I want you for just a bit tonight
to turn to the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 8 and verse 20. And Noah built an altar unto
the Lord and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl
and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet
savor. And the Lord said in his heart,
I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake. For the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again smite any
more, every living, everything living as I have done. And while the earth remaineth,
seedtime, and harvest, and cold, and heat, and summer, and winter,
and day, and night shall not cease. We would do well in this day
to remember his promise in that last verse. When men and so-called science
and people, politicians for their own gain and advantage, say the
things that they say about climate change and global warming and
such as that, this promise will stand true. But that's not what I want us
to look at tonight. I want us to look at a sweet
savor. This morning, My son and I were
talking about how to make different fragrances to make things smell
better, and he talked about peppermint oil
and cinnamon and things like that, and even said that some
people, some real estate people, When they go to sell a house,
they bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven so that
when the potential buyer walks in that house, that it has that
homey smell. It has a sweet smell of chocolate
chip cookies baking. But these verses also speak of
a fragrance. They speak of an odor or a savor
as the King James has it. And this came about when Noah
came off the ark. What did Noah do? First of all, with all he had
to do, you know he had a lot to do, what is the first thing
that he did? Verse 20 says he built an altar. As a matter of fact, this is
the first mention of this item constructed to worship, an altar. He built an altar. And then the next thing that
he did was he offered up sacrifices. He shed blood. And there was
no doubt a lot of things that were in short supply at that
time, comparatively, such as all of the animals. But God,
for the purpose of his worship, instead of just there being two
by two going into the ark of the clean beast, the clean things
that were designated so by God, he brought them in by sevens for this purpose, the purpose
of sacrifice and worship. And by this, we can know that
there is nothing more important than worshipping God. In that hour, in that moment,
the very first thing he does is worship God. And we also know by this that
there is nothing too valuable to be spent on the worship of
God. He took these animals, the only
ones that there were on this earth that had gone into the
ark, seven by seven, of the clean ones and of these clean beasts
and animals that God had appointed for sacrifices. He offered a
sacrifice. And these sacrifices, just like
all that we read about in the Old Testament, these sacrifices
that he offered, they all spoke of Christ's redeeming blood. They all signified the one sacrifice
for sin. They all signified how God's
justice is to be honored. And they all exalted the Lord
Jesus Christ as the one way of salvation. And in verse 21, it says, and the Lord smelled
a sweet savor. I've been thinking about it a
lot lately, how that God, infinite, almighty, incomparable God, speaks of his own self in such
ways that you and I can enter in just a little bit to what
he is communicating to us. It says here that he smelled
a sweet savior. Sometimes it says that the other
senses which characterize men are mentioned. Eyes. His eye is upon him. The hand of the Lord, as I wrote
in the Bulletin Sunday. The ears of the Lord. The mouth
of the Lord. But here, it's the nostrils or
nose of God. When this sacrifice, these offerings
were offered, it says that he smelled a sweet savor. He smelled a pleasing fragrance. I remember when I was a boy.
That's a long time ago. But I can remember in the evening,
on a summer evening, my grandmother's house was not
far from us and she had two gardenia bushes, giant gardenia bushes. or as we called them then, Cape
Jasmine. But there's something about those
flowers that when the wind blows a little in the depth of the
summer and it gets awful hot and they're in full bloom, that
whole bush overhead high, two of them at least, would be in
bloom and there would come the sweetest The sweetest smell drifting
down to our house. And that was such a pleasing
smell. It wasn't anything about it offensive,
but it was a warm and a pleasing smell. And I can still, in my
mind's nostrils, smell that smell today and how it smelled. It
smelled so good. Well, everything that has to
do with and speaks of Christ is a sweet smell to God. Now, we can't really even compare
the two things. And yet God has given that to
us to show in our own experience the things that smell so good
or pleasing to us like somebody's perfume that they wear or somebody's
cologne that they wear or this flower or that flower, whatever
pleases us in our senses, In a far greater sense, is God
pleased? Is God satisfied? Is God delighted
in everything about the Lord Jesus Christ, especially the
sacrifice of Christ? Because Noah did not plant a
flower first. Or he didn't get out this or
that that would smell good. He offered a sacrifice. He slew an animal. He shed his blood. And the Bible says it was a sweet,
pleasing fragrance to God. Turn over to Leviticus chapter
1. Leviticus chapter 1, whenever
all these offerings are mentioned, and especially the burnt offering,
it says in verse 9, of this sacrifice, but his inwards
and his legs shall he wash in water, and the priest shall burn
all on the altar to be a burnt sacrifice and offering made by
fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord. There was to be fire, there was
to be the sacrifice, it was to be washed clean, and it was to be burned with
fire on the altar. And it says it was a sweet smell
unto God, a sweet savor. Well, we know that everything
in the Old Testament, regardless of what men say, everything in
the Old Testament speaks of Christ, speaks of Him even in this particular
place as a sacrifice. Look over in Ephesians chapter
5. Ephesians chapter 5. Be ye therefore followers of God
as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved
us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet-smelling savor." In other words, if you think
that such as Noah offered to God, that was pleasing to God
just because it was done in the obedience of faith and because
of what it typifies. He's saying here that we are
to love one another just as Christ has loved us. And it says that
he gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a
sweet smelling savor. Now, I don't know about you,
but I'm naturally a stinker. We don't take a bath every day.
We don't put on some good smell, some deodorant, all these kind
of things. We just naturally stink. Why
is that? Because we're sinners. And because
we're dying. Because we are what we are, and
because of who God is, the way he is, we cannot in ourselves
ever smell good. I know we're a lot in our self-righteousness
just like we are when we fix up and pretty up and powder up
and all this stuff naturally. We just spray that little stuff
on us. We say, boy, I look good. I smell good. That's not true with the way
we are naturally before God. But he says here, he offered
up himself an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. So, that means that although
I am a stinking sinner in myself, In Jesus Christ, I smell good. I smell good to God. Because His sacrifice, His offering
on my behalf is pleasing to God. You see, in Christ crucified,
all the fragrance goes up to God and glorifies God. It's pleasing to Him. Because it shows His everlasting
love. Because it shows His perfect
purpose of grace fulfilled. because it shows His holy justice
satisfied, because it shows His mercy and His power, and it shows
all the harmony of the Godhead. It shows all the perfections of God in Jesus Christ. There's only one way that we
ever know how God is, what His love is, what His mercy is, what
His grace is, and that is in the cross of Jesus Christ. He
is pleasing to God. This is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased. So every child of God, every
one of God's elect, everyone whom God loves and Christ died
for in that sacrifice, both he and they are sweet smelling to God. Now, I got a little bottle of
stuff. And it smells good. It really
smells good. To me, it does. And when I spray
it on me, I smell good. Christ has the perfume of salvation,
you might say. So when God looks at me and his
son, When God covers me with His blood and His righteousness,
He covers me with the things in Christ that smell good to
Him. So, the bride in the Song of Solomon,
she goes to describing the bridegroom. Now, the bride is the church
and the bridegroom is the Lord Jesus Christ. And she goes to
describing the bridegroom, her beloved, in some rather intimate
ways. She says, because of the savor
of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth,
therefore do the virgins love thee." He says, I am the rose of Sharon. Now, when I think of rose, I
think of two things. I think of beauty and fragrance and the lily of the valley. She says, a bundle of myrrh,
that's a spice, a fragrance. A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved
unto me. He shall lie all night between
my breasts. He smells so good. She says, my beloved is unto
me as a cluster of camphor in the vineyards of Engedi. And the psalmist says, all thy
garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cashew out of the ivory palaces
whereby they have made thee glad. Just like fragrance. And that's the way we find Christ. Let me show you one more verse. 2 Corinthians. Paul is talking about here in
2 Corinthians 2 and verse 14. He's talking about the preaching of the gospel,
the witnessing of Christ to this world, He says in verse 14, Now thanks
be unto God, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and
maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every
place. In other words, the truth of
Christ preached, the truth of Christ told by believers. It goes out, the truth of this
knowledge goes out like a fragrance. For we are unto God a sweet saver
of Christ. And them that are saved, and in them that perish. It smells good to God in those
that are savoring it, loving it. It smells good to God whether
they don't or not. He says, to the one we are a
savor of death unto death. Christ crucified. All this business
about being chosen in Christ and predestinated to be conformed
to the image of Christ, and Christ dying for sin, it just stinks
to the great majority of people. It's a savor of death unto death
to, and a savor of life to the other, a savor of life unto life,
and who is sufficient for these things? I can't understand it, can't
explain it, but I know this. I'm first preaching for God.
I can't tell you when the Lord showed that to me, what a burden
it took off of me. goal is to preach for God, to
send forth this savor of His Son, Christ and Him crucified,
and then knowing that it will always be pleasing to Him. If it isn't pleasing to anybody
that hears me, it'll be pleasing to Him. But I know this. The preaching
of Christ is like sweet incense not only to him, to God, but
also to his elect people. They kind of have a spiritual
nose. When it's not like it is in this
book, it doesn't smell just right to them. They say, well, I don't know
what it was, but something don't smell right in there. But when they hear the truth, it's a savor of life and a life
to the end. It's just like those Cape Jasmine
fragrances that waft on that summer breeze and come into my
nostrils. And I thought, boy, that smells
good. And when Christ is preached to
us, we be his people. We be born of his spirit. We
have faith in him. It smells like the sweetest thing
we ever heard, ever smelled. It's a saver, a sweet saver,
a saver of life unto life, because we know it is a sweet saver to
God. Our Father, we thank you tonight
for all the ways in your word that you've spoken unto us and
expressed to us the things of your grace in our Lord Jesus
Christ. We thank you for him and for
what he did in our place, that he offered himself a sacrifice
to you, and it was a sweet savor. Bless our time remaining together,
bless the food to the nourishment of our bodies, and grant that we might, we your
people, think about, meditate on, glory in, smell spiritually
the things of Christ. For we ask Him in His name. Amen.