Such a blessing to be with the
Lord's people. You know, we have families in
this world. Most of our families are unbelievers. And we try to,
you know, spend time with them all we can. They're our families,
our children. But this is our family. He's made us, brought us together. shed His precious blood, and
He's given us life and joy and peace. We have something to be
joyful about, and it's Him. Matt, thank you for reading that
scripture. It blessed my heart. Turn with me to Mark chapter
14, verse 1. And I do thank you for everything
you've done, for the songs, the reading of the scriptures, the
prayers, the meals. Everything's just been outstanding. I know we probably say this everywhere
we go, but I believe I can say it right now. This is the most
relaxed that I've been in a long time. Really, I mean, it's just
been very comfortable. And you know, sometimes you can't
explain it, you know, and then you can't control those things,
but it's just like, we're here together. We're united together
and we come for one reason. We're of one mind and that's,
he is, he gives us the mind of Christ and by his spirit enable
us to see him and that he would take the things of Christ and
reveal them one more time unto us. So here in Mark chapter 14
verse 1, now after two days, or two days
from this time is the feast of Passover and of unleavened bread. And the chief priests sought
how they may take him by craft, our Lord, and put him to death. But they said, now not on the
feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people. And being in Bethany
in the house of Simon the leper, as he said it meet, there came
a woman having an alabaster box of ointment, a spacknod very
precious, and she break the box and poured it on his head. And
there were some that had indignation within themselves and said, Why
was not this waste of the ointment made? Now, there are similar
accounts in the other Gospels in Matthew 26, Luke 7, and in
John 12. And we know from those others
that the ones, some that had indignation, were even the disciples. And the ringleader of it was
Judas, saying it was a waste, what this woman did. And all
the others just chimed in with him. You know, you think about
that. You know, we don't, I think we forget how easy it is that
someone has an effect on our thinking. And they're saying
it had indignation, they kind of resented it. And there were
some that had indignation, verse 4, within themselves. And they
said, indignation begins within, but it's going to be expressed
without, in our words, the abundance of the heart, the mouth's going
to speak. Why was this waste of the ointment
made? For it might have been sold for
more than three hundred pence and given to the poor and they
murmured against her." Don't you see this? You know
what our Lord said? Leave her alone. You leave her alone. Why trouble
ye her? She hath wrought, don't you see
that? She hath wrought a what? A good work on me. And I'm going to bring this out
in a few minutes. The only place I've read in the
scripture that I see where God ever called anything that a sinner
did a good work. And we know it was good work
because you made it so. And he gave her the ability and
the desire to do this, but he said, she hath wrought a good
work on me. For you have the poor with you
always, and whensoever you may do them good, but me you don't
have always. This woman knew somehow that
in two days, now you think about this, two days he's gonna be
dead. Two days he's gonna give his life as a sacrifice for many,
in two days. He said, you don't have me always.
She hath done what she could. That's the title of the message.
She's done what she could. She has come beforehand, and
he's telling them this, to anoint my body to the burying. Verily I say unto you, wheresoever
this gospel shall be preached, preached today in September,
I mean in October, in Jackson, Missouri, throughout the whole
world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken for a memorial
of her." Now her name is not mentioned
because her name is not important. And the most important person
in this story is not her, it's him. The theme of this story
is she came here on purpose to bring honor to her Lord, not
herself, but to honor him. And Judas Iscariot, one of the
twelve, went unto the chief priests to betray him unto them. It's
like this was the straw that broke the camel's back. He said,
I've had enough. I can't deal with this. I'll
sell him out. So that's what he did, and he
betrayed him. When they heard it, they were glad and promised
to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently
betray him. This woman comes with one purpose
in mind. You imagine when she lays hand
on that alabaster box. We don't know how she got the
money, and we don't know who she is. You read from different
commentary, and everybody wants to figure out who she is. That
really doesn't matter. She's a picture of a sinner that
God showed mercy to, and he that been forgiven of much loveth
much. And she took what she had. Most
people think that she was able to buy this by working off of
her back. Well, anyway, how she got it,
she got it and she takes it. And she lays her hand out, and
she has one purpose in mind. She knows where he's at, and
she knows what she's gonna do with it. And you know what? She don't really care what anybody
thinks. You imagine a woman walk in,
they probably may have been all men there, and she walks in right
among all of them, and they know who she is. And she did this
for our Lord. So here we, first of all, we
have the setting. It's two days and our Lord will be crucified.
He is the true Passover. All the Passover picture back
from back in the times of Egypt and then he will give his life
as a ransom to pay the sin debt of his people. That's the reason
he came into the world. But here in this setting, we
see the love of this woman for our Lord, and she loves him because
he first loved her, but we also see not only the hatred of Judas,
we see the hatred of religious men. The chief priest and the
scribes, there's no love here for the Son of God. They can't
stand him. You know why? He exposes them. That's why they're uncomfortable.
They hate him. They despise him. And they are
plotting to kill him. It said here in our text, they
wanted to take him by craft. You know what they wanted to
do? If we could, when there's nobody
around him, we'd like to just grab him, take him out in some
back alley somewhere and kill him. That's what they wanted,
but that was their desire. But what their desire to do is
not done. Because he's not going to be
killed in some back alley. He's going to be taken outside
the city on the hill of Golgotha, and God's going to hang up his
son between heaven and earth and going to say, this is my
son. And this is not going to be done in a corner. Everybody's
going to know what happens. The sky is going to be darkened.
when he gives his life. But they wanted to take him by
craft and kill him. What they wanted to do and tried
to do, they were unable to do, till our Lord said, my hour has
come. And then he gave himself over
to their will, and they did exactly what we wanted to do. We said,
Barnard said one time, if God hadn't restrained them, they
would have cooked him and ate him. They thought they could stop
the kingdom of God by killing our Lord, but they were instruments
in God's hand to accomplish his kingdom. Their hearts were so full of
hatred malice and envy for this man who went about doing good. But you know, everywhere our
Lord manifests Himself, but this is always what happens. It makes
those who profess to believe uncomfortable. It exposes their
heart, and what this woman did exposed the heart of those, even
the disciples, it exposed it. They didn't have any love in
their heart for the Son of God. All they had was hatred. Men have not changed. Man's nature
has not changed. Men by nature don't love the
gospel. If you love the gospel, it's because God did a work of
grace in your heart. That's the only reason. The only
reason. And then we have this woman's
act. What she did. Someone said before the wicked
world would lay hands upon her Lord, this woman will display
her act of love upon Him. How she knew it, I don't know.
I think she said if I'm going to do it, I need to be doing
it. I can't put it off to three or four, I can't do that. He
said, she's come. She's come to anoint my body
for the burial. And you think about this. When
he's standing before Pilate, he's probably, you read the account,
he's probably not had much sleep in the next two days by the time
they have the trial and everything. And when he stands before Pilate,
You probably can still smell the spotnod. You know why? He's
the spotnod. When we sit at the table with
the king, it talks about our spotnod coming forth. That's
the fragrance of his grace. This corrupt woman, vile. Some said it could have been
Mary Magdalene. It could have been. She was so wicked, God
cast seven demons out of her. But one thing we know, something's
happened to her to cause her to do what she did. An alabaster box, what is that?
It is a hard stone resembling white marble. And it was used
to make vessels to put precious ointments in. You just was not
going to put anything in marble. Even the box itself is precious. and you would put fumes in it.
The reason is you didn't want it to escape. And when it says
it was sealed, it was probably sealed with wax to keep it shut
and to keep the fragrance in. That's what the alabaster box
was. Someone said it was strong enough substance to keep the
oil or perfume completely contained until the time of its use. What is Spikenaud? It's a small,
uninteresting shrub. If you was to see it, you would
just probably turn your nose up and walk over here to this
beautiful rose. Likely, it would not attract
your attention. There's no beauty in it. Yet
the smell and fragrancy is said to be by some to be unequaled.
He's a root out of dry ground. He has no beauty that we would
desire him. Every one of us would have done
this right here to the Son of God. Every one. He is the spike knot of our soul. His person, His blood, His righteousness
are like the everlasting fragrance that comes up before God as a
sweet-smelling savor. He draws forth the graces of
His Spirit and we're going to see when she opened this box,
The whole house was filled with the fragrance of this spacknard. When God opens up His Word and
reveals Christ, when we meet together, it has the sweet, sweet
fragrance of grace. Nothing smells like grace. It's
the smell of life. It's the smell of redemption.
Can you imagine what it is? Somebody said, what that smell?
Oh, that smells like spacknard. You know what? That's him. That's
him. He is the precious spacknard. This ointment was very costly
and very precious. Why? It's very rare. Try to find
the gospel. Imagine in Elijah's day when
it's not rained for three and a half years, they look for Elijah
and they can't find him because God has him hid. He hid these
things from the wise and the prudent and has revealed them
unto babes. We're almost four and a half.
We're more than that. We're about 500 and some miles
apart. That's a pretty good distance. And most grace churches are separate. And if God ever brings you to
a place you hear the gospel, you say, man, that's how rare
it is. And how precious. What makes it precious? He's
precious. Precious. With the precious blood of Christ.
You that believe he is precious. Now he's not precious to everybody.
What makes it precious to you? The rareness of it. He's the
fairest of ten thousands to my soul. It is Christ in you, the hope
of glory. When our hearts rejoice, it sends
forth the glory to our Lord, and our hearts have to be opened. He opens it. How did she do this? Or why did
she do this? She wanted to honor her Lord.
She wanted to bring attention to him. As I've preached this
message several times, and I was thinking several years ago, preparing
the message, thought about a lady wearing perfume. Once she puts
the perfume on, you know, she probably smells it. But then
in a little while, she's got used to smell it. She doesn't
smell it. It's for someone else to smell it. And really, the
one who wears the perfume, they're attracted to the one wearing
the perfume. She didn't come in with the spot knot on her.
She didn't come in to draw the attention to her. She went to
him, tore the seal off, opened it up. She didn't throw it down
on the ground and break it. She opens it up and pours it
on his head. And I can see it run down on
his head and on his beard and down on his Now all the attention
is on Him. That's what we're gathered for.
Why did we come this morning? I hope we came for one person,
one reason, to honor Him. And that's what she did. She
said, this is what I'm going to do. This is what she planned
to do, what she purposed to do, and it's what she did. And she
did what she could. How did she get it? I don't know. She might have
saved for a long time. She'd go, well, I've almost got
enough money. The guy here at the store said
it was about 300 pence, and I don't care. I don't care the cost.
That doesn't matter. I'm going to get the money, and
I'm going to buy that for him. David said, I won't give that
to the Lord, which costs me nothing. Nothing. She brought the most costly thing
she had. It required considerable sacrifice and self-denial. You heard me
say it was 300 pence, and I told you the other night, a pence
was probably a day's wage. And I just kind of figured it
up. Well, if a man gets paid $9 an hour by an eight-hour day,
that's $72. And you multiply $72 by 300 days,
it comes to a little over $21,000. And that's a low wage at $9. But whatever it was, it would
have been a person's years Whole wages. Just to buy a box of Spacknob? I'd say there weren't many people
even sitting in the castle had Spacknob. I see a poor woman walks in a
pub, she's walking in over the rags. A despised and rejected
woman. And she said, I don't wanna,
how much is that? Said, here's how much it is.
When I get the money, I'm coming back and getting it. You think
about the effort, the forethought she put in her mind. This is
what I'm going to do. And she did it. She did it willingly. She was
not forced. She's not beat over the head.
She did it willingly. Willingly. Don't you listen to this. The
woman had this cruise abutment. It was too costly for her to
use for herself, but not too costly for him. She took it and
broke it, opened it up and poured it on him as a testimony of her
love for him because he loved her. And like I said, when she poured
the fragrance on him, all everybody looked to him. She knew what she was going to
do, and this was no spare of the moment. Our Lord said in
John 12, 7, then Jesus said, let her alone against the day
of my burying, hath she kept this? Don't you know she was
tempted? Why don't you just sell it? Why
don't you use it on yourself? That sound familiar? Just use it on yourself. You
deserve it. Who deserves all the honor? I'll
tell you, I know exactly how she got the box of Oatman. The
Lord gave it to her. He gave her the money. He gave
her the desire. He gave her the ability to buy
it. And she bought it willingly and
lovingly. for him. She knew who he was. She knew
where he would be found. And she did what she did without
any thought to what anybody may think. I want to tell you something. Whether it's playing the piano,
whether it's standing to lead the singing, or standing to preach
or anything before people. It's hard for us to do anything
without worrying about what somebody's going to think. Right? She just says, I really, she
got to the point, I really don't care what anybody else thinks. There's only one that matters
and that's him. I only care what he thinks. He
saw her heart. He said, she's wrought a good
work. That's the only thing that matters. Let the world say what
they want to. They're going to say it anyway. She had eyes for only one. That
was Christ. She was not there to obtain the
praise of men for what she did. She was not there to draw attention
to herself. She was not there to secure praise
or to avoid being scorned. Nobody wants to be laughed at.
If you knew somebody was going to laugh at you, I'd just avoid
them. Not her. What we're describing only grace
can do. This is not something you muster
up. This is real. Mrs. Grace, from the moment she laid her
hand on the box of walnut until she broke it, she poured it upon
his head, she only had thoughts for him. What this woman did was misunderstood
by many. Most people say, why do you drive
so far to go to church? Why do you take it so seriously? You're misunderstood. They don't
understand. They don't see any beauty in
him, but you do. It says, as I've mentioned there
in John's account, that Judas didn't appreciate what Mary did
for Christ. You know why? He had no heart
for Christ. What this woman did exposed the
coldness of their heart. Something just come to my mind.
There's an example in the Book of Acts where it talked about
everybody was of one mind and they were of one accord. And
they said, whatever everybody has is everybody's. And Barabbas,
I mean, I'm sorry, Barnabas, the son of consolation, had a
piece of ground and sold it. and brought it to the church,
and he said to Peter or whoever, you take this money and you use
it anyway you see fit. Oh, Ananias and Sapphira saw
what Barnabas did. Oh, don't that look impressive.
Well, what would people think if we did something like that?
So we're going to sell us a piece of ground, and here's what we're
going to do. Well, we've got a pretty good
lick out of that. You know, we don't have to give
it all to the church. You know, we need to keep a little
bit for ourself, you know. And that's what they did. And
they went in because it revealed the coldness of their heart.
They wasn't really concerned about honoring the Lord. They
were concerned about their reputation. And Peter called them in. He said, didn't you sell a piece
of ground? They said, yeah. He said, for such amount? Yep.
Why did you keep part of it back? And he fell dead. He was trying to do in the flesh
what Barnabas had done by heart worship. And see, that's what
it does. It exposes the coldness of men's
hearts. Because by nature, we're just
like the disciples. By nature, we're just like Judas.
Our hearts are so cold. It talks about your first love. You know how it is first love.
You know how it is when you first date. You can't wait to talk
to your wife. You can't wait to take her out. You can't wait
to see her. Same way with our Lord. Then over a while our hearts
can become cold. True devotion to Christ always
brings out the hatred of those who are of Satan. Like I said
last night, Sanballat, it exposed him, didn't it? He said, I ain't
gonna have this, I can't let this go on. Judas was a thief. Someone said love is never wasted.
Generosity is never wasted. Sacrifice is never wasted. Love
cannot give him too much. Here's what Paul said in Philippians
4.18. You know, we read about the church of Philippi. They
were a gracious church. You know, they supported Paul
several times and he wouldn't take money from the Corinthian
church. But they would give him, they'd send him gifts. You know
why? Because they loved him. And they wanted to spread the
gospel. And Paul said, Philippians 4, 18, I have all in a bound.
I am full, having received of Ephroditus the things which were
sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable,
well-pleasing to God. He said, basically, Lord is pleased
with what you did. And we know why he's pleased,
because he enabled them to do it. And they wanted to do it.
They weren't forced to do it. Generous, gracious. You know why any work survives?
I know it's God's grace and God's power, but it is through the
generosity of God's people. And God's people are gracious. They are generous. They are kind. Cold-heartedness toward Christ
and stinginess always go together. To whom little is forgiven, the
same loveth little. Has the Lord forgiven you of
anything? Do you need to feel forgiven right now? Oh, sure
we do. He has been forgiven of much. loveth much. Her old woman, her
old prostitute, Mary Magdalene, the Lord forgave her. He loved her, he loved her. Gave
his life for her. You know she's probably always
despised and looked down. She's a piece of trash. Devotion and commitment to our
Lord is seldom understood by men. Can you imagine how shocked
this woman was when she heard the response of the disciples
to what she had done? She only intended to honor our
Lord. She wanted to show in a public
way how much she loved him and how thankful she was for what
he had done for her. And they're finally involved
with it. You imagine how she felt. Well,
you know, I thought maybe they wouldn't understand, but I didn't
think I'd get this response. There will always be some who
don't understand. There will always be some that
say, it is a waste. You know, I heard
someone say, Just kind of come to my mind. They were trying
to do work there and the Lord was blessing that work. And they
was spending some money on some things that need to be done.
And someone spoke up and said, you're just wasting the Lord's
money. Everybody wants to have their
opinion. That's what they did this way,
but they had their opinion. You know why? They didn't understand.
You look on the outward appearance, but I can tell you this, the
Lord looks on the heart. Ananias and Sapphira, I can see everybody
saying, did you not hear what Ananias and Sapphira did? Isn't
that so amazing? The Lord said, no, it's not amazing.
And he exposed it. Our Lord didn't think it was
a waste. As I pointed out when I read
it, our Lord said, you leave her alone. You leave her alone. She's mine. Our Lord saw her, he knew her,
he knew and saw what she did, and he saw why she did it. Our Lord not only sees why what
you do, what I do, he sees why we do it. He knows why I came today. He
knows why you come today. He knows. He knows. It's like when the Lord said,
Peter, after he denied him, he said, do you love me? He said, Lord, you know all things. You know all things. You know
whether I love you or not. He said, well, feed my sheep.
Feed my sheep. And she hath wrought a good work
on me. This is, like I said, the only
place that anything's ever called that we did a good work. She
had eyes only for him. We are ordained unto good works. Now we're not saved by works,
but faith without works is dead. How do we know Abraham believed
God? Well, he left her of the chaldees. How do we know Noah
believed God? He built an ark before it ever
rained. How do we know this woman loved God? She did what she could.
It can't be kept in, the alabaster box can't be shut up. It has
to be opened And you know what it is? It's such a blessing to
everybody in the house. Everybody, not just one or two,
everybody. Oh yeah, that's the gospel. Oh,
that's what we come for. That's what we long for. She done what she could. Let
me say this, those who honor him, those who honor him as this woman
did, he honored her. Now she didn't do this just so
he would honor her, you know that. But he said, those that
honor me, and he did. Her name's not mentioned, but
he said anywhere that the gospel was preached in all four gospel
accounts, it's recorded what this woman did. She done what she could. What
an honor. What a blessing it is that person
is blessed who does what he can for Christ. You say, well, I
can't do anything. She done what she could. She
couldn't stand to preach. She couldn't be an apostle. There's
a lot of things she couldn't do. But there's one thing she
could do. And she did do. And everybody
else might not could have done what she did. I may not could
ever do that. But you know, I would love to
do one thing before I leave this world to really honor him. Wouldn't you? Just one thing. To do what I could. I can't do
much. God help us to do what we can. She did what she did when she
had the opportunity to do it. Don't waste your opportunities.
The night comes when no man can work. She did what she had the
God-given ability to do. He give her the ability. And
she did what she could when it had to be done. Had she not done
this thing, she would have never had the opportunity to do it. She knew, like I said, only by,
it must have been by the Spirit of God, and he may have told
her, the Lord may have told her. She knew he's about to die. And she understands why he's
dying. She understands that because of his death, she's forgiven. And she believed that he would
rise from the dead. Therefore, she anointed him for
his burial in anticipation of his resurrection. My question to you is, what can
you, and I'll make it to myself, what can we do? What can I do? Whatsoever thy
hand findeth to do, findeth to do, so it must be like he was
looking for something to do. Do it with thy mind. Let me tell
you a little illustration. I worked in a factory, a glove
factory, making gloves for 20 years. You know, it was a job. My parents worked in a factory,
and I thought, well, if it was good enough for them, it was
good enough for me. You know, you could make a living. You're not
going to get rich at it by no means. But my dad liked working
with wood, and then I guess I got that from him. And I got just
fed up with working in a factory one day and happened to look
at a newspaper, and there was an ad that said, we're going to help at
a cabinet shop. And they hired me to help a guy
that was doing countertops, and the day they hired me that I
was supposed to start this other guy, he quits. He's quit. Which was a blessing, because
afterwards I found out about that guy. I couldn't have worked
with him. So one of the partners, there were two partners together
in the business, one of them was very smart, he was very kind,
and he would take patience with you. And there's a lot of things
I couldn't do before, but this man showed me how to do some
things. And I watched. And I listened. And he told me
one day not to pat myself on the back. I was always trying
to find something to do. I didn't want him to come out
of the office and see me standing around. I looked for something
to do. And he said, told me one day,
he said, Mike, you've got good work ethic. And I'm not doing
it to receive praise from that man, because I worked for somebody
higher than him. But I done what I could. He never
had to wait on anything. I watched what he needed, and
it was right there. I done what I could. Then as
I learned more, I could do more things. I'll never forget the
day they said, we're going to put you as the supervisor of
the countertop shop. That was in probably July. And
in that fall, they said, we don't want it anymore. We're going
to sell it. We're going to sell off the countertop part. Scared
me to death. I said, what am I going to do?
And I got five guys working for me. What are we going to do?
What are we going to do? I don't know. I've never been in business.
Don't want to be in business. And I thought, well, if I don't
do something, I'm going to lose my job, and these other guys won't
have a job. So within two months, we got everything together. He
financed it, and we bought it from him. And when we started
out working, we had 50 jobs sold from that man. I did what I could. God gave me the God-given ability
to do it. And I did it for His glory. And now, I believe He's called
me to preach His Word. And I want to do what I can. I think about Barnard. He said,
there's a lot of people preach the Gospel a whole lot better
than I do. But there's not anybody who preaches
a better gospel. I heard Henry say one time, everybody
wants to take the floor and speak their mind and everything, but
he said, but there's not many people who want to sweep it. And our Lord honored this woman.
1 Samuel 2. And I said, them that honor me,
or the Lord said, them that honor me, I will honor. Now listen
to the rest of the verse. Everybody listening? You know,
I never thought about it till right now. And we always quote
the first part. Them that honor me, I will honor. Well, what
about those who don't honor him? They that despise me shall be
lightly esteemed. Empires have risen, flourished,
and passed away. Monuments have been erected to
commemorate human genius and greatness. And these monuments
have crumbled and fallen. But the act of this woman still
is. And she'll live forever. May God give us the grace to
imitate her. You know, we see that and we
go, man, I'd love to do that. I would really, really, my desire
is when I stand to just do it for His glory. I want you to
be comforted, I want you to be edified, and I pray that God
uses it to save sinners. But if God don't save anybody,
my objective is to honor Him. You remember that. It's not about
everybody else. You ask Him, what's the most
important thing? Well, we're interested in saving souls. One
of those men that I worked with, he was a claim to be saved and
a Gideon and everything. And he asked me one day, he says,
why don't you have Gideons to your church? I said, what's your
main objective? He said, our main objective is
to see people saved. I said, that's where we disagree.
If your main objective is to see people saved, you will compromise
the gospel to get results. But we're interested in honoring
God if nobody ever comes. He's sovereign. Noah, how long
are you going to have to preach? 120 years. How many converts? How many converts? But you know
what he did in building that ark? He said, the flood's coming. When it comes, He's going to show up in that
ark. May the Lord enable us to do
what we can. while we can for His glory. Amen.