"When Adam and Eve came out of the Garden there was a place they were to go and worship God. It’s at the gate of Eden and they come and call on the name of the Lord in this place where God is dwelling in their midst.
"God’s presence is there between the cherubim and they are to come before that altar and present the sacrifice and offering unto the Lord.
“That thing remains on the earth until the time of the Flood. When the deluge hits, it is removed away back into heaven.
"When Noah gets off the boat, the first thing he does is build an altar unto the Lord and the first time in your Bible that you hear about a burnt offering that ascends up to the Lord, it’s in Genesis 8:
[20] And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
[21] And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.
“When Israel comes along, God says, 'I’m going to send my manifest presence back down on the earth and I’m going to dwell in the nation Israel in that tabernacle.' So, what you’ve got here is a re-establishment of the thing that’s over there.
“You get the details about how things operated. Before then God wasn’t interested in filling us in on all the details.
“In Psalm 20:3, David is talking to the Lord, and he says, ‘Remember all thy offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice; Selah.’ The Hebrew word for 'accept' means ‘turn to ashes.’ You see, that’s how God accepted the sacrifices.
"Fire came down from Almighty God and consumed the sacrifice. Leviticus 9: [22] And Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people, and blessed them, and came down from offering of the sin offering, and the burnt offering, and peace offerings.
[24] And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering and the fat: which when all the people saw, they shouted, and fell on their faces.
“There came a supernatural fire out from before the Lord. You find it over and over and over in the Bible, the way God accepted the sacrifice offered to Him by faith on the altar was the fire came and devoured it.
“In I Kings 18, Elijah goes out on the mountain and there’s the prophets of Baal, and he says, ‘Put your sacrifice up and let’s see who accepts it,’ and they cried to Baal until noon and then he says, ‘All right, throw yours down and put God’s up there.’
"And Elijah’s telling Israel, in one of the greatest texts a preacher could ever preach on, ‘How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.’ Let’s get on with the program!
“Elijah puts the offering out there and he says, ‘Now put the bales of water on it and soak it down where it’s totally water-soaked,’ and he says, ‘Now, Lord, show them you’re God.’ And brother, the fire falls down out of heaven and laps up the water out of the trough around the thing and just consumes the sacrifice.
“Acceptance with Almighty God was demonstrated in times past by the fire coming down and consuming the sacrifice. That’s how Abel was accepted of God and Cain wasn’t, because Cain’s offering just sat there and nothing happened; nothing supernatural at all.
“The first living thing to die on the earth was a sheep and the first man to die was a shepherd. The ‘chief shepherd laid down his life for the sheep,’ as per Hebrews 13:20.
"Cain’s religion was too refined to slay a lamb but not too cultured to murder his brother. Religion is the greatest cause of bloodshed that’s ever been known on the face of the earth."
(another post later this evening)
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