which Christ shall come with
shout of acclamation to take me home. Then sings my soul when I bow
in humble adoration. If we sing about how great He
is here, And we don't, what little we know about God is something, but I'm, but oh
my. Imagine what he'll be when we
get to see him and be with him. Take worlds without end to learn
of him, to learn of him. Worlds without end all right,
let's look back here in Exodus 32 30 excuse me you see there
where they had the all those spices Verse 23 myrrh sweet cinnamon
Calamus cassia, and then the olive oil and And then he was
told to take this oil and anoint the Ark of the Testimony. He
had to go through the tabernacle and that sanctuary and he had
to anoint everything in it. The table, the vessels, the candlestick,
the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering, the labor
in his foot and sanctify. And that's what's going to make
them holy. Then you anoint Aaron and his sons. Now this, without
this holy anointing oil and the fragrance, now this thing had
a fragrance. They took all these four spices out to the artery
of the apothecary and they crushed them things up and they put them
in that olive oil. And they let that stuff set and
then that olive oil and that they would strain it out. And
then all the fragrances of all them spices would stay in that
olive oil. And then, you know, he said,
you anoint everything with that. And that anointing oil is going
to make everything holy. And you know, when they use the
myrrh, the cinnamon, the sweet calamus, the cassia, all these
speak about the fragrance and the savor of our dear Lord Jesus
Christ, our blessed Savior. You know, can you imagine how,
you know, over Song of Solomon, I don't know where it's at, but
says, you know, said his, he smelled, his fragrance would
just fill the air. But I do want you to look in
Psalm 45, look at Psalm 45 and see what it says about our master.
Over here, our Lord Jesus Christ over here says about him. This,
this Psalm 45, this is what he's talking about here. Look down
in verse He's talking about Christ and you know we find these verses
in the book of Hebrews. He said in verse 6, Thy throne,
O God, is forever and ever. This is God Almighty talking
to His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The scepter of thy kingdom is
a right scepter. Thou lovest righteousness, and
hatest iniquity. Therefore thy God, thy God, hath
anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And all thy garments, smell of
myrrh, aloes, cassia, out of the ivory places, ivory palaces,
were of thy. thee were made glad. So it talks
about our Lord Jesus Christ and how blessed he smelled. The fragrance
God anointed him with oil above any of his fellows. Now let's
talk about this holy anointing oil. Let's talk about that. Everything
had to be anointed with this oil. And of course the olive
oil is a figure, a type, a picture of the Holy Spirit. you know
the scripture says that God anointed Jesus Christ and he went about
doing good and healing all that were oppressed and when our Lord
was baptized one way John would know that he was the Messiah
know that he was the Christ because God had told him said whosoever
you see the Spirit of God come down in the form of a dove you
see a dove come down And that dove turns into the Spirit of
God. He said, you'll see this dove
come down. When it comes down, it won't
be a dove landing on the top of Christ's head. It'll become
the Spirit of God. And that Spirit of God will come
upon Christ and say, this is my beloved Son, whom I'm well
pleased. And John said, I know right then
and there that was it. Because that's what the Lord
told me would happen. So this is a picture of the Holy
Spirit of God. And the spices, all these wonderful
spices gave a fragrance to that oil. Gave a fragrance to it.
And I tell you what, whenever they would take that oil and
start anointing things, the smell of that oil, you could smell
it all over the place. I mean all those spices gave
it a wonderful aroma, a wonderful smell. And it was carried along. And so the graces, the blessed
graces, the precious power of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He
was on the earth, everything He did, He did by the Spirit
of God. Everything He did by the Spirit
of God. I want you to see this. I've got two or three places
I want you to look at. But look especially in Isaiah
11. Isaiah 11. I want you to look at this with
me, talking about everything and all the Spirit and all the
work that Christ did and all the wonderful things that He
did and it was all done by the Spirit of God. Christ blessed
Him with the Spirit without measure. And look what He said here in
verse 1 and 2. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem
of Jesse, Christ came from Jesse, son of David, and a branch shall
grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest
upon him. The Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit
of understanding. Oh my, who had wisdom like Christ? When he was 12 years old, dealing
with those doctors and lawyers, they couldn't believe where this
man, this child got such wisdom. And I tell you what, he was in
the spirit of counsel, oh what a spirit of counsel, and the
spirit of might, and the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear
of the Lord. So Christ was anointed with the
spirit of God, and everything that he did, the wisdom, and
the knowledge, and the power, and the might and all the things and
the spirit of counsel all those things that come through Christ
was because of God's blessed spirit and him being upon him
and our Lord Jesus Christ when he was started his ministry at
the Spirit of God come on him the first thing he did you know
what the first thing the Spirit of God did for him let him into
the wilderness to go toe-to-toe with the devil That's the first
thing that happened to him. After he was anointed, after
he set apart in his ministry, he didn't go out here and start
preaching. The Spirit of God led him into the wilderness and
there he went toe-to-toe with Satan himself. And guess who
come out the victor? Guess who won that battle? You
know, in our Lord Jesus Christ, He used the Word. He used nothing
but God's blessed book, the Scriptures. And if Christ uses the Scriptures
Himself, and how often did He use the Scriptures, then that
tells us that we have to use the Scriptures for ourselves,
and we have to use them to teach anybody else the Scriptures.
And the Spirit here, I tell you, the Spirit pictured by the olive
oil, I'm going to tell you something, always, always brings out the
Lord Jesus Christ, His power, His glory, His excellency, His
virtues, everything about Him, it brings it out about Him. Now
you know, and I want you to see this again, I quote it all the
time, but Acts 16, excuse me, John 16, John 16, we've seen
this so many times, but it'll do us good to look at it again.
Because what I'm telling you is, the spirit pictured, the
olive oil pictured the Lord, the Spirit of God, always on
Christ. And where the Spirit of God is,
it always speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. It brings out His
glory. And it sets the focus on Christ
Himself. Look what our Master said here
in verse 13. Christ is preaching here now.
Our Lord said, how be it when He talks about the Holy Spirit
being a He? The Spirit of Truth, capitalized,
the Spirit of Truth has come. You know what He's going to do?
He's going to guide you into all truths. You know, and I'll
tell you what, He guides you into the truth. If you know any
truth, somebody had to guide you, and the Holy Spirit guided
you into it. Now watch this. For He shall not speak of Himself,
But whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he shall
show you things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall
receive of mine, and show it unto you." And I tell you, that's
the thing about it. You know how you can tell whether
a preacher is telling the truth or not, and whether the Spirit
of God is in a ministry or not? Does the Spirit of God glorify
Christ? Does the preacher glorify Christ? And anything that does not bring
glory to Christ, set its focus on Christ, is not the Spirit
of God. These people want to talk about
speaking in tongues? That's not pointing to Christ.
They want to talk about having anointing oil and anointing people,
that's not pointing to Christ. They want to talk about work
and living a holy life for God, that's not talking about Christ.
You've got to focus that, a sermon. I'm telling you what, anything
that doesn't set its affection, set its focus on Christ is not
of the Spirit of God. I'll tell you whether it's a
sermon, whether it's a prayer, whether it's a good deed, Whether
it's a gift that you give and whatever's not of the Holy Spirit,
it's not of God. It's not of the Spirit of Christ.
It's not the Holy Spirit Himself. I don't care how good it looks.
I don't care how good it looks. I don't care how much money the
preacher makes. How well he dresses. I don't
care how many people he's got in his congregation. I do know
this. If it does not glorify the Lord
Jesus Christ and call attention to Him, the Holy Spirit has nothing
to do with it. Everything in that tabernacle
was anointed with His Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit's in
the service, He'll always focus everybody's attention on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I know that without a shadow
of a doubt. You know, that which truly, truly
exalts our Lord Jesus Christ, exalts Him, sets Him forth, and
calls attention to Him and Him alone, that's of the Holy Spirit. And I, you know, I learned this
many, many, many, many years ago. That I do know this. You find I don't care what anybody's
saying, what anybody's preaching, what anybody's talking about.
That if it does not glorify Christ, it is not the Holy Spirit of
God. And He won't own it. Huh? And I tell you, you know
what? It's like that anointing oil.
With all them spices. Whenever it was poured out, and
you smelled it. And you know what Paul said?
He said, we are always triumphant in Christ Jesus. Who God made
a sweet savor. A sweet savor unto life. You
know, and you take Christ. You know, here's the thing about
it. When we open this blessed book and we start talking about
Christ, it gives off a fragrance. It's a sweet savor. It's a savor
of life unto us. When Christ is set out, He's
the saver of life unto us. And then to other people, He's
the saver of death. Because you know why? They don't
smell it. Well, you say that smells good.
That don't smell good to me. It's like people, you know, they
talk about there's other things in the Bible besides Christ.
There's other things to preach in the Bible besides Christ. There's other things for us to
deal with besides Christ. I pray thee tell me what it is. Anything we deal with, if it
don't bring us to Christ, we are not being used of the Spirit
of God. Any grace that we have, where
do we get it from? From Him? Huh? And oh my! I want you to see this now. Oh,
He shall glorify me. That's what the Savior said.
And our Savior said He's a sweet smelling savor to the Father.
And then look here in verse 32. There was prohibited of using
this. There was prohibitions used on this anointing oil. Look
what it says there in verse 32. What it says over here. upon man's flesh shall it not
be poured. What in the world is he talking
about? No poured upon man's flesh. You know the only people that
was anointed here, the only people that was anointed was Aaron and
his sons. Only those that were in the priesthood,
only those who were set apart, they were made holy. And those
that were only belonging to the priestly family were the only
those that were anointed with the Spirit of God. And beloved,
I showed you a couple of weeks ago how that we're royal priests.
Holy Nation, a royal priesthood. And so we are all ourselves priests
unto God. He made us that way. And only
those in the Lord Jesus Christ have the Spirit of God. God has
sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. And you
know why we cry, Father? I have a Father, you know why
we do that? Because the Spirit of God is in our hearts. He has
sent it forth in our hearts that we might be called the sons of
God. And by that Spirit we say, Our Father, Our Father, Our Father. And you know what? Religious
movements today, and I tell you I don't care how small the town
is, I don't care how big the town is. I don't care how many
preachers they have or how many they don't. I do know this, that
all religious movements today, what they're trying to do is
pour this blessed oil on the flesh. Puff up men with this free willism. Make him feel good about himself.
Make him feel good about his works. Makes him feel good about
his prayer. Makes him feel good about what he's accomplished.
And they try to pour it out on old proud flesh. Proud man in
his free willism. I tell you man in his flesh has
never done anything. That's why I said you can't take
the flesh and you can't make it holy. We have no confidence
in the flesh. I tell you what, flesh is flesh
and that's all it's ever going to be. And I tell you beloved,
man in the Holy Spirit, he can't have the Holy Spirit in his own
human nature. He got to be made a new creature
in Christ. Man's nature is like the desert.
Huh? There is not going to be no oil
and the Spirit of God is not going to bless the desert. He
only blesses the Lord's people. A miracle is going to have to
happen. Got to happen. You know, Romans 8 and 9 says
this. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. That's what it says. But we are
no longer in the flesh. Where are we at? We are in the
Spirit. And if any man had not the Spirit
of Christ, you know what he says? He don't belong to it. You say, well that fellow has
got 25,000 people. 25 blind people, you know if a blind
man leaves a blind man, you know, and that's what I'm talking about
They tried to talk about the and then make proud flesh pour
their soap over proud flesh And God says don't pour it on the
flesh The flesh can't enjoy it the flesh don't know anything
about it. I You take the sweet, sweet spices and the glory of
our Lord Jesus Christ, brought in this olive oil, and that blessed,
omnipotent Spirit of God, He's got to come on a fellow. And
our Lord said, a man must be born again. And they that are
in the flesh, they can't do this. And our Lord said, except a man
be born from above by the water and the Spirit, he can't enter
the kingdom of God. We've got to have a supernatural miracle
from heaven change us, and only the Holy Spirit can do that. And that's a sovereign act of
God. You know, flesh, oh I despise flesh. I remember Scott Richardson
saying one time, he says, the simpler, the simpler we can keep
our worship services, the better off we are. You know why we don't
have testimony services? Because the flesh would rise
up, bang on itself. You know why we don't have three
or four people singing in every service? Puff up the flesh. You know why we don't have altar
calls? Because it will puff up the flesh. Ain't that right? You know what
we do? Get up, read the scriptures,
have a prayer, a song or two, some prayer, and then we go to
preaching. We do not want that flesh to
get a house breath in the service, if we can help it. And he still
sneaks in here, don't he? You know where he comes? You
know where he comes from? He comes with us when we come
in. comes with us when we come in. And that's why we come to
listen to the Spirit of God. So don't pour it out on flesh.
Oh my! That's what they're trying to
do today. I hear all these fellas, you know, they're talking about,
oh listen, God knows what's going on. God knows about what's going
on in this world. He knows. He's looking down.
He sees what's happening. God knows what's happening. Like
everything happened, then God just all of a sudden looks down
on it and says, boy, this is terrible. What am I going to
do about it? That's the flesh. I'll tell you
what the Spirit of God was saying. God is the first cause of all
things. There ain't never been a plague.
There ain't never been a disease. There ain't never been life.
There ain't never been death. That Christ didn't cause it. Huh? And I, people say, I love that. I'd hate to think that there's
the devil started this thing and we've got to be dodging the
devil's bullets all the time as he's trying to make us all
sit and make us all die. If this were, if this was left
up to him, most of us would be dead man. But ain't you grateful
that God controls this thing? He sent this thing and He controls
this thing and He'll see how it comes out to His glory and
our good. We're not going to pour this
oil on flesh. We're not going to do it. No, no. You've got to have a new birth.
And that's the sovereign act of God. Look what else it says
there in verse 32. Neither shall you make anything
like it after the composition of it. What he's telling us is
there ain't no imitations. Don't make no imitations. There
ain't no imitations of the Holy Spirit. He said don't want no
imitations of it. Look over in Leviticus chapter
10. Look in Leviticus 10. You know, no strange fire could
be used. Everything had to be from that
tabernacle and be made holy. No imitations. No phony, no copies. Look what he said here in verse
1 and 2 of Leviticus chapter 10. And Nadab and Abihu, the
sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer. All these priests
had censers, and they carried fire in those censers. And they
took their censers and put fire therein, and put incense thereon. And now Alfred strange fire before
the Lord, which he commanded them not. and there went out
fire from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the
Lord. What did they do? They kindled
their own fire. The only place you could get
fire from and there was fire that God ordained was that that
burned up the sacrifice on the brazen altar and that fire that
was in the censer in the censer that the golden ark and the censer
that the fragrances that went up that's where you got your
fire. And if you got fire any place else like that and tried
to offer a sacrifice unto God with any fire other than what
God himself gave him to do and bring it out of the tabernacle,
God said, I'll kill you for that. No imitations. No imitations. And I'll tell you what, and the
fire had to come off the gold altar of incense. So as he says,
no imitations of this holy anointing oil was to be made. Now you're
talking about condemnation. Look at all the imitations in
worship, in people's worship today. There's no spirit operation in
it, no fragrance of Christ today in this modern day religion.
You know, the devil is a master, master imitator. He is absolutely
a master imitator. I'll tell you several things
that he does. He can make a dead man look alive. He really can. That's what funeral directors
do. They take people that are dead,
and they put makeup on them, they put clothes on them, and
they make them comb their hair, and when you walk by them and
say, boy, don't they look so good. They are in the business
of making dead people look like they're just asleep. And that's
what Satan is. He tries to make dead people
look like they're alive. He'll put makeup on them. He'll
put the makeup of tradition, free willism, works, self-righteousness
and pride, phariseeism and legalism. And I tell you, he can imitate,
he can fill a man full of doctrine. He can fill a man how to work.
He can tell, he can make a person believe that he's repented and
imitate repentance. He can imitate tears. But one
thing he cannot, two things he cannot imitate. He cannot imitate
the love of Christ. He can't do that. You know if the love of Christ
is in a person, that's what's going to come out. You know our
Lord Jesus Christ, and I've told you this before, everybody that
gets converted in some kind of a service, the first thing they'll
do, go home and tell everybody you got saved tonight. And then
you'll have the preacher say, how many did you have saved?
We had 15 saved last night. And they have these kind of things
going on, Go on and tell somebody you got saved. This man, a father-in-law and
a father to his daughter and his son-in-law. He said, you know my daughter
and son got saved. I said, well good. I know both
of them and ain't one of them said one iota about knowing Christ. They don't go to meeting nowhere. They just want the title
to say, well I got somebody saved. A woman asked me one time, which
is better to say, the Lord saved me or I got saved? Which one
do you think I answered it with? The Lord saves us. We don't get saved. We don't
go and have some kind of experience and get saved and run out and
tell it. You know, I've never told anybody I was saved. Never have. Even back when I
was in religion, I didn't. You know, and I do know this,
if you got it, folks are going to figure it out sooner or later.
They'll figure it out by how you deal with people, how you
act at home, how you do in your business, how you do in your
work, how you do on your job. How you love your wife. How you
treat your children. In fact, how you treat your dog.
Of course, you don't have to make folks be good to their dogs
anymore. Folks love their dogs. But I'm
not. That's another story. But anyway,
he said, this imitation. Don't make no imitations. Oh
my. He's a master imitator and I'll
tell you it's a frightening, frightening to think of the strange
compositions religion have on ever hand. I mean on ever hand
at all. And we must be careful. I'm going
to, you don't have to look at it, but I'm going to get it and
read it to you out of 1 John 4. Listen to this, 1 John 4. John says this, Beloved, believe
not every spirit. But try the spirits, whether
they be of God. Try the spirits, whether they
be of God. Why? Because many false prophets
are going out into the world. Oh, lots of false prophets are
out there. Anything that doesn't preach God's sovereignty. Christ
as the only and absolute Savior. The only one that makes a man
to be nothing and God to be everything. Man to be nothing, helpless and
hopeless without Christ. You know that God's... Man makes... Imitations makes man great big
and makes God little bitty. Huh? But I tell you what, the
real thing makes God to be everything, Christ to be everything, and
man, you can't make Him too low. You can't put Him down enough.
Can you? Old Spacey Q. Spurgeon, you know,
one time with his preacher said, you're going to drive people
into despair. He said, I hope so. I hope so. I hope so. But look what else he said here.
And you know how we can tell the Spirit of God? Hereby know
ye the Spirit of God. Here's how we know we're of the
Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. Now what does that
mean? You're confessing that Jesus
of Nazareth That man who was called Jesus, that He sent to
save His people from their sin, Christ in His office, anointed
of God, set apart of God, called of God, anointed of God, sin
of God, has come in the flesh. That God, Jesus Christ, the Son
of God has come in the flesh, that's of God. And when you're
talking about Christ coming in the flesh, you're talking about
God coming in the flesh. You're talking about God taking
on himself humanity And I tell you everybody that doesn't confess
that Jesus Christ is of God is it come within the flesh is not
of God And that's why we know that the Spirit of God wherever
he's at He's gonna take and tell you everything about Christ that
he can possibly tell you in any one service But all this is says
try the spirits whether they be of God or not And we got to
be careful He's come, when it says that we confess that Jesus
Christ has come in the flesh, is of God. And what that's saying
is that when Christ came into this world, He did everything
that needed to be done in order to save us. Huh? If that spirit you listen to
does not, anybody that listens to a spirit that does not glorify,
the incarnate Christ comes in the flesh. Come through the womb
of a virgin. Come by promise. Come by power. Any spirit that does not glorify
the incarnate Christ, the crucified Christ, the one who died to bear
our sins in his own body on that tree. And the risen Christ, risen
up. And the Christ that sits at the
right hand of God and intercedes for us right now. The Christ
is sufficient to do everything that's absolutely necessary.
If you hear something like that, then it's an imitation of Him.
If it does not deal with Christ and all of His offices and power
and glory and majesty, it's an imitation. It's an imitation. Everything, everything must glorify
our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, Is He the Redeemer of the body?
Or Redeemer of our soul and body? Is He the Christ of the law?
Or is He the Christ of grace? Is He the Christ of religion,
emotionalism? And I get pretty emotional. Emotional,
you all know that. Religious emotionalism? You know we've even had folks
come here and then every once in a while I'd get to preaching
and they'd sit back there and they'd just raise their hands
and start doing that. Of course I didn't say anything to them.
I said they'll figure it out. They'll figure it out. Sooner
or later. They'll figure out what's going
on. I have no sense calling them down. But oh my, I remember years and
years ago over at the old block building. I wasn't a pastor over
there then but they had a pew over here and they had a bunch
of Amen, it's an amen corner. Oh all the Baptist churches had
amen corners, you know. And they'd sit over there and
the preacher, every time something, the preacher every time something,
amen preacher, amen preacher, amen preacher. Finally one day I was preaching
and I looked over there and they was doing that and I said, what
did I just say? I don't know. They shut up. Y'all remember that? There was
folks sitting over there and they just... There wasn't nothing
glorified Christ about that. But you can't listen to somebody
making noise all the time. Can you? Now amen, that's wonderful. But if everybody was hollering,
and everybody was shouting, and everybody was getting emotional,
and I know all of us at one time, when you hear preaching, and
the Spirit of God's blessed it to you, it's all you can do to
sit still. You want to jump up sometimes and holler, you want
to jump up and say amen, oh yes, you want to jump up and say,
oh I thank the Lord for that. I know we get these emotions
in us. We really get to where we want to jump up and say something. Now what if we all done that
at the same time? That's what he
says is an imitation. That's what he said an imitation
is. an imitation. And I tell you what, sentimental
foolishness, telling stories, old stories to make people cry,
to make people feel real remorseful, you know, get people to feel
real, real remorseful and make them to feel so, so, you know,
get this sentimental stuff going on. It's rotten, rotten to the
very core. You know, people want beautiful
buildings. Beautiful buildings. Beautiful
buildings. And they want beautiful sermons.
They want three points and a poem. And they want a good illustration
given that will move their emotions. Dear woman, I thank the world
of her. Thank the world of her. She said,
Boy, I love our new preacher. He can tell the best stories
and the funniest stories and the most moving stories I've
ever heard. That's all she knows about him.
Stories he could tell. Jokes he could tell. And oh my,
they want beautiful sermons, beautiful candles, beautiful
prayers, and beautiful fellowship. But
you know what we need? We need a crucified blood-soaked,
dying Savior who He took upon Himself the sins of His people
and give us the assurance that our sins are gone. They're gone. They're all taken away. Who took
them away? Christ took them away. God took
them away. We need a crucified, a holy,
a risen, glorified Savior sitting on His throne with all power
and authority vested in Him. We don't need a sham religion.
We need something of substance, something that's real, something
that's vital to our lives and our hearts and our souls. We
need eternal things because we are eternity bound people. And
let me show you something else about this. Look at something
else about this right here. Look what it says there in verse
33. Whosoever compoundeth anything
like it, Whosoever putteth it upon any stranger shall even
be cut off from his people. Don't put it on the flesh and
don't put it on a stranger. What in the world does he mean?
Now I don't want to be cut off from God's people. Oh, I don't
want to be cut off from God's people. And that's the penalty. That's the penalty of making
anything like this holy oil. And the same penalty was attached
to putting it upon a stranger. Now what does this mean? What
does this mean? Trying to get people to accept
Jesus. To try to get somebody to please,
please, please have Jesus Christ. Huh? Won't you accept Jesus? Making the Spirit of God a beggar?
Making Christ a beggar? Preachers, I've heard of preachers
getting up and saying, Christ is standing over the banners
of heaven right now with His armstretched arm for you. Oh, don't put it on a stranger. Try
to put off Christ on men who don't want Him. If you've got
a headache, we'll give you an aspirin. If you're crippled on one leg,
we'll give you a crutch. But if you're dead in trespasses
and sins, you've got to have a miracle of life. And we're
not going to put Christ off on people. I tell you, and I've
said this before, most people, all they want Jesus Christ for
is a mat to wipe their feet on. They come into a service, and
they come in, these preachers make over them so much, make
over them so much, and make over, oh, we're so glad to have you.
And I tell you what, people that go out in the world, and they
get backslidden, they come back in, they accept Jesus again.
Well, I've got this sin, I've got to wipe it off, and got to
wipe this one off, and that one off. He's just a doormat. An insurance policy to keep people
out of hell. But oh my! Listen, Jesus wants
you to be... I heard a preacher say one time,
Jesus, won't you be a gentleman and a lady for Jesus Christ this
morning? Won't you be a gentleman and
a lady and accept Jesus this morning? Got excluded from that church
for preaching the gospel. And I didn't hardly know enough
about it to get in out of the rain, but I knew enough about
it to get excluded. But I do know this. Those who
smell, those who smell the sweet fragrance of Christ, they don't
have to have a trick played on them. Preachers try to play tricks
on people. Lock the door, close the door.
And they said, you know what they tell you in seminaries?
I'm going to tell you a little secret they told us, the preachers that
went to seminary told us. They said, don't ever say, and
in conclusion, because when you say, in conclusion, people are
going to head for the door before you start. So don't say, in conclusion,
because folks say, well, they're fixing to start an altar call,
we better get out of here. I'll tell you, I've seen back
when I was in religion, I've seen people Go get in people's
laughs and cry over them and beg them to come forth and accept
Jesus. Huh? Just weep over them, weep in
their laughs, you know? Oh my! God's people don't have to be
tricked, they don't have to be begged, they don't have to be
conjoled, and they don't have to be pumped up. No, they don't. Those who smell the sweet fragrance
of the Lord Jesus Christ and they don't smell it, don't smell
that sweet fragrance of Christ, they're strangers. I want you
to look with me and I've got to wipe this up. My goodness
alive. You're all just preaching me
to death here. I don't know what's going on. Look in Mark chapter
14 with me. Man, I hope I'm not wearing you out. You've probably been stuck in
the house. You're probably glad to be out, ain't you? Mark 14. Look what it says here
about our master here. Oh, look what happens here. Down
in verse 3. And being in Bethany, in the
house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a
woman, having an alabaster box of ointment, a spikenard, very
precious. And she opened that box and poured
it on Christ's head. Now I'll tell you one thing,
when she poured that thing out on Christ's head, everybody in
that room smelled that fragrance. But now everybody didn't exactly
act the same way. Look what happened. And there
were some that had indignation within themselves. They said,
why was this waste of the ointment made? For it might have been
sold for more than 300 pence and been given to the poor. And
they murmured against her. And Jesus said, let her alone.
Why are you troubling her? Now listen to what he said now. She hath wrought a good work
on me. Huh? You're going to always have
the poor. The government don't want people
to be poor. I know that. They're trying their dead level
best to keep people from being poor. I shouldn't have said that. But anyway, I know that's right.
And when so ever you will, you may do them good. But me, you
don't always have. Listen to this now, she hath
done what she could. She has come aforehand to anoint
my body for burying. And he said, and every time you
hear this gospel preached, wherever you hear this gospel preached
throughout the world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken
of a memorial for her. She anointed my body for burying. Alright, let me wipe this thing
up. You know, don't pour this precious
ointment on strangers. Oh no, don't do no begging, don't
do no pleading. The Holy Spirit will do that.
Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast you pearls
before swine. And this holy anointing oil,
and the fragrance that was in that, is what God, the Spirit
of God brings to us, the sweet fragrance of Christ. And I tell
you what, we have tasted and we smell this sweet fragrance. And I'm telling you what, it's
the most wonderful thing I've ever had and ever dealt with. Christ is a sweet savor. Ain't He? Sweet fragrance. What
a sweet fragrance He is unto us. Our Father, in the precious name
of Christ, thank you for allowing us to speak tonight. Thank you
for your word. I pray that you'd be pleased
to bless it to our hearts, bless it to our understandings. Oh
God, let us feast on the things that we've heard today until
we can hear the gospel again. Father, we thank you. Oh Lord,
we know we couldn't preach. We know we couldn't hear. We
know we couldn't commune with one another without you and without
the Holy Spirit. Bless and praise your holy name.
Keep your people, those who are not with us. We pray you continue
to bless them. Thank you for this open door
to preach this way. We thank you in Christ's name.
Amen. He's the Savior of my soul. Jesus, my Jesus. He's the Savior of my soul. He's the Savior my soul. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, He's the Savior of my soul. He's the Savior of my soul. See you Wednesday night, God
willing.