May 6, 2012
Morning Worship
Text: Judges 6:24-32
Subject: The Altar
Title: What Happens at the Altar?
Glory to God! Isn’t it great to be in a church where the Holy Spirit has freedom to move when He wants to move? Is He moving in your life that way? Do you know that He wants to?
Maybe you have noticed the new additions to the front of the church. No, it is not extra seating for the overflow crowd. These are altars or prayer benches – whichever you would like to call them. And they have a real purpose. And that purpose is to be a tangible reminder of a place where you can go to have an encounter with God. Not everyone needs a piece of furniture to do so, but for some it provides a quiet place to come and have real contact with a real God.
In the Jewish temple there was an altar of sacrifice that was the place where the sins of Israel would be covered by the blood of the sacrificial lamb. Today we have this same altar where you can bring your sins or shortcomings or even your needs to God and expect Him to meet with you regarding your needs.
I want to share with you today about the altar, but not just the altar of the temple. I want you to understand what an altar is all about and how it will significantly change your life if you allow it to.
Let’s read the first 10 verses to get a picture of what is going on in Israel.
Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years he gave them into the hands of the Midianites. 2 Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. 3 Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, the Midianites, Amalekites and other eastern peoples invaded the country. 4 They camped on the land and ruined the crops all the way to Gaza and did not spare a living thing for Israel, neither sheep nor cattle nor donkeys. 5 They came up with their livestock and their tents like swarms of locusts. It was impossible to count the men and their camels; they invaded the land to ravage it. 6 Midian so impoverished the Israelites that they cried out to the LORD for help.
7 When the Israelites cried to the LORD because of Midian, 8 he sent them a prophet, who said, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 9 I snatched you from the power of Egypt and from the hand of all your oppressors. I drove them from before you and gave you their land. 10 I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; do not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you live.’… The last part of verse 10 sets the stage for what is about to happen… But you have not listened to me.”
Three things that God wants to tell us today.
1. He will draw you to the altar…
2. He will remove any other altar that you have set up…
3. He will establish His own altar in your heart...
Read Judges 6:11-32
I believe this is God’s word…
I believe it is for me…
I accept it as mine…
And I appropriate it to my life today…
What happens at the altar?
I. GOD WILL DRAW YOU TO THE ALTAR… Look with me at just a few verses that show us how God will draw you to His altar. 11 The angel of the LORD came and sat down under the oak in Ophrah that belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, where his son Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it from the Midianites. 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” I want you to notice that the first step in the Lord’s drawing people to His altar is that He reveals Himself. Look at the phrase “the angel of the Lord…” Whenever you see “angel of the Lord” preceded by the definite article “the” instead of by “an” it is referring to the Lord Himself. This is a pre-incarnate visitation of Jesus to earth. How do we know that? First of all look at verse 12, 12 When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, “The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.” He appeared, then He said… What did He say? “The Lord is with you…” Now jump down to verse 14, The LORD turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have… Right there it tells us that this is the Lord… Jeremiah 33:3, ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ And that is what He is doing for Gideon here. He is revealing a great plan for his life by revealing Himself to him and by speaking His words into Gideon’s life. Through the circumstances that had befallen Israel – and these were caused by their own failure – God has drawn them to a place of repentance. That is what the altar is for. It can be a place where God shows you your own failings while at the same time showing you His power. Do you know that every one of you has something built into you from birth that causes you to want to draw near to God? Everyone is born with that. The problem is that many don’t realize what it is they are desiring and so they seek to fulfill what God has planted in them with things of the world that bring temporary satisfaction. And all the while God is trying to get their attention (even our attention) to show them what they are really looking for. Psalm 84, 1 How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD Almighty! 2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God… 8 Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob. 10 Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere… Now it is very clear in our passage today that God did not reveal Himself until the nation cried out in verse 7 and then he sent a prophet to tell them what their problem was. You can go to these altars or your own personal altar, wherever you have established it, but if you heart is not right with God you will not meet with Him until it is. He will draw you to the altar of repentance and fellowship for that purpose. Verses 14-23 continue with Gideon’s encounter with God.
II. GOD WANTS YOU TO ESTABLISH AN ALTAR EXPRESSLY FOR WORSHIPPING HIM… 17 Gideon replied, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, give me a sign that it is really you talking to me. 18 Please do not go away until I come back and bring my offering and set it before you.” And the LORD said, “I will wait until you return.” 19 Gideon went in, prepared a young goat, and from an ephah of flour he made bread without yeast. Putting the meat in a basket and its broth in a pot, he brought them out and offered them to him under the oak. 20 The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread, place them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And Gideon did so. 21 With the tip of the staff that was in his hand, the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared. 22 When Gideon realized that it was the angel of the LORD, he exclaimed, “Ah, Sovereign LORD! I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face! Why does the Holy Spirit specifically say here that the altar is still standing today? In order to answer that question accurately we have to really stop and understand what the purpose of the altar is. We have already established that the altar is a place of repentance. The word “altar” in the Hebrew means, “to slaughter an animal for sacrifice” That fits very well with repentance. We build and altar as a place where we can go to offer sacrifices. Turn over to Romans 12:1, Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Our offering of ourselves as a sacrifice to God then, first of all is Holy… Hebrews 12:14, Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Secondly, it is pleasing to God. 1 Timothy 2:2-3, …that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our… Savior… Third, it is an act of worship. Thirty times in the Old Testament it is recorded that someone built and altar to the Lord for the purpose of worshiping – getting in touch with God. Isn’t that what worship is? When you worship you know God for who He is – the Creator, the all powerful, all knowing, eternal God. Warren W. Wiersbe writes, True biblical worship so satisfies our total personality that we don’t have to shop around for man-made substitutes. William Temple made this clear in his masterful definition of worship: For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose -- and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. Warren W. Wiersbe, The Integrity Crisis, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991, p. 119. Verse 24, … 24 So Gideon built an altar to the LORD there and called it The LORD is Peace. To this day it stands in Ophrah of the Abiezrites. #
#
III. GOD WANTS YOU TO REMOVE THE ALTAR OF “SELF”… 25 That same night the LORD said to him, “Take the second bull from your father’s herd, the one seven years old. Tear down your father’s altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. 26 Then build a proper kind of altar to the LORD your God on the top of this height. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer the second bull as a burnt offering. ” 27 So Gideon took ten of his servants and did as the LORD told him. But because he was afraid of his family and the men of the town, he did it at night rather than in the daytime. 28 In the morning when the men of the town got up, there was Baal’s altar, demolished, with the Asherah pole beside it cut down and the second bull sacrificed on the newly built altar! Do you see here that it was not Gideon who set up an altar to a false god? It was the people in general. Little by little they had allowed things to creep into their lives that were not godly. I think this is a warning to the church. Sometimes we set up altars that are not to God and we don’t even realize it. What I’m talking about are things in the church that have become so sacred that they take the place of the altar. What are some of those things? “Time”. I remember after we first came here and there was a particularly prolonged move o the spirit in the service someone came to me later and said, “You know, the reason they changed the time of the services from 11:00 AM to 10:30 was so we could get out of here by noon”. “Music Styles”. Have you ever heard another believer say about worship, “I didn’t get anything out of that.”? Next time you hear this, say, “It’s not about you.” God alone deserves to be glorified in worship. The only time we shouldn’t get anything out of worship is when God isn’t glorified. If the word of God was sung, prayed, and preached faithfully, and you didn’t get anything out of worship, then repent and worship because God is worthy of worship. Worship is not about us. God is the center of worship, not us. “Furnishings”. Pews or chairs? Communion table or not? Hymn books or screens? Incandescent lights or cfl’s? Really? What difference does it make? “Your past experiences”. Why can’t we have church the way it used to be? Good question! Maybe it is because we want to rely on our past experiences when God wants you to experience Him in a new way today. There are just so many things that we can set up as personal altars that will interfere with your being able to make contact with God. He is saying, “Tear down your old altars, and build a new one where I can meet with you. There is a real danger, though, in tearing down old altars. Those who built them will not be happy. When they carefully investigated, they were told, “Gideon son of Joash did it.”30 The men of the town demanded of Joash, “Bring out your son. He must die, because he has broken down Baal’s altar and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Look at the words of Joash in verse 31, If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.
God has established a place in our heart where you can go and meet with Him. The challenge is for you to find that place.
He will draw you to that place…
He wants you to come there and worship Him…
He will help you get rid of the self-imposed altars that you have set up…
What happens at the altar? God meets with His people there. And the important question is really what happens after the altar.
Do you need to meet with God right now? The opportunity is always here. You may find our new prayer benches appealing to you and want to use them as your altar. You may be able to connect with God right where you are. Some of you may need help getting in touch with Him and need someone to pray with you.
Take time to seek His face and meet with Him this morning…
