What we will be considering in this article is “Altars of Encounter”. And we will start by looking at what is encounter? We will start our observation from Job chapter 42:5. It says; “I have heard of You, by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes sees You”, Job came to this point, and he was expressing something powerful. He said I have heard of You; if you look in your Bible, you will see that the ‘you’ is in capital letter Y. I have heard of You–God, the Almighty, by the hearing of the ear. What is Job trying to say here? He said, people have spoken about You, there have been testimonies that I have heard of how Mighty, how Powerful You are, how Great, how Awesome You are; he said but now, something has shifted, something has happened; he said, but now my eyes see You. That's an encounter.
An encounter is an unexpected, unusual experience or meeting. When you say you have had an encounter, it is not usually; an encounter, its not a usual occurrence. For it to qualify as an encounter; it is unusual, it is unexpected i.e. unexpected in a good way. Because sometimes there are things that are unexpected that comes in a bad way. But the encounter we're talking about is something that is unexpected, like something that you have been longing for, but you did not know that it will happen at the time that it happened.
So, an encounter is something unexpected, unusual experience or a meeting that a man comes in contact with. So, that is what happened to Job in chapter 42:5, he said I have heard about You by the hearing of the ear. In the Amplified, he said; ‘I have heard of You only’ and I love how the Amplified Version broke it down. I have heard of You only by the hearing of the ear; by messages, by preachings of men and women of God, they speak about You. I've heard about You, about the hearing of the ear when I read it in the pages of the Scripture, but he said, But now, my spiritual eyes see You. I've had an encounter. Now I'm having an encounter.
Remember we're looking at the Altars of Encounter. Psalm chapter 34:8, David said, “Oh, taste and see.” When it has to do with a encounter, you must see something. Job said, I have only heard by the hearing of the ear about You, but now my eyes see You. Then David saying here; about encounter, he said, oh taste and see; for it to be an encounter, there's something unusual that you must see, there's something unexpected that you must experience, he said, oh taste and see that the Lord is good. This is beyond the pages of Scripture, this is beyond what people are saying, this is experiential, you are having first hand experience. People have told you that God is the Almighty, they have told you that God is kind, they have told you that God is merciful, they have told you that God is gracious. Have you experienced it? What have you seen? Because God is not about the letters. God is about the Spirit, actualization, reality of who He is, that’s why David said, oh taste and see, you must see. In your walk with God, you must see, you must not be satisfied only by the hearing of the ear, you must see; what have you seen so far? What encounters have you had with God, as from the time you believed? From the time you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, what encounters have you had? What have you seen, or you're only hearing by the hearings of the ear?
He said, oh taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trust in Him. I would love to read that same Scripture in the Passion Translation, Psalm chapter 34:8, “drink deeply of the pleasures of this God.” See, there’s a way the Passion translation puts it that helps to understand what David was saying here. He said, drink deeply of the pleasures of this God. Are you drinking deeply of the pleasures of this God? Or you're only hearing about the pleasures of this God? It says experience for yourself, the joyous mercies He gives; experience it for yourself to all who turn to hide themselves in Him; drink deeply.
This creates in us; an appetite, a longing, a stirring, what the Holy Spirit wants to do is to create a desire, a desperation inside of you that you want to see Him. You want to taste and see, enough of hearing only by the hearings of the ear. Who is this God to you? How deeply Have you drunk of His pleasures or you have only been told that there are pleasures to drink from? Have you actually drunk of His pleasures? That's what the conversation is about. As believers, it is the lie from the pit of hell, that the devil wants you to be comfortable with hearing only by the hearings of the ear, he says after all your have heard but what was the testimony of the Apostles? He said; the things that we have heard, the things that we have seen and our hands have handled, what have your hands handled? What have you seen? You cannot be satisfied only by hearing; we have heard wondrous things that the Lord can do, great things that the Lord can do; has He done it for you?
Have you drank of His pleasures? And God is not a respecter of persons, He does not have segregation for those that drink and those that don’t. He doesn't disqualify you simply because you are an African, He doesn't qualify you because you are European, what qualifies us to drink from the pleasures of this God is our Altar.
What qualifies us to drink from the pleasures of this God is what happens on our altar. God is not a respecter of persons, whatsoever a man sows that will he reap. So, when we're talking about encounter, encounter in this kingdom is real. In fact, the King delights in having encounters with His people, He is a God that is always spot on about encounters. Look at the story of Moses. Moses was a regular man that was just doing his business but God's hand was on him, and there was a day he was going about his business like he used to, taking care of the sheep of his father in law, and suddenly there was an encounter, he saw a bush burning, and it was not consumed. And he turned to look at that side, and as he turned to look at that side; what happened? An encounter, he had been hearing about the God of Israel, he saw Him for the first time; God has pleasures. In fact, He has pleasure in making sure that you encounter Him because if God does not have pleasure in making sure that we have encounter with Him, He will not release his Spirit. The release of the Holy Spirit is to show that God delights in having encounters with His people. But what qualifies us to drink of this pleasure, to experience for ourselves what is in this God, how beautiful and good and gracious He is? It is our altar.
So, we want to look at, what is this altar about? For encounters to take place, there must be an altar. What is an altar? Let us first start by looking at Genesis chapter 8:20-21, “Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, he took of every clean animal, and of every clean bird and offered burnt offering, on what? The altar, verse 21, And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma.” Before this time, remember, Noah was the man that God commanded in the midst of the desolation of his time, that do what? Build an ark. I'm going to visit the earth with a flood, build an ark to save the people that I will prompt to come into the ark; anyone, animal or human that comes into the ark will be preserved. And Noah built the ark on instruction and the flood came, God destroyed the entire earth and God preserved Noah and all the animals and the people in that ark. Now, when God caused the waters to dry up, Noah came out from that ark. And he built an altar, He built an altar to the Lord. The Bible says, and when God smelled; God perceived, God related with Noah based on an altar. God smelled a soothing aroma, then God said in His heart, I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing that I have made”.
What made God say this? A man raised an altar. This became an encounter for all mankind, if you go to verse 22, God now further speaking; He said, “while the earth remains, by that word, the earth most remain, by reason of the altar that Noah built, God made a proclamation that preserved the earth from that time forward; He said while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease”. So, what is the mystery behind altars? What is an altar? Altar is a place of exchange. There are four things I want to speak about altars, and we're going to go to the pages of Scripture to see these things.
Number One: Altars are Places of Exchange, Communication, and Influence: and these three words are important. And we saw them in the Scripture, now, God had destroyed the earth. Noah needed to know how do we go on from here, there was an exchange between Noah’s ignorance and the knowledge of God. Every time an altar is raised, every time you come to God on the platform of an altar. And that's why you see that if you truly want to have an encounter with God, you need to understand the mystery of an altar. Your ignorance will persist until you raise an altar. It is the place of that altar that you exchange your ignorance for the knowledge of God, you exchange your foolishness for the wisdom of God, you exchange your weakness for the strength of God, you exchange your inability for the abilities of God. So, it's a place of exchange.
Number Two: It is a place of communication; your altar is the place where there is a communication and interaction between the divine and human. Altars are usually the bridge that connects the divine and the human; so, every time God interacts, remember, God did not annul the old. The old is a type and shadow of the real.
The New Covenant we have in Christ Jesus, took the Old Covenant and the experience from the old; a type and shadow to help us understand the reality of the New Covenant. So when we talk about altars don't think it's an Old Covenant idea. It's a divine idea that God Himself instituted, you will remember that God in Leviticus was speaking to Moses, that they should build an altar, and that fire should continually burn on that altar, it must not be extinguished, it must not go off. It has a significance in the realm of the spirit. And that altar even though in those days, there were altars built with human hands, God replaced them in the new order with what takes place in our hearts. So, as we're explaining the concept of altar, you're not thinking about building a physical structure somewhere in your house, or somewhere on the streets or somewhere in one corner, that you think you will be going to have an exchange of communication; this now takes place in our hearts.
So, Noah built an altar in this time, in the Old Covenant, a physical altar, these altars are now built, the altars that God wants us to raise to Him, are altars that are built in our hearts. Now, that altar is a place of communication, where there is a communication between the divine and human. Without that altar being raised to the Lord, there cannot be communication, and what is the essence of communication, that there is a sender and a receiver and there's a message and there is a feedback between the sender and the receiver. And there is a decoding of that message to make sure that what has been sent from the sender to the receiver is understood by the receiver. “We know the simple concept of communication”. Now that communication takes place on the altar. Without an altar been raised to the Lord in your heart, you cannot communicate with Him.
Number Three: It is a place of influence. We saw that in Genesis chapter 8, where we read that Noah raised an altar, built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed on that altar. And by that altar, he was able to influence the decision of God concerning the earth, the Bible says and God smelled a soothing aroma; and God said in His heart, no longer will I, how can human influence God? By an altar.
We remember the story of Abraham. When God came to him, and he was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, there was a negotiation. Now, the reason that negotiation took place was because Abraham had been a man that had the habit of building God an altar. An you see a man negotiating, influencing the decision of God. God, what if you see thirty (30) righteous men? What if you see 20 righteousness men? That is possible, because an altar has been raised. Number two, it has been mentioned that altars are places where divine and humans interact. Altars are places where the divine (where God), the Trinity and humans interact. And I want us to see Genesis chapter 12:7, I've mentioned that in passing, but I just want us to see it. “Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, to your descendants, I will give this land and there, he built an altar to the LORD who had appeared to him.” So, that place signifies a place where there was an interaction between God and man, between divine and human; that is an altar. Number three, an altar is the structure upon which offerings and sacrifices are made. It is not an altar, if sacrifices and offerings are not made from there.
We remember Genesis chapter 8 we read, and why it is important? Romans chapter 12:1, so that we will see the relevance in the New Covenant; Romans chapter 12:1, it is a familiar Scripture, he said; “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies, a living sacrifice.” Where do you present it? You present it on an altar. What you are presenting is a sacrifice upon an altar. Without an altar, you can’t present a sacrifice; so an altar is a place or a structure upon which sacrifices and offerings are made. So, when Apostle Paul was saying here that you should present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service, there is a background assumption that you have raised an altar.
And why is this assumption real? The minute you give your life to Jesus and accept Him as your Lord and Savior, you have raised an altar in your heart to God; that's one level, that's the first stage. The first altar you will raise to God is when you repent, and say to God, I receive You as my personal Lord and Savior, your heart has been affected, and has been raised as an altar to the Lord. Now, what do you do thereafter? What you do thereafter is that you are now making sacrifice
