All right, let's stay right there
in Matthew chapter 2. Now, several people have asked
me where we're going in our evening studies. As you know, on our
Sunday evening and Wednesday evening services, we've been
going through the book of the Bible, the Old Testament mainly,
and just finished the book of Job. and uh... we're going to
the lord willing and the plan is is to go into the book of
jeremiah next but i'm going to start that on wednesday evening
january second i'm not going to i don't know what it is about
us but uh... maybe it's a biological clock
or whatever but you just don't want to start something at the
end of the year you want to finish things so we're going to start
after the new year wednesday evening january second we'll
start studying the book of jeremiah prophet jeremiah so uh... if you want to Go ahead and start
reading there. That would be a good thing. Familiarize
yourself with that. Tonight, I want to talk to you
a little bit, just briefly, about the spiritual significance of
the three gifts of the wise men. Matthew 2 and verse 11. It says,
when they were come into the house, these wise men. Now, everybody has been kind
of programmed to say there were three wise men there may have
been and the reason they say three because they're three gifts
but doesn't say and also as you know just like every other uh...
historical account of that revolves around the birth of christ there's
much myth and speculation uh... much legend and tradition that
revolves around this people even try to name these three men if
there were three we don't know their names the bible doesn't
give their names But I do know this, I know that there's nothing
in this book by accident. And everything that's stated
out here has a spiritual significance. We can think about Herod, verse
1. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem
of Judea, in the days of Herod the king. Now Herod was an infamous,
satanic, evil, wicked man. And it's not wrong for me to
say, or any preacher to say, that he's sort of representative
of all men and women by nature. If you want to see a good description
in this sense concerning the coming of Christ into the world,
of man by nature in depravity and sin, read Isaiah 53. When
he come into the world, we esteemed him not. And even further, I
mean, we hid as it were our faces from him. Now Herod was an evil
king. He had already, he'd stolen the
throne. This man was known by the world
in history as Herod the Great. There were several Herods, his
sons, he had three sons. but this one here was known as
Herod the Great and when it comes to being a king economically
politically he was he was a pretty good king in that sense he was
the one who really started the refurbishing of the temple in
that day in fact it's called the temple of Herod if you read
history books it's called the temple of Herod isn't that amazing
though because what that temple represented what that temple
really was Herod This evil, ungodly, satanic king had no idea. He
rejected and even wanted to kill the one whom this whole temple
represented. Isn't that amazing? So there's
Herod. And then you have these wise
men from the east. You know the east is symbolic
in the Bible of that place from which God comes to do his dealings
with man. either his dealings in judgment
or his dealings in salvation and that's the way the people
of God the church of the Lord Jesus Christ are to look and
when we think about the east this is the coming of the king
to gather us unto himself here coming to save us from our sins
his first coming and so like the sun rises in the east and
Christ in the book of Malachi is called the sun the s-u-n of
righteousness so he rises from the east And these wise men,
they came from the east. And then when we speak of wise
men, and what were they wise? We don't know anything about
them. Other than they saw this miraculous star which God placed
in the heavens in that evening. And incidentally, I don't believe
that was the evening of his birth. I believe this was almost two
years later. But that evening, or that period,
time period, that God had placed this star in the heavens and
guided those wise men and they saw that light and they followed
that star and of course they're representative of all who have
been made wise unto salvation by the Holy Spirit to seek Christ. And that's what they were doing.
We seek Him. That's what salvation is. It's
to seek Christ because all who will seek him will find him.
Isn't that right? That's what the scripture says. And so they
came from the east. They came to Jerusalem, the city
of peace. And there's where, there's where
the Lord established peace outside that city in his crucifixion.
The peace that comes from the cross, the blood of the cross.
And so all of this is here and it's all by prophecy, everything
about it. Look here in verse 11, it says,
when they were coming to the house, they saw the young child
with Mary his mother. And what did they do? Listen
to what they did. They fell down and they worshiped him. Now,
my friend, you don't worship anyone but God. Here's this young
child. Probably around two years old
maybe a little younger, but that's you know I'm Herod He wanted
every child from two years old and younger killed in Bethlehem
He was born in Bethlehem back in the book of Micah. That's
that's where that prophecy is you know he mentions that over
in verse Verse 5 or verse 4 of Matthew 2 It says Herod the king
he heard these things and he was troubled and The reason he
was troubled is he felt his throne would be threatened As I said,
he'd already stolen the throne by murder. And it says, when
he'd gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together,
he demanded them where Christ should be born, where Messiah
would be born. Well, they knew that much. They knew that he
was to be born in Bethlehem of Judea because it was written
by the prophet. Well, that's the prophet Micah.
Over here, Micah chapter 5, verse 2. And listen to what it says. It says, but thou Bethlehem,
Ephratah now Ephratah is just another name for Bethlehem that's
where in fact the first mention of this city was called Ephratah
and so therefore so there be no mistake about where the Messiah
would be born he says Bethlehem Ephratah Micah 5 and verse 2
and he says though thou be and it's called the city of David
because that's where David was born and David was a type of
Christ And he says, though thou be little among the thousands
of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that is,
to be ruler. Now over in Matthew 2, he said
governor, and I like that. You know, it's almost like sometimes
we don't think that God's in control. Well, my friend, he's
the governor of this world. He governs this world. And it
says, a ruler in Israel whose goings forth have been from old
from everlasting. That's eternity. So in this other
words, this person who's going to be born in this little old
insignificant city of Bethlehem is one whose goings forth are
from everlasting. This is God with us, Emmanuel,
God in human flesh. And these wise men knew that.
Now, another significant thing about these wise men who come
from the East, the Orient, you know, we sing that song, We Kings
of Orient Are, where was the Orient? This whole area is the
Orient, the Near East, the Middle East, the Far East. But the thing
about it is, it shows that salvation was not just for the Jews. These
wise men were Gentiles from the East. God has a people out of
every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. He chose us before
the foundation of the world and gave us to Christ and sent Christ
into the world to be born of a virgin. And as God, man walked
this earth in strict obedience to the law, whereby he fulfilled
it and was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,
because without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness
of sin. And it has to be the blood of the God man. has to
be the blood of the Lamb of God. We have no righteousness without
His death, because His death is our salvation. So all these
prophecies being fulfilled, all these prophetic symbols of something
greater, and then it says here in verse 11 of Matthew 2, listen
to this, it says, and when they opened their treasures, they
presented unto Him gifts. And there's three gifts mentioned.
First one is gold, second one is frankincense, and the third
one is myrrh. Now, I believe, you know, there's
a lot of commentators when you read about this, the only thing
they mention about these gifts is that these were expensive
gifts, and they were. These were not cheap. These were
things that people used to bargain with, to barter with, and they
were expensive. Obviously, you know gold's expensive.
The frankincense was expensive. Myrrh was expensive. And some
commentators, when they deal with this, they say, well, Joseph
and Mary, they needed money when they go to Egypt. So they just
use it as an economic thing. You know, God provided them these
economic valuables so that they'd have money to travel. Well, I'm
not going to deny that. I'm certain they needed money
to travel just like we do today. But I believe that God placed
these things in there. These things are things from
the Old Testament that have significance in the minds of those Israelites
who knew the Word. And I want you to see the specific
meaning, how each one relates in some way to the person, the
glorious person, and the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There's a prophetic symbol here, a meaning here greater than the
gift itself. And I don't believe it's going
too far to say, well, we're going to read into that, something's
not there. There's a reason that God the
Holy Spirit inspired Matthew to mention the exact gifts. And
I want you to see it. Well, it starts out with gold.
Now, you know as well as I do that gold in the Bible is a significant
symbol of both the deity and the royalty of the Lord Jesus
Christ. His deity. And I notice here
as it says, they fell down and worshipped him. You don't worship
anyone except that one is God. If you worship anyone that is
not God, that's idolatry. That's why we don't worship man.
That's why we don't worship the saints. That's why we don't worship
Mary. We worship God. And so when we
worship the Lord Jesus Christ, we're worshiping God with us,
God in human flesh. So for the people of God, this
gold, this is the one medal chosen by God above all others to be
identified with the Messiah, the King Messiah. Now I want
you to go back in the Old Testament with me. Look at Exodus chapter
25. And we could go back even further than that, but I want
just a few scriptures. We don't have time to go into
all the scriptures where this is set forth. But look at Exodus
25 and verse 10, and what's happening here is God is instructing Moses
on the construction of the tabernacle, and specifically here, the Ark
of the Covenant. That piece of furniture, that
box that had the mercy seat on it, that was in the Holy of Holies,
behind the veil, And only the high priest one time a year could
go in there with the blood of the lamb on the day of atonement. And listen to what he says. Look
at verse 10, Exodus 25. He says, And they shall make
an ark of Shittim wood, or acacia wood. Now that was a wood that
was very durable and that grew in a dry desert place. You know,
that's a picture of the humanity of Christ. Two cubits and a half
shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth
thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou
shalt," now listen, verse 11, and thou shalt overlay this ark,
this Shittim wood, with pure gold. Within and without thou
shalt overlay it and shalt make upon it a crown of gold round
about. Why a crown of gold? It was all
the way around. That gold represented the king. The king of kings, God himself,
you see. And it keeps on with the gold.
Verse 12, Thou shalt cast four rings of gold for it, and put
them in the four corners thereof. The four corners representing
the four corners of the earth, north, south, east, and west.
God has a people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation.
And two rings shall be in the one side of it, and two rings
the other side of it. And thou shalt make staves, these are
rods of Shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. See, they had
the wood and the gold. That's God-man, you see. That's
what that is. That's the symbol. That's the
picture. It wasn't just something to bury in the earth for archaeologists
to find. They haven't found it. They never
will. But it was a picture of the God-man. This is who Christ
is. This babe in the manger, these
wise men, this young man, this young child who was with his
mother, Dependent on his mother, that's to be attributed to his
humanity. His mother was dependent upon
him, that's to be attributed to his deity. He's the God-man. Now, chew on that a while. That'll
boggle your mind, won't it? But that's who he is. That's
what he's all about. He goes on. Well, down in verse
18, look at verse 18 of Exodus 25. He says, and thou shalt make
two cherubims of gold and beaten work shalt thou make them in
the two ends of the mercy seat. Now he's talking about the mercy
seat. That was the lid that went over the box, the ark. Now, you know, inside that was
the broken tablets of the law and that mercy. Now that represents
our sin. We've broken the law. We fell
in Adam. We're born and dead in trespasses
and sin, and we come forth from the womb speaking lies. We're
sinners! What do we need? We need a mercy
seat, something to cover our sins. Not just to cover over
it, but a covering in the way of making an atonement, making
satisfaction. And that mercy seat, now listen
to this, it says, that mercy seat was not chetemwood overlaid
with gold, it was pure gold. And he says in verse 19, He says,
And make one cherub on one end, and the other cherub on the other
end. Even of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubims on the
two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch
forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings.
And their faces shall look one to another toward the mercy seat,
shall the faces of the cherubims be. That's where salvation is.
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for
I am God. Look to Christ. Look to the mercy seat. That's
Christ. He's the seat of all mercy. Incidentally, that seat...
You know, nobody was to ever sit on that mercy seat. So why was it called a seat?
Mercy seat? It's because it represented the
throne of the king. That was his throne. His throne
is a throne of mercy. When we pray Hebrews chapter
4, we come to a throne of grace, a throne of mercy. That's why
it's called a seat. But no man ever sat there. It
was not to be sat upon, it was the seat of the king, the king
of kings. And verse 21, look here, he says,
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above the ark, and in the
ark shalt thou put the testimony that I shall give thee, that's
the broken law, and he says, now look at verse 22, he says,
and there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee
from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which
are upon the ark, out of the testimony of all things which
I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
Right there. That was it. Turn over to Isaiah
chapter 60. Isaiah 6, God communes with sinners
from above the mercy seat. What does that mean? God communes
with sinners in Christ, through Christ, by the blood, the blood
of atonement, the blood of propitiation, the blood of satisfaction. It's
upon the basis of that bloodshed that Christ is King of Kings
and Lord of Lords. Oh, He's King in His deity by
nature. But as God-man, He's elevated. He's given a name which is above
every name, that every name, every knee should bow and every
tongue confess that He's Lord. Look at Isaiah 60. Look at verse
1 here. He says, Arise and shine, for
thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
That's the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. For behold,
the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the
people. That's our sin, depravity. But the Lord shall rise upon
thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. That's our salvation
through Christ. And look here, verse 3, and the
Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of
thy rising. We're reading the fulfillment
of this in part right in Matthew chapter 2. Now somebody said,
well, we don't know for sure they were kings. Maybe not. I
don't know. But here's the key. Verse 4. Lift up thine eyes round
about and see, and they gather themselves together. They come
to thee. Thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall
be nursed at thy side. Then thou shalt see and flow
together, and thine heart shall fear and be enlarged, because
the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee. The forces of the Gentiles shall
come unto thee. just like these wise men, and
listen to verse six. The multitude of camels shall
cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, all they from
Sheba shall come, and they shall bring gold and incense, which
is literally frankincense, and they shall show forth the praises
of the Lord. The fulfillment of prophecy.
You see back here in Matthew 2 now, this points to royalty,
this gold points to royalty, But not just royalty in the common
sense of it as we think of it. It's the royalty of the king
of mercy. It's the royalty of the throne
of grace where we come for help in time of need. It's the royalty
of the king of our salvation. of our redemption. And that's
what that gold testifies of. This is Christ the King. The Messiah King. The King Messiah. God in human
flesh who is our salvation. Well the second gift that they
gave was frankincense. Now I want you to turn to Exodus
chapter 30. Turn back to Exodus chapter 30. And here, continual instructions
that God gave to Moses on the services of the tabernacle. He
gave him instructions, the pattern of all the furniture and the
dimensions and the materials of the tabernacle. It was all
exact. It had to be the way God said
it. And it was to be so precise. And I want you to think about
this, all of these things, were to be so precisely made that
God gifted men in the power of the spirit to be the craftsman
and the artisan to make these things. So that ultimately the
work here, even that physical tabernacle was the work of God
and not man. And we don't know what, I mean,
we have an idea, you know, we have replicas of the tabernacle,
but I suspect they probably don't do justice to what the real thing
was like. But you see, that's gone now,
and you know why it's gone. It's the same reason that the
king, I think it was Hezekiah, when they found that serpent
that had been put upon the pole by Moses, that Moses made, he
had it ground to powder. You remember that? Because he
said, God told him, he said, men would be apt to worship.
That's why that tabernacle's gone, because if we found that,
men would worship it instead of worshiping Christ through
that tabernacle picture. But look here in Exodus chapter
30 and look at verse 34. What he's talking about is the
incense of the altar of incense. Now, you know, in the Holy of
Holies, that was the chamber right outside the holiest of
all, or the holiest of all, that was the chamber right outside
the Holy of Holies. In other words, you had the open
court, the court of the altar, And then you went inside the
inner chamber there, there was the holiest of all, and only
the priest of Levi could go in there. And then you had the holy
of holies behind the veil, only the high priest could go in there.
When that holiest of all, where the priest could go, there was
an altar of incense. And that incense was to be mixed
with spices as God alone had prescribed. And look at verse
34 of Exodus 30. He says, and the Lord said unto
Moses, take unto thee sweet spices, and he mentions these, stacte,
onica, and galbanum, and these sweet spices with pure frankincense. That's what it was to be mixed
with. Of each shall there be a like weight, an equal weight.
He says, and thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after
the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy. Now
that holy there, he describes what he means by that. You see,
there's nothing morally perfect about these spices. But what's
he talking about holy? Well, listen to verse 36. He
says, And thou shalt beat some of it very small, like into a
powder, and put of it before the testimony of the tabernacle
of the congregation, where I will meet with thee. It shall be unto
you most holy. In other words, this to be placed
in the altar of incense right before the holy of holies. And
as for the perfume which thou shalt make, you shall not make
to yourselves. according to the composition
thereof, it shall be unto thee holy for the Lord." In other
words, this was to be used for one purpose and one purpose alone. And he says in verse 38, whosoever
shall make like unto that to smell thereto shall even be cut
off from his people. If you make this for your own
personal use, And it must have smelled good. I don't know what
it smelled, but it must have smelled good. Because they would
be tempted to make that for their own personal use. But he said,
if you did that, if you made this concoction with that pure
frankincense for any other purpose than to worship God through that
altar of incense, which represents the intercessory work of Christ
and the prayers of his people going up under God through him,
he says, you'll be cut off. Now that's how wholly this is
set apart for use for the worship of God. So here's this, it was
only for God. It was not for the people. This
is for God. And it's the making of a special
incense for the tabernacle before the Ark of the Covenant and that
altar of incense. And that was made of pure gold,
you remember, in the holy place. And before the high priest was
allowed to enter into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement,
he had to offer this special incense with this pure frankincense. Look over at Leviticus. Leviticus
chapter 2. There are so many scriptures
that we could go to for this, but here in Leviticus 2, he's
talking about the law of the grain offering. It's called a
meat offering, but that means a meal offering, M-E-A-L, and
it's a grain offering. And a grain offering was not
a sin offering. You see, there were sin offerings,
and then there were other offerings called thank offerings. Now,
why couldn't a grain offering be a sin offering? Anybody know? Why couldn't a grain offering
be a sin offering? Had to have blood to be a sin offering, didn't
it? Without the blood, there's no sin offering. You see, the
wages of sin is death. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no forgiveness of sin. Law and justice has to be satisfied,
you see, for sin. And that's why Christ had to
die. Those sin offerings, they represented the death of Christ,
the Lamb of God. But these grain offerings were
thank offerings, our gratitude to God. And here's the law of
the grain offering. Look at verse 1 of Leviticus
2. It says, When any will offer the meat or a meal offering,
a grain offering is what that is, unto the Lord, his offering
shall be a fine flour, It had to be fine, it had to be ground.
He said, and he shall pour oil upon it and put frankincense
thereon. Now everything in this thing
had frankincense. Now don't you know that when
they heard that term frankincense, this was special to those people
who understood the Old Testament and the word of the Lord. what
this meant see this is something you couldn't use for your own
personal use and he says in verse 2 he says he shall bring it to
Aaron's sons the priest and he shall take there out his handful
of the flower thereof and of the oil thereof with all the
frankincense thereof and of the priest shall burn the memorial
of it upon the altar to be an offering made by fire and here's
the significance of it a sweet savor unto the Lord Something
that smelled sweet to God. Now, I could show you others
there. This frankincense was to be put upon the cakes on the
table of showbread. On the table of showbread. It
was called the bread of face or the bread of presence because
it pointed directly to the person of Christ in His incarnation.
He who is the bread of life. Well, that frankincense had to
be put upon those cakes or twelve of them, representing the people,
his salvation going out to the people of God. And it was only
to be presented with frankincense. And it was a pleasing aroma to
God. And it points to someone who
pleases the Lord. That's what it is. Our prayer
is going up through the intercessory work of Christ. We have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Now turn to Matthew
chapter 3. Let me show you something here. What it's showing here is that
we do not dare come to God without Christ. Listen, a sinner Approaching
God without Christ is a stench in the nostrils of God. A sinner's
worship without Christ, a sinner's works and efforts without Christ,
a sinner's prayers without Christ, a sinner's gifts without Christ
is a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God. Everything we are
and everything we have and everything we do that's pleasing to God
is so because of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified and
risen again. That's what this signifies. That's
what this is all about. Look at Matthew chapter 3 and
verse 13. Here's John the Baptist baptizing,
the baptism of repentance. I used this verse in the last
message, but listen to this. He says in verse 13, Then cometh
Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him.
But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of
thee, and comest thou to me? Now John's baptism was a baptism
of repentance. Now what that means is this.
When they were baptized with John's baptism, they were confessing
their sins and their need of a Savior. They were confessing
their sins. Well, John, in the power of the
Holy Spirit, He saw that this person who stood before him was
the Messiah. And he knew he had no sins to
confess. He's the perfect God-man. He's gold. He's God in human
flesh. So John says, well, now wait
a minute. I don't need to baptize you. You need to baptize me. Well, Christ then informs John
the reason that he's going to be baptized. And it wasn't the
baptism of repentance. Christ had nothing to repent
of. Now later on he was made sin because our sins were charged
to him and he died under the curse of the law as our substitute
and as our surety. He became guilty by imputation. That's right. But he had no personal
sins to confess like you and I do. right so why is he being
baptized we'll look at verse 15 Jesus answering said unto
him suffer it to be so now for thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness and then John baptized now what does that mean
well in the baptism of Christ when he hit our baptism is a
confession a confession of our sins and a confession of our
salvation by Christ. We identify and confess publicly
His death, burial, and resurrection when we go down into the water
and come up out of the water. That's what our baptism is. Christ's
baptism was a picture. It was an object lesson. So that
when He went down into the water, what was He showing forth? His
death on the cross. His burial. And when He came
up out of the water, what was He showing forth? His resurrection. What was all that? It was the
fulfillment of righteousness for His people. He put away our
sins. By the sacrifice of Himself,
He satisfied the justice of God. He drank damnation dry. He paid
the debt in full. He fulfilled all righteousness
by His obedience unto death for the sins of His people. Now look
at verse 16 of Matthew 3. He says, And Jesus, when He was
baptized, went up straightway out of the water. That proves
that He was immersed. And, lo, the heavens were opened
unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove,
and lighting upon him. And, lo, a voice from heaven,
saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Now,
what is it that pleases the Lord? What is that sweet-smelling savor,
that frankincense unto God? What is that? My friend, that's
the death of His Son for our sins. That's the righteousness
that He established, whereby it pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. You see, our standing in Christ
is fully pleasing to God, all based on His sacrifice. Hebrews
11 and verse 5 says, without faith it's impossible to please
Him. What is faith? It's looking to
Christ, resting in Him, pleading His blood and righteousness as
our only acceptance before God. That's what that frankincense
represents. The sweet smelling savor of Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. If we offer anything else, even
as a thank offering, without Christ, it's a stench in the
nostrils of God. Remember when Isaiah opens up
talking about their self-righteous, unbelieving, ignorant, legalistic
worship. God said, I cannot away with
it. He said, it's a stench in my
nostrils. You see, they that are in the
flesh cannot please God. But we have an advocate with
the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Well, back here in
Matthew 2, the third gift was myrrh. Myrrh. Now turn to Exodus 30. Exodus 30. Let me just say a
few words about myrrh. Look at Exodus 30 and look at
verse 22. We could read a lot of Scripture.
I want to read some, but here's the thing about it. He says in
verse 22 to Moses, he said, Moreover, the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Take thou also unto thee principal spices of pure myrrh, five hundred
shekels. That's how expensive myrrh was.
They used to use myrrh for two reasons. It was used to anoint
dead bodies because of the stench of the decay, and it kind of
covered over the odor. And myrrh smelled real good.
It had a real pleasant odor to it, but it had a real bitter
taste. And I thought about this one
time when I was a kid. My mother had a bottle of perfume.
And I smelled that perfume, and I put my tongue on the thing.
That made me throw up. You know, that's the way it is.
Smelled good, but man, it tasted bad. But myrrh was like it. And it was real expensive. And
then it had some, it had a medicinal purpose too. It kind of like,
if you were suffering, it would dull your pain. Things like that. But he's talking about here a
special anointing oil for the tabernacle. Again, that's to
be used only for this purpose. In other words, Aaron could not
serve as high priest without this anointing oil on him. It
had to be on his person. And so he says, And sweet cinnamon,
half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, of sweet calamus,
two hundred and fifty shekels, and of cassia, five hundred shekels,
after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil and hen. That
was just a measurement. And thou shalt make it an oil
of holy anointment. This myrrh is an oil of holy
anointment. An anointment compound after
the art of the apothecary, that is, that's the ones whom God
gifted to bring these mixtures together. It shall be an holy
anointing oil. And thou shalt anoint the tabernacle
of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony.
This oil was to be anointed all over that place. The table, verse
27, all his vessels, the candlestick, his vessels, the altar of incense,
the altar of burnt offering, All of these things, verse 29,
Thou shalt sanctify them, set them apart, that they may be
most holy. Whatsoever toucheth them shall
be holy. This was a sacred ceremony, you
see. And it's not in the elements,
it's in what they picture, who they picture. Thou shalt anoint
Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister
unto me in the priest office. And thou shalt speak unto the
children of Israel, saying, This shall be an holy anointing oil
unto me throughout your generations. Upon man's flesh shall it not
be poured." Neither shall you make any other like it. After
the composition of it, it is holy and it shall be holy unto
you. Whosoever compoundeth any like
it, if you try to make, try to copy it, or whosoever putteth
any of it upon a stranger, a foreigner, shall even be cut off from his
people. Here's this myrrh, very expensive, most bitter of all
herbs, yet sweet smelling. Medicinal given to suffering
people to dull their pain. Look over Mark chapter 15. Let
me show you this. Mark chapter 15. Here's Christ
on the cross. Verse 22. Mark 15, 22. It says, they bring him into
the place Golgotha, which is being interpreted the place of
a skull, place of death. It's outside the city. They took
Christ. In Susan verse 23, And they gave
him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but he received it not. Now, why do you suppose he received
it not? Some people say, well, it didn't taste good. No. You
know why they gave him that? Because he was suffering. And
they felt sorry for him, wanted to dole his pain. But he wouldn't
take it. You see, he learned obedience
by the things which he suffered. Now, that doesn't mean he learned
intellectually. It means what he was experiencing
here on the cross was the complete, total wrath of God for the sins
of his people, and he could not dull that pain. He had to suffer
the full measure of God's wrath for our sins. And that demonstrates
his determination to accomplish our redemption unaided by man. unaided by man's concoctions
or man's work, the cup of God's wrath was not diluted for Christ. As much as the Father loves His
Son, He did not diminish His wrath upon Him. He bruised Him
to the maximum. Christ suffered the full measure
of the wrath for our sins imputed, charged to Him. He said, My God,
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? This myrrh, as I said, is
bitter to the taste. But it produced a pleasing, sweet
aroma. And that represents the death
of Christ. His death was a bitter death. His death was a substitutionary
death. His death was bitter, but my
friend, it was a sweet-smelling aroma to the nostrils of Almighty
God. It pleased the Lord to bruise
Him. God was satisfied with the offering of His Son. How do we
know that? Because He raised Him up out of that grave and
set Him on high. He finished the... It was a bittersweet
death. That's what that verse speaks
of. It points directly to the death of Christ on the cross,
bearing our sins, the most bitter of all deaths, but produced the
sweetness of our salvation and our life and all the blessings
of righteousness and holiness that we have in Christ. Look
at John chapter 19. In the book of John chapter 19. Look at verse 39. After they brought him down from
the cross, it says in John 19 and verse 39, there came also
Nicodemus, you know who Nicodemus was, which at the first came
to Jesus by night and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes,
about a hundred pound weight, very expensive. Then took they
the body of Jesus and wound it in linen cloth with the spices
as to the manner of the Jews is to bury. preparing the body
of Christ for burial, to help preserve and perfume the body.
You see, that proves the completion of His death. He really died.
He said it's finished on the cross, and He meant it. And that's
a testimony of His love for us in our redemption, for the Bible
says He loved His own until the end, to the finishing of the
work. Let's close by reading a section
from Psalm 45. Turn to Psalm 45, and we'll close
with it. the sweet aroma of the death
of our Savior. Look at Psalm 45, verse 6. Prophecy of Christ. He says in
verse 6, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter
of Thy kingdom is a right or a righteous scepter. That's what
He established on the cross. Thou lovest righteousness and
hatest wickedness. Therefore God thy God hath anointed
thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. There's that
anointing oil. And all thy garments smell of
myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces whereby
they have made thee glad. Another thing that that myrrh
can represent is the life that's given from the death of Christ,
the life of the Spirit within us that makes us glad. His fellows, His friends, His
people, His sheep are made glad and we have been made glad with
that anointing oil of the Holy Spirit. And there's a bitterness
to that, the bittersweet gospel John called it in Revelation,
because it brings about a confession of our sin and our depravity,
brings us to repentance, but it leaves us with the sweet-smelling
savor of the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
there's nothing that smells better in the nostrils of Almighty God
than that. All right.