Occupy The Altar

Join the church's time of fasting & prayer the first 21 days of 2012.

Pastor Barry is being led of The Lord to lead the church in a 21 day season of fasting & prayer for clarity, freedom, breakthrough and revival. Please prayerfully consider what kind of a fast The Holy Spirit will lead you to as we all join together to seek Him and see Him move mightly in our midst. Pastor Jentezen Franklin (Senior Pastor of Free Chapel in Gainsville, Georgia) has been used by God to educate the Body of Christ with outstansding resources on the subject of fasting. After you read Pastor's article on Occupy The Altar below, please go to Pastor Barry's link to learn more about fasting and may God richly bless you in this new year!

"It's Time To Occupy The Altar"

There is an international phenomenon taking place in the world known as the “occupy movement”. It began last summer in Malaysia but seems to have found its traction in the United States. Known as Occupy Wall Street and Occupy San Francisco and Occupy Dallas it is made up of individuals who are frustrated with social and economic inequality in the world. They are disheartened that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. This is a highly controversial movement with motivations and intentions being hotly debated. The jury is still out whether this movement will result in positive change or descend into violent anarchy.

I share their dissatisfaction. I too am frustrated that things are not the way they are meant to be in this present world. The big difference, and it is a big difference, between me and them is where the solution lies. They seek a political change while I seek a spiritual one. They look to the kingdoms of men and I look to the kingdom of God.

I still believe the church of Jesus Christ is the answer to the problems of this world. That statement is very politically incorrect and would be laughed with scorn by the so called socio-political experts of our day. Sadly, there are many followers of Jesus who also think the answer to the problems of our world lie outside the church of Jesus Christ. Today’s church, both left wing and right wing, have bought into the subtle lie that politics will change the world. Some believe if we can only get the right people elected and control the Supreme Court and Congress we can bring revival to the nation. To hear the other side talk you would believe that the salvation of the world is tied into the allocation of dollars in the United States federal budget towards social justice in the world. While I do not discount the importance of the above, ultimately we must remember that God will work through His spiritual body to accomplish His goals. The Bible still says the church is “the house of God, which is the church of the living God the pillar and ground of truth” (1Timothy 3:15).

I believe that one of the primary reasons the church is not the force for the Gospel in the world is that the modern church is a church with no altar. The Bible is clear there is no such thing as worship without sacrifice and there can be no sacrifice without an altar.

An altar is a place of sacrifice. The ancient world is filled with pagan altars as man sought in his ignorant and darkened mind to fill the place of worship with sacrificial altars. I have stood at excavations in modern day Israel of the ancient Canaanite altars that predate Abraham’s arrival in the land. These ignorant people sacrificed their children on these altars.

True worship was revealed by God to His people. Noah walked off the Ark and built an altar to God in which he offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the salvation that had come to him and his family. The Bible says of this sacrifice: “And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma” (Genesis 8:21).

The patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph built altars to offer sacrifices to God. Finally God established a central altar for His people through Moses. This altar traveled in the tabernacle with the people through the wilderness and when the people of God entered the Promised Land Joshua established it in the city of Shiloh. Later it would move permanently to Jerusalem.

All of this changed when Jesus Christ was offered as the perfect sacrifice on the Cross. When He died the Bible teaches us that an earthquake shook the foundations of the venerated but vain worship in the Temple and the curtain within it was ripped from top to bottom to expose its emptiness and the fact that God was not sitting upon their empty worship but rather was being offered outside the city upon a Roman cross.

So is the church to have no altar in the New Testament? It has certainly fundamentally changed. We do not drag animals with us to church and have a priest make a bloody mess upon an altar because the supreme sacrifice of blood has already been made by Jesus Christ. Still the Bible speaks of a New Testament altar. The writer to the Hebrews said it plainly, “We have an altar…” (Heb. 13:10). Also Peter declares, “[we] are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1Peter 2:5).

Specifically, the New Testament mentions five distinct spiritual sacrifices the New Testament believer is to offer.

1. The Sacrifice of Assembling – 1 Peter 2:4-5
When a follower of Jesus Christ obeys God and assembles together meaningfully and sacrificially with other believers in a New Testament, spirit-filled local body of believers it is a spiritual sacrifice. In order to belong, one must sacrifice their preferences, desires and opinions in order to put God and others first. Recently a visitor at our church told me they were “church-shopping” and they “like what they saw.” I wanted to say that we are not Wal-Mart and we believe that we are not the consumers evaluating the product for the best deal, but we believe that God is the consumer of our sacrifices of obedience in going where he tells us to go. Had I said that, I might as well as have been speaking in an unknown tongue because the modern church knows little of the meaning of the sacrifice of assembling. Today we believe the lie that we can be a Christian without faithfully assembling for worship.

2. The Sacrifice of Growing – Romans 12:1-2

New Testament believers are to come to an altar where we offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice. We bring our flesh to the altar and allow it to be burned away in order to be acceptable to God. Paul says this is our reasonable form of worship. Revival would come to the church today if we occupied the altar in true, self-renunciation until we were willing to completely and wholeheartedly do the will of God.

3. The Sacrifice of Serving - Philippians 2:17-18

When one pours out a glass of water on the dry ground it cannot be recaptured. Once poured out it is gone. The Apostle Paul compares our surrender to service as a drink offering. We are to pour out our lives in unreserved and unconditional service to one another as a spiritual sacrifice to God. When the church serves, it is a spiritual aroma to the nostrils of Almighty God We become like Jesus each time we sacrificially serve others (Ephesians 5:1-2).

4. The Sacrifice of Giving - Philippians 4:18-20

Every time we obey God in our stewardship and give obediently, cheerfully and sacrificially we are offering a spiritual sacrifice to God. When the offering plates are being passed and we obediently participate it is a “sweet-smelling aroma” to God.

5. The Sacrifice of Praising - Hebrews 13:10-16

We praise God amidst a hostile culture of ridicule and persecution. We praise God even when we have not seen the blessings yet. Our praise is to be a spiritual sacrifice that pleases God. Praise is always demonstrative. Praise always brings deliverance.

Praise delivers the backslider - Jonah 2:1-10

Praise delivers the burdened - Acts 16:25-26

Praise delivers the bound - Jeremiah 33:10-11

Praise delivers the barren - Isaiah 54:1-2

Where is the Altar in the modern Church?

In the 19th century the great camp meeting revivals produced a “mourner’s bench” where sinners under the conviction of the Holy Spirit could come and receive prayer. Believers could also come and be prayed for when they were burdened. Ultimately, revival evangelists would give an “altar-call” for sinners to come and repent of their sin. Some are quick to point out how these things later became very man-centered and resulted in many false professions of faith but how good it would be to see the real thing once again! Today we have substituted entertainment for an altar.

I believe the question of the living Lord to His church is where is the altar? The Lord says to the modern church:

I see your well-timed and carefully orchestrated services but where is the altar?

I see your expensive sound systems and your artificial smoke machines but where is the altar?

I see your well managed corporate leadership structures but where is the altar?

I see your slick three-colored brochures and your impressive marketing strategies but where is the altar?

I see your layers of personal security and your entourage but where is the altar?

“It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the Gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity” (F. Huntinton).

It is a church with no altar!

Joshua and a Near Civil War Over the Altar

Joshua 22 finds the conquering Israelites enjoying the fruit of a very successful seven year campaign of possessing the Promised Land.

After completing what they promised Moses to do, namely being faithful to fight for their brother in the campaign to possess the land, the tribes of Rueben, Gad and the half of Manasseh requested to go back to their geographical allotment on the East side of the Jordan. Joshua blessed them and released them to return. When they came to the Jordan River they constructed a very large altar (Joshua 22:10).

When the rest of the tribes heard about this they were ready to go to war with these tribes. There was to be only one altar and it was in Shiloh. They assembled a delegation to investigate before they went to war and the delegation found out the truth that averted a civil war. These tribes did not erect this great altar to offer alternative place to sacrifice. This altar was not about sacrificing what only happened on the true one altar in Shiloh but was rather to be a witness of their being a part of the nation. They had been afraid in the future that somehow because they were settled on the other side of the Jordan River that someone would forget that they were a part of the nation.

There are many truths to this story but one that is central is the altar of the Lord is worth fighting over. It is worth taking a stand to ensure that God’s people respect and participate at a true altar of worship. Our altars are to be witnesses that the LORD is God. When the church is restored in the spirit and power of Elijah in the last days we will have the ministry of Elijah that restores the altar of the Lord that is broken down.

1 Kings 18:30

Then Elijah . . . repaired the altar of the LORD that was broken down.

I pray God will restore the family altar in our homes and the church altars in our gatherings and our personal altars of private devotion and sacrifice,

In preparing this message the Lord reminded me that the greatest things He has ever done in my life happened at an altar.

It was at an altar that I first professed my faith in Christ and I was surrounded by a church that loved and encouraged me in my new faith.

It was at an altar that I wept all night in darkness until I was visited by the Lord who taught me about forgiveness, grace and restoration.

It was at an altar that some godly deacons laid hands upon me ordaining me and setting me aside to pursue the calling as pastor that God had revealed in me and at the altar they affirmed this by the laying on of hands.

It was at an altar that God told me to marry Amy Thornburg and later at the same altar we stood before God and made our vows and were pronounced husband and wife.

It was at an altar that my young firstborn son came running in tears one morning and said, “Daddy, I hear His voice and I want Him to be my Lord!” At that altar I knelt with him and saw him surrender his life to Christ.

It is time to Occupy the Altar.

For a complete copy of this message please visit www.BarryClingan.org