“And Noah built an altar unto the LORD…” Gen. 8:20. The first thing this man who walked with God did when he got off the ark, was to build a family altar and worship the God of creation. What’s the first thing you do after a long trip in the car, get out, empty the trunk, run for the bathroom, open the house, check the mail or bow your head and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for traveling mercies to the God of heaven and earth? Noah has been shut up with God for over a year in the ark and not able to offer sacrifices, I’m sure he had plenty of prayer time during those 360 days but he could not sacrifice to his Creator. What a growth period that must have been for him, Amen? Not only do we need to pray, talk to God, we need to worship and sacrifice and walk with God. That’s just what this man of God did the minute he stepped off the ark, “Then Noah built an altar unto the LORD…” There are three things that characterize an altar, ‘Worship, Sacrifice and Prayer.’

Those three elements are what constitute an altar, what’s happened to our family altars? As I said, we get home from a trip, we unpack the ark, get a drink, and call mom when we should pause and praise and thank God, Heb. 13:15. And offer a “sacrifice of praise” and thanksgiving to God, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. A sacrifice calls for death, in the Older Testament it was an animal that died but in the Newer Testament it is the personal ego that must be slain. We must sacrifice our judgement, opinion, and evaluation of what is right and good and praise God for His in all things, including the good, the bad and the ugly. And this “sacrifice of praise” is incomplete until it is expressed.  Noah was in constant communion with God, unbroken fellowship, so it was only natural for him to build an altar and worship God before anything else. Oh, to have a heart after God like that again, to have that fervor and love for God like we did when we first met Him.

Notice Gen. 8:21, “And the LORD smelled a sweet savor…” a sweet soothing aroma. It was the smell of wickedness, it was the stench of sin Ch. 6 that caused God to be sorry He made man on the earth, it was the aroma of their evil deeds and thoughts that grieved God’s heart. But here from this man of God, He smells a soothing aroma, ahhhh! Is your prayer life a soothing aroma to God? Do your sacrifices, your worship, your altars have a soothing aroma? Meditate on those words for a moment, “The LORD smelled a soothing aroma.” Is that really what He smells when you pray, when the angel ignites the incense in your bowl of prayer before the Almighty Rev. 5:8 & 8:3? Do your sacrifices, worship, and altars have a soothing aroma to the Creator or are they a stinging, pungent stench in His nostrils? An (odzo) the odor of a decaying corpse? Our prayers are a picture of the evening incense wafting its way before the nostrils of the Almighty God, Psalm 141:2 (Read it, meditate on it, chew on it) write it on the back of your hand in ink. Better yet, how is your bowl today, empty or full? Oh, how we need to spend time at our altars worshiping, praising, sacrificing, praying; ‘NOT BECAUSE WE FEEL LIKE IT OR WE GET THRILLS’ but because He deserves it and He demands it. And IT can and IT will make a difference! “Something happens when I pray that does not happen when I don’t and it works with mathematical precision!” Look at Gen. 6:6-7. read it and tremble my friend, God was going to destroy man and beast from off the face of the earth. He was grieved that He created them, GREIVED! But Gen. 7:21 says, “And the LORD smelled a sweet savor (a soothing aroma) and the LORD said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake.”  ‘Hallelujah!’

I can’t help but think of II Chron. 7:14 in this context, think of America, think of my church – your church, think of my family – your family, think of my pitiful prayer life and your prayer life; “Oh God, hear us, help us, heal us, teach us, show us, lead us, walk with us, talk with us, so we might talk with You and keep our bowls full. Help us to build family altars again, to offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving continually. Let us learn that ‘One Man – One Woman’ can make a difference – all the difference in the world with You beside and inside of us.” In Jesus Name. Amen!     ‘Between The Lines’

“Portraits of Prayer in Genesis”  (Noah – Part #3)