I'll just say Jessica Powers,
her stepfather, Bill Dewar, passed away yesterday. Was it yesterday, Chuck? Was
it yesterday that Bill died? Yeah, it was 2.30 in the morning. Her stepdad died. His visitation
is going to be tomorrow from 5 to 8 at the Carpenter and Ford
Funeral Home on Merchant Street. He'll be cremated on Friday,
and there will be a memorial service in Lincoln County on
Saturday. So if anyone would like to go
to the visitation, I'm sure that that would be the easier for
us. But Carpenter and Ford, tomorrow,
between 5 and 8 o'clock. Alright. Mark chapter 14. I'd like to just read the first
nine verses. Mark chapter 14. After two days was the feast
of the Passover and of unleavened bread, and the chief priest and
the scribes sought how they might take him by craft and put him
to death. But they said, 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 of spikenard, 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 this waste
of the ointment made? For it might have been sold for
more than 300 pence and have been given to the poor. And they
murmured against her. And Jesus said, let her alone. Why trouble ye her? She hath
wrought a good work on me. But you have the poor with you
always, and whensoever ye will, you may do them good. But me
you have not always. She hath done what she could.
She has come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. Verily
I say unto you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout
the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken
of for a memorial of her. Let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you this
evening. for the blessed time that we
have to pray and to ask, Lord, your blessing. We pray that this
evening, teach us afresh the gospel. Cause us to see, help
us to hear, and forgive us, Lord, for Christ's sake. Amen. The scripture says, after two
days, was the feast of the Passover. Unleavened bread. Two days before
the Lord would lay down His life for His sheep. Now this was the
reason that He came. He came to redeem and save a
people everlastingly loved of God. And while that information
While that event, the Passover, was getting ready to take place,
the eternal will of Almighty God was unfolding, the evil will
of carnal man began to make itself known. The Scripture says in
the latter part of the first verse, and the chief priests
and scribes sought how they might take Him by craft, by deceit,
by an underhanded way, by decoy. They wanted to use bait. That's what it meant. How can
we bait Him? How can we get to Him? And the
Scripture reveals that though the Lord had walked on this earth
now, He'd been here for 33 years, and for over 3 years, he had
made himself known by miracles and signs and wonders. But these
that sought to kill him, they didn't see. They didn't see him
for who he was and the reason that they didn't see him. They
couldn't see him. They looked straight at him and
saw who they claimed to be an imposter, a deceit. And the Lord told a man named
Nicodemus one night. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. And
this Pharisee, this religious teacher, came to the Lord and
he said, Good Master, we know that you must be sin of God. Nobody could do the things that
you do unless God would be with him. And the Lord told Nicodemus
the reason why. These chief priests and these
Pharisees, why they did not see him for who he was. Why they
wanted to kill him. The scripture says, Jesus answered
in John 3, 3 and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God. He cannot see that God has a
kingdom, the church. He cannot see that God's kingdom
has a king. the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
cannot see that the king shall surely save his kingdom. They just don't see it. They
hear it, they hear it preached, they can read it in the scriptures.
Let me ask you that believe. Until the Lord opened your eyes
to the sovereign grace of God, electing, predestinating, God-redeeming,
God-regenerating grace. Did you see it? No, I didn't
either. Most amazing thing, when the
Lord was pleased to open my eyes, I started looking in the Scriptures
and I thought, It's everywhere here. Every place you look, it's
God's will, God's purpose, God's choosing, God's redeeming, God's
regenerating a particular people. Salvation is of the Lord. So,
therefore, what they're doing is they're plotting. Two days
before, and they're plotting to do what they wanted to do,
and they sought how they might take Him by craft. and put him
to death. They wanted to kill him. That's
the desire of the carnal heart. They meant it for evil, God meant
it for good. Now listen, listen to me. Until
the Lord opens a man a woman's eyes and gives them a new heart,
Now you listen, I'm telling you, this is so based on scripture
and based on experience. They hate this message of sovereign
grace. And they hate the God that's
being preached. And they hate those that preach
it. They think, you know what, if they just die and get out
of my misery, I'd be a whole lot happier. Now that, I'm telling
you, that's the thought of carnal man. So they wanted him dead,
but the amazing thing is they didn't want to offend the people.
They wanted him dead, but they didn't want to kill him on the
feast day. They wanted to do it when there
wasn't going to be so many people around. Why? Because they love
darkness. They wanted to do it deceitfully. They wanted to take Him, the
scripture says, by craft. Let's do it and get rid of Him
and make ourselves look good. Now this is going to take a little
conniving, but we can pull it off. We can do it. We can handle
this thing. But though they feared man and
not God, though they plotted to eliminate the one before whom
they were going to surely stand, they were absolutely accomplishing
the will of Almighty God. You've heard this before. Acts
chapter 2, when Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost, he said
in Acts 22. He said, you men of Israel, hear
these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you
by miracles, wonders, signs, which God did by him in the midst
of you, as you yourselves also know, him being delivered by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Ye have taken, and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up,
having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that
he should be holding of it. So Peter told them, you with
wicked hands did just exactly what you wanted to do. You wanted
to kill him. But what you were doing is you
were actually accomplishing the will of God. And Almighty God
will deal with every rebel against the Lord, and every rebel against
the Lord that is plotting against God and against God's people.
God's going to turn it for good. All things work together for
good to them that love God, to them that are called according
to His purpose. So their plans, they were secret. These were secret plans. Nobody
knew it but them. They didn't tell the masses. Nobody knew it but them except
the Lord. In Matthew's account of this
passage in Mark, here's what Matthew chapter 26 verse 2 says
concerning what the Lord said. He says, you know, this is the
Lord speaking, you know that after two days is the feast of
the Passover and the Son of Man is betrayed to be crucified.
This is what the Lord told His disciples concerning this secret
meeting of all these chief priests and Pharisees that were going
to take Him. So they wanted to put Him away because He exposed them for what
they were, frauds. And what they purposed to do
was going to absolutely magnify the glory of the Redeemer. They were going to magnify and
glorify Him according to God's will and purpose when they crucified
Him thinking that they're going to get rid of Him. And what they're
going to do is absolutely display Him to be the glorious Redeemer
of His people. So then in verse 3 of Mark 14
it says, And being in Bethany, in a house of Simon the leper,
As he set it meet, there came a woman having an alabaster box
of ointment, of spikenard, very precious, and she break the box
and poured it on his head. Being in Bethany, he was in a
place, in a house of one called Simon the leper. Now, the leper. Leprosy in the scriptures is
set forth as being that which pictures in type sin. There was no human cure for leprosy. And just as there's no human
cure for sin. Leprosy separated men from men. Whenever someone would come down
the road, you know, they'd cover their, you know, unclean, unclean,
you know. Get on the other side of the
road from me." So it separated men and men, but sin separates
men from God. Isaiah 59, 2, "...but your iniquities
have separated between you and your God, and your sins have
hid His face from you, that He..." Now listen to this. Here's what
the Scripture says concerning one An unregenerate one that
knows not God, loves not God, no heart for the Lord. Your iniquities
have separated between you and your God, and your sins have
hid His face from you that He will not hear. He will not hear. Someone says,
well I think that a sinner, I mean anybody can pray, Not according to the Scriptures.
The Scripture says your sins have separated and He will not
hear. Let me ask you something. What
is the importance of a priest before God on our behalf? We need a priest. We need one
that will answer to God on our behalf. because without a priest,
there is no approaching God. He is holy, and just, and good,
and righteous. He will not hear. So therefore, this leper, Simon
the leper, now a leper could have no interaction, no communion
with other men, and for fellowship to be re-established, When one
had leprosy, do you know that there was only one way that a
leper could be known to be clean? One way. Who had to make the
announcement? The priest. You go to the priest. Remember when there was ten lepers
and the Lord healed all ten of them on that kneel and one of
them came back? Who did the Lord tell them to
go see? Go show yourself to the priest. The Lord healed him. The Lord healed him. He said,
you go show yourself to the priest, and let the priest make the pronouncement
that you're clean. That priest being a picture of
the law. This leper, a leper, and likewise,
only the priest of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, can make a spiritual
leper. A leper before God, a sinful
spiritual leper. clean only by the application
of his blood and thereby reestablish communion and fellowship and
peace with God because of man's fall in Adam. So leprosy was this odious, defiling
disease and it had one end, death. That's it. A man that contracted
leprosy, he's a walking dead man. You're going to die. Unless God's pleased to remove
that leprosy from you, you're going to die of that leprosy. And sin, the wages of sin, is
death. So Simon the leper, obviously
he's been a cleansed leper. Or he would not be hosting this
supper tonight. There wouldn't be people around
him. Here he is, he was a cleansed leper. a type and a picture of
every chosen, redeemed, and regenerated sinner, vessel of God's mercy. He's a picture of God's elect,
regenerated, cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But obviously, he's been healed from the disease because he's
there. But the Spirit of God is very, very explicit to remind
us of what we are as being born in Adam. Simon the leper. You remember when Matthew was
writing his account in the gospel? No one else referred to Matthew
like this, only Matthew. All the others would say Matthew,
Matthew. You know how Matthew wrote it?
You remember? Matthew the publican. That's what he wrote of himself.
We are made to remember the slew from which we've been taken.
The slew of despond. So while the Lord sat at mead
in Simon's house, the scripture says, there came a woman having
an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard. The scripture says
very precious. And a woman, no doubt, who was
a beautiful picture and type of every regenerated vessel of
God's mercy. Because she had one thought on
her mind, coming to Him. Now the reason I know that is
in Matthew's account of this. You go back and read this, just
for the sake of time. But here's how Matthew declares
her coming into this room. There came unto Him a woman having
an alabaster box. The Lord is at supper at Simon
the leper's, and a woman walks in. That's all it says. A woman came in, and here she
comes in, and obviously because of what she's doing, she's coming
to Him. She's coming to the Lord. But what she had in her hand,
she's a picture of every vessel of God's mercy. But what she
has in her hand is without a doubt that which set forth and glorified
the Lord Jesus Himself. The scripture said she held a
precious alabaster box in her hand. That beautiful picture
of the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Alabaster was a stone
from which this box was made. It was a rock. Alabaster. It was a rock. It was a box.
Some said it was a flask. Scripture says it's a box, so
I'm going to stick with box. It was an alabaster box, and
being a rock, it's a stone. Alabaster. But that box right
there pictured Christ, the rock Himself. That rock smitten by
Moses from which the water flowed. The rock that followed the people
through the wilderness. The rock in whom God's people
are hidden in the cleft of the rock. And the rock upon which
the church of the Lord is built. The cornerstone itself. and found within that alabaster
box. Now that box pictured the humanity,
the body, the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. And found within
that alabaster box was the scripture says there was a precious ointment. It was spikenard, very precious. It's a perfume. That pictured
the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what this woman
did, the scripture says that she came and walked into that
place and she had in her hand an alabaster box of ointment
of spikenard, very precious, and she broke the box and poured
it on his head. Now as that ointment in that
alabaster box could only be experienced and enjoyed and its qualities
and its fragrance could only be known when the box, the alabaster
box, was broken. Some say when it says she broke
it, some say it was a sealed box. Maybe it had a lid, maybe
it had a seal on it, an alabaster, maybe so. I don't know. The box
was broken, is what scripture says. And that box being a picture
of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ had to be smitten of God
that His precious blood might flow forth unto life everlasting
for every chosen vessel of God's mercy. So what did she do when
she came in? She took and she broke the box. And she poured it. She broke
the box. Now, in just a few minutes, we're going to partake of the
Lord's table. And what did, when Paul said,
I've received of the Lord, that which I've given unto you. How
the Lord said, 1 Corinthians 11, He gave instructions to His
disciples, and this is what He said concerning the bread that
we're about to eat. He said, take, eat, this is my
body. that is broken for you. So she took that box and she
poured that precious ointment upon the head of the Lord, and
according to the wording of the Lord, she anointed His body to
His burial. This declaring, when she broke
that box and poured that upon Him, what she was saying was
by faith. This is the man, Christ Jesus,
the Lord of glory that gives His body to be broken. And when she poured that precious
ointment, set forth that glorious precious blood of the Lamb of
God, and she was saying in that pouring by faith, the debt owed
to the broken law of God has been paid. The justice of God
has been satisfied for God's sheep. And what a glorious thing. The Lord is about to make a statement
concerning what she just did. But before He makes that statement,
look at the disrespect that is given toward this woman for what
she did. There were some that had indignation
within themselves and said, why was this? Now listen to this.
this waste of ointment made. It might have
been sold for more than 300 pence given to the poor and they murmured
against her. Now you've heard this, I'm sure.
The working man's wages then was a penny a day. 300 pence,
300 pennies, about a year's worth of labor for a working man is
about what that ointment was worth. Now you think whatever
you make, you had that in a box and you just took it and broke
it and just poured it out. How quickly we are reminded,
as I heard Brother Henry say one time, that the best of men
are at best men. Because let me tell you what
Matthew's account said concerning, right here it says, In verse
4, there were some that had indignation within themselves. Matthew tells
us who those some were. Let me tell you what Matthew,
Matthew 26.8, but when his disciples saw it, they had indignation and said,
to what purpose was this waste? It was his disciples that said
it. You know what? For any of us sitting here, there is enough resentment in
us, that old man, that old carnal nature, against the Lord. There
is no depth to what we would say disrespectfully toward Him. It was His disciples that said
it. is given unto the Lord, and fault
is found even within our own ranks. But the Lord who had promised
to never leave, to forsake His own, immediately flew to her
defense in verse 6 and said, and Jesus said, let her alone. Why trouble ye her? She hath
wrought a good work on me. Now, that struck me. She has wrought a good work. You know, we are very, very defensive. We start hearing phrases like
good works and stuff like this. You know, you think, I don't
know. The Lord said, that this woman
has wrought a good work on me. And when the Lord said that she
did that, she did that. And I got to wondering, what
was it concerning what she did that caused the Lord to say,
this woman has wrought a good work? I'll tell you what she
did. She, by faith, honored the Lord as the Messiah. She honored Him as the Savior
of sinners. That's what she did. She took
what she had. The Lord knew the intent. He knew the love. He knew the
desire. He knew that her work was obviously
a work from a thankful heart toward her Lord. A heart made
willing in the day of God's power. A work done for the glory of
God. Listen to 1 Corinthians 10 31.
Whether therefore you eat or drink, whatsoever you do, do it all to the glory of God. So I know that there is a setting
forth. of that which is a good work
toward the Lord. I read that, Pat, and I thought
to myself, have I ever done that? I don't see it. But for God's
glory, what she did, she did, and the Lord honored her for
it. The Lord told His disciples, you have the poor with you always,
and whensoever ye will, ye may do them good, but me ye have
not always. But you know, I got to thinking
about these things, what things we do for the poor. Do you know
what that normally ends up being? Something for our glory. I'm
going to go down to the soup kitchen. dole out some hash. That's right. But when it's done
for the Lord, nobody sees it but the Lord. This woman could have done what
she had done and done it out of selfishness and pride and
arrogance and told everybody what that box was worth and how
much the perfume was worth in it and where she got it and how
much she paid for it. She just walked up, broke it,
poured it on him. And they tore into her. And he
flew to her defense. Obviously, knowing the shortness
of the time that He'd be on this earth, the Spirit of God moved
upon this woman to anoint Him to His burying, and this is what
the Lord said of her. Verse 8, She hath done what she
could. She's done what she was capable
of doing. She's done what she was able
to do. You know what that statement
does to me? It makes me just want to just shut up. This woman
did what she had the means to do. That's what she did. You know, there was a certain
poor widow, and she cast in two bites. This is what the Lord
said concerning her. The Lord said she cast in all
the living she had. She gave it all. This woman gave what was said
to be worth a year's wages. I don't know how much else she
had. Maybe that was it. But he said
she did what she could. And in closing, here's the honor
that the Lord put on this woman. Verse 9, the Lord said, Verily
I say unto you, Where so ever this gospel shall be preached
throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall
be spoken of for a memorial of her. You know, I dare say that there's
anybody, maybe some of the youngest ones, I don't know. I dare say
that there's many here tonight that's never heard this story. I'm sure pretty much everybody's
heard this story about this woman with an alabaster box that broke
it, poured the contents on the Lord's head. But you know what? If you'd never heard it before,
you've heard it now. And you've heard it concerning the word
of the Lord. It said, wherever the gospel
is preached throughout this whole world, because of what this woman
did, he said, every time the gospel is preached, the memorial
to this woman is going to be known. She's going to be remembered
for what she did. I thought, my, what honor that
the Lord The Lord said in 1 Samuel 2.30, them that honor me, I will
honor. I pray that God have mercy upon
us, grant us a heart this evening to do what we can. I'm telling
you, the hardest thing in the world you'll ever fight is pride,
trying to get a little attention out of it. but that it might
be done for the glory of God and nobody else know it. Bless this word to our heart
for Christ's sake.