The Mercy Seat

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Providence, Forgiveness, and the Heavenly Father

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and it is Friday, oh, 5 p .m. here in Massachusetts time, Eastern Standard Time, and it�s probably time to get some yard work done and some other things.

Do people who spend a lot of time on social media get yard work done? Let�s see what�s going to go on. Oh, this is fascinating today. I went to the bank because I needed to deposit some money, and somebody was just calling me here, and I can�t take that call.

I went to the bank, and I�m trying to chat it up with these�somebody�s calling me. I can�t keep doing this. How do you do that when you�re doing Facebook Live and then someone calls? Anyway, I went to the bank, and I began to talk to a lady, and she knows I�m a pastor, and I had sent her a book in the mail after she�d helped me do something, and so we talked a little bit about that, so then her other teller friend said, �Oh, you�ve written a book and I said yes, and we began to talk, and we�re talking about forgiveness, and we were talking about funerals and all that, and this particular lady said she was sorry to admit it, but when her father died, she spit on her father�s grave because the father was an alcoholic, abuser, etc., etc., and then there we are standing at the deal at the bank where the teller is, and we�re talking about forgiveness, and we�re talking about letting it go, and it�s very fascinating, and so I don�t know about you, but when the Lord puts those things into my life providentially, I�m very, very thankful, and while I do a lot of things wrongly in life, I love those opportunities that I could not orchestrate, that I couldn�t put together, and sometimes I�m not even really having a great day spiritually, but the Lord just puts those in my place, and I just want to respond and be faithful, and anyway, it was wonderful.

I�m not going to tell you the person�s name, but you can pray for that nameless lady. She has a name, and you can have a really bad father on earth, and all of us had fathers who were less than perfect, but there�s a heavenly father who never needs to be forgiven, right?

When people say, �I could never forgive my dad for what he did and I could talk to you about forgiveness, and there�s a word for �forgiveness� means to let go. There�s a word for �forgiveness� that means to grace, and I�m sorry what happened to you, whatever that might be.

I�m sure it was difficult, but if I point you to the heavenly Father, Christians are able to pray with this great privilege of saying, �Our Father. He�s close, and yet He�s holy. Anyway, you might want to pray for that lady, and who knows what will happen.

Maybe we�re going to have a, I don�t know, our bank tellers in a union. Maybe they�re all going to start coming, flocking to Bethlehem Bible Church. By the way, you can write me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.

I actually get things sent. Not that many, but I get things sent. Oh, I did want to make an announcement too. Tom Buck and I did a recording a while ago, I think it was two weeks ago, on same-sex attraction and this whole Sam Albery deal, and what�s going on with a lot of ministries that talk about this, is this the right thing to do?

I think there�s been over 5 ,000 downloads on the NoCo show, and you might want to listen to that if you haven�t listened to it. And then Tom and I are going to, what�s he saying, Joe? �You should have told them the book you wrote.

I�m like, �Jesus, God. Well, my problem is, Joe, since I�ve got, you know, since I�m prideful, they�re like, �Oh, you�ve written a book �Yes, several. Oh, and I just signed the contract for the S. Lewis Johnson Colossians Commentary, Discovering Colossians, that hopefully, the contract said I�ve got a year to get everything done, so hopefully that�s going to be out sometime soon.

Most of the data�s done. I got kind of distracted when I got the prostate cancer, and so I just never got it done, so now I�m trying to work on that. Frankly, I�m tired and I�m older. I�m going to be 59 in a month, and it�s just hard for me at nighttime to write.

In the old days, I could just write and write and write. One time I wrote a book in six weeks, just family was gone, off we powered it. But now, as you all know, you get older and it�s just more difficult, so I�m going to get that one done.

I�ve given up all my hopes and dreams and aspirations about being a big shot in evangelicalism. I don�t know if I really ever had a lot of them, but I thought, �Oh, maybe there�s some kind of corporate ladder to climb in speaking, and what kind of speaking engagements could you get

Then now, between age, between getting humbled, between getting cancer, between getting a clue, the highest privilege that I have, and I�ve always known this, but it�s just reinforced, is preaching every Sunday to these dear saints at Bethlehem Bible Church.

If you only know me through No Compromise Radio, it�s not really a real representation because I kind of just do this for fun, a side ministry, and so I don�t have to talk about all these things in sermons that I�m not liking, but that�s the highest calling.

It�s kind of nice because I don�t have to be holding to people and Southern Baptist commandments, the 11th commandment, you can never criticize anybody else. Anyway, back to Tom Buck. Tom Buck and I, before Joe so rudely interrupted me, �How are you, by the way, Joe

Tom and I are going to do a follow-up interview. We were going to do it this week with specific questions asked. Last time it was just kind of an introduction to the subject, but I think Tom and I will do that show maybe next week and we�ll play that again, kind of a bonus feature, Tom Buck and I on same-sex attraction, and is it the same?

Is it a man looking at a woman? What do we do with that? Because I think it�s a big issue in evangelicalism that we need to make sure we understand properly. There�s kind of the Sam Albury approach, and then there�s the Rosaria Butterfield approach.

Simply for me, if you don�t have the gift of singleness and have sexual desires, you have one option, and that option is to get married to someone from the opposite sex. I don�t think we should be able to tell people they can just remain sexless in terms of their activity the rest of their lives.

Of course, when you�re single, you must, but when you�re single, you should be working on yourself, especially if you�re a man, out there to win a wife. But anyway, that�s a different show. What do you know about the Ark of the Covenant?

The Ark of the Covenant in Hebrews 9 and Exodus 25

Now, it�s fascinating to me that most people, I don�t mean the no-kill listeners, because you�re in a different grade. Let�s see. Let�s just time you. What do you know about the Ark of the Covenant? Pretty much all of you know about the Ark of the Covenant, probably through a movie, right?

Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well, if you understand the Ark of the Covenant, I think it will help you understand the work of the Lord Jesus. It says in Hebrews 9, verse 5, after he�s talked about a bunch of different things in Exodus 25 and the tabernacle in the wilderness, he says, �Of these things we cannot speak now in detail.

In other words, I could speak of them in detail, but you pretty much know them. That�s almost what I think the writer of Hebrews is doing, because they are Hebrews. I�ve belabored this the last two Sundays here at Bethlehem Bible Church, because I don�t think we really understand all the details from the Hebrew canon that he knew that these readers took for granted.

So, we�re just going through the different things, right? The showbread and the curtain and the manna and Aaron�s staff and the tablets of the covenant and the lampstand and the tent. And we come to the final one, it�s the Ark of the Covenant.

So, today, in the rest of the show that we have, we�re going to talk about the Ark of the Covenant, what it was, and what it represented. Because if you understand that, then if you think greater, then if you think substance, not shadow, if you think about a picture of something, you�ll begin to think of the Lord Jesus.

And I think this will help you when you reread your Old Testament. There�s an argument, of course, people are making. Do you read the Old Testament in light of the new, or do you read the new in light of the old?

And it might not be as easy as you think. I could probably give you different ways. Oh, there it is. There�s Terry. Hey, where�s Terry? Are you watching? Terry. Terry. Here�s what Terry sent me. Pastor Mike Hafferhorf, NOCO Radio.

That�s why I�m coming to Beloit, Ohio, to see this guy. He said, �I don�t know if he�ll make the drive. How far is that, Terry? Beloit. I want to also think it�s maybe some kind of French city, Beloit, and we can have some kind of fromage or something.

The Mercy Seat, the Cherubim, and Propitiation

The Ark of the Covenant. Do you notice in 9 .5, it talks about the Ark? It�s already mentioned the Ark earlier in verse 4, and then in 9 .5 it says, �Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.

That�s pretty amazing. Okay. There. Terry�s watching. Good. Terry, you know, if I just move this over just a hair, they�re going to know what your address is. Okay. I guess they could just Google it.

All right. Who�s Googled their own name? The Ark of the Covenant was a chest made of acacia wood, as we say where I�m from now, acacia wood. Acacia wood, three and three quarters feet long. Okay. So about a yardstick, a metric stick long, two and a half feet wide.

Okay. Almost a yardstick wide, and two and a half feet high. Okay. That�s the size of the Ark, and it�s completely covered in gold. Now, I don�t want to bore our listeners, but I do want to read a little bit from Exodus 25 about the Ark of the Covenant so that your mind is not thinking skeletons and Indy and don�t look inside Indiana Jones stuff.

What does the Bible say about the Ark of the Covenant? And of course, our recipients in terms of the book of Hebrews, this is what they would be thinking. They knew all about it. I don�t think we know as much, although this is not like it�s some kind of weird thing.

It�s pretty well known, the Ark of the Covenant. Here�s what Exodus 25 says. Pastor Hasselhoff. Well, I never made it into Hollywood, although when I first moved to LA, there were a lot of stars there, and it was pretty amazing just to see stars walking around.

And I never was into celebrity stuff in terms of me fawning over people. And one time I met Tom Cruise, and we talked for a little bit, and I wasn�t the fawner, so then he was nice to me, and he treated me like I was, I don�t know, just a normal guy because I was trying to treat him like he was normal.

Let�s see. Are there any other funny stories? One time I was trying to get a coffee at this particular, it was called Gorky�s. It was kind of an avant garde Russian breakfast place, and you get a little caviar on top of your omelets in our district in Los Angeles downtown, and people would go there at like three in the morning or whatever.

I heard somebody say, �Could you pass the creamer True story. And I looked over, and I thought, I know that voice. I thought he was going to grab my neck and give me the Vulcan pinch. It was Leonard Nimoy.

And I just said, �Sure but I didn�t say, �Can I have your autograph or anything like that. One time when I was, Mr. T walked right up to me and passed me, not to me, but I guess past me. We were walking.

I think it was a Lakers game. My first thought when I saw Mr. T was, because he�s a lot shorter than I am, I thought, here�s my first thought, I could take him. Oh, man. Okay, enough of that. The Ark of the Covenant.

They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and a cubit and a half its height. Okay, so we talked about that. You shall overlay it with pure gold.

We talked about that. Inside and outside you shall overlay it, and you shall make on it a molding of gold all around it. So, gold on the inside, gold on the outside, gold molding. Shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them on its four feet, two rings on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it.

And you shall make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. And you can think, of course, of what happened when people touched the ark, and instead of letting it drop, these were those poles, so there�s a certain way to carry it.

It says in verse 16, �You shall put into the ark the testimony that I shall give you. And that�s what Hebrews talks about as well, right? You�ve got the tablets of the covenant. What, you know, the Ark of the Covenant is going to carry around the what?

The covenant, right? And here�s the covenant responsibilities of the people of Israel. What has the Lord done? I�m the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and now here are the Ten Commandments that are put inside.

Now, this is the part that brings us to Hebrews 9, 5, with the cherubim of glory, and it�s found in Exodus 25. �You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, a cubit and a half its breadth, and you shall make two cherubim.

So, in Hebrew, if you want something plural, you add an �im�, the equivalent of the English �I am� at the end. Cherubs, right? So, you�ve got cherub and cherubim. Nephilim, you think that�s singular or plural?

See? This is like Hebrew, isn�t it? Goyim. �A hammered work shall you make them of two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece of mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends.

Okay, and Mark said, rightly so, and you should have been listening to the last show, right? You�ve got Aaron�s rod that budded and some manna in the ark as well. It depends on different times in history what you would find in that ark.

And to review, Aaron�s rod budded, showing that, in fact, Aaron was God�s designated high priest. He didn�t say, �I�m the high priest. God said, �You�re the high priest. Remember when the twelve rods were put out?

Only Aaron�s rod budded. And then with the manna, the provision of God throughout the wilderness is going to be stored in there. And, of course, if you want to think about these things relating to who Jesus is, Jesus in Hebrews 5 did not say, �I�m the high priest.

God designated him the high priest. Hebrews 5, �You are my son today. I have begotten you. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. That is the Father speaking to the Son. And then when you think of the manna, of course, it makes your mind go right to John chapter 6 when Jesus said, �I�m the bread of life.

Can you remember? If you add up all the days of God giving manna to Israel in the wilderness, I think you�ll find, I don�t know about leap years, but 14 ,600 days did God provide manna in the wilderness for the Israelites.

And so, therefore, the people were not really that impressed when Jesus fed them one time. And they were thinking temporal bread. They were thinking, you know, vitamins and minerals and sustenance and calories and all that stuff.

So, anyway, yes, Mark, you are correct. So, you�ve got the gold cherubim on the outside hovering over with the wings over the mercy seat. It says in verse 21, �And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you.

There I will meet with you. So, here�s the point. So, we�ve got this mercy seat. This is where God�s going to be meeting the people. Of course, God is omnipresent, but there�s a special, almost like you can think of the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud, there�s a special manifestation of the glory of God.

So, the people can be very, you know, grounded in their trust. This is how they�re going to kind of think about this great infinite God. It says in verse 22, this is important, �There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

So, that�s Exodus. Now, in Hebrews, it says the cherubim of gold overshadowing the mercy seat. And here we have this mercy seat, and if you think about the word mercy seat in Hebrew, it means to cover something.

Sin is covered. And don�t we have that even in our slang in the U .S.? If I�m going to buy your lunch, I will say, �I�ve got it. What? Or, �I�ll cover you. I�ve got it covered. If you look at the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Exodus passage, it�s where we�re going to get our word propitiation.

And Day of Atonement, of course, the blood from the bull was offered to make atonement, and then you�ve got the goat that was killed, and you�ve got sprinkling on top of the mercy seat. Now, here�s something that I thought was fascinating, and Joe, Terry, and Mark, I hope you�re still watching.

You�ve got the cherubim who are on the east side of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 324 to guard the way to the Tree of Life. And I think that helps when we ask ourselves the question, �Why are the cherubim, why are the two cherubs on the Ark of the Covenant, and what must they symbolize

And earlier, of course, in Genesis, we�ve got these protective elements seen with the cherubs. And you can imagine, and scholars and I agree with them, you�ve got the cherubs� wings hovering over the Ark of the Covenant.

And most people think this is God�s way of showing the cherubs are guarding the way to God, guarding His presence. And what�s the writer trying to get to? The writer is trying to get to, listen, once a year on the Day of Atonement, could a priest walk into this place?

And now, Christian, you have access every single day. You don�t need a pastor, you don�t need a priest, you don�t need a reverend, you don�t need Pastor Hasselhoff, you don�t need any of these people.

You have access into God. So, you have the cherubim of glory kind of guarding this invisible presence of God. And when they say of glory, sometimes that presence wasn�t invisible, right? You�ve got the Shekinah.

I like Psalm 80. It says, �You who are enthroned above the cherubim. Psalm 91, sorry, 99 verse 1, �The Lord reigns, let the people tremble. He is enthroned above the cherubim. And we�ve got this idea of mercy seat and God�s presence particularly manifest there.

Here�s what Exodus 30 says, �And you shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the Ark of the Testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the Ark of the Testimony, where I will meet with you.

Now, one of the things that�s going on here on No Compromise Radio is, I�m just trying to change up the subject here because I know some people, they�re not paying attention as well as they should, Joe.

This is a great picture of something greater. I don�t want you to lose that. Okay, you�ve got the blood spilt on top of the mercy seat. And so, here�s the picture for the people of Israel that helps them.

God, let�s just say it�s like He�s in the sky looking down into the Ark of the Covenant. Here�s a covenant that we have with the people. Here�s what they�re supposed to do, tablets of the covenant inside this box, but they�re breaking them.

They are not doing them. They are rebellious. They�re sinful. They�re transgressing. They�re trespassing. They�re making iniquities. And God, the Creator, is going to judge those creatures because they�ve broken the tablets.

They�ve broken the covenant. God now sees, we don�t even have to have them up in the sky because you�ve got the presence of God on the mercy seat. God doesn�t see the tablets where He would know they have been broken.

I don�t mean literally, like when Moses threw them down, but they�ve been broken, right? God doesn�t like their disobedience. But instead of seeing the commandments broken, He sees the blood. Okay, let�s put it this way.

You break the commandments, what should be done to you? The wages of sin is death. Well, there�s been a death now instead of the people of Israel. It�s a covering. It�s the animal�s blood that�s on top of the mercy seat.

I think that�s so cool. I think that�s so fascinating. And it makes me think of the Lord Jesus, even in Romans 3 with the same language, whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation, as a mercy seat in His blood through faith.

This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed. So, now we have this great picture. So, the writer of Hebrews is saying, here�s a picture to remind you of Jesus.

And when you think of the Ark of the Covenant, it shouldn�t take you that long to think of Jesus, that He satisfied your sin debt. And if you�re watching, Christian, that�s good to know. You don�t have to pay for any sins.

You don�t have to go to purgatory. You don�t have to go to purgatory. They have been paid. The wages of sin is death and there�s been a death paid on your behalf and the free gift of God is what? Purgatory!

Eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. What a good God. What a gracious God. I love Spurgeon�s comment. �When I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin. But when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I smote upon my breast to think that I could have ever rebelled against one who loved me so and sought my good.

God is so good. God is so kind. God is so loving that we would break His laws as Christians, that we would disobey and rebel. That is something that Spurgeon said, �I just smote my breast. Anyway, great thoughts from Spurgeon.

Great thoughts from the book of Hebrews about the Ark of the Covenant. When you think about the Ark of the Covenant, you ought to be thinking, �The mercy seat is Jesus and I don�t just have access to the mercy seat through the priest once a year.

I have access anytime I please. That�s a great God. That�s a great Father.

1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.