AN ALTAR OF UNCUT STONES

THE ALTAR OF UNCUT STONES

                “You shall make an altar of earth for Me and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. And if you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it you will profane it.” Exodus 20:24, 25.

                “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” 1 Cor. 2:2

                “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. And this expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken as of created things in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service of reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12: 26b-29

                What do these three texts have in common and what do they tell us?

                I grew up in a world of finely crafted religion. Our altars were made up of 28 stones (doctrines) and our evangelism centered in convincing the crowd of those 28 doctrines. So when a revolution of righteousness by faith came to the church and we became aware of our need to put Jesus in the middle of it, the evangelists threw up their hands saying, “We already have so much information to cover. How are we supposed to add Jesus to everything?

                Today such a statement sounds absolutely incredible and yet I heard it with my own ears from the evangelist that we were singing for. But I am not picking on any one church group, for there is a bigger message to be given to our present Christian world.

                We have made Christianity and worship into a finely crafted art form. We have wielded our tools upon it until Jesus Christ has often been lost amidst the clutter…. And way too often the glory goes to man and not to God.

                The Holy Spirit spoke to me two days back concerning my own worship project. He said, “Keep the music simple and profound. I gave you a message. Don’t clutter it up. Do only those things that will glorify My name.”

                And so I must now make a few changes in the instrumentation and the mix and we will move forward with a new sense of awe and wonder at God’s protection of His name and His glory. Our God is holy and He is fed up with the many cut stones upon which our altars have been made. The coming move of God in the harvest is going to be filled with awe and reverence. Instead of climbing our finely crafted steps to worship the Lord, we are going to fall on our faces and cry out to Him for what we have done. We have often replaced His glory with our own.

                Even when Solomon had built an awesome place of worship for the Lord, when the Lord finely showed up it says: “And it came about when the priests came from the holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.” 1 Kings 8:10, 11

                The Bible goes into great detail in talking about all of the cut stones that were prepared for the foundations and the altar and all of the gold and silver that was in it and in fact the Bible makes a point of saying: “And the weight of gold which came in to Solomon in one year was 666 talents of Gold…” 1Kings 10:14 and verse 19 goes on to say that there were 6 steps to the throne. Six is the number of man.

                Interestingly Free Masonry has built its foundations upon the works of Solomon and Hiram and in spite of all that was true about Solomon’s temple, he becomes in our time a type of the antichrist, for in the end, Solomon let the glory go to Himself instead of to God and his wisdom became foolishness as his many wives lured him into idolatry. So also is a portion of the church going to give its glory to another when the antichrist arrives. They will have put their trust in the world system.

                There are direct parallels in our world today as many of the mega churches have built their finely crafted worship into an art form complete with fake smoke. And is it there to simulate the presence of God or the theatrics of a rock concert? Only god knows.

                Any way we look at it, when God comes on the scene and His real glory is poured out upon us, I sense that there is going to be a profound simplicity and awe in His presence and all that has been built upon pride will be laid down. All of our cut stones will be shattered into dust at His mighty presence.

                When Moses pleaded for God’s mercy over the children of Israel and His forgiveness, God replied: “I have pardoned them according to your word; but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Numbers 14:21. It just caught my attention that the numbers 14 and 21 are both divisible by 7 and even added together they total 35 which is divisible by 7 and in adding the numbers together 1+4 equals 5, the number for Grace and 2 +1 = 3, the number of the Godhead. Any way you look at it man’s number is 6. We fall short of the glory of God and God wants to bring the number 7 into our worship so that it is of Him and not of the flesh.

                This purpose of God has not yet been fulfilled, but it will be… and His glory is going to be seen in His people, for when earth has plunged into its darkest hour God will shout out to His people: “ Arise, shine; for your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold the darkness shall cover the earth and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you and His glory will be seen upon you.” Isa. 60:1, 2

                This time around He is not going to set His glory upon our cut stones, for He is going to mightily shake the earth and the heavens  until every created thing and every manmade thing is shaken out of His church, so that His glory alone will remain. And our message in that day will be the Gospel of the Kingdom. It will be about Christ and Him crucified and risen from the dead. It will be attended by His power and only one thing will be added to it and that is the promise of His soon return.

                The simple and profound message and power of the Gospel of the Kingdom has been lost to much of Christianity. Repentance is no longer taught. Death and resurrection through His cross resulting in our New Birth is not taught as in times past. Prophecies of His soon return have gone by the wayside. The fruit and gifts of the Holy Spirit ignored… and we have replaced it with a finely crafted art form on which we have wielded many tools. We have replaced the pure Gospel with psychology and self- help methods and so may steps to this and so many steps to that. Our altars are made with cut stones.

                Friends, we desperately need the glory of the Lord to come upon us and to burn our cut stones with His Holy Fire… even as the fire of God consumed the water, the wood and the very stones of the altar in Elijah’s day, so we need to be stripped of all fleshly worship so that the glory of the Lord may fill the whole earth.

                We are that final generation. We stand on the borders of the Promised Land. We dare not fall back into the wilderness for another 40 years… in fact, I truly believe that God is not going to keep on giving us times like the present to repent and to turn to Him with our whole hearts. In His mercy, He gave us a small window of time in which to repent, before the floodgates of the Tribulation come upon us. Let us not turn back for lack of faith. The battle is not ours but the Lord’s.

                Lord, please prepare our hearts to revel in Your glory and not our own. Remove the cut stones from our lives and restore us to reverence and awe… for our God is a consuming fire and whereas John came baptizing us with water, You, Lord Jesus  came baptizing us in the Holy Spirit and fire.

                Surely Your unchanging purposes are upon us. Burn away the cut stones of our manmade worship and replace them with Your uncut stones so that Your name may be glorified. This is my prayer today.