We're in Exodus chapter 25, verses 10 through 22. You may think we have a long way to go in Exodus, since Exodus is 40 chapters, but really we don't have too far to really go, because once you reach the golden calf incident in Exodus 32, then basically it's a repetition of chapters 25 through 31. So the last, what is that, eight chapters are almost just repetition. So we're not going to be going over that a whole lot. Here, God's giving Moses the instructions as well as a picture as he sees the heavenly temple on top of Mount Sinai. And he gives him all these verbal instructions. And then in chapters 33 and following, they're putting it together. So it describes that. So we really don't have that far to go. Really, we're going to go to chapter 32 or 33, and that's about it. So last week we talked about the Ark of the Covenant, which is the most important furnishing in the tabernacle. And this is in Exodus 25, verses 10 through 22. The Ark is a small chest. Here's a picture of one that the Temple Institute has made. It's either a model or it's the actual thing. I don't know. But nevertheless, here's the picture that they have. The Ark is a small chest, 45 inches long. 27 inches tall and 27 inches wide. It's made of acacia wood and this wood is covered by gold on inside and out and then of course On the four corners there are little rings here, one on each corner, and they had a rod made of acacia wood covered in gold that was placed through these. These poles were supposed to remain there permanently, but apparently they didn't as I read in the Bible. It seems like on occasion they weren't there. Also, it's got the lid, or top, of the ark, which was made of a solid piece of gold. I don't know how thick, but it was a solid piece of gold. It's called the kippurat, the surface of this, or the atonement seat, or the kippurat in the Hebrew. And this is very important. We're going to review what this is all about here in just a moment. On top of it you have the two angels with their wings spread upward. And just above this was the throne of Yahweh. He was enthroned above B. And inside this, underneath the lid inside, was contained three articles. The Table of the Testimony or the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, Number two, it contained Aaron's... Why do I keep... This can't be happening. OK. The tables with the covenant. Aaron's rod that budded and a golden bowl of manna. And that's over in Hebrews 9, verse 4 says that. But by the time that the ark was moved from the tabernacle over into Solomon's temple, Those two other articles weren't there. It was just the tables of the testimony according to first Kings 8 verse 9 Excuse me That's the only bad thing about this by term. I can't do anything except just sneeze right in your ear Sorry Okay The most important part of the ark is the cover the lid called the kippa rat or the atonement seat Now, we spent a lot of time on this last week, so I'm just going to briefly kind of go over and review what this is all about, because there's a lot of confusion. Atonement does not refer to every aspect of the work of Christ on the cross, like redemption, propitiation, and reconciliation. It does not refer to that. That's a theological use that is not found in the Bible. Nor does it mean cover, okay, to cover sin. People think, oh, in the Old Testament, sin was covered, and then in the New Testament, Christ took it away. Okay, no. Their sin was taken away in the Old Testament in anticipation of what Christ would accomplish. Just in the same way, your sin is taken away looking back to the cross. So the atonement didn't have to do with that in the Bible. The Hebrew word for atonement is kippur, from which we get the seat here, the kippuret. And what the confusion has been is where did this Hebrew word find its derivation? Where did it come from? And most people said, well, it came from an Arabic word, the Arabic word kapara, which means to cover, but this was wrong. Okay. All this goes back to just linguistic stuff. So everything you've been taught, probably been taught in just about every church for the last hundred years, that it meant that their sin was covered through the animal sacrifices. And finally Christ came and took them away. That's wrong. Okay. That is not true. Okay. Second, some people said, no, the word Hebrew, the word Kippur in Hebrew came from the Arabic word copper, which means propitiation, to propitiate or satisfy God. No, it did not do that either. OK. The evidence is that you can't hear me. It's so overwhelming. The evidence is that the word Kipper came from an Akkadian word Kuperu, K-U-P-E-R-U. An Akkadian word. A-K-A-D-I-A-N. A-K-K-A-D-I-A-N. Did I say that right? Akkadian. Thank you. And the word is Kuperu. K-U-P-E-R-U. And this word means to cleanse or purify. Okay? So, Atonement is not directed toward sin, like covering it, nor is it directed toward God and propitiating Him, but it's directed toward two things. People and objects. In the Bible, it is never, never, ever directed toward God or sin. Never. Never. You can look it up. It's always people or objects in worshiping the Kana. I told me. Projects, you want to just do this is an in and out thing just driving you crazy if it is OK. Well. OK. Well, it was here and the mic is under here. OK. All right. So it means to cleanse or to purify. So the animal sacrifices were functioning not in the sphere of justification. Nobody was saved or justified through animal sacrifice, nor did they function in the realm of inward sanctification. They function in the sphere of outward corporate sanctification, the very fact and the issue, the real issue was the Shekinah glory was there. That was the real issue. Since he was there, an added measure of purity had to be maintained and it was an outer purity. Remember, we talked about several things in the Old Testament, like you would be defiled if you touched a dead body or you'd be defiled if you got around a fungus or you would be defiled just by touching something. And this wasn't sin, but it defiled and it caused them to be unclean. And that uncleanness had to be atoned for. And that came through the animal sacrifices so that those people could draw near to Shekinah in the tabernacle and in the temple and worship God. And the objects that were there, such as the altar and the bronze labor, these things had to be atoned for so that they could be used in the worship of Shekinah. Now, this is the only way you're ever going to answer the issue of the millennial sacrifices in Ezekiel 40 to 46. Well, I mean, there are other answers. Don't get me wrong. But this is the one I think is only one that's consistent with the word atonement in the Old Testament. There are three periods in history when Shekinah dwelled with man. The first one was in the Garden of Eden. And I got to looking this up, and it's very interesting to see that the same word used of Shekinah in the tabernacle walking or moving about is the same word used of God moving about in the garden. So Shekinah was present with Adam and Eve before the fall. And the next time he shows up is in the tabernacle and Solomon's temple from the years 1445 to 586 BC. Hopefully you're getting some of these dates down because if you don't have a handle on biblical history and kind of when things happened. Well, I mean, where are you? You don't even know where you are with respect to world history and God's plan. So hopefully, as we study for years, you're getting a better feel for where things happen in biblical history and all this. Fourteen, forty five to five, eighty six B.C. And then in the future, Millennial Temple, he will once again return the Shekinah will to the Millennial Temple. So let's just look at a couple of quotes, one I already knew about, one I found today. One is by Dr. Randall Price talking about the purpose of atonement in the Old Testament. It's only in the Old Testament. He said this kind of sacrificial atonement is not for salvation nor for inward sanctification, but to preserve outward corporate sanctification or ceremonial purification so that a holy God can remain in the midst of an unholy people. And he's right on. And I found this one by Thomas Ice today. I don't know if you know him. He's the director of the Pre-Trib Research Center. He says critics of future millennial sacrifices seem to assume that all sacrifices past and future always depict Christ's final sacrifice for sin. They do not. An overwhelming majority of sacrifices under the Mosaic system were for purification of the priests and objects used in various rites. That's the exact conclusion I came to and I did not know about this. But that's exactly what I found when I studied the Bible. So they operated in a different sphere. Everybody is justified by faith alone. And it's on the basis always of Christ's sacrifice, never on animal sacrifice. And secondly, everyone in every dispensation is always inwardly cleansed by confession of sin, that is, during sanctification. We confess as a believer and we are forgiven temporally for our temporal sin. So you're forgiven once for all at the moment of faith alone, and then the sin that's committed after that God deals with that by confession of our sin. And the same was true for David in the Old Testament and Noah and everybody else that's ever going to live in the world. Nobody's ever going to be justified on any other basis than the shed blood of Christ. And no one's ever going to be forgiven of temporal sin on the basis of any other thing than the blood of Christ at the moment of confession of sin. OK, so now let's look at the history of the art and will finish and look for the search for a search for the art of the covenant. Pretty interesting. Well, the art construction took place in fourteen forty five or forty four B.T. in the wilderness outside of the land of Israel by an expert craftsman named Bezalel. Bezalel, we're going to run across him in a moment. His name means in the shadow of God and quite literally, as you may argue, is quite literally in the shadow of God. He made many of the other furnishings in the temple as well. When it was completed, it was placed in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle. Now, the second principle or thing we want to talk about as we look at the history of the Ark is where the Ark was, the Lord was. OK, and this is going to teach us the basic principle that wherever the Ark went, the Israelites should go. or they should take the Lord with them wherever they go. This is teaching the basic concept of following the leading of the Lord. You're supposed to never go anywhere the Lord doesn't go and you're supposed to always go everywhere the Lord does go. But that's pretty hard to do because most people don't always want to go or not willing to go as far as the Bible says we should go and do the things the Bible says we should do because we don't have faith. We don't believe that that will work. We don't believe that God's way of operating in our circumstances will work. So we want to do things our way. God, that just won't work in my culture. God, that just won't work in my time. That won't work in this situation. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We can come up with so many rationalizations, but the bottom line is, is that it's not going to work our way. It only works God's way. Okay. And so they were to follow. the leading of the Lord, so they can't, you know, in the wilderness, and there was the pillar of fire by night and the pillar of cloud by day, and whenever the pillar began to move, they were to break camp and follow it wherever it went, and whenever it stopped, they were to set up camp there. Now, the Ark of the Lord was a thing that when camp began to break, they would cover it with these three skins, and then they would carry it along in front of the Israelites to the next destination. Now, they were supposed to follow this and never go another way. Let me give you an example of failure to walk by faith. It's found in the book of Numbers. In the story of the twelve spies, they go in to file the land. They spend forty days there and they come back and ten of the spies say, we're like grasshoppers in their eyes. We're going to get stomped. There's no way we can take the land. And two of them, Joshua and Caleb, said, oh, it looks good. We're going to go in there that we may be like grasshoppers in their eyes, but we're going to take them, and that's because they believe God's promise that they were going to take them, that God was going to go before them and clear the way for them, and they were going to have victory. Well, the nation decided to follow the ten unfaithful spies, and this act of rebellion by the nation invited divine discipline upon the nation. And the way it was determined that they would go for 40 years in the wilderness was because they had spot out the land for 40 days. And so God said for each day that you spot out the land, you're going to spend a year in the wilderness. And so after the people heard this, great. Then they did something really stupid. They only compounded the problem. They said, oh, well, if that's the case, we'll go in and take the land. We can do it. And so they went over there and tried to take the land without Moses and without the Ark. And they suffered a great defeat. This is recorded in Numbers 14, 44 to 45. Numbers 14, 44 to 45. But they went up heedlessly to the ridge of the hill country. And that wasn't over here, but it's a lot over like it is here over there. Neither the Ark of the Covenant or the Law of the Lord nor Moses left the camp. Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and struck them and beat them down as far as Horma. They got stumped. They did not follow the leading of the Lord and the result was divine discipline. For 40 years they wandered in the wilderness until that generation died off. Now I want you to think about this for a second. 40 years in the wilderness. Everybody over the age of 20 died in 40 years. Now we know that there were approximately 1.2 million people over the age of 20. So in a period of 40 years, 1.2 million people died in the wilderness. That's 35,000 people a year. 87 funerals a day on average during that 40 years. I mean, people were dropping like flies. I mean, obviously some days were a lot more than others, but That's a lot of funerals to be having every year. 35,000? So basically the wilderness turned into a tremendous cemetery. And Israel will never forget that. You wouldn't forget that. Okay. And that's all because they refused to follow the leading of the Lord. So I'm trying to tell you, you should follow the Lord. You should Akulatheo. in the New Testament. You should follow him as they followed Christ around doing whatever he instructed us to do. Now, third, the Ark has personal features. Before we move forward in time, we have to understand a little bit about the Ark. The Ark has personal features. For example, turn to Numbers 10, 33. It's right after Exodus. I'm sorry, after Leviticus. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Numbers chapter 10, verse 33. I mean, it almost comes alive at certain points in the Bible. And the reason it does this is because it's the Ark and God has such a close affinity in the Old Testament where the Ark was. God was Numbers 10, 33 to 36. Thus, they set out from the mountain of the Lord three days journey with the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, journeying in front of them. for three days to seek out a resting place for them. Now, who's doing the seeking out? The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. It was seeking out a resting place for them, that is, for Israel. The cloud of the Lord was over them by day when they set out from the camp. Then it came about when the Ark set out. It's almost like it's going out. That Moses said, Rise up, O Lord, and let your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate you flee before you. When it came to rest, that is, the Ark, he said, Return, O Lord, to the myriad thousands of Israel. So the Ark almost seems to have its own persona. Of course, it's the persona of God, because the two were basically inseparable. Now, there are several miracles in the Bible which are associated with the Ark. The first one is the Ark crossing of the Jordan. This happened in 1405 BC. The first miracle happened here when Joshua and the people reached the Jordan River to cross over into the promised land. The priests were to carry the ark and step into the water. Now, the banks ran high at this time of year. And so the moment they put their soles of the feet in the water, it began to divide. OK, and it was cut off as far in the north of the city called Adam. And then, of course, the waters that were flowing south toward the Dead Sea, they just kept on flowing. They didn't have any waters behind them. And the ground behind them was dry and firm, so that the whole nation crossed as the priest stood in the middle of the Jordan with the Ark. And then afterwards, they came and put twelve stones out there in the middle of the Jordan as a memorial of this great event. The second, that was 1405 B.C., the second miracle occurred at the Ark Conquest of Jericho. This happened in the same year. Jericho was the first city they came to take as they came into the land. And of course, the priests were to take up the Ark of the Covenant and they put all the armored people in front and the nation got behind them and they would walk around the city for six days, once each time, once each day. And then on the seventh day, they walked around seven times. And then Joshua said, shout, and all the people shouted, and they blew the trumpets, and the walls fell. It literally means they fell flat. And they had victory. And they didn't spare anybody except Rahab and her household. Nobody. Men, women, children, pigs. It didn't matter. They took everything, and they killed everything. This is God's holy war. This is the way he functions. You can't have any kind of impure element among the people of God. Next we see the ark at Shiloh near Bethel. Shiloh may be a name for the messiah, I think in Genesis 49, means like peace. The ark at Shiloh near Bethel during the whole period of the judges. At this time, Shiloh became really the religious center of Israel and not Jerusalem. OK, this is where people would go up to worship God, because this is where the tabernacle was for several hundred years. OK. And until one day when they face the Philistines in battle at a town called Ebenezer, like Ebenezer Scrooge. And that means stone of help, and we learn why later. But this is the first battle at Ebenezer. This is a battle that the Israelites lost to the Philistines. The first day they go out and they go to battle and three thousand or four thousand of Israel's soldiers get killed. They say, well, let's go over to Shiloh, get the Ark of the Covenant. We'll bring it over here. And with this little magic trinket, the Ark, this little charm will have instant victory. They began to treat the Ark as if it was some kind of magic trinket that would give them victory. Well, that didn't work. The next time they went out, they had the Ark and they had 30,000 people killed. And the Ark was captured by the Philistines. So here is where the Ark was kept for a long time at the city of Shiloh during the period of the Judges. And Ebenezer was over here by Aphex. And so they said, well, we lost 34,000 men. Let's go get the Ark. We'll come back and we'll fight them again. Well, they lost 30,000 here again at Ebenezer, and they lost the Ark. So the Ark came into the possession of the Philistines. And you probably remember this story. The Philistines had the Ark for seven months total. The first thing that the Philistines did with it is they took it down to the city called Ashdod. And this is the great story where they take it into the house of their god, Dagon. And the next morning they wake up and go to the house of their God and Dagon has fallen down at the foot of the Ark of the Covenant. So they stand Dagon back up and they all go home, you know, and then they come back the next morning and Dagon has fallen down at the foot of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. And then people start getting tumors and cancer and people start dying. And they're like, OK, get that thing out of here. We don't want that. So they take it to this city called Gath. And these people start getting cancer, and these people start dying, and they're like, we don't want it either. So send it to Ekron. So they send it to Ekron. And again, the same thing happens, and they're like, what do we do with this thing? Their council comes back and gives it back to the Israelites. So they do, and they take it to this place called Beth Shemesh. And it sits in a field for a little while. And 50,000 Israelites die. So they're like, OK, we've got to get this thing out of here. They take it up to a place called Kirjath-Jerum, to the house of Abinadab. And Abinadab had a son, Eleazar, and Eleazar kept the Ark for 20 years. This takes us about to the time of 1100 BC, about the time of Samuel the prophet. Samuel, we have two books in the Bible named after Samuel. First and second, Samuel. And Samuel was a great prophet. He was the last of the judges and the first of the prophets. And he was the prophet who anointed King Saul and King David. And he was a great man. He knew that there's no reason to move the ark from Kiriath-Jerim down to Jerusalem because the people are just a bunch of idolaters. They're not in a state of obedience. There's no benefit. God's not going to help them. He knew that the ark wasn't a magic trinket, that the people had to be in obedience to Yahweh if they wanted to enjoy the victory that God could bring, the success and the prosperity that God could bring. So what he did was he spent his life ministering to the people, tearing down idols and trying to get them to repent and turn back to the Lord. And he was successful. So after 20 years, they went out to battle with Samuel as the leader of the army. And they went to that same place, Ebenezer, where they had lost 20 years before and the Ark had been captured. And they had a great victory over the Philistines, obviously, because God was with them now that they were an obedient people. And so that place came to be known as Ebenezer or Stone of Help, because Yahweh was their help there in that battle. So, this brings us to the time, basically, of David. When King David became leader of Israel, the ark was still at Kiriath-Jerum. He wanted to take it down to the city of David. And this story is recorded in 2 Samuel 6, where he went up to Kiriath-Jerum with 30,000 men to get the ark. 30,000 just to get the ark. And they put it on a new cart and two of the Benidab's sons escort the ark down toward the city of David. And like after the first six feet, David was doing a sacrifice. He was like, I don't want anything bad to happen. And this is the story or the time when as the oxen are pulling the cart, the ark begins to kind of shake and almost fall off. And Uzzah, a guy named Uzzah or Uzzah, I don't know how you pronounce it, he reaches out to take hold of the Ark. And the moment he takes hold of it, it strikes him dead. And David's like, OK, does the Ark have to come to me? I mean, I really don't want this thing. It was like either it caused great blessing or it always caused great cursing. And that's because there's basically two attributes of God that are manifested around the Ark. The holiness of God. You touch it, boom, you're dead. and the power of God. The holiness of God and the power of God are so closely connected with the Ark of the Covenant. Of course, that's why the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know, at the very end of it, you see all these things coming out of it. It kills everybody. It's either good stuff or really bad stuff happens around the Ark. And this reflects God's holiness and His power. Okay, so David, this is when David Well, I don't know if it's such a good idea to take it to the City of David Let's take it over here to this guy's house Obed Edom the Gittite So they took it to Obed Edom's house And it stayed there for three months and his house was blessed during that entire period that was there So when David found out that his house was blessed, he said okay Obed Edom was kind of like the guinea pig It's good. Now we can bring it down here to the City of David. We can bring it to my house now So now he brings it down to his house in the city of David, and this is the incident where David danced in a linen ephod, it's kind of like saying you dance in your linen underwear, as it came into Jerusalem. And here's the city of David at that time, this isn't on a northward, north is really kind of this way, up that way, and south, so it kind of runs like that. But the city of David is down here, and this is the temple mount up here. And so David, where he ruled as king, his quarters and all that would have been up here, overlooking the city of David. See, overlooking, because Bathsheba lived down here. So he was up here, so he could look down and see on her rooftop. But anyway, so they took the Ark of the Covenant down here, and he put it in a tent. It didn't have a house. It just had like a tent that it stayed in. Basically like the tabernacle. Well, the ark was then taken eventually into Solomon's temple. So David, in the Old Testament says, David says, Oh, I'm living in a house of cedar. And this little ark, God, God has to dwell in a little tent. So I have a great idea. I'm going to make God a house. And the Lord said, No, I'm going to build you a house. And this is a play on words in the Hebrew. And God says, I'm going to build you a house because David meant I'm going to build you a house, you know, a building. And God meant by house. No, I'm going to build you a dynasty. I'm going to make you and your descendants an eternal dynasty. And that came about in the person of Jesus Christ, who's a descendant of David through So God would build David a house through Solomon. But God did permit the building of a house for the Ark, but it was not built by David. David wanted to build it. David saw the heavenly temple, just like Moses did on Mount Sinai. David gathered all the construction materials. He basically had it all sitting there on the construction site. But Solomon built it, and this was completed in 967 B.C. 967 B.C., which is a very important marker in the Bible. And this in First Kings chapter six, verse one, it says that the exodus had taken place 480 years before the Temple of Solomon was completed. So we know that the exodus took place about 1445 or so B.C. OK, so after this, the kingdom was divided after Solomon. I'm giving you overview of Bible history because you need to know Bible history. And it was divided into Rehoboam, who was a big idiot, young man, made lots of poor decisions, and the kingdom was divided. And then from this point forward, really what we're doing is looking for the Ark. Where is it? And so let's look at that now. The Ark's possible locations. I'm going to give you eight possible locations. Really, some of them aren't possible, but I'll tell you which one I think is best. You've probably seen the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. where they portray that the Ark of the Covenant was in Cairo, Egypt, and they went and found it, and actually, in all reality, where's the Ark now? We know it's in America somewhere in a big warehouse, because that's how the movie ends, right? Okay, no, the Ark is not in a big warehouse in America somewhere. But there are several biblical theories. First of all, some people claim that it was taken by Shishak to Tanis, Egypt. And this is in the year 926 B.C. First Kings chapter 14 verse 26. I'm going to read these verses as we go through each one of these. It happened in the fifth year of King Rehoboam. So right after the kingdom divided that Shishak, the king of Egypt, came up against Jerusalem. He took away the treasures of the house of the Lord. He took away the treasures of the house of the Lord. We think, well, that would include the Ark of the Covenant and the treasures of the King's house. And he took everything, it says, even taking all the shields of gold, which Solomon had made. That was in 926 BC. The problem with that is we see the Ark again later on, not in Canis, Egypt, but still in Jerusalem. So down in 686, to 642 BC, we have a text talking about it being removed from the temple by Manasseh. And I'm not going to read all three of those chapters to you, but you are welcome to read them. 2 Chronicles 30 verse 1 through 33, 19 and especially chapter 33 verse 7. So while it appears that Manasseh did move the Ark temporarily out of the temple. It did not get lost or hidden at this time, because again, it's mentioned later in biblical history during the reign of King Josiah, the good king, King Josiah. He ruled from 640 to 609, and that's after this. 640 to 609. This is recorded in 2 Chronicles 35. 3. 2 Chronicles 35. 3. He also said to the Levites who taught all Israel and who were holy to the Lord, put the holy ark in the house which Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel, built. It will be a burden on your shoulders no longer. So he had the ark put back in the house of Solomon in the temple. The third theory is that it was hidden by Jeremiah in a cave on Mount Sinai. Now, this was between the years of 626 and 606. So, we're getting very close to the time of the Southern Kingdom's exile. And this is found in the second book of Maccabees, which is an apocryphal book, chapter 2, verses 4 through 8. So, we'll read that account from this apocryphal work. So, this is a legend. Second Maccabees, it was also contained in the same writing that the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth into the mountain, where Moses climbed up and saw the heritage of God. So this is saying that Jeremiah went down to Mount Sinai with the ark. When Jeremy came thither, he found a hollow cave on Mount Sinai, where he laid the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and so he stopped the door, or he closed it up. Some of those that followed him came to mark the way. In other words, let's put some markers out here so we can find our way back to this cave on Mount Sinai later. But they could not find it. They'd already lost the way. Which when Jeremy perceived, he blamed them, saying, as for that place that shall be unknown until the time that God gather his people again together and receive them unto mercy. So this is just a legend, but nevertheless, this is one of the theories as to its location. Fourth, it could have been taken to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar took the vessels of the house of God. This is in Daniel chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 in the year 606 B.C. Daniel begins this way. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, that's 606, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the vessels of the house of God. Some of them. It doesn't say all of them. So the possibility that this one was there, but was not taken. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his God, and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his God. So that would be over in Rach. The fifth theory is that it was burned in the Solomonic Temple when Nebuchadnezzar burned the temple 20 years later in 586 B.C. 2 Kings, chapter 25, verse 9. He burned the house of the Lord, the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house he burned with fire. So it's a possibility it was burned in the fire there. I think this is a real possibility. I don't know, but I think this is a real possibility. At this point, the art disappears basically from history. There's no more mentionings in the Bible or anything like that of the art from here. We're just trying to feel it out and find it. The next temple was built under Zerubbabel in 515. What you know is Herod's temple that was there at the time of Christ. It was begun to be built by the rubble in 515 B.C. There is no mention of the Ark of the Covenant in that temple. In fact, Josephus says this first century Jewish historian, but the end most part of the temple of all was a 20 cubits, 20 cubits around the Holy of Holies. This was also separated from the outer part by a veil in this. There was nothing at all. He says nothing was in there. It was inaccessible and inviolable and not to be seen by any and was called the Holy of Holies. So they didn't have the Ark. The sixth theory is Samaritans, Samaritans who are kind of like half-Jews, they believe it is buried on Mount Gerizim, which is where they built their temple when they separated from Judaism. I'm not going to spend any time on that. Although Mount Gerizim, Jesus, Jesus mentions Mount Gerizim with the Samaritan woman, says there'll be a time when you need to worship on this mountain or that mountain. You know, and he's talking about Mount Gerizim versus Mount Moriah. Okay. The seventh theory is that it was taken to Rome by Titus in 70 AD, and now it's in the Vatican. Okay. Of course, there is a lot of stuff in the Vatican we don't know about. I mean, you just don't walk in there and get all in all their stuff. I mean, you can take the tour of the Vatican. but you just don't go into every part you want. They have a lot of stuff there that we'd love to know what they have, but who knows. This view is based on the fact that the Arch of Titus in Rome has on it a sculpture of the menorah, which was in the tabernacle in the temple, the table of the bread of presents, and the silver trumpets being brought back to Rome after they destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. The problem with this view is that the Ark of the Covenant is not on the sculpture. Further, none of the legends concerning what was taken back to Rome mentioned the Ark of the Covenant as being one of those articles. So now let's look at the final and probably the best theory. Either it was probably burned up or this one. It remains hidden deep inside the Temple Mount underneath the Holy of Holies. I'm going to read mostly from what the Jews think about this, since they're the authorities on this. Quoting from an author of the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, he says this. While some claim to have evidence that the Ark is in Ethiopia, and of course, moviegoers were treated to a fanciful version of this story in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in reality, the expression Lost Ark is not an accurate description for the Jewish people's point of view, because we have always known exactly where it is. So the Ark is hidden, and hidden quite well, but it is not lost. Tradition records that even as King Solomon built the first temple, he already knew, through divine inspiration, that eventually it would be destroyed. Thus Solomon, the wisest of all men, oversaw the construction of a vast system of labyrinths, mazes, and chambers and corridors underneath the Temple Mount complex. He commanded that a special place be built in the bowels of the earth where the sacred vessels of the temple could be hidden in case of approaching danger. Midrashic tradition teaches that King Josiah of Israel, who lived about 40 years before the destruction of the first temple, commanded the Levites to hide the Ark together with the original menorah and several other items in this secret hiding place which Solomon had prepared. The location is recorded in our sources and today there are those who know exactly where the chamber is. and we know that the ark is still there undisturbed and waiting for the day when it will be revealed. An attempt was made some few years ago to excavate towards the direction of this chamber. This really wasn't that long ago. This was only about 25 years ago, so I'll read this story. On August the 28th through the 30th in 1981, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Gorin and workers of the Ministry of Religious Affairs traced the trail of a leaking cistern and discovered one of the original entrances to the Temple Mount. An entrance known as Warren's Gate. Warren's Gate is number 19, or it's right here. This is an ancient, it's called Warren's Gate. There's no Jews named Warren, but the British explorer who found it was named Warren in the 1800s. So this gate right here was an ancient gate that, as you can see here, went up onto the Temple Mount. Over the next 18 months, Rabbi Gorin, who was joined by another rabbi, Yehuda Getz, dug a secret tunnel through this gate and underneath the Muslim Dome of the Rock. So the Muslim Dome of the Rock basically sits here, but it's much smaller than this. This was Herod's Temple here. So it sits basically in the middle, and they were digging underneath here to try to get to this secret cave where the Ark is supposedly hidden. When news of the dig and its purpose was leaked by the media, the Arabs rioted in protest and sealed the cistern shut, preventing any further access to the tunnel. On September 2-4, a few days later, some yeshiva students, under orders from Rabbi Goetz, broke down the wall that sealed the tunnel. I mean, this is like you're at school, you're at seminary, and your professor says, I want you to go over there and where they sealed this tunnel up, I want you to break it down and go in there. OK. This led to a clash with the Arabs and subsequent arrests by the police on September 10th, the walks, that's like the Muslim authorities there in the Temple Mount, the walks and the Israeli authorities jointly sealed the entrance. So that was the last attempt to try to find the art. Of course, the Jews want to find the art, because the Muslims say there never was a Jewish temple on the Mount. That's all just baloney, they say. And the Jews are like, well, if we find the art, then that'll blow all the Muslim claims out of the water. So the Muslims want to keep this site as theirs. They don't ever want the Jews to have this place. Okay, so here's another picture of Warren's Gate because I got to stand right there. This is what has been sealed and shut. It's actually very big. You know, it's 25 feet tall or so, about 15, 18 feet wide. So it's a pretty big deal. And that is right there. And this is the Western Wall. So all this is underground now. Okay, I mean, that's why it looks dark. You know, they've got lights in there. The street level was down lower then. And as things were destroyed, you know, the Temple Mount, for example, everything was pushed off of it. Well, they didn't move all that debris. They just made the street on top of that. So the streets are higher now than they used to be then. I mean... But what I'm asking is, was the submerged underground just warm? Found it. Yes. Yes. Right. Right. OK, so the last question we want to answer is, will the art be discovered or not? Well, the answer to this question is uncertain, but it is probable that an arc will be present in the Tribulation Temple. We know from the Bible and Daniel 927, 2 Thessalonians 2, 3 and 4, Matthew 24, 15, Revelation 11, 1 and 2. We know from these passages that there's going to be a tribulation temple that's built. And we know possibly from Daniel 927 that there will be another arc in that tribulation temple. The way we know that is because Daniel 927 says on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate. On the wing of abominations, what is all this talking about? Well, the word wing can refer to a bird's wing. it could possibly refer to that wing on the chair you being on the top of the Ark of the Covenant. It's a possibility. I don't know for sure, but it's a possibility that that is what is intended that the Antichrist will go into the tribulation temple into the Holy of Holies or on the wing of abominations there at the very site where the Ark of the Covenant is and desecrate the temple, cause it to be ritually impure. But whatever the case, if they find it or not, it will probably be there. Now, ultimately, that is that that temple is not condoned by God. I mean, when Christ returns to the second coming, I mean, there's going to be a massive changes to the earth. We know this in connection with the tribulation judgment and with the second coming of Christ. There are massive topographical changes. There has to be, because The temple described in Ezekiel is much larger than the Temple Mount is today, much larger. So there have to be major topographical changes, basically the whole cosmos, when the Lord Jesus Christ returns. I mean, there are ramifications for the whole universe when he comes back. Then he's going to build another temple once he gets rid of this piece of junk, and he's going to build a real temple. and there's not going to be any Ark in the Millennial Temple. We know that for a fact. So, turn with me to Jeremiah 3 and we'll just finish with these words because they're great words. They're exciting words with respect to our King. This is in the context of the Millennium. Jeremiah chapter 3. verses sixteen to eighteen. It shall be in those days, this is talking millennially, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, that is Israel, declares the Lord. They will no longer say the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and it will not come to mind, nor will they remember it, nor will they miss it, nor will it be made again. At that time they will call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, and all the nations will be gathered to it. to Jerusalem for the name of the Lord, nor will they walk anymore after the stubbornness of their evil heart. In those days, the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance. This is going to happen. If you have not believed the gospel of Jesus Christ, you better start believing it now. Because he's the author of history, he's the author of salvation, and there is no other way to God except through him. He has planned the future and he will complete it, and things are lining up right now on the stage of world history for these events to unfold. So this should only build our confidence in the inspiration of the word of God, the inerrancy of the word of God. infallibility and the authority of scripture, and ought to give us the courage to step forward and walk by faith. Everything he says about prophecy and history, those things are so true and we know it. And guess what? Every moral command that he gives us to follow under the feeling of the Holy Spirit is just as true. If we're obedient to what he says, then we will enjoy victory. We will enjoy contentedness in an inner sense. We will enjoy peace in an inner sense. Doesn't mean we're necessarily going to make a million bucks, because God has chosen to make some people poor. And James teaches us this. But the one thing that he does guarantee is peace, contentedness, all these things that come by appropriating the promises of God, walking by faith. OK, so there is some information about the ark and its history and its possible locations.