457. Bible Study Thursday Evening, Nov. 3, 1932

Read Exodus 25:16-22. The Testimony was to be put in the ark. This was the testimony of Jesus Christ: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. We also receive our testimony of Jesus Christ together with Him in the heavenly ark in the Most Holy Place. The cherubim were made of hammered work and were of one piece with the mercy seat, one cherub being at each end and of one piece with it. The cherubim covered the mercy seat with their wings and faced one another.

From the mercy seat between the two cherubim the Lord told Moses everything He had to say to the children of Israel.

The Testimony of God was placed inside the ark, and the cherubim guarded the way to this tree of life, to this Testimony, which no one can receive except through the death of Christ. God’s message to the children of men always proceeds from the mercy seat between the two cherubim. The prophets of God and the holy priesthood proceed from this place. Education does not help much if you do not hear His voice speaking to Israel from the mercy seat, from the tabernacle of the Testimony between the two cherubim.

The cherubim represent the divine things in creation. When sin abounds, the cherubim become restless; earthquakes occur more often, and we see whole cities destroyed, just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. But the cherubim in the Most Holy Place rest over the tabernacle of the Testimony in God’s rest. We also are to enter this rest. However there are people in the forecourt who rest when the cherubim are in unrest. And there are people who settle down in the Holy Place where the cherubim are engraved on the walls. They have been baptized by the Spirit; yet they do not want to force their way through the veil, that is, the flesh, into the Most Holy Place, to the last and final Testimony, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, where the cherubim give their final approval and where God speaks.

Out of the temple came the seven angels having the seven plagues, for the temple of the tabernacle of the Testimony in heaven was opened. Revelation 15:5-6. The sufferings that produced the Testimony—the Spirit, the water, and the blood—will proceed from the Most Holy Place in the form of God’s judgment in order to comfort those who mourn in Zion. Blessed is each one who then has their testimony in the holy ark.