Prophetic Word – Altars

This prophetic Word is titled Altars and this is Part 1 in a series.

It was some time last year (2025) that I was reading through the story of Abraham leaving to go where God sent him with Lot.  I was looking to see what was the marked difference between the 2 men. For some reason as I was reading the story again for the umpteenth time I notice something that I never notice before.  Altars.  Abraham kept building them ever so often and Lot never built any.  That stood out to me. I also noticed that when Abraham went off track and went into Egypt (the land where he was never supposed to go) he built no altars in that land. Hmmm.  That is when he got in trouble that is when I knew that the presence of the altar is important to our success. Please read Genesis 12 – 13.

This is when I started studying altars.  What they were, why they were built, what happens when they were built, how the Lord responded to them, how were they built, demonic altars, God’s instructions on how to deal with them etc and etc.

And, before you get all religious let me start by saying I won’t be asking you to build an altar (unless you want to) but I will show you the equivalent of what it is today and how to maintain it, because yes it does need to be maintained.

May the fire on my altar never go out, make me a house of prayer.

 

Altar – Mizbeach – Strong’s Concordance 4196

The noun מִזְבֵּחַ, “altar,” appears roughly four hundred times in the Hebrew Scriptures, describing places where offerings are presented to the LORD. Altars function as physical meeting-points between God and humanity, receiving burnt, grain, peace, sin, and guilt offerings, as well as incense. They stand at the heart of covenant life, worship, atonement, and fellowship.

 

In the Old Testament this was a physical structure that was built.  A place where people went to commune with God. Therefore, today that would equate to your prayer closet, your prayer room, your prayer chair, the place where you go for prayer in your house since this is the place where you meet with God.

So relax!  I’m not going to ask you to do anything crazy but just to pay attention to that meeting place and how you should set that up because, there are requirements.

As I am talking about altars, if you don’t have a physical structure set up in your home, I want you to think about this as your…prayer closet, prayer chair, prayer room.  Think about this spot when I am talking so you can follow the teaching here.

Communication between Altars

When you go to your altar what you do there is communicating to a Greater Altar, one more powerful than yours.  One that activates the angels to work on your behalf.

So that your altar communicates with the altar of God in heaven.

Yes, there is an altar in heaven.

Revelation 8:3

 Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

Have you ever seen the priest in the Catholic Church or the altar boys (funny now I am just realizing they are called altar boys) they swing the censer with the incense as they are walking.  This is a picture of what is happening in heaven as the angels present your prayers to God at His altar.

So that when you pray, your prayers are in a golden censer in heaven and they are presented on the Altar of God and this is where they get answered.

Your altar communicates with His altar.  I picture it as the pictures of those old fashion telephone systems where we are all communicating with him at once.  All of our altars connected to Him.  Each person has their own port that connects into Him. Nobody can take your place that spot remains open until you plug in.  He’s waiting for you.

You have to get plugged into the Golden Altar of God.

Who built altars in the Old Testament

Noah: Built the first, in Genesis 8:20, after leaving the Ark based on the instructions of the Lord

Abraham: Built several, including at Shechem (Genesis 12:7), near Bethel (Genesis 12:8), at Hebron (Genesis 13:18), and Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:9).

Isaac: Built an altar at Beersheba (Genesis 26:25).

All of these people were successful in the bible and this tells us that we need to pay attention to our altar. We see that they had a variety of gifts and callings.  You can read through all of these on your own and look at why they were built, what it signify to you.

Now, this doesn’t mean that the altar was abolished in the Old Testament because we see here that Jesus refers to it in the New Testament.

Matthew 5:23-24

²³ Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴ leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

So this is Christ acknowledging its existence and the proper way to approach an altar.  You may say “but this has to do with the church altar”, ok, how many of the Old Testament altars were in the synagogue?

Law of  First Mention – Altars

Let’s go back to the first time altars are mentioned in the Bible and we’ll start with instructions from the Lord on what goes on the altar.

Genesis 7:1-2

When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, “Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. ² Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others.

He’s only accepting the offering of the righteous.

7 is a complete number x 2 double completeness.  Male and Female means it is able to reproduce.  Sowing of a seed and a birthing of a promise.  He’s about multiplication. The Lord is saying that HE needs to approve what you are eating and what you offer as a sacrifice on the altar.

Not just anything, the approved things.  Have you ever asked the Lord if He approves of your diet?  Perhaps you should do that.

Notice that up until this point, there was no mention of “approved foods” but over time what was being eaten became unclean and to flee the uncleanness of what the Nephilim brought, there was an approved food list.  God communicated what these were directly to Noah which means He can communicate it to you as well.

It may be perfectly fine by world standards but He is not approving of it.

If you have a physical altar asked the Lord if He approves of what you have on it?  Perhaps you should do that.

There are requirements.

And since we know that the altar corresponds with an altar that is more powerful, then you want to make sure that your altar is actually corresponding with the altar of God and not a demonic altar.

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After the flood here is what happened

Genesis 8:20-22

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. ²¹ And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. ²² As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”

1. Noah sacrificed what was approved, because there are requirements for what is acceptable and what is not.

2. A burnt offering

• The fire of God cleanses and purifies
• It removes from within you what is not like Him
• So that you (your flesh) and your sins are removed and He can receive you.
• Ask God to sanctify your thoughts and your imagination.
• When the offering is burnt it produces smoke which is like incense going Into heaven
• We no longer offer animal sacrifices because the final sacrifice came which is Jesus Christ, THE Lamb of God who was slain for our sins.  

John 1:29

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

You don’t even have access to the Altar of God in heaven without first going through Jesus Christ, it’s a requirement.  He comes first.  So you must be saved in order to have access to the Altar of God in heaven.

Here is how you get saved.

Now as we go through life we sin, yes even if we are saved.  Therefore, we need to repent.  We don’t need to be saved all over again but we do need to repent for the sins that we have committed so that there is none of your flesh or your sins standing in the way of what you are presenting on your altar to God.

Confess your sins and Repent for where you have fallen short and God will receive what you are offering on your altar.

1 John 1:7-8

 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

⁸ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 

This scripture tells us that when we confess our sins we also are walking in the LIGHT and there is no darkness within us.  Because it is our sin that pulls us into darkness.

Without repentance your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, you are blocked!  We tend to want to “cut ourself some slack” (overlook things) when we sin but just keep in mind that the only way for God to cut you some slack is for you to confess it.  While you may overlook it, He does not. We often think that we are so much better, holier, better looking than others than we actually are #truth

3. Notice, God cleanse the land and BEFORE Noah and his family could be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth again, they had to confess, repent.  In your mind you could be thinking, didn’t He kill off the sin with the flood?

No.  He cleansed the land.

This is why when we receive Christ as our Savior it is just step 1, we still need to repent when we come to God.  We got no clue what they were doing on that Ark!!!

BEFORE you build anything for the Lord, repent.

BEFORE you embark on any journey for the Lord, repent.

As you sit to praise God for saving you from destruction, repent.

If you ever wonder why I am always bringing it up, this is why.

4. When you offer on the altar going through Jesus Christ and confessing your sins, God receives your offering and He is pleased!  You have His ear, He’s listening.

5. What happens when God is pleased with your offering??  Blessings flow!  He desires to covenant with YOU.

6. He said He would never destroy us again even though He knows we are bent to do evil from childhood in our thoughts and imagination! Yikes!!!  I want you to pay attention to where HE is saying that you are sinning.

(a) Thoughts

(b) Imagination

It starts in your head, your mind.  You don’t even have to do it, once you think it, God calls it sin. Once you imagined it, God calls it sin. That sets the bar really high.  It also implies that you sin against HIM first before you sin against mankind because the only one who can read your thoughts is HIM.

HE KNOWS!!!!!!  Therefore, if we say we don’t sin we are lying first to Him and then to ourselves.  Come clean.

But He then says the most incredible statement following that…

“As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”

other versions say…

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

So in the law of first mention where Altars are concerned God said, whatever you sow you shall reap.

It is a spiritual law that is connected to the earth.

You will never escape it, as long as the earth remains whatever you sow you shall reap.  The seeds you sow on and off the altar those you shall reap.  Hence it is critical that your altar is communicating with the Altar of God in heaven, otherwise if it is connected to demonic altar, that is what you shall reap.  Because there are angels or demons activated to bring the harvest from the seed.

This seed has to do with off spring.  Every seed bears fruit.  It produces.

Every seed has children.  There’s an offspring associated with it.  Majority of the times when we hear this scripture in church they use it to talk about money but saints this is so much more than that!

You plant an apple seed, you get an apple tree.  You plant a fig seed, you get a fig tree.

It bears after its kind.  If God tells you not to eat something and you eat it, you bear the fruit of the seed you just ate.

You bear the fruit of working out at the gym, or the lack thereof.

You bear the fruit of smoking cigarettes, bad gums, wrinkles and disease.

You bear the fruit of repentance, the forgiveness of sins.

You bear the fruit of not taking a shower, you’re stinky.

You bear the fruit of not forgiving someone, you lose your own salvation (Matthew 6:14-15)

You bear the fruit of the words you speak over your spouse, your children, your family, and your own future.

You bear the fruit that you speak over your own country, your government.

You bear the fruit of not brushing and flossing your teeth, hey gummy bear, what’s up?!  As long as the earth remains, we cannot escape it!

What kind of fruit will be coming up for you?  Because as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow SOMETHING is coming up from the seed you sow.

All seeds have timing associated with them.  Apples, 6-10 years and Figs, 3 years.  The timing of each is different.

When you plant a seed in prayer, that also has timing associated with it depending on what it is.  Some will happen quickly and others will take time.

Abraham you’ll have a son – 25 years

David you’ll be a king – 17 years

Daniel waiting for an answer to his prayer – 3 weeks

Jesus starts His ministry – 30 years

Feeding 5,000 (possibly 15,000 people) – instantly plus the time it took to hand out the food

Why do we start with repentance?

It gives us a chance to dig up the seed we don’t want in the ground.  The ones you planted since your last repentance that you are sure now it was a BAD idea to say that, do that, act in that manner, send that, deliver that, go there, touch that, think about that, or to imagine such a thing happening.  Yes, all of them you can dig up with repentance before the fruit shows up.

The life you are living now came from the seeds sown by you or by others.

STOP speaking negatively over yourself and others. Speak what you want to see, not the problem.

This is where we are going to stop today because I know this is a lot for you to digest and process.

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Recapping:

1. God has requirements on what is presented on your altar.  Ask Him if what you are doing there pleases HIm.

2. Your altar is connected to an altar that has a higher authority than yours.  It is either connected to God in heaven or a demonic altar.  What determines that is what you are offering from that place.

3. The only way for you to have access to the altar of God in heaven and through Jesus Christ, so you must be saved.

4. Before you make any requests to God, you need to go through a process of confession or repentance.

5. When God is pleased with what you are presenting He makes a covenant with you of blessings.  Angels are dispatched to give you the answers

6. Everything thing you sow bears fruit of its kind.  Your seed has children.

7. From your altar look around, is there anything there that produces dis-ease within you?  Are you looking at chaos and disorder?  Dusty, musty, crusty and rusty?  LOL. I’m just saying that your environment is a factor.  Look around and try to clean it up before next week.

Next week, we’ll continue with Part 2 – Offerings at the Altar.

I’ll leave you with this scripture

James 3:10-17

¹⁰ And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Dear brothers, surely this is not right! ¹¹ Does a spring of water bubble out first with fresh water and then with bitter water? ¹² Can you pick olives from a fig tree, or figs from a grape vine? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty pool.

¹³ If you are wise, live a life of steady goodness so that only good deeds will pour forth. And if you don’t brag about them, then you will be truly wise! ¹⁴ And by all means don’t brag about being wise and good if you are bitter and jealous and selfish; that is the worst sort of lie. ¹⁵ For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, inspired by the devil. ¹⁶ For wherever there is jealousy or selfish ambition, there will be disorder and every other kind of evil.

¹⁷ But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure and full of quiet gentleness. Then it is peace-loving and courteous. It allows discussion and is willing to yield to others; it is full of mercy and good deeds. It is wholehearted and straight forward and sincere.

 

Blessings!