Prayer Altars Demolishing un- Godly altars! Amanda Buys’ Spiritual Covering This is a product of Kanaan Ministries, a non-profit ministry under the covering of: • Roly, Amanda’s husband for more than thirty-five years. • River of Life Family Church Pastor Edward Gibbens Vanderbijlpark South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 16 982 3022 Fax: +27 (0) 16 982 2566 Email: [email protected] There is no copyright on this material. However, no part may be reproduced and/or presented for personal gain. All rights to this material are reserved to further the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ ONLY. For further information or to place an order, please contact us at: P.O. Box 15253 27 John Vorster Avenue Panorama Plattekloof Ext. 1 7506 Panorama 7500 Cape Town Cape Town South Africa South Africa Tel: +27 (0) 21 930 7577 Fax: 086 681 9458 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.kanaanministries.org Office hours: Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 3 PM Kanaan International Website Website: www.eu.kanaanministries.org Contents INTRODUCTION 4 Chapter 1 – THE PRAYER ALTAR 6 1. Noah’s Altar 7 2. Abraham’s Altar 8 3. Isaac’s Altar 8 4. Jacobs Altar 9 5. Israel’s National Altar 10 6. David’s Altar 10 7. Daniel’s Altar 11 8. Elijah and his prayer life 11 9. The Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth 12 Chapter 2 – BREAKTHROUGH ALTARS 13 Chapter 3 – SATANIC ALTARS 19 • Examples of negative altars in the Bible 21 • Various types of Altars 23 • Altars in our Cities, Towns, and Farms 26 • Purpose of Altars of Affliction 30 Chapter 4 – MANIFESTATION OF ATTACKS FROM SATANIC ALTARS 33 Petition against my Enemies (Ps 109, Ps 6 & Ps 7) 37 Chapter 5 – HOW TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE ALTARS 38 Chapter 6 – PRAYERS 41 1. Dealing with the Satanic Altars (Shrines) and High Places of your City/Neighbourhood. 41 2. Dealing with the Water spirits of your City – Marine Altars 43 Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 3 Introduction God is raising a militant Church that will possess our cities for Him, people who will take the spiritual responsibility over their communities, cities and nations. God is looking for men and women who will check the advance of wickedness, violence, satanism, corruption, idolatry, oppression, occultism, injustice and perversion in our cities and nations. God is looking for dedicated people who will monitor the spiritual climate of their cities and forbid, in the spirit, all activities that give glory to satan and allow only activities that glorify the Name of the Lord. God is conducting a serious recruitment exercise for people who will pursue, overtake and recover all that the enemy has stolen from our communities and cities, and because of our carelessness, the enemy has stolen so much. Unfortunately, he is still busy stealing (even from the Church!). Ezek 22:30 “30 And I sought a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none.” May God not give this verdict concerning us. May we be available to stand in the gap for perishing souls in our communities and cities. God says further that because He could not find anyone to stand in the gap for the land and the people, He had to pour out His fury and wrath to destroy the land. Church, should we continue to fold our arms and have a good time “possessing and claiming” things that are perishable while satan is having a good time plundering God’s people by stealing, killing, and destroying? God gave a commission concerning cities that the Church needs to give heed to: Jer 29:7 “7 And seek (inquire for, require, and request) the peace and welfare of the city to which I have caused you to be carried away captive; and pray to the Lord for it, for in the welfare of [the city in which you live] you will have welfare.” God is recruiting people who will enforce His will and rule on earth as it is in Heaven, people who will set free those who have been held captive by the enemy and people that will demonstrate Kingdom lifestyle even here on earth. God has given every city or people group talents, skills, mineral resources, etc, for their survival, sustenance, social and economic upliftment. These are their redemptive gifts for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for the city and the people. However, when the people live in rebellion against God, the land will refuse to yield her increase and rain will be withheld. All manners of curses, tragedies, famine, violence, wickedness, sorrows, pain, misery and destruction begin to manifest until the Nehemiah’s begin to repent on behalf of the people and pray for things to turn around. Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 4 God is calling forth His Church in every city to stand in the gap. The strength of the Church is dependent on the strength of each individual believer’s prayer life. The major reason why so many believers today are unsuccessful, stagnant, and amount to nothing in life is because they do not have an altar of prayer. This approach to the concept of altars of prayer as a basis and foundation of victory and breakthrough in life is worth considering. A believer is not greater than his altar. The success, advancement, increase and consequently breakthrough in every area of the life of a believer is dependent upon his altar. Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 5 Chapter 1 – The Prayer Altar Many people build their lives without a foundation. This can be fatal when confronted by the storms the Lord Jesus warns us about in: Matthew 7: 27 “27 And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great and complete was the fall of it.” The foundation of the Christian life is in the altar of prayer. Exodus 20 : 24 “24 An altar of earth you shall make to Me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name and cause it to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.” Here God COMMANDED the Israelites to build an altar of earth, and He promised that He would come to bless them there. In other words, God blesses us at the altar of prayer. Without an altar of prayer you cannot be blessed or attract the presence of the God of Heaven. WHAT IS AN ALTAR OF PRAYER? 1. It is simply a place of contact with the spirit world. 2. It is also a place of sacrifice and a place of covenant. In the Old Testament, when God gave the promise of a land to Abraham, he quickly built an altar of prayer on the land and sacrificed to the Lord there. What is the implication? Whenever you build an altar of sacrifice upon a piece of land, you are drawing that land into a covenant relationship with the god you are serving. From that time on, you are putting that land directly under the control of that spirit/spirits. From that time on he/they have a hold over that land or property. In the New Testament however, an altar is simply a place of contact with our God. We are no longer commanded to build physical altars unto God, only spiritual ones. It is just simply a particular place at a particular time of the day when and where an individual child of God meets with his Maker. The Old Testament altar was made of stones and wood but now, the Word teaches us in: John 4 : 24 “24 God is a Spirit (a spiritual Being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality).” Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 6 We must make contact with Him in the Spirit. Your altar location can be in your bedroom, lounge, a garden, a mountaintop, the beach, or where ever it is convenient for you. There you can say for example: “Dear Father, I am going to be meeting with You here everyday between 5 : 30 – 7 am.” That constitutes an altar and as you visit that place to pray, to worship and meditate, you can be sure the Almighty God will regularly come to pay you a visit there. Nobody in the Word was called a friend of God or prophet of God who did not have a strong prayer life. God does not only want us to work for Him but also to walk and talk with Him. God wants us to be workers together with Him, know Him and understand Him just like Moses did. Your attitude to prayer will determine your altitude in the spirit. You are limited by your altar. May your heart thirst for God. May your heart cry for the Living God. All the men and women in the Bible such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Deborah, Esther, David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, John, James, Paul, etc, had solid and strong altars of prayer. Make prayer your top priority in your daily schedule. WHO CAN BUILD AN ALTAR AND WHEN CAN WE BUILD AN ALTAR? Usually, an altar is built after a revelation knowledge of God. You cannot build an altar to an unknown God. Such an altar will be useless and ineffectual. Examples of Altars in the Word. 1. Noah’s Altar In Genesis 8, God tells us about the first altar. After Noah’s ark rested on dry land and everybody came out of it, God revealed Himself to Noah. Noah, as a result, made contact with the spirit world by building an altar. He burnt a sacrifice on it. God responded: Gen 8 : 21, 22 “21 When the Lord smelled the pleasing odor [a scent of satisfaction to His heart], the Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination (the strong desire) of man’s heart is evil and wicked from his youth; neither will I ever again smite and destroy every living thing, as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 7 Because Noah’s sacrifice pleased God, the Lord spoke the following blessings. Gen 9 : 1-3 “1 AND GOD pronounced a blessing upon Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread and terror of you shall be upon every beast of the land, every bird of the air, all that creeps upon the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are delivered into your hand. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green vegetables and plants, I give you everything.” Humanity and the entire world was blessed as well as Noah personally and his generations after him. 2. Abraham’s Altars Gen 12 : 6-8 “6 Abram passed through the land to the locality of Shechem, to the oak or terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. 7 Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, I will give this land to your posterity. So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, Who had appeared to him. 8 From there he pulled up [his tent pegs] and departed to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.” Gen 13 : 17- 18 “17 Arise, walk through the land, the length of it and the breadth of it, for I will give it to you. 18 Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt among the oaks or terebinths of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and built there an altar to the Lord. We see that Abraham built three solid altars to perform three different functions. 3. Isaac’s Altar Gen 26 : 23 - 25 “23 Now he went up from there to Beersheba. 24 And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will favor you with blessings and multiply your descendants for the sake of My servant Abraham. 25 And [Isaac] built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there; and there Isaac’s servants were digging a well.” Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 8 4. Jacob’s Altars Genesis 28:10-15 “10 And Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 And he came to a certain place and stayed there overnight, because the sun was set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down there to sleep. 12 And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! 13 And behold, the Lord stood over and beside him and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father [forefather] and the God of Isaac; I will give to you and to your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 And your offspring shall be as [countless as] the dust or sand of the ground, and you shall spread abroad to the west and the east and the north and the south; and by you and your Offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed and bless themselves. 15 And behold, I am with you and will keep (watch over you with care, take notice of) you wherever you may go, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done all of which I have told you.” Jacob’s response: Gen 28: 16 – 19 “16 And Jacob awoke from his sleep and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it. 17 He was afraid and said, How to be feared and reverenced is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gateway to heaven! 18 And Jacob rose early in the morning and took the stone he had put under his head, and he set it up for a pillar (a monument to the vision in his dream), and he poured oil on its top [in dedication]. 19 And he named that place Bethel [the house of God]; but the name of that city was Luz at first.” His second altar: Gen 33 : 18 – 20 “18 When Jacob came from Padan-aram, he arrived safely and in peace at the town of Shechem, in the land of Canaan, and pitched his tents before the [enclosed] town. 19 Then he bought the piece of land on which he had encamped from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of money. 20 There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel [God, the God of Israel].” What we learn here is that when he moved from the one place to the other he still had to build another altar in order to make contact with God in his new place. Gen 35 : 1 “1 AND GOD said to Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there. And make there an altar to God Who appeared to you [in a distinct manifestation] when you fled from the presence of Esau your brother.” Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 9 God so longed for an altar that he had to command Jacob to build one. God cherishes altars where he can meet with His precious children and have meaningful fellowship with Him. 5. Israel’s National Altar Exodus 33 : 7 – 11 “7 Now Moses used to take [his own] tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting [of God with His own people]. And everyone who sought the Lord went out to [that temporary] tent of meeting which was outside the camp. 8 When Moses went out to the tent of meeting, all the people rose and stood, every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9 When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of the tent, and the Lord would talk with Moses. 10 And all the people saw the pillar of cloud stand at the tent door, and all the people rose up and worshiped, every man at his tent door. 11 And the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Moses returned to the camp, but his minister Joshua son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the [temporary prayer] tent.” God instructed Moses that the Tabernacle was to be moved from the midst of the camp. He wanted people to be serious in their search for Him. Hence, the Tabernacle was taken about a kilometer away from the camp and anybody who wanted to seek God was to go there. After it was moved out, it appeared as if nobody went there except Moses, Aaron and Joshua. 6. David’s Altars Ps 55 : 17 “17 Evening and morning and at noon will I utter my complaint and moan and sigh, and He will hear my voice.” He had a three-time altar per day thereby making unceasing contact with God. Kanaan Ministries: Prayer Altars (04/2003) 10