Okay, if you would like to join me in John chapter 5, please. We're going to pick up the study that we have been pursuing for many weeks now. We're looking recently at the study of the Last Judgment at the end of all of history. What we've seen so far As you're turning to John 5, let me just briefly rehearse what we've seen so far is that the day of judgment at the end of history is going to involve the gathering of all people who have ever lived in all of history up till this point today and whoever will be alive, the gathering of all of them before a throne of glory, which will be occupied by the Lord Jesus himself, and at which time he is going to evaluate everybody's life. And he's going to evaluate everybody's life according to two different standards. Those standards we've seen are identified in the book of Revelation as the books and the book, the books being a series of records that God is keeping in heaven of all thoughts, all words and all deeds that everybody ever thinks, speaks, and commits, and those books are going to be used to evaluate and judge people on that day. However, there is a second book, or a second set of books in a sense, which is really a single book, called the Lamb's Book of Life, and a second group that group being identified as the church, the believers in the gospel, they are going to be evaluated out of that book in a completely separate standard altogether. And where we left off, I'll read again in John chapter 5, and then we're going to be turning from there to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, we're going to compare two passages of scripture that I identified last week as being one of those One of those things in scripture that when you first look at appears to be a serious contradiction. And because it appears to be a serious contradiction, there is some confusion that invariably results as we study subjects like the final judgment. Because all of us are dependent completely, 100% on faith, and our understanding of what God has described about this event because none of us have passed through that event yet. There is no single person in all of history that has ever experienced this. None of us know this from personal knowledge, personal experience. We know this by faith and what God has revealed about the future. So let's read in John chapter 5, a passage we've read several times already in the last few weeks. But starting again, we'll read from verse 21. John 5, 21. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him." Then in verse 24 is the focal point of this apparent contradiction. "'Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. and does not come into judgment, but is passed out of death into life. Let me read that again. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears my word, that's hearing the message of the gospel. and who, as a result of hearing that, responds with a certain heart response, believes Him who sent me, has as a present possession eternal life, and this phrase is the focal point of what I want to emphasize, does not come into judgment. So, in John's testimony, He says, in regards to us, those of us who hear the message of the Lord, hear the message of the Gospel, and believe that message, this is going to be our experience on that day. We will not come into judgment, but have passed already from death to life. And the life that's being referred to here is eternal life. Now turn with me to 2 Corinthians. to our apparently contradictory passage, 2 Corinthians 5. And we'll read again verses 9 and 10. We also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent. At home is Paul's way of describing what it means to be here in this present world, in this present natural physical body, which is our home. Whether at home or absent, meaning we pass out of life into what is known mysteriously to most people in the world as the afterlife, what happens after you die. Whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to the Lord. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Now, Paul's testimony is and he's writing to believers here. This letter, Second Corinthians, is, of course, written to the church for the church's benefit. And he says, we, the believers, Must, which is not a word of option, it's a word that describes this is certainly, surely going to happen. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. And what are we doing there? Are we just showing up to say hello? You know, checking in on the day of judgment, you know, just to make it clear that we're present and accounted for while everybody else gets judged? What does Paul say? We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that or for this purpose. This is why we're appearing. This is why we're coming. Each one of us individually before that throne on that day so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Now, does that sound like judgment or not to you? It sounds like judgment. So we've got a problem here, an apparent problem, a surface level problem of an apparent contradiction between John and Paul. John says we don't come into judgment. Paul says we must go before the judgment seat and be judged. So what do we do with that? Well, first, our starting point should be this. We need to start with a perspective of faith, and that is we believe both of these statements are true. We believe that God, in His nature, within Himself, is perfectly consistent. There are no inconsistencies in the mind or thought of God. And of course, because we believe the Bible, the Scriptures, are God's revealed Word, and He has communicated all of these things to us as His people, there are no inconsistencies in what He's revealed and what He's communicated to us. God doesn't just, you know, pose spiritual puzzles for us just to twist our brains into knots that can't be unraveled. Both of these things are true statements, and how should we resolve the apparent contradiction? Well, the way we resolve it is what we talked about a little bit last week, and I just want to take a step further into this this week, and that is that in one sense we will not be judged at the end of history as believers, and in one sense we will be judged, because the term judgment can be used to describe different things. We will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and our lives will be evaluated. Not just, you know, a broad overview of our lives, but as Paul talks about here in this passage, recompense for his deeds in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad, meaning God is also keeping track of everything that believers do. It's not just the unbelievers that God is keeping the details of our lives and keeping a record of those details. And there's going to be an evaluation of every detail of our lives as believers. But in another sense, as John says, we don't come into judgment at all. So what does that mean? That means that as God evaluates the details of our lives, He's not evaluating our deeds from the standpoint that the believer is being evaluated. The believer is being evaluated according to this one simple guideline. The unbeliever, the person that has rejected the gospel, the person that believes, I don't need what that message represents to me. I don't need that. That has nothing to do with me. I don't embrace that. I don't accept that. That person is going to have every deed, every word and every thought evaluated from this one simple standpoint. Has your life merited eternal salvation? Meaning, do you wait for me to welcome you into heaven because of how perfectly you have lived according to my righteous and holy standards? Not mine, personally. God's, of course. Have you have you lived in such a way that on the day of judgment, all God will be able to say to that person is, well, of course, you're welcome to come in to my eternal kingdom because you never thought or said or did anything and even a single degree of violation of my holy standard. That's all that will be considered for that person on that day. Now, for us, we're going to have every thought word indeed evaluated. But are we being evaluated for that? Thankfully, no. God is evaluating our every thought, word and deed now for an entirely different purpose. So let's take a look at that. There are two purposes for why the believer is going to be judged. Two purposes. God is going to be evaluating. Us. Thoughts, words, and deeds for two reasons. And those two reasons I'm going to give you both. We're not going to look at the second one today. We won't have time to do that. But I want to give you both. We're going to be evaluated and have every thought, word, and deed judged for His glory and for our reward. Or, which goes along with this, and we'll see this next time. we get together, Lord willing, for our loss of reward. But the first purpose of why God is going to be judging us as believers on the Day of Judgment, as I talked about a few weeks ago, when we looked at, from God's perspective, why He even has a Day of Judgment, one of the main things I emphasized was that God has a Day of Judgment, not first and foremost for our sake, He has a day of judgment, a formal, final day of judgment, primarily for His sake. There are things that are important to God to have brought out into the light and to be publicly seen and known. One of those things we saw was the vindication of His own reputation. the ultimate revealing that God was absolutely right in everything that He did in all of history. That's going to finally and fully be seen by everyone, and we're going to all acknowledge that together on that day, even though we all, even as believers at times, struggle with that concept now. But he's also going to be evaluating us and judging us, not first and foremost for our sake, though the second part of this is going to have a lot to do with for our sake. But the first part is he is judging us primarily for a purpose related to him, for his glory. Turn with me, if you would, to the book of Ephesians now, and we'll start in chapter one. We're going to look at. A portion in chapter 1 of Ephesians and then a portion in chapter 2. What I want to just establish clearly in our hearts and minds is that the things that God does, He always has multiple layers of motivation. And everything that God does ultimately benefits us as His people. And He has us in His heart whenever He does anything that He does. And he has our benefit in his heart and in his mind. But that sometimes because of that truth, we can get a little bit like what we talk about sometimes as parents. We talk about the danger of what is called child centered parenting. You've heard that phrase before. God is not a child centered parent. And what that means is, we ultimately and gloriously benefit from everything God does as our Heavenly Father for us as His children. But it's not first and foremost for us. It's first and foremost for Him. And even the Day of Judgment itself is first and foremost for Him. So let's read again here in Ephesians chapter 1. I'll begin in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will. to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved in him. We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace. which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. Now, the aspect that I want to really emphasize, and I just read a section of scripture that, if we look at it in detail, would itself take us weeks to mine just some of the depths of what God is communicating to us. But what I really want to focus on is the first phrase, in verse 6 and connect it to the thing that he's just described in 4 and 5. What he's described in verse 4 and 5 is an overview from a bigger picture, eternal perspective, eternal not just stretching into eternity future, but starting from a perspective of where God began His plan of salvation, which is in eternity past. And that God's plan has always been, from the beginning of the world, to save us. to bring salvation to us and to benefit us with the greatest benefit ever in all of creation, in the mind and heart of God, the greatest thing He could give us, which was salvation through the death of His Son. And all of that is identified in verse 6 as being, as he says here, to something. Just little bitty word too. When he says, starting again in verse 5, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. What this is essentially saying is God saved us in the way that he saved us so that when all things are final and all things are wrapped up at the end of all of history, there's going to be one great resounding sound around the throne of judgment when the day of judgment culminates. And that resounding sound is this, the praise of the glory of His grace. The praise of the glory of His grace. Now, what that is saying is that there's going to be a response on our part. Because those who fit into this other category of judgment, those who are unbelievers, who have rejected the gospel, are not going to be praising the grace of God on that final day. They're going to be forced to acknowledge the truth and the righteousness and the justice and the holiness of God. But they're not going to be speaking words of praise on that day. They will be acknowledging that Jesus is Lord and has complete and final authority over their lives, but the sound of praise is going to be coming forth from us as the believers, as the ones who are the recipients of this grace. And this sound is going to be to the praise of what? It's something about His grace and it's to the praise of the glory of His grace. Now what that is telling us is that the grace of God that we will see on that day is going to be a glorious grace. And we see that in part today, like we took the communion meal this morning. And David reminded us of just one of the many aspects of what that communion meal means to us, as God's grace to set us free in our salvation. And that's just one aspect of the grace of God that's been revealed to us in the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, and what we have benefited from because of that. But what Paul is saying is, there is a glory of the grace of God that we have not yet fully comprehended. But on that day, when we stand before the judgment throne, and every single thought, and every single word, and every single action, that we have ever done in our entire life is revealed. And then the result of that evaluation is that we are welcomed into His kingdom, not because of all of that, but in spite of all of that, we are going to see a glory of His grace that we have not fully comprehended to this moment. And when we see it, the only response that we will be able to have is, this resounding sound of praise to the glory of His grace. What that's telling us is that God is going to have us evaluated on that day so that we would see His grace in its fullest extent, so that we would praise the glory of His grace as we ought to. And that will be, in a sense, the transition point for all of us into all of eternity, to have that really be the focal point of how we enter into eternity, so that there's not even a hint or a note or a shred of presumption on our parts. as to we somehow deserve to be there or be part of God's eternal future plans, but that we will be praising only the glory of His grace on that day. Turn to chapter 2, Paul continues this theme. We'll read from verse 1, where Paul sets in contrast our life before and after, before the gospel came and changed and transformed our lives. Starting in verse one, chapter two, you were dead in your trespasses and sins, you being all the believers that are receiving this message. This is, of course, including us. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formally walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience among them. the sons of disobedience, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest." what we deserved, and that's all that we deserved. So that had the gospel not come, had the truth of what God has accomplished in His Son not impacted our hearts and minds, all we would have had to expect and look forward to on the Day of Judgment was a wrath well deserved. coming from the throne of judgment. But in verse 4, the change starts with this simple transition word, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that," and these two words, so that, are telling us this is the purpose of all this that God has done, to have saved us out of this life, to have transformed us from children of wrath to children that are the focal point of His blessing, to have raised us up into His presence and even seated us in His Son in heavenly places of authority and glory, and all of this was for this purpose. so that in the ages to come, verse 7, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." On the Day of Judgment, the last thing God wants to hear from our lips is any boast. about ourselves. He wants to hear the praise of the glory of His mercy and grace. And that's just, as I said, the sound that we're going to participate in, the note of worship that we're going to participate in on that first step of transition into eternity. But it's not as though on that day, when we're evaluated and judged, we'll really get it. how gracious and how merciful God is. Okay, we got that all squared away, we got that all taken care of, we'll wrap that praise up in a nice little package and leave it here in history past, and we'll move on into eternity with the full confidence that we deserve to be there now. What this is all orienting our hearts toward is the beginning of a perspective that God intends to carry forward from the day of judgment all the way through to what end point? As he says again, reading verse 7, so that in the ages to come, And Paul doesn't give us an end point to that future orientation. These are the ages that follow the Day of Judgment. These are the ages that follow the Second Coming. The ages that follow the end of history as we know it. The ages of eternity. Eternity will have ages. We don't normally think in that perspective. We tend to think of eternity as being some timeless spiritual neutral zone. But eternity has time connected to it. It's just time without end. It has its own ages, but the ages are designated in a different way than we designate the ages of our present history. And God has a purpose for us to bear in our hearts eternally a specific perspective for all of the ages to come. And that perspective is so that in the ages to come, He might show. And the word show here is maybe not the best or the... the most descriptive term for the Greek word that Paul uses here. God is showing something. He's done all that He's done to save us in the way that He saved us, in order that for all of the ages to come, He might show something. And to show is maybe a better word to describe this, and it might be in some of your translations if you're reading a different translation than me. To display. To put on public display. God is starting from the day of judgment forward, putting on public display the glory of His grace in the death of His Son, which accomplished salvation for all of us. So that, not just for that day when we're evaluated, but for every day that... I don't remember where I was in this sentence as the power went off there. But let's pick up by moving to Leviticus chapter 10. I think you've gotten the overall perspective of what I'm trying to describe, which is that God is going to, even though in one sense we're not going to come into judgment, because our lives are not being evaluated based upon whether we have earned our salvation. But He is judging us so that we see once and for all, without even a shred of doubt about this, that we are recipients of the grace and mercy of God. And so He's evaluating all of that on that final day in order to direct our attention in spotlight on the Lamb of God and what He has accomplished for us. Now, there is in all of this a picture of our salvation that's provided for us and a picture of what this is going to be like on the day of judgment that I want to share with you out of the Old Testament. And I think there's a very powerful picture, and I hope that I can adequately. describe this picture to you. I ask you to turn to Leviticus chapter 10 to read one of the more difficult, Leviticus 10 to read one of the more difficult stories in the Old Testament. You know as well as I do there are some stories in the Old Testament that are just, they're hard, they're difficult, they're challenging and somewhat intimidating. This is one of those. Leviticus 10, this is the story of Nadab and Abihu. Nadab and Abihu were two sons of the first high priest of Israel, Aaron. And this is the story of their execution by God Himself in a very, very dramatic circumstance. What's happened here, to set the stage just briefly, is the tabernacle, which is the meeting place that God has ordained between Himself and His people, has just recently been erected. And they've begun to serve in this tabernacle. And Aaron is appointed to be the first high priest, which is the most important role in all of the functions of the tabernacle. But his two sons are appointed to be priests under him. And in the chapters just preceding this, in chapter 9 in particular, Aaron has started the process of offering the sacrifices that God has ordained in the way that God has required. Nadab and Abihu here are, you know, we're not exactly clear as to all of their motives, the details aren't given to us, but what happens is they are going to, as soon as this thing is starting to run, this tabernacle process of worship, they are going to violate the standards and the patterns that God has ordered for them to follow. And they're going to discover first hand that these patterns are nothing to be messed with. So let's read in Leviticus chapter 10 verse 1. Now Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron took their respective fire pans These were, of course, for the purpose of offering incense, burned incense in the tabernacle. And after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the Lord. This is an expression of false worship or worship that is contrary to the way God had ordered himself to be worshipped by his people. And offered strange fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them. And they died before the Lord. And it goes on to describe some of the ramifications of that for Aaron, their father, who's the first high priest. He's just started his job as high priest. His two sons, who were priests under him, have gone in and have just been burned to toast in the presence of the Lord. Now, he's got to go in and deal with this as the high priest. Now, what are we talking about? I'm going to draw on the board here a diagram of this thing known as the tabernacle. And without going into all the details, I want to just talk about this for a moment. As you know, the tabernacle was a large tent-like structure, and it had these four sides. It was a rectangle in shape, and there were different items of furniture in the tabernacle. I've drawn a second line, which represents the division between what is called, in this room, the holy place, and in this smaller room, the holy of holies. And in the holy place, there is a, on the east side, there is an entrance through this curtain. And the priests are to enter in through the curtain. And so Nadab and Abihu entered in through the curtain. And in here, there is, on this side of the tabernacle, the south side, there is a lampstand. On the north side, there is a table of showbread. And just before the second curtain, there is a small altar called the Altar of Incense. And what these guys did is they came into the tabernacle, and they Before this altar of incense, they offered fire, strange fire that the Lord had not commanded. And what happened was fire came from this inner room. out to this outer room and consumed them. Now, what was in the inner room? I think we're all familiar with this. There was a single item of furniture which was called the Ark of the Covenant. And that was a box, basically. From a side perspective, it looks like this, something like this. Okay? And on the sides of the box were representations of a special category of angels called cherubim. And above the box and between the cherubim, what would be seen when the high priest was to enter into this room on a specified day and in a specified way was a pillar of fire and a pillar of smoke. And that represented, without going into a lot of detail, the presence of God himself. So this pillar is a symbolic representation of the presence of God. All right? And this box represented... Some of you have heard me teach about this before, or some of you are familiar on your own with this. This box, what was called Ark of the Covenant, represented what? It represents symbolically the throne of God in heaven. This is made clear in scripture in many different places. We won't turn to the places where it says that specifically, but it does say that specifically, so trust me on that. The Ark of the Covenant represents symbolically the throne of God, and of course, that's appropriate for this pillar of fire and smoke to represent God Himself above His throne. And these angels just represent the angels that are around the throne of God, those four strange living creatures that fly around the throne of God day and night, proclaiming words that are significant. These are the only words they've ever spoken, and for all eternity, the only words they ever will speak. They say continuously in heaven, holy, holy, holy. is the Lord God Almighty who was, who is, and who is to come. So there's this continual proclamation of the holiness of God that's going on in heaven around the throne of God, which just signifies this is the ultimate place of holiness, the ultimate location of holiness. So Nadab and Abihu come in And they're heading into the Holy of Holies, by implication. And they offer strange fire, fire that God has not ordained for them to offer. And what comes from the throne of God, by symbolic representation, what comes out from this Ark of the Covenant and from the pillar of fire that is above this box, fire from the presence of the Lord which consumes them, burns them up and they die at that moment before the Lord. What is this telling us? What this is telling us is that this is what everybody can expect on the Day of Judgment. This is what everybody has to look forward to on the Day of Judgment. If they dare to come before this throne of ultimate holiness on the basis of their own merit, which is what Nadab and Abihu were doing by coming in a way that God had not ordained, in an avenue that God had not provided, which is, of course, representing the avenue of the gospel, the avenue of Christ Himself, being the only access to this throne, which is an access of safety. Every other pathway to this spot is a pathway of ultimate danger. and which will only bring about a response from God, a fire from His throne. Now turn with me from Leviticus to the book of Exodus, just one book before this, chapter 25. Actually, let me quickly, before we go there, I am going to get to Exodus next, but turn to 1 Kings in the Old Testament. I don't want to leave this portion out. 1 Kings. It's a little bit beyond Leviticus, after 1st and 2nd Samuel and 1st Kings, and just before Chronicles. 1st Kings chapter 8. I want to give one more detail about this box that we call the Ark of the Covenant. 1st Kings chapter 8. I'll read from verse 1. This is not a description of something that's taking place in the tabernacle, but a little bit later in history when God takes the children of Israel through the transition of moving from the tabernacle as the focal point of their worship, the place that God had ordained to the temple. But our diagram remains the same, because this is the same basic floor plan for both the tabernacle and the temple. The only difference being, of course, the tabernacle was was a tent, which signified that God's purpose for Israel at that time was they were a moving people. They were going through the wilderness, and they had not settled yet in the Promised Land. Once they settled there, God had Solomon construct a permanent location, which was the temple made with stone. We're reading about that, the finishing of that, in chapter 8, verse 1. Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes, the leaders of the father's household, as the sons of Israel. to King Solomon in Jerusalem to bring up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord from the city of David, which is Zion. The Ark of the Covenant at this point was in the tabernacle. Now it's being taken in transition from the tabernacle, which is going to go away, and it's never going to be part of the children of Israel's worship from that point forward, and it's being brought into the temple as its permanent home. All the men of Israel assembled themselves to King Solomon at the Feast in the month of Ethanem, which is the seventh month. Then all the elders of Israel came, and the priests took up the ark. They brought up the ark of the Lord, the tent of meeting, and all the holy utensils which were in the tent. And the priests and the Levites brought them up. And King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled to him were with him before the ark, sacrificing so many sheep and oxen they could not be counted or numbered. Then the priests brought the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord to its place, into the inner sanctuary of the house, to the most holy place, under the wings of the cherubim." This smaller room being the most holy place, also called the Holy of Holies. For the cherubim, in verse 7, spread their wings over the place of the Ark, And the cherubim made a covering over the ark and its poles from above. But the poles, and these were, of course, poles that extended out to enable this to be carried by the priest without actually touching it directly. They weren't allowed to touch it directly. But the poles were so long that the ends of the poles could be seen from the holy place before the inner sanctuary. But they could not be seen outside. They are there to this day. Verse 9 is our focal point. There was nothing in the ark, and this is by this point in history, because earlier in history there were two other items. I won't go off into that. They served a temporary purpose for Israel's early history. But by this time in history, there was nothing in the ark except what? The two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel when they came out of the land of Egypt. So in this box were placed The two tablets of stone that Moses made on Mount Sinai or Mount Horeb. And what are those two tablets? What do we also know these as? Well, we call the Ten Commandments. The ten words that God spoke to his people. Words of standard for their life. God's righteous and holy standard in human expression, what God required of his people. And they were to be kept in this ark from that point that God first gave them to Moses, hundreds of years before this, and they were still there to this day. They were to be kept in every generation in this box and never to be removed. And what is the point of God having this item among all the items? God had a lot of different items. He could have had any number of things in His special box, but He chose to keep one thing in His box, one thing alone. that was to last for every generation, what was kept, the law of God. What does this teach us about the Day of Judgment? What this teaches us is, as we come before the throne of God on the Day of Judgment, we're going to see the throne, which is represented by the box, we're going to see the one seated upon the throne, and we're going to recognize on that day that our lives are about to be evaluated according to what? according to the standard of God's law, which is what God requires of His people. And the idea is, if you violated this law, as Jesus later said, even a jot or a tittle, meaning like equivalent to the crossing of a T or the dotting of an I, if you violated even the smallest aspect of this law, what should you expect on that day of judgment? fire to come from before the throne and to consume you. That's what you should expect. So we're left in this tremendously awkward position as the people of, even the people of God. Except this was not the only item connected to this piece of furniture. Now I'll turn to Exodus, if you would. Exodus 25. Exodus 25. This is the description of the first construction of this piece of furniture called the Ark of the Covenant. When God first gave Moses the revelation to have this made. And we'll read from Exodus 25, verse 10. This is the construction of the Ark of the Covenant. They shall construct an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide, and one and a half cubits high. You shall overlay it with pure gold. Inside and out you shall overlay it. You shall make a gold molding around it. You shall cast four gold rings for it and fasten them on its four feet. Two rings shall be on one side, two rings on the other side of it, and you shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark with them. The poles shall remain in the rings of the ark. They shall not be removed from it. You shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you." The testimony is just another phrase that God uses to describe what we're calling the Ten Commandments, the Law of God. You shall put into the ark the testimony which I shall give you. You shall make, then, what? A mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long, one and a half cubits wide. You shall make two cherubim of gold, make them of handmade work. These are the angels on the sides here. And it goes on to describe what the chairman were going to do. And then in verse 21, you shall put the mercy seat where? On top of the ark. The ark is the box. So I intentionally erased what we would call the lid of this box. And now we draw it in. There was to be placed on the lid of this box a seat. And it's called a seat on purpose because symbolically this pillar of fire is going to sit on top of this box. like God sits upon His throne in heaven. And this seat is identified for us by a specific name. It's called the mercy seat. Now, this should be pretty self-evident by now, without a lot of explanation. Thank the Lord that it's not called the judgment seat. It's called the mercy seat. Why does it function as a mercy seat? Here's the way this will work for us on the Day of Judgment, those who believe the message, those who have accepted and embraced the gospel of what God has done in His Son. We would, just like the unbeliever, have to stand and give an account for how our lives measured up against the law of God, and we would have to pay the penalty for that, were it not for this seat between God and His law. The seat separates God from his law, separates in the sense of places something between the law, which is the holy and righteous standard that's required of us, and the one who is evaluating us by that standard. Were it not for this seat, this lid, we would be judged by the law and we would pay the penalty of the law. But because the seat is between the two, as God evaluates us based on the law, He evaluates us through, in a sense, the lens of this seat and what it represents to us. Turn from Exodus 25 here to Leviticus 16. I want to try and get this in quickly before the end of our time. Leviticus 16, we're going to read briefly the description of what happened now in the Old Covenant, in this tabernacle, on this special day called the Day of Atonement. And this is when the High Priest was allowed to go into this innermost room, and he was allowed to go in there, actually not just allowed, but commanded to go in there once a year. And he went in there with special guidelines. And unless he followed those guidelines, he could expect what Nadab got on the day that Nadab went in there without following the guidelines. But if he followed the guidelines, he'd come out alive. And he'd make it through the process of this visit before this box. But trust me, it wasn't something that the high priest did lightly, especially Aaron, especially after having seen his own sons fried by their having ignored the holiness of God. All right, so he comes in now, it's Aaron's job now to do this thing, to go into the presence of this box that has consumed his own sons. Do you think he did that with a little bit of fear and trepidation? Absolutely he did. And there's later biblical tradition that we have from early 1st century history, and before that even, that it was not uncommon for them to tie a cord to the ankle of the high priest every year on the Day of Atonement when he went into this innermost room. Why would they tie a cord to his ankle? Because if he gets in there and he's not supposed to be there because he wasn't there the right way that God said for him to be there, and the fire does consume him and he dies, who wants to go in and rescue him? Who wants to go in and get him out? See, because if you go in after him, you're not supposed to be there either. And it's just going to be one after the other, falling like flies. Right? So they tied a cord to this man's ankle so that if he did fall, well, at least we can drag him out and take care of the body. So Leviticus 16, I'm going to read verses 1-3 and skip to verse 11 for the sake of our time. Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron. We've read that story, the death of Nadab and Abihu. The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they had approached the presence of the Lord and died. The Lord said to Moses, tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time. In other words, you can't just go in here any time you want to go in here. into the holy place, inside the veil, and we're talking here now, tell him not to go in at any time, before the mercy seat, which is on the ark, or he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. Aaron shall enter the holy place with this, with a bowl for a sin offering and a ram for a burn offering. Now I've said that this is a mercy seat, But God just warned him and said, if you come in to see this mercy seat without coming a certain way, you're going to die just like your sons died. That doesn't sound like too much of a mercy seat, does it? What makes it a mercy seat is not the seat. What makes it a mercy seat is what is done to the seat. Skip down to verse 11. Then Aaron shall offer the bowl of the sin offering which is for himself, and make atonement for his self and for his household, that he shall slaughter the bull of the sin offering which is for himself. He shall take a firepan full of coals of fire from upon the altar before the Lord and two handfuls of finely ground sweet incense and bring it inside the veil. He shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat. And the incense is a representation of intercessory prayer. It shall cover the mercy seat. That is on the Ark of the Testimony. Otherwise, he will die. But that's not enough in and of itself. This is the pertinent detail. Moreover, he shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger. Where? On the mercy seat, on the east side. Also in front of the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. The east side of the mercy seat is, of course, this side. which is the side he enters in from. Meaning, don't get too familiar with this thing. Don't run circles around it. You're coming in. You're coming in a special way. You're coming in in the holy fear of God, but you're not coming in by yourself. You're coming in with what? He's bringing incense, which represents prayer of intercession. Basically, the essence of the intercession is, don't kill me, God. Because here I am to represent myself and the people of God on the day of atonement. And then he comes with the blood of a sacrifice. And he takes some of that blood and he's ordered to sprinkle the blood onto the mercy seat. And when he sprinkles it onto the mercy seat, is he then told before he leaves, be sure to wipe it up after you're done because we don't want a messy mercy seat. We want to keep God's seat nice and clean and neat. What's he to do? Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people. All this is just for himself, so that he can get out alive. Then he shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, because he represented all the people of Israel, and bring its blood inside the veil, and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat in front of the mercy seat, and he shall make atonement for the holy place." And it goes on to describe other details. The bottom line is he sprinkled it on the seat, the lid, it was sprinkled onto this lid, as He's standing before this seat, and then He's to turn around and leave, and He's to leave that blood on that seat. What is significant about that? The point being that God wants the blood on the seat for His sake, for Aaron's sake, for the children of Israel's sake. And the idea is, as God evaluates His people then, in this holy fire of His presence and His standard, and He evaluates them normally according to the holy law of God. He's looking now forever through this lens of this seat, which was going to be a seat of judgment, but now, because of the presence of blood on this seat, it becomes a seat of mercy. So for us, we will be evaluated on the final day, and we're going to look at the details of our judgment next week. But when God evaluates us on the final day, He's going to evaluate us in this same pattern, but thankfully it's going to be a much more glorious thing than this was for Aaron, because the blood that is upon this seat is gone, long gone. This is the blood of a bull and the blood of a goat. And all it did, according to the Old Testament, was serve God's symbolic purposes. And if that's what we're leaning on is the blood of some bull or goat, we're in big trouble. But we're going to stand before the throne of God on the day of judgment, and we come before this throne, and it's not going to be for us a throne of judgment. It's going to be for us a throne of what is called in the book of Hebrews, a throne of grace. And it's a throne of grace because there is blood on the throne in heaven. There's blood that has been sprinkled by Jesus, our great High Priest. He is the Lamb of God who has taken, and it describes this in detail, I wish I had time to get into the details of this part, but He's taken His blood into heaven itself, and He's sprinkled His blood upon the throne of God. And now, on the Day of Judgment, we're not going to be facing a pillar of fire seated upon the throne. Who are we facing? Jesus Himself is seated on this throne. Jesus and his presence on the throne is the lid on the throne of God. Jesus is the mercy seat. Last passage of scripture, it's just a single verse, we'll end here today, turn to Romans chapter 3. This term, mercy seat, is only used twice in the entire New Testament. It's used many times in the Old Testament, but this specific term is only used twice in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews, 9, 5, which we won't turn to, where it's called the mercy seat. And the book of Romans, chapter 3, verse 25. Let me read starting in verse 23 to get the context. For all that sin and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. In verse 25, the word in Romans that is translated propitiation, And that's just one of those unnecessary theological terms. And what I mean by that, the concept isn't unnecessary, the wording is, because, you know, without explanation you hear a word like propitiation and your mind just kind of wants to go to the next sentence. It's a word which literally means complete or adequate payment for something that is due. And in the Greek language, though, the one that Paul and the writer of Hebrews are both writing in, the same exact term that's translated, the same exact word that's translated in Hebrews as mercy seat, is the same Greek word that's translated propitiation in Romans chapter 3. And it's the only two places in the New Testament where this word actually occurs. And it's this Greek word hilasterion. And it means this lid on this box. And Paul is writing this with full understanding of the tabernacle and the temple and the way that it works, and it's just a sad case that they've translated by the word propitiation, it should be mercy seat here. So let's read it that way, this is what the Lord intends us to understand as we read Romans 3.25. "...whom God, and speaking of Christ Jesus in verse 24, the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God displayed publicly as a mercy seat in His blood through faith." So on the day of judgment... The judgment is going to be a judgment for us, which is a judgment before a throne of mercy and a throne of grace. And so, do we skate? Are our lives not evaluated? No, we don't skate. Every thought, word and deed is going to be evaluated, but it's going to be evaluated through the lens of the blood that is sprinkled on the throne of God, which has transformed this into a throne of mercy and grace. And when we see that, that every word that we've fallen short in, every thought that we've fallen short in, every deed that we've fallen short in, is going to produce out of our hearts praise to the glory of His grace, then God will be honored and blessed in the way that He intends to be on that final day. Let's pray. Father God, as we are standing here by faith before Your presence and before Your throne, We are thankful, Lord, that you have chosen to open our eyes by faith, to reveal to us that the day of judgment is for us not a day of fear, it's not a day of anticipation of what we deserve, wrath and punishment and fire from your presence that would have consumed us. But because you sent your Son, and because He died on the cross, and because He poured out His blood for us, And then carried his blood into heaven itself and sprinkled it upon your throne. And he himself is the Lamb of God, is the one seated upon that throne. and separates us from the law, which would have judged us. Father, all of that you intend to produce in us a response of praise to the glory of your grace. I pray that you would accomplish that by your spirit and the rest of our lives here on this earth would be changed, affected, influenced by that perspective. And I thank you for that. That's something only you can do. But we lean on you for that very thing, Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. The copyrighted product of Tree of Life Christian Church of Canoga Park, California. You are welcome to pass this message along to others as long as it is not sold and it is passed along unaltered in its entirety with source credit given to Tree of Life Christian Church.