All right, turn again with me
to Psalm 45. Psalm 45, and we've been looking at verse 8 this
evening. Scripture says, all thy garments
smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia, out of ivory palaces
whereby they have made thee glad. Title of this message, The Sweet
Smelling Garments of Christ. The Sweet Smelling Garments of
Christ. I have three things I want us
to see out of this text. I want us to see, first of all,
the garments of Christ. Second of all, we're going to
see the sweet smell of these garments. What is that? These
herbs that are mentioned here. And thirdly, the joy of these
garments. joy of these garments. Now we've
gone through this text pretty extensively. We know that God
at first begins by indicting the good matter concerning the
king. We know that king is Christ.
He is the king anointed of God. He says of him, thou art fairer
than the children of men, speaking of his humanity, that grace should
be poured into his lips. That's speaking of his office
as the prophet of God. He says, gird on thy sword. This
speaks of his work, warfare that he was to accomplish. In verse
4 we read of him riding to this warfare in prosperity. that whatever Christ was sent
to accomplish, He was going to prosper. He was going to prosper,
be successful. We read in verse 5 of the effect
of His warfare, which was the arrows in the heart of the king's
enemies. We were the enemies of the king
by nature. We were haters of God, children
of wrath, even as others. We were enemies. And by grace
he struck us. By grace we fell under his rule. And what did we see? Thy throne,
O God. We saw him in his deity, in his
majesty. We saw him in his success, in
his victory. He is forever and ever. We saw
his kingdom was a just and righteous kingdom. That he is the only
Savior and King. We saw his character in him loving
righteousness and hating wickedness. We saw his humanity in that God
was his God. And now we come to see him as
he is seated on the throne. Now the picture shifts. He's
on the throne. He's ridden prosperously. He's
accomplished the salvation of his people. And now we are to
fix our eyes upon his garments. A garment. That's my first point,
the garments of Christ. All thy garments. A garment is simply something
you put on that covers you. That's what it is. But clothes,
a garment, the clothes of people, most of the time we make certain
judgments about them based on their clothes, don't we? by what
they wear. You see some guy walking with
his pants down below his hips and he's got a muscle shirt on
and gold chains on and his hat's turned backwards. You made a
judgment, didn't you? You just automatically. You didn't
think, well, man, that's a successful businessman. Is that what you
thought? No, of course not. He very well may be. He may be
doing that to fool you, but whatever. We make judgments based on garments,
on clothing. If you see a man in this day,
if you saw a man dressed in purple and scarlet wearing a crown upon
his head, you would automatically assume that that man was king.
By his garments, by his dress. If you saw a man with a breastplate
with twelve stones on it and linen garments and covered over
with a purple apron, you would know that garment distinguished
that man as a high priest. So we know garments distinguish
people. And so then in the text, God
sets before us the garments of His King. His dress tells us
much about His person. So the first thing I would have
you notice the garment of Christ is His deity. You can see that
back in verse three, gird on thy sword, O most mighty, look
it, with glory and thy majesty. This is how he was to be clothed,
with glory and majesty. This speaks to us of his deity.
If you go over to Psalm 94, 93, Psalm 93, look at verse one. The scripture here says the Lord
reigneth, and He is clothed with what? Majesty. The same as in our text. The Lord reigneth, and here is
His dress, here is His garment, majesty. Majesty. The Lord is clothed also with
the garment of strength. And notice this, wherewith he
hath girded himself. Majesty and strength were not
given to God by anybody. They belong to Him. They are
His. These are eternal characteristics
of God. The world also is established
that it cannot be moved. Thy throne is established of
old. Thou art from everlasting. Behold
your Savior. The Lord Jesus Christ is clothed
with majesty and with strength. Why? Because He is the express
image of the Father. Christ Jesus, our Savior, is
the express image of the Father. He hath created all things by
the word of His power, and by the word of His power, His strength,
all things consist. Therefore, the psalmist says,
the world cannot be moved. Who's going to move the world?
Who's going to? Anybody going to put it out of
orbit? You jump up and down. Get everybody in the world, jump
up and down. See if they can move the earth. That's foolish. It's immovable. God says, so
is my throne. I created the immovable world,
therefore my throne is immutable. Throne is established forever. Behold that Christ was forever
the Son of God, and He shall forever be the Son of God, the
Creator, Ruler, and Sustainer of all things. Therefore, all
things move according to His sovereign will. This is vital
for us. This is vital for us to continually
remember that everything moves according to His sovereign will. In that same chapter in Psalm
93, the psalmist says, The floods lift up, O Lord, the floods lift
up their voice. The floods lift up their waves. You heard some bad things coming?
Floods lift up their voice. And not only that, look, bad
things are coming, I see it. It's not only do I hear the bad
things, the bad things are coming. Lord, the waves are coming in.
Look, the Lord is high and mightier than the noise of many waters,
yea, than the mighty waves of the sea. He's stronger than the
noise and He's stronger than the waves. Thy testimonies are very sure. Holiness becometh thine house,
O Lord, forever. Floods and waves of sinful men
may rage against God and against his Christ. The natural man might
imagine that God is much like himself. He sees Jesus to be
nothing more than a weak effeminate savior, someone trying to do
something. But as we view the garments of
his majesty tonight, we might, we should be encouraged to know
this, that our God reigneth. Our God reigneth. The psalmist says our God is
in the heavens and hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. What is happening now is whatsoever
he pleased. Garments of Christ, our Savior,
is garments of deity, clothed in majesty, righteousness, and
strength. Therefore, seeing His garments
of deity, we know that whatsoever He's purposed to do, He'll do. Whatsoever He purposed to do,
He will do. The second garment is that of
His humanity. Consider the garments of His
humanity. And we're going to see this in
a little bit, a little more clearly, but I thought of the tabernacle.
When I thought of his garments of his deity and his humanity,
I thought of that tent that they set up out there in the wilderness.
On the inside was beautiful. It was scarlet and purple and
gold thread. Again, I always, I don't know,
I've never seen anything made with gold thread. Have you? I
mean real gold. So fine you can thread it. I
just haven't seen it. But that's what it was. A lot
of those emblems and things that were in there were made of gold
and thread. It was glorious. It was beautiful. What a picture
of his deity. Christ, our tabernacle. But on
the outside, what was it? Badger skins. It was the ugliest
place and it was the ugliest tent in all of Israel. If you were an enemy and you
were attacking, you'd look at that thing and go, man, that
ain't worth going into. Kind of come up to my house and
you'd say, man, that guy, I made him leave some money and not
rob it. It was ugly. It looked like a
run-down tent. What a picture of our Savior
as He clothed Himself in humanity. took upon him not the form of
angels, but the nature of a man. He was in Philippians 2. He said,
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be
equal with God, but made of himself no reputation and took upon him
the form of a servant, was made in the likeness of men and being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross, as we consider our
king who is deity. And yet he humbled himself to
robe himself in humanity. How gracious. How great is the mercy of God
who ordained and purposed and planned our salvation and then
himself came and accomplished it. We know this, that whatsoever
our God determines to do, he'll do. He said, my counsel shall
stand and I will do all my pleasure. What is the pleasure of God?
What is God pleased to do? The counsel of God is the complete
salvation of His elect. That is the will of God. That
is the purpose of all things that happen in time and eternity
so as to save His people for one purpose, His glory. You realize that God didn't save
you because of you. He saved you because of His own
namesake. And now He tells us in the covenant
of grace, Ezekiel 36, He said, I do not this for your sakes.
I do this for my own glory, my own namesake. Matter of fact,
Ephesians, go over there to Ephesians 1. Read this. This is the will
of God. This is the will of God to save
His people. Ephesians 1 and verse 3. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places. According
as he hath chosen us, those he blessed, who are they? Those
are the ones he has chosen. He chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. For what purpose did he choose
you? that we should be holy and without
blame before Him. That's why He chose you, that
you should be holy and without blame before Him. In love, having predestinated
us, here is His motivating factor, love, having predestinated us
under the adoption of children. Here's how He's going to do it,
by Jesus Christ. To Himself. According. What is the foundational motive? He loved His elect. But what
was the foundational motive of His love? Of His putting us in
Christ? Of His choosing us? What is the
foundational motive? According to the good pleasure
of His will. To the praise of the glory of
His grace. wherein because of this he hath
made us except in the beloved. Behold, the beauty of our God
and the glory of our God is that God the Father put us in Christ
for the express purpose of making us holy, but how should he do
it? He must, of necessity, robe himself
in humanity. That same passage in Ephesians
1, he says, in whom we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of his grace. You see, in order
for him to shed his blood, he must be a man. he must offer
himself a sacrifice as a man. So then behold the glory of Christ's
deity and the garments of Christ's humanity so that he could redeem us and
represent us before God as our own high priest. Remember, a
high priest is taken from what? Among men. He must be a man. In order to redeem us, he must
have become a man. And so in time, he should make
his will known to us. And we should be to the praise
of the glory of his grace. We all by nature have this garment
of humanity. That's one thing you take off
these things, but you can't take off this. You're robed in it. By nature,
we're in the garments of sin, clothed in the rags of our self-righteousness,
clothed in the garments of death by nature. Our garment by nature is unacceptable
before God and unless our garments be made white, unless we be made
the righteousness of God, unless we be clothed in the garments
of His holiness, free from spots of sin, we will in no wise be
fit for anything but hell. Therefore Christ, in order to
give us this robe of righteousness, this new nature, Christ clothed Himself in humanity,
veiled His deity, in order that he should make for us a robe
of righteousness. Behold, the God-man Jesus Christ,
he who is clothed with deity and with humanity, so that he
might touch both God and man, that he might be the mediator. Isaiah 61, 10 says, I will greatly
rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall be joyful in my
God, for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation. He hath covered me with the robe
of righteousness. How is this possible? The only
way is that he clothed us with his own garment. Christ, who
is God and man, made for us a garment of salvation. Now then, I want you to take
a time and look now at the smell of these garments. What causes
this garment to smell sweet? Look back at your text. He said,
all thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassa. These three principal spices
were a very important part of the anointing oil used in the
tabernacle on the furniture and on the priest. Every part of
this tent that I just described, the tabernacle, they made an
ointment and the ointment consists of these three spices. And they
would take those things and they would bathe them in this odor
in this ointment. They did this for the tabernacle,
the furniture in the tabernacle, and the priest. Go to Exodus
chapter 30. This shows us the importance
of these three spices being listed. Exodus chapter 30 and look at
verse 22. Moreover, the Lord spake unto
Moses, saying, Take thou also unto thee three principal spices,
of pure myrrh, 500 shekels, sweet cinnamon, half so much, even
250 shekels, and sweet calamus, 250 shekels, and of cassa, 500,
after the shekel of the sanctuary, and oil, olive, and hen. And
thou shalt make an oil of holy oil, an ointment compound after
the art of the apothecary, and it shall be in holy anointing
oil. And thou shalt anoint the tabernacle
of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony,
the table, and all his vessels, the candlestick and his vessels,
the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering with all his
vessels, and the laver and his foot. And thou shalt sanctify
them, that they may be most holy. whatsoever toucheth them shall
be holy and thou shall anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate
them that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. This was a very special oil. Under this dispensation, it was
a very special anointing oil for the instruments of worship. And even the mediator, the priest,
must have been anointed. What does that have to do with
you? It's a picture. As all the Old
Testament is, it is a picture of Christ. All the furniture,
the tabernacle, the priest, the ark, the sacrifices, all of it
pictured Christ. All of it. And this anointing was to picture
that God had anointed Christ to be the tabernacle. He had
anointed Him to be the mercy seat. He hath anointed Him to
be the altar. He hath anointed Him to be the
sacrifice. He had anointed Him to be the high priest. Let's consider this. The tabernacle.
In all the world there was only one place God would meet with
men. You understand the narrowness of that? That in that dispensation,
in that time, there was only one tent in all the world where
God manifest and met with man. That's the only place. What a picture of Christ. The
only place God is ever going to meet with you in peace is
in Christ. There's no other place. Jesus said, I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No man comes to God but by me. Narrow. That is single. There's no getting around that.
He's our tabernacle. He was anointed to be our tabernacle.
Secondly, he was anointed to be the instruments of worship.
Think inside of that tent. There were instruments there. There were furniture inside of
there. Consider the table had to be anointed, the table of
showbread. Is Christ not the bread of life? He was anointed to be the bread
of life. Jesus said, except a man eat
my flesh and drink my blood. He had no part with him. The laver, where the priest washed
his hands. The laver of water. What a picture
of Christ. That was anointed. Christ was
anointed to wash away our sins. The golden candlestick. He said,
I am the light of the world. He was anointed of God to be
the light of the world. He was the altar of incense. who has made all the prayers
of the saints acceptable and now intercedes for us to God. Jesus is the brazen altar by
which His blood was shed for the remission of sins. He is
the ark of the covenant. He is the mercy seat by which
our sins have been atoned. And thirdly, He is the high priest.
All of those things were anointed with these three spices. He is our high priest. He is
anointed of God to perform and accomplish the service of worship
and atonement. In Hebrews 10, we read this often. daily ministering often, oftentimes
the same sacrifices that can never take away sin. Those old
high priests, they were anointed with this oil, but they had to
keep offering these sacrifices. But consider the priesthood of
Christ. This man, after he'd offered
one sacrifice, sat down. Now did I mention a chair in
there? In the old dispensation, was there a chair? There was
no place to sit. But this man, after he had finished,
he sat down at the right hand of God. He sat down on the throne
of God from henceforth expecting his enemies to be made his footstool.
For by his one offering, he hath perfected forever them that are
sanctified. Believer in Christ, let us smell
the sweet anointing garments of Christ. He has been anointed to be our
tabernacle. He is anointed to be the bread
of life. He is anointed to be the light of the world. He is
anointed to wash away our sins. He was anointed to be our mercy
seat. He was anointed to be our priest. And now this oil of myrrh, aloes,
and cassa. I want you to understand this
was not a common ointment. This was not a common
ointment. Matter of fact, God told them
that they should not make it for any other reason. Look there
in Exodus 30, if you've got your place there, look at verse 37.
He said, As for the perfume which thou shalt make, thou shalt not
make it to yourselves according to the composition thereof. It
shall be unto thee holy for the Lord. Whosoever shall make like
unto that, to smell thereunto, even shall be cut off from his
people. I want us to show then that this
oil representing Christ in its uniqueness, uniqueness. This tells us of the singleness
of Christ that there is only one anointed Savior. Not anyone else could be anointed
with this stuff. Only the Lord, Jesus. The oil of our salvation is to
cover only His garments and not another. Now there are many so-called
gods. There are many who even take
the name of our God, Jesus, who bear no resemblance to Him. You see, he is the only one anointed
of God. He is the only one who has made
atonement and righteousness to make us accepted. He alone was
successful to save his elect people, and any other Christ
is not Christ. The Jesus of false religion does
not smell sweet. He doesn't smell sweet. Any Christ
that's trying to save someone is not Christ. You're trying
to anoint him with this oil that's only intended for Christ. In the Old Testament, the two
sons of Aaron, they took this oil and they tried to misuse
it. Matter of fact, they added to
it. They thought they could make it better. Numbers 3, it says,
Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord when they offered strange
fire. They took this ointment and they
offered it before the Lord. And they died. So is anyone who seeks to add
their works to the work of Christ. But because Jesus, our Savior,
has finished the salvation of God's elect, he alone is a sweet
saver to God. This picture for us in the offering
of Noah. First time we read of the sweet
saver to God is in Noah's offering. When Noah offered the sacrifice,
it says this, and the Lord smelled a sweet saver. What was he smelling? It was the offering of his son.
What Noah was doing was picturing the offering of his son. And
to God, it was sweet. To God, it was sweet. Believer, God, Jesus, our Savior,
who is anointed of God, made his soul an offering for sin,
and therefore he hath forever pleased God, and he is forever
a sweet-smelling savor to God. for his people. We prayed tonight. We approached before the throne
of God in prayer. We laid out our petitions before
God, which is his command. His purpose is for us to come
to him. We are to pray to him. How then could we, just considering
the sins of the day, how do you suppose he could accept
us? By what right do we have to lay
our petition before a holy God? The sweet smell of Christ. Therefore, we who have fled to
him for refuge have a sure hope, a sure hope. Jesus Christ, who
has the garments of both God and man, who has been anointed
our high priest, who has finished the work of our salvation, has
put away our sins by the offering of himself, who is a sweet saver
unto God. Therefore, we who are in Christ
are to a sweet smelling savor to God. Acceptable. Acceptable. We are acceptable because his
priesthood doesn't change. His priesthood doesn't change.
Hebrews 7, by so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament. And they truly were many priests
because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death.
But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able to save
them to the uttermost that come to God by him, seeing he ever
liveth to make intercession for us. That's how our prayers were
answered. He was interceding for us. Therefore all he represented
as this high priest, as our surety, may rejoice and be exceedingly
glad because of this. Our prayers, our worship, our
giving, our witness is made sweet because of his garments. Because
of his garments, it's made sweet. I was reading this earlier in
Philippians. I'll just read it to you, but
it's come across my mind. in Philippians chapter 4 and
verse 18. He said, and I have, let's see,
make sure I'm in the right place, yes. But I have all and abound. I am full, having received of
Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odor of
a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God. Isn't that
something? These people, they knew Paul had some need, and
they gave to that need, and Paul received that of them. And you
know what he said to them? He said, that's a sweet smell
unto God. Now, how's that possible? I'm sure they gave, but I'm sure
it wasn't perfect. I'm sure they didn't give all
that they had. I'm sure they had kept a little
for themselves, right? We give to the worship of God,
but yeah, we keep a little to ourselves. So I'm sure that our
giving is not holy, but yet you know what? In the eyes of God
it is. Why? Because of Christ. I'm thankful
for his garments. I'm thankful that he is the anointed
king. The garments of Christ are not
only sweet to God, but they're sweet to us. The hearing of this gospel should
be sweet to our senses. Peter says, Wherefore, also it
is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay inside a cheap
cornerstone, elect precious, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded. Unlike the Old Testament, he
shall not make haste. I'm not going anywhere. Are you? This stone is very precious. Is it not obvious? I mean, we've
been going through this chapter together for several weeks, and
it's only speaking of Christ. He is precious to God, isn't
He? Is there anything more precious than His Son? Name it. What is
more precious to God than His Son? What is more precious to His
saints than the Son? Unto you therefore that believe,
He is precious. Isn't He? He's precious. And the last thing I want you
to see is the gladness of Christ. Look back at your text. He said,
Thy garments What have we seen so far? The garments of his deity
are precious. They smell wonderful. Garments
of his humanity. Him being anointed as our priest,
our tabernacle, our salvation. And he says, out of ivory palaces,
whereby they have made thee glad. You know that Christ, the joy
of his heart, is the success of his work. As Christ views his work, do
not suppose that he is glad for it. You know why? Because he saved his people. He rejoices in the salvation
of his people. He rejoices in it. I'm trying to think of that verse,
I think it's in Zephaniah. It speaks of the Lord rejoicing
and singing over us. Do you not know that this makes
Him glad? The salvation of His people, this was always His purpose. When He, we receive what He fully
purposed us to have. Jesus said this, it is your Father's
good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Now, go home, look in the mirror
and see if you can find any reason he'd say that about you. Look at your works, look at all
the good things you've done and find one of them by which you
can say, aha, that's why he should receive me. You won't find one,
will you? Where do you look to see why
he would say such a thing to me? It is because of the sweet-smelling
garments of his offering and sacrifice that he will accept
me. He accepts me not because of
me. He's not glad because of me. He's glad because of Christ. And I'm so thankful it's that
way. I'm so thankful that all His garments smell sweet. And I'm so thankful He has been
gracious to give me His garments, to put them on me. Isn't it amazing? We have the
righteousness of Christ given to us. It's ours. I'm so thankful. Let's stand
and be dismissed. Father, dismiss us with your
blessing and mercy. Pour out your Spirit as you see
fit. Open our eyes and minds. Let us always set forth Christ
before us. We may see Him high and lifted
up exalted a successful Savior. I pray for the lost that you
would even, by your mercy and grace, open their eyes to see
Him, to believe on Him. I pray that you'd comfort the
hearts of your people who suffer. I pray this in Christ's name.