Hosea 12 and Hebrews chapter 9. Hosea 12 and Hebrews chapter 9. Hosea, it's right after the book of Daniel. We'll start in Hosea. We'll just read one verse in Hosea chapter number 12. It'll be verse number 10. The Lord says, I have also spoken by the prophets and have multiplied visions and used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets. That word, similitude, is one of the things that will open your eyes tremendously to the Word of God. That's what you can go and turn to Hebrews chapter 9, but those similitudes, that's what we call types in the Bible. There's a lot of things that when you read in the Old Testament there are pictures or types of things that are going to happen in the future that already took place maybe in the New Testament with the Lord, with His ministry, with His life, some of its similitudes of what's going to take place in the future, during the Tribulation, during the Millennium. Brother Don had said it the other day, when we started getting into a little bit of rightly dividing the Word of Truth, when you start to rightly divide the Word of Truth, that will begin to open up the pages of the Bible a little bit more, open up your understanding. Types are another thing that will illuminate the Word of God like nothing else. With those two things combined, you can you'll get a better understanding of not only of the Word of God, but God Himself, right? Paul said, we look through a glass darkly, right? So when you're reading this thing, it's almost like the dimmer switch is all the way down. When you can begin to understand rightly dividing and types, it just starts to brighten up a little bit more and more. Every time you read it, it just starts to illuminate. This morning we're gonna look at the type found here in Hebrews chapter number nine. All right, Hebrews chapter nine, verse number one. Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service and a worldly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle made, the first, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant. And over it the cherubims of glory, shadowing the mercy seat, of which we cannot now speak particularly. Now when these things were thus ordained, the priest went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God. But into the second went the high priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the heirs of the people. The Holy Ghost this signifying." All right? All that he did in the past was to signify or to show in a tight picture a way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as yet the first tabernacle was yet standing, which was a figure. for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect pertaining to the conscience." Brother Eddie, could you pray for the message this morning? that have helped us understand him better. We're afraid to help him. We're afraid we're going to kill him in his holy spirit. We're afraid we're going to give your holy spirit free reign. And Lord, I thank you. Amen. Amen. This week, just the other day, I was asked a question or told of a conversation that was going on of, you know, how there's some confusion in this person's life in trying to figure out where Christianity comes from, right? You have, it stems from Judaism. Correct? Well, if that's what takes place, then how come some of the Jews now, they just claim that Jesus was a street preacher or teacher back in his time, and it wasn't their Messiah? How did they actually crucify their Messiah? How do I know that this is the right stuff? And the answer to the question is, well, how come all the Jews didn't accept Christ? Well, one, it's because they missed stuff like this in the Old Testament. right? They missed the similitudes that God had been pointing out to them the whole time. When you think of types, one of the great types, and you can't get three chapters in until you start seeing the types and the Lord warning or giving us the the vision of the Lord Jesus Christ coming, right? When he talks about, he talks to the serpent in Genesis chapter three, he said that a woman was gonna bring forth seed and it was gonna, you shall bruise his heel, but he's gonna bruise your head. That is Jesus Christ right then and there, all the way up to the second advent. You get that in Genesis chapter three. When you get to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, right? When you get to Abraham, Abraham's told that he's supposed to sacrifice his son. Right? You're going to take him up to the mountain. You're going to carry this wood up the mountain. You're going to offer up your son for a sacrifice. I mean, it's a tight picture. It's a similitude of what Jesus Christ was going to do in the future. God the Father was going to offer up his son to be the sacrifice. And Isaac's laying, he's going up there. He said, Dad, I see the wood. I see the fire, but where's the lamb? And he said, don't worry about it, son. God's going to provide himself a lamb. It's pointing us to the cross, pointing us to the sacrifice that Jesus Christ was going to make. It's a type, right? And all that you can see throughout the Bible, there's so many different types, whether it's a type of Jesus Christ, a type of the devil, a type of the antichrist, a type of God the Father. They're all in here. Just kind of just slow down and pick this thing apart. And some of these trigger words that we're going to get into later this afternoon, some of that should do exactly that. Trigger a vision in your mind. Trigger putting you in a dispensation. All right, well, the similitude or the type I want to talk about this morning is going to be with this, what is called the Ark of the Covenant. All right, the Ark of the Covenant. What we see here, the Lord tells us that the Holy Ghost here in verse 8, this signifying that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest while yet the first tabernacle was yet standing. Right? There was a holy of holies, the holiest of all. There was a place where the Ark of the Covenant was that no one was able to get into while that first tabernacle was still up. But it was signifying that the way in there was going to be made manifest. It was signifying Jesus Christ. This morning I just want to preach on the Ark of the Covenant, a type of Jesus Christ. All right, when you look at that box that was made, this thing that God told Moses to make that was overlaid with gold, what we're gonna see is this is a great tight picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. All the way from the beginning, all the way back there in Exodus when he says, I want you to make this thing, it was just doing that, pointing to the cross, pointing to Jesus Christ coming. All right, so let's go to Exodus 37. And I want to begin this morning with how the Ark of the Covenant is a type of Jesus Christ in its construction and how it was built. Exodus 37. Look at verse number 1. And Bazaliel made the ark of Shittimwood. Two cubits and a half was the length of it, and a cubit and a half the breadth of it, and a cubit and a half the height of it. And he overlaid it with pure gold, within and without, and made a crown of gold to it round about. And he cast for it four rings of gold to be set by the four corners of it, even two rings upon the one side of it, and two rings upon the other side of it. And he made staves of the shidom wood, and overlaid them with gold. And he put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark to bear the ark. And he made the mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half was the length thereof, one cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And he made two cherubims of gold, beaten out of one piece made he therein the two ends of the mercy seat one cherub on the end of this side and another cherub on the other end of that side out of the mercy seat made he the cherubims on the two ends thereof and the cherubim spread out their wings on on high and covered with their wings over the mercy seat with their faces one to another even to the mercy seat word were the faces of the cherubims all right so here we see the construction of this Ark of the Covenant, and in this we see that it was made out of Shittim wood, right? And then out of that wood that was supposed to be covered in pure gold, and we're gonna find out there's some things that are placed inside of this thing. And everything about this box, this Ark of the Covenant, is a tight picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right, first thing we see is it's made out of wood. What's wood? It's perishable. It's something that isn't going to last, right? You go up to Home Depot or Lowe's and you want to get some wood, if you just get regular raw lumber like they had back in the day, it wasn't something that's going to last. They didn't have pressure-treated wood back then, right? So what we see here is something perishable. That's a type of the Lord's humanity. You see, when he came down to this earth, he came as a man, right? In Galatians chapter four, it says, but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman, made under the law. You see, when Jesus Christ came down here, he was God manifest in the flesh. He had flesh just like you and I. He was all man. And that all man, his humanity is shown in this type here as that would, that should have would. In Romans chapter eight, Verse number 3, it says, "...for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh." Alright, so Jesus Christ came down here and was a man. He was tempted like a man, right? When He came down here, you know what He referred to Himself as more often than anything else? Son of Man. Right? He was showing you that I am a man. Jesus referred to himself as that, the Son of Man. As a man, he got tired. And he went down into the hinder part of the helm of that ship and went to sleep. God doesn't get tired. Right? God doesn't ever sleep. Remember when Elijah's up there and he's mocking those prophets of Baal. He said, maybe you need to speak up. Shout a little louder. Maybe he sleepeth. Right? Our God doesn't sleep. He hears all our prayers simultaneously, can answer them all at the same time. It doesn't matter what time of day. God doesn't fall asleep. He's always awake. But Jesus Christ went to sleep. He was tired because he was a man. He thirst as a man. He went to that well and asked that woman, he said, I thirst, give me water. He was thirsty. He was tempted with sin in the wilderness. Well, my Bible says it's impossible for God to sin. Why was He tempted then? If He wasn't able to sin, then what good is a temptation? The Bible says He was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin. See, the man, Jesus Christ, could have sinned, but He didn't. He lived a perfect, sinless life. He was crucified on the cross and died as a man. God cannot die. Jesus Christ did because He was a man. That Shittim wood was perishable. It's a type of His humanity. But you know, that wood wasn't just left as raw wood. It was overlaid with pure gold. It was preserved. It represents His deity. He was all man, but He was all God. He was the Son of Man, but He was the Son of God. And 1st Timothy 3.16, it says, without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in the glory. You see, our God came down in the likeness of sinful flesh, but He was still God. Allah never came down here as a God manifest in the flesh. There's no other deity that can be claimed that came down here in the flesh. That was God. And if you don't have a King James Bible, it tells you He was manifest in the flesh. Well, who was He? Oh, Jesus. Who was Jesus? Oh, He was a good teacher. He was a street preacher. He might have been a prophet. You ask the Jehovah's Witnesses, they'll tell you He wasn't the Son of God. Well, my Bible says God was manifest in the flesh because He was God. That gold represents his deity. In 1 John 4, it says, Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God, and this is that spirit of antichrist. Whereof ye have heard that it should come, and even now already is set in the world. So if someone says that Jesus Christ wasn't God manifest in the flesh, that is the spirit of antichrist. So those Jehovah's Witnesses, no matter how nice they are, are wrong. They're wrong if they say that Jesus Christ is just a preacher, just a teacher. The Muslims are wrong when they say that He was a good preacher, He was a good man. If He's such a good man but He wasn't God manifested in the flesh, He's a liar. I and my Father are one. Before Abraham was, I am, he claimed his deity. If he wasn't God, he was a big, fat liar. And I would say a big, fat liar is not a good man. But he was God manifested in the flesh. He was over, that tabernacle, or not the tabernacle, but that Ark of the Covenant was overlaid with pure gold. And we see over here in Exodus 37, It says it was overlaid in verse 2 with pure gold, within and without, and made a crown of gold to it round about. It had a crown on it. Why does that box need a crown? Because it represents Jesus Christ and He's King of Kings. In Hebrews 2, verse 7, it says, Thou madest him a little lower than the angels. Thou crownedst him with glory and honor and didst set him over the works of Thy hands. The Lord Jesus Christ is the King of kings. When He comes back, He's going to have many crowns because He's King of kings, Lord of lords. His kingdom is going to be over all kingdoms. The kingdoms of this world have become His kingdom. So they put a crown on that. The Lord's very specific in what he's doing here. Now a lot of times when you're going through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, you're just getting these things about the tabernacle, about the Ark of the Covenant, about the law, and a lot of it repeats itself, and you're like, man, what is the big deal? The big deal is God's using these similitudes to point you in a certain direction. With this Ark of the Covenant, he is telling those Jews, he's telling Moses that I've got something coming. Right? Here is my son, he's coming and he's going to be in this tithe. All they have to do is look at the Ark of the Covenant and see the Lord Jesus Christ in it. We're talking about its construction, how it had a crown of gold around about it. In verse number 3, it says he cast for it four rings of gold to be set by the four corners of it. Even two rings upon the one side of it and the two rings upon the other side of it. There's four rings that were on the corners of that Ark of the Covenant. They were going to put those staves in there, those sticks, right, the staves, and they could pick those things up and bear it on their shoulders and carry it round about. But those four rings represent the four Gospels. You've got four Gospels. Those rings were so it could be carried around. They represent Him in the four different ways that the Gospels do. They presented Him as King, as a Servant, as a Man, and as the Son of God. You see where it says that even two rings upon the one side the side of his deity, two rings on the other side, it's humanity, because he's king of kings, he's the son of God, he's a servant and a man. You can't make this stuff up. There's too many coincidences in this thing. When it comes to the Bible, there are no coincidences. When the ark was placed, I'm jumping ahead there, but they represent, again, his deity, they represent his humanity. We see over here in verse number four, He made staves of shittum wood and overlaid them with gold. He put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark to bear the ark." All right, so you have these staves that were placed. They were inside those rings so they could pick it up. They weren't supposed to be touching that ark. They weren't to be handling it. That thing was supposed to be picked up by four Levites, carried on their shoulders, and marched to the next spot, put it down, and they weren't supposed to be handling that thing. This is the only way they were to handle it. I think that represents rightly dividing the word of truth. There's only a certain way you're supposed to handle this thing. If you want to start touching it and start changing it, doing the things you want to do, it's going to end up in a disaster. When the arc was placed on the cart, and we'll see that later on too, when that arc was placed on the cart, Uzza put his hand on that thing. When they went through the threshing floor, that oxen slipped on the smoothest portion it was going to be walking on. All right, you gotta be careful. When things get smooth, that's when you might fall. That's when you might slip. And that oxen slipped, the ark shook, and Uzzah put his hand on it, just trying to do the right thing, trying to do a good thing and hoping that thing wouldn't fall down, tried to save it, and God killed him on the spot. because he touched something he wasn't supposed to touch. When it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, man can't put his hand on him. Man can't mold him and do things with him the way he wants to do it. We have a book that tells us how we're to worship God in spirit and in truth. We can't be using new carts. Just because they do and they get away with it doesn't mean that we can. He touched something he had no business touching. It brought danger when he mishandled it. You see here the mercy seat in verse number six. He made the mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half was the length thereof, and one cubit and a half the breadth thereof. All right, so we're given the dimensions of this thing, and it's the same size as the ark. The mercy seat sits right on top of it. It's two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, but it's missing a dimension. It doesn't tell you the height thereof. Why is that? There's no depth to the mercy of God. That mercy reaches down to every sinner, no matter what they've gone through, no matter what they've done. My Bible says as far as the east is from the west, so far He removed our transgressions from us. It's immeasurable. You cannot measure the mercy of God. There's no boundary to it. There's no height. There's no depth to it. You can't measure it. Wherefore He is able also to save to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them. He can save any sinner. I mean, when you just stop and hear some people's stories and who they were, like we just heard that song sung, when you hear who some of these people were, you know who you were. And you know he came down and saved you. You know how wicked and vile you were. If you can't figure that part out, you're gonna have a tough time getting saved. You think about guys like David Spurgeon. I mean, that guy was into some stuff. Vice President of one of the biggest motorcycle gangs in the country, in the world. Number two in charge. Gets arrested for federal gun charges, facing a lot of time. And what happens? Some Baptist preacher comes in there just trying to preach the gospel. And that old guy, that guy gets saved. And he's been preaching the gospel and seeing people get saved and helping Christians for 20, 30 years now. That's the mercy seat. reaching down to the uttermost. He can save anyone. You can't contain God. You can't put a limit on God and His mercy. And we see these two cherubims, right, in verse number seven. He made two cherubims of gold, beaten out of one piece, made he them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. One cherub on the end of this side and another cherub on the other end of that side. Out of the mercy seat he made he the cherubims, one on the two ends thereof. So when you see these cherubims, they represent the glory of God. They're connected with His glory. When they're on that thing, they're each on one side, and they've got their wings pointed towards each other, and it says that they're looking towards one another. They're looking at each other, looking at the mercy seat. So what they're looking at, one, they're looking at what is inside of that ark. but they're also looking down on the blood that's sprinkled on that ark. See, every year, the high priest had to come in there and sprinkle that thing with blood. If you want to get to God, you want to know the glory of God, it's going to be through the blood of Jesus Christ. In Romans 3, 23, it tells us, "...for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." When someone You deal with someone's soul, and you try to figure out if they know for sure they're going to heaven or to hell, and they go, well, I think I'm going to make it. Well, how do you know? What makes you think that? Well, I'm not as bad as so-and-so. I've never killed anybody. I've never robbed someone. Well, the Bible says we've all come short of the glory of God. Jesus Christ is the glory of God. He's the measuring stick. When we try to compare ourselves amongst ourselves, we make a huge mistake. If you want to figure out if you're going to heaven or not, Jesus Christ is the standard. If you can live up to His standard, you can make it in. The problem is, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But, God gave us a way to get to that point. He gave us the blood. In Hebrews chapter 10 it says, Every priest standeth daily ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. The blood of bulls and goats, it didn't do anything for them. It covered their sins, but it never cleared the guilty. But this man Jesus Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God. That sacrifice did it. The blood of Jesus Christ was the one death that made that atonement. All those different animals, all those different lambs that had to die for that high priest to sprinkle the mercy seat so he could go in there and try to get atonement for some sins for that year. time and time again. That one lamb was never enough. There always had to be another. The next year there had to be another. The next year there had to be another. Until about 2,000 years ago, when our Passover, the Lord Jesus Christ was slain, and His blood takes away all of our sins. It satisfied that need, that need for blood. Now we see with this mercy seat, it says that it was, these cherubims are built with that mercy seat. It's made out of one piece of solid gold. You had the lid, basically, what that thing was, it sat on top, the Ark of the Covenant, and the cherubims, there was all one solid piece of gold that that thing was made out of. So the mercy seat's three things. You got the mercy seat itself and two cherubims, but it's made out of one piece of gold. You got the Trinity right there in the mercy seat. That's the type of Jesus Christ in its construction. Now let's look at Hebrews chapter nine again, and we'll see the type of Jesus Christ in its contents, what was inside of it. Hebrews chapter nine, verse number four. In verse 3 it says, After the second veiled the tabernacle, which is called the holiest of all, which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that bud it, and the tables of the covenant. All right, so inside of that ark of the covenant are three different things. You have manna, you have Aaron's rod that bud it, and you have the two tables with the Ten Commandments on there. That manna represents God the Son, right? Jesus Christ said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh unto me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. So that manna that's in there that fed those Jews miraculously when they were wandering around for 40 years in the wilderness was a type of Jesus Christ. He is the bread of life. Remember he tells them, your fathers ate of this bread, but he said he had to eat of him. They had to eat his flesh. That's what threw them all off. They thought he was literally talking about eating their flesh. So the Catholics say we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. A bunch of vampires. Cannibals. God's never for that. It was a type. It was a picture. It was a foreshadow of things to come. He's pointing them in a direction. That manna represents God the Son. Aaron's rod that budded represents God the Holy Spirit, the fruit bearer. In Numbers chapter 17, what we see happen is, in Numbers chapter 16, you have Korah, Dathom, and Abiram. They come up and they were gonna rebel against Moses and against Aaron. They said, there's too much on you. It says they came up against him. All right, they're rebellious. They are in the wrong. God never told them to do that. They're trying to take a position that wasn't theirs in the first place. They want that authority. They want that power. And God goes, all right, this is what we're going to do to fix this situation. Every man, he takes care of Korodath and Abiram. Then he tells every tribe, get yourself, get the fathers of your tribe, get the ones that are in charge, have them get a stick, get a rod, write their name on it, carve it in there. and throw it in here, and the one that buds is the one that I show who I'm gonna use, the one I'm gonna approve of. And the rod that buds is Aaron's bod. It said it blossomed and brought forth almonds, I believe it says in number 17. It was fruitful. The Holy Spirit is the fruit bearer. That's where we get fruit from. Galatians chapter five, there's nine fruits of the Spirit. It's not your fruit, it's fruits of the Spirit that will be manifested through you. Now, Matthew chapter 7 verse 20 says, Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. You want to know how, if someone's in the right, someone's doing things the way God says to do it, look at their fruits. I know the context of that chapter and that passage is false teachers and the people that follow them, but you can judge a tree by its fruit. By their fruits you shall know them. So then you have the Tables of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments, which obviously represent God the Father in the Trinity. He's the Lawgiver. And when it comes to those Ten Commandments, the first set of tablets or tables that were carved on were broken by Moses. Remember, God gives them to him and God tells him, look, you need to go back down to the They're doing some stuff they shouldn't be doing. Because remember, he'd been gone for 40 days, and all the people started putting the pressure on Aaron, going, look, we don't know if he's going to come back or not. Why don't you make us a calf of gold? So he said, all right, give me your earrings, give me your bracelets. And he does this thing. And here's our guy that got us out of the bondage of Egypt. And when they're coming down, they're singing and dancing, they're naked, and it's just a nightmare going on. And Joshua goes, it sounds like a war going on down there. And Moses goes, that's no war that I've heard. That's the sound of singing and rejoicing. And what's happening? They're sinning against God. And Moses gets down there, and he's frustrated, and he's got those two tables of stone, and he throws them down, and they just shatter right there at the bottom of the mountain. And you know what? That's what man does with God's law. He breaks it. He breaks it. The second set was placed in the ark, never to be broken. The first Adam broke the law. The second Adam, Jesus Christ, fulfilled the law, never broke one commandment. So when God looks down and He sees in that ark, He sees an unbroken set of commandments in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an amazing book. It's an amazing book. Jesus Christ says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. What's the way? It's the law. It's those 10 commandments. What's the truth? The word of God. Jesus Christ, the bread, the manna, the life. There was life on that rod, but it. It's the Trinity in Jesus Christ, right there in that Ark of the Covenant. Look at Exodus chapter 25. Here in Exodus 25, This is where the Lord speaks to Moses and he gives him the instructions to build this ark. Verse 10, and they shall make an ark of Shittim wood, two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. Overlay with pure gold. He goes through all those things that we already read about in Exodus 37 when they execute that plan. But look at verse number 22. He tells them, In verse 21, he says, Thou shalt put the mercy seat above the ark, and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee, and there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims, which are upon the ark of the testimony of all things, which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. We're going to look at now how the Ark of the Covenant is a type of Jesus Christ in its communion. He said, I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee. This was going to be the place where God would commune with them, where God would actually have fellowship with them. But only the high priest could come into that holiest of all. See, that was a special place, right? You could have some priests that could come in through that first veil. They could come in where the table of showbread was and the censer and all that, the candlestick, but they could not go through that second veil into the Holy of Holies. I might've messed that up. That showbread might be in that also, but you get the point that they weren't allowed into there. Only one person was allowed in there. But when the Lord Jesus Christ died, when he was crucified on that cross, when he took up his last breath, and Father forgive them, they know not what they do, it is finished, and he gave up the ghost. Matthew 27, 51, it says, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The earth did quake and the rocks ran. See what happened when Jesus Christ died on that cross? That veil was ripped from the top to the bottom. No man could reach to the top of that veil. That was signifying that God was doing away with that veil. God ripped that thing in half, giving access to everyone to that mercy seat, to that ark of the covenant. In Ephesians 2, the Bible says, "...but now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace, who hath made both one and hath broken down the middle wall partition between us." See, there was a middle wall partition, there was a veil, there was something blocking you from having access to God the Father. But when Jesus Christ shed his blood, he ripped that thing in half and gave everyone access into the holiest of all. We can all go, we're all high priests. We're all able to go in there and have communion with God. Why? Because he did away with it. Man, I love that verse. You know, there's no communion with God without Jesus Christ. Before that veil was written to Wayne, no one could just go in there and see the Ark of the Covenant. No one could just go in there and have communion, have fellowship with God. Now, I'll tell you this, God does hear the prayers of the lost right now, but his answer to those prayers always point that lost person to Calvary. You wanna, I believe, I mean, we see that in Acts chapter 10 with Cornelius. He was a man of, he believed in the Lord, he was a religious man, but he was lost. But God saw his heart, that he was true and faithful, and he was sincere in what he was praying, so God sent him a vision, said, hey, go see Peter. Why, because Peter's gonna point him to the cross. Peter's gonna preach the gospel to him, and he's gonna get saved, and that way he can have real communion with me, full communion. Now, you must have Jesus Christ to have fellowship with God, because God cannot have fellowship with sin. And if you don't have Jesus Christ, you still have your sins on you, and God will not have fellowship with sin. Genesis chapter three, when Adam and Eve sinned, he cast them out of the garden. They weren't allowed to have that one-on-one fellowship with them anymore. God cannot and will not have fellowship with sin, but he's given us an offering to take care of that sin for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no communion, there's no fellowship with God the Father without Jesus Christ. Let's look at Numbers chapter 21. I'm sorry, Numbers chapter 2. This is typology. This is similitudes. How God had all these things in the Old Testament pointing everyone to the cross. Pointing everyone to His Son, Jesus Christ, who would be the propitiation of their sins. In Numbers chapter 2, we're going to see how the camp was going to be set up. It says, The Lord spake unto Moses unto Aaron, saying, Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard within the sign of their father's house, far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch. And on the east side toward the rising of the sun shall they of the standard of the camp of Judah pitch throughout their armies. And Nashon, the son of Amminadab, shall be captain of the children of Judah, and so forth. So what we see here is how the camps would be set up. Verse five, it tells you who was gonna be next, the next tribe. So God does everything decently in order. And every time they would stop and encamp, or if they would move, they would go in order. You'd have certain tribes first, and second, and third. Look at verse number 17. Then the tabernacle of the congregation. That's where the Ark of the Covenant's gonna be. shall set forward with the camp of the Levites in the midst of the camp. As they encamp, so shall they set forward every man in his place by their standards. So what we see here is that the ark was in the midst of the camp, right? In the midst of God's people. In Matthew 18, verse 20, Jesus Christ says, for where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. You wanna find the Lord Jesus Christ? You'll find Him in the midst of His people. You'll find Him in the midst. If they keep Him in the proper order, if they keep everything how it's supposed to be, decently in order, you'll find the ark right there in the middle. You'll find Jesus Christ in the middle of it all. Now, over here in Numbers chapter number four, See, when they would move and have to relocate the camp, because remember when the Lord, I mean, they wandered around that wilderness for 40 years. They didn't stay in the same spot. When the pillar of cloud moved or the pillar of fire moved by night, wherever it stopped, that's where they would set up. In verse number five, it says, when the camp set it forward, Aaron shall come and his sons and they shall take down the covering veil and cover the ark of the testimony with it. and shall put thereon the covering of badger skins, and shall spread over it a cloth wholly of blue, and shall put on the staves thereof." All right, so when they were to move that thing, it was covered up. They covered it with the veil, they covered it with badger skins, and then they covered it with a blue cloth. What we see there is those people, those Jews, when that ark would move, they never got to see it. There was one person, only the high priest actually saw the Ark of the Covenant. So they really, when they saw the thing covered up, they were walking by faith and not by sight because it was covered up. That's what we're to do. In this day and age, we don't get to see the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't get to see Him physically. One day we will. There's coming a day that when that trumpet sounds and we get on out of here, we'll get to see Him. But for now, we gotta walk by faith. We walk by faith. And when you see those things, you see the veil, you see those badger skins. What are badger skins? I heard a, I can't say any names, but I heard a preacher. I heard a preacher tell a story of this preacher lives way out in the middle of nowhere, and the guy does like hunting and trapping, and he got a badger, right? And he got this thing, he tanned it out and got this hide, and he gave it to another preacher. And the other preacher was like, what am I going to do with this thing? I mean, it stunk. I mean, it's just a big fur. I mean, what do you do with it? I mean, the wife wasn't going to let him put it in the house because it smelled. I mean, what are you going to do with the thing? You know, it wasn't pretty. It wasn't beautiful. My Bible tells me when the Lord Jesus Christ showed up, there was no beauty that we should desire. It's just covered, that's all. It's a type of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Ark of the Covenant. My Bible tells us we've got to walk by faith. Without faith, it's impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. We've got to walk by faith. They didn't get to see Him. They didn't get to look at that Ark of the Covenant. Look at 2 Samuel 6. We're talking about communion. the type of Jesus Christ in communion with the Ark of the Covenant. In 2 Samuel chapter number 6, all we see, there's so much in this, oh man. I'm jumping ahead in my thoughts. I don't want to go there yet. In 2 Samuel 6, we see the ark's been taken, and David's going to gather all the chosen men of Israel together, and they're going to go get the ark of the covenant. They're going to take it back. And they end up building a new cart, and they throw that ark of the covenant on the cart, And like I said earlier, they're taking that thing, and when they hit that threshing floor, right here in verse number six, when they came to Nacon's threshing floor, Uzzah put his hand on the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. So the ark's not something for man to touch. We don't put our own spin on the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm sick and tired of hearing the news or hearing people on social media tell us what Christians ought to be and what Jesus Christ was. Well, Jesus wouldn't have done that. Jesus would have been okay with this transgender movement. Jesus would have been good with giving our kids hormone blockers and stuff. They're ridiculous. That's not something for man to touch. You know what God's going to do? He's going to strike them down. Man doesn't touch that. You can't touch Jesus Christ. Just because God didn't kill the Philistines for using a cart doesn't mean that you will get away with doing something the wrong way. It's never okay to do something wrong to do something right. Just do right. Now, when that takes place, David was afraid. David gets mad at God. Verse number 8, David was displeased because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah. They called the name of the place Perezuzzah to this day. And David was afraid of the Lord that day and said, how shall the ark of the Lord come to me? David would not remove the ark of the Lord unto him into the city of David, but David carried it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. He's going, man, how are we going to even get this thing here? We can't carry it on the cart. Just put it at Obed-Edom's house. Just put it there and we'll stash it there for a while. Look at verse 11. The ark of the Lord continued in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months, and the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his household. I'll tell you this, you'll find blessings where you find the ark. Where you got Jesus Christ close to you, you'll find blessings. He'll bless you, he'll bless your household, do things the right way. If you put him in the midst, you make him number one. Verse number 12, it was told King David saying, the Lord had blessed the house of Obed-Edom. and all that pertaineth unto him because of the ark of God. So David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom into the city of David with gladness. And it was so that when they bare the ark of the Lord had gone six paces and sacrificed oxen and fowlings, David danced before the Lord with all his might. David was girded with a linen ephod. David and all the house of Israel brought the ark of the Lord with shouting the sound of a trumpet. So what we see is when the ark was carried the right way, things went smooth. David rejoiced over it. That ark was not made to be put on a cart. It wasn't meant to be the easy way. It was to be carried. It was for four men to put that ark on their shoulders, have that weight bearing down on them, and then to take every step, step by step, to take that ark where it was supposed to go. Step by step. You know, it takes work to have fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, to do it the right way, the way he says to do it. It's not easy. It takes work. There's some things that you're gonna have to bear. You're gonna have to bear reproach. You're going to have to bear some persecution, some sufferings. If you want to have fellowship with them, you're going to have to sacrifice some things. You might have to sacrifice speed. All right, David just wanted to get the ark there. We've got to get it there. We've got to get it there. What can we do? Let's put it on a cart. What's the big deal? That's how the Philistines got it to where they want it. I mean, let's put it on a new cart. It'll be not an old cart that some oxen have already been on, and it's all dirty. This thing's going to be shiny. It's going to be new. We're going to have those wheels all arm-rolled up. It's going to be looking good. And we'll get the ark there in no time. And God's not interested in speed. God's interested in accuracy and obedience. It takes effort to do it God's way. I'll tell you this, we see that David, we saw that they were all rejoicing and they were dancing with all his might, right? There's no greater joy in life than having good fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. You'll have no other, no greater joy in life than doing what he's asked you to do and walking with him step by step. Look at, well, We're not gonna turn there, but in Joshua chapter three, the children of Israel are preparing to go over to the promised land. They've already wandered around for 40 years in the wilderness. Moses has died. Joshua's now in charge, and God's gonna use Joshua to take his people into the land of Canaan, the land that had been promised them, the promised land. But there's an obstacle in the way, the Jordan River. And this time of year, the mountains were all melted down and all the water was flowing down and the River Jordan was raging at this time. It overflowed the banks. It was a time of flooding. So God instructs Joshua to send the priests that were carrying that Ark of the Covenant over first. And as soon as their feet, it says, they touched the brim of the water, the water stood and rose upon a heap so that everyone else could pass through. Jesus Christ has given us a way to get to God. He's given us the way to go over on dry land into the promised land. We got that Jordan River, it's an obstacle, it's life, right? It's tough, it's hard, it can be overwhelming. But that ark, as soon as it got, those priest's feet touched that water, that water stood up on a heap, and those priests were standing on dry ground. And we get to walk right on over, because Jesus Christ gave us a way to get to God. He paved the way to the promised land for you and I. Last of all, let's go to 1 Samuel chapter 4. The Ark of the Covenant is a type of Jesus Christ in its contention. the fighting over it. Here in 1 Samuel chapter 4 verse 1, the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out against the Philistines to battle and pitched beside Ebenezer and the Philistines pitched in Aphek. And Philistines put themselves in array against Israel, and when they had joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines, and they slew of the army of the field about 4,000 men. And when the people were coming to the camp, the elders of Israel said, wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. So the people sent to Shiloh that they might bring from thence the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of Hosts, which dwelt between the cherubims and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the Ark of the Covenant of God. And when the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with great shout, so that the earth rang again. And the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was coming to the camp. The Philistines were afraid, and they said, God is coming to the camp. And they said, Woe unto us, for there hath not been such a thing wheretofore. Woe unto us, who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? that these are the gods that smote the Egyptians with the plagues in the wilderness. Be strong, quit yourselves like men, O ye Philistines, and be not servants unto the Hebrews as they have been to you. Quit yourselves like men and fight. The Philistines fought, and Israel was smitten. And they fled every man to his tent. And there was a very great slaughter for their fell of Israel, 30,000 footmen. And the ark of God was taken. The two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain." Alright, so what we see here, there's a fight, there's a battle. And these Philistines, they feared the ark. Rightfully so, they were scared when they heard that the ark was in there because they know the god of the ark. They said these are the gods that smote the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness. It's very, I mean this is several, several years after, you know, after they've escaped Egypt. I mean we're looking over 40 years easily, more than that. But what we see here is they're well aware of who God is and what He's capable of. And when that ark shows up, they're scared. But they end up winning the battle because the Jews thought they could do whatever they wanted with that ark. Right? They go to battle and they lost 4,000 men. And they say, what do we need to do? We need some help. Why did we lose? Let's get the ark. If we bring the ark in here, then everything will be all right. It will give us victory. Isn't that what it said? The Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, I'm pretty sure it said, when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. You know what they were doing? They were trusting more in the Ark than the God of the Ark. That's where they messed up. But you know what? You can't just pick and choose how or when you use Jesus Christ. That's what they wanna do. Oh, we lost this battle, let's go get the Ark and we're gonna win this battle. You don't get to go, you know, I'm gonna use Jesus like Santa Claus or Superman when I need him, you know, that's when I'm gonna use him. You don't get to pick and choose like that. And we see that the enemy fears the Ark, but they also wanna take the Ark and use it as their own. They feared it, but as soon as they won that battle, they took it. Verse 11, the Ark of God was taken. What did they do with it? Well, look at chapter five, verse number one. Philistines took the Ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashton. When the Philistines took the Ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon. You know what they wanted to do? They wanted to make it their own. They wanted to mix Jesus with their own religions. And that's what the heathen do. They try to take their own religion and mix Jesus in with it and think everything's gonna be all right. But things don't work out for them. Look at verse number three. And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon and set him in his place again. And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Only the stump of Dagon was left to him. Therefore, neither the priest of Dagon nor any that came into Dagon's house tread on the threshold of Dagon and Ashdod this day." So what happens? Their god was no match for the ark. They bring that ark in there, and they come in the next day, and their god fell over flat. And they said, well, OK, we can't have that. Let's pick up our god. We've got to promote our god. Let's put him back up where he belongs. And the next day, they come in, and he's fallen down flat again. But this time, his head's cut off, and the palms of his hands are cut off. You know what my Bible tells me? That the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, things in earth, things under the earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. There's no God like him. Those gods out there, Mary's no match for Jesus. There's no God like Jesus Christ. Allah ain't nothing. He's Dagon, fallen down flat. One day, the devil will be cast into the lake of fire for all eternity. We read that earlier in Sunday school, but the Bible says the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and false prophet are and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever. Why? Because they're no match for the ark of God. They're no match for the ark of the covenant. When you begin to see similitudes in the Bible, When you start to understand these types, when you can start putting the pieces of this puzzle together, that's what it is. When you start with just a bunch of pieces scattered on a table, but once you start getting a couple of them together, the whole picture starts to become more evident, becomes more visible. When you're able to rightly divide the word of truth and take these types and these similitudes, it all starts to become very, very clear. the Bible will become so much more illuminated to you. You'll begin to see things differently, and things will begin to make more and more sense as you read and study your Bible. She's talking about types. She's talking about the Ark of the Covenant being a type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, Lord, we do thank you, God, for your word, and God, just the amazing book that it is. Lord, the more we dig, the more we can find, The more we submit to You and give in to You and to Your ways, Lord, and realize that we cannot comprehend it without You, Lord. understand it without the Holy Spirit guiding and directing us. Thank you, Lord, for this book and the change that it's made in my life, Lord, and that, God, I pray that it'll be a change in someone else's life, too, Lord. Make us more like you, help us get closer to you, and be a better witness for you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.