The Ark of the Covenant

It is within the Holy of Holies that we find the Ark of the Covenant. The ark was made of acacia wood and overlaid with pure gold inside and out. The wood symbolized Christ’s human nature. Pure gold covered the wooden box, symbolic of His divine nature. The gold and wood together represented Christ’s two natures: His humanity-(the reason He called Himself “the Son of Man), and His deity.

When the ark was placed in the holy of holies; the blood of the sacrifices was sprinkled, and the incense burned, before it, by the high priest; and above it appeared the visible glory, which was the symbol of the Divine presence. It measured 3.75 feet long, 2.25 feet wide and 2.25 feet high (1100 mm x 700 mm x 700mm).

The ark contained within it the two tablets of the Testimony which are the Ten Commandments. The author of Hebrews adds that it contained a golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant (Hebrews 9: 4). These tablets are called the testimony; God in them testified His will.

This law was a testimony to the Israelites, to direct them in their duty, and would be a testimony against them, if they transgressed. This ark was not to be touched by human hands.

That is why when Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it because the oxen stumbled, the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God. (2 Samuel 6:6-7) Two wooden poles, overlaid with gold, were used to transport it and were not to be removed from the ark.

The mercy seat, or atonement cover, was a solid golden slab that fitted perfectly on top of the ark. This was a type of Christ in His sinless nature, which saw no corruption, in personal union with His Divine nature, atoning for our sins by His death. The Psalmist says:

Give ear, (Hear us) O Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock; You Who sit enthroned upon the cherubim of the ark of the covenant, shine forth (Psalm 80:1).

It was covered with a covering of gold, called the Mercy Seat. The blood-sprinkled Mercy Seat testified that a death had occurred. Once the blood was applied to the Mercy Seat, God’s holiness was satisfied, and His mercy was extended.  God is said to dwell or sit between the cherubim, on the Mercy Seat.  There He would give his law, and hear supplicants, as a Prince on His throne.

We are told to fearlessly, confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy for our failures and find grace to help in good time for every need (appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it) (Hebrews 4:16).

The fact that Jesus sat down is proof of His finished work. With judgment for our sin behind us and the mercy of God behind before us, The Lord hears us when we ask for intimacy with Him. Because without this intimate relationship with Him in prayer and intercession, all our programmes and prayers are meaningless, and if at all the presence of the Lord is not resting on a church, it operates in the strength of the flesh and becomes a mere empty façade (Hebrews 10:19-23).

The presence of God made the Ark of the Covenant the most significant piece of furniture in the tabernacle. Likewise, His presence should be the center of all our worship both individually and corporately.

In the book of 2 Chronicles 5:14, we are told that a thick cloud filled the Temple of the Lord and the priests could not continue their service because of the cloud, for the glorious presence of the Lord filled the Temple of God.

The Golden Cherubim

The golden cherubim, which were hammered out of the same piece of gold, had wings outstretched over the mercy seat and faces that looked downward in reverent worship. It denotes the angel’s attendance on the Redeemer, their readiness to do His will, their presence in the assemblies of saints, and their desire to look into the mysteries of the gospel. This is where Moses was to speak to God intimately of all the instructions he would give to the Israelites:

And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel (Exodus 25:22).

Again we read in the Book of Numbers that Moses had to enter the Holy of Holies to be in God’s presence and to hear God speak. And when Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the Testimony from between the two cherubim; and He spoke to Moses (Numbers 7:89 AMP).

It is here in the presence that God says, “I will speak intimately or commune with you there” It is here that the Third Person of the Godhead comes into your heart and you are transported into another realm, within that sacred veil, where the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit live. It is here that the deepest form of intimacy with the Lord takes place. It is here that you give up your will for His will to be done in your life. It is here that we see an abundance of holy gifts, fruit, incense, holiness, mercy, authority, and the sovereign rule of God in the bounds of covenant love.

Suddenly you become aware of the Lord’s presence and you then you sense that God is drawing you toward Himself.  The key in all of this process of intimate prayer is waiting. When you wait upon the Lord, you begin to experience His presence and to feel after Him. Isaiah says:

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint (Isaiah 40:31).

After you have submitted your soul to God you now cooperate with the Holy Spirit by waiting upon Him. The Lord sees that He can trust you and that you desire only His presence, not just His benefits. A wonderful peace that surpasses all understanding liberates you from all the cares of the world and you experience the intercession of Jesus. At this time the presence of God usually overwhelms you.

Remember the Lord has a way of giving us the part of Himself that makes us long for more. When His glory comes during intimate intercession, you lose all thoughts of time. You may experience intense weeping which you can’t explain or you will travail with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance (see Romans 8:26). It is the most glorious place!

The Life Of God in Soul of Man

The Lord will draw us into His presence and reveal Himself until we see that nothing else on this earth compares to being with Him. It will be hard to live a moment without knowing He is right beside us. Until we are drawn by the Holy Spirit, we don’t have it in us to seek God, that is why David says…Then will we not depart from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your name…Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? (Psalm 80: 18; 85:6).

In the natural, hunger means we are alive and well, but when we lose this hunger, we are prone to sickness which results in loss of appetite. The Lord draws us into His presence through the hunger He places in our hearts.

God knows that the human heart is incapable of seeking Him so He is the one who gives us the strength to do it. We don’t have the desire or hunger to seek God. But it is the Lord who places the hunger and thirst in us. Listen to what David says:

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? (Psalm 42: 1-2)

In the Most Holy Place, you will only hear the language of the heart where the Psalmist says “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me”(Psalm 42:7). This process may happen in an instant. It may take 10, 20 minutes or 2 hours, no matter how much or how little you experience, the point is just to enjoy communion with the Lord. You cannot find the right words to express this kind of intimate fellowship with the Lord. It is too scared to talk about.

St. Augustine said a long time ago that “God loves every man or woman as though there were no one else to love – O God! Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our souls are restless, searching, till they find rest in Thee.’’

Another old saint Gerhard Tersteesgen (1697-1769) wrote:

The secret of God’s presence is actually believed by very few, but are you aware, that if each one truly believed it, the whole world would at once be filled with the saints, and the earth would be truly Paradise? If men really believed it as they should, they would need nothing more to induce them to give themselves up, heart and soul, to this loving God. But now it is hid from their eyes.

Let us pray, my beloved, that God may be made known and manifested to many hearts, and thus in the light of His divine presence, the darkness of mere human life may be dispelled, and all things cast away, both without and within the heart, which hinder the growth and life of the soul, and which this light alone discovers and unveils. In all Christian practice there is nothing more universally needful, nothing simpler, sweeter, and more useful, nothing which so sums up in itself all Christian duties in one blessed act, as the realization of the loving presence of God.

You are a child of God. God’s nature is in you. It has only become overclouded. Withdraw from outward things. Pray, and you will make contact again with God, the source of your being. Forget yourself. Forget your selfish desires. Look to God. Die to your own will, live for God’s will and you will know true life. Every Christian without exception is called to have an intimate relationship with the Lord which is based on a personal experience with Him.

Everyone is called to prayer except those without a heart, for there must be a heart before they can be love. But who is without a heart? This intimate relationship with Him means a very personal and private relationship characterizing one’s deepest trust and nature marked by close association, contact, and familiarity.

We need revival but it has to start in our private communion with the Lord in the secret place. As Alice Smith has clearly said,

Revival begins in the prayer closet! It happens as a result of intercession! The reason why few of us accept God’s call to intimate intercession is that we don’t understand His original purpose nor are we committed to it. We have become so busy living out our own agendas that we are unwilling to take time to get to know Him intimately. And it is only out of an intimate relationship that intercession will flow. When we get serious about prayer, then tears, fasting and travail of intercession will cause the golden bowls of incense to heaven to overflow. (Revelation 5:8)

Intimacy and communion with the Lord is the foundation of our spiritual authority especially as we approach the challenges foretold in Scripture for these last days. We will need more spiritual authority which means more and more intimate fellowship with the Lord. The Book of Daniel says that those who know their God intimately will be strong and do strong exploits.

Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits (Daniel 11: 32).

When Moses under God’s instructions built the Tabernacle he was told to make it with three distinct areas: the outer court; the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies or (the Most Holy Place). Each of these sections contained certain pieces of furniture that were designed for specific purposes.

The Bronze Altar

The bronze altar for burnt offerings stood in the outer courtyard with its poles removed. It was a hollow wooden box, overlaid with bronze. It measured 4.5 feet high and 7.5 feet long and wide. (1400 mm x 2300 mm x 2300 mm) It was grated with bronze on the top and on the sides of the altar.

The outer court held the brazen altar or the altar of burnt offerings. It is here that we begin our approach to God. To the Israelites an altar was “a slaughter place.” It symbolized the cross and the blood, where Jesus Christ was led as a Lamb of God to the slaughter.

Therefore it is at the cross where we begin our approach to God. When sacrificing an animal according to God’s instructions, a priest would kill the animal, cut in pieces, and place it on the altar. God wants us to offer ourselves as living sacrifices daily laying down our lives, our desires and choosing to accept His will. By doing so we sacrifice our own wills and make an acceptable sacrifice that is pleasing to God (see Romans 12:1).

How does this apply to our intercession? We can’t work our own way into the presence of God. The place of intercession must be led by the Spirit of God, lest we defile the altar by our own works or good deeds to the finished work of Jesus Christ.

In her book, Beyond the Veil, Alice Smith says,

Intercession is a place of death, a place of lowliness and humility. It must be God directed, Christ honoring, and Spirit led. It is the authored and finished work of Christ who is the author and finisher of our faith flowing through us.

The Bronze Laver

The second item in the outer court was the Bronze Laver. It was made of bronze symbolizing that sin was still present. The Lord told Moses to set the laver between the Tent of Meeting and the altar and put water in it (Exodus 40:7). Why did God tell Moses to put the laver in that exact position? When you look at some published drawings of the Tabernacle furniture arrangement, the laver is off to one side or the other of the door into the sanctuary.

There is something that missing here. The laver was to be placed directly “between the doors of the Tent of Meeting and the altar of burnt offering which completes the “cross” made by the arrangement of the furniture, from the ark to the altar. It could have no significance to the Israelites of that time, but God who planned it had those in mind to whom Christ would one day say:

But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me (John 5:38-39).

At the foot of the “cross “there is an altar, signifying our complete surrender, and then the laver, picturing our cleansing, that we may enter in through Him who alone is “the Door” to the eternal Holy of Holies. Jesus said,, ‘I am the door’, ‘I am the good shepherd’, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’, and ‘I am the true vine’. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture (see John 10:1-9).

Because this laver was bronze, it represented those things in us that were not yet purified. How do we know that? It is because gold represents purity. The Apostle Peter writes,

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7).

When the ancient priest washed himself in the washbasin, he noted every detail of his reflection because the laver of bronze was made from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the Tabernacle of Meeting (Exodus 38:8). This was a preparation to enter into God’s holy presence; therefore the heart must be pure.  Our lives are also reflected, and all our weaknesses are exposed before us. When we wash in the water of God’s Word, we ask the Lord to purify our hearts, thoughts, and motives, because our hearts are deceptive and wicked (Jeremiah 17:9; Psalm 139:23-24).

For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account (Hebrews 4:12-13).

The Menorah or the Golden Lamp Stand

Inside the Holy Place were the seven-branched candle stick, which are the “seven Spirits of God (Revelation 1:4) it is also known as the Menorah or the Golden Lamp stand. It stood six feet tall and remained lit constantly. “And the fire upon the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be allowed to go out” (see Leviticus 6:12).

It also consisted of oil lamps (see Matthew 25:1-3), not candles which burn out. The light produced by the Menorah symbolizes Holy Spirit, who gives divine light and inspiration. Inside the Holy Place, the priest walked by its light. Intercession is dependent upon the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

We are the living temple of the Holy Spirit. Your physical body is the outer court of this temple. The soul is the inner court. This soul realm consists of the mind, will, and emotions and it is where our choices are made that bring either light or darkness into our lives.

Your spirit is the holy place. It is the inner sanctuary where the Lord dwells, and manifests His presence. You may be overcome with the “most holy emotions” (see 1 Corinthians 2:1-5) because of the presence of the Lord within you. You may laugh, weep, travail, groan with brokenness and great compassion. We should learn to recognize and discern the manifestations of God’s presence in our secret places.

But prayer and intercession is always and only the work of the Holy Spirit. This is where we come to realize our total dependence upon the Holy Spirit, because we do not know how to pray as we should unless the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. We reach deep inside our innermost being where the Spirit dwells and He intercedes for us and through us in ways that are beyond our comprehension:

The Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance. And He Who searches the hearts of men knows what is in the mind of the Holy Spirit (what His intent is), because the Spirit intercedes and pleads (before God) in behalf of the saints according to and in harmony with God’s will (Romans 8:26-28).

That is when we are assured and know that all things are working together for good to and for those who love God and are called according to His design and purpose.

Table of Shewbread 

Then there was the Table of Shewbread “And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always (Exodus 25:30). This table is where the priests placed the “bread of the presence” before the Lord. Twelve loaves six of fresh bread were set in two rows and placed on this table daily (Leviticus 24: 5-9).

Our intercession comes from communion with the Lord which comes as we fellowship with Him by eating the Bread of Life–Jesus Himself who knew to be God in human flesh. John asserts that Jesus is the ‘manna’, the ‘bread which came down from heaven from heaven’….. He who eats this bread will live forever (John 6:26-58).

The Altar of Incense

The Altar of Incense represents the ministry of prayer and intercession. Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (Revelation 5:8) It was the altar of incense that stood directly in front of the veil leading into the Most Holy Place. It was nearest to the Ark of the Covenant that contained the presence of God. The Psalmist declares:

Let my prayer be set forth as incense before You, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice (Psalm 141:2).

In the Old Testament, it was only the High Priest and other selected priests that could minister at the altar of incense. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies carrying the golden censer. He brought incense from the inner court and threw it upon the burning coals. He held the censer in his hand while the incense burned. The incense would fill the Holy of Holies and hide the mercy seat. The smoke from the altar of incense covered the priest’s humanity and this protected his life (see Numbers 16: 17-18).

In the New Testament, as Christians we have become priests, a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation set apart to the worship of God (1 Peter 2:9). As believers we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus and go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. Why would we have this privilege? Because our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean and our bodies have been washed with pure water (Hebrews 10: 19-22).

It is the blood of Jesus Christ that gives you access to the Holy of Holies today. When you worship Him you are making smoke as sweet incense, you perfume the atmosphere with a sweet fragrance which attracts His presence. The worship smoke releases His covering mercy so you can commune with Him in an intimate relationship. This incense that was used in the Tabernacle was called sweet incense. The Lord gave the composition of this special incense directly to Moses in the Book of Exodus (see Exodus 30:34-38).

But unfortunately, the Israelites misused the holy incense in connection with pagan worship practices and the judgment of God fell upon those who misused the incense and the censer. An example is found in Leviticus. This abominable act was also mentioned three times in the Scriptures; Numbers 3:4, 26:61 and 1 Chronicles 24:2.

Today, as Christians, the true burning of incense is not like using the same substance they used in the Old Testament, instead it is the prayers and intercession of the body of Christ being lifted before the Lord’s throne. The presence of the Holy Spirit sets our hearts on fire with the compassion and power of God.

True Intercession

But true intercession is not presenting to the Almighty a prayer list of the things that have burdened our hearts. True intercession happens when God Himself takes the incense of His own heart and sprinkles it upon the Holy Spirit fire that He has already ignited within the hearts of His saints.

When the Lord Jesus finds a purified vessel He can use a priestly censer, He ignites the fire of the Holy Spirit within that person. Then He takes some of the incense that He has carried in His own heart and sprinkles it on the coals. The result is an explosion of prayer. This is how the burden of the Lord becomes the prayer of the saints.

Prayer is not just creating our own mixture of ingredients and, then bring them to God for His response. It is very easy to present to Him the burdens and cares of own lives, instead of discerning what is on His heart and making that our prayer agenda. The only way we can know what is on God’s heart is to read, study, and meditate on His Word. If we to be effective watchmen on the walls, we must become intimately acquainted with God’s Word.

As Andrew Murray says in his great classic, With Christ in the School of Prayer says,

It is the connection between His Word and our prayers that Jesus points to when He says, If ye abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, ye shall ask whatever ye will, and it shall be done unto you. …God is the infinite Being in whom everything is life, power, spirit and truth–in the deepest meaning of the words. When God reveals Himself in His Words, He does indeed give Himself-His love and His life, His will and His power-to those who receive these words, in a reality that surpasses our comprehension.

In every promise, He gives us the power to grasp and possess Himself. In every command, He allows us to share His will, His holiness, and His perfection. God’s Word gives us God Himself! That Word is nothing less than the Eternal Son, Christ Jesus.

Therefore, all of Christ’s words are God’s words, full of a Divine and quickening life and power. The words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. If My words abide in you. The condition is simple and clear. In His words, His will is revealed. As the words abide in me, His will rules me. My will becomes the empty vessel which His will fills, and the willing instrument which His rules.