The Altar of Sacrifice

Exodus chapter 20, beginning, just one verse, verse 24.

When you have it, say amen. Exodus chapter 20, verse 24. An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen, and all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

He said, an altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, we're talking about altar, make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon. And I just want to preach from this thought for a little bit, the altar of sacrifice, the altar of sacrifice.

Help me pray over this message today. Lord Jesus, I thank you for your word. It's a timely word, God. God, I pray, Lord, that it blesses your people today. God, I pray your word has free course into our hearts, and God, that it would minister to us, God, and it would help us grow in you and draw us closer to you, God, and that it would be a life-changing word, God, that we would have commitments when we leave here today.

God, to be closer to you and to understand the desires of your heart and that they would become the desires of our heart. In Jesus' name, I pray today. In Jesus' name, you may be seated in the presence of the Lord.

There are some central themes throughout the Bible. There are recurring patterns with repeating components and elements that are found throughout the word of God.

Amen. There's the creation and new creation themes where God brings order out of chaos and promises an ultimate restoration.

There's the theme of the exile and return. pattern that we find throughout Scripture where there's separation from God's presence, but then there's a promise of restoration.

Amen. Thank God for that. There's the theme and the recurring element of this thing called the covenant, which is relational promises that God has with his people.

Amen. Amen. This understanding that I'm your God and you are my people. Amen. And he has this covenant pattern that he displays throughout his word.

He had this with Noah. He had it with Abraham. He had it with Moses. He had it with David. Amen. And now with us through the new covenant, the New Testament and Christ.

Amen. Thank God for that. I thank God for the pattern and the elements and the components that we see throughout the word about the sin and the fall of man.

But the redemption that also comes. Humanity's rebellion, yes, but God's plan to rescue us and to redeem us. I thank God for that. Thank God for the pattern and elements and components that I see throughout the word about sacrifice and atonement.

The requirement of a blood sacrifice of various animals. And we see in the Old Testament, but then the ultimate substitution for that was Jesus.

I mean, God in the flesh, the ultimate fulfillment and atonement presented to us on a cross. Amen. Amen. And God's presence is another one. Just the way that God would dwell with us and be with us and we would be able to be in his presence.

From the Garden of Eden where we see scripture about how Adam would walk with God and talk with God in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden.

And then we had a separation, right? But then God introduced the tabernacle of Moses that he would be able to be with his people again and that we could be in the presence of God.

But then to the temple that Solomon built. Amen. Building upon that to where we are now with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that we could be baptized with his spirit. And we now are the temple of God today.

We are vessels that can house the spirit of God within us and his presence can be with us continually in that regard. And then still to come, the new Jerusalem where we will be in his presence in such a real way that there will no longer be a night time or the need for a sun because his glory will be the light in that city.

And we will be in his magnificent, glorious presence forever. And there are so many themes and contrasts and elements and related components from the Old Testament to the New.

And recognizing and seeing these things in scripture and how everything fits together, recognizing the patterns. It's a powerful way to study and to learn about the ultimate plan that God has for us in our lives.

And that is he's currently unfolding right before our eyes. And the Bible is not just a random book of with random collection of books, but it's it's but a connected and singular plan.

It's a story of God's glory and humanity's need for redemption through Jesus Christ. And the central theme that can be found essential that can be found in a recurring pattern and component that I think we are to intimately gain awareness of and recognize and incorporate into our lives as Christians is the fact that God expects us to build an altar unto the Lord.

Amen. And God expects us to make sacrifices on that altar. We are to have an active altar of sacrifice unto the Lord.

Amen. An altar unto the Lord and a sacrifice that God will accept upon that altar unto the Lord. We have to have the right altar and we have to have the right sacrifice on the altar.

Amen. Amen. An altar thou shalt make unto me and shalt sacrifice thereon. Notice the altar is to be made unto the Lord.

And the sacrifice must be a sacrifice the Lord will accept. Our altar is to be for the Lord and our sacrifice for the Lord. Only only a few chapters into the Bible in the beginning.

We see we learn of altars and sacrifice. Adam and Eve. Son, Cain and Abel. Their sons, Cain and Abel, trying to get the Lord's approval, trying to get the Lord's attention and offering sacrifices unto God.

And one type of sacrifice accepted by God and the other type of sacrifice was rejected by God. And you see, it's up to us what we are willing to sacrifice to God.

But it's not up to us what God will accept as a sacrifice. Amen. And so Cain and Abel both brought sacrifices for the Lord.

Both were willing to make a sacrifice. But the result was that the Lord had respect unto Abel's sacrifice. But unto Cain's and his sacrifice, he had no respect for it, the Bible says.

And so Cain brought a sacrifice of vegetables from the field, things that he had grown of his crops. But his brother Abel took the best of his flock and offered a sacrifice of life.

And because of the plan of God, that he would be a sacrifice for sins. This matched the plan that this match what is the only acceptable thing to take care of sin.

Amen. It's the plan of God that that God would be the sacrifice for sins. It matched the plan. Amen. And that life would have to be given to take care of sin. And that is the spilling of innocent blood.

That's the plan. That was the plan. And so somehow Abel realized that and put it together in his mind somehow based on what we don't know.

That it was going to please God. It was going to have to be with the sacrifice that cost a life. Cain unwilling to give life gave something far less precious than the preciousness of life.

And something that was not in line with God's pattern and plan. But Abel was willing to give life. Made a sacrifice that really cost something precious.

And God accepted one because it was what pleased God. And God rejected the other because it was what pleased Cain and not God. And because of Cain's attitude of anger and jealousy that God would accept his brother Abel's sacrifice and reject his.

Cain killed his brother and spilled his brother's blood. What a tragedy that is. There's real consequences to not following God's plan and not be willing to sacrifice something precious.

Amen. That matches God's plan. You may think how unfair it is of God to not just accept any kind of sacrifice.

And God should just be happy with the fact that you're just simply willing to sacrifice something. You may think that God should just be happy with anything that you're willing to give.

And just accept that as better than nothing. But sometimes we get the wrong attitude. You know, God is just lucky that I came to church today.

Because when I woke up this morning, I didn't feel like coming to church. And so, bless God, you know, it's a miracle that I'm even here. God should just be so thankful to me that I even showed up today.

You know, sometimes we can have that kind of attitude. You know, like, you know, I didn't feel like going to church. But I sacrificed and went anyway. You know, and so God should just be satisfied with that even, you know, that I even showed up here.

But he should just accept my sacrifice of me inconveniencing myself, you know, by coming to the service today. You know, but is that really how the kind of attitude that somebody should have after all God has done for us?

Amen. After all God's done for you, after what God has brought you out from, right? And all the things that God has delivered you out of and has blessed you in your life.

Amen. And we can't give God enough to pay for our salvation. Amen. If you've experienced salvation and you have the Spirit of God living inside of you, then you can't.

There's nothing you can give that would be worth that. Amen. So, the salvation of your soul and the redemption of your soul from hell cost God his life on a cross.

And he was willing and gave it all. And what then are we willing to sacrifice for him in return? Amen. That's the question. Because we can be very sincere and still be very wrong if we offer what we choose as a sacrifice instead of what God has declared is acceptable.

Amen. The next altar sacrifice we see in this pattern in Scripture. It comes as Noah exits the ark after being saved.

The ark that saved him and his family from God's judgment of the flood. Because sin was so rampant in the earth and because it displeased God, the Lord, so much that the Bible says God as though wished he didn't even create man in the beginning.

And God was an inch away from wiping out all of humanity. The Bible says out of just wiping him out of the picture. But then Noah caught God's eye. The Bible says that Noah caught God's eye because he was a preacher of righteousness.

This is a long time before the Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost. It was a long time before there was a written word. There was no Holy Ghost infilling.

There was no Bible back then. But with just a conviction in his heart, Noah preached righteousness to what the Bible describes as a world that was completely overcome by sin.

Somehow he recognized the wrong and sin and the things that displeases God. And he wanted to make up his mind that that's not how him and his family would be. And he would preach righteousness to a generation that was filled with darkness and with sin.

Amen. But because Noah preached righteousness in a sinful generation, God had mercy on him and his family. And God gave him a way to avoid the destruction that sin brings.

Amen. But because Noah preached righteousness, he was able to save him and his family. And so God instructs Noah to build an ark. And so he does. And when he's finished, he has followed all of God's instructions.

And God opens the heavens and the springs of the earth. And it seems water comes from every direction. And it begins to flood the earth. And all of life on the earth outside of the ark is destroyed in God's judgment against sin in that day.

What a traumatic experience Noah and his family must have gone through to see something like that. What would it be like to be a witness to the destruction of everything and everyone you knew around you right before your eyes?

And I wouldn't want to wish that upon my worst enemy. I can't imagine the horror of seeing your fellow mankind wiped out in God's wrath against sin.

But what would you do? And how would you react then to that? No doubt there would be great fear and reverence for the almighty God.

No doubt that great sadness for what you just saw happen to the world. But also, no doubt, thankfulness that you and your family were just saved from destruction.

Amen. Can I tell you something today? That the theme of the world falling too far and too deep into sin and God's wrath being kindled up, it's going to happen again.

There's going to be a relapse of that same equation. We can find it in the back of the book. Amen. It's going to happen again. The Bible warns us that the world is going to get worse and worse as time goes.

And there will come a judgment on the world. But there's an ark of salvation that you want to be a part of today. Amen. An ark of salvation that you and your family can be saved from.

Amen. And with. And today that ark of salvation is found in Acts chapter 2 verse 38. Amen. What must we do to be saved? The Bible says that we have to repent of our sins and be baptized every one of us in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of our sins.

And we have to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. It is a gift and it is a promise from God to all that the Lord our God shall call. Amen. And the ark in Noah's day lifted them above destruction.

Noah and his wife, three sons and their wives. Just eight people out of the whole world saved. And Peter writes under the anointing of the Holy Ghost in 1 Peter chapter 20 to 21.

The long suffering, which is the patience of God, waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

Verse 21. The like figure whereunto even baptism does also now save us. Amen. It was a like figure. It was a theme. It was a contrast.

It was an element within God's word. This thing with the flood and with the ark. Amen. And it is a like figure whereunto even now baptism does save us.

Amen. Noah's faith and his obedience to God's word instructing him how to build the ark as salvation from judgment. Today, God is telling us how to build the ark as salvation from destruction.

We have to repent, be baptized in Jesus' name, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And if that same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, you too will be resurrected into eternal life.

Amen. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 7 says, It was his faith and obedience to build that ark.

Never knowing rain. Never knowing a flood or what that even meant. But just getting a word from the Lord to build the ark. So he had obedience to do so. That saved him and his family.

And what did Noah do in response to being saved? In Genesis chapter 8 verse 20, And Noah built an ark, an altar. Sorry. And Noah built an altar.

The floodwaters receded. And no sooner did Noah step out onto the dry ground after the flood. Noah built an altar unto the Lord.

And he took every clean beast and every clean fowl. And offered burnt offerings on the altar. Amen. He built an altar unto the Lord. And he sacrificed on that altar.

And God accepted it. And in that moment, God made a covenant with Noah. The altar of sacrifice is the place where lives are changed. Amen. Wrath is turned away.

Amen. And your walk with God begins. Your covenant with God begins. From that point on, God made covenants with those that he chose. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel.

And then all the tribes of Israel. All the sons of Israel. Amen. The Israelites. The Israelites were God's chosen people.

The people God had a covenant with. There comes a point in time in which somehow along the way, the people of Israel are falling away from God.

Their hearts have been turned from God. And they were focused on other gods. They're in idol worship and made a God out of a false God named Baal.

And the equivalent to that today is that we get saved. But then we start to go backwards. And we start coming around church less. And we start focusing on other things in our lives.

And we eventually quit coming around completely and are back to the place of being unsaved that we were before. And this is the state of the children of Israel. And it can happen to us today.

And what that is is when we start putting other things first is that we have switched gods in that moment. Amen. We have become modern day idol worshipers if we do this.

Amen. Just like the Bible describes that they would literally take idols and worship them instead of worshiping the one true God. The one true God that called the Israelites out of idol worship in the first place.

And they returned back to idol worship. How does that compare to us today? It's when we put other things in our life before God. Amen. At that point you were building altars unto yourself and not unto God.

At that point you build an altar unto your careers. Or you build altars unto your hobbies or your desires in the world. Whatever it is that you want to achieve in the world.

And then you start making sacrifices on that altar instead of the altar you should have that was built unto the Lord. Amen. Amen. People do make sacrifices to get what they want even in the world.

On their personal worldly altars. And we see this pattern in scripture. Elijah had to rebuild the altar of the Israelites. You find it in 1 Kings.

The altars of the one true God were broken down in the nation of Israel because the Israelites had drifted away from God. And they were worshiping other fake gods that the neighboring nations worshiped.

They were even worshiping fake gods that their enemies worshiped. And the Bible does not give the exact moment that the altar on Mount Carmel was destroyed.

But the context is clear from the spiritual condition of Israel under the leadership of Ahab. He was the king and his wife Jezebel. They had forsaken the commandments of the Lord and began to follow after a false god that they called Baal.

And Jezebel had cut off the prophets of the Lord. Elijah said in 1 Kings chapter 19 verse 10. And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts.

For the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant. Thrown down thine altars. And slain thy prophets with the sword. And even I am left.

And they seek my life to take it away. Amen. This is a moment in time of the Israelites where they have broken down the altars that they had made unto the Lord.

And they made new altars and these worshiping false gods. And there was actions taken to kill the prophets of God. The ones that were preaching truth.

And here we find Elijah is the last one alive and remaining. And Ahab the king of Israel at the time and his wife Jezebel were after him and wanted to take his life too.

And in 1 Kings chapter 21 verse 25. But there was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.

Nothing worse than a man that is supposed to be leading his family and others towards the Lord making decisions to advance himself instead.

Nothing worse than a wife that stirs up trouble and attacks the man of God. Ahab the king of Israel. The king of a nation that was supposed to have a covenant with the one true God.

Ahab chased his own dreams while his wife Jezebel killed the prophets of the one true God. How does that apply to us today? And Ahab would be a man that was once living for God and is supposed to be keeping the covenant with God.

But then gets his own ideas for his life and is no more building altars unto the Lord. But starts building altars unto himself and to his own will. And no longer sacrifices of the Lord but makes sacrifices unto himself.

And the Jezebel today is the wife or the one of Ahab that kills the prophets. That tears down the preacher that would preach against turning from the Lord.

The wife that would try to prevent the husband from repenting and recognizing his missteps. And instead wants to slander and ridicule and kill with her words the man of God in their life.

They leave the altar of the Lord and make new altars of sacrifice unto false gods. They were fake gods of convenience and self-interest.

There they could offer sacrifices of what they want to offer instead of having to serve the one true God that had high expectations and demanded specific sacrifices.

But when people like that make those kind of decisions in their lives, it's not just them that they drag to hell. They drag others with them. Amen. We have to be careful about the decisions that we make when it comes to serving God.

Their guilt is not just going to be upon themselves, but it has the potential to affect others as well. In 1 Kings 18, verse 21, Here the prophet of God, the preacher, is asking the people of Israel that have rejected their one God, their one true God for these idols.

He's asking them, How long are you going to be stuck between your two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word, the Bible says.

How long are we going to forsake the truth? And the truth you know. How long are you going to forsake truth and flirt with the world? And God has called you out of the world.

You are chosen and you have a calling on your life by the one true God. And so how long are you going to stand at the point of not making a full decision?

Amen. We have to come to the point in our lives that we realize that we have to make a real decision about are we going to live for God or are we going to live for ourselves and the world?

Amen. Choose today whether you are going to serve the one true God or serve your other false God of compromise. 1 Kings 18 and verse 30 says, And Elijah said unto all the people, Come near unto me.

And all the people came near unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down. Amen. He repaired the altar of the Lord. Amen.

And Elijah took 12 stones, according to the number of tribes of the son of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord came, saying, Israel shall be thy name.

And with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two measures of seed.

And he put the wood in order. And he cut the bullock, which is the bull, the sacrifice, in pieces, and laid it on the wood. And said, fill four barrels with water and pour the burnt, on the burnt sacrifice, on the wood.

And he said, do it a second time. And he said, do it. And they did a second time. He said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. So they took 12 barrels of water and poured it upon an altar that was supposed to be a burnt offering.

How are you going to burn an offering like that? And he said, do it the second time. And they did. Do it the third time. And they did. And the water ran around the altar. And he filled the trench also with water.

And verse 36, And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that Thou art God in Israel, and that I am Thy servant, and that I have done all these things at Thy word.

Hear me, O Lord, hear me, that these people may know that Thou art the Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their heart back again. And then the fire from the Lord fell, the Bible says, and it consumed the burnt offering, and it consumed the wood, and it consumed even the stones to the dust.

And the Bible says the fire licked up all the water that was in the trench. And when the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and they said, The Lord, He is the God. The Lord, He is the God.

Amen. The Israelites were restored back unto the one true God. Restoration begins with repairing the altar and offering the right sacrifices.

Amen. There's a pattern of altars and sacrifices unto the Lord throughout the whole Bible. Altars built and prepared to offer the sacrifice of life upon that is required by God.

Why does it take the sacrifice of life? Because every sacrifice that was placed on an altar in the Old Testament was pointing to the ultimate altar and the ultimate sacrifice.

Amen. The ultimate altar and the ultimate sacrifice. All the sacrifices you see where they place animals on an altar, and they spill their blood, and they consume them with fire, and do these different rituals in the Old Testament.

These Israelites obeying the word of the Lord. It was the word of the Lord that came to them to build these altars. It was the word of the Lord that they should sacrifice in this way. And then they were following the word of the Lord faithfully and doing these things.

But it was all pointing to the ultimate altar and the ultimate sacrifice. And the greatest altar was the cross. Amen. And the greatest sacrifice was Jesus.

Amen. That's right. The cross was an altar. It was an altar prepared for the Lord. And that sacrifice that was to be upon that altar was to be the Lord Himself.

God is not asking from us anything that He Himself is not willing to do. Amen. He was willing to step out of glory of heaven. Amen. And where He was the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

Amen. The Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of the universe, was willing to step out of His glory and make Himself of no reputation and become a man and be born of a virgin that He would live and die for our sins.

Amen. And God is not asking anything from us that He wasn't willing to do Himself. That is the kind of God that we serve. Amen. Amen. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation.

God became a man and took upon Him the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death of a cross, by the which we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Amen. Because God put on flesh with the sole purpose to place that life, that flesh, of a perfect man, the Lamb of God, without spot, without blemish.

Amen. Without sin, and laid it down on the cross, an altar built unto God, sacrificed once for all. Amen. Amen. Today, we have an altar.

We have an altar. We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat, the Bible says, which served in the tabernacle for the bodies of those beasts. Talking about the Old Testament rituals, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest, for sin are burned without the camp.

The camp, the people were not inside that area. They would be outside of the area. Only the priest would work in the area where they would make the sacrifice and slaughter those animals and burn them for the sacrifice unto the Lord.

The people were outside the camp, but the sacrifice was happening. The sacrifice was happening outside of the camp, not within the camp. Wherefore, Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate.

It was on Golgotha, the Mount of the Skull, I think is what it translates to, where He was crucified on a cross outside of the city gates.

I mean, He became our sacrificial Lamb One time, but for all. So then, what altar of sacrifice is required of us?

Romans 12, verse 1, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice that's holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

Amen. And Jesus said unto them all, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

Amen. We are to bear a cross. That is the altar. That is the altar unto God, that we should bear our cross, and we are to be a living sacrifice. That's the sacrifice that God wants.

We have to be a living sacrifice that's acceptable unto God. He also, as lively stones, the Bible says, are built up a spiritual house, unholy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Amen. Our daily altar unto God and sacrifice. We are all in different stages in our walk with God. Some are just recently and starting to build their altars unto God.

Amen. And pick up their cross and follow him and become living sacrifice as God has instructed us to be. Amen. Some of you are just now choosing to repent and to be obedient to God's word as you find it, like Noah was when he heard the word of the Lord and he did what he needed to do to make sure that he would be saved and his family would be saved, right?

And so he chose righteousness in a world that was sinful and then found out from God that he had to, what he had to do to be saved and he was obedient to it.

He labored to build that ark and it saved him and his family. And that is someone who decides to walk away from an old life and choose a life of righteousness and then goes to the word of God and discovers how to be saved and then is obedient to that and say, I want to be baptized of the water and I want to be baptized in the spirit.

Amen. And I want to enter into the kingdom of God and then like Noah, once you and your family are saved, you need to keep building altars unto the Lord and making sacrifices that please God on that altar and to maintain that covenant with God.

Amen. Amen. Let's all stand. We're all at different stages. Some of us need to maintain an altar. Some of us may need to rebuild altar and or maybe you're good and you have the fire burning on your altar every day.

Whatever the case, today is altar day. Amen. Today is altar day. God has called us, amen, to be altar builders. He wants us to build an altar unto Him.

He wants us to live for Him. Amen. And He wants our obedience as a sacrifice that He will accept. We need to build and maintain, amen, our altar daily unto the Lord and we need to make sacrifices daily that God will accept.

The altar of sacrifice. We can't sacrifice unto God without an altar unto God and so we need to make an altar unto God today and so that's what I invite you to do today.

Amen. That you would come and you would find a place to pray and build an altar unto the Lord today and let's make today the first day. If it hasn't been done in a while for it's never been done, amen, let's make today an altar building day.

Let's build an altar unto the Lord that we can go back to time and time again and sacrifice. We need to be a living sacrifice. Guys, the thing with being a living sacrifice, see they killed those lambs and then cut them in pieces and put them on the altar.

That's different. Thank God He's not asking for that from us. Right? Who's thankful He wants us to be a living sacrifice? I don't want to be a slaughtered sacrifice, right?

But we're to be living sacrifices but the thing with living sacrifices is you try to put a living animal on that altar, what's going to happen? It's constantly trying to crawl off the altar.

Right? It's a little bit harder to be a living sacrifice. Amen? Because we are with this flesh, this human flesh that we live with. Amen? And this sinful nature that we have.

And so being a living sacrifice is more complicated sometimes. But that's why it's so important that we know how to build an altar unto the Lord. Amen? And that we get used to and get a habit.

Amen? And a pattern of being able to sacrifice our wills and our way of life and the things that we want and put those things to the side and say, God, I know you know what I want and I know what I want but what do you want for my life?

Because that's what I really want. Amen. Let's all find a place and pray. Let's build an altar today unto the Lord. Amen. Amen. He was the ultimate sacrifice on the ultimate altar on the cross.

Amen. Amen. But today he's asking us build an altar unto him. An altar unto him. Not unto us. Not unto other things but unto him.

Let's build an altar unto him and let's make sacrifices that are acceptable unto God today. Thank you.