June 25, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode, we explore the profound imagery of the Mercy Seat from the Old Testament Tabernacle and how it reveals the person and work of Jesus Christ. Discover how the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies, and the veil all point to God's plan for redemption through Christ — our Prophet, Priest, and King. Learn why Jesus is the only true satisfaction for sin, the one Mediator between God and man, and how His sacrifice gives us free access to the very presence of God. This is the heart of the Gospel: full, sufficient, and eternally satisfying.
Main Points:
- Overview of the tabernacle and its structure, including the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.
- The Mercy Seat as the throne of God and a symbol of Christ's divinity.
- Christ as the fulfillment of the Ark: human (wood) and divine (gold).
- The three contents of the Ark: manna (Prophet), Aaron’s rod (Priest), law tablets (King).
- The torn veil and our access to God through the blood of Jesus.
- Living by faith and the invitation to personally know Christ.
- • Title: The Mercy Seat: God's Meeting Place Through Christ
- Date of Original Recording: January 14, 1990
- Speaker: Rev. Chuck Rains
- Location: Fellowship Bible Church, Joliet, Illinois
- Topics: Tabernacle symbolism, Ark of the Covenant, Jesus as Prophet-Priest-King, access to God through Christ
Thanks for listening
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back.
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This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you are here, legacy lessons and legacy
audio from the Bible, from the massive tape collection of the Fellowship of Bible Church
and Joliet, Illinois.
I'm going to be your host, my name is Marcus Onate, and today I'm going to be bringing
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you another one from the Church Archive.
This one was recorded on January 14, 1990, and I think this is one of the last ones I
have for 1990.
We'll be going into 1991 soon, if not next time, then really soon.
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In the name of this message is called the Mercy Seat.
God's meeting place through Christ.
All right.
That sounds like a good message to start off with.
All right.
So let's all listen in and I'll talk to you on the other side of it.
I want to thank with you this morning and for some time on the Lord Jesus and who He
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is for us and what He is for us.
Subject this morning, however, is the Mercy Seat.
That takes you to the picture in your mind, maybe, in your study from the Word of God.
It takes you to the picture of the tabernacle that we find in the wilderness, in the scriptures,
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the Old Testament.
God gave Israel the tabernacle called the tent of meeting, the tent of meeting.
That was a place where God's people couldn't meet with God.
The tabernacle had these parts.
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There was first an outer court that was surrounded by a fence, you could call it, with a curtain
that was there as a door or the gate to come in at.
In that court, there was a tent and that tent had a curtain also for a door of entrance
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on the front of it.
In the courtyard in front of the tent, there was a brazen altar off to the left a little
bit.
As you came toward the tent, to the right a little bit, would be a labor, a brazen, large
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bowl, really, a large window for washing so that the priests might wash themselves from
the defilements of serving at the altar, the blood that would have gotten on them,
and the soil that would have gotten on them in offering up the sacrifices.
Then as one would have gone through the veil or the curtain that served as a door for the
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tent of meeting, would have come into a room that was fifteen feet wide and thirty
feet long, called the Holy Place.
In the Holy Place to the right there was a little table called the Table of Shubrid,
and on that table there was daily, put new, fresh, Shubrid.
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To the left, against the wall and the left, would have been a lamp stand, seven branches,
each of the branches having a light at the top fed by oil in a common reservoir, a lamp
stand to light that room, because with the curtain there at the doorway, no outside light
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came into that place.
Then as you went to the back of the room, as you went straight ahead to the back of
the room, there was a veil, a very, very heavy, multi-layered curtain that was across the
room.
What it did was split that room in two parts.
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The front part of the room, as I said, was the Holy Place, and I was thirty by fifteen
wide, but that back room was fifteen feet wide, fifteen feet long, fifteen feet high.
Interesting, isn't it?
It was a cube.
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You know, I'm going to be teaching the book of Revelation in the Bible Institute coming
up in a week and two days.
We're going to begin that course.
There will be two other courses, but I'm taking up with this one and I'm enjoying the study
for it.
I'm reminded that in the book of Revelation, we're told about a city, the Holy City, New
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Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.
We're told about its dimensions.
Do you know it is a city four square?
It's a city four square.
It means it's so many, such an amount of length long and such an amount of length wide and
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such an amount of length high.
A lot of people think of the city of New Jerusalem like a city on a hill.
It isn't people.
It's a square city on the foundation.
It is a cube.
How big is it?
Well, you take the qubits and all the lengths that are given to us in the book of Revelation,
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put it down to our terms and I think it will kind of help you make a parallel with the
holy of holies of sorts because for a very special reason.
At its 1,500 miles long, 1,500 miles wide and 1,500 miles high.
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There is such an amount of space in that city that it will house every saint born again
from Adam to this day.
And all the angels and all the workings and glory of God.
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It's not just almost a two dimensional place on a flat plane.
It's 1,500 miles high.
The holy of holies was 15 feet wide, 15 feet long, 15 feet high.
A very special room at the back of the tabernacle.
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The holy of holies, that room at the back of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was
the place where God, according to what Rich has just read with you, the place where God
met with his people.
It was the place where he dwelt among his chosen people Israel and where he met with
them.
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That room, that back room called the holy of holies held two things.
Now you might quickly say, oh no, no, one, no two things.
It held something that was two things that were really one together, but they're distinct.
The arc of the covenant, not necessarily the one that's been popularized in the films late,
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but the arc of the covenant as it really was.
A little box, a little box about 45 inches long and about 27 inches wide on the outside
dimensions.
Little box made of Chitemwood or Acacia wood, Acacia would help you understand what it is,
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Acacia wood, but overlaid with pure gold on both sides of the wood, on all sides of
the wood.
There would be no wood showing.
This box would have a bottom, and it would have ends, it would have sides, but it wouldn't
have a top because the other item that was in that room was its lid.
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The other item covered that box.
It was called the Mercy Seat.
There was no wood in the Mercy Seat.
It was solid gold, solid gold.
And fashion under the same piece of gold as the Mercy Seat.
On each end of the Mercy Seat, there were figures of angels, two angels, one at each
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end.
These were cherubimps, or I shouldn't say bims, they were cherubimah, that's the plural.
This singular cherubim, that's plural.
They were cherubim, but they were fashioned out of the same gold.
It was as old as the gold in that lid just molded right up into their bodies and became
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their bodies.
These angels each looked from the ends of the box toward the center of the box, and they
had their heads bowed and they had six wings.
And it was right in between where those angels looked, right there over the Mercy Seat that
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God dwelt among His people.
There was apparently a display of brightness, of glory, brightness of glory over that seat.
Not everybody got to see it, because the high priest of Israel got to go in there only once
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a year.
He had to come in there the prescribed way, because if he came in there any other way,
he would die.
He had to come in on the day of atonement no other day ever, ever in the rest of the
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year, only on the day of atonement, and he could only come in on the basis of blood sacrifice.
Just for himself and then for the people.
I want to talk about that little box, the Ark of the Covenant, the things that held
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and the Mercy Seat.
The box was made of wood for a very special reason.
Because it speaks, these are all typical.
They're all pictures.
They're typical things, pictures of the real.
By the way, the manifestation of God's presence was real.
That wasn't just typical.
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But the box spoke of Christ.
How did it speak of Christ?
Well, the wood that it was fashioned of spoke of His humanity.
Christ was in fact an indeed man.
He came to this earth and took upon the form of a man, a form of a servant, humbled himself
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to death, even the death of a cross.
But the wood tells us He indeed was man.
But it was overlaid.
All the wood was overlaid with gold, solid gold, so that none of the wood was seen, and
the gold tells us of His deity.
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It tells us of His glory.
It tells us of His heavenly origin.
It tells us that He is God.
So welded together, knit together are these two truths about Christ.
He is both human and divine.
He came to us to do a very, very special work for us, the work of redemption.
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Now, the mercy seat laid on top of that box and still a part of the box because it becomes
the box's cover is also a picture of Christ.
But there's no wood in it.
There is no wood.
None of Christ's humanity is seen in that mercy seat.
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It's solid gold because it speaks of His deity, of His heavenly person, of His heavenly
divinity.
And it also speaks of something else.
It speaks of the place of meeting with God, the throne of God.
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That mercy seat speaks of the throne of God.
It speaks of Christ, the person on the basis of the work of Christ Himself.
Do you know Christ is for us all that that little box speaks of, both man and God.
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He is for us also God Himself without His humanity.
Now inside of the box were three things.
And those three things tell us about Christ and tell us about what He's done for us.
There was a golden pot filled with manna.
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There was Aaron's rod that budded.
And there were the tables of stone with the law written on them.
But these are the unbroken tables of stone.
First Moses went to the mouth and received tables of stone, two tables of stone.
And when he came down with the law written on these tables of stone and saw the Israelites
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dancing around the golden calf that they'd made and drunken and carousing and worshiping
a false God in his anger, he said he didn't deserve the law of God, the word of God.
And he threw them down on the rocks and broke them.
He was wrong in his anger.
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They indeed needed the law to see how sinful they were.
The law holding up this statement of the righteousness of God tells us how much a sinner
we are.
God took him right back up that mountain.
You know he had been up there for 40 days and 40 nights fasting.
God had to work a miracle to sustain the man while he was up there receiving the law.
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And you know he had to turn right around and go back for another 40 days and 40 nights
to receive the law again.
You certainly would want God to sustain you if you had to do that, wouldn't you?
80 days, no food?
God did sustain him and God this time wrote with his finger on the tables of stone and
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Moses brought them down and they were preserved for Israel inside of that box.
Now those three things tell us about Christ and what he is for us.
Do you know that Christ is the only one in all the scriptures who occupies the three offices
of prophet, priest and king?
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He is the only one who fulfills or will have all those three titles, prophet, priest and
king.
In John 6 the Lord Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life and he even tells us that
we should eat of that bread.
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In the Pharisees hearing this and realizing that he is also saying his flesh is that
bread are nauseated by it.
Let's be telling us he did this bread and he is the bread, his flesh is that bread.
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What is this cannibalism, this knocker of God's word would tell us.
They were angry.
Their hearts were inflamed.
They wanted to kill him.
But John 6 is a wonderful chapter and it opens up a great truth to us.
He in fact the Lord Jesus said that manna came down but it had to be picked up every day
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but that if you would eat of the bread of life that you would receive eternal life.
You see manna sustained the Israelites in the wilderness.
It sustained, it was wonderful food.
It was angels food and it could sustain life.
It could sustain life for one day.
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The portion that you got would be enough for that day.
In fact they were absolutely forbidden except in the day before the Sabbath.
They were absolutely forbidden to take two days worth of manna up.
They were to only take one day's provision.
They were to receive from God his provision for that day and no day after it.
Why?
So that they could learn what it meant to be dependent on God and they could find that
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he was fully sufficient for their every need.
He was faithful.
They didn't have to worry about his faithfulness tomorrow.
God was going to be as faithful tomorrow as he had done today.
Learn to rest on the person of the Lord, not on your own works, your own efforts,
your own storehouse.
Give up that idea.
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Learn what the life of faith is truly all about.
It's not about deprivation.
A lot of people think that living by faith is when you don't have anything.
Gotta live by faith.
They don't have anything.
Well there are some that have to live by faith because they don't have anything but that's
not what living by faith is supposed to be.
Living by faith is looking to God for everything.
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Now if he happens to pour out a whole lot of stuff to you, so be it.
If he happens to pour out a little drip and drabble here and there, that's fine too.
That's not a commentary on living by faith.
Living by faith is dependence upon God for all that we need.
According to what he is and what he has for us.
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Israel had to learn that lesson.
But that man could only sustain this life, this natural life.
It could only sustain it for a while.
Do you know that the bread which is from heaven, when we eat that bread, it sustains
us forever?
The role of a prophet is to bring the Word of God.
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Christ was a prophet.
He brought the Word of God.
Those that would receive it, those that would eat it, those that would take it as the bread
of life would live forever.
He was a prophet.
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Aaron's rod that budded tells us first that it was Aaron's.
Aaron was the high priest.
There was a dispute, remember how it's recounted for us in the book of Numbers, over whether
Aaron had the authority to be high priest or not.
And God prescribed how this could be shown.
They had the rods of different ones laid up before him.
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Then when they looked, behold, Aaron's rod was just a dead stick.
It was a dead stick.
You wonder what's this rod?
It's a dead stick, dried up dead stick.
But you know, it was an almond stick from an almond tree and it blossomed.
Almond blossoms.
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That dead stick burst forth into life.
What did it tell us?
It told us that Aaron had the authority to come before God as the high priest.
God had chosen him.
The wonderful book of Hebrews opens up to us the high priestly office of the Lord Jesus.
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Aaron's priesthood was temporary.
It was like manna.
The priest died.
I mean, you know, a man could live three-squared tenor by reason of their strength, four-squared,
but he died.
And they had to renew these priests.
And by the way, their offerings had to be made fresh every day.
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Day in and day out, month after month, month after month.
And they had those seven feast days and that was the whole cycle of the year.
And every year there was a new day of atonement.
Every year the high priest had to go back into the holy of holies and make offering
there for the sins of the people.
It had to be done over and over hundreds and thousands of times.
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But the book of Hebrews tells us that Christ is our high priest.
And he, I think now, especially of chapter 10 of Hebrews, he made one offering forever.
And after that, sat down.
By the way, in the outer court of the tabernacle, in the tabernacle itself, in the tent of meeting,
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in that holy place and in the holy of holies, there was no place to sit down.
There wasn't any piece of furniture for sitting.
The mercy seat was not a place for the high priest to sit down.
He wouldn't dare.
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Always at the tabernacle, the priest were working, offering, carrying out the dung, taking the
hides off of the animals, cutting their throats, disemboweling them, cutting their hooves off,
cutting their heads off, offering up grain sacrifices, cutting open the pigeons, you know,
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and the turtle does, splitting them down.
They didn't take the feathers out them.
The whole bird went, you know, but they cut them open.
They cut them open right down through the middle, cleaves right through the breastbone
and down through exposing the hole in science.
And their hands got bloody and they got dirty and they had to carry the ashes out.
They had to make a fire on the brazen altar and they had to dig the, you know, dig the
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ashes out and they had to carry it out and they carried the dung out and they got dirty
and they had to wash and they worked and then they had a new set of priests that would come
after some hours.
The others would come and they would work and they would work and they would work.
There were one to three to four million Jews that came to that tabernacle for their daily
offerings.
It was a busy place.
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I might say it wasn't really as busy as it should have been.
Oh, if it could have been as busy as it should have been, but it really wasn't.
Not very many Jews came there.
All they had their spurts, their moments when there was a great national outpouring of worship,
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but then that went very quickly and there were just those few.
I grieve the heart of God because in that tabernacle were pictures of his Savior.
Everything in the place has a message about Jesus Christ.
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Everything, the altar, all the sacrifices, the five classes of sacrifice, the labor, the
table, the chubrid and the chubrid, the lamp stand, the altar of prayer, the little golden
altar called the altar of incense and then the chief item.
Really, it's the item that the whole tabernacle was built for.
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It's the core.
It's the center, the arc with its lid, the mercy seat.
That's why the tabernacle was there to house that so that God could meet with his people.
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In the right place by the prescribed way, the blood sprinkled way, that there could
be a coming together of man and God.
Who has the authority to come before God as high priest?
Book of Hebrews says Jesus Christ.
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He's the one with the authority.
How do we know?
The pteran's rod budded.
It showed that there was life in that rod, life from God.
I want to tell you that the day of resurrection when Jesus was raised up from the dead, when
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he, that dead corpse was given life, when that spirit of the Savior himself was displayed
in that newness of flesh, when he showed that he had victory over death itself and
he came forth, he came forth to be an undying, everlasting intercessor.
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And there's only one of him.
There's only one high priest for us today.
There is only one intercessor that has the qualifications, that has the authority, the
standing, to come before God on our behalf.
Only one mediator between God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus, no other.
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Only one who has come forth in newness of life.
And then there were the two tables of stone, the law.
God brought those to his people to tell them how they ought to live, and by showing them
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that righteous standard he could prove to them that they could not live that way, that
they were absolutely unable.
They were sinners undone before God.
The purpose of the law was to show man that he was a sinner.
It was not given so that man could perform it and by performing it be make himself righteous,
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because no man ever yet kept the law.
Nobody could do it.
That's why it was given to show man how righteous God is and how he demands righteousness of
us and how unable we are to do it.
Is it possible that righteousness could ever reign in this earth?
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Is it possible that there could be a righteous king who could rule in righteousness over
a righteous people?
The story is that the Lord Jesus will one day return to this earth and all sinners will
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be shut out of the kingdom that he sets up.
And the righteous ones will go into that kingdom.
I'm talking about living human beings coming into the kingdom of Christ on the earth, yes,
or period of years.
I'm not talking about that distortion that Jehovah's Witness speak of as though that
was the eternal state, meant that the others are annihilated.
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It's not the teaching of Scripture.
But God wants to prove in this earth, he wants to display in this earth, that his son has
been given the title and is Lord of lords and King of kings and he shall reign and through
him righteousness shall reign from sea to sea.
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But after that kingdom here on this earth, after that I could call it momentary display
of his reign of righteousness in the earth because it's a thousand year kingdom.
And in fact the ones that are born during that period of time are not righteous.
And when they're born and many of them, most of them don't seem to come to Christ so that
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there's a great multitude who reject him and at the end are consumed by fire.
And that's the end of God's displaying of things in the earth.
He's through with this program on this earth and he destroys the earth, heaven and earth
are wiped out.
There's a great noise Peter says and the heavens and the earth are consumed by that.
He means this material heavens.
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He doesn't mean the dwelling place of God.
He means material heavens.
He means the stars, the suns that we see out there are only stars.
And then all the planets and all the moons around them and all the celestial stuff that's
in between all that space stuff, the little pieces of whatever it is that's floating around
out there and there's billions and billions and billions of suns.
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So there must be jillions if that's a word and jillions of that other stuff.
But it's all going to be consumed in a great and fervent heat.
Apparently, and I have to say apparently, it's the reversal of the creative process.
Energy, I'm sorry, mass has turned to energy and the energy into light and then nothing.
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The material creation has reversed and gone, but not the spirits of men.
There is a throne for whom every sinner will appear before which every sinner will appear.
And then there is a place of judgment for those who have no righteousness and come before
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that throne.
And there is also a city for Square.
1500 miles wide, 1500 miles long, 1500 miles high, and the very sinner of it has a throne.
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And the sun sits on that throne.
There's no need for moon, there's no need for stars, there's no need for sun in that place
because the brightness of the glory of the Son of God is the light of that place.
And all who dwell there are robed and white that speaks of the righteousness of the Son,
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the Son of God.
They dwell in unending love and fellowship with God because they have come in and through
the one who sits on the throne.
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He became humanity for a time.
And as a man, he offered himself up as a sacrifice and did no sin all during his life
so that that sacrifice was a righteous sacrifice without fault, without sin.
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And the Father received, accepted, took delight in that sacrifice and proved that by the resurrection
from the dead.
So that if any would come to God by faith in him, they can be clothed with that one's
righteousness.
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They would have him for their high priest, their inner sesser.
They would have him the living bread as their source of life and they would have him as
their king to reign over them forever.
He is for us the mercy seat.
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He is the propitiation for our sins.
Propitiation means satisfaction for our sins.
And John's first epistle, chapter 2, verse 2 and says, and not for ours only, but for
the sins of the whole world.
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Romans chapter 3 tells us what great sinners we are, that we would need such a provision.
And Romans 3, 23 says, we're all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The verses that follow that tell us what we have in our Savior as our propitiation.
It says this at verse 24 and on, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
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that is in Christ Jesus.
Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, you see, a satisfaction, through faith in
his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God, for centuries and centuries before the cross, for centuries and centuries,
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God forebore.
He put off dealing with man's sin and bringing judgment upon him because God looked forward
to the cross, forward to the satisfaction of the blood of Christ, forward to the atonement
of Jesus at Calvary, and any who in the Old Testament, any who came to God, according
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to the revelation that was given to them, whatever degree or amount of light they had,
if they came and put by faith, put their trusting God and whatever provision God had, God put
to their account the blood of the cross.
They were redeemed, but then one day you say, that's not right, that's not right.
One day God was justified in having done that for centuries and centuries because one day
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that sacrifice did get offered.
It was sufficient and God had been right for centuries and centuries to do that and he
was justified in doing it on that very day of the cross.
He did something else.
He made it not only to apply to those who had already received him by faith, but made
it apply to all who in the future, whatever put their trust in that sacrifice for their
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sin.
So Christ's death does not only atone for sins that are passed in the ages before the
cross, but also attend atones for the sins of all who come after the cross.
All who would come to God by faith can have their sins answered for, do have them answered
for in the blood of Christ.
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The blood is the satisfaction and the blood that high priest had to take in the tabernacles
of the days of the tabernacles had to be taken and sprinkled on the mercy seat.
Why?
Because communion with God could only come through blood's price, through the price
of sacrifice.
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You could only come to the place of the throne, the place of the presence of God.
You could only come to Jesus himself upon that throne on the basis of his own sacrifice.
There is no other way into the holiest of holies.
He is the only way into God.
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There is no other, but it's a full and sufficient way.
And it offers us the chance now to come in freely.
You know, that veil that was over the holy of holies was a multi-layered, heavy veil?
But even the priest had access to that holy place, only the high priest once a year in
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the day of atonement.
That's the only day he could come in, came in first to make atonement for himself, then
he came in to make atonement for the people.
But only on that day that veil was there as a barrier.
It wasn't like the curtain at the outer fence of the outer courtyard, because that curtain
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was really a doorway of invitation.
I mean, the worshipper could come and bring his sacrifice, and the priest could minister
there.
And then that curtain that was at the outer wall of the holy place, the first room.
That wasn't a barrier.
That was a doorway of invitation.
It's like these doors.
They swing both ways, folks.
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You can go in and out.
But the veil was a barrier.
You couldn't throw there.
It had to be torn.
It had to be rent.
It had to be taken out of the way.
And until the Christ of the Scriptures came incarnate, until the one promised came and
died on the cross, that veil had to stay there.
But when he died, it was rent from top to bottom by the hands of God.
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Why?
So that we could have free access.
No more parriers.
You can go in and out.
If that arc speaks of Christ himself, and if the mercies he speaks are the very throne
of God and of Christ himself, and if the presence of God is there on that throne, don't you
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see it tells you you have free access to the presence of God through Christ by the blood.
What he's done for us.
What he is for us.
What freedom there is then.
(40:33):
To know God.
You know what Paul says in Philippians 3?
That I may know him and the power of his resurrection.
That I may know him.
You know the hunger of that apostle's heart was not to know about Christ.
We want to study the Word of God and find out more and more and more about Christ.
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I know you're here today and you say, please help me understand more about Christ.
But the greater blessing isn't to know more about him, but to know him better.
Paul's heart was centered on that.
That I may know him.
How do you know a person better by entering ever more deeply into a relationship with
(41:22):
them?
You know what I'm saying about somebody doesn't necessarily draw you into that relationship.
You could know all there is to know about somebody and they could hate you and you could have
no loving relationship with them at all.
And the more you could learn about them wouldn't give you any greater relationship with them.
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You could study about somebody from now till never.
You can never have any improvement in your relationship.
What you need is the person.
What you need is to know them to enter ever more deeply into relationship with them.
(42:09):
Now the Christian who's heart is hungry for God understands this.
You may know that the study of the Word of God isn't just so you can pride yourself
in your knowledge.
It isn't so you can hold yourself up and elevate yourself in the eyes and minds of men.
It isn't for that.
It isn't for public display so that you can show off how great your knowledge is.
(42:34):
It's that you might learn more about him to give your heart to him ever more, to worship
him more perfectly, to give praise to him more completely, to be drawn in your heart
to this one that the scriptures disclose to you because you want to know him.
You want to give yourself to him and experience his giving of himself to you.
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Sounds amazing when the world hears us talking like this, but the Lord Jesus lives within
me.
He's alive in me.
The father lives in me.
I'm thinking now particularly of John 14 and John 16 and the spirit lives in me and they
(43:26):
manifest themselves to me.
They make themselves known to me.
They're real.
Not just in heaven.
He calls me ever to open my heart and give myself to him to know him.
You see, in knowing him to know all that he is, for instance, the power of his resurrection.
(43:56):
You see, what Jesus brought to me through his resurrection was power, it was victory
over sin, over all that this world would throw at me, through all of its hurts, through
all of the sorrows of this earth.
I can face any of them in my Savior.
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I'm not saying that they won't hurt me, but I can go through them.
I can deal with them.
And ultimately, even if my body is diseased and dies from disease, I have a no body.
I have victory over this world and I'm going to have it in experience someday.
(44:42):
He won't forsake me, but right now he wants me to know him.
All that he is is there for me.
I have put the enter in and take it.
I want to tell you more about him to encourage you to know him better.
Let's pray.
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Lord Jesus, we worship you this morning and thank you for who you are, what you are for
us and that you and your great love want the draw ever closer into yourselves.
You want us to find out more and more what true delight there is in walking with you
(45:35):
and talking to you from our hearts that our spirits might be knit with yours ever more
closely in the fellowship in the bond of the Spirit of God because of the life that's in
us, the eternal life that you've given us.
Prophet, Priest and King, thank you Lord for being our Savior.
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Teach our hearts by what we see in the world and by the urging and pleading we get from
one another and even as we come together and worship here in this place, teach us Lord,
how to give ourselves more and more to love you and to serve you and to glorify you with
all we do and all we think.
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You are truly are all in all in Jesus name.
All right.
Thank you Pastor Raines for another message from the word of God.
This is not by any means the last of the tapes we got because we'll be going into the 91
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and there's quite a few from 91 92 93 I think 94 is probably has the most
messages to it so far.
I'm still I'm still converting tapes so we'll see what happens.
So if you liked it come back next week we'll have more from the tape archive
(47:14):
and we'll also have more from Pastor Raines.
I think all of these are by my Pastor Raines so he come back and listen and if you'd like
please subscribe because that helps out and comment if you want to do that and you can subscribe
at your whatever that you're listening to either have a podcast or pod being or
(47:42):
where we're also located at or where you could go on to the YouTube channel and
you could subscribe there so you can check that out there at the YouTube channel because
well it's the same message but it's like a video version of it.
There are also two ones to see there but that's a good location to get it because everyone
(48:04):
knows where YouTube is at so that's easy to find so you can do that.
All right so thanks for listening.
Go back again next week and we'll have more and until then have a great day and oh yeah keep reading
your Bible okay see you next week.
Welcome back.
(00:12):
This is the Legacy Bible Podcast, a place where you are here, legacy lessons and legacy
audio from the Bible, from the massive tape collection of the Fellowship of Bible Church
and Joliet, Illinois.
I'm going to be your host, my name is Marcus Onate, and today I'm going to be bringing
(00:35):
you another one from the Church Archive.
This one was recorded on January 14, 1990, and I think this is one of the last ones I
have for 1990.
We'll be going into 1991 soon, if not next time, then really soon.
(00:58):
In the name of this message is called the Mercy Seat.
God's meeting place through Christ.
All right.
That sounds like a good message to start off with.
All right.
So let's all listen in and I'll talk to you on the other side of it.
I want to thank with you this morning and for some time on the Lord Jesus and who He
(01:24):
is for us and what He is for us.
Subject this morning, however, is the Mercy Seat.
That takes you to the picture in your mind, maybe, in your study from the Word of God.
It takes you to the picture of the tabernacle that we find in the wilderness, in the scriptures,
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the Old Testament.
God gave Israel the tabernacle called the tent of meeting, the tent of meeting.
That was a place where God's people couldn't meet with God.
The tabernacle had these parts.
(02:12):
There was first an outer court that was surrounded by a fence, you could call it, with a curtain
that was there as a door or the gate to come in at.
In that court, there was a tent and that tent had a curtain also for a door of entrance
(02:34):
on the front of it.
In the courtyard in front of the tent, there was a brazen altar off to the left a little
bit.
As you came toward the tent, to the right a little bit, would be a labor, a brazen, large
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bowl, really, a large window for washing so that the priests might wash themselves from
the defilements of serving at the altar, the blood that would have gotten on them,
and the soil that would have gotten on them in offering up the sacrifices.
Then as one would have gone through the veil or the curtain that served as a door for the
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tent of meeting, would have come into a room that was fifteen feet wide and thirty
feet long, called the Holy Place.
In the Holy Place to the right there was a little table called the Table of Shubrid,
and on that table there was daily, put new, fresh, Shubrid.
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To the left, against the wall and the left, would have been a lamp stand, seven branches,
each of the branches having a light at the top fed by oil in a common reservoir, a lamp
stand to light that room, because with the curtain there at the doorway, no outside light
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came into that place.
Then as you went to the back of the room, as you went straight ahead to the back of
the room, there was a veil, a very, very heavy, multi-layered curtain that was across the
room.
What it did was split that room in two parts.
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The front part of the room, as I said, was the Holy Place, and I was thirty by fifteen
wide, but that back room was fifteen feet wide, fifteen feet long, fifteen feet high.
Interesting, isn't it?
It was a cube.
(04:58):
You know, I'm going to be teaching the book of Revelation in the Bible Institute coming
up in a week and two days.
We're going to begin that course.
There will be two other courses, but I'm taking up with this one and I'm enjoying the study
for it.
I'm reminded that in the book of Revelation, we're told about a city, the Holy City, New
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Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.
We're told about its dimensions.
Do you know it is a city four square?
It's a city four square.
It means it's so many, such an amount of length long and such an amount of length wide and
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such an amount of length high.
A lot of people think of the city of New Jerusalem like a city on a hill.
It isn't people.
It's a square city on the foundation.
It is a cube.
How big is it?
Well, you take the qubits and all the lengths that are given to us in the book of Revelation,
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put it down to our terms and I think it will kind of help you make a parallel with the
holy of holies of sorts because for a very special reason.
At its 1,500 miles long, 1,500 miles wide and 1,500 miles high.
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There is such an amount of space in that city that it will house every saint born again
from Adam to this day.
And all the angels and all the workings and glory of God.
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It's not just almost a two dimensional place on a flat plane.
It's 1,500 miles high.
The holy of holies was 15 feet wide, 15 feet long, 15 feet high.
A very special room at the back of the tabernacle.
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The holy of holies, that room at the back of the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, was
the place where God, according to what Rich has just read with you, the place where God
met with his people.
It was the place where he dwelt among his chosen people Israel and where he met with
them.
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That room, that back room called the holy of holies held two things.
Now you might quickly say, oh no, no, one, no two things.
It held something that was two things that were really one together, but they're distinct.
The arc of the covenant, not necessarily the one that's been popularized in the films late,
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but the arc of the covenant as it really was.
A little box, a little box about 45 inches long and about 27 inches wide on the outside
dimensions.
Little box made of Chitemwood or Acacia wood, Acacia would help you understand what it is,
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Acacia wood, but overlaid with pure gold on both sides of the wood, on all sides of
the wood.
There would be no wood showing.
This box would have a bottom, and it would have ends, it would have sides, but it wouldn't
have a top because the other item that was in that room was its lid.
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The other item covered that box.
It was called the Mercy Seat.
There was no wood in the Mercy Seat.
It was solid gold, solid gold.
And fashion under the same piece of gold as the Mercy Seat.
On each end of the Mercy Seat, there were figures of angels, two angels, one at each
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end.
These were cherubimps, or I shouldn't say bims, they were cherubimah, that's the plural.
This singular cherubim, that's plural.
They were cherubim, but they were fashioned out of the same gold.
It was as old as the gold in that lid just molded right up into their bodies and became
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their bodies.
These angels each looked from the ends of the box toward the center of the box, and they
had their heads bowed and they had six wings.
And it was right in between where those angels looked, right there over the Mercy Seat that
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God dwelt among His people.
There was apparently a display of brightness, of glory, brightness of glory over that seat.
Not everybody got to see it, because the high priest of Israel got to go in there only once
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a year.
He had to come in there the prescribed way, because if he came in there any other way,
he would die.
He had to come in on the day of atonement no other day ever, ever in the rest of the
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year, only on the day of atonement, and he could only come in on the basis of blood sacrifice.
Just for himself and then for the people.
I want to talk about that little box, the Ark of the Covenant, the things that held
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and the Mercy Seat.
The box was made of wood for a very special reason.
Because it speaks, these are all typical.
They're all pictures.
They're typical things, pictures of the real.
By the way, the manifestation of God's presence was real.
That wasn't just typical.
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But the box spoke of Christ.
How did it speak of Christ?
Well, the wood that it was fashioned of spoke of His humanity.
Christ was in fact an indeed man.
He came to this earth and took upon the form of a man, a form of a servant, humbled himself
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to death, even the death of a cross.
But the wood tells us He indeed was man.
But it was overlaid.
All the wood was overlaid with gold, solid gold, so that none of the wood was seen, and
the gold tells us of His deity.
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It tells us of His glory.
It tells us of His heavenly origin.
It tells us that He is God.
So welded together, knit together are these two truths about Christ.
He is both human and divine.
He came to us to do a very, very special work for us, the work of redemption.
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Now, the mercy seat laid on top of that box and still a part of the box because it becomes
the box's cover is also a picture of Christ.
But there's no wood in it.
There is no wood.
None of Christ's humanity is seen in that mercy seat.
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It's solid gold because it speaks of His deity, of His heavenly person, of His heavenly
divinity.
And it also speaks of something else.
It speaks of the place of meeting with God, the throne of God.
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That mercy seat speaks of the throne of God.
It speaks of Christ, the person on the basis of the work of Christ Himself.
Do you know Christ is for us all that that little box speaks of, both man and God.
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He is for us also God Himself without His humanity.
Now inside of the box were three things.
And those three things tell us about Christ and tell us about what He's done for us.
There was a golden pot filled with manna.
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There was Aaron's rod that budded.
And there were the tables of stone with the law written on them.
But these are the unbroken tables of stone.
First Moses went to the mouth and received tables of stone, two tables of stone.
And when he came down with the law written on these tables of stone and saw the Israelites
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dancing around the golden calf that they'd made and drunken and carousing and worshiping
a false God in his anger, he said he didn't deserve the law of God, the word of God.
And he threw them down on the rocks and broke them.
He was wrong in his anger.
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They indeed needed the law to see how sinful they were.
The law holding up this statement of the righteousness of God tells us how much a sinner
we are.
God took him right back up that mountain.
You know he had been up there for 40 days and 40 nights fasting.
God had to work a miracle to sustain the man while he was up there receiving the law.
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And you know he had to turn right around and go back for another 40 days and 40 nights
to receive the law again.
You certainly would want God to sustain you if you had to do that, wouldn't you?
80 days, no food?
God did sustain him and God this time wrote with his finger on the tables of stone and
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Moses brought them down and they were preserved for Israel inside of that box.
Now those three things tell us about Christ and what he is for us.
Do you know that Christ is the only one in all the scriptures who occupies the three offices
of prophet, priest and king?
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He is the only one who fulfills or will have all those three titles, prophet, priest and
king.
In John 6 the Lord Jesus tells us that he is the bread of life and he even tells us that
we should eat of that bread.
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In the Pharisees hearing this and realizing that he is also saying his flesh is that
bread are nauseated by it.
Let's be telling us he did this bread and he is the bread, his flesh is that bread.
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What is this cannibalism, this knocker of God's word would tell us.
They were angry.
Their hearts were inflamed.
They wanted to kill him.
But John 6 is a wonderful chapter and it opens up a great truth to us.
He in fact the Lord Jesus said that manna came down but it had to be picked up every day
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but that if you would eat of the bread of life that you would receive eternal life.
You see manna sustained the Israelites in the wilderness.
It sustained, it was wonderful food.
It was angels food and it could sustain life.
It could sustain life for one day.
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The portion that you got would be enough for that day.
In fact they were absolutely forbidden except in the day before the Sabbath.
They were absolutely forbidden to take two days worth of manna up.
They were to only take one day's provision.
They were to receive from God his provision for that day and no day after it.
Why?
So that they could learn what it meant to be dependent on God and they could find that
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he was fully sufficient for their every need.
He was faithful.
They didn't have to worry about his faithfulness tomorrow.
God was going to be as faithful tomorrow as he had done today.
Learn to rest on the person of the Lord, not on your own works, your own efforts,
your own storehouse.
Give up that idea.
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Learn what the life of faith is truly all about.
It's not about deprivation.
A lot of people think that living by faith is when you don't have anything.
Gotta live by faith.
They don't have anything.
Well there are some that have to live by faith because they don't have anything but that's
not what living by faith is supposed to be.
Living by faith is looking to God for everything.
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Now if he happens to pour out a whole lot of stuff to you, so be it.
If he happens to pour out a little drip and drabble here and there, that's fine too.
That's not a commentary on living by faith.
Living by faith is dependence upon God for all that we need.
According to what he is and what he has for us.
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Israel had to learn that lesson.
But that man could only sustain this life, this natural life.
It could only sustain it for a while.
Do you know that the bread which is from heaven, when we eat that bread, it sustains
us forever?
The role of a prophet is to bring the Word of God.
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Christ was a prophet.
He brought the Word of God.
Those that would receive it, those that would eat it, those that would take it as the bread
of life would live forever.
He was a prophet.
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Aaron's rod that budded tells us first that it was Aaron's.
Aaron was the high priest.
There was a dispute, remember how it's recounted for us in the book of Numbers, over whether
Aaron had the authority to be high priest or not.
And God prescribed how this could be shown.
They had the rods of different ones laid up before him.
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Then when they looked, behold, Aaron's rod was just a dead stick.
It was a dead stick.
You wonder what's this rod?
It's a dead stick, dried up dead stick.
But you know, it was an almond stick from an almond tree and it blossomed.
Almond blossoms.
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That dead stick burst forth into life.
What did it tell us?
It told us that Aaron had the authority to come before God as the high priest.
God had chosen him.
The wonderful book of Hebrews opens up to us the high priestly office of the Lord Jesus.
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Aaron's priesthood was temporary.
It was like manna.
The priest died.
I mean, you know, a man could live three-squared tenor by reason of their strength, four-squared,
but he died.
And they had to renew these priests.
And by the way, their offerings had to be made fresh every day.
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Day in and day out, month after month, month after month.
And they had those seven feast days and that was the whole cycle of the year.
And every year there was a new day of atonement.
Every year the high priest had to go back into the holy of holies and make offering
there for the sins of the people.
It had to be done over and over hundreds and thousands of times.
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But the book of Hebrews tells us that Christ is our high priest.
And he, I think now, especially of chapter 10 of Hebrews, he made one offering forever.
And after that, sat down.
By the way, in the outer court of the tabernacle, in the tabernacle itself, in the tent of meeting,
(23:08):
in that holy place and in the holy of holies, there was no place to sit down.
There wasn't any piece of furniture for sitting.
The mercy seat was not a place for the high priest to sit down.
He wouldn't dare.
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Always at the tabernacle, the priest were working, offering, carrying out the dung, taking the
hides off of the animals, cutting their throats, disemboweling them, cutting their hooves off,
cutting their heads off, offering up grain sacrifices, cutting open the pigeons, you know,
(23:52):
and the turtle does, splitting them down.
They didn't take the feathers out them.
The whole bird went, you know, but they cut them open.
They cut them open right down through the middle, cleaves right through the breastbone
and down through exposing the hole in science.
And their hands got bloody and they got dirty and they had to carry the ashes out.
They had to make a fire on the brazen altar and they had to dig the, you know, dig the
(24:13):
ashes out and they had to carry it out and they carried the dung out and they got dirty
and they had to wash and they worked and then they had a new set of priests that would come
after some hours.
The others would come and they would work and they would work and they would work.
There were one to three to four million Jews that came to that tabernacle for their daily
offerings.
It was a busy place.
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I might say it wasn't really as busy as it should have been.
Oh, if it could have been as busy as it should have been, but it really wasn't.
Not very many Jews came there.
All they had their spurts, their moments when there was a great national outpouring of worship,
(24:59):
but then that went very quickly and there were just those few.
I grieve the heart of God because in that tabernacle were pictures of his Savior.
Everything in the place has a message about Jesus Christ.
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Everything, the altar, all the sacrifices, the five classes of sacrifice, the labor, the
table, the chubrid and the chubrid, the lamp stand, the altar of prayer, the little golden
altar called the altar of incense and then the chief item.
Really, it's the item that the whole tabernacle was built for.
(25:48):
It's the core.
It's the center, the arc with its lid, the mercy seat.
That's why the tabernacle was there to house that so that God could meet with his people.
(26:09):
In the right place by the prescribed way, the blood sprinkled way, that there could
be a coming together of man and God.
Who has the authority to come before God as high priest?
Book of Hebrews says Jesus Christ.
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He's the one with the authority.
How do we know?
The pteran's rod budded.
It showed that there was life in that rod, life from God.
I want to tell you that the day of resurrection when Jesus was raised up from the dead, when
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he, that dead corpse was given life, when that spirit of the Savior himself was displayed
in that newness of flesh, when he showed that he had victory over death itself and
he came forth, he came forth to be an undying, everlasting intercessor.
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And there's only one of him.
There's only one high priest for us today.
There is only one intercessor that has the qualifications, that has the authority, the
standing, to come before God on our behalf.
Only one mediator between God and man, and that is the man Christ Jesus, no other.
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Only one who has come forth in newness of life.
And then there were the two tables of stone, the law.
God brought those to his people to tell them how they ought to live, and by showing them
(28:11):
that righteous standard he could prove to them that they could not live that way, that
they were absolutely unable.
They were sinners undone before God.
The purpose of the law was to show man that he was a sinner.
It was not given so that man could perform it and by performing it be make himself righteous,
(28:32):
because no man ever yet kept the law.
Nobody could do it.
That's why it was given to show man how righteous God is and how he demands righteousness of
us and how unable we are to do it.
Is it possible that righteousness could ever reign in this earth?
(28:59):
Is it possible that there could be a righteous king who could rule in righteousness over
a righteous people?
The story is that the Lord Jesus will one day return to this earth and all sinners will
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be shut out of the kingdom that he sets up.
And the righteous ones will go into that kingdom.
I'm talking about living human beings coming into the kingdom of Christ on the earth, yes,
or period of years.
I'm not talking about that distortion that Jehovah's Witness speak of as though that
was the eternal state, meant that the others are annihilated.
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It's not the teaching of Scripture.
But God wants to prove in this earth, he wants to display in this earth, that his son has
been given the title and is Lord of lords and King of kings and he shall reign and through
him righteousness shall reign from sea to sea.
(30:14):
But after that kingdom here on this earth, after that I could call it momentary display
of his reign of righteousness in the earth because it's a thousand year kingdom.
And in fact the ones that are born during that period of time are not righteous.
And when they're born and many of them, most of them don't seem to come to Christ so that
(30:36):
there's a great multitude who reject him and at the end are consumed by fire.
And that's the end of God's displaying of things in the earth.
He's through with this program on this earth and he destroys the earth, heaven and earth
are wiped out.
There's a great noise Peter says and the heavens and the earth are consumed by that.
He means this material heavens.
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He doesn't mean the dwelling place of God.
He means material heavens.
He means the stars, the suns that we see out there are only stars.
And then all the planets and all the moons around them and all the celestial stuff that's
in between all that space stuff, the little pieces of whatever it is that's floating around
out there and there's billions and billions and billions of suns.
(31:20):
So there must be jillions if that's a word and jillions of that other stuff.
But it's all going to be consumed in a great and fervent heat.
Apparently, and I have to say apparently, it's the reversal of the creative process.
Energy, I'm sorry, mass has turned to energy and the energy into light and then nothing.
(31:50):
The material creation has reversed and gone, but not the spirits of men.
There is a throne for whom every sinner will appear before which every sinner will appear.
And then there is a place of judgment for those who have no righteousness and come before
(32:16):
that throne.
And there is also a city for Square.
1500 miles wide, 1500 miles long, 1500 miles high, and the very sinner of it has a throne.
(32:38):
And the sun sits on that throne.
There's no need for moon, there's no need for stars, there's no need for sun in that place
because the brightness of the glory of the Son of God is the light of that place.
And all who dwell there are robed and white that speaks of the righteousness of the Son,
(33:06):
the Son of God.
They dwell in unending love and fellowship with God because they have come in and through
the one who sits on the throne.
(33:28):
He became humanity for a time.
And as a man, he offered himself up as a sacrifice and did no sin all during his life
so that that sacrifice was a righteous sacrifice without fault, without sin.
(33:50):
And the Father received, accepted, took delight in that sacrifice and proved that by the resurrection
from the dead.
So that if any would come to God by faith in him, they can be clothed with that one's
righteousness.
(34:13):
They would have him for their high priest, their inner sesser.
They would have him the living bread as their source of life and they would have him as
their king to reign over them forever.
He is for us the mercy seat.
(34:37):
He is the propitiation for our sins.
Propitiation means satisfaction for our sins.
And John's first epistle, chapter 2, verse 2 and says, and not for ours only, but for
the sins of the whole world.
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Romans chapter 3 tells us what great sinners we are, that we would need such a provision.
And Romans 3, 23 says, we're all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The verses that follow that tell us what we have in our Savior as our propitiation.
It says this at verse 24 and on, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption
(35:25):
that is in Christ Jesus.
Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, you see, a satisfaction, through faith in
his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through
the forbearance of God, for centuries and centuries before the cross, for centuries and centuries,
(35:49):
God forebore.
He put off dealing with man's sin and bringing judgment upon him because God looked forward
to the cross, forward to the satisfaction of the blood of Christ, forward to the atonement
of Jesus at Calvary, and any who in the Old Testament, any who came to God, according
(36:12):
to the revelation that was given to them, whatever degree or amount of light they had,
if they came and put by faith, put their trusting God and whatever provision God had, God put
to their account the blood of the cross.
They were redeemed, but then one day you say, that's not right, that's not right.
One day God was justified in having done that for centuries and centuries because one day
(36:37):
that sacrifice did get offered.
It was sufficient and God had been right for centuries and centuries to do that and he
was justified in doing it on that very day of the cross.
He did something else.
He made it not only to apply to those who had already received him by faith, but made
it apply to all who in the future, whatever put their trust in that sacrifice for their
(37:03):
sin.
So Christ's death does not only atone for sins that are passed in the ages before the
cross, but also attend atones for the sins of all who come after the cross.
All who would come to God by faith can have their sins answered for, do have them answered
for in the blood of Christ.
(37:24):
The blood is the satisfaction and the blood that high priest had to take in the tabernacles
of the days of the tabernacles had to be taken and sprinkled on the mercy seat.
Why?
Because communion with God could only come through blood's price, through the price
of sacrifice.
(37:47):
You could only come to the place of the throne, the place of the presence of God.
You could only come to Jesus himself upon that throne on the basis of his own sacrifice.
There is no other way into the holiest of holies.
He is the only way into God.
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There is no other, but it's a full and sufficient way.
And it offers us the chance now to come in freely.
You know, that veil that was over the holy of holies was a multi-layered, heavy veil?
But even the priest had access to that holy place, only the high priest once a year in
(38:38):
the day of atonement.
That's the only day he could come in, came in first to make atonement for himself, then
he came in to make atonement for the people.
But only on that day that veil was there as a barrier.
It wasn't like the curtain at the outer fence of the outer courtyard, because that curtain
(39:01):
was really a doorway of invitation.
I mean, the worshipper could come and bring his sacrifice, and the priest could minister
there.
And then that curtain that was at the outer wall of the holy place, the first room.
That wasn't a barrier.
That was a doorway of invitation.
It's like these doors.
They swing both ways, folks.
(39:22):
You can go in and out.
But the veil was a barrier.
You couldn't throw there.
It had to be torn.
It had to be rent.
It had to be taken out of the way.
And until the Christ of the Scriptures came incarnate, until the one promised came and
died on the cross, that veil had to stay there.
But when he died, it was rent from top to bottom by the hands of God.
(39:48):
Why?
So that we could have free access.
No more parriers.
You can go in and out.
If that arc speaks of Christ himself, and if the mercies he speaks are the very throne
of God and of Christ himself, and if the presence of God is there on that throne, don't you
(40:11):
see it tells you you have free access to the presence of God through Christ by the blood.
What he's done for us.
What he is for us.
What freedom there is then.
(40:33):
To know God.
You know what Paul says in Philippians 3?
That I may know him and the power of his resurrection.
That I may know him.
You know the hunger of that apostle's heart was not to know about Christ.
We want to study the Word of God and find out more and more and more about Christ.
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I know you're here today and you say, please help me understand more about Christ.
But the greater blessing isn't to know more about him, but to know him better.
Paul's heart was centered on that.
That I may know him.
How do you know a person better by entering ever more deeply into a relationship with
(41:22):
them?
You know what I'm saying about somebody doesn't necessarily draw you into that relationship.
You could know all there is to know about somebody and they could hate you and you could have
no loving relationship with them at all.
And the more you could learn about them wouldn't give you any greater relationship with them.
(41:44):
You could study about somebody from now till never.
You can never have any improvement in your relationship.
What you need is the person.
What you need is to know them to enter ever more deeply into relationship with them.
(42:09):
Now the Christian who's heart is hungry for God understands this.
You may know that the study of the Word of God isn't just so you can pride yourself
in your knowledge.
It isn't so you can hold yourself up and elevate yourself in the eyes and minds of men.
It isn't for that.
It isn't for public display so that you can show off how great your knowledge is.
(42:34):
It's that you might learn more about him to give your heart to him ever more, to worship
him more perfectly, to give praise to him more completely, to be drawn in your heart
to this one that the scriptures disclose to you because you want to know him.
You want to give yourself to him and experience his giving of himself to you.
(43:04):
Sounds amazing when the world hears us talking like this, but the Lord Jesus lives within
me.
He's alive in me.
The father lives in me.
I'm thinking now particularly of John 14 and John 16 and the spirit lives in me and they
(43:26):
manifest themselves to me.
They make themselves known to me.
They're real.
Not just in heaven.
He calls me ever to open my heart and give myself to him to know him.
You see, in knowing him to know all that he is, for instance, the power of his resurrection.
(43:56):
You see, what Jesus brought to me through his resurrection was power, it was victory
over sin, over all that this world would throw at me, through all of its hurts, through
all of the sorrows of this earth.
I can face any of them in my Savior.
(44:17):
I'm not saying that they won't hurt me, but I can go through them.
I can deal with them.
And ultimately, even if my body is diseased and dies from disease, I have a no body.
I have victory over this world and I'm going to have it in experience someday.
(44:42):
He won't forsake me, but right now he wants me to know him.
All that he is is there for me.
I have put the enter in and take it.
I want to tell you more about him to encourage you to know him better.
Let's pray.
(45:08):
Lord Jesus, we worship you this morning and thank you for who you are, what you are for
us and that you and your great love want the draw ever closer into yourselves.
You want us to find out more and more what true delight there is in walking with you
(45:35):
and talking to you from our hearts that our spirits might be knit with yours ever more
closely in the fellowship in the bond of the Spirit of God because of the life that's in
us, the eternal life that you've given us.
Prophet, Priest and King, thank you Lord for being our Savior.
(46:04):
Teach our hearts by what we see in the world and by the urging and pleading we get from
one another and even as we come together and worship here in this place, teach us Lord,
how to give ourselves more and more to love you and to serve you and to glorify you with
all we do and all we think.
(46:27):
You are truly are all in all in Jesus name.
All right.
Thank you Pastor Raines for another message from the word of God.
This is not by any means the last of the tapes we got because we'll be going into the 91
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and there's quite a few from 91 92 93 I think 94 is probably has the most
messages to it so far.
I'm still I'm still converting tapes so we'll see what happens.
So if you liked it come back next week we'll have more from the tape archive
(47:14):
and we'll also have more from Pastor Raines.
I think all of these are by my Pastor Raines so he come back and listen and if you'd like
please subscribe because that helps out and comment if you want to do that and you can subscribe
at your whatever that you're listening to either have a podcast or pod being or
(47:42):
where we're also located at or where you could go on to the YouTube channel and
you could subscribe there so you can check that out there at the YouTube channel because
well it's the same message but it's like a video version of it.
There are also two ones to see there but that's a good location to get it because everyone
(48:04):
knows where YouTube is at so that's easy to find so you can do that.
All right so thanks for listening.
Go back again next week and we'll have more and until then have a great day and oh yeah keep reading
your Bible okay see you next week.
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