Some of the accounts of the Passover contained in the Scriptures are so beautiful to us that we never lose sight of them. In the gospel of John there are a number of times that the different feasts were named, for instance, “Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews was at hand” (John 6:4), and “Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Tabernacles, was at hand” (John 7:2). Many of the chapters were actually built around the Feasts that they kept. The feeding of the five thousand, recorded in John 6, should actually be viewed in its relation to the Passover. This event probably set the stage for something in the people that would have been unbelievable, yet how they did miss it! I do not believe that the crowds, five thousand men, besides women and children, came into the wilderness to see the Lord. I believe they were following a common trail and were making their way up to Jerusalem, because the sixth chapter of John tells us that the Passover, the feast of the Jews was at hand. John 6:4.
They simply stopped by the way in the wilderness to listen to Jesus teach. As He taught them, finally it began to grow dark, too late for the people to make their way where they could buy food. Also, because there were so many of them, there would have been no place where they could really go. Their provision either had to be with them, or else they had to make their way into a town where they could buy food and prepare it themselves. Under those conditions Jesus began to feed them. They retaliated by wanting to make Him king, for it seemed so logical, Scripturally, because their fathers had received manna in the wilderness, and they thought they should at least have bread even once a week, in the day and age they were living in. They only wanted the loaves and the fishes, but the Lord immediately began to bring forth the spiritual meaning, telling them He was the Manna that came down from heaven, that He was the Living Bread.
Today too, He wants to change everything from religious observances, such as unleavened bread and wine, until they become acts of faith by which we anticipate the presence of the Lord and the spiritual reality coming forth to us. He said, “My words are spirit and they are life” (John 6:63).” Labor not for the meat that perisheth. John 6:27. Do not have your mind on the lower order of things, but lift your heart up to the higher realm. If you understand this principle you can understand the Scriptures, because everything that is written in the Old Testament, as well as in the New Testament, is written with an example or a type or an analogy to it. Until you get to the deep, secret, spiritual meaning, rarely are you able to have any comprehension at all of what God was speaking about.
All of us have seen observances held on a low, natural plane. However, we are striving to come into the spiritual reality of an observance, rather than just keeping the form. This is all by way of saying that it is most important that we do not think of the Feast of Passover as an observance or a restoration of an old, out-of-date experience that belonged to the Old Testament, or to some Jewish historical event. Although it was a memorial forever, it was always pointing towards something. I Corinthians 5:7 says, “Christ our Passover is crucified for us.” And we do not understand anything about the Old Testament at all until we discover that all of it was a foreshadowing of Christ. We have the reality of it in this Walk.
While we keep the Passover approximately the same time of the year as it has been kept for many centuries, we are not keeping it at all like the Jews keep it; neither are they keeping it at all like they used to keep it. To them it has become a tradition, altered somewhat, and today they do not really understand what they are doing. But God is concerned that we open our heart to the Lord Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb, and that we begin to receive the strength and life from the blood of the Lamb that will mean the key of our being delivered from bondage into the glorious liberty of the Lord. I am not even looking for some deliverance like the Israelites had. I am looking for something far greater.
In the Old Testament, by virtue of a judgment that was simultaneously ministered throughout all of Egypt in the slaying of the first-born, the Passover was kept, and they were delivered physically out of Egypt. The tragedy is that it was on such a physical plane that they were never really delivered out of Egypt as far as their heart was concerned. They were out of Egypt, physically, geographically, and no longer slaves, except for one thing: who could break the bondage of Egypt in their heart? Who could stop them from lusting after the flesh pots of Egypt? Who could stop them from being so attached to Egypt in their mind and spirit that they were going to want to choose a captain and go back?
Although the first Passover was such a mighty miracle and fulfillment God had brought, I look for a Passover that will be far greater. I look for the Lord to bring another Passover to us in this end time that will do more than deliver us from the geography of this world or from the pressures of being harassed financially, economically, mentally, or socially by the old order. I look for God to begin by removing it from our hearts, that there should be a judgment upon those things which have for a long time been such a deep unconscious bondage upon us that we have not been able to rise and do the will of God as we would.
Oh, the Lord loose us from the Egypt of our flesh and bring us into the glorious liberty of the sons of God! The manifestation of the sons of God will have to mean their liberation from these things. They are groaning and yearning for that deliverance, that final stage of redemption of the body that is to come. Let the cry of our hearts be, “Lord, teach us the true meaning of all things.”
In this message, I want to point out what the Lord has been showing me about the Ark of the Covenant and its contents and what it really means. In a true sense, everyone in the Walk is portrayed by the Ark of the Covenant. You say, “I thought the Ark of the Covenant represented God.” It does. But it also represents you.
We read in Hebrews 9:1–4a, Now even the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary. For there was a tabernacle prepared, the outer one, in which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread; this is called the holy place. And behind the second veil, there was a tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense. You can understand, according to the books of Exodus and Leviticus, that this is not proper. The altar of incense was not in the Holy of Holies. It was in the Holy Place. But the rending of the veil opened up the way. At the crucifixion of Christ, the veil was rent from top to bottom, so it positions our worship now, not afar off, but literally in the Holy of Holies, in the very throne room of His presence.… and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant. And above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat; but of these things we cannot now speak in detail. Hebrews 9:4–5. Paul, in writing Hebrews, felt that he could not speak of this in detail, perhaps because the revelation of the real significance of the Ark of the Covenant was to remain for the end time as the thing portraying the presence of the Lord with us in the days of the Kingdom.
The Ark of the Covenant has always represented the presence of the Lord; people were not even to touch it. In the days of David one man touched it, and he dropped dead for his folly. It was a holy, sacred box that they did not touch. There were rings on the sides of the ark, through which staves were put, one on each side so the priests could carry the ark upon their shoulders. In a very real sense, they literally carried the presence of the Lord with them. Wherever they went in their wanderings, or if they went into battle, they carried the Ark of the Covenant with them. It meant, “We carry the presence of the Lord with us.”
The most important thing we can see about the Ark of the Covenant is that God made two things in the Old Testament times through which we can understand His presence. The first was the pillar of fire and the cloud which sovereignly led the Israelites; where it went, they went. Then He gave the Ark of the Covenant which they carried at their initiative. But God forsook His symbolic presence in that ark when their hearts were disobedient and rebellious. One time the Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant and put it in the house of Dagon, the fish god of the Philistines. The fish god fell over and broke, and all the Philistine men in that city began to break out with hemorrhoids, so they decided to send the ark back. They put it upon a cart pulled by two cows but they kept the calves, thinking, “If this is not really God, the cows will turn around and go back to their calves. But if this is really God, they will continue down the road with the ark.” Contrary to all the instincts of cows, they took the ark back to the place it belonged (I Samuel 5 and 6). This is symbolic of how the presence of the Lord is carried at our initiative.
In this Walk the Lord leads us by prophecy and revelation. It is like a pillar of fire leading us; we have the initiative of God moving upon us sovereignly to give us direction. At the same time the Lord is literally giving us the initiative to take His cross upon our shoulders, and carry His presence to the ends of the earth, into every battle and situation in our lives. Try to visualize that when you go to work or school and the battle becomes rough. Say, “Hallelujah, I am carrying the presence of God”; then all the satanic forces will have to cope with the presence of the Lord.
We should be more concerned about the presence of the Lord and more aware of carrying His presence into every situation than to always be apprehensive because we are being hit or fought by devil power. We should rise up with authority and dominion and faith expressed in the absolute certainty that in everything it shall please God to bruise Satan under our feet shortly. This is the hour for principalities and powers to see the great manifestation of the presence of God overwhelming everything that comes against us. This is the time for us to recognize that we have been delivered from the oppression of him who has kept us in bondage to the fear of death all our lives, that his power is forever broken, and we no longer are subjected to it. Carrying the presence of the Lord should be our emphasis.
While the Ark of the Covenant symbolized the presence of the Lord, in our application it symbolizes us just as much. Exodus 37 describes the ark. It was of acacia wood overlaid with gold. At the top was the mercy seat symbolizing our humanity, and God comes to literally cover our humanity with His divine nature. This is what He desires to do.
The gold overlay of the ark is a symbol of God; the wood becomes the symbol of our being hidden in God. In addition, the cherubim over it are always gazing down upon the mercy seat, as though they are witnesses; for at the mouth of two or three witnesses everything shall be established (Deuteronomy 19:15). They are witnessing the ministry of mercy to you, that throughout all eternity God has witnesses of His mercy and grace He has extended to you, giving you release and victory over the accuser who would present any manner of charge against you.
The Ark of the Covenant had certain contents that were very important. There was a gold jar full of manna. The manna represents the Living Word, the sustenance that the Lord gave. In Exodus 16, we read how the Lord fed the children of Israel; He rained manna down, and they had to gather of it every morning. If they did not, it melted as the sun hit it. It was a highly sensitive, living food, so it had to be gathered early. Some thought to disobey the Lord and gathered twice the amount needed for one day. The next morning it had bred worms and was foul. Likewise, we must be careful not to get worms in our manna. It is to be gathered every day that we live.
However, in the Ark of the Covenant, by a miracle of preservation, was a golden vessel full of manna. Why didn’t that manna spoil? What kept it? It was the miracle manna. In Revelation, the Lord tells those who overcome that He is going to give them of the hidden manna to eat (Revelation 2:17). He is talking about manna that was hidden away in the Ark of the Covenant. He is going to give them the Living Word that comes straight from the presence of the Lord Himself. This is what is to be hidden away in your heart. When you hide it away in the Ark of Covenant in your own heart, it will not spoil; it will be eternal. It will live on and on and on. Very often the Holy Spirit causes you to recall, from years past, words that have been spoken over you, and they begin to live in your heart afresh and anew. The manna God gave the Israelites was a type of the Living Word that God is bringing to our hearts.
The next article in the ark was Aaron’s rod which budded. That rod could not have been long, because the Ark of the Covenant was not large. In order to know that God had really chosen Aaron as high priest over Israel, all the priests brought their rods with their names on them. Moses placed the rods before the presence of the Lord. The next morning God showed the one He had chosen to be the high priest. When Moses brought the rods back, all were just as they were before, with the exception of Aaron’s. Aaron’s rod had leaves and branches, blossoms and almonds, everything except roots. This was a symbol of what the Lord was trying to show—the real ministry that He has chosen is not supported by human roots; it is not fed by human ability. It does not come forth with any visible evidence of where it comes from or why it comes as it comes. I hope you understand what I am trying to say about the ministry—it has to be supernatural.
Before Jacob died, he prophesied to all his sons. To Joseph he prophesied that he was like a tree whose branches were very fruitful, and they leaned over the wall. The people who came by could see the branches and all of the beautiful fruit, but they did not know that it was fed secretly, in a way that they could not understand (Genesis 49:22–26).
We too are His branches. He is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5). There is no visible evidence of any root structure in the human nature that can bring forth what we see in our brothers and sisters. The ministry is not a product of human ability. It is not a product of human preparation or human training or human discipline. It is something far beyond. There is no visible root, and yet we are bearing much fruit unto the Lord. He is the heavenly vine, and we are the branches. If someone is looking around for the root to lay an ax to, it will not work, because the root structure is supernatural. It is in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you could kill Christ, then you could destroy the source of our life. It is His life that flows into us. If we abide in Him, His words abide in us and we bear much fruit. We can ask what we will and it shall he done unto us (John 15:7). This is the key, the secret of Aaron’s budding rod. It comes forth constantly as the real answer for ministry.
I have told you many times that the significance of waiting on the Lord must not escape your attention. You must understand—they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength: they begin to grow strong; they run and do not become weary; they mount up with wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31). They become like Samson. No one knew what made him strong. It was not his muscles. It was not because he was such a superman that he was able to kill a thousand men with part of a skeleton, the jawbone of an ass that had bleached in the sun. People were set to find out his secret. Finally Delilah discovered it. Samson had a covenant with God, whereby when he would go out the Spirit of the Lord would be upon him. The Philistines could not tell why he was so strong until Samson revealed the secret. It was coming from the Lord. When they destroyed his covenant with God, then they rendered him helpless (Judges 16:4–21).
We will be as invincible as the Lord Himself, because we are bearing fruit of ourselves. It is not coming forth from man, nor by the will of man, but something is coming forth from God. We are becoming like Aaron’s budding rod in the Ark of the Covenant which was forever a witness and a testimony of what true ministry really is. When a man prophesies, speaks, lays hands on the sick and they are healed, or rises up in the Spirit with something to proclaim, it is created beyond all the laws of nature, physics, or anything else. How can it happen? What is the source? Like Aaron’s rod that had no roots, there is no natural explanation for the fruitfulness. Nevertheless, that is the way God says, “This is My man. This is My high priest, Aaron. This is My prophet. This is My apostle. This is the one.”
How can we be proved? How can God prove we are His people? Only by our continually bearing fruit. People will look at us and say, “We do not understand what makes that movement go. By all reason it should be dying out.” The same source of critics first said, “How can it be really of God? If that was an apostle’s ministry and a true thing from God, there would be more people in it.” Then churches started springing up everywhere and they said, “If that were really of God it would not be growing so fast.” There is only one reason why the blessings are upon the Walk as they are; it is because of an invisible source of supply, and as we wait upon the Lord it is His presence, His anointing, and His flow that comes to us. A beautiful thing flows to us from God, and the world cannot understand it. People looked at the disciples and saw the astonishing things they were doing and speaking, and perceiving they were ignorant and unlearned men, they wondered about them, saying, “We can’t understand it!” Likewise, we are going to be budding rods of Aaron, bearing all manner of fruit graciously before the Lord because we wait upon Him, and the flow of His Spirit comes to us.
A point to remember, when you are entering in with zeal to have a real meeting with God in your heart, is to be sure that you learn how to tune into Him. That is the only secret. There is something in people that would like to take credit even for a meeting with God: “I wrestled with God for two weeks, and He met me.” Some of the glory is going to the two weeks of wrestling. Forget it, because He has to get all the glory. You need to say, “I am nothing. I have no root, no source of supply but Thee, O Lord. I am utterly abandoned to Thee. Without You I can do nothing.”
When we come into a place of total dependence, our waiting upon the Lord becomes an electrifying contact of faith which causes the very power and life of the Spirit to flow into us and change us drastically. As we gaze openly with unveiled faces, completely exposed to Him, in contact with Him, as if spiritual electrodes were fastened to us, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord, the Spirit (II Corinthians 3:18). That is the way He will live within our hearts. It will spring forth like Aaron’s rod which budded.
Hebrews 9 also mentions the tables of the covenant, the tables of stone in the Ark of the Covenant. They were the second set, because the first set was broken when Moses came down from the mountain and saw the people committing sin before the golden calf. Deuteronomy 9:17 says that Moses then cast the stones down and broke them. The commandments have been broken consistently since then, regularly and persistently. Sometimes with a bad conscience, sometimes defiantly, sometimes trying to back up the action with reasons why they should be broken, they are still being broken.
The covenant first written by the finger of God was written again on tables of stone and placed in the Ark of the Covenant. The laws were not an end in themselves, but as the writer of Hebrews said, a covenant would come, “Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt (the Passover had brought the covenant between God and Israel immediately); for they did not continue in My covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” It is to be a precious covenant written upon the heart. And this is also what Paul is saying in II Corinthians 3:3, … written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart. God is writing that word and that covenant upon our hearts.
“And they shall not teach every one his fellowcitizen, and every one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.” Hebrews 8:11. Writing it upon the heart surpasses the process we have known, by which the words of God (the truths of God) are taught to the mind and the person is dependent upon memory and reason to analyze, digest, and arrive at whatever truth he can get out of it. It can be likened to eating a food that is potent, yet only being capable of assimilating a millionth of what is really in it. People have processed the Word of God, in preaching it, until the life has been taken out of it. This is being done in the processing of our foods. Instead of having living food, for instance, the oils are squeezed out of beautiful grains. They are then ground and left with little that would be of any benefit, other than a carbohydrate that is deadly in its nature and does not have power to give life, besides what has been added to keep bugs and bacteria from even living on it. It can be a miserable process trying to digest it. You may receive only a fraction of good that God had intended.
Many preachers process beautiful chapters of God’s Word until they have something workable for sermons and Sunday school lessons that will not offend or convict anyone: “Everybody will come to church and have a little sermon that will make them feel so good!” No one is offended, because the life is processed out of it. Today God is bringing us the Living Word. It is beginning to come fresh and alive. A beautiful level is coming forth. Our brothers are neither processors, deceitful handlers, nor peddlers of the Word of God, but they are becoming men of God who are speaking a word from God.
God wants to bring people one step further, where the word is not assimilated first in the mind, then worked over and analyzed until there is finally only a little nugget of truth. We do not want to thresh a mountain to get a little nugget of gold. No wonder people lose heart. There are people all over the world who are hungry for God, holy people who love the Lord and would give anything to receive a square meal like we have every service. Have you known what it means to exist for weeks looking for one real word from the Lord that would stir your heart?
The tables of testimony in the Ark of the Covenant are the symbol within your heart of the word God has to speak. You will be a holy depository of that word. It will be etched upon your very heart, not derived from reasoning and analysis. It will be what God has spoken to your spirit, what He has written upon it. No one will need to come to you and say, “Know the Lord,” because you have come to know Him and He is very real to you. He is living within your heart.
And above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat… Hebrews 9:5. We literally have one in each of our lives. God has said, “Here is a mercy seat.” In the Old Testament is the beautiful story of Abraham. Wherever he went he built an altar unto the Lord. Approximately five hundred years later, instructions for an altar were finally given (Exodus 20:24–26). An altar could not be built up high with steps, or there would be the exposing of nakedness in climbing up to the altar of the Lord. This was not to be like the heathen, who did such things. In those days men wore skirts, as well as women. They were not to expose their nakedness when they came before the Lord. Neither were they to add a chisel or any instrument to the rocks used to build an altar. They were to be beautiful rocks, untouched by man.
What was that a symbol of? It was to show that your way to God is not manufactured by man. You will not be able to buy your altar. You might say, “I don’t want to go out and look for rocks. I will just order mine out of a mail-order catalog. They have beautiful little altars that you can carry around. They look like real rock, but they are molded out of plastic and easily assembled. Besides, I wouldn’t want a big rock monstrosity in my yard; everyone would know I have an altar.”
God has been trying to speak to people’s hearts that the way to God, the altar before the Lord, is to be untouched by human hands. There is no way we can come before the Lord and say, “Lord, I worked it out. I have built my own tower of Babel, and I am reaching up to God. I invented a nice way to get to You. Do You like the prayers I make, Lord? Do You like the songs I sing? I have a beautiful liturgy, my own little song and dance.” Others might say, “I have my way to You, Lord, just saying my beads, one after the other. I can go through them quickly. As I go through them, I know I have found my way to the Lord. That is my little altar to the Lord.” But it is made with hands.
Like the song we sing, “Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to Thy cross I cling,” that is the only way to God. The altar cannot be touched by human works. Not of works, less any man should boast. Ephesians 2:9. The way to God is not by the way of human efforts in religion; it is by the way of faith through the grace of God to accept His absolute unspoiled plan to redeem us. We come up before the Lord, to the mercy seat. Each of us must have our own altar. We must have our own mercy seat by which we come to the Lord.
That was symbolized in the Old Testament. During the Day of Atonement the high priest sprinkled blood upon the mercy seat, which was cast of one solid piece of gold with two cherubim that had their wings folded over and touching one another. It was a picture of the divine spirit world that is always bearing witness to your mercy seat, the mercy seat God has ordained, where the blood of the Passover Lamb comes and the judgment is averted. The blood of sacrifice is laid there upon your heart. The evidence is always there: “The blood has been applied, and this individual is saved, redeemed. He is holy.” All the recording angels and the hosts bear witness. It is written in the Lamb’s book of life, “This one has been visited at the mercy seat.”
Keep that mercy seat. It is not a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Every day you come and say, “Lord, before all the heavenly hosts, before Your eternal, heavenly presence, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, I come to You for mercy; I come to You for redemption, O Thou blessed Passover Lamb. This hour, Thy blood is made real to me again, and in this moment I reach unto Thee, O Lord Jesus Christ.”
Like Abraham of old, you have your altar. Wherever he went, he built his altar, but you carry it in your heart—a mercy seat. The tables of the covenant are now a new covenant in His precious blood. It is a covenant of mercy. In the Old Testament, the blood had to be given to atone for sin, but we have come to the blood of the covenant which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel (Hebrews 12:24). The blood of Abel cried out of the ground for vengeance. God put a mark upon the murderer of Abel, and he was driven out from the presence of the Lord. He said, “My punishment is greater than I am able to bear” (Genesis 4:13). But we who bear the blood of Jesus Christ find that blood continually speaks to the Father for mercy, “For them I died that they can be free.”
We want to be like Aaron’s budding rod and tune in to the blood that cleanses, to the life that sustains and bears fruit in our lives. The Lord will change us where we need to be changed. Our heart’s one desire is to break the bondage of past defeats, restrictions, and limitations, and to do God’s will.
Open up to His presence. That is what gives meaning to your life. Carry His presence in every battle, every situation, and every need. Carry it every day.