"I, JESUS"
G.A.Brown
This passage is most attractive, dear brethren. I think we all would find it so as having some appreciation of Christ. Reading these scriptures is not to be just an intellectual exercise but to direct our hearts and affections to the Lord Jesus. The ark of the covenant is one of the most remarkable types in Scripture of the Lord Jesus, and I suppose its particular bearing is that it is the centre of the divine system. We might well ask ourselves then as to whether Christ is the centre of our lives or whether something else might be the centre, with the Lord Jesus merely added. That was what it was, you remember, at the marriage in Cana when no doubt the bridal couple were the central attraction and the mother of Jesus was there and Jesus too; He was invited as well. That showed a very poor appreciation of the Lord Jesus. It might be to their credit that He was there at all but, like most of us in our experience, other things, perhaps what is natural, are the main things. As Christians we must have the Lord included as it were, but that is far below the divine intent. Christ is to be the central object - "He is before all", Col 1: 17. He is the centre of God's universe and will be eternally, and He is to be the centre of our lives now.
David, in his young days, was thinking about the ark. "We heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood", Ps 132: 6. It was never far from David's thoughts. The ark was the thing that really dominated his life. May it be so with each one of us, that the Lord Jesus should be the dominating object in our lives and all else will take its right place as He has His.
The ark has been through many vicissitudes, as we know, in the course of the history of God's testimony. It has been into battle, it has even been into captivity. What all these things mean is known to the saints. Think of what it was when they came to take Jesus and He was actually in captivity, what it was when He went into death and the waters of the Jordan were driven back! All these things, as you contemplate them, make Christ greater and more attractive in the way He has gone. Then too, at one time, the golden pot that held the manna was there, reminding us of the preciousness to God of the lowly life of Jesus; and how we need to be reminded of it! The rod of Aaron that budded was there also. It was put there, as the Scripture says, as a token for the sons of rebellion. It came about because of rebellion; and we know what this means, too, in our own experiences.
What I want to point out in this section is that there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone that Moses put there at Horeb. This is the end of the journey, all is complete. There are no sons of rebellion present here. There is no need here for anything that has come into God's ways. It is just like the Lord Jesus at the end, as we have been reminded - He says " I Jesus ", Rev 22: 16. There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone that Moses put there at Horeb. It is just as it was at the beginning, it is the same Jesus. I have often been affected by the fact that the ark is just the same size at the end as it was at the beginning. If you compare the dimensions of the oracle in the temple with the corresponding dimensions in the tabernacle system everything is much greater, much larger, much more magnificent; and how fitting it is that at the end of God's ways there should be something in display that redounds to His own glory. Everything returns to the God who has been behind it all; but the affecting thing to the heart that loves Jesus is that the ark is there just the very same, and there was nothing in it but the two tables of stone. It speaks to our hearts of the One who said, typically, "Thy law is within my heart" (Ps 40: 8), the One who answered perfectly and fully to the will of God; and as come to the end He is just the very same, the same Jesus. He is the One that we can know tonight, every one of us. Whatever the needs may be in the wilderness way there is provision for hem; even to the extent of rebellion, there is a divine answer to rebellion, God has righteously answered it. All these things come into our lives but we find He is just the same, there was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone that Moses put there at Horeb. How fitting then that glory should fill the house of Jehovah! Beloved, what we are having tonight is intended to make Christ more attractive to every one of us. May it indeed be so, for His Name's sake.
EDINBURGH
April 1974