let me read you verse 19 of 1 Samuel 6:
And He smote of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even He smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.
Why in the world? He has already shown the people of Israel that He will not compromise where His glory is concerned. He would rather appear to let His honor and His glory be besmirched than take the side of evil and wickedness and disorder and strife and all the things we find in the time of the judges.
Well, He wants to teach them. He wants to teach us a further note. Dear friends, a lot of us are guilty of this very thing. We take a very light view of the Word of God, the things of Scripture, and the testimony of Jesus.
We loosely attach ourselves to a company of this kind, and we say, “Well, maybe I will commit myself, and maybe I will not.” We have no proper estimation of the value and the seriousness of what God is doing.
And for many of us—for some of us, at least—that is our history for many, many years. Somewhere along the line, the word has got to come to us, and we have got to hear it.
We are trifling with the things of God. We would like to know more about spiritual things, but we are not going to let them influence us too much.
And we certainly are not going to put ourselves out to any hardships to go along with God’s people. We would like to know—we are serious—about what is really in it for us and for them, and why some people get so excited about it. Why do some people let it influence their lives in every area, at great cost to themselves? We wonder what is there.
Whereas we may not be Philistines, we are just like these people who peered into the Ark. They had an unhealthy, nervous kind of curiosity to see what was inside.
Dear friends, let me tell you: what is in the testimony of Jesus is so wonderful, so glorious in all of its influence upon our lives, that it is worth ten thousand words like this. And the greatest dishonor we can do to the Lord is to trifle with it and esteem it in a very little way.
These people who were smitten with a great slaughter were not Philistines. They were God’s people, and very probably they believed like this. Think about it.
And you know, most of the questions I get—I get a lot of questions from a lot of people—are not, “How can I commit my life more to the Lord, and learn His way, and come under His headship and follow Him, and know what it is you folks are talking about: the wonder, the glory, the transformation that there is in being under the headship of Jesus Christ?”
They are not that kind of question. They are questions of a nature that wants to peer into the secret things of God.
Particularly, many, many people—a lot of us right here—are wanting to know, “I wonder what is really the proper position concerning the coming of the Lord. Is it a pre-tribulation rapture? Is it a post-tribulation rapture? Is it a partial rapture? Where do the overcomers come in? What does Revelation really mean?”
And I have thought several times, well, much as I would like to go into an exposition of the book of Revelation, the Lord has never given me the lead to do so. And I wonder if people ought to wait before a lot of folks are a lot more serious in their desire to know and follow and come under the headship of Jesus Christ.
And it will not be an academic kind of thing. You know, so here are the three positions which are allowed to secure a mentality in your mind. Whichever one you happen to think is the more scriptural, you apply your mind to it, and with all honesty you apply that position.
What is the system? It requires a revelation. God does not give revelation merely as an academic matter. He gives it to serious, concerned, committed people. He will give you so much revelation that you will know what to do.
Well, the Ark then came, after the judgment, to Kirjath-jearim, to the house of Abinadab the Levite, where it remained for twenty years.
At which time David became king. Second Samuel 6. David knew that is where it belonged. Now, we shall spend one hour on David and his concern with the Ark. Right now we are only striking it in passing so we can get a complete history.
Second Samuel 6:
Again, David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand.
And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubim.
And we know what happened. The Philistines had sent it on a cart, so they put it on a cart. I do not know how much we can make of that, could we? Brother Job said a few words about it in the ministry concerning the high places and the false worship and all of that.
Verse 6:
And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.
Verse 9:
And David was afraid of the Lord that day, and said, How shall the ark of the Lord come to me?
So David would not remove the Ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David, but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-edom the Gittite.
Oh, who was a Gittite? Is this an Israelite of suspicious origin, or who is a Gittite? Israelite or no? What is your guess?
No. A Gittite is an inhabitant of Gath. And who do we know that came from Gath? Who made those things? Goliath—one of God’s great enemies.
And the Lord blessed Obed-edom and all his household. That is in verse 11.
Well now, God is always putting something of this kind into the record for our instruction. Here is someone who was not even an Israelite, but evidently, when the Ark came into his household, he did not try to peer into it. He did not put forth an unsanctified and sin-besmirched hand to steady it.
Evidently, the response of his heart was such that God blessed him.
When King David was told, “The Lord hath blessed the house of Obed-edom, and all that pertaineth unto him, because of the ark of God,” David went and brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness.
So the Ark finally came into the right city: Jerusalem. Verse 13:
And it was so, that when they that bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces, he sacrificed oxen and fatlings.
So this is the Ark now coming into the tent in Jerusalem, where we find it at the time of Solomon.
What we want is 1 Kings 8. Solomon now has finished his temple. What a wonderful temple it is.
First Kings 8:6-11:
And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto His place, into the oracle of the house, to the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim.
For the cherubim spread forth their two wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and the staves thereof above.
And they drew out the staves, that the ends of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the oracle, and they were not seen without: and there they are unto this day.
There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt.
And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord,
So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord.
So they drew out the staves, which means what? The Ark had come to rest. It was not to be carried anymore, but had come to its place of rest in Solomon’s great temple.
There was nothing in the Ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel as they came out of the land of Egypt. We will take a look at that later and see if that does not have some significance.
Well, we are running out of time, so without too much comment, simply let us say: the Ark now is at rest in Solomon’s temple, and it was there for three hundred years.
Three hundred years later again, the Lord had brought things to a point in His dealings with God’s people so that He could no longer either shield them or protect them.
The Scripture we could not find is mentioned several times in several ways: all the treasures were carried off to Syria. The Ark is heard of no more, seen no more. There is a great question among the Jews as to what happened to the Ark at that time. Very probably it was carried away as an inanimate and inconsequential object.
Our final look at it is here in Revelation 11:19:
And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.
Actually, the word here is the Ark of the Covenant. And that completes the history. Not very healing, very exciting. Now we are ready to go back and take a look.
Even before the Ark was taken by the Philistines, God had begun His movement of recovery for His people. He had already started in the life of one Hannah.
So, in our subsequent considerations in this series, we will spend one hour on Hannah, and we will look very carefully at Hannah, Eli, and Samuel in their relationship—what the Lord was doing, and how it applies to what God is doing in the church today.
Some of us are very sure, very concerned, and very committed to the idea that the Lord would have a recovery of this testimony. Wherever His people meet, He wants not only the laver and the brazen altar, the showbread and the candlestick. He would have that further testimony of the immense spiritual weight, the registration of the risen Son of God.
Because, in essence, that is all the Ark is: it is Christ. But it is not Christ far off somewhere in the heavens at God’s right hand, waiting for a certain day, for the prophetic clock to strike a certain hour when He may do something.
It is Christ who is God’s own Lord, who is in the earth by the Holy Spirit, working His will in and among those who have a heart to respond to Him.
It is a hard pattern, essentially. If I could be happy—if I could be happy—I would much rather see it all in the tabernacle of the congregation, and down here where we have pitched a little tent for the Ark, where the registration all the time is pretty dubious.
I would much rather, if my heart could find any satisfaction at all, be there, because I am a chicken. The whole matter is too weighty, too serious, too fraught with difficulty and suffering and misunderstanding for me.
But friends, once your heart has tasted, once your spirit has coalesced with the manifested power and life and grace which is Christ really among His people in that sense of fullness—the real testimony of Jesus—you can be satisfied with nothing else.
So let me warn some of you: if you stick around, you are going to get spoiled. You are going to get spoiled for everything but God’s best.
And I am sure that along with me, some of you are already there. And again, I say, that is why you are here this morning.