Victory Begins at a Bloody, Fiery Altar

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If this was indeed a brazen altar (whether literal or figurative), then it was an altar where blood fell on coals of fire because it was a bloody altar of sacrifice. Victory begins at a bloody fiery altar. Even though you see him high and lifted up, you must also see the blood and fire of the altar of sacrifice.

You may or may not agree with this understanding of Isaiah’s vision, but God doesn’t waste words. In his divine plan, without the shedding of blood there is no remission (see Heb. 9:22). Isaiah cried out in open confession of Sin, fearing for his Life because his unredeemed flesh had seen the glory of the lord. He needed his Sins removed and his unworthiness covered. He needed the blood somehow, and perhaps the coal from the altar was a bloodstained coal of priceless worth.

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This explanation may not be to your satisfaction, but we must agree that it is dangerous for man to get to the fire before they get to the blood. According to the book of Leviticus, Old Testament Priests had to wring out the excess blood of certain animal sacrifice before they dragged the carcass across the altar. Again, we may be at the point of offense, but we have gone too far to turn back. Those priest, though dressed in white, had to bloody that altar from the bottom up and on all sides of the altar before they ever got to the fire. Offense or not, this speaks loudly to any believer or church earnestly seeking revival today: there is no shortcut around Calvary to the Upper Room.

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The apostle Paul speaks to each of us with this command: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (ROM. 12:1 NKJV). There must be a burning of self. The living offering must be placed on an altar of fire and fixed there with no escape. God’s message has always been a message of blood first, and then of fire. That is the divine order of progression. You will never make it on till you first bloody an alter somewhere. Lay your flash out before God and make a personal trip to Calvary. Identify yourself with the Lamb of God who died there.

Consider the principal of miracle revealed in the way priest where to certify the cure of lepers among the Israelites. When a leper was finally cleansed, he was to go to the priest and bring with him two birds. The priest would pure water into a basin, kill one of the birds, and allow its blood to mix with the water. Then the priest would bind the living bird to a piece of wood and a sprig of hyssop using a piece of scarlet thread. Finally, the living bird was doused or “baptized” with the blood and water by the “tight hands of the law” represented by the priest.

Immediately the quivering, frightened bird would be taken to an open field where it would be set free-all because of the wood, the hyssop, the scarlet thread, and the blood and water. The bird was free because of the death of another kind like himself. He was freed from the clutches of bondage and the law.