Building Altars: The Path to Spiritual Transformation

If we were to take a survey of everyone in here this morning, we would see that our encounter with God was in the making long before we ever noticed Him.

I can look back now at our life, and my wife and I were talking a couple of weeks ago about five years ago. I can see the hand of God. I couldn't see it then. I thought it was just, you know, my wife had some great idea about homeschooling our children.

"Hey, listen, if you want to stay on with those rugrats, knock yourself out. I'm going to work for 12 hours unless I go to work to get a dog." Our kids are good. Our kids are good. But even then, I could see that God was already aligning some things.

Listen, Cody caught me off guard, and it gets God off guard. I tell you this: for my wife and for us, all of us really, all five of us, Kobe didn't change anything. You couldn't go to the grocery. Let me tell you what my wife was doing: Walmart pickup before it was popular. You got three kids; you don't want to drag those rugrats to the grocery store. But God had His hand in it.

I don't understand why I did some things. Now, looking back, I do because that's what God wanted me to do. Go to Pastor. "Hey, what do you think I should do?" "Anything and pray about it." That's not what I come to you for. I come to you to tell me what I'm supposed to do. And I can't tell you to do anything; you have to find it out from God for yourself.

Pastors, I don't have all the answers. In my office at the chapel—well, it used to be my office; I don't work with it anymore—I had a sign on my door for when all the guys came in that said, "I don't have all the answers, but I can point you in the direction of the man who has all of them."

Listen, I left a 15-year career with the state of Florida to start a business the same month that we were declared in a global health crisis. Who starts a business in the middle of a pandemic? This guy. Why? Because God was getting us.

I'm telling you, had I never left my career in law enforcement, I would not be here in Jacksonville this morning. Our family would not be packed up, moving to a different state to answer the call of God in our life. I was worried about the next promotion. I'd already made two promotions—actually, I made three promotions in 18 months. I was on my way to another promotion. I was shooting up pretty quick. But you know what they say: shooting stars usually come down.

But I saw God working in our life. Let me tell you, everybody here this morning, there's no doubt that God was working in your life before you ever came to Him. The Bible says that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Before we ever breathed our first breath, God was already ordering our steps. He said, "Before you were ever born, I knew you in the womb." He was already establishing mantles, ministries, and miracles for you.

I come to tell you this morning, you did not find God; He found you. Revivals and growth and the abundance of freedom we have in the Spirit isn't because of what we've done. Brother Stein, the liberty that we feel when we come to church on Sunday morning is not because of what we've done.

I'm probably going to step on some toes right here, and I'm sorry. Both sides, you'll have to clean it up when I leave. It's not based off the fast that we have completed. It's not from the Bible reading that we have committed to, but it is from the generations before us who were seeking a genuine move of God.

The things that we've seen and the things that we must do require us to go back to Bethel and build some altars. The next generation is going to have what we have, simple as that. We're going to reap a harvest that we did not plant. Brother Stein, whatever happens here in Jacksonville won't be because of what you've done; it won't be because of what the congregation has done. It will be because of what the prior generations have done.

Listen, there's a prophecy, and I know I've told you all this before. There's a prophecy of a revival along the I-10 corridor. I'm telling you this week, that prophecy is starting to unfold. I told Brother Stein last time I was here, the end of I-10 dead ends—guess where? Right into Jacksonville. It stops here.

You want to know why you fought so much hell? Because something's going to happen. God has set a precedence for Jacksonville.

The path of revival begins in your home, and its final destination is the house of God. If we're going to be an on-fire generation, it's going to have to start in our living rooms and in our homes, and it'll end up here in the house of God. If we're ever going to see revival, we're going to have to lay down some things underneath an oak tree.

There are some relationships, friendships, and even jobs that we're going to have to tell, "I'm on my way to Bethel to build an altar. Either you can come with me, or you can stay here, but I am going to Bethel."

There are going to be some things that we forsake if we're going to dwell in Bethel and be in the presence of God. There are some strange gods that the world has said it's okay to worship, but if you're going to dwell in Bethel, those strange gods are going to have to find a place underneath an oak tree.

If we're ever going to secure an encounter for Jacksonville, for Duval County, we're going to have to do away with the mindset of, "What can I keep in my life and still touch Heaven?" If we have any intention of seeing the glory and the power and the authority of God demonstrated, then we have to be willing to let go of everything for a life-changing encounter with God.

That's where Jacob was at. He was a deceiver; he was a supplanter. His mother helped him to manipulate his blind father, and in a hurried escape, he ran to a place that he didn't even know existed. It was there that God began to set the course for Jacob's life.

Let me tell you, the well that Jacob dug was the same well that a Samaritan woman met Christ. The things that we lay down today, we may never see a direct response or the fruit of laying those things down, but there will be people that come after us who will reap the benefits of what we put underneath the oak tree.

There has to be a call for holiness. When they came to the place that would be Bethel, it was called by another name. There were those that dwelt on the fringe—the outliers, just right outside the parameters of Bethel. They had their own culture, their own way of doing things, their own gods, their own way of living, of making money.

Unfortunately, we have those that will hang around the fringes of the church, never committing, never submitting, never giving up their false gods, ever clinging to their own desires and wanting to do it their own way.

You may ask, "Well, why doesn't so-and-so get committed to the things of God? Why aren't they serving in a ministry?" I'm going to tell you why they can't. Because no man can serve two masters. Either you can serve the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, or you can serve yourself. But you cannot serve both.

You have to lay down the false idols and quit living on the fringe and be committed to Bethel. That has not been the case, nor has it ever been the case. God has always commanded that those who are in pursuit of Him clean themselves and lay down the ways of culture and put on the garments of praise and the garments of holiness.

What do you mean the garments of praise? We understand what the garments of holiness are. What's the garments of praise? I'm going to tell you this: Achan had taken some things from a victory that did not belong to him, and the children of Israel suffered a great defeat at Ai. They didn't even take the entire army of Israel with them; they didn't even need a fraction. This is how small Ai was.

The reason that we can't get victory over some things that seem so minuscule and so small is because we have secret sin in our life. The thing that a one-day fast or a 30-minute prayer meeting should get victory over, we can't get victory over the small things. The reason why we continue to get our brains beat out at Ai is because we have secrets in the camp.

I'm going to tell you something—you can find that; I wouldn't recommend it; it might cause some problems. The man that God had set over Israel said, "I want every man to get in front of their house." He gave them a command to worship. Am I wrong? Guess what Achan could not do? He couldn't worship. He couldn't lift his hands because there were things that he had in his house that bound him from entering into the presence of God.

There were things that were in Jacob's house that could not enter into the house of God.

"Preacher, I don't always feel God. I don't always feel Him in my prayer time. Sometimes I gain an affinity for church." You might want to take an inventory of what you have in your life. There are things that will keep you out of the presence of God.

I'm not always talking about extramarital affairs or addictions to drugs. I'm talking about small things. The Bible tells us that it's the small foxes that ruin the vine. The last time I was here, I talked about the Gibeonites and making covenants and deals with those that say they're one thing but they're really not.

There will always be a certain way to dress, a certain way to act. If you're going to live in Bethel, you're going to have to follow the precedence. Yet there was no law. You go back and look at it; the law was not given yet. Abraham established the precedence, but it was in Jacob's heart.

God wants to write His holiness in your life and your heart and your soul because I didn't come here to preach standards this morning. Listen, holiness—real true holiness—starts on the inside; it will flow out, but it starts on the inside.

Real true holiness—what is holiness, Brother Harper? I'm glad you asked. Holiness is separation unto God. It's not separation from the world. It's not a legalistic set of rules that we have to follow. Brother Stein didn't tell me I had to wear a white shirt and a tie this morning to church. He didn't tell me that my shoes have to be polished and that my gig line has to be straight. Nobody told me that I have to keep the hair off of my ears.

It's not written in the Bible. In fact, no, I'm not going to get into that. There are no rules. Holiness—real true holiness—is how close can I get to God, whatever the cost, whatever the price. I don't care if I have to lay down friends; I don't care if I have to lay down family members. It doesn't matter—a job? What's a job? Just another thing that binds you.

Whatever it takes for me to get intimate with God—that's true holiness: separation unto Him and to Him alone. There will be things that society and institutions of higher learning and people that come and go in and out of your life will say, "It doesn't matter how you live; it doesn't matter how you dress; it doesn't matter what you watch; it doesn't matter the way that you talk." None of that matters.

Proverbs says, "There is a way which seemeth right unto man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Go ahead, do what you want. Go ahead and wear what you want, watch what you want, talk how you want to live your life the way that you want to.

I come to tell you this morning, you can't serve two masters. You can't try to live and be relevant Monday through Saturday in your secular circles, but when Sunday comes, think that you can come to the house of God and be right with Him. God is wanting us to dwell in Bethel from Sunday to Sunday. He wants us to go from the gathering at the house of God to the house of God.

"Preacher, does it really matter?" Well, yeah, yes ma'am, yes sir, it really does. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, and here's the catcher: which is your reasonable service.

What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

Not my body; it's not my spirit because I understand what Paul said: he was a prisoner of God. Listen, there ain't no other way to live than being a prisoner of that because I'm going to tell you what: the best days in the world don't even come close to the bad days of living for God. No comparison.

He wants us to build altars on Mondays before work and on Tuesdays after the parent-teacher conference, on Wednesdays after the doctor's appointments, and on Thursdays before going to the grocery store.

But why? Because your co-worker on Monday just had the worst weekend of their life, and they need somebody to prepare an altar for them in Bethel. Your child's teacher on Tuesday was the victim of domestic abuse and needs the God of Bethel to heal their wounds. Your doctor doesn't even know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but you're their connection to Bethel.

The altar that Abraham built wasn't just for his own worship and service to God, but it was for the next generation. It was one of the people that would come because he made a commitment and a covenant with the Lord.

God is wanting to know this morning if, before you go home today, you will come to Bethel and build an altar for the people coming after you.

It wasn't until 20 years after Jacob returned to Bethel that he had his initial encounter with God. Twenty years from the time he laid his head upon the rocks that Abraham used for his altar, and he came back from Laban's house.

It was 22 generations that can be born in 20 years. I wouldn't recommend it, but it can be done. It was then Jacob built an altar. It was only then that God poured out promises and mantles upon Jacob.

This morning, there are those who are positioning themselves even right now as I speak in their hearts for mantles of past generations to rest upon them. Then there are those who have prophecies after prophecies of God's anointing that will rest upon them.

But listen to this preacher today: it will never happen if you never learn to dwell in Bethel and build altars. It will never happen if you don't learn to submit yourself to the man of God. It doesn't matter who your daddy was; it doesn't matter who your granddaddy was. Mantles are never passed down and laid upon the shoulders of those who do not pursue God and the things of God.

Bethel represents a place of transformation, which then allows impartation to flow. If you want the anointing of the previous generation, if you want apostolic authority and dominion to flow freely through your ministry, if you desire to walk with a demonstration that God has ordained for you, you're going to have to go back to Bethel and build some altars.

You're going to have to lay some things underneath an old oak tree at Shechem before you can ever get to that altar.

I want to give you a little bit of buyer's warning: builders beware. There's a great cost to altar building—not so much as the altar itself, but what you put on that altar that will cost you.

Let me tell you, an altar is a place where things go to die. You go to the Tabernacle in the wilderness; the very first thing you come to, the very first piece of furniture, is the brazen altar. It was a bloody place; it was a place where things were put down, they were killed, they were slain.

The scripture I quoted to you earlier says, "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto the Lord, which is your reasonable service."

You know the difference between the sacrifices laid on the brazen altar and the sacrifices that you'll lay upon the altars of your Bethel? The difference between a dead sacrifice and a living sacrifice is that a living sacrifice can get up and get off the altar anytime it wants to. Anytime it wants to.