The End Time Church: From the Cathedrals to the Catacombs

By Dan L. White

Copyright 2020 by Dan L. White, all rights reserved.

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB) which is in the public domain.

Chapter 86

The Ark, the Law and the Mercy

I will not mention all the movies, documentaries and TV specials that have been made about the Ark of the Covenant, because there are so many.

Okay, I will mention the one you’re most likely remembering, where an archaeologist races to find the Ark before Hitler gets it and uses it to conquer the world.

One little problem with that scenario?

God does not work through evil people.

Like Hitler.

Or Hophni and Phinehas.

Hitler was the wicked son of old man Hitler, and Hophni and Phinehas were the wicked sons of Eli, a priest and judge of Israel. Hophni and Phinehas were also priests – but perverse priests. The content of their character counted way more than their godly position. Those with evil character in God appointed positions are doomed to lose those positions, as Hophni and Phinehas did.

They also lost their lives.

1Sam 4
2) The Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined battle, Israel was struck before the Philistines; and they killed of the army in the field about four thousand men.
3) When the people had come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why has Yahweh struck us today before the Philistines? Let us get the ark of the covenant of Yahweh out of Shiloh to us, that it may come among us, and save us out of the hand of our enemies.”
4) So the people sent to Shiloh; and they brought from there the ark of the covenant of Yahweh of Armies, who sits above the cherubim: and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.
5) When the ark of the covenant of Yahweh came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again.
6) When the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, “What does the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean?” They understood that the ark of Yahweh had come into the camp.
7) The Philistines were afraid, for they said, “God has come into the camp.” They said, “Woe to us! For there has not been such a thing before.
8) Woe to us! Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.
9) Be strong, and behave like men, O you Philistines, that you not be servants to the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Strengthen yourselves like men, and fight!”
10) The Philistines fought, and Israel was struck, and they fled every man to his tent: and there was a very great slaughter; for there fell of Israel thirty thousand footmen.
11) The ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain.

So the aforementioned movie Raiders of the Lost Ark need not have been made. If Hitler had found the Ark, not only would it not have done him any good – it would have done him in. Steven Spielberg, a Jew who directed the movie, should have known that.

The Ark of the Covenant was a wooden box covered with gold, a model of Yahweh’s throne in heaven. Yahweh Himself gave the plans for the box.

Here they are.

Exod 25
10) “They shall make an ark of acacia wood. Its length shall be two and a half cubits, its breadth a cubit and a half, and a cubit and a half its height.

The Ark was not a big box, roughly four feet by two feet and about two feet tall.

Exod 25
11) You shall overlay it with pure gold. You shall overlay it inside and outside, and you shall make a gold molding around it.

The wood was covered with pure gold, as you might expect for God’s throne.

Exod 25
12) You shall cast four rings of gold for it, and put them in its four feet. Two rings shall be on the one side of it, and two rings on the other side of it.
13) You shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.
14) You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry the ark.
15) The poles shall be in the rings of the ark. They shall not be taken from it.

The Ark was to be carried by poles that were always left in the rings on the Ark. The carriers could touch the poles but they could not touch the Ark. Don’t lose the poles!

Exod 25
16) You shall put the testimony which I shall give you into the ark.

This box was specifically made to hold Yahweh’s testimony. The Ark of the Covenant was also called the Ark of Testimony, because it held God’s testimony. It was called the Ark of the Covenant because the people made a covenant to keep God’s testimony.

Mickelson’ s Enhanced Strong’s Dictionary says the Hebrew word “eduwth” means “testimony,” and God’s testimony is what God has testified to. And what was the testimony that Yahweh gave, that was put into the Ark of the Testimony?

The Ten Commandments.

Yahweh testified those at Mt. Sinai. He spoke them with His own voice and wrote them with His own finger.

Exod 20:1 (The Ten Commandments)
1) God spoke all these words, saying,

Exod 31:18
18) He gave to Moses, when he finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, stone tablets, written with God’s finger.

Those two stone tablets with God’s testimony were put into the Ark of the Testimony. His Ten Commandments, the law of God, are what God testified to.

Near the end of his life, Moses said —

Deut 10
1) At that time Yahweh said to me, “Cut two tables of stone like the first, and come up to me onto the mountain, and make an ark of wood.
2) I will write on the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke, and you shall put them in the ark.”
3) So I made an ark of acacia wood, and cut two tables of stone like the first, and went up onto the mountain, having the two tables in my hand.
4) He wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten commandments, which Yahweh spoke to you on the mountain out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly: and Yahweh gave them to me.
5) I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there they are as Yahweh commanded me.

The law was inside the Ark. But on top of the Ark, above the law, was —

Exod 25
17) You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth.

21) You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you.
22) There I will meet with you, and I will tell you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the testimony, all that I command you for the children of Israel.

The lid was called the mercy seat. That’s where Yahweh sat.

Num 7
89) When Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Yahweh, he heard his voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the Testimony, from between the two cherubim: and he spoke to him.

Where Yahweh is – is mercy. Yahweh’s seat is the seat of mercy.

And God’s mercy is above the law.

The mercy seat on top of the Ark does not do away with the Ten Commandments inside the Ark. The law is not done away by mercy. Without the law there is no need for mercy. The Ten Commandments are enduring law, but God’s mercy can forgive transgressions of that law.

Eph 2
4) But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us,
5) even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

A stick was also put into the Ark — Aaron’s rod.

Israel had complained against Aaron the high priest. God had them take twelve rods, one for each of twelve leaders of Israel, including Aaron’s rod. The next morning Aaron’s rod had budded and bore almonds. The other eleven rods were just dry sticks.

Num 17
8) It happened on the next day, that Moses went into the tent of the testimony; and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and put forth buds, and produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds.
9) Moses brought out all the rods from before Yahweh to all the children of Israel: and they looked, and took every man his rod.
10) Yahweh said to Moses, “Put back the rod of Aaron before the testimony, to be kept for a token against the children of rebellion; that you may make an end of their murmurings against me, that they not die.”

And in the Ark was a pot of manna.

Exod 16
33) Moses said to Aaron, “Take a pot, and put an omer-full of manna in it, and lay it up before Yahweh, to be kept throughout your generations.”
34) As Yahweh commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.

Heb 9
2) For a tabernacle was prepared. In the first part were the lampstand, the table, and the show bread; which is called the Holy Place.
3) After the second veil was the tabernacle which is called the Holy of Holies,
4) having a golden altar of incense, and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which was a golden pot holding the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

Then beside the Ark — not in it but by the side of it — was placed the book of the law.

Deut 31
24) It happened, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished,
25) that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of Yahweh, saying,
26) “Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.
27) For I know your rebellion, and your stiff neck: behold, while I am yet alive with you this day, you have been rebellious against Yahweh; and how much more after my death?
28) Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and call heaven and earth to witness against them.
29) For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will happen to you in the latter days; because you will do that which is evil in the sight of Yahweh, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.”

The book of the law was the law of Moses, which included the Ten Commandments, but also included physical requirements such as sacrifices, circumcision, hanging tassels and blue threads. These external physical requirements reminded people of their sins, but had no way of paying for those sins, and no way of removing the cause of those sins.

Notice again what Moses said – “I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves.”

Moses there pointed our Israel’s problem – “you will do that which is evil.” So too the law of Moses pointed out all people’s problem – human nature. But the law of Moses had no way to solve that problem. The external requirements changed nothing inside a person. All the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes at Christ’s execution were circumcised, offered sacrifices, and wore tassels and blue threads. That was the gang who led the cry —

“Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”

Moreover, the law of Moses included the covenant agreement that whoever did not keep the law was cursed with death.

Heb 10
28) A man who disregards Moses’ law dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses.

Again the book of the law was placed by the Ark. It was not under the mercy seat. The Ten Commandments were placed in the Ark, under the mercy seat.

Almost the whole world denies the one true God and spurns God’s law. Evilution is taught as absolute fact in almost all government schools around the world, and the basic principle of that “theory” is that God does not exist and there is no law of right and wrong.

Most Christians in the world also reject God’s Ten Commandments as being done away by Christ, the perfect commandment keeper. They think that God wants us to disobey the Ten Commandments, that breaking them is good, and that obeying them is evil.

Even those few Christians who accept the Ten Commandments as God’s law do not go by what those Commandments actually say, but go by what theologians say they say. Thus they also accept the principle that God’s law has been done away, in those commandments that they refuse to accept.

But —

That law, that all the world spurns, is in the Ark of the Covenant, as Yahweh’s testimony.

And where is this Ark of the Covenant?

Indiana Jones did not look there, but an Ark of the Covenant is in heaven.

The Ark was a model of God’s throne. In that model, the Ten Commandments were right there where God sat. And in heaven, we see the same thing.

Rev 11
18) The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their reward, as well as to the saints, and those who fear your name, to the small and the great; and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
19) God’s temple that is in heaven was opened, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant was seen in his temple. Lightnings, sounds, thunders, an earthquake, and great hail followed.

The world, including Christians, have done away with God’s law, but He hasn’t. The Ark of the Covenant, the agreement to keep God’s Commandments, is right with God at His temple in heaven. The Ten Commandments are a living law, right there with the source of life.

But where is the physical Ark of the Covenant? What happened to that wooden box that Moses built, holding the Ten Commandments?

Wherever it is, it will not be found by an Indiana Jones. If it is found, it will be found only by God’s divine revelation, not by human intellect.

And if the Ark of the Covenant is found?

What a testimony that would be!

At the end time, when the whole world is most dedicated to breaking the Ten Commandments, finding the Ark of the Testimony will testify to the world that the Ten Commandments still exist!

If the Ark of the Testimony is found…

But this gold plated wooden box has been missing for 2600 years.

Where did it go?