THE ARK IN ITS PLACE
THE ARK IN ITS PLACE
One would desire to enlarge our interest in the present work of God. Nothing can be more important and greater than what God is doing, for dear brethren there is nothing like the work of God. In the world of nations, each nation is anxious to know what the other is doing. In business, rivals are always anxious to know what their competitors are doing, but I would like to enlist your living interest in what God is doing. If we look at the work of God as it is visible in the creation, how trifling it makes men’s doings appear! Who would compare the sun in the heavens with all its wonderful light, with the tiny globes that men make — but that is the relative difference between God’s work and man’s work. What can you compare with the work of God, what is there like it? If we look into the heavens the work of His fingers, it is calculated to bring every man down to the dust in the sense of his own nothingness. If you take the lily, for the Lord bids us to consider it, what is there that men could do compared with the lily?
So it is with all the work of God. Perhaps some of you think that God is not working. Many live today as if God is doing nothing — what an outrage on God that any should think He is not doing anything! Nations are busy, cities are busy, men and women and children are busy doing something — can we conceive that God is not working? What is God doing? It truly says, “And the heavens and the earth and all their host were finished”, Genesis 2: l. Finished so perfectly that no revision for thousands of years has been necessary, no modification — made as God does; everything — perfectly, but finished. Has He done nothing since? The Lord says, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work,” John 5: 17 — has the Lord Jesus been doing nothing for thousands of years of men’s history? What is He doing? The greatest interest for your soul and mine is to be profoundly concerned as to what God is doing and what Christ is doing. What the Lord did in the three and a half years of His public life was so great that John supposes that the world could not contain the books that should be written if everything that Jesus did was listed.
So I want to dwell a little on what God is doing now and what Christ is doing. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,” Proverbs 25: 2.
He does not advertise His works. They need no advertising, and in any case where sin is active He hides His hand, but every kingly feature in man would find out what God does. It is the only thing that matters.
So I wanted with the Lord’s help to suggest a little as to the great end that God is working to. When it is unveiled, what will there be? Well, first of all there will be a suitable place for the ark. It says when Solomon had finished all the work of the house of God, when there remained nothing whatever to be done in this connection, then they brought up the ark of the Lord into its place. It had never been in its place before, it had been in many other places, but not until now was it in its own place, the place that was suitable for it. Where had it been? It had been in the wilderness, it had gone three days’ journey into the wilderness, it says it was a “great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions,” Deuteronomy 8: 15. The ark had moved three days’ journey to search out a resting place for Israel, to find in those dreadful conditions a spot where Israel could rest. It had gone forward before them all to face the enemies, and as the ark went out they said, “Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered”, and when it returned they said, “Return, Jehovah, unto the myriads of the thousands of Israel,” Numbers 10: 35, 36. The ark had been down into the waters of Jordan at a time when Jordan overflowed all its banks, the flood tide of that river in evidence; it had been into those waters and driven them back. The psalmist said, “What ailed thee, ... thou Jordan, that thou turnedst back?” Psalm 114: 5. The ark had been round the walls of Jericho, that entrenched city of spiritual wickedness, and brought down its wall to the dust. It had been in a tent at Shiloh, a tent which God placed amongst men, largely forgotten by Israel. It had been into the land of the Philistines, taken into the house of their god; and the Philistine god had fallen upon its face, and they put it up again and then Dagon’s head and hands are cut off in the presence of the ark. It had been in the house of Abinadab on the hill, cared for as best may be until finally David says as to that position, “we found it in the fields of the wood,” Psalm 132: 6 — apparently unwanted and unappreciated by anyone. And as David sees that holy vessel in that position there arises a mighty vow in his soul that “I will not give sleep to mine eyes, slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for Jehovah,” Psalm 132: 4, 5. What we have been looking at earlier today began with that vow. The ark is found again in the house of Obed-Edom, one solitary family that loves it; if everyone else is afraid, even David. Obed-Edom opens his house to care for that holy vessel. It is found later in a tent within, guarded in the city of David, but, dear brethren, these positions do not denote its place. This holy vessel has been in all these places, but none of them was its place, the great end of Solomon’s work is to provide its place. And all the people, the priests leading, join to bring up the ark into its place within the oracle. That is one feature of its place. The oracle is the place where God speaks, it is where the Divine voice may be heard, that is its place. Anyone that wants to hear the oracle must find the ark, for the ark’s place is in the oracle where the voice of God is heard — into the most holy place — into the very holiest spot in the universe, the most holy, that is the place of the ark. Under the wings of the cherubim, guarded perfectly, guarded by every attribute of God, where none could ever touch that vessel again with unholy hands — passed under the wings of the cherubim, that is its place.
We know, dear brethren, what all this means, it is the place which the Lord Jesus Christ has for ever. He has been into the manger at Bethlehem, but that is not His place. The grace that took Him into such a situation fills our hearts with wonder, but none would say that is His place. Grace took Him down into Nazareth of Galilee; where is the heart that would say that is His place? Grace took Him into the house of Simon the Pharisee, unwanted and unappreciated and yet He went, but Simon’s house is not His place. Mighty love took Him into the waters of death, even the death of the cross, that is not His place. Though He has been there indeed at the time of its flood when all the power of death had to be met, Jordan is not His place. His conflict with the spiritual powers of darkness, which Jericho represents, has been entered on and He made a show of them openly, but Jericho is not His place. The betrayal and unfaithfulness of His people have found Him in the modern Philistine’s land only to bring out the wretchedness of their gods, that they have neither head nor hands but just the stump.
Some hearts have opened to find a place for Him, such as Martha did, for she received Him, conscious surely of how unworthy her place was for such a Visitor; and so it has been during the dark ages and onward, there have been the Obed-Edoms who cherished in their affections that blessed Person so unwanted in a Philistine world and so neglected by His unfaithful people.
I am sure we are all deeply conscious that at best we are but providing Him a tent. In grace He accepts the tent. It is but a tent. But when Solomon’s work is over our blessed Lord Jesus Christ will have a place that is His, enclosed in the holy affections of His people, their willing ears and hearts attentive to the voice of God that comes from Him, never again to be touched by unholy hands but guarded for ever under the wings of the cherubim. This is part of the great work of Solomon which David had in his heart when he determined to build a house for God. “Arise, Jehovah, into thy rest, thou and the ark of thy strength,” Psalm 132: 8.
And so this great work is proceeding and we are all glad to be part of it, to provide something for His place, to provide some living material which will give Christ His suitable place, where He will be for ever. The staves being drawn out signify that He will never move again, He has reached His place in the holy affections of those who love Him in His assembly.
But, then, dear brethren, what is God doing?
What is there for God coming into view? That is the next feature; for when the ark was enshrined in its place, then we have brought before us what is for God Himself. What begins as Christ has His place is the service of God; no one can have part in the service of God until Christ has some place, let no one deceive themselves, the true measure we can serve God is the place Christ has in our hearts — when the ark has its place, then there begin the movements of living praise, every part of the being brought into it, the hands and the lips and the breath, one might say, spirit, soul and body, brought into the service of God, and all united as having one common object; for as sure as Christ is in His place, there will be one sound of living praise. The jargon of the religious world is because of Christ being displaced, but unity in praise God-ward springs from the supremacy of Christ in the affections of His people.
The priests were suitably clothed in white linen, in holy purity. The singers used trumpets, lutes, harps, cymbals — instruments which bring into activity every part of man — and all the singers and trumpeters making one sound. Supposing you brought in Joab what would happen? He will never come in thank God! Supposing you brought in Adonijah, who would usurp the place Christ has, everything would be marred. Supposing that Shimei could come into that scene, who would make room for the flesh which gratifies itself — but it never can be, dear brethren. They were one “to make one voice to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah.” Everything that would bring in discord is judged in what we have been looking at this morning, and these priests have been attentive to Solomon’s instructions, to his proverbs, to his songs, to his unfolding of the great work of God in the universe in all its living character. So that it says they make one voice. And when that point is reached which God loves — one voice — then it says the cloud filled the house and all activity ceased while the blessed holy presence of God filled the scene — God all in all. That is the end. Then cometh the end. The end that God is working to is that His presence should fill the universe, not that of course service God-ward ceases in another sense, but this is the blessedness of the presence of God, so wonderful dear brethren, that no heart can fathom it. The few moments we have known in power in our souls stand out in our histories, never to be forgotten, but the great end of this present period of divine workmanship is this — that God has a dwelling place that He takes possession of as His own.
Let us not think that all this must await the future and nothing be known of it now.
The Lord promises to give one heart a touch of it if only that heart will yield Him the conditions He requires, “If any one love me, he will keep my word,” John 14: 23. His word is His known mind kept in holy affection, and the Lord promises that “we will come to him and make our abode with him,” John 14: 23. If, dear brethren, in our localities where the Lord has set us, where the Lord is working in our souls to form us into living stones to have part in this spiritual house, we will face having conditions suitable to Him, He will give us even now a taste of what is eternal. Christ having His place — the responses being united as one, the cloud of glory coming over our spirits. If one could quicken the longing for this to be realised, how thankful we would be. We would have it far far more if we would face the adjustment of the various moral questions that He brings to our door; if in holy living affections we would devote ourselves to His precious interests; if we would be attentive to His wisdom and His songs and His words. The consequence would be that He would be supreme in our hearts, there would be unity in the service of God and we should know something of the cloud of glory, the greatest moment ever known here when God is present and the cloud of the divine Presence is known to our spirits. These moments stand out as the foretaste of eternity, and let us not rest, and let us not evade the constant questions the more than Solomon raises, for He is but preparing the way for the great end to be known in our souls, our gatherings, our individual hearts may be, pending the great day of the unveiling when it shall be said, “What hath God wrought”! Numbers 23: 23. At that time it shall be said from a wondering universe, “What hath God wrought”!
May the Lord help us to honestly face what the true Solomon is raising with us each one individually as well as collectively, in view of this wonderful end, that the ark is in its place, that the service of God is united, making one voice, and then the conscious sense of the divine Presence filling all, for His Name’s sake.