Entering the Holy of Holies (Part 2)

(Continued from Part 1)

And everything else is an expression of that. And it is the source. And that’s where we must come. We’re not gonna get there tonight, but we’re gonna get as far as we can without getting there. Tonight, we’re gonna find out a little bit about how to get there.

Okay, we read about one, an altar, and then I would add to it a laver. We have already seen the holy place, and then there is the Holy of Holies. Now then, how do we make our way to the ark, and how do we get in? You’ve seen all these other things; now we’ve got to get into the source, so that out of it might come the full tabernacle and the court, and the earth might see the expression. After the full expression of the tabernacle, a city of authority has to be built around it. All of this depends upon the priesthood.

The priest must first go to the outer altar. This morning, he comes to the tabernacle. His destination is the Ark of the Covenant. He comes to the outer altar as a priest, and here he offers a sin offering. He absolutely must offer up the bullock of the sin offering in order to go any further. That day, that offering to the Lord was meant to save him from his sins. In other words, we have to get saved.

Now he comes to the laver of judgment. Do you remember the laver? It’s made out of brass. It is the brass laver that the sons of Korah used to offer strange fire on. God judged them, and they took the brass and made it into a laver. It is a brazen washing place of judgment. Here is where the world is judged in us. We can’t go any further than dealing with the world. You won’t get any further as a priest until the world is dealt with in you – that’s the second step.

Then we come to many, many other things going into the holy place. Before we get to the ark, let’s talk about it a little bit. What is the ark? The ark is the – come on, think about it. It’s like a little bit of atomic energy: outside the atomic energy is the casing, and outside that are a lot of mechanisms, and outside that is a sheath, and all of it together is an atomic bomb. Deep inside is the source of it all.

What is the ark made of? It’s made of wood, and this always stands for man. But it is overlaid with what? Gold, pure gold. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is man and God and God in man. Is that the ultimate source, brothers and sisters? No, it isn’t. Is there something inside of it? It’s the law. And the, alright, now if this, if this ark symbolizes, is, is a, the significance of Christ, what is the law, the significance of? The Father God. The Ten Commandments show us that only God can attain such a place. God gave the law to Moses and the people. He was saying, ” Here’s divine law; live up to that. God knew our nature, and He just took a few thousand years to teach a lesson. “Here’s divine life, live it.”

Man, little man, says, “I can do all that.” Man just thinks he can do God. He thinks he can be all the things that God is, so he goes out to obey the Ten Commandments. Does he make it?  No, a human can’t live…Well, I shouldn’t say that. Those humans couldn’t live by divine life without having divine life. Alright, and so they chased around trying to be what God is, and they couldn’t quite make it.

So here is a picture of God Himself, the Father, inside the Ark.

Over the ark, when the lid is put on, is the seat of mercy, and now we have to go all the way back to Genesis 3. I may lose some of you here. I’m sorry, I really am. In the garden, there was divine life for man, right? Not the Ten Commandments to live up to, but literally the Ten Commandments were a tree there, right? The divine life was a tree. At that time, God didn’t…when He gave Himself to the children of Israel, He said, “Here, read all that, and live up to it.” He knew they couldn’t make it, but He was gonna teach them a lesson so the next time there was a tree of knowledge in front of them and a tree of life, they were gonna run for one and run away from the other one. So He gave it to them and said, ” There, live up to that.”

Of course, the first time, man never made it. The first time, man flunked. God had put the tree of life in the garden and said, “Eat it.” Here is the Father’s life: eatable, obtainable, available.  God’s life put in man. Didn’t man take it? No. Man said, “Instead of eating it and enjoying it, I think I’ll learn about it.” He went over there to a seminary. He ate of the tree of knowledge so that he might learn all about God, and he really did.