Raiding the Lost Ark  | Hebrews

Hebrews 9:1-5


I am going to read from the book of Hebrews this morning, Chapter 9. And we have been looking into this letter to the Hebrews over several weeks. And I want to come this morning to one of the key images from the Old Testament that portray New Testament truth in symbols and actions long before these ever became real.

And it is the description that the writer to the Hebrews gives us of the tabernacle, and in particular, the Ark of the Covenant, which lay in the very heart of the tabernacle. And I want us to get to that in a little while.

Let me first read to you then Hebrews 9:1.

“Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary.

“A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand, the table and the consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place.

“Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place…”

(Or the Holy of Holies, as some translations put it.)

“…which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.

“Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.”

But we are going to try and discuss some of these details. But let me read one more verse first in Hebrews 10:1:

“The law…”

And that word “law” is an inclusive word, including all the regulations and rituals that were focused on the tabernacle.

“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves.”

The Ark of the Covenant has always excited a lot of interest. Numerous books have been written about it - I have actually read one or two of them – as to where it may be located.

It was last seen in the Bible at the time of the exile to Babylon. When the city of Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was pulled apart and all the temple furniture was moved away - in many cases, perhaps all cases, destroyed.

But there have been no sightings of any of the furniture since then. However, stories abound of the Ark being taken here and there and popping up there.

And the Ethiopian Orthodox Church make a very strong claim that they have it in Ethiopia in a church that is sealed off that nobody but the priest who protects it ever sees it. So no one has ever seen it apart from him and his successors for generations and generations.

There is a story that it was taken to France by the Knights Templar and is in Chartres Cathedral. But again, it is in a room into which nobody goes, so nobody can actually verify it or see it.

Some years ago Stephen Spielberg made a film “Raiders of the Lost Ark” with Harrison Ford. And in that film this Ark of the Covenant had certain magical properties and this was back in the 1930’s and they had to find it before the Nazis found it because if they found it they would use its magical powers to pursue and win the war.

So it’s totally fictitious of course, but based on this mystique that there exists about the Ark of the Covenant.

In the book of Hebrews the writer talks about the Ark of the Covenant as the most important piece of furniture. And there were four pieces of furniture in the tabernacle itself. This was the most important piece of furniture.

And I want to remind you of something we have said before that the book of Hebrews is written against the background of the Israelites’ journey from Egypt through the wilderness to Canaan.

That’s the backdrop throughout the whole of the book. And a key element on that journey was the building of the tabernacle where people could approach God based on a priesthood that had been established and on the basis of offerings and sacrifices.

Altogether in the Old and New Testament something like 50 chapters of the Bible are devoted to the tabernacle. That’s a lot of space, more than the length of any one single Gospel, in fact double the length of most of the Gospels.

And that gives some importance to the tabernacle in the revelation God gives us that leads to and culminates in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.

It was a temporary structure – a tent basically – erected in a courtyard that could be taken down and reconstructed as they moved through the wilderness.

When they arrived in the land of Canaan they put this tent up in a place called Shiloh and eventually the tent wore out or the wind blew it away and they built a more permanent structure in Shiloh, which features in some of the earlier Old Testament passages once they were in Canaan.

And then Solomon replaced all of that with a temple in Jerusalem, based on the instructions for the tabernacle, though altered in minor details as well.

But all of that – the tabernacle and the temple – was only a shadow of the good things that were coming, not the realities themselves.

And so Hebrews 9:10:

“They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings – external regulations applying until the time of the new order.”

They were to teach us about the new order but not implement it, and we talked a bit about that last week. We talked about the blood of bulls and goats being like a cheque that is worthless in itself unless it is cash in the bank.

And when Jesus said, “It is finished,” there was cash in the bank and the cheques could be exchanged, and they were reconciled to God. We talked about that last week.

Let me just describe the tabernacle to you briefly. It was a rectangular tent. It was about 15 metres long placed within a courtyard, 15 metres long and 5 metres wide. It had two sections – the Holy Place, 10 metres long (two thirds) and the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place which was a 5 metre square area right inside.

The priests could go in and out of the Holy Place, and they did so frequently, but the Holy of Holies was accessed only by the high priest once a year on the Day of Atonement.

Now the Hebrews writer here in Chapter 9 takes us into the two sections of the tabernacle and talks about four items of furniture that were placed within it – a lampstand, a table of consecrated bread, golden altar of incense and the gold covered Ark of the Covenant.

(There’s supposed to be a slide which gives the outline of that – there it is, there it is, thank you very much – these things are complicated when you give somebody two minutes advanced warning before the service – thank you.)

So there in the tabernacle itself: the table of bread, the lampstand, the golden altar of incense and then in the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant itself.

The Holy of Holies was made of acacia wood covered entirely with gold but had it had a lid on it that was made in solid gold that is called in some translations “the mercy seat” or the “atonement cover.”

And overshadowing it were two cherubim. Cherubim are a kind of species of angels – there are different kinds of angels. There were ones with outstretched wings that are shielding the ark below it.

And when Moses built the Ark of the Covenant in Exodus 25:22 he said,

“There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all the commands for the Israelites.”

So God said, and repeated this often, that “this is a place where I will meet with you, I will speak with you and I will give to you.”

And God often refers to the tabernacle, and the Ark of the Covenant in particular, as “the place where I will meet with you.” 150 times it is called in Scripture the “Tent of Meeting” because the whole point was that here you could meet with God, you could encounter God, you could enjoy communion with God and fellowship with God through the processes that led you into the Holy of Holies.

And the priest made the journey to the Ark stopping by each piece of furniture which represented the contents of the New Testament Gospel that we learn and see only in retrospect. Which is why the book of Hebrews takes these familiar items to the Hebrew people and says, “This is what it means, this is what it means, this is where it points, this is its fulfillment,” and shows the complete fulfillment of it in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now I want to follow a journey with a priest into the Holy of Holies and then right up to the Ark of the Covenant. You may remember a few weeks ago in an earlier part of Hebrews we looked at the five offerings that are given to us in the book of Leviticus whereby people could access God, three different stages of their relationship with God.

And we talked about that imagining ourselves to be an observer, sitting by the tabernacle. And as we were sitting there a man came up with an animal to offer in sacrifice. We asked him, “What are you doing?” and he explained to us first the guilt offering.

He came back the next day with another animal and explained the guilt offering – explained the sin offering – the guilt offering is what we do; the sin offering represents our nature.

And then he brought something else that he called the fellowship offering, which means that, having been forgiven, we are then reconciled to fellowship with God.

And then he brought the grain offering – no blood this time – but grain from the field, symbolizing that the secular and the spiritual in our lives are not separated, but they all come under the lordship of God in our lives.

And then finally the burnt offering, when everything was burned up – the whole bullock was burned up, nothing saved, no meat kept as it was in other cases for the priests.

And we followed this person and listened to the explanations.

I want to imagine this morning that you are still sitting outside of the tabernacle and this time you talk to the priest. And were it possible (and we will pretend it is), you would follow the priest on his journey into the Holy of Holies.

And you observe the priest take a lamb or a goat or a bull from someone who has brought it to him. And he would take it to the brazen altar, a burnt offering. This was an altar that was outside the tent itself; it is in the courtyard that led into the tent.

And you would say to the man, “What are you going to do?” (to the priest). He’d say, “I am going to sacrifice this animal as a token of the sin of the person who has brought it to me because this alone addresses and satisfies the judgement of God as a substitute for the sinner.

And so later in this chapter, Hebrews 9:22,

“The law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”

Now we talked about this when we discussed the offerings being brought by the people to the tabernacle and how that the entrance point into our journey into God, into our fellowship with God and our knowledge of God, is forgiveness based on shed blood.

We cannot leapfrog this. We cannot hold sin in our heart and expect or hope to enjoy all the benefits that are going to come. This is a starting point. And it is the blood of the lamb – in our case, the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus, that alone satisfies the judgement of God and makes it possible for us to be forgiven.

It is not what we do for God that causes Him to forgive us. We don’t impress Him so that He says, “Okay, I will forgive you.” It is acknowledging our sin and His atonement for us.

I heard about a boy who was in trouble with his mother. I don’t know what had been the source of the conflict but there was a kind of silent war between them, a cold war if you like, between them. She wouldn’t speak to him; he kept his distance.

His conscience began to trouble him quite a lot, so he eventually went to his mother and said, “Can I clean the house?”

And she said, “No.”

So rebuffed, he went back to his room and maybe twenty minutes or so later he came back and he said, “Can I mow the lawn?”

She said, “No.”

After another period of time had passed he came back and he said, “Mom, can I do some chores for you?”

She said, “No.”

He went back to his room. An hour or so later he came and he sat by her side and he said, “I’m sorry.”

And a smile came across his mother’s face. She said, “I have been waiting for you to say that. Thank you. Now you can clean up the house, then you can mow the lawn and then you can do the chores.”

Our relationship with God is not based on any bargaining – “well, I’ll do this; will you do that?” We come emptyhanded and receive our forgiveness and that was what happened in the brazen altar when the worshiper brought his animal for sacrifice.

But remember, this is only a shadow.

Hebrews 10:1 says,

“Not the realities themselves.”

The reality is the verse in Hebrews 9:14:

“How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

And we participated a few moments ago in communion. And when Jesus instituted that He said to His disciples, “This is the blood of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was repetitive shedding of the blood of animals; this is the blood; it is over; it is done; it is final.”

Then the priest moves on, still in the outer courtyard now, to a bronze basin. And he washes his hands and then washes his feet in the water of this bronze basin. And you say to the priest, “Why are you doing this?”

He says, “Well after recognizing a substitute has died in your place on the bronze altar, you now need to be cleansed and go on being cleansed.”

And the cleansing is not a superficial one because, as the second part of Hebrews 9:14 says,

“The blood of Christ, through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God to cleanse our consciences.”

Not just to cleanse the symptoms, but to go deep inside to our consciences, to forgive and to repair.

Do you know how the basin did that? There is an interesting and not irrelevant piece of detail that we find in Exodus 38:8.

And this is how the bronze basin was made. They made the bronze basin and its bronze stand from the mirrors of the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

This was made out of mirrors. The purpose of a mirror is normally turning attention on ourselves.

It was the mirrors of the women – probably they couldn’t find many with the men because no doubt there are dozens and dozens of handbags here this morning and I have no doubt in the vast majority of them there is a mirror, just to check everything is in place, to check everything is right.

Now these mirrors have been converted into an instrument that does not give reflection of ourselves but reflects back to us God.

It doesn’t actually matter what we are like physically; that does not define us. Remember God sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart.

There is an introspection implied by these mirrors being inside the basin, but they are now rounded concave mirrors that distort.

You look into a concave mirror and you look like a freak. That is not where you comb your hair or apply a little bit of paint (is that what you call it?). No, a concave mirror distorts our image and as Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:3,

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes.

“Instead, it should be that of the inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”

And this reminded them that though it is good to look in the mirror – we all need to do that once in a while – the mirrors have only now distorted you because that is not the important thing. The important thing is our hearts before God. And that we look in here and our attention goes not to ourselves.

Now remember that this is only a shadow, not the realities themselves. The reality is we take our eyes off ourselves as our primary interest and focus that we might stand before God.

And there is a beautiful song we used to sing that sums up the spirit of this,

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace

The priest now leaves the outer court and enters into the tent itself, into the inner court of the tabernacle called the Holy Place.

Now the Old Testament Scriptures, Exodus and others, place three items in that Holy Place – the lampstand, the table of bread and also the altar of incense.

But the writer to the Hebrews puts the altar of incense right in the Holy of Holies. That would indicate that to some extent it doesn’t really matter, but I am going to stick with the Old Testament imagery where the altar of incense is kept outside the Holy of Holies in the Holy Place.

The first piece of furniture when he gets in there then is a golden seven-pronged lampstand. You ask the priest, “Why is this here?”

He would say, “Well, there are no windows in this tabernacle. The front may be open as we came in, but this lampstand has as the source of its light, pure olive oil, freshly pressed and renewed every evening so that through the long hours of the night it throws back the darkness and gives light.”

Those of you who know your Bibles, and some of us are just in the process of learning much about Scripture, but those of you who know your Bible will know that oil is used again and again as a symbol of the Holy Spirit - anointing with oil, symbolic of anointing with the Holy Spirit.

And this therefore, this seven-pronged lampstand, fuelled by pure olive oil, freshly pressed, renewed every evening, can only speak to us of the presence and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Remember this is only a shadow, not the realities themselves. The reality is, as Jesus said in John 8:12,

“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Why? Because the Holy Spirit burned in the life of Jesus and displayed this light of life.

But then in Matthew 5:12 [14] He said to His disciples,

“You are the light of the world.”

The other occasion: “I am the light of the world as long as I am in the world. But now you are the light of the world.”

When He ascended to His Father, He sent His Holy Spirit, the fresh oil, to inhabit His people and to burn in His people.

And the Holy Spirit is to burn in our lives and display the light of life. It is true we may quench the Holy Spirit, we may grieve the Holy Spirit, and thus be ineffective, but the only oil that makes the lamp burn, the only oil that makes your life burn with life is the Holy Spirit.

On the opposite side, on the north side of the tabernacle in the Holy Place was the table of bread. It was called the bread of His presence. And there were twelve loaves that were placed there every week.

The priest takes one – you watch him; he takes one – and he eats it.

And you say to him, “What are you doing?”

And he answers with the obvious. “I need strengthening. I need sustaining. And this bread feeds me and strengthens me for the task I have.”

Now you remember this is only a shadow, not the realities themselves. The reality is Jesus said,

“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” [John 6:35]

And if Jesus Christ is not the bread that feeds the deepest part of our souls we will always be hungry for something else – always. And we will try to feed with something else, and that food will never satisfy us.

So he takes the bread, consecrated bread, and he eats it, feeds on it, as we feed our souls on Christ.

And then the priest moves to the altar of incense. And this is another altar – there was the altar at the beginning; now there is another altar. But this altar is not for offering sacrifice on; it was for offering an aroma, a smell. And it is described as a pleasing aroma to God made from incense.

Did you know God has a sense of smell and there are smells that please Him?

Now of course when we speak of any physical attribute and apply it to God, it is an anthropomorphism, which means it is a physical human picture of something that we cannot define physically.

But nevertheless that picture is given to us in Scripture that there are things which delight, smells which delight God.

But remember this is only a shadow, not the realities themselves. And so the reality is when we ask what aroma pleases God, Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:14, he says,

“Thanks be to God who…through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ.

“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and amongst those who are perishing.

“To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, we are the fragrance of life.”

To put it crudely, Paul says there we smell of Christ, the very atmosphere of our lives makes those who recognize the scent, makes them aware of Christ.

I think it is always a beautiful thing when you meet someone you have never met before – you don’t know that they are a Christian by any other means than simply there is something about their lives that makes you wonder.

It has happened to me many times as I have met people like that. I am not talking about in a church – you have a pretty good guess they might be – but in a completely other situation.

I remember one of the first times I ever experienced this was on a train in India many years ago now. And I was travelling overnight from Bangalore in the south down to Ernakulum in Kerala, and it was a long overnight journey. And I was propped up in my seat and the compartment was full.

And there was a young man opposite but slightly to my left – I was against the window and he was just off to my left. And as I looked around that compartment there was something different about his face. There was life in his eyes. It looked as though somebody was at home when you looked at his eyes as opposed to the empty eyes of some of the other people there.

There was almost a radiance about his face. And I thought to myself, “I wonder if he is a Christian.” He was working on some papers – young man, probably early twenties.

And after a while I was able to engage him in conversation. And I said, “I am going to ask you a strange question.”

He said, “What’s that?”

I said, “Are you are a Christian?”

And his face lit up and he said, “Yes, I am a Christian!”

In fact he had been in Bangalore working on some translation of Scripture into a rather remote language, one of the many, many languages in India. And he had been working with the translators and was on his way back and he was working on the papers.

And it was a very wonderful thing to meet somebody you know nothing else about except there is the aroma of Christ.

My only disappointment was when I told him I was a Christian he was surprised. So it didn’t work both ways I’m afraid. But it worked from him – there was the aroma of Christ.

And having passed through the altar of incense that produced this aroma pleasing to God, you came then right into the Ark of the Covenant. It was a rectangular box made of acacia wood, covered with gold, as I mentioned just now.

On top was the mercy seat, solid gold (or the atonement cover, depending on which translation you use). And it was only once a year that the high priest came into this section of the tabernacle.

He entered into that tabernacle with blood in his hands and he sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat seven times, first for his own sin, and then for the sins of the people.

And when we are doing a study of the Day of Atonement we will talk about a number of other things that he did in there, but that is not our point today.

Our point today is to follow what the writer to the Hebrews points out, that in the Ark of the Covenant, when you lifted the atonement cover, the mercy seat, there was a space where three things were stored.

In Hebrews 9:3,

“Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained” (first) “the gold jar of manna,” (two) “Aaron’s staff that had budded,” (and three) “the stone tablets of the covenant.”

 I am going to change the order in which we look at those in just a moment.

And I suggest to you these three physical elements in the Ark of the Covenant represent the three, or three at least, essential ingredients in the Christian life.

And so you ask the high priest, “Why are these three things, of all things, kept here in the Ark of the Covenant?”

And he would explain to you that the stone tablets of the covenant, which is the Ten Commandments written on stone that Moses brought down Mount Sinai; these were given in order to reveal the character and the nature of God.

Now if you were here last week we talked about that. We talked about the New Covenant being written on our hearts. And we talked about the law and its place and its purpose, and how that it is not now written on tablets of stone but it is written – same law – but it is written in our hearts because, “I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws.”

And so we won’t say any more about those tablets of stone, the Ten Commandments other than to remind you that the law was only a shadow, not the realities themselves.

The reality is that the commands of the Old Testament, as we said last week, of the Old Covenant, had become the promises of the New Covenant.

Under the Old Covenant, written on tablets of stone, it said, “You shall not steal.” It was a command. Now on the tablets of the human heart, written by the Spirit of God, it says, “You shall not steal.” It is a promise.

Where it used to say, “You shall not commit adultery,” it was a command. Now, written by the Spirit on our hearts, the same law says, “You shall not commit adultery.”

Nobody living by the Spirit of God ever commits adultery because the Spirit of God in them writes the law in their hearts.

And we talked about that last week so we won’t talk about it again today.

But the stone tablets represent the purpose of God. What is the purpose of God? To restore us to the image that was lost in the Garden of Eden, so that people looking at you and looking at me see something of God, a physical visible expression of God’s image. That’s how human beings were created but we lost that and now the Gospel restores us to that.

And then secondly there was the gold jar of manna. On leaving Egypt and crossing the Red Sea, you remember that the Israelites ran out of food. Now they are in a desert and God supplied them miraculously with manna every morning, six days a week, with enough on the sixth day to last them to the seventh day. And so every morning He provided this manna.

And the manna was not designed to make them fat; it was designed; basically it was just a maintenance diet. A maintenance diet is one that is just enough to keep you alive.

And so it did not satisfy them. And in the forty years of their journey it became a huge source of frustration for them.

In Numbers 11:4, let me just read these verses to you which describe how they responded to the manna. It says,

“The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat!

“‘We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost – also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.

“‘But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!’

“The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin.

“The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a handmill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into cakes. And it tasted like something made with olive oil.”

Notice they tried every variety there. They ground it in a handmill, they crushed it in a pot, they cooked it; they baked it into cakes.

Every morning the manna comes. “What are we going to do today? For breakfast we’ll have it fresh. For lunch we will have it boiled. For dinner we will have it fried. Another day we will toast it. Another day we will roast it. Another day we’ll make manna burgers out of it. Another day we’ll put ketchup on it. Another day we’ll have chocolate sauce and make it into a dessert. Another day we will deep fry it. Manna, manna, manna.”

The kids say, “It’s my birthday. What’s my birthday meal going to be?”

“It’s going to be manna.”

“What’s my birthday cake?”

“Manna cake.”

And they cried out to God, “Man alive, we’re sick of this!”

Why did God give them something that was so frustrating to them?

Well the answer to that is the same reason why some of us have an experience of God and yet are deeply frustrated in our walk with Him.

The clue is in the description of the manna, very quickly. There are two things that describe the manna.

In Exodus 16:13,

“That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.”

So when it was given in the morning, it was like dew; it was wet on the ground.

And then it dried and became like a wafer.

Exodus 16:31 says,

“The people of Israel called the bread manna. It was white like coriander seed and tasted like wafers made with honey.”

Now here is a very important detail. It was white and it tasted of honey.

When it first came in the morning it was white and wet like dew. Now if you saw something white and wet on your kitchen floor what would you say?

“Somebody has spilt the milk.”

It’s white and wet. I suggest to you – it doesn’t say this explicitly, but I suggest to you it looked like milk. What it does say is it tasted like honey.

Where were they supposed to be? “I’ll take you into a land flowing with milk and honey.” A journey that should have taken them eleven days, according to Deuteronomy 1, but it took them forty years.

And all that time they lived on this miserable diet that looked like the real thing, that tasted like the real thing, but was not the real thing because God’s intention was never to satisfy them in the desert. His intention was to satisfy them only in the land flowing with milk and honey.

Now I suggest to you that this is like a picture of being sealed by the Holy Spirit, which is the experience of every true believer, but not being filled with the Holy Spirit, and so living in spiritual poverty.

This is only a shadow, not the reality themselves. The reality is that we can have Christ in whom all we need for life and godliness is contained, says Peter. And yet we can live in spiritual poverty.

So God reminds them in the heart of the temple, in the Ark of the Covenant, remember the manna – you can know God, you can be born again of the Holy Spirit and live in poverty, spiritual poverty.

And lastly, there was Aaron’s staff that had budded. We find an account of this in Numbers Chapter 16 and 17. God set aside Moses and his brother Aaron to lead the nation of Israel.

After a while some people got fed up with that and a group of 250 well-known elders of the nation – elders – 250 of them. It says they became insolent and they came as a group to challenge Moses and Aaron.

And they said, “Why do you set yourselves in charge? We are just as capable as you are. You are certainly no holier than we are.” In fact they said, “We are holy enough. We demand our place in leading the nation.”

Well Moses and Aaron went to God and said, “God, what do we do?”

In Numbers 17:1,

“The LORD said to Moses, ‘Speak to the Israelites and get twelve staffs from them, one from the leader of each of their ancestral tribes. Write the name of each man on his staff.

“‘On the staff of Levi write Aaron’s name, for there must be one staff for the head of each ancestral tribe.

“‘Place them in the Tent of Meeting in front of the Testimony,’ (that is the Ark, in front of the Ark) ‘where I meet with you.

“‘The staff belonging to the man I choose will sprout and I will rid myself of this constant grumbling against you by the Israelites.’”

And so these men were all invited to bring a staff representing their tribes. They brought eleven – Aaron’s staff was of the tribe of Levi.

And they placed the staff in the tabernacle and then left from there, went home, went to bed, had a good sleep. And the next morning they came back. And together they went into the tent and eleven of the staffs were exactly as they had been left the night before.

But Aaron’s had budded. It had sprouted, first of all, it says. It had sprouted and budded and blossomed and bore almonds.

The message was very clear. There was life in Aaron’s staff. There was life in Aaron’s staff not because he had a smart personality, dynamic leader, but because God was in him, God had placed him in that role.

And those frustrated with Moses and Aaron, who wanted to get them out of the way, who felt themselves equal to the task, who had their own ideas and their own thoughts, there was no life, there was no fruit; there was only ambition, and human ambition.

When God sets someone apart, there is going to be life and fruit in their ministry, not flash in the pan, here today, gone tomorrow fruit but fruit that lasts, as the Scripture says.

Which is why in confidence we say, “Thank You Lord Jesus for what You are going to be doing in people’s lives” as you fulfill what God has given you to do. And when people challenge you, as they will, when people threaten, as they will, as people try to get you out of the way, as they will, relax. It’s not your business anyway. Trust Him. And God produces fruit.

There is a women’s retreat going on this weekend with quite a few ladies from this congregation and Joy Byers was telling me that there are twenty new believers who have signed in and several unbelievers.

And then on Thursday she said, “One of those unbelievers has come to Christ already before we get to the conference.”

Well that’s great – that serves her right! If she is going to hang around people who are equipped by the Spirit of God, there is going to be fruit. And there is and there will be.

And when God sets you apart, don’t try to do anything; just produce fruit. Just in dependence on Him, allow the fruit to be part of your life. Otherwise you are sticking plastic bananas on the end of lampposts and that doesn’t look like the authentic thing. The real fruit comes from the life and the life is nurtured by the roots. And that’s the whole picture Jesus gave.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me and I in you and you will bear much fruit.”

And Moses’ [Aaron’s] staff that budded sent a clear message to Israel: we all have our place; we all have our responsibility. But find out what yours is and don’t trample on what somebody else’s is, because it will be lifeless.

Remember this is only the shadow, not the realities themselves. The reality is in John 15:5:

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a person abides in me and I in him, they will bear much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Aaron’s staff represented the power of God. You couldn’t explain Aaron’s staff in terms of Aaron. He had rubbed something on it the night before? No, you can only explain Aaron’s staff in terms of God.

We can’t explain any spiritual ministry in terms of personnel; it will die the moment those personnel move out. Explain it in terms of God – it has got life; there is a life of its own that will bear fruit.

So into the Ark of the Covenant where God was to be approached we see only the shadow; we don’t see the reality itself. The shadow where the stone tablets of the covenant, which represented the purpose of God, where His intent is to restore us into His own image and likeness with a character displayed in the law becomes character that is fulfilled in us.

The gold jar of manna was a shadow representing the provision of God that we will never be satisfied outside of the fullness of God.

Aaron’s staff that budded was the shadow representing the power of God. When God gives you something to do, there will be fruit if you exercise it in dependence upon Him. And if you are challenged, relax and let the fruit speak for itself as God works in other people’s lives.

So this is all a shadow in Hebrews 9. But we are invited to live in the reality of it, indwelt by the Spirit of God and brought into that living vital communion with Him.

Let us pray together.

Our Father we are so grateful that the Gospel doesn’t tease us; it doesn’t dangle impossible things in front of us. It does dangle things that are humanly impossible, but along with the gift of the Christian life in all its fullness You have given us the gift of the Holy Spirit who empowers us and enables us.

We know in this life we are always on a journey. We never arrive. We are never deeply satisfied because there are always deeper ways in which we may know You. And we pray that will be our ambition.