A Sweet Smelling Savor

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Short Summary
The discourse emphasizes the significance of sensory perception, particularly the importance of the five main senses—sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell—in human experience and spiritual life. The speaker reflects on how these senses, along with internal senses like proprioception and the moral sense of right and wrong, shape our relationship with God, particularly through the lens of Christ’s perfect obedience and sacrifice. Ultimately, the message highlights that our actions, even seemingly small acts of kindness and care for others, are viewed by God as a “sweet smelling savor,” illustrating the value of our intentions and relationships in spiritual practice.

**Keywords:** sensory perception, sight, hearing, moral sense, relationship with God, Christ’s sacrifice, sweet smelling savor, spiritual practice.

Long Summary
### Detailed Summary of the Discourse on “A Sweet Smelling Savor”

Introduction and Context
– The speaker expresses gratitude for brother David’s prayer, which emphasizes the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ.
– Highlights the significance of having a relationship with God through Christ Jesus, which is described as a blessing and privilege.

Engagement with the Audience
– The speaker poses a question about the five main human senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) and their importance for human perception.
– Encourages the audience to think critically about which sense they consider most important.

Exploration of Human Senses
– Discusses the five main senses and introduces additional internal senses such as:
Proprioception: Awareness of body position.
Interoception: Awareness of internal body states (hunger, thirst, temperature).
Vestibular Sense: Balance and spatial orientation.
Nociception: Sense of pain, which becomes more significant with age.
– Emphasizes that cognitive faculties (intellect, memory, imagination) and moral understanding (common sense) are also crucial.

Biblical Perspective on Morality
– References Romans 2:14-15, noting that even those without the law have an innate understanding of right and wrong.
– Reflects on the creation of humanity in God’s image, highlighting the moral sense within everyone.

Personal Anecdote
– Shares a childhood experience involving an injury that emphasized the importance of sight, connecting this to later life experiences, including working as a pilot.

Importance of Sight According to AI
– The speaker humorously mentions consulting AI about the ranking of senses, which prioritized sight and hearing.

Biblical References to Smell
– Introduces Ephesians 5:2, which describes Christ’s love and sacrifice as a “sweet smelling savor” to God.
– Discusses how this metaphor signifies what is pleasing to God and the significance of Jesus’s sacrifice.

Reflections on Worship and Sacrifice
– Highlights the importance of sincere worship and sacrifices made in love, paralleling biblical sacrifices.
– Cites the example of the incense that the high priest offered, representing Christ’s perfection.

The Sweet Smelling Savor Metaphor
– Explains that the “sweet smelling savor” represents the perfections of Jesus and the sacrifices of His followers.
– Cites 2 Corinthians 2:15, noting that believers are a sweet aroma to God.

God’s Perspective on Humanity
– Discusses how God perceives human intentions and hearts, referencing Psalm 116:15 and Hebrews 4:15.
– Contrasts human limitations with God’s omniscience regarding our true intentions.

Call to Action for Believers
– Encourages believers to live sacrificial lives that honor God, referencing Romans 12:1-2.
– Presents examples of biblical figures, like Saul (Paul) and Noah, to illustrate transformation and acceptance in God’s sight.

The Role of Humility
– Stresses that God chooses the humble and weak to carry His message (1 Corinthians 1:26-27).
– Reminds that true service to God often comes in small acts of kindness to others.

Conclusion and Encouragement
– Concludes with the idea that while we may not perform great deeds, caring for one another is of utmost importance.
– Encourages the audience to reflect on how their actions are perceived by God and to strive for a life that offers a “sweet smelling savor” to Him.

### Key Bible Verses Mentioned
Romans 2:14-15: The Gentiles’ moral law.
Ephesians 5:2: Christ’s sacrifice as a sweet savor.
2 Corinthians 2:15: Believers as a sweet aroma.
Psalm 116:15: Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.
Hebrews 4:15: Jesus understands our weaknesses.
Romans 12:1-2: Present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
1 Corinthians 1:26-27: God chooses the humble and weak.

This summary encapsulates the key points and themes discussed in the discourse on “A Sweet Smelling Savor,” emphasizing the importance of perception, moral understanding, and the significance of living a life that is pleasing to God.

Transcript

You know, as Brother Tom announced our topic, a sweet Smelling savor. I appreciate brother David’s prayer on my Song of Jesus, and putting into perspective the perfect obedience of our dear Lord and Savior Christ Jesus, and through his perfection, how that we can have a standing before our heavenly Father and how important that is in our real relationship with our Heavenly Father through his son Christ Jesus. What a wonderful blessing and privilege we’ve been given.

So, as we start this morning, I’m going to ask you a question. I know it’s early in the morning, but I. So. But you’re going to have to use your thinking mind here. If I were to ask you of the five main senses of how we as humans perceive things, what to you would be the most important?

So when you think of your five senses of perception, you have the eyesight, you have hearing, you have touch, you have taste, and you have smell. Which do you think is the most important sensory perception do you have of those five, what would you say? Any thoughts? Give me a couple. What do you think, Brother Dave?

What do you think? Your eyesight. Okay. All right. Anyone else hearing.

Hearing in eyesight? So you’re only allowed one answer. I’m sorry, Brother Robert. I wanted to get clarification. Important in what way?

Ah, he’s asking the right kind of question here. So he’s some. We’ll come back to that here in a moment.

Well, so I want you to think about that for a minute. Maybe you’ll have some further thoughts on that. But I want to let you know, you know, those are our five main senses that we have. But there are other internal senses that we rely on every day, and, oh, there’s Brother Obi.

He’s our health professional. He will understand these terms. Have you heard of proprioception? Does that ring a bell? It’s the idea that.

We were just talking to the table here a moment. Does your left hand know what your right hand is doing? You’ve heard that old expression, we were talking. Well, I’m sitting right over by the food table, right over here. So I could shake someone’s hand over here.

And with my left hand I could be getting some treats with my other hand. So the left hand does know what the right hand is doing, so to speak. But you know, there’s other senses, such as the body sensations we have, we call those interoceptions, such as your sense of hunger, your sense of thirst and your sense of temperature. These are all things that your body regulates, but you can sense these things, and then there’s the Vestibular senses that you think of your.

Of your ear and all, how important that is. Brother Robert would understand that. Well, how important your sense of balance isn’t to you, and you know, when you think of the sense of balance and orientation in space, how fast the body is moving is so very important. How many of you have tried to get out of bed real quick in the morning?

Too fast. Have you ever experienced vertigo by getting up too fast and you’re. The room is spinning and you’re going, when is this going to stop? And that’s commonly caused by these little calcium carbonate particles in your middle ear that come loose and they start spinning in your ear, and your body can’t tell what’s right side up and what’s upside down, and they call that benign proximal positional vertigo.

And there is a cure for that, a very simple cure that you can actually, if you go through that experience, you can recover from it, but someone has to teach you how to do that. So if you ever sense that, had that problem, let me know and we can talk about that later, and then there’s this sense of no susception. That’s what they call it, the sense of pain. You know, as we get older in life, it seems like the sense of pain becomes much more important in our lives on what we’re allowed to do.

What. What can you physically. After you get out of bed, then what. Then what is the Lord going to allow me to do during the day? And the kind of activities I can.

I can enter into. Because when you’re young, you can do almost anything. But when we all get older, the sense of pain seems to have a more prominent part in our lives. Now, I want to say there’s, of course, other internal senses that seem most important, how our mind functions and the ability to think, such as our cognitive faculties, our intellect. That’s certainly very important.

Our memory, you know, being just able to reflect on everything that we’ve learned throughout our entire life. Our imagination, our creative ability, and finally, maybe one of the most important senses that seem to be in the news quite a lot lately is described as the law of common sense, the natural sense of understanding the difference between what is right and wrong. In Romans 2:24, it says, for when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves, and so we see in the Creator’s grand design of the human.

Of the human being, we’re told, let us make man in Our own image in our likeness. So we understand this thought that we have, this moral sense of inbred in our conscience of what is right and wrong. We’re just not doing things out of a response, you know, where we have no control of what we’re doing. We have the. In our mind, this ability.

We know what is right and wrong, man. But does mankind choose to do that? To follow it is the question. So as we go through life collecting information from what we experience, the knowledge we consume, we hope as we mature in life, will give us wisdom to make the right choices, and so, coming back to my original question, of the five main senses of how we as humans perceive things, interact with others, what to you would be the most important as we navigate our way through life?

Is it sight? Is it speech? Is it hearing, taste or smell? You know, from my own perspective, I remember was a young child, probably around 1960 or so, attending the Phoenix New Year’s convention with my mom and dad, Martha and Larry Davis, and my brother Jeff, just a little bit older than I, and so on the first day of the convention, there, all the brethren are gathered in the main hall like this, and they’re having their studies and discourses and fellowship.

And then the children, me being one, and my brother, we’re just coming out of Sunday school, and, you know, I think back then our middle name used to be trouble. As I reflect on, and so my brother and I, we decided, well, let’s. Let’s go and play with some pencils, some lead pencils.

So the next thing you know, my brother and I were playing Zorro. You know, touche, the new through lunges, and the next thing you know, my brother stabs me right in the eye and blood’s coming out. I’m. I’m.

I go screaming into the main auditorium and my parents to shock on their face, and the next thing you know, they’re rushing me to the emergency room to have the lead pulled out of my eye. Unfortunately, what went into the corner of my eye, and so I still remember the surgeon taking fine tweezers and pulling the lead out of my eye, and I was so fortunate that my brother didn’t stab me just a little farther over, causing blindness in my eye.

So I think from a very young age, I understood how important the sense of sight is, and as I tended to grow up in my experiences in life, how important it came in. My profession is piloting airplanes. You know, we all know the story of Helen Keller, who was both deaf and blind from a very young age, probably due to bacterial meningitis when she was only 19 months, and so she lost her ability to hear and to see.

And yet she was able over life with a proper teacher, to be able to really be able to interact through sign language with others. She wrote many books and she was well known and a prominent person here today from finally passing away, I believe, in 1968, and we all know about Helen Keller, how. What a wonderful example of just getting through life with limited disabilities of your senses. So if we were to rank, in order, the most important of our senses from a worldly perspective, that’s Brother Roberts thought here you might be interested at the results.

I asked my Google, AI, your artificial intelligence. You go in there, what does AI think? What is the most important sense from AI’s perspective, of course, as it would normally rank them, it would say number one is sight, number two is hearing. Then, according to the Institute of Health, the remaining senses are ranked next in importance as touch, and then followed by taste and then finally by smell as being the least important sense.

I wonder if AI ever considered the biblical scriptural text on the importance of this sense of smell. Ephesians 5:2. We’re told as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. To put that into perspective as to how we might understand how the sense of smell could be so important. I remember about the same time, this is going back into my childhood again, back in the early 1960s as a young boy, going to my parents, to the Fullerton class, to their ecclesia there and attending one of their conventions.

And I remember Brother Russell Pollack speaking from the platform, and there was a dear sister there that was blind at the time. Her name was Mary Norton Norton, as I remember, and she had this. She was probably in her 60s or 70s, I’m imagining, but she was totally blind.

And yet she had this wonderful musical talent and the ability to play the piano despite her disability, and I remember, I still remember as she made her way slowly over to the piano to play the hymns for the Sunday meeting. She played beautifully and with a sense of joy in her heart for the privilege of giving all she could and providing a sweet smelling savor to the Lord and to all the brethren that were there in attendance, and that’s the metaphor for something being, well pleasing to the Lord, the sweet smelling savor. Looking deeper into this expression found in Ephesians 5:2, there we find the Apostle Paul writing from his prison house in Rome, teaching the brethren about how we should lead our lives in love.

And so beginning in Ephesians 5:1 2 it says, Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. The translation of verse 2 from the English Standard Version may provide a clearer understanding of this verse. There it says in Ephesians 5:2 and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. You notice here it’s the sense of smell, a sweet smelling savor that is most appreciated by our Heavenly Father. The new American Standard Translations translates it as a fragrant aroma.

And of course this word comes from the from Strong’s is translated from the word 2175. Yodia is the word. It’s a compound of the idea of the word good, which is 2095. That’s a combination of that word with the with the 3605, which is the scent or odor and the word savor from The Greek word 3744 osme, meaning fragrance or a fragrant aroma. What was the point?

The Apostle Paul was trying to relay to the brethren about the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus and how his Father looked upon it. What did it mean, a sweet smelling savor? In the previous chapter, Chapter four in Ephesians, Paul speaks about the unity of the body of Christ. Starting in Ephesians 4, 4, we’re told there is one body, one spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.

It’s evident that all we have, all we have ever, all we have, and all we have to offer is not based upon our own merit, but by the merit of our Lord Jesus, who offered himself for us, and thereby we have a standing before God covered under the robe of Christ’s righteousness, and so coming back to the meaning of this sweet smelling savor found in Ephesians 5:2, I appreciated the comments of Brother Russell that he had in this scripture. He says, as recorded in the comments of the same verse, sweet smelling savor. The sweet incense burned by the high priest represented the perfections of the man Jesus.

As members of Christ’s body we are in Christ. A sweet savor to God, though a bad savor to the world, and references 2 Corinthians 2, 15. We’ll look at that a little bit later. The Lord counts the sufferings of the faithful as very precious, as a sweet odor in evidence of their love and devotion.

And there’s Then he finally quotes, there’s nothing in the account in Leviticus that says that the incense was offered a second time. We’ll even visit that Scripture here in just a moment, and so we see that our Lord Jesus laid it all down. His human perfection, all he had to give, being perfect and without sin, leading all the way to the cross, and thus through his imputed merit, the sufferings of Christ, both head and body, are counted in as a sweet smelling savor, well pleasing to God. Throughout Scripture, the senses we possess as humans are used metaphorically to describe how our heavenly Father as well as our Lord Jesus perceive us from a human perspective.

It’s interesting how the Scriptures turn or flip that on just around so that we can understand how our Heavenly Father perceives us and things going on. For instance, we’re told in Psalm 116, Psalm verse 15, it says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. In Psalm 145, 19 David praises the Lord’s name and says, the desire of them to revere him will he fulfill, and their cry will he hear and will save them. That’s from the Rotherham translation also in Hebrews 4:15.

Our Lord Jesus Talking about our Lord Jesus, we’re told, for we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin, and to the church of Laodicea, Christ our Lord says, I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot I would thou wert cold or hot. So that then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth because thou sayest, I am rich and increase with goods, and have need of nothing. All these are metaphors for how we as humans perceive things, and yet we’re told that God is not limited by our human physical senses.

He can perceive our hearts, our true intentions, our motivations, seeing our inner being, rather than just our outward appearance, and this ability was only originally possessed by God himself. It says in First Kings 8, 9 For thou, even thou only knowest the hearts of of all the children of men. This ability was only he only possesses ability to read man’s heart, and yet the scripture we just Read in Revelation 3:15 says that our risen Lord Jesus raised to the divine nature as a mighty spirit being, has this same ability to read the heart, where it says, I know thy works, so think about that being able to read the true heart intentions.

You know, some might think Satan has this capability. But Satan, even though he is a spirit being, doesn’t mean he possesses this ability. He can only try and tempt the heart. But the scriptures in James 4, 7, 8 say, Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Draw nigh to God, and he will drive nigh to you. When our Lord Jesus at the age of 30, came unto John to be baptized at the river Jordan, John’s own testimony concerning him is recorded there for us in John 29. Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Jesus’s consecration in laying down his life by presenting himself unto God as our Savior is wonderfully expressed in the 40th Psalm, where we are told starting in verse seven. Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book, it is written of me.

I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart, and so when our Lord Jesus was baptized by John and came up straight out of the water, it’s recorded what John saw, beginning in Matthew 3, 16 and 17, says, Lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God ascending like a dove, and lightning on him, and a lo, a voice from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased in the consecration or installation of the typical Levitical priesthood. In Leviticus, the eighth chapter, we’re told about the ram of consecration. It says that Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram in verse 22, representing themselves.

And then Moses slew it, and the fat and the inward parts were waved and then burned on top of the burnt offering as a sweet savor unto the lord. In verse 28. Of course, this was only a picture because the typical sacrifices could not take away sin, only typically from year to year, with all its patterns, and so the psalmist writes in Psalm 46, sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire mine ears. Hast thou opened burnt offerings and sin offering hast thou not required?

Rather, the perfect obedience is what our Lord prefers, and we see that in our Lord Christ Jesus, as the perfect Savior, the true offering for sin awaited the better sacrifices of Christ and his church. For we are told In Hebrews the ninth chapter. Turning to verse 23 and 24, it says, it was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, but which are figures of the true, but into heaven itself.

Now to appear in the presence of God for us included in the typical picture of the day of atonement, we’re told in Leviticus, the 16th chapter, verses 12 and 13. It says there, when you think about that chapter and the blood of the bullock, and also the blood of the goat, were taken in and mingled on the mercy seat. But it says in verse 12 and 13 he shall take a sensor full of coals of fire from off the altar before the Lord, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the veil and he shall put the incense upon the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat, that is upon the testimony that he die not in the reprint comments on page 5961 we’re given a clear understanding of how to comprehend the meaning of these Scriptures. There it says this word bring as used in verse 12 to bring within the veil is from the Hebrew word bow, which according to Professors young and Strong, literally means to cause to come in or to send. The action implied in this word does not refer to the censer or the fire, but only the incense being brought in.

And so his commentary continues. How then does the priest cause the incense to come within the veil? Analyzing verse 12, it would mean something like the following. He shall take a censer full of burnt coals of fire from the altar in the court, the brazen altar, before the Lord, and place it in the top of the incense altar in the holy then he shall take his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring cause it to enter within the veil. The priest standing at the incense altar in the holy, and crumbling the incense on the fire in the top of the altar, would cause the sweet perfume of the incense to enter into the presence of Jehovah beyond the veil and the most holy.

This commentary continues in reprint 1836 concerning our Lord Jesus so Christ entered into heaven itself with this sweet incense of his perfect obedience, and his sacrifice was therefore acceptable to God on our behalf. Brother Russell also comments in the question book. He says the incense offered in Leviticus 16, verses 12 and 13 wasn’t offered a second time when the blood of the Lord’s goat was sprinkled also and commingled with the blood of the bullock on the mercy seat. The sweet incense that was offered first at the first time, as mentioned in verse 12 and 13, it ascended up as a sweet odor and entered in beyond the veil, and still remained when the Lord, when the blood of the Lord’s goat was presented. We also note that we do not go into the holy is typically in that arrangement as individuals, but as members of his body.

And therefore we can say that we are in Christ a sweet savor to God, and that’s from question book 30, 40, 342 and 343, and yet our consecrated walk, we see that as an individual matter. We’re not we’re it doesn’t say, be thou faithful unto death as a as a group, and I will give thee a crown of life. Our walk is Our consecrated walk is an individual matter.

It says, be thou faithful, and I will give thee a crown of life. But we don’t pretend to be perfect. Still in these earthen vessels we do sin. But the apostle Paul counsels us. He says in Romans the sixth chapter likewise, reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace, and so when we do sin still in these imperfect earthen vessels, how should we seek forgiveness from the Lord? And we would think through deep reflecting prayer to our heavenly Father with penitent hearts.

The Scriptures tell us in 1 John 2:1, if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and then in Hebrews 4:16, it says, Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. The apostle Paul, known as Saul before his conversion, persecuted the church, even consenting to the death of Stephen, as he cared for the garments of those that stoned him to death. Saul thought he was doing the will of God as he went out persecuting the church. But in Acts 8, 3, we’re told that he laid waste to the church, entering into every house and dragging away both men and women committed unto prison.

But it took just a glimpse of the glory of our risen Lord to get Saul’s attention, and a light brighter than the noonday sun, and the voice of the Lord saying unto him, as recorded in Acts 9, 4 Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. For three days Saul was totally blind. But the Lord arranged the matter whereby Ananias would lay his hands on him, he would be filled with the Holy Spirit and have his blindness lifted, we’re told in Acts 9:18.

And straight away there fell from his eyes, as it were scales, and he received his sight, and he arose and was baptized. In reality the apostle Paul received his eyesight back in really two ways. First, his natural sight was restored to the degree that was sufficient for him to carry on the work that the Lord would show him that he would do, and secondly, his eyes were open to a new and living way of life in Christ Jesus. As the Lord had previously told Ananias, he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and children of Israel, for I will show him how great things he must suffer for for my name’s sake.

Throughout the apostles Paul’s consecrated life in Christ, he felt it a great joy to preach the Gospel and spread the good news unto the churches. In his ministry to the Colossians, he said, I, Paul, am made a minister who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh. For his body’s sake, which is the church, he would tell the brethren in Rome, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. In Romans 12:1 and 2, we’re told, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service and be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. How does our Heavenly Father look upon the sacrificial life of life in Christ that we have entered into?

In 2nd Corinthians 2:5 through 17 we’re told, for we are not unto God for we pardon me for we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved and in them that are perishing? To the one we are the savor of death, unto death and to the other the savor of life, unto life and who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity. But as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. I know that’s a little difficult to understand.

We’ll look at that in just a moment. In the previous verse, earlier in verse 14 of that same chapter, we’re here in 2 Corinthians 2:14, the apostle Paul says, but thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ triumphant procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere, and so we learn that the message to one is a message of life, to life, a message of hope in Christ, a sweet savor unto God. But to another, who cares more about worldly things and the ways of men, it’s a message of death. Unto death, an odorous aroma, a bad offensive odor leading to death.

But yet we do understand that the world of mankind will have a full opportunity to learn God’s ways in the kingdom, to be resurrected back up and have that opportunity. So we give God the thanks for his arrangement of the ransom of our Lord Christ Jesus. A ransom for all, and then in verse 2nd Corinthians 2:17, that we just read there for a moment. For we are not like so many peddlers of God’s word, that is, peddlers of the word of God for profit, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

And we see this every day as we see ministries preaching the word of God in Christ, we might say, but probably more for profit than as a spiritual application for caring for the brethren. I’m not speaking of our own fellowship, but I’m talking about Christendom in general. What is their motivation, their philosophy about more about the greed of money, what they’re doing, and so throughout Scripture we have this sentiment of God regarding what is pleasing to him, a sweet smelling savor, you know, from Noah, who following the flood, offered burnt offerings. Remember that after the flood and so many days had gone by, he offered burnt offerings unto the Lord, and it was a sweet smelling savor unto God.

And he made a covenant with Moses, would know, I should say, that he would never again cause a flood to cover the earth as in Noah’s day, and so God appreciated the sacrifice that Noah presented to him, how important that was to the typical sacrifices, and so we have this idea of this sweet smelling savor and how pleasing it is to God. Refer to the day of Noah, when it’s first mentioned in Scripture to us. But you can go on and look in the typical sacrifices of Leviticus and you see the same concept and all the arrangements of the tabernacle.

But you notice it took it had to be done perfectly in order to be a sweet smelling savor unto God. If it was done incorrectly, if the incense was not offered properly, you might find yourself being dragged out of the tabernacle by your feet, which happened. If you want to look into Leviticus, the tenth chapter, we don’t have time to mention that, and of course they pointed forward and pictured the better sacrifices of Christ our Lord and his Church, and the privilege we have been given to share the Gospel message to all that might have a hearing ear, a sweet aroma unto God. But you notice it isn’t the mighty and great leaders of this world that have been chosen to carry out this ministry of reconciliation as we’re told in 2 Corinthians 5:18.

But rather the apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:26 27 for ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called But God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of this world to confound things which are mighty. He hasn’t gone about and chosen the great leaders of our society in this day and ages past to be the representatives of God. No, he selected the meek and the weak and those who had humble hearts that only God can read the hearts of men and know that he who he is going to deal with.

And Then continuing in First Corinthians 1:30 it says, but of him are ye in Christ, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption, that according to according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Not many of us will ever be put in a position to do great things in life, in this life, especially those things we might think would be well pleasing to the Heavenly Father. Yet it is the life, it is the little things in life that are most important. Our care and our love of our fellow brethren are just the things our Lord looks upon as he looks into our true heart condition and our true intentions, we’re told in Matthew 25:24 Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it unto me, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these and my brethren, ye have done it unto me. The Scripture tells us in Matthew 25:40.

You know, we don’t have time to look into the lesson of the alabaster box but we know of Martha and Mary and Lazarus meeting in Bethany the week before our Lord’s death, and she had this alabaster box, this wonderful scented fragrance that she broke. She literally untied the bindings of the, of the alabaster box and poured it on our Lord’s feet and then, and then brushed in with her hair and on our Lord’s head, and it was a wonderful sweet smelling savor unto our Lord. You know, I, I was thinking how our, how our Lord thought about, you know, there were some there, some of his apostles, his disciples.

There were says, why wasn’t this, this, this, this very expensive alabaster box, why wasn’t it sold and the money used for, for something else? And of course the leader of that group was Judas Iscariot. Of course, who was more cared about the, the, the money, the value of the thing rather than the sweet smelling essence, the sweet savor that she presented to the Lord, and our Lord looked it upon it as a, a precursor to his death, to cover the scent of his body, and it was a sweet smelling savor unto God.

So, dear brethren, as we look into the scriptures, let us remember there’s not many great things we can do, but we need to spend our time caring for our brethren.

How important is that? And to think how our Heavenly Father and His dear Son looks upon these wonderful sacrifices in our life. Amen.

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