Nicklas, Todd: Aromas and How We Smell ~ 2 Corinthians 2

Good morning. Good morning. Turn to Amos chapter four. We will not s- stay long there, but at least to start. Amos chapter four. Being a nurse, I think my answer to this question is somewhat biased. However, I think the worst smell that I've ever smelled is either burning flesh in the operating room or the worst, uh, skin ulcer. I took care of cardiovascular patients, and a lot of their poor blood flow to the bottom of their feet led to every color you can imagine, but the smell was always worse. Always worse. Perhaps some of the best smells I can smell are food related. You know me, I love food. Pick any type of food, and I'll say, yeah, that's a good smell for me, most likely. Maybe beets. Beets is, that's a struggle for me. Everything else I would, I would. So this morning I wanted to focus on aromas, smells, because we get that a lot in the Bible, and we're, you know, we're in this time of Thanksgiving and Christmas, right? We have amazing meals. Meals that, you know, oh, I smell that turkey, I smell that cram- cranberry sauce, I smell gravy, whatever, and we, we have these powerful things that, that come from those smells, right? We have emotions, we maybe have memories, we maybe have joys, we maybe have, you know, things that are noxious to our smells and kind of turn us away and make us run away. But I was thinking about this time of year and how amazing it is that even the Lord would emphasize these things in the scriptures and how he would explain certain things. So we'll, we'll glean, and we'll jump around a little bit, but we'll glean some things from that as far as what we can learn from aromas, from incense, from smells, from that sense that the Lord has given us. And, uh, you know, I l- I had to Google it, but it seems as if we as human beings, they've done s- some studies in the last five years, and they've noticed that we have the ability to recognize one trillion odors, our noses and our brains, one trillion odors. Apparently, there are ten thousand candle scents, not just Yankee, but, you know, ten thousand scents. So we have this broad, vast understanding of what our noses can detect and how amazing that is. When you think of other great smells, you know, cologne and perfume, the smell of cut grass, smell of someone's home even. Maybe it's a good or bad smell, but even you can say, oh, that smells like so-and-so's house. I remember growing up, have some cousins, we'd hang out in the basement during Thanksgiving, and that smell, I just remember, oh, that's, that's their house. You know, you just, you have those memories from them. And, uh, you know, we can learn these things. So in Amos chapter four, our first point with smells is that it helps us, and we should be able to, maybe we ignore it, but it helps us to discern, to make a difference, say that is a bad smell, that is a good smell, that is the smell of barbecue, that is the smell of cut grass, you know, and we're able to discern what something is and what something is not, and it's something bad we should run from or something good we can enjoy. Amos four ten is speaking about Israel, and it says, I sent among you a plague after the manner of Egypt. Your young men I killed with a sword, along with your captive horses. I made the stench of your camps come into your nostrils, yet you've not returned to me, says the Lord. What's the Lord saying here? Your sin has been so egregious and so bad and so obvious that it's as if you're almost like sitting in filth, sitting in nastiness, and that smell is just rising up your body and hitting your nose, and you're doing nothing about it. You have not returned to me. And maybe they're desensitized, maybe they're, you know, denying it, maybe they're, you know, whatever, maybe they just don't care, they want to serve their own gods, so we we won't go into that. But the thing, the point here is, your nose has smelled it. It has been obvious to you beyond a shadow of a doubt. Like, you know, when you're sitting in filth, you're aware of it. You know, when you're near something that smells really bad, it's not, unless you have, you know, a problem with your smell, your nose, maybe, but otherwise it's very, very blatant. Turn to Malachi two for a quick verse too. I think this will even drive this home a little bit more. Malachi two. So we can discern, and we should discern. And as believers, we have the Holy Spirit within us to help us discern, right? If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, you should be open to the guiding of the Holy Spirit. Malachi two— I actually was talking to Jim Kegley Asher the other day, and he was dealing with some, uh, things that were coming up in his assembly, and I used this verse, uh, because I guess I was, you know, studying for this message and thinking about it. Malachi two, the Lord here is saying in chapter one, he's going to use, um, you know, a gr- a nation that is going to come and punish and kind of wake up the Israelites, and he's talking about all the things they've done sinful and wrong and turning from their f- from God's ways. And in Malachi two, he starts to say, it's now on the priests, the priests, you look at what you're supposed to do before me, look at what you're supposed to know before me, and look at what you're actually doing, how disgusting it is. And Malachi two verse three: behold, I'm going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts, and you will be taken away with it. The word there is dung. He's saying, I'm going to spread dung on your faces, because that's what your feasts are to me. That's what's happening here. That's how rank it is to God. And, and Jim and I were talking about that picture and how it's... So, you know, if someone sees you and you have dung on your face, feces on your face, that's obviously visually disgusting, but it's also, you know, from a smell standpoint, disgusting. And God's saying, that's what it's like, what you're doing right now. Why is this not a problem for you? And you know, if you read the book of Malachi, multiple times it is really to say, well, how have we not loved you, or how have we not served you? How have we not honored you? Why is that wrong? But a lot of their questions, I mean, maybe it's partly justification, maybe it's partially, wait, what are you talking about? Because they were so clueless, because they were so steeped in their sin. But here he's saying, I will wipe refuse on your face. Wow, that's just, that's powerful. And I, I want to start with that because there is a distinction with smell, and it is cut and dry, night and day, black and white. It is clear as clear can be. So perhaps this is a neutral example, you don't have to turn there. But I was reading the story of, um, Jacob and Esau, and when Jacob tried to have that birthright, take over that birthright, remember he tried to take on some characteristics of his brother Esau to trick his father, who was older and couldn't, you know, smell things that great, touch things that great, and he was kind of like, oh, is this my son Jacob or my son Esau? And if you remember, Genesis twenty seven twenty seven, it actually says that Isaac made his decision based on the smell. He did say, oh, he felt his, you know, his arm, and he felt the, the, um, the clothes, the, you know, the, um, the animal hair that, that Esau would wear. But then it said, but he, once he smelled the smell that smelled like Esau, and he was like, ah, this is my son Esau. And then, you know, gave him the birthright, felt comfortable moving forward. So that smell, he was like, I know this is my son Esau versus my son, uh, my son Jacob. He made that decision based on it. He hinged and turned on that and pivoted and said, yep, okay, I wasn't sure at first, but no, this is, this is him. That's who it is. And Jacob thought through those things to make sure he could trip up his father. So we think of some, obviously, some, some negative examples in Amos chapter four and Malachi two, but we don't need to turn there because it's over multiple chapters, multiple verses, but in Song of Solomon, there are multiple chapters. I wrote down, I can tell you the verses if you're interested, but verse, uh, chapter one, three, four, five, and seven at least have distinct parts to them that talk about the beautiful aroma, the beautiful sense of smell from, you know, frankincense, from myrrh, from cassia, from, from what have you, about the bridegroom. And the bride is talking about the bridegroom and talks about how amazed she is and how in love with sh- with him she is. And she uses smells at times, talks about, you know, myrrh, myrrh is actually, we'll talk about that a little bit later, but different smells that remind her of him, either when she's not with him or with him. So we have these distinctions, right? We're going to start out there. We can know his righteous and enjoy- enjoyable aroma, and we should be aware of the sin aroma that comes up, as we talked about in some of those verses. So let's turn to second Corinthians two. We'll stay here for a little bit. 2 Corinthians 2. Second Corinthians chapter two. and we'll kind of break into some of Paul's thoughts at verse, well, actually verse twelve, maybe for context, verse twelve. So the second point here we'll talk about is, it shows our s- the smells that we smell or even, you know, give off spiritually, that we can manifest him and do manifest him or do not manifest him. You know, someone once said, I will believe in the Redeemer when the Christians look a little more redeemed. And I guess part of the point that I want to get across here is we shouldn't ever take for granted the fact that we might say we're a Christian, or we know someone knows that we're a Christian, and therefore whatever we do will always have that smell of the Lord Jesus, because that's not always the case, and that's a little too lax with our spiritual judgment. But we need to be careful what we say and careful what we do, because it's such an honor and a testimony and a blessing to be his and to be his ambassador to the world and to show his son, the Lord Jesus, to others. That the smell of the Lord Jesus, we'll read that here, is, you know, coming from us and radiating to others. Second Corinthians two verse twelve. Now, when I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ, and when a door was opened for me in the Lord, I had no rest for my spirit, not finding Titus, my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went on to Macedonia. But thanks be to God, who always leads us in his triumph in Christ and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one, an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. Who is adequate for these things? The commentator Jameson Fawcett Brown says that Paul regarded himself as a signal trophy of God's victorious power in Christ. His almighty conqueror was leading him about through all the cities of the Greek and Roman world as an illustrious example of his power at once to subdue and to save. There is this, um, kind of a tradition that when those that won a battle came back to the, to the land where they, um, they lived, that they would kind of triumph around the procession. There would be burning of incense for their gods or what have you. So there would be some smells with it, but there would also be this leading forth and kind of putting on a platform the people that won, and we kind of see that today with, you know, sports figures winning and and what have you, but um, but there was also an incense component that they would burn things for their gods, and there would be this kind of smell you'd say, oh, there was a, there was a victory on the battlefield today. And here, you know, emphasizing the word triumph in verse fourteen, we are o- going around our day to day, interacting with people, and hopefully, and they should, know that we are saved and of the Lord Jesus, but that we have been in him who has triumphed over the grave, triumphed over sin, triumphed over death and hell, as we said this morning. And, you know, the point here is that, um, the manifestation that we are going to be some type of smell to everyone. It says here, the aroma of death leading to death and the aroma of life leading to life, meaning that when we're around those unsaved as believers in the Lord Jesus, they're going to be reminded of a few things, that they don't know that, that they don't have that hope of eternal life, that they think there may be nothing after death, that the Lord Jesus, you know, bothers them, you know, they don't like him, whatever, they, you know, it all seems like it's, you know, not a good idea, wrong, and it's leading to to death. But we are aroma of life, leading to life to those that know the Lord Jesus, because it's so refreshing, so encouraging, so amazing to see another believer lifting up the Lord Jesus in their words and their actions and their deeds and what have you. Because we see another person saved by the Lord Jesus and changed from the inside out, and that change is manifesting in their day-to-day routine. That they are not of this world, that they're not just going their own, their own way, their own lustful, prideful way, that they're living for him because they are a representation of him to the world. That they are this one that's being led around because of that triumph that's already occurred at the cross. It's already occurred in past and done at the cross. We are behind a victorious general, as that quote was alluding to. You know, and I don't want to forget even a quick sentence like the end of verse sixteen. The end of verse sixteen, as he's wrapping up the thought, he's saying, who is adequate for these things? Who on earth can do something like this, that we can represent the Lord Jesus, God's son, the one that has died for us, and represent him to the world and to other believers in such drastic, contrasted, powerful ways? And actually, if you jump a chapter later, you don't have to, I'll read it for you. But in second Corinthians three verses five and six, Paul emphasizes, he says, not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. He's saying, so it's, you know, a couple verses later, he's saying, who is adequate for these things? It's like, I'll get to it. I'll tell you. It's those that are willing to find their sufficiency in Christ. Those that are acknowledging that nothing of ourselves is good, and nothing of ourselves is sufficient for these things, what we've been just talking about. It's all in him. And, you know, we're getting some points here, you know, I- I- I read verses twelve and thirteen. I actually wasn't planning on it, but it gives us a little bit of context. Here, Paul's even saying, listen, I was, I came to Troas for the gospel, and there's a door open to me. Great, the Lord made it clear that there was just something inside me from a, from a natural standpoint. I didn't have Titus, and I just, I, you know, he doesn't really go into it a ton, but he just says, I, you know, I went on to Macedonia. And maybe there's a component here of maybe Paul feeling a little guilty, you know, we won't, I, I, we don't know. I don't want to fill in the blanks here and be dogmatic, but the Lord is forgiving him and gracious. That whatever happened in his spirit, in his soul that he was trying to work out, he just couldn't work it out that time for Troas, but he went on to Macedonia and was used of the Lord in Macedonia. The Lord just didn't give up and say, wow, you, you, well, you couldn't do that, Paul. Okay, go ahead, go over here. I'll see what you can do. The Lord is with him in all things and understanding to him, to Titus, to Barnabas, to whoever he brings along with him. The Lord was working, and the Lord still helped him triumph. Didn't just say, well, okay. The Lord, the Lord is helping him in every situation. That's what he's saying. I think he even said that here, um, of the knowledge of him in every place. And maybe Paul's even said that, you know, whether it's Troas or Macedonia, I am one who is representing him, the Lord Jesus, who has troubled. We have these great, great examples of people struggling with figuring out how they can serve the Lord, but still serving the Lord in whatever capacity that they can, whatever open door, closed door, you know, wherever God has placed them, they're willing to speak up because they are, you know, bringing forth that smell of Lord Jesus to the world around them. I'll say, and uh, my wife knows this very, very well, but in the last few months I've been extremely encouraged by reading biographies, and I think, I won't use it as an excuse, but um, finishing my master's degree was tough to, you know, read other things besides the Bible just because I was reading school things. Um, so I haven't been able to read a lot for the past few years, but biographies just for the past few months have been such a blessing and such, uh, you know, a point of conviction. And sometimes I just have to close the book even and just think back, wow, that person went through that, or that person did that, oh my goodness. And you're almost speechless at points. You know, and I, I would say that maybe we're doing a disservice if we don't read a biography a year at least, you know, because there are so many out there of so many encouraging Christians. We, we get some great examples, obviously, in the scriptures from Old and New Testament of, of, um, people of, of, of the faith of the Lord Jesus that used them in mighty ways. Paul here we're talking about and others, but even modern ones in the last few hundred years that have done amazing things to spread the gospel. I'm reading one right now that not even a fifth of the way through, and I think it might be one of my favorite. It's just amazing the way people lay down their lives for the Lord, and that they're willing to, um, to do so. They're willing to show forth him, the one that's helping them to triumph in, in many ways. Um, I also think of the, the writers, you know, the writers that are compiling all of it, that are able to remember all the things that happened from a chronological standpoint. It's amazing. Um, so maybe we pray to, uh, to do those things. I'll be give you a few examples. I'm sure you can give a few examples to me of ones that, that you love. Um, so we have here the first two points is, so we have distinction, right? We can smell something that is clearly bad, clearly good, or we can say that's definitely X, Y, and Z. We know that for a fact. And then we can manifest him or not, and hopefully we are in every place, as the writer here, Paul, is saying in second Corinthians two. So let's go next, um, to Exodus twenty five. We'll start in Exodus twenty five, and then we'll stay in Exodus thirty for a little bit. Exodus twenty five. Exodus twenty five is, um, you know, the, um, Moses is here writing and talking about the different things the Lord has shown him that should be in the, the, um, the tabernacle, you know, the offerings and sanctuary, the Ark of the Covenant, the table of showbread, the golden lampstand, and he's going through these things. And, um, actually, before we go in there, so the next point is that there is this distinction again, and it's a little bit different than before in that there's going to be some clear-cut, you know, go one way or the other, or what the Lord cares about in the, the smells and the oils and the, the incense that is brought about, and we'll go into that a little bit deeper. Um, a few things to refer to think about, um, don't forget in Daniel, when the three men that were thrown into the fiery furnace, you know, when they were saved, they were brought out after the Lord saved them and the king called them out, they said they couldn't smell smoke on them. Now, one thing that the Lord would save them, save their lives, save their clothing, what have you. He, they didn't even smell like that smoke that was there. You know, um, in Exodus five, when it's talking about Pharaoh making the Israelites work harder for brick, they're saying, man, our smell is abhorred by Egypt. And there's this thinking, you know, when you read the Exodus portions, there's a clear dividing line. These are the Israelites, these are the Egyptians. You know exactly who they were. You know, even during the plagues, the Lord caused, um, the lights still shine on the Israelites, but the darkness to shine on the, or to be on the Egyptians. So there's this distinctiveness, there's this quality that's very, very clear. And if you read in John twelve, we don't have time to go there, we remember Mary, right? Mary pouring out that ointment on the Lord Jesus that cost her so, so much. And it said the whole house was filled. There was no doubt what she did and what it was that she poured out on the Lord Jesus. Very costly oil of spikenard, anointing the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair. So we have these distinctive qualities of, again, reiterating these points. In Exodus twenty five and verse six, so it's saying in, in the beginning of Exodus twenty five here, the Lord's saying, take a contribution from the people, take up these things, and in verse six it says, oil for lighting, spices for the anointing oil, and for the fragrant incense. And I think a lot of times, and that's a point I wanted to get here too, not just to get the general sense of what we're talking about with smell, with aromas, but in the tabernacle, there's a lot of things we remember if we visually talk about, right? Our brother Bill Gustafson, Randy Amos, my great-grandfather Lawrence D. Chambers used to take around the tabernacle and show people the physical, visible, tangible components of the tabernacle, which are all excellent and amazing things we can learn about the Lord. You know, we talked about the, the table of showbread, the golden lampstand, you know, you can go on the tangible things, but we're going to talk about the oils that were s- that you could smell as soon as you walked in, maybe even outside the tent, because it was so powerful. You knew what was going on there. And here, I want to start here because it's you're, they're taking a contribution. People, hey, bring, bring gold, bring whatever you can so that can contribute to the making of the things of the Lord's house. And also bring spices, because it's important to help out in Exodus thirty, the smells that are going to be occurring in the house of God. So turn to Exodus thirty, please. You know, Ezekiel twenty verse forty one says, I will accept you as a sweet aroma when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries when you've been scattered, and I will hallow you before the Gentiles. And that verse is saying, you know, you're going to be distinct from the nations once you're honoring to me, and I'm going to pull you out, and I'm going to have you there as this sweet smelling aroma that is distinctly different than all the other heathen sinful nations that are offending me. I actually had a verse earlier that I, I cut off for sake of time, but it was a verse about Moab, um, and talking about how they're just kind of sitting in their leaves and their smell is just the same. It's always, it's always been bad, and it still is bad. So you can get these other senses from even the non-Israelites, the, the heathen nations around that time. Exodus thirty, and we'll break into verse twenty two. Exodus thirty and verse twenty two. Moreover, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, take also for yourself the finest of spices, of flowing myrrh, five hundred shekels, and of fragrant cinnamon, half as much, two hundred and fifty, and of fragrant cane, two hundred and fifty, and of cassia, five hundred, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil, a hin. And you shall make of these a holy anointing oil, a perfume mixture, the work of a perfumer. It shall be a holy anointing oil, and with it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of his testimony, the table, all its utensils, the lampstand and all its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering and its al- and all its utensils, and the laver and its stand. You shall also consecrate them that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them shall be holy. You shall anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them that they might minister as priests to me. And you shall speak to the sons of Israel saying, this shall be a holy anointing oil to me throughout your generations. It shall not be poured on anyone's body, nor shall you make any like it in the same proportions. It is holy, it shall be holy to you. Whoever shall mix any like it, whoever puts any of it on a layman shall be cut off from his people. Then the Lord said to Moses, take for yourself spices, stacte, stacte, ankhia, galbanum, spices of pure frankincense. There shall be an equal part of each. With it you shall make incense, a perfume, the work of a perfumer, salted, pure, and holy. And you shall beat some of it very fine and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting. Where I shall meet with you, it shall be most holy to you. The incense which you shall make, you shall not make in the same proportions for yourselves. It shall be holy to you for the Lord. Whoever shall make any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people. The incense, the oils that were made here. I hope you realized as we read some of the points here that the Lord God is trying to get across. There is a purity here, there is a holiness here, there is a righteousness here, a seriousness about this all. That the Lord's not just doing it willy-nilly and just doing it because he likes it and because he thinks it's a smart idea. There is the Lord God of heaven, the holy one, the righteous one, the just One, saying that these things need to be done in exactly this manner. What can we take for our lives today? That there is this perfect balance of the components of the Lord God that we need to have in balance. You know, just pick one, you know, grace and truth, right? If there's an imbalance there, that's can be very bad. You know, if you have somebody that's just all gracious and doesn't care about the truth of God's word, it'd be really bad. What about the opposite? All truth and no grace, no love. Could lose a lot of people, lose a lot of people's ears that are listening to you talk. The Lord is saying, you need to, you need to hear me, what I'm saying, balance these out in exact proportion to what I'm telling you, because it is important to me, and this is my law, that's what I'm telling you. And so he's saying, not only should this mixture not be used outside the people, you know, outside of the, the priest Aaron and the, and his sons, as well as the things that they should place it on, right? It goes about the table, the lampstand, all things that it should touch and, and should smell like it. It shouldn't even be disproportionately made, right? Near the end of that chapter, twice he says, if you do these things disproportionately or put them on a layman, put them on someone else, you will be cut off from your people. Wait a minute, God, real- a smell and oil, it's just going to drip on someone and you're going to cut them off from the people? Yes, because he is holy, because it is to be done in this manner. What do we take today? We as believers hold his name. Chris- you know, being a Christian, being one of Christ. If you do not know him today as Lord and Savior, if you don't know him in your heart, if you have not bowed the knee, you've not humbled yourself, but you still kind of go along those lines of Christianity. Serious for the Lord, and he... he does not take it, you know, lightly at all. You know, think of in Matthew, it talks about the people that say, well, Lord, we cast out demons in your name. We, you know, did miracles in your name, but you're not letting us in, in heaven? And he said, I, I never knew you, depart from me, I never knew you. There is this distinction here to the T, that there is clear as day, don't do this or you will be cut off from the people. Don't do this inappropriately or out of disproportion, or you'll be cut off. Wow. Very, very serious. But when you're doing it right and in proportion to him, all these things are going to smell like that. So, you know, Aaron the priest, the people that are the the men that are supposed to do the things of the tabernacle of the Lord's house, they come in there and they're just hit by that smell. I mean, they see the golden lampstand, they see the table of showbread, they see the Holy of Holies, that, you know, the um, the veil. They see these visible things, but that smell, you know where you're at, right? You're not walking the desert. You're not, you know, in your own tent somewhere doing your thing. That smell in those proportions, is only in the tabernacle and nowhere else. It's only in that tent, only in that place. We as Christians represent him. May we have the things of God that are supposed to be in our hearts and how we act that are only of him. Because it goes back to second Corinthians two, we are supposed to smell that aroma of life leading to life and that aroma of death leading to death. There should be no problem with discerning. There should be no, like, wait, what does that smell? I think it's, maybe it's that. No, it should be as clear as day that our smell is the Lord Jesus and nothing else. No hint, no taint of sin, no problem at all, nothing that snuck in, nothing that snuck in of ourselves. It is the smell of the Lord Jesus and of him alone. Everything that presents Christ in his own proper excellence is sweet and acceptable to God, C. H. McIntosh says. You know, um, you turn in Corinthians, and we won't turn there, but you probably know the verses. It says, the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit, Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they're spiritually discerned. There again, the natural man, the sinful man that's in his own state versus the spiritual man that's changed by the Lord Jesus, they're light years apart. They should be. Actions, words, as well as in the heart. Let's turn to Leviticus twenty six, Please, Leviticus chapter twenty six. We cannot deceive God, is my next point. We cannot deceive God. My first apartment in Hershey, when I moved out, I was almost twenty one, working as a nurse. Didn't know the first thing about living on my own, but I'll tell you, the first few days, I guess maybe even weeks and months, my clothes in my closet smelled like cigarette smoke. And I was like, what on, what on earth? Why? And I remember I looked into it further, and I knew my neighbors next door smoked, and most of the time they smoked outside, but they were also smoking inside, and it was coming through the vents. And I remember my dad, gracious as he was, he got me like the top-notch air purifiers. Like, he wanted to knock it out hard, but it's still, it actually, I think, helped my air in my apartment to a degree, but it still didn't take out my clothes were already, you know, yeah, I mean, you could take them to the dry cleaners or wash them a bunch, it helped maybe a little, but they were, it was, it seeped in there. There was no, no like, oh wait, is is Todd smoking? Who's smoking? Where's this? Is it coming from two miles away? No, it was right next door, and that's what it was from. Can't just, you can't just see, you know, because the neighbor might say, oh, I would just smoke outside. Something, something was fishy there, and so there there's no fooling God, and there's no fooling, you know, when you have that smell on your clothes, whatever, you can smell it. It's obvious. Um, in Ecclesiastes ten one, the Lord God says there, dead flies putrefy the perfumer's ointment and cause it to give off a foul odor. So does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor. Amos five twenty one says, I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will not smell a sweet odor in your solemn assemblies. He says, you notice he said, I will not smell your sweet odors. So the people there, he's saying, yeah, you think that your aroma, what you're doing is sweet, right? Even Malachi, oh, you're offering up the sickest dis- you know, almost half dead cow, you know, for me, or animal. You don't think I'm going to pick up on that? You don't think it's going to be obvious to me? It's, it's obvious. You're, you're trying to, you know, pull the wool over my eyes, but I am the God of heaven. I know your hearts, I know your thoughts, I know everything you do behind closed doors. How are you going to deceive me? Leviticus 26 and verse 30. So don't forget, sorry, actually, Leviticus twenty six, if you're not familiar with this, the chapter is all about if you obey me, these are the blessings, and if you disobey me, these are the punishments or penalties, right? And it's the, it's the whole chapter, and it's the Lord really going into rather good detail downstream in the future. If you disobey- disobey me, this will happen. If you obey me, this will happen. And this is the section of, of if they disobey him, in verse thirty, it says, I then will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars, and heap your remains and the remains of your idols, for my soul shall abhor you. I will lay waste your cities as well and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. There it is again, like the verse Amos I just referred to. Your sweet odors, your soothing aromas. You think you're, you know, giving off a good aroma that smells great. I know your heart, and I know what you're doing. You know, and so that may be for Christians and non-Christians here today. The Lord, the ones that know him, maybe we're doing some things that we're trying to still include a little bit of pride, still including a little bit of self, that we're, you know, trying to serve the Lord in some capacity, but also looking out for our own. And it's obvious to the Lord. You're not deceiving him, you're not tripping him up. He knows what's in those smells. It must be of the Lord Jesus and the Lord Jesus alone. If you don't know him as the Savior, we we hit on that, you know, earlier. The seriousness of taking upon his name and saying that you're representing him, but you don't smell anything like him. If you remember the story of King Uzziah, second Corinthians, sorry, second Chronicles twenty six. King Uzziah, um, you know, started king at a young age, and he honored the Lord. He even says at the beginning of that chapter that the Lord, uh, that he, that he honored the Lord, he pleased the Lord. I, I forget the exact verb there, but I think it said he pleased the Lord. It was in good, and it gave a few examples. He was good, you know, he had some victories in war. He did some things internally in, uh, the nation that, that were honoring to God. But you remember what happened? He ran into the t- the temple and offered incense because he just thought he could offer incense. No big deal, right? It's honoring to the Lord. The Lord wants us to offer incense here, right? This is, you know, here's the altar of incense. Why not, why can't I just do it? And they run in, they say, King Uzziah, it is not for you. It is not for you to do that. And they were probably a lot more gracious with their words. They could have said how abhorrent it was to God. And they said, it is not for you to do this, it is for the priests. Look at the law and the Lord. Yeah, yeah, the altar of incense is there, you're right. Yeah, these things you could just, you know, do with your hands and just do. That's not God's way. It's not what God said we should, how we should do it. You're doing it wrong. And what happened? Anybody remember what happened to Uzziah? Leprosy right on his forehead, right in the middle of his forehead. I remember, and this is not my point, uh, earlier, uh, years and years ago, somebody showed this to me, I should have, should have hit me. I actually think it was Jake Santos. I believe it was Jake Santos said, do you know why it went on his forehead? Because his thinking was wrong. He thought that he could do what was right in the sight of God, and something that looked like it was for God, but in the wrong way. Are we doing things for God that look like it's for God, but in the wrong way, and that stench is not gonna fool God? So, um, you know, Jake emphasized that to me, and I was like, that's, that's really great. But a second point. Don't forget the priests at that time wore like a crown, wore like a headdress, and in the middle of their forehead, it said holiness to the Lord. What was he doing? He was smacking holiness in the face and saying, I can, I can do what I want. I can do this. So his thinking was flawed, his thinking was prideful and sinful, and he was forgetting that the people that were to do it, the priests, had holiness written on their foreheads. And he was not upholding the holiness of the Lord. He was doing what he wanted. Are we doing what our will dictates, our human will dictates? Or are we wearing holiness to the Lord on our foreheads and realizing that we're priests to God and that we're entering, you know, the th- we're supposed to represent the Lord Jesus Christ to the world, as second Corinthians said. We are a realm of death leading to death, life leading to. Um, oh wow, I actually have a lot more. I will keep, don't worry, I will keep it moving. Um, it's just so many great things that come out of these points, so many great things. So, um, actually, real quick, I should focus on this. Um, Psalms forty five eight, you know that chapter well because it speaks to the Lord Jesus, one of those chapters, right, that looks to the Lord Jesus. And it says, all your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces by which they've made you glad. And we are, you know, wanting to think a little bit about the Lord Jesus Christ pleasing the Father, and what he did was an amazing aroma to him, right? Turn to Ephesians five. you can turn there, it's just two verses in Ephesians five. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ, and I think that's very evident to you, that the Lord Jesus Christ pleased the Lord God, the Father of heaven, so well. In Ephesians five two. real quick, I know I mentioned that we were going to talk about myrrh. Myrrh is often used for, um, burial and embalming of mummies. And, but don't forget, so it was, it was at the Lord Jesus' birth and at the Lord Jesus' death. You know, we can get these, these, and it was in Song of Solomon, as mentioned. There's a lot of things. It might be good to do a study on myrrh, uh, not just frankincense, but myrrh as well, to see, and, and to my understanding, the tree that gives forth myrrh, you have to wound it. You actually have to, like, beat it. And the sap wood that, the sap that comes out of it, the better, apparently the better you beat it and the better you, like, you know, let it kind of form and come out. It's, it's a better smell, and, and it's better if it's voluntary, like, if you don't try to draw it out of a tree, if you actually let it just flow freely. The Lord Jesus let his life flow freely, gave his life up for us. Ephesians five one and two, it says, be, therefore be imitators of God. So it's referring to the, the forgiveness that he just emphasized at the end of chapter four. It says, be imitators of God as d- as beloved children. Walk in love as Christ also loved you, gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice for a sweet smelling aroma. An offering doesn't have to bring about blood or or death really, but a sacrifice does, and that's why offering and sacrifice are both there. The Lord Jesus gave himself up as an offering and a sacrifice, and we must give ourselves up and offer our lives to him and maybe sacrifice, maybe not unto death, but some points of our lives that are need to be sacrificed to him. So the Lord Jesus pleased God, but we can please God as well. And it says here, you know, just as the Lord Jesus has done, so also should you do. Psalms one forty one two says, let my prayer be set before you as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Our prayers can be, you know, that smell. You know, you think of, uh, Revelation, right? Revelation 5 and Revelation 8. It talks about the incense that's contained is the prayers of the saints, Revelation five, and Revelation eight. Exodus thirty, at the beginning of the chapter, we kind of skipped over it. You don't have to turn back there, but I'll, I'll tell you, Aaron, when it's talking about the altar of incense, Aaron offered up the altar of incense in chapter thirty, verse seven, it says, in the morning early he did it, and in chapter thirty, verse eight, right after that, it says, and in the evening he also did it. May we burn the candle at both ends and offer up ourselves as a pleasing sacrifice, whether it be in our devotions, whether it be our interactions with other people, our errands, whatever, morning, evening, twenty four seven, every second, that we are aware, aware of what we're doing, that we're honoring and representing him. You know, and you might say, well, Todd, you, you, you missed a lot of the examples in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, where it actually talks about, you know, this, this offering, this sacrifice, this whatever, this whatever was a soothing aroma to God. And I kind of wanted to catch a broad term because obviously there's multiple, uh, verses like that you, you can get in Exodus and Leviticus particularly. But when you read those, it says almost every time it's, you know, if you do it this way, it is a sweet aroma to the Lord. Sweet aroma to the Lord. And that word there is actually rest, and actually some places it's rest. The Lord can rest, knowing that the Lord is smelling something from us. It's not just like, uh, it smells like chili. I like chili. Good. You know, it's not something like that, because it's not just something like the Lord is noticing. It's not a bad smell, and it's not just something he likes. It's also something good. Good of his character, good in how it was supposed to be made, it's supposed to be done, right? You think of when he created all things, when he created, you know, light, or whenever he created man, he says, it is good. It's not just like, oh, I like it. Well, that's, that's pretty neat. No, it's, it's good in and of itself. It was made correctly and made in the essence of what God wanted to, to be. In the little flock on the lamb, our souls are resting. Verse two says, sweetest rest and peace have filled us. Sweeter praise than tongue can tell. God is satisfied with Jesus, and we are satisfied as well. The holiest we enter, we, we sing, much incense is ascending before the eternal throne. God graciously is bending to hear each feeble groan. To all our prayers and praises, Christ adds his sweet perfume, and he the censer raises these odors to consume. These odors that come from the Lord Jesus and what he has done and how that emanates from our lives. It's beyond words. There's amazing things when we smell, you know, we talk about how it's maybe the most direct sense to our brains because it goes right through different parts of our brain that hit emotions, hit memories, and we think of these things when we smell something. When we smell the Lord Jesus and we're aware of his aroma, his, you know, this incense, these things we've talked about, we're reminded of what he's done, and we're reminded what he continues to do in our lives that we might give off that same aroma to others. For homework to go home, read chapter one thirty three of Psalms. It's only three verses, that's all it is. Psalms one thirty three, is only three verses, but it talks about how blessed, how amazing is Christian unity. And when it talks about Christian unity, it actually says it is as if the oil is dripping down Aaron's head. And it's this picture of that, of the anointing oil and how beautiful that is, and the smell of it all, and what all encompasses what Aaron's doing. But it's, it's that same thing with Christian unity, because as one, we are believers together, representing the Lord Jesus to the world. And the, the picture there, like I said, it's only three verses. You know, with COVID nineteen you can lose your smell. It's one of, you know, it's a decent symptom, right, that comes up a lot. It would stink if we lost our smell for a while, well, no pun intended. Um, it would be, it would be a bother if we lost our smell, right? Can you imagine if you served a God that couldn't smell? Don't forget Psalms one fifteen, it says, you serve gods that can't see, they can't hear, they can't smell. We serve the God of heaven that smells the aroma that come up from our prayers, from our praises, from our actions, from our words, from our lives. Can you imagine if you had a moment where you could give off the fragrance of Lord Jesus and you didn't? Can you imagine in heaven when there were times that that fragrance of Lord Jesus Christ amazed others and turned them to the Lord? Our God and Father, this morning we're thankful for the Lord Jesus. We're thankful for so many of the components that we read in the Old and New about the aroma that he gives off, that we might be loving and forgiving to others, even as Christ forgave us and was an offering and a sacrifice. That sweet aroma that pleased you. It wasn't just something you liked or were interested in or found intriguing, but it was good of your character. It was right in your character as well. And we're thankful for these things. We're thankful in this time of holiday season where we have amazing smells with Thanksgiving, with Christmas, Christmas cookies, trees, things like that, that are so awesome to think about the memories that come up from holidays, that we might be reminiscent of the memories, the emotions, the love, the things that capture us about the Lord Jesus and how we should show him to others because of the very thoughts that we have of him, even in these verses today. We're thankful for the old and the new, for the the verses in Exodus, Second Corinthians, and even the ones in in Amos and others that remind us of the sin that we need to, uh, be distinctly apart from, that you help us, uh, in those things. We thank you for this time. Thank you for your word in your name. Amen.