THE ALTAR OF REMEMBRANCE
Kay Keith Peebles 7/17/20 20.26
Names are significant. Every parent to be must decide the name of their child while he or she is growing in the womb. Some name them after respected family members, others after men or women in the Bible. Still, others may research names and their meaning in books or online as they carefully choose a name that will define their child for the rest of their life. Every name has meaning. Biblical names powerfully coincide with the purpose and character of the people that bore them.
Several people in the Bible had names the Lord changed, because their new name was to reflect their newly formed character and destiny in God. Abram, meaning exalted father, was changed to Abraham, father of many nations. Sarai means princess while Sarah means joy and delight because she laughed when she heard the Lord tell Abraham she would have a son within a year. Jacob’s name meant deceiver, to supplant, overreach. God changed his name to Israel which means God contended. “And He said, ‘Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.'” Genesis 32:28.
The Bible says those who withstand to the end will be given a white stone with a new name upon it. “He who has an ear, let him hear and heed what the Spirit says to the churches, to him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name engraved on the stone which no one knows except the one who receives it.” Revelation 2:17.
Someday all who believe in the Lord will have the name of God written on them. Revelation 3:12 explains, “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God; he will most certainly never be put out of it, and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name.” See also Isaiah 62:2, Ezekiel 48:35.
I was first introduced to a directed study of the names of God through the ministry of Kay Arthur, Precept Upon Precept. I was relatively young in my faith in God and I had no idea the Lord had recorded many names for Himself in the Bible. The Precept Upon Precept Bible study on the names of God whet my appetite to know the Lord more personally. Following the study, I continued my research through a devotional booklet entitled: Knowing God by His Names by Dick Purnell. It contained more than a hundred names for God recorded in the Bible!
The Lord gave our Biblical forefathers and mothers personal experiences of the revelation of who He is through His names. He will also do it for us. Each time He revealed Himself to someone, there was a lasting effect. God encounters not only birth new faith in Him regarding a specific character trait of His, but they also leave residual anointing for breakthrough connected to the revelation of His name (character). Abraham’s destiny was related to the name God had given him. The Lord named Abraham the father of many nations (heathen, Gentiles) not just the nation of Israel. Jesus, the Messiah of Israel came through Abraham’s lineage and became The Light to the Gentiles!
To Abraham and Sarah’s servant girl Hagar, God revealed Himself as El Roi- “the God Who Sees Me.” Genesis 16:13. To Abraham, He revealed Himself as Jehovah-Jireh-“the Lord will Provide”. Genesis 22:8-18. To Gideon, He revealed Himself as Jehovah-Shalom-“the Lord is Peace”. Judges 6:24. To the Israelites in the wilderness, He revealed Himself as Jehovah-Rophe- “the Lord Who Heals”. Exodus 15:26. To Moses, He revealed himself as- “I AM”. Exodus 3:14. To Peter, He revealed Himself as- “the Christ (Messiah) the Son of the Living God”. Matthew 16:16. To the Apostle John, He revealed Himself in the book of Revelation as,-“the Alpha and the Omega (the beginning and the end)”. Revelation 22:13. Everyone who encountered the Lord had a multi-dimensional revelation of who He is. As I mentioned earlier, there are over 100 names of God which He revealed to His servants both in the Old and the New Testaments.
When Moses led the Israelites in the wilderness, the Lord did many signs and miracles so that the people would understand He was the God of all power and dominion. He was calling them to follow Him and be His people. Many of His signs were pointing them to their coming Messiah in future generations. He gave them manna in the wilderness representing Jesus, the Bread of Life (John 6:35), and “Living” water (John 4:14) from the Rock. Every article of the Tabernacle Moses built in the wilderness represented Jesus. The altar of sacrifice in the outer court represented the blood sacrifice of Jesus’ body on the cross. The bread was not only His body broken for us but also the bread of life that sustains us. The oil is symbolical of the Holy Spirit which empowers us and the light in the Holy Place is Jesus, the Light of the world. The Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies represents the continual abiding presence of our holy and merciful Lord. Everything the Lord did in the Old Testament was to prepare His people for the Savior and Messiah, Jesus who would take away the sins of the world.
The Lord was drawing those who would listen to come closer for intimate fellowship with Almighty God! He gave them the Ten Commandments in the wilderness and had them commit to being obedient to His word by building an altar and sacrificing animals to Him. In Exodus 20:24 He gave specific instructions. “You shall make an altar of earth for Me; and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause My Name to be recorded and remembered [through the revelation of My divine nature], I will come to you and bless you.” Today, when we build an altar before the Lord during a trial, our sacrifice is the sacrifice of praise to God before our breakthrough manifests. It then becomes an altar of remembrance when the victory comes.
Every one of us who has had a real, personal encounter with the Lord has a living testimony of who He is and what He has done for us! Through those circumstances the Lord enabled us to overcome in situations that seemed impossible. Our victories through Him create an anointing from the Lord to help others breakthrough in the same areas. Our encounters with the Lord, like the ones Jacob and Abraham had, reveal the nature and character of God, His love, and His mercy toward us. They are not only meant to change us and draw us closer to Him, they are meant to be used by us to encourage others to draw closer to Him for their breakthrough.
His promise to the Israelites was powerful! “In every place where I cause My Name to be recorded and remembered [through revelation of My divine nature], I will come to you and bless you.” Every encounter with God is building our faith and trust in Him for the next trial or challenge we will face. With a long history of faith-building experiences with the Lord, it becomes easier and easier to trust Him with even harder challenges. Through the growing number of altars of remembrance we build, worry, fear and doubt become obsolete because “Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever”! Hebrews 13:8.
This is what gave David the faith to confront and kill Goliath! “David said to Saul, ‘Let no man’s courage fail because of him (Goliath). Your servant will go out and fight with this Philistine.’ Then Saul said to David, ‘You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight him. For you are a young man and he has been a warrior since his youth.’ But David said to Saul, ‘Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and attacked it and rescued the lamb from its mouth; and when it rose up against me, I seized it by its whiskers and struck and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them since he has taunted and defied the armies of the living God.’ David said, ‘The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, He will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.'” 1 Samuel 17:32-37.
David had met the Lord his God while tending his father’s sheep. He discovered his Lord was his Defender, his Protector, his Shield and Buckler, and his Deliverer. Through his powerful encounters with God, David began an intimate journey with the Lord that would eventually make him King of Israel.
My husband and I have learned to build an “Altar of Remembrance” before the Lord to honor Him by recalling all the mighty things He has done for us. Part of that altar is our writings. As we write we recall ways in which the Lord has broken us through difficult situations or carried us over troubled waters. We love to sit together in our prayer time reciting memories of the Lord’s deliverance from certain situations or unexpected provision in times of need. The Israelites left a stone altar wherever they encountered the Lord so that those who would pass by would be reminded of all the things the Lord brought them through.
When trouble comes to overwhelm and deliverance seems far away, it is powerful to remind ourselves and the enemy that the Lord has already delivered us out of many situations and the outcome will be victorious if we stand in faith with the Lord. Scripture says He “inhabits the praises of His people”. Psalm 22:3. Our altar of remembrance is an altar of praise. When we recite what He has already done, our praises go up to heaven and His presence comes down to encamp around us.
In 1923 the Hymn “Great is Thy Faithfulness” was published. The lyricist was Thomas Chisholm. What a heritage of faith he left for us all to believe and trust in the Lord. He truly encountered our God whose name is Faithful and True. I leave you with the words of this glorious hymn which is his eternal Altar of Remembrance.
“Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father, there is no shadow of turning with Thee; Thou changest not, thy compassions, they fail not, As thou hast been, thou forever will be. Great is thy faithfulness! Great is thy faithfulness! Morning by morning new mercies I see; All I have needed thy hand hath provided-Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me. Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest, Sun, moon and stars in their courses above, Join with all nature in manifold witness To Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love. Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth, Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide, Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow, Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!”
“In every place where I cause My Name to be recorded and remembered [through the revelation of My divine nature], I will come to you and bless you.” Exodus 20:24. Our faith increases and His presence draws near to us as we build an Altar of Remembrance to the LORD.
