Just as God challenged the false altars in the Old Testament, so He does today. God’s saints are being taught how to discern an altar by its construction. What is your altar made of? This is perhaps the single most important question a saint can ask because it gets to the heart of his faith and how God rooted his faith in the priesthood of Jesus Christ.

In this teaching you will learn how the stones of Jesus’ altar are reflective of Him and therefore carry His testimony in our hearts. In this new apostolic season God is shattering the myth that has so troubled the church that says that prayer is our altar. Believers ask, “If I consecrate my life to God and seek Him with all my heart, is this not the altar of consecration?” The answer is no!

In this new apostolic season, the saints are getting a higher perspective. God is teaching the church to build faith from a covenant perspective and when it comes to the altar of Christ that means that the altar is cut from the cloth of His new covenant. Prayer is not the covenant. Jesus is the covenant, so we build His altar in the heart with His whole stones.

Prayer is not the true altar of Christ; it is the false altar. In this new apostolic season, God is challenging the false altar and renewing the true altar. We’re going to put this together for you by turning over to Joshua chapter 3 and 4 where God placed the types and shadows of the new covenant altar and priesthood for our learning.

The children of Israel had ended their journey in the wilderness and were ready to enter into the Promised Land. The only remaining barrier was the Jordan River, and it is in the crossing of the Jordan that God placed a sign of Christ in the joining of the stewardship and priesthood, the ark of the covenant and priests that went before the people, the cutting off of the waters, and the 12 stones taken from the Jordan as a memorial of God’s work.

Beginning with Joshua 3:7-11,

7 And the Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee [stewardship] in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.

8 And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan.

9 And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God.

10 And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.

11 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan.

“The Lord said unto Joshua, This day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all Israel,” and we see that same confirmation of stewardship taking place today, how the Lord is magnifying stewardship in the eyes of the people to give direction to the church as God establishes His true testimony in the heart.

To the carnal way of thinking, and how the natural man looks at all of this: all he wants to do is see the power of God to pass over into the Promised Land, to get to the other side where all the promises of God would be fulfilled.

But God is establishing a testimony in the crossing of the Jordan and He begins with this pattern: The word of the Lord came through the steward to the people to engage with the priesthood. God put a sign in the priests and the first thing we see them do is to carry the ark of the covenant. And what was in the ark? God placed the rod of stewardship, the tables of stone and the pot of manna in the ark.

The saints today, follow the same pattern. We carry Christ in our hearts through what is contained in Him (government, truth, and Spirit). Now we can see through contrast how the call to prayer does not equip believers with the things that are contained in Christ, and therefore, they are not carrying the covenant in their hearts.

As a reminder, when God speak of the “heart” He is not speaking of a deep desire and passionate prayer that is so often confused as a sign of true submission and love for God. He is speaking of the heart of faith that is cut from the cloth of the covenant, meaning that a person accepts the terms of the new covenant God gave through Jesus who entrusted it to His apostles to give to the people. This obedience pleases God.

Let’s move on in the teaching.

Joshua 15-17

15 And as they that bare the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bare the ark were dipped in the brim of the water, (for Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest,)

16 That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam, that is beside Zaretan: and those that came down toward the sea of the plain, even the salt sea, failed, and were cut off: and the people passed over right against Jericho.

17 And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground, until all the people were passed clean over Jordan.

Let’s make some connections: The Jordan River was also where Jesus was baptized as a sign of our cleansing in Him and new beginning, but the water also represents the waters of this dimension, that which we were born into and how we all share the common experience of these waters and how the 5 Cs of death are highlighted for our discernment and overcoming, even as we read in verse 10, that God will “without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Amorites, and the Jebusites”.

The passage of the children of Israel through the waters of the Jordan represents a new priesthood in Jesus, not that of the law, but a transitional priesthood. In addition, the priests carried the ark of the covenant and stood firm on dry ground, and this is reflective of the confidence we are given by the anointing who assists us through this transition, which we hear in our charity. We are confident that our faith reflects Jesus Christ and pleases God, seeing that we carry with us that which is contained in Him (the new covenant): government, truth, and Spirit. This is good and profitable for God’s saints.

And as God casts light upon that which He is cleansing, a separation takes place in our yielding to grace, even as the waters of the Jordan were cut off to allow the children of Israel passage on dry ground. The waters failed and were cut off. The waters speak of the natural surge and current we experience while in this dimension and how the priesthood stands as a barrier to that current as the power of God is present in the sanctified tokens of Christ to overcome self, Satan, and the world.

Moving on into chapter 4, God commands Joshua to establish an altar of testimony to the work of God in the passage of Jordan. We’re going to read the first 7 verses.

1 And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying,

2 Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man,

3 And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night.

4 Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man:

5 And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel:

6 That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?

7 Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.

Vs. 3: “Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones”. Twelver men and twelve stones. The number twelve is a divine number. It is the number of man (6) twice (6 + 6 = 12). This signifies that Jesus is the second Adam to perfect forever God’s creation and to present us to Himself as a gift, sanctified and redeemed by His own blood.

The number 12 also represents the knowledge of Christ, which is the light of the soul, for Jesus said, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world (John 11:9). Jesus is the light of this world, the Day Star; our new beginning is in Him. So, there is a significance in the number 12 in that it represents Jesus, and by extension, His apostles who are His ambassadors to lead the church today.

Vs 5: “…and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel.”

God begins to shape our understanding of the construction of the spiritual altar of the new covenant. Jesus’ altar is made of 12 whole living stones that carry Jesus’ testimony in our hearts as a living memorial of Him.

In that each man carried a stone upon his shoulder, this speaks of how we shoulder the yoke of Jesus’ knowledge. Jesus referred to His knowledge as a “yoke” and a “burden” in that we are responsible to carry Him in our perspective.

Matthew 11:30
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Jesus’ knowledge is easy to carry because it is made living by the anointing. We each carry the same 12 elements of the gospel that Jesus places within our heart as an altar of faith to manifest God’s perspective in this new beginning, new origin, new destiny, and new covenant.

God begins your discipleship by placing these stones of knowledge in your heart. To understand this better, we’ll look at a segment of Chief Apostle Eric’s IDCCST Course, where he brings out the significance of following this blueprint.

“We can observe God’s Intelligent Design for Christ-Centered Spiritual Transformation in these elements. These foundational elements are the brick and mortar of our faith that tell us who Jesus is, and thereby reveal who you are in Him. They are God’s blueprint for faith to reflect Jesus, and therefore, they are God’s blueprint for your faith to be completed in him.

The name of Jesus is in us by Spirit and truth. Truth means knowledge. With this knowledge, Jesus engraves himself in us to shape our thinking of him so that we can carry his perspective with us throughout the day. Each element bears a unique signature imprint in our soul that acts as a proof of possession, stating that we belong to God. We are born of him, born of the Spirit, and carry Jesus’ DNA as proof of life – in Spirit and in truth.

Truth is Jesus himself, for he said, “I AM the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).
Putting first person voice to each element brings this home as it allows us to see Jesus in each element and to understand what God meant in Hebrews 1:3 when he said that Jesus is the express image of his person.

The plan of God is to receive his virtue. All the elements of the gospel carry the likeness (virtue) of Jesus, which our faith must reflect and express. Our faith labors with what he is and, in this way, Jesus is the author of our faith. The name of Jesus is in each element to tell us who he is by what he does in us by the power of his Spirit. We observe Jesus in each element, and thus he is manifested in our faith. By his knowledge we see him. Jesus begins to emerge in the DNA of his truth.

I want to repeat a teaching point from Chapter 8 [of the IDCCST Handbook]:

‘We can understand the effect of the Spirit by looking at an acorn. When an acorn is planted in the soil, both the soil that nourishes the seed and the water that moistens the seed causes an effect: the father bears the son. The sapling bears the image of its parent. The new tree is according to the blueprint of its genealogy. Its DNA is its genealogy. Jesus Christ is the genealogy and DNA of the righteous because we take on his likeness through his knowledge. We see that in the elements of the gospel. We carry the testimony of Christ in his knowledge and live by his power.’

This blueprint of truth is the pattern of life in Christ that we live, and each element contributes to the pattern (genetic code). There is something familiar in each strand of divine DNA that tells you that you were made for this likeness.

We have continued to stress the importance of the foundation of truth, that your faith reflect Jesus through his knowledge. By this engrafting of truth in your heart God also carries you in his heart and says, ‘You are the apple of my eye.’” [end quote]

The significance that God places upon these spiritual stones is the significance God places upon Jesus’ altar. Going back to Joshua chapter 4, verse 3, the stones were taken “out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm”. Here, God is making a connection between the priesthood and the stones of the altar and the work of the Spirit in the heart. Our priesthood is rooted in Christ in the confidence we gain as we consider the design of Christ in each element of the gospel and our experience of Him manifests the cycle of our transformation and fruit of this bonding and building.

We see God’s further purpose for the stones of the altar in verse 6, where He says, “That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?”

These stones generate reflection on Christ. What do these stones mean? What does grace mean according to God’s divine design? What does faith mean according to God’s divine design?

And in verse 7 we see our reciprocation is by divine design, “Then ye shall answer them”, and of course the answer was according to the testimony of these stones held in the passage of the children of Israel into the Promised Land.

Our answer is according to the testimony of Jesus’ whole stones, our answer is formed of a good conscience according to the memorial of grace and new beginning we live as each cycle of growth meets God’s expectation in the justification of Christ. Before covenant, we labored against death to gain a testimony for ourselves in the justifications we found along the way that stood as a memorial of our passage through life, and we invited God to meet us there, we invited God to reciprocate on the level of our desire and we used the law to hear His voice.

Let’s go back to the question, What do these stones mean? How does each stone (element) speak of Jesus Christ and our standing firm in our priesthood? We know that Jesus’ altar stones are not earthen stones, they are not taken from the soil, and neither do they represent the law. Jesus’ altar is made of spiritual, living stones. They are the 12 elements of the gospel: His grace, faith, righteousness, sanctification, holiness, peace, rest, charity, truth, regeneration, and the renewing of the mind. This is where God develops our testimony and awareness of His work in us.

We bear this testimony in these waters. The waters of this dimension were cut off and our feet, as priests of the Lord, stand on dry ground, meaning that we are not touched by death in the same way as those who are without Christ. The fruits of iniquity, the justification of the flesh, the carnal perspective, the eye of suspicion, the false scales, false hopes, the self-examination and self-flagellation of the moral code, these are all tokens of death that are cut off as we discern them and put them off.

Looking at the word memorial again there in verse 7, the Lord said, These stones shall be for a memorial…”

Memorial means the roots of our reflection. The stones of Jesus’ altar are the roots of our reflection. Why these stones: grace, faith, righteousness, sanctification, holiness, peace, rest, charity, truth, regeneration, and the renewing of the mind?

Reflection is not based on a story, but on transition and the mobility of the priesthood and the life of Christ in each stone, which each man shouldered (verse 5). What do these stones mean? What yoke are you carrying?

When we ask what each stone means, our reflection is not about how we came to trust in Jesus when we got saved, but the present work of the Spirit reflected in Christ, in each element of the gospel, which we reciprocate to God in prophecy. God builds our trust from this work, and as we bond and build with Him, we also steward His grace to His saints.

The altar is a sign of Christ, a memorial of His covenant and the work of regeneration in each heart. Our lips speak in prophecy, testifying of Christ in this work. True prophecy comes from the altar stones of Christ and is born by the anointing. The lips are the gateway to prophecy when the altar of Christ (12 essential elements of the gospel) is constructed in the heart. We reciprocate the likeness of Christ in prophecy; these are the true spiritual sacrifices we offer to God to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

Revelation 19:10
And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

As each tribe was represented in the stones drawn from the Jordan river, as a witness to the hand of God and the sign He placed in stewardship and priesthood, so also does each whole stone in Jesus’ altar bear witness to Him. He is His own witness.

God is driving home many teaching points to help you understand why prayer is not your altar. Let’s look at the words that are currently used to encourage believers to trust prayer as their altar. Words like, consecration and surrender, seeking, getting prepared for Jesus’ return, love and desire. These words are tossed together in an appetizing way to build one’s own way to God.

We might hear it said that prayer is a time of consecration to God where the legitimate pleasures of life are set aside, and that believers are learning how to love God “truly”, not out of duty or obligation, and that believers are gathering together to seek God and give themselves over to Him to prepare themselves as a bride to meet Jesus’ at His return.

These are examples of word salad. Words are used to build a concept of consecration without responsibility to the covenant Jesus purchased with His blood. The anointing has nothing to work with to give substance to faith to build this reality in the heart.

The covenant of Jesus Christ is a working knowledge; it is made effectual (living) by the Spirit. It is through the knowledge and tools of the covenant that God separates you from the world unto Himself (sanctification), and by these same tokens, we separate ourselves from the world to God (holiness). We see here that sanctification and holiness are 2 elements of the gospel that are cut from the same cloth of the covenant. The anointing works with this holy knowledge to prepare the fruit of the Spirit in the heart, which Jesus is coming to receive.

At false altar gatherings, prayer does not reciprocate to God according to His divine design. People are led into their passions to express their desire for God, and the words “seeking” and “humble submission” are used without God’s purpose, meaning that Jesus is not represented in His elements as the true memorial and author of these virtues. It’s word salad.

Let’s speak plainly: Ministers are faced with fixing a dead faith. You have to understand that faith without the stewardship and tokens of Christ is dead; and ministers have never known what to do with a corpse on their hands. Looking at that corpse (dead faith), a minister asks himself, “What can I do to make this corpse living?” I know what I’ll do, I’ll focus on the things I believe God is trying to do, and I’ll create the environment for that to happen.

So, a minister tries to reverse engineer God’s truth by looking at the outcome they think God is looking for (humility, submission, love that is from the heart, consecration, compassion, heart-felt worship) and they fit this to their imagination to give it substance (trying to resuscitate a dead faith). A prayer environment is created to give evidence (bear witness) to a divine work that is not taking place. Faith is still dead and the bride is not being purified, nor prepared for Jesus.

In this we see how ministers are their own witness, as we read in Isaiah 44:9, “They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed.”

In the beginning of this teaching I said, “God’s saints are being taught how to discern an altar by its construction. What is your altar made of?” if your altar is made of word salad your faith cannot reflect Jesus and you cannot carry His memorial in your heart.

God challenges false altar gatherings so that the saints will no longer take confidence in seeking God in that lifeless way. To seek God means to make application with the spiritual tools and knowledge that join us to Him. Seeking has to do with application with the covenant; it is a commitment to build and bond with God according to the elements of the gospel and the tools of Jesus’ propitiation.

The true altar of Christ has been renewed to the church in Jesus’ 12 essential elements. With these stones of knowledge, we build for God and reciprocate spiritual sacrifices of prophecy. We have an example of this in the Old Testament where God led Asa to renew the altar, “And when Asa heard these words, and the prophecy of Oded the prophet, he took courage, and put away the abominable idols out of all the land of Judah and Benjamin, and out of the cities which he had taken from mount Ephraim, and renewed the altar of the Lord, that was before the porch of the Lord.” (2 Chronicles 15:9)

The restoration of the altar goes hand-in-hand with teaching the true covenant knowledge of God. And the Lord lays this out for our understanding in 2 Chronicles 15:3, “Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law.”

Israel was without the true God in that they were without a teaching priest to teach the people how to serve God according to the terms of the first covenant. The church is in the same condition, having been for a long season without true apostles to teach the terms of Jesus’ covenant, they have been without the true God.

I want to again quote from Apostle Eric’s IDCCST Course. He says:

Always remember: God’s kingdom, God’s language. If we fail to use God’s language we will be in a mess, trying to talk about what drives our decisions about what faith looks like without first knowing God’s expectations. The elements of the gospel is what God uses to shape our thinking. They are the DNA of truth. [end quote]

Interesting that there were two sets of stones erected as an altar. One was left in the Jordan River where the feet of the priests stood firm. Joshua 4:9, “And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests which bare the ark of the covenant stood: and they are there unto this day.” And the 12 stones that were taken out of Jordan were set up as an altar in Gilgal.

The stones that were erected as an altar and left where the feet of the priests stood, represent the invisible priesthood. When the waters of Joran again returned to their place, the stones were no longer visible. They were there, but seeing that the waters covered them, it was an unseen altar, or an invisible priesthood, even as Apostle Eric brought out in a recent assembly where he talked about the closed sign and wonder of God’s work within us.