What must be found with every soul that is God's dwelling-place
I. THE ARK (Exodus 25:10-22). The place where the Lord meets and communes with us.
1. It contained the testimony. The light of the meeting-place with God is the word concerning righteousness and sin. There is no communion with God if that be left out. The law which searches and condemns us must be honoured as God's testimony.
2. Between God and the law we have broken is the mercy seat, sin's glorious covering, on which the cherubim—emblems of the highest intelligence and purity of creation—look, and before which we also bow, with adoring awe.
3. Over the mercy seat rests the cloud of God's glory. We shall meet God only as we seek him here. His glory can be fully revealed and the might of his salvation proved here alone.
II. THE TABLE OF SHEW-BREAD, THE SOUL'S ENTIRE CONSECRATION.
1. The bread was the emblem of God's people. The twelve cakes represented the twelve tribes. The fruit of the great Husbandman's toil is to be found in us.
2. God's joy is to be found in us. The Lord's portion is his people.
3. We are to be prepared and perfected for his presence, and to be for ever before him (Exodus 25:30).
III. THE CANDLESTICK, THE EMBLEM OF THE LORD'S PEOPLE, AND THEIR WORLD-SERVICE.
1. It is made of pure gold, the only metal that loses nothing, though passed through the fire and whose lustre is never tarnished.
2. It was the only light of the holy place. The true Christian Church the only light which in the world's darkness reveals the things of God and the pathway to his presence.—U.