Revelation chapter 3.
Be continuing, this would be the fourth message
in a series of seven messages on the
churches of Revelation.
Now we know that the context of this
message is that the church in Sardis is
one that has been established during several of
missionary journeys throughout that area of the world.
And I'm sure the church felt that they
were doing very well as the other churches
did in Revelation, they all did.
But it's the appearance, it's the revelation of
Jesus Christ that will expose, that will show
areas of deadness or bankruptcy, spiritual malfunctioning, if
I can call it such, in our lives.
And that's what we need to pray for
this morning.
Before I begin this message, that Jesus Christ,
we would allow him to walk within each
one of our hearts.
This message is for everyone.
It's for, without exception, it's for every heart,
it's for every life, it's for my life,
it's for your life.
If we will allow Jesus Christ to touch
us, to give us revelation of his perfect
plan, his perfect will for our lives.
Father, I come before you this morning, and
I thank you for the unction and anointing
of your Holy Spirit.
Lord, you are building a house for yourself
in this last hour of time.
You're building a dwelling place.
And God, you don't want us at any
false altar.
You don't want us halfway to where the
appointed place is to meet with you, O
God.
And I'm asking this day, Lord, by the
anointing of your Holy Spirit and the power
of your Word that you would expose, that
you would make manifest altars that any of
us have built in our lives that are
halfway, O God, to where you want us
to be in you, that are blinding, O
God, that are leading us to a place
that is not good.
And Lord, I declare the triumph of Christ
over these altars in this house this morning.
I curse them in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ.
And Father, I ask for an unction upon
your Word today, a Holy Ghost unction, that
those who have cleverly disguised altars that have
been built in high places, Lord God, that
by your Spirit, that you would expose these
places, that you would make them known.
I ask, O God, that you would cause
them to appear before the eyes of all
who sit in this house, individually, every soul,
every life, every heart.
God, and that you would smite them with
your Word.
Smite them with your Word.
Lord, in your Word, you sent a young
prophet in to curse an altar the Jeroboam
had set up halfway to Jerusalem.
And, O God, when he spoke, the altar
was rent in two and the ashes of
it poured out upon the ground.
And, O God, I ask this day, even
the softest spoken word would be like cannon
fire into the ranks of the enemy.
Cannon fire, O God, into the high places
that the carnal heart is so prone to
want to build in our quest to know
you and to live for you and to
serve you.
God, I thank you for the unction.
I thank you for the fire of your
Holy Spirit.
I thank you for the power to tread
upon serpents and scorpions and over all the
power of the enemy.
You said nothing would by any means hurt
us.
God, I thank you for an eye-savving
anointing for your church this day, O God,
and for all who will hear this message
in the coming days and months upon this
tape, O God.
I'm asking for an eye-savving anointing.
Jesus, we thank you that you're building your
house.
Help us, O God, to meet you in
the appointed place.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Revelation chapter 3 to the church, verse 1,
and to the angel of the church in
Sardis write, These things saith he that hath
the seven spirits of God and the seven
stars.
I know thy works that thou hast a
name that thou livest and art dead.
Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain,
that are ready to die, for I have
not found thy works perfect before God.
Remember, therefore, how thou hast perceived and heard,
and hold fast and repent.
If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will
come on thee as a thief, and thou
shalt not know what hour I will come
upon thee.
Thou hast a few names in Sardis which
have not defiled their garments, for they shall
walk with me in white, for they are
worthy.
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed
in white raiment, and I will not blot
out his name out of the book of
life.
But I will confess his name before my
Father and before his angels.
He that has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith unto the churches.
The title of this message is The Congregation
of the Dead.
The Congregation of the Dead.
Jesus came to the isle of Patmos and
gave a revelation of himself to John, and
he said, I want you to send a
message to the seven churches in Asia.
One of these churches was called Sardis.
Don't know a whole lot about this church,
other than that they did have a reputation
of being alive.
The same that many, many churches throughout, especially
North America and the rest of the Western
world, would possibly have in this generation, a
reputation for life.
But with the manifestation of Jesus Christ, the
appearance of Jesus brings something else to light
that the others around were not seeing.
He says you have a reputation or a
name that you live, but you're dead.
Now, there's two major indicators in the physical
sense that a human body has died.
Number one, the heart stops.
That's certainly a good indicator that your body
has died.
In the church of Jesus Christ, it's evidenced
by those who have no more heart for
the purpose and plan of God.
Their whole worship, their whole coming to the
house of the Lord is for themselves.
It's a self-seeking church, and certainly there's
no shortage of that throughout all of North
America in this hour that we're living in.
Entire congregations with reputations for being alive, but
they're coming in to the house of the
Lord.
Their heart has stopped.
The heart of Jesus is no longer motivating
them.
The heart of God is not beating within
them anymore.
They're now seeking for themselves.
Every time they come to the altar of
God, it's for some new thing that they
can add onto their lives.
In other words, they're building a spiritual resume,
if I can call it such, of all
of the things that they can get from
God.
But they have no more heart for the
purpose and plan of God.
And even though you may have a semblance
of life, you may have come into this
house this morning, and you may have a
semblance of life, you may, your physical, natural
heart may be beating, and you may be
standing here and worshiping and looking down in
the Word of God, and have at least
a semblance of desiring truth.
But if your heart is no longer beating
for the purposes of God, then you're on
your road, you're on the road to a
spiritual death.
All that's left is an exterior stimulus.
All that's left is, you can enter in,
and you can worship with those who really
do have a heart for God.
And there can be an exuberance around you,
and you can stand, and you can raise
your hands and shout the praises of God,
but something is wrong.
There's a death that's beginning to take place
in your life.
You're worshiping in the wrong place.
That's, I'm talking about a place of the
heart.
And the second indicator that a physical body
has died is that the brain dies.
When a person comes into intensive care, at
least it's been my experience, that they monitor
the heart, and once a person is officially
declared brain dead, then there's really no way
of reviving that person anymore.
Even if you did revive the physical body,
there'll never be any semblance of normal functioning
anymore, because the brain has died.
In the spiritual sense, that's when a child
of God comes to a place where there's
no longer any discernment.
No longer any ability to know the difference
between right and wrong, and good and evil.
The Apostle Paul says in Hebrews 5.14,
Strong meat belongs to those who are of
full age, even those who by reason of
use have their senses exercised to discern both
good and evil.
It's God's desire that we have discernment, that
we know the difference between good and evil.
There's so much that's going through the body
of Christ now in North America that's an
absolute disgrace to the name of Jesus Christ.
And I'm absolutely appalled at the lack of
discernment now in even the leadership and those
who supposedly know God.
I believe because their heart stopped years ago
beating for the purposes and plans of God,
and they turned inward and began to minister
unto themselves and began to be ministers strictly
to the house and to the needs of
their own life.
Their brain died, and there's no more discernment.
They don't know the difference, so the enemy
can come in like a flood, and they
don't even know the difference between the Spirit
of God and other spirits.
Isaiah cries out against it in Isaiah chapter
1.
Just let me read it to you, verses
4 and 5.
He said, to Israel, ah, sinful nation, a
people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corrupters.
They have forsaken the Lord.
They have provoked the Holy One of Israel
unto anger.
They have gone away backwards.
Why should you be stricken anymore?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick, and the whole
heart is faint.
You see, God knew the signs even in
Isaiah's day of spiritual death, a sickness of
the head, an inability to discern anymore, and
a faint heart no longer beating for the
plans and purposes of God.
You might ask me a question this morning
and say, can you love God and die
a spiritual death?
The answer to you is, yes, you can.
You can love God and die a spiritual
death.
Now, how does it happen?
In the church of Sardis, there must have
been people in that church that loved the
Lord.
I mean, there are churches founded not too
long after the resurrection of Christ, and I'm
sure there were people in that church.
They loved God with all their heart.
They heard the message.
They cast down their idols like in other
churches throughout Asia.
They turned to the Lord with all of
their heart.
They wanted Him.
The anointing of the Holy Ghost came upon
them.
They spoke in tongues and prophesied, as was
happening throughout all of the church in that
age.
There were incredible times, I'm sure, of worship,
but only several years down the road, Jesus
appears to John, and in the midst of
this church, the revelation of His presence says,
you have a reputation.
They had maintained that reputation for life, but
a death, a spiritual death had set in
to this people.
How does it happen?
I think we can best understand it through
the life of Solomon.
If you'll go to the book of 1
Kings, please, chapter 3.
I'm going to show you through the scriptures
this morning, incredible truth about how you can
love God and completely lose out with Him,
and die a spiritual death.
1 Kings, chapter 3, beginning at verse 1,
And Solomon made affinity with Pharaoh king of
Egypt, and took Pharaoh's daughter, and brought her
into the city of David, until he had
made an end of building his own house,
and the house of the Lord, and the
wall of Jerusalem round about.
Only the people sacrificed in high places, because
there was no house built unto the name
of the Lord until those days.
And Solomon loved the Lord, verse 3, walking
in the statutes of David his father.
Only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high
places.
Look at that verse again, Solomon loved the
Lord, and he was walking, at least to
the best of his ability, in the statutes
of David his father.
Only he sacrificed and burnt incense in high
places.
In other words, he sacrificed when and where
he chose.
There was something, there was a seed of
spiritual death in Solomon's life.
That same seed, if we're not careful, can
be in the heart and life of any
one of us that are gathered in this
house this morning.
You can love the Lord, you can want
to walk in the truth of God, but
there are some high places in your life.
And that's where I'm going to, that's what
I'm going to talk about this morning.
Solomon chose when and where he would sacrifice,
and it was the beginning of his downfall.
In other words, there was a mixture in
Solomon's worship.
The Bible commentator, Matthew Henry, says these words.
Now listen carefully.
He says, David kept to the ark.
In other words, David kept to where the
presence of God was, and he did not
care for the high places.
But Solomon, though in other things he walked
in the statutes of his father, in this
he came short of him.
He showed thereby a great zeal for sacrificing.
Solomon had a great zeal for sacrificing.
There are people who come into the house
of the Lord and have a great zeal
for the sacrifice of praise and a great
zeal for other types of spiritual sacrifice, like
Solomon had.
But to obey God would have been better.
This was an irregularity in Solomon's life.
He loved the Lord.
He walked in the statutes of David, but
he continued to offer sacrifice and burn incense
in the high places.
Now, we need to understand what these high
places are.
Go ahead to the book of 2 Kings,
please, chapter 17.
2 Kings chapter 17, the high places.
Now, the context of this particular passage of
Scripture is after Solomon.
We know that Solomon, after him the kingdom
was divided between his two sons, Rehoboam and
Jeroboam.
And this Scripture is written, after the northern
kingdom under Jeroboam fell to the king of
Assyria.
Now, in verse 24, it says, And the
king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and
from Kuthah and from Ava and Hamath and
Sepharvim and placed them in the cities of
Samaria instead of the children of Israel.
And they possessed Samaria and dwelt in the
cities thereof.
And so it was at the beginning of
their dwelling there that they feared not the
Lord.
Therefore the Lord sent lions among them which
slew some of them.
So now the children of Israel have been
displaced.
And in other people, the Assyrians have come
in to take their place.
And they did not fear God.
And God sent lions among them which began
to devour them.
Now, listen to their response in verse 26.
Wherefore, they spake to the king of Assyria,
saying, The nations which thou hast removed and
placed in the cities of Samaria know not
the manner of the God of the land.
Therefore he has sent lions among them.
And behold, they slay them because they know
not the manner of the God of the
land.
Verse 27.
Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry
thither one of the priests whom ye have
brought from thence.
In other words, bring back one of the
priests of Israel and let them go and
dwell there and let him teach the manner
of the God of the land.
Then one of the priests whom they had
carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in
Bethel and taught them how they should fear
the Lord.
How be it?
In other words, every nation made gods of
their own and put them in the houses
of the high places which the Samaritans had
made.
Every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt.
And the men of Babylon made...
And it goes on in verse 30 and
31.
It talks about all the gods now that
they made and brought into supposedly the worship
of the true God.
In verse 32, it talks about the end
result of this mixture in high places.
So they feared the Lord and made unto
themselves of the lowest of them priests of
the high places, which sacrificed for them in
the houses of the high places.
And verse 33 tells the entire tale.
They feared the Lord and served their own
gods after the manner of the nations whom
they had carried away from them.
They feared the Lord and served their own
gods.
And I believe that that one passage of
scripture speaks for many, many people in the
body of Christ in this last hour of
time that we're living in.
If you ask them, do you love God?
Like Solomon, they would say, yes, I love
the Lord.
Are you walking in the ways of God?
Yes, I'm walking in the ways of God.
Do you fear the Lord?
Yes, I fear the Lord with all of
my heart.
And yet they continued to serve their own
gods after the manner of the nations that
had carried them away captive.
It was a mixture, the high place of
truth and error.
It was a worship of convenience.
Many of the high places were places where
it was just too hard and it was
just too far to go to the appointed
places of God.
And so they would stop on some high
hill or some place and say, well, this
looks like a good place to worship God.
And they would stop and build an altar.
And in those high places, sometimes offer thousands
of sacrifices unto the Lord, a great zeal
for God.
But they were living, they were not at
the appointed place that God had appointed for
them.
It was a mixture.
It was a worship of convenience.
They were self-made altars.
The Scripture says, of the lowest of the
people were gathered that were made priests around
these altars.
What a type and shadow of so much
of what has happened to the church of
Jesus Christ in this last hour of time.
All throughout North America, a seed of evildoers,
of corrupted children that have forsaken the right
way and gone running greedily after gain through
the air of Balaam.
These low priests make their own altars and
these altars are full of men's ideas.
I call them the prophets of I think
and I feel.
I think and I feel.
That's what you hear from them continuously.
They get up and they're standing on their
high place with all of those that have
gathered around them because they don't have the
heart of God beating fully within them anymore.
I tell you, the heart of God, brothers
and sisters, takes you past the high places.
The heart of God takes you and I
to the appointed places of God.
There are places that God has appointed that
we're to meet with Him and we're to
worship Him and we're to consecrate our lives
unto Him.
But there are so many that don't want
to go to those appointed places and so
they stop at these altars in the high
places.
That's what Solomon was doing and that's why
the seeds of death were sown in his
life at a very early age.
I think and I feel.
You'll hear it continuously.
I think God would.
I feel God would.
That's their whole prophesying.
And they form another God.
They fashion another God.
It's a God of their own image and
they call Him Jesus.
And they lead the people to Him in
these high places.
I challenge you with all of my heart,
get out of these high places if you're
in them.
Get out of them.
Run from them for they will cause you
to die.
They will cause a spiritual death to come
upon your life.
Get out of these high places.
Stop worshipping at places that exalt themselves above
the knowledge of God and get back to
the appointed places.
I want to talk about three appointed or
acceptable places of worship that God had established
in the Old Testament.
Places where men and women of God met
with Him.
And by His response, we know these were
acceptable places.
The first one is found in the book
of 1 Samuel.
Go back in your Bibles, please.
1 Samuel chapter 1.
Hallelujah.
God is going to reveal today, as this
message goes forth, if you have stopped at
a high place.
He promised me in His Spirit that while,
like the young prophet who came and cursed
that altar that was halfway to Jerusalem, that
God's going to show you your altar.
And I pray with all my heart that
you'll have the courage to curse that thing
in the name of the Lord.
To see it broken in two and that
you will walk through the middle of it
and come and meet Him in an appointed
place.
The first appointed place was called Shiloh.
1 Samuel chapter 1, beginning at verse 7.
Shiloh.
Now, it was a town where the worship
tent or the tabernacle was set up after
the conquest of Canaan.
Shiloh became the center of Israel's worship and
the tent was replaced later on by a
more permanent building.
It was to this place that we're about
to read that a man named Elkanah and
his wife Hannah, they traveled to Shiloh to
worship God.
In other words, they didn't stop at a
high place, but they came to an appointed
place.
And brothers and sisters, it's in the appointed
place that God meets you.
It's in the appointed place that God will
bless you.
It's in the appointed place that God will
work in your life, that God will lead
you forward, that the nature and character of
Christ will be formed within you.
It's in the appointed place.
God is not at the high places.
He's not at these altars of noise.
God doesn't meet with you there.
That's just like the children of Baal who
ran around and cut themselves and made a
great noise hopping on and off that altar.
God is not at that altar.
It's a continual place of noise with no
deliverance, no pure heart, no absolute formation of
the purposes of Christ in the life of
the believer.
You see now at this appointed place called
Shiloh, a woman called Hannah coming and pouring
out her grievance before the Lord.
In 1 Samuel 1, verse 7, and it
says, And as he did so year by
year, when she went up to the house
of the Lord, so she provoked her.
Therefore she wept and did not eat.
In other words, the other wife of Elkanah
was provoking her because her womb was barren.
She had no children.
Then said Elkanah, her husband to her, Hannah,
why weepest thou and why eatest not thou?
And why is thy heart grieved?
Am I not better to thee than ten
sons?
So Hannah rose up after they had eaten
in Shiloh and after they had drunk.
Now Eli the priest sat upon a seat
by a post of the temple of the
Lord.
In verse 10 says, She was in bitterness
of soul and prayed unto the Lord and
wept sore.
And she vowed a vow and said, O
Lord of hosts, if thou will indeed look
on the affliction of thine handmaid and remember
me and not forget thine handmaid, but will
give unto thine handmaid a man child, then
I will give him unto the Lord all
the days of his life and there shall
no razor come upon his head.
Now Shiloh represents brokenness.
We see Hannah coming and she's coming to
the Lord in a place of brokenness.
We sing that song this morning.
Welcome into this place.
Welcome into this broken vessel.
And I wonder sometimes if we fully understand
what we're really singing.
It's a place of brokenness.
That's an appointed place.
That's where God will meet with us.
That's where God will begin to work in
our lives.
Genesis 49, 10.
Jacob speaking to his sons and prophesying about
their future.
And he said to Judah, he said, The
scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a
lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes.
Shiloh means Jesus.
And unto him shall the gathering of the
people be.
Shiloh is a face-to-face meeting with
God.
It's a face-to-face meeting with Jesus.
It's not some high place.
It's not some worship of convenience.
It's not some other altar somewhere.
It's not a place of self-seeking, but
it's a face-to-face encounter with the
risen Savior, with the risen God, the risen
Lord Jesus Christ.
In Matthew chapter 21, Jesus said, He's speaking
of himself as the stone that the builders
were going to reject.
There are many altars that have been built
in this generation that have rejected the cornerstone.
But Jesus speaking of himself, He said, Whosoever
shall fall on this stone shall be broken.
There's a brokenness when you come to Shiloh.
We see in 1 Samuel chapter 1 and
verse 10, Hannah was in bitterness of soul
and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore.
You see, it was a place where she
came and she confessed her bankruptcy.
She came before God and said, God, I
am a barren womb.
I am nothing.
I have produced nothing.
I can do nothing without You.
I have tried and tried, but nothing has
come in my life.
That's an appointed place.
That's where God begins to meet when there's
a brokenness and a confession.
Like when Elijah was before the Lord Brother,
Isaiah came up before God and says, Woe
unto me, I'm undone.
I'm a man of unclean lips.
I dwell in the midst of a people
of unclean lips.
When Isaiah met in that appointed place with
God, face-to-face with Jesus Christ, it
was then that the call from the altar
came and touched his lips.
It was then that he was commissioned to
begin to prophesy to Israel in a way
like he never had before.
Psalm 51, 17 says, The sacrifices of God
are a broken spirit, a broken and a
contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.
Verse 11 says, She vowed a vow in
this place called Shiloh.
She vowed a vow and said, O Lord,
if You will look at my affliction and
remember me and not forget Your handmaid, but
will give me a man-child, I will
give him to the Lord all the days
of his life, and there shall no razor
come upon his head.
This was a place of dying to self
-will.
It's a place of coming alive to the
purposes of God.
I'm sure with all my heart that Hannah
would have cherished that son Samuel.
It was the longing of her heart to
have a son.
But she said, God, if You will take
away this barrenness in my life, if You
will birth something within me this day, God,
I will give it back to You.
That's where God meets with His people.
It's when you come to the altar and
say, Lord, I'm barren.
God, I'm broken.
God, I'm empty.
God, I'm not producing fruit for Your kingdom.
But Lord, if You will birth something in
me this day, if You will start something
in my life, if You will give me
a gift, if You will empower me, if
You will do something, Lord, I will not
keep it to myself.
As much as I may cherish it, I
will bring it back, and it will be
used for Your house and for Your glory.
As long as it lives, I'll give it
back to You.
Hallelujah.
Shiloh is a place of loving God and
embracing His will and His heart for your
life, for the rest of your life.
That's what Shiloh is all about.
It's brokenness.
It's confession.
Hallelujah.
And it's a determination that if God puts
something within your life, that you're not going
to keep it for yourself.
You see, that's where these high place altars
fail.
They come, and some of them even know
a portion of brokenness, and they even know
a portion of confession.
But what God births within them, they take
it home, and they hide it in the
earth.
They hide it in the heart, and they
don't even let it be invested for usury
for the kingdom of God.
Oh God, I'm sure that Hannah, when she
came back to that temple after she had
weaned Samuel, she loved that little boy.
He was the treasure, the treasure, the treasure
of her heart.
I'm absolutely sure of that.
And she came up to the temple, and
a weaned child was somewhere, maybe perhaps up
to two years old.
It is possible that he even knew her
name by that point and was talking a
little bit.
And she brought Samuel into the temple because
she had made a promise.
God, if You birth something in me, I'm
not keeping it for myself.
I'm going to let it be used for
Your glory.
And year after year, the Scripture says she
came into the temple and brought a little
coat that she made for Samuel every year.
Oh, how she loved Samuel.
And she gave the best thing that God
had ever given to her for the use
of the Lord.
Israel had a need.
Israel needed a prophet.
Israel needed a man of God.
And I'm so glad that Hannah was not
willing to withhold what God was birthing within
her life.
God has a plan for your life this
morning.
God has a purpose for your life.
God has gifts that He wants to give
you.
God has things that He's already planted and
birthed within you.
If you will have the courage not to
meet God or try to meet Him in
some halfway altar, but come all the way
to Shiloh.
Come all the way to the place where
God has appointed that you should meet with
Him.
And what He has birthed in your life,
lay it down at the altar.
You say, God, whatever You give me, I
give it back to You.
If You give me a hundred sons and
daughters, I give them back to You, God.
If You prosper my business, I give it
back to You, God.
Everything I am and have is Yours.
It's not for my use.
It's for Your use and it's for Your
kingdom and for Your glory.
If You give me the ability to speak,
God, I'll stand on a mountain and declare
Your kingdom.
I'll go anywhere in the world You send
me to go to declare Your goodness.
That's Shiloh.
That's what Shiloh is all about.
That's where life is.
That's where the heart of God begins to
get a hold of you as a child
of God and beat within your breast.
That's where discernment starts to come into your
mind.
You begin to know the difference between good
and evil.
Everything that exalts God.
Everything that fulfills the plan of Christ.
Everything that lifts Him up is good.
Everything that falls short in the high places
is evil.
There's a discernment that comes into your heart.
Hallelujah.
Year to year in circuit to Bethel and
Gilgal and Mizpah and judged Israel in those
places.
And His return was to Ramah, for there
was His house.
And there He judged Israel.
And there He built an altar unto the
Lord.
God allowed Samuel to build an altar in
Ramah.
And in that place, God met with Samuel.
God spoke to Samuel.
Samuel judged Israel.
Samuel was a righteous judge of Israel.
But Samuel had a meeting place at an
altar that he had built in his house.
That was an altar of consecration.
Samuel was set apart.
He was nailed down to the purposes of
God only.
I want to ask you a question this
morning.
Have you worshipped in Ramah?
Have you come to that place, that meeting
place with God of consecration and dedication?
Have you built an altar at your house
and said, God, I will meet with you
every day.
And in this place, I will get your
instruction.
My life is not mine anymore.
It's yours.
And as you speak, I will begin to
walk with you.
You will speak to me.
That's an altar at your house called Ramah.
That's where Samuel's altar was.
There are so many that tried to turn
Jesus from building that altar, that altar of
consecration.
Peter, when he turned to Jesus and said,
Jesus said, I'm going down to Jerusalem.
I'm going to be betrayed into the hands
of sinners and crucified.
And Peter tried to turn Him away from
this, and tried to turn Him away from
that place of consecration and being set apart
to the purposes of God only.
Acts chapter 21, the apostle Paul, he had
built that altar in his heart.
Paul never had a steady home, but Paul
built that altar of Ramah in his life,
an altar that he went to daily and
got his instruction from God.
Look at Acts.
Let me just read it to you quickly
because we don't have much time.
But Acts chapter 21, in verse 11, it
says, And when He was coming to us,
He took Paul's girdle, and bound his hands
and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy
Ghost, So shall the Jews of Jerusalem bind
the man that owns this girdle, and deliver
him into the hands of the Gentiles.
And when we heard these things, both we
and they of that place besought Him not
to go up to Jerusalem.
When a man's walking in the ways of
God, everyone who has built an altar in
the high places will try to turn him
aside.
I say that with love in my heart.
Over the years, as I have sought God
and wanted to serve God, wanted to live
for God, there have been Christian people, unfortunately,
that have tried to turn me back from
the plans and purposes of God continuously.
If you're living for God, if you're walking
in the footsteps of God, it's those who
have built altars in the high places.
They don't understand the principle of consecrating your
life to God.
They don't understand of going all the way
to Jerusalem to be spit upon and have
your face slapped and your back whipped and
crucified and imprisoned or whatever happened to those
that were living and serving for God.
You see, because they've chosen to worship at
a high place.
And anybody that goes beyond those high places
becomes a reproach to their lifeless religion.
And so they'll do everything they can to
shut your voice down.
They'll do everything they can to stop you.
Because you're passing by their altars and you're
going to something a lot deeper that's birthed
right in the heart of God.
Then Paul answered and said, What mean you
to weep and break my heart?
I'm ready not to be bound only but
to die at Jerusalem.
For the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And when he would not be persuaded, we
ceased saying, The will of the Lord be
done.
Paul would not be persuaded.
And thank God that he did not listen
to their voices and succumb to their voices.
There would be quite a substantial portion of
the New Testament missing that Paul had not
walked in the perfect plan of God for
his life.
The high places led Solomon to other wives.
There was a mixture.
It was a seed of mixture in his
life.
Solomon loved God.
Settle it.
In the beginning of his life, he loved
God.
And he set out to do what was
right.
But there was a mixture.
He was stopping short in his worship of
God.
And that high place in his life led
him to other wives.
He loved many women and eventually led him
to other loves.
He turned to Egypt.
He had been warned not to touch the
things of Egypt, but he brought horses and
other things out of Egypt and eventually turned
him to other gods.
An incredible thing.
You see Solomon in his latter day bypassing
the temple of the Lord and going down
to worship at some temple of a heathen
god.
What an incredible thing.
Solomon that was given the book of Proverbs.
Solomon that was the wisest man that has
ever lived in the face of the earth.
Solomon.
And he ends up worshipping in heathen temples
because of this mixture that was in his
early life.
The seeds of death were in him.
He had a name, a reputation of being
alive, but he was dead.
The Queen of Sheba in 2 Chronicles.
Don't turn there, please.
Chapter 9.
The Queen of Sheba came in to him.
Let me just read it to you.
And she was awestruck at the glory and
the majesty of Solomon.
An incredible thing.
2 Chronicles chapter 9.
It says, And when the Queen of Sheba
heard of the fame of Solomon, she came
to prove Solomon with hard questions at Jerusalem
and with a very great company, and camels
that bear spices and gold in abundance and
precious stones.
When she was come to Solomon, she communed
with him of all that was in her
heart.
And Solomon told her all her questions.
And there was nothing hidden from Solomon which
he told her not.
When the Queen of Sheba had seen the
wisdom of Solomon and the house that he
built and the meat of his table and
the sitting of his servants and the attendance
of his ministers and their apparel, his cupbearers
also and their apparel and his ascent by
which he went up into the house of
the Lord, there was no more spirit left
in her.
In other words, she was awestruck.
She was dumbfounded.
Here is Solomon.
And the Queen of Sheba is standing in
the temple of the Lord.
And Solomon comes in.
There was such a glory of God that
was upon his life.
He really did at one point love the
Lord.
And Solomon is walking up the steps.
He's ascending in the temple up to the
place of worship, up to offer sacrifice.
And she's looking at him and saying, Solomon,
it's awesome what God has done in your
life.
Solomon, it's an incredible thing.
Oh, I'm breathless looking at you, Solomon, at
the blessing of God that's upon your life.
But what they were not aware of is
that there was another set of eyes in
that temple looking down on that whole scenario
with a whole different perspective, just like Jesus
to the church of Sardis.
And even though everyone around is talking about
the majesty and the glory and everything that's
upon Solomon's life, God is looking down and
saying, Solomon, you're a dead man.
Solomon, you're a dead man.
If you keep going in the way you're
going, death has begun to work in your
life.
It's going to rob you.
You'll have no more heart.
You're going to lose your discernment.
You're a dead man, Solomon.
The high places are still alive in your
heart.
I hear the cry of God for Solomon.
God loved Solomon.
God loved him.
The Scripture says so.
God loved him.
And in the midst of that whole scenario
with the musicians playing, the trumpeters trumpeting, and
the people in absolute awe of the glory
of God that was upon this man, I
hear a pleading heart of God.
Solomon!
Solomon, you're worshipping at the wrong altar.
Solomon, you're going to die a spiritual death.
Solomon, I can hear the cry.
There's a cry of God going out to
some of your lives this morning.
You've come into this house.
You've walked in with an appearance of life.
Your children or the people around you may
look at you and you might be dressed
in a way that you weren't dressed before.
You may speak in a way you never
spoke before.
You worship like you never worshipped.
There's an appearance of prosperity has come upon
your life.
And people around you look and say, hasn't
God blessed him or hasn't God blessed her?
But there's another voice that's crying your name
this day.
Solomon, you've built an altar in a high
place.
Solomon, you've chosen a convenient place of worship.
You've not come to the appointed places.
And it's causing a spiritual death to creep
into your life, which is going to take
your heart.
It's going to take your discernment.
You're a dead man, Solomon, if you don't
turn from this thing.
Revelation, Jesus said to the church of Sardis,
you have a name that you live but
are dead.
Look at Proverbs chapter 5, please.
Proverbs chapter 5, Solomon almost eerily prophesying his
own end.
That's an incredible thing.
It's like the Spirit of God is speaking
through him and about him.
And he's penning his own departure from the
heart of God.
Proverbs 5, 7 says, Hear me now therefore,
O ye children, and depart not from the
words of my mouth.
Remove thy way far from her, and come
not to the door of her house, lest
thou give thine honor to others in thy
years unto the cruel.
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth, and
thy labors be in the house of a
stranger.
And thou mourn at the last, and didn't
Solomon mourn at the end when he said,
all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
When thy flesh and thy body are consumed.
And say, how have I hated instruction, and
my heart despised reproof.
And have not obeyed the voice of my
teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that
instructed me.
I was almost in all evil, or ruin
is another word for that word evil.
I was almost in all evil in the
midst of the congregation and the assembly.
There's Solomon looking back now in retrospect at
what the Queen of Sheba saw.
But God saw it a different way.
I hated instruction.
I obeyed not the voice of my teachers.
Here's Solomon writing all these proverbs out.
But he's not obeying them himself.
He's not listening to what God's speaking to
his heart.
And finally, when he gets to Revelation, he
understands that he was almost in all ruin
in the midst of the congregation and the
assembly.
Oh, it would be to God that throughout
North America people would have the courage to
face Jesus at Shiloh once again.
And find out that what has had an
appearance of life in the sight of God,
much of it has been ruined.
Ruin in the sight of God.
Hating and despising the Word of God.
Proverbs 21, please.
Turn there very quickly.
Proverbs 21, verse 16.
The man that wandereth out of the way
of understanding shall remain in the congregation of
the dead.
The man that wanders out of the way
of understanding shall remain in the congregation of
the dead.
Jesus said to the church of Sardis in
Revelation 3.3, Go there, please.
Go back to the book of Revelation, please.
Chapter 3.
There are some of you this morning that
are heading on that road.
You're beginning to build an altar in a
high place.
And God's reaching out to you.
There are some that are going to hear
this message by tape in the future.
And you have already well built your altar
in high places.
And you're worshipping at houses that have built
their altars in high places.
But Jesus is saying these words now to
the church of Sardis.
In verse 3, He says, Remember therefore how
you have received and heard.
And hold fast and repent.
Remember, He says, Remember how you once received
the Word of God.
Remember how the Word of God was once
the most precious thing that was in your
life.
Remember that you heard and you repented and
you turned.
You came to that place.
There were many in the house of God
today who are worshipping at high places who
at one time came to Shiloh.
At one time confessed their barrenness.
At one time were broken before God.
At one time were begging God to birth
something within their heart and in their lives
so that they could consecrate their lives fully
to God.
And God's saying to Sardis, Remember how you
received and heard.
Remember there was a day when no sacrifice
was too great.
No task was too hard.
You'd go anywhere.
You'd do anything.
For you loved Me with all of your
heart.
My heart was beating within you.
You discerned.
You knew the difference between good and evil.
What happened?
All of a sudden now you're building in
a high place.
Now the third place where Solomon came to
is Gibeon.
In 1 Kings chapter 3, please go back
there.
1 Kings chapter 3.
Gibeon is a place of dedication.
It's a place where God's blessing is.
It was the Gibeonites that came out and
helped Nehemiah rebuild the walls of Jerusalem that
were broken down and destroyed.
The Gibeonites were dedicated people.
There was an appointed place by God in
Gibeon.
It was a place where we lay our
lives down as a living sacrifice, as Pastor
Dave said this morning, for the purposes of
God.
Ultimately, brothers and sisters in Christ, if you
didn't hear anything this morning, hear this.
Your walk with God and my walk with
God either brings us to a place where
we lay our lives down as a living
sacrifice for the purposes of God, or we
begin to worship at the high places.
There is nothing in the middle.
You need to understand that.
Where we lay our lives down for God.
Where we say, Lord, if it's in my
job or my home, my community, whatever you
call me to do, whatever you send me,
God, I'm yours.
My life is yours.
If you birth something in me, I'll give
it back to you, God.
And I'll use it for your glory.
That's what Gibeon is all about.
A place of dedication.
In 1 Kings chapter 3, verse 5, it
says, In Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon
in a dream by night, and God said,
Ask what I shall give thee.
You see, it's in that place of dedication
that you can ask, and God is willing
to bless.
And Solomon said, You've showed unto thy servant
David, my father, great mercy, according as he
walked before thee in truth and in righteousness
and in uprightness of heart with thee.
And thou hast kept for him this great
kindness, that thou hast given him a son
to sit on his throne, as it is
this day.
And now, O Lord my God, thou hast
made thy servant king instead of David, my
father.
And I am but a little child, and
I know not how to go out or
come in.
Thy servant's in the midst of thy people,
which thou hast chosen a great people that
cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.
Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to
judge thy people, that I may discern between
good and bad.
You see the cry of Solomon there.
God, give me a heart that I can
discern the difference between good and bad.
So sad that Solomon lost that.
For who is able to judge this, thy
so great a people?
And the speech pleased the Lord, that Solomon
had asked this thing.
God said unto him, Because thou hast asked
this thing, and hast not asked for thyself
long life, neither hast asked riches for thyself,
nor hast asked the life of thine enemies,
but you have asked for thyself understanding to
discern judgment.
Behold, I have done according to thy words.
Lo, I have given thee a wise and
an understanding heart, so that there was none
like thee before thee, neither after thee shall
any arise like unto thee.
And I have also given thee that which
thou hast not asked, both riches and honor,
so that there shall not be any among
the kings like unto thee all thy days.
And if thou wilt walk in my ways,
to keep my statutes and my commandments, as
thy father David did, then I will lengthen
thy days.
And Solomon awoke, verse 15, and behold, it
was a dream.
And he came to Jerusalem.
There was a season where Solomon was meeting
in the appointed places.
He came to Jerusalem and stood before the
Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.
That's where David had worshipped God.
That's in the place of meeting God face
to face.
It's in a place of consecration and dedication
to the purposes of God.
Solomon was asking for wisdom and understanding to
be able to see the plan and purpose
of God go forth in such a great
multitude of people that God had put under
his hand.
And it was there he offered up burnt
offerings and peace offerings and made a feast
to all of his servants.
So sad, so sad that he did not
stay in that place.
So sad that he left the Ark and
began to worship again in high places.
High places that took the very seed of
the heart of God out of his life.
Took away the discernment that God had given
him and ended up a heathen worshipper in
the last part of his life.
Gibeon was a great high place and should
have been the only one because it was
there that the tabernacle and the brazen altar
were.
Solomon offered great sacrifices and there God owned
him more than in any other place.
Where God records his name, the Scripture says,
there he will meet and he will bless
us.
Where God records his name, in Shiloh, in
Ramah, and in Gibeon.
Brokenness, confession, consecration, and dedication to the purposes
of God.
You'd be here this morning, I don't want
anybody falling under duress because of this message
and saying, oh, I better find the will
of God or I'm going to be crushed.
No!
You begin to meet with God in the
appointed places and you're already in the will
of God.
You're already walking in His will when you're
meeting Him at those places.
And all of a sudden you begin to
walk on a path which just becomes a
natural extension of the relationship of Jesus Christ
in your life.
You don't have to go home and bang
your head on the counter saying, what's the
will of God?
What's the will of God?
When you're meeting in the appointed places, the
Holy Spirit will naturally birth it in your
life.
You'll find yourself going places, doing things that
you never even had to think about because
you're just walking in that river of God.
He's leading you.
He's moving your life.
Hallelujah!
So many people struggle with this thing about
knowing the will, knowing the will.
I'll tell you why it's such a struggle
for so many years.
Because you're worshipping in the high places.
God doesn't speak in the high places.
God speaks in the appointed places.
Brokenness.
That's where Hannah was.
I'm barren, oh God.
I'm barren.
There's nothing within me that's any good.
Jesus, birth something in me and I'll give
it back to you.
And out of that prayer comes Samuel.
And Samuel dedicates his life and builds an
altar at Ramah and worships God there.
Hallelujah!
And out of that comes the Gibeonite altar.
Dedication to the purposes of God.
It was the Gibeonites that came out of
their places of work and everything else and
rebuilt the altar.
Not the altar, but the wall of Jerusalem
with Nehemiah.
Hallelujah!
Jesus says to the church in Sardis, He
that overcomes, the same shall be clothed in
white raiment.
And I will not blot his name out
of the book of life.
And I will confess his name before my
father and his angels.
He that has an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit is saying unto the churches.
He that has an ear.
Would you please stand?
Hallelujah!
I'm going to give an altar call this
morning.
Let's suppose that this altar is a place
of brokenness confession.
It's a place where God wants to birth
something in your life.
It's a place where you'll give it back
to God.
It's a place where you will determine to
build an altar in your own heart, your
own life.
Not running around looking to somebody else to
get direction, but you get your direction from
God.
It's a place where you'll consecrate yourself to
the purposes of God.
It's a place where you will go on
and be dedicated in good times and in
bad times.
When it's in season or out of season,
it won't stop you because you're dedicated to
the purposes of God.
That's what this altar represents.
But I want to ask you a question
as I call you to come.
Yet not I, but I feel the Spirit
of God calling my heart this morning.
Where is your altar?
As you look at this altar of being
a place where you fully lay your life
down for the purposes of God, where is
your altar in this aisle this morning?
Where have you built your altar?
Up in the balcony.
You're going to be leaving and coming down
the sides and down the stairway.
Is it possible you're going to meet your
altar on the way today?
You may have built an altar somewhere between
where you are and where a place of
perfect dedication to God is, the place where
God blesses and the place where God speaks,
the place where God empowers and uses people,
the place where you come to know Him
in the fullness of relationship He's bought for
you.
Where is your altar?
If you meet that altar today on the
way to this altar, I'm going to ask
you in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, like that young prophet did, you curse
that altar.
God will give you revelation of that altar
by the Holy Spirit.
And as you come up to that altar,
I want you to curse it and watch
it break in two and the ashes fall
on the ground.
I want you to walk through that altar
and say, Lord, I'm not setting up an
altar of personal convenience anymore.
I'm not just going to serve you because
it's good for me, O God.
I'm going to serve you even if it's
bad for me and hard for me.
I'm leaving all of the high places and
I'm coming to the appointed place to meet
with you, O God.
Not just today, but for the rest of
my life.
I'm meeting you in the appointed places.
Hallelujah.
Out from the balcony, would you come?
As God's Holy Spirit speaks to you and
leads you, would you come?
Would you come?
This altar today will represent a place of
dedication and consecration to the purposes of God.
Hallelujah.
There are some of you that are here
today, you've served the Lord, you've loved the
Lord, but you've never ever even considered going
to the mission field.
You've never ever even considered us just saying,
God, you've never even prayed that prayer.
God, you can have my whole life.
You can have everything I am.
You can have my job.
You can have my business.
You're holding to this.
And because you won't let it go, you've
got to build an altar now in the
high places and seek out some priest of
the lower class of the people that will
minister to your altar.
But today, God is speaking to His church
and building a house for Himself.
God wants to raise up Samuels and Hannas
in this house today.
Young men and women that will let their
lives be used for His glory.
Would you come?
If you're lost today, a sinner without God,
you can come and God will touch your
life.
Today, if you can hear His voice, harden
not your heart.
If you can hear His voice, He's calling
to you.
Solomon, Solomon, it looks good on the outside,
but I see something else in your life.
Solomon, you're worshiping in the wrong place.
You've built your own altar.
It's halfway to where I am, Solomon.
Solomon, curse that altar.
The number of times God must have spoken
to him and pleaded with him.
Solomon, curse it.
Curse it, Solomon.
Leave it behind and meet me in the
appointed place.
Solomon, go back to Gibeon.
Go back to that place where David was.
Stand before the ark, Solomon, and hear from
me.
Hallelujah.
Just keep coming.
We'll wait for you as God speaks to
you in the balcony.
I am not trying to coerce you to
come to an altar.
I'm provoking you to give your life to
God in entirety.
In absolute entirety.
There is no victory apart from that.
There's no peace of mind and heart apart
from that.
There's no purpose apart from that.
You can look good for many years, but
over and over and over and over and
over and over again, I have seen men
and women who have served God all their
life and in the very pinnacle of their
life, at the very place where they should
be bearing the most fruit in their life,
all of a sudden they die.
They fall.
They just, they die spiritually.
And you wonder why.
But I know why today because they have
built an altar in a high place.
Solomon did it and there came a point
where it was just enough and he was
given over to his delusion.
Oh God.
Those that have come to this altar this
morning, would you lift up your voice to
God like Hannah did?
Tell him where you have built.
He already knows, but confess that altar that
you have built.
Confess it before the Lord.
And I want you to curse it today.
Curse it this morning.
Curse it.
Curse it and say, nobody's going to stop
me like the Apostle Paul.
Nobody is going to stop me from going
to Jerusalem.