Let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, again, we want to thank you for allowing us to be here. We thank you for the body of believers that you have in so many places throughout this planet. Father, for the gifts that function, for the glorifying of You through the Lord Jesus Christ, for the teaching of the Word, for the building up of the body of Christ, Father, for the purposes of prayer and knowing what to pray about and the sending out of the Gospel all over the world, we thank You for all these things. We ask that You would teach us from Your Word this morning as we look at these things and that we would be changed by them. In Jesus' name, Amen. We're in the fourth chapter of Philippians. As is often the case, it's a passage that you might well just read over and think, well, there's not much here. It's the end of the book. And Paul is talking about a gift that he received from the Philippian church. You remember he's writing this from prison. And I'm going to take it from verse 10. And we're headed down to verse 18. Verse 10, but I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last You have revived Your concern for me. Indeed, You were concerned before, but You lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, For I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am." We studied that whole concept of, by God's grace, learning to be content with, without. Then he says, I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity. These are the words that were so striking. In any and every circumstance. I love that. I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry. Both of having abundance and suffering need. And here's the key. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Nevertheless, you've done well to share with me in my affliction." Remember they talked about fellowshipping with him and his affliction. And you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the Gospel, after I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone. For even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs. Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account." We studied last time the Paul's very interesting approach to that he would not take gifts from the people he was giving the Gospel to for the first time, even though Scripture allowed him to do that. He said he was under compulsion to give the Gospel and he wouldn't pass the plate when he was giving the Gospel for the first time. But after he left Macedonia and therefore Philippi, and he had a church established there, then he would accept gifts from those who were believers. So we talked about that. So now we come to verse 18. Paul says, but I have received everything in full. That's that word full there. It's that word that we find in so many ways in Scripture, the word to be full of joy, filled with the Holy Spirit. The word means to fill up all deficiency. It's what we mean when we say, fill her up at the pump. We're saying whatever it is that's lacking, you fill it up. Alright, I've received everything in full and have an abundance. I am amply supplied. Having received from Epaphroditus, Epaphroditus is evidently the one that brought this gift to Paul there in prison. What you have sent, a fragrant aroma..." Now here's really where we're going to start. "...What you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God." That's an incredible statement. And I want to develop that. So, we have this... This is what I love about the study of the Word of God. There are so many wonderful threads that are woven throughout the Word of God. And there's this thread of an odor coming up, so to speak, into God's nostrils. And we're going to start with this concept of a soothing aroma. And we immediately have to ask the question, why does God have to be soothed? In other words, this aroma that is coming up as God has indicated how to do it is a picture, I'll tell you right now, you all know it, it's a picture of Jesus Christ. And the aroma that was wafting up, so to speak, was not something that you and I would think of in most cases. We're going to look at the incense a little bit later also. But this is a burning animal, including entrails. And it's not the kind of thing that I think we would say, I really would like that. I would like that in my house. And yet, God established that that was to be the case. So that there would be this continual reminder of we must be covered by the work of Jesus Christ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all the time. And God beautifully... You know, I've had this question. Maybe you've asked it. If it were up to you to portray the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, How would you do it? Not knowing Scripture and so forth. How would you introduce Him, knowing that you're going to go through thousands of years of history until you finally get down to the time He's going to... How would you prepare the people for His coming? And how would you reveal it? I can remember reading a comment about... Isn't it amazing that Jesus Christ chose 12 disciples? And none of them are really that educated or that, you know, not a likely group to turn the world on its ear, certainly because all the powers of God anyway. But at any rate, let's start back in Genesis where this theme begins in Genesis chapter 8. And of course, when we get to Genesis 8, we're at the point that the Noah's ark has rested on Mount Ararat. And Noah's out of the ark. He's come out. Just come out. And it says this. I'll start in verse 18. So Noah went out and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing and every bird, everything that moves on the earth went out by their families from the ark. Now, this is an amazing thing. Now, Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal. They came in by sevens, remember? And took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. Isn't that amazing? Did you ever think of this? He spent a year feeding these animals. They were under his protection and provision and now as all those clean animals come out, remember, chew the cud, split the hoof, the birds are individually named as to what they do and so forth. He takes one of each kind and there's this offering. But then notice what it says. And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma. And the Lord said to Himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of man. This is after the flood. The same thing was said before the flood, but now after the flood. For the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth. You notice that in yourself? that sin nature that we battle with as believers. I always have to say when someone who's a new believer comes to me and says, what is going on? I know what I want to do, but I have this tendency, I have this drive, I have this other thing, I have this battle. And I say, good. I love the fact that you have the battle. Because before you were saved, it really wasn't a battle. You were worried about getting caught, but you weren't worried about offending a holy God and all the things that are now of concern to you that you want to glorify your Lord and Savior. And so the battle is part of what we have while we're here in this in this life. Alright, so for the intent of man's heart is evil from his use. I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done. But notice, and the Lord smelled the soothing aroma. And so then I guess our question has to be why would that be a soothing aroma? All these different clean animals taken, throats cut, burned all the way up. Burn offering. The whole thing up in smoke. Okay? Then, let's go to Exodus chapter 29. In Exodus 29, we have the consecration of the Levitical priesthood in the line of Aaron, Moses' brother. As we start in verse 18, the Lord says this. Let me back up. Verse 15, You shall take one ram, and Aaron and his son shall lay their hands on the head of the ram. You know, what was that a picture of? All of a sudden, you've got this ram. The ram's not a sinner. And the ram is now identified with the person that laid his hands on the head of that ram. And in other times, you find in the law that they actually recited the sins. They confessed their sins while they had their, and it's all a picture of And He Himself, Jesus Christ, pour our sins in His body on the cross. He was the spotless Lamb of God. There was no reason for Him to die. There was no wages of sin for Him until, so to speak, our hands were placed on Him and God imputed to Him our sins. And then the other side of that is He imputed to us the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It's just this awesome, awesome thing that God has done. To me, it just helps to try to put myself in the place of taking an animal and realizing that I'm now identifying this animal. It's without spot, without blemish. It's a perfect animal. It ought to really be my favorite. And now I put my hands on his head and then I take a flint knife and I cut its throat. There's nothing pretty about it. And it all has to do with the fact that This poor animal is a picture of Jesus Christ being identified with my sins and that the wages of sin is death. And so I'm spared that death. OK, so it goes on, it says in this consecration of Aaron and his sons. Come down to verse 15. You shall also take one ram, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the ram, and you shall slaughter the ram, and she'll take its blood and sprinkle it around on the altar. Then you shall cut the ram into its pieces and wash its entrails and its legs and put them with its pieces and its head And you shall offer up and smoke the whole ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord. It is a soothing aroma and offering by fire to the Lord. All right. Then same chapter. Come all the way over to verse 38. Now, this is what you shall offer on the altar to one year old lambs each day continuously. There's a little booklet that we keep at our house by Harry Ironside. It's a devotional and I can just picture it's got a red cover and gold embossed and it's a picture of this daily sacrifice morning and evening and it's called the continual burnt offering. This is the description of it. Verse 38, now this is what you shall offer on the altar. Two one-year-old lambs each day continuously. The one lamb you shall offer in the morning and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. And there shall be one-tenth of an apple of fine flour and so forth. Verse 41, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight and shall offer as the grain offering of the morning with its libation for soothing aroma. and offering by fire to the Lord. It shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you and speak to you there." You know what I love about this? I'm sure you understand this. Since Jesus Christ went to the cross, And he was announced by John the Baptist, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And then Hebrews tells us that he's a sacrifice once for all. So what do we have? We have a continual soothing aroma in Jesus Christ. He's really the only one that ever did soothe God. We'll look at some verses that speak to that. And so we have this continual covering under Jesus Christ's finished work. He died on the cross for our sins. He rose again the third day. What a wonderful thing to think. All night long? All day long? In spite of me? When I'm thinking correctly about Him and worshiping Him? Yes. When I'm not? But still, yes. And you think of the people of Israel as they're living their days so often in sinfulness and disarray. And what's always picturing Jesus Christ? Burnt offering. Morning, night. Morning, night. Okay. But when we come over to Leviticus 26, such important chapters because it outlines how God will deal with Israel. If they obey Him, how He'll deal with them. Five levels of blessing. If they disobey Him, how He will deal with them. Five levels of judgment and cursing. When we get to this fifth level of his judgment on Israel, he said, listen, if you don't walk with me and you worship other gods and idols and you do all these things like the nations around you do, then I will remove you from your land. take you right off the land, send in a foreign army. And I love this. You know, people say, I know the word of God is true. And there are so many ways. But one of the things is that there are Jews all over this world. And the reason they're all over this world is because they've been dispersed by these three separate comings of armies into the land of Israel, where they were first the Assyrians, And then Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, 586 BC, the first one was 722 BC. And then under Titus, after the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in 70 AD, over a million people died there in the area of Jerusalem when Titus came and just destroyed Jerusalem. And through those dispersions that scripture speaks of, we have Jews all over the planet. And you know the great thing is, a Jew's a Jew. You think of all the other dispersions that have taken place, and there's been other dispersions, but what happens? They all get mixed together. They're not identifiable. It's always interesting to me when I have some kind of contact with a Jewish person, how they hold on to those those roots and who they are and they're not happy when one of their own marries a Gentile, what they call the goyim. Alright, Leviticus 26 and verse 31. The Lord's talking about this final phase of his judgment then. He says, I will lay waste your cities as well and will make your sanctuaries desolate. And then he says this, and I will not smell your soothing aromas. There was a time when Nebuchadnezzar comes. He came three different times, three different invasions. But the final one, he destroyed Jerusalem, took the walls down, and burned the temple. And you realize from that point on, the burnt offerings never happened again. It's over. Because the place where the Ark of the Covenant was, the place where the Holy of Holies was, the place where all those things were, the Ark of the Covenant disappears. from history, at that point when Nebuchadnezzar comes in, we don't know what happened. I know there's theories and so forth, but we don't know what happened to it. And so the burnt offering, the 24-hour day burnt offering stopped. But you know what I love? Go over to the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 9. Now remember, Daniel was one of the three prophets that were involved in this Tremendous change that took place in Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel. And he was taken as a prisoner of war in Nebuchadnezzar's first invasion of the land. And he was taken back and he was an exceptional guy along with his three friends. And they became instrumental in the leadership in Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel was faithful to the Lord in the situation he was in. And he was reading his Bible one day, Old Testament, and he says this, Daniel 9, verse 2, In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, counterpart to Daniel, only Jeremiah remained in the land of Judah, for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years." Now as far as we can tell, He got this information. He was reading the Word. And he saw that the desolation of Jerusalem were to last 70 years. And he found this out in the 69th year. He immediately did what Leviticus 26 told him to do. He got on his knees and he started confessing the sins of his people because God said, I will bring you back to the land if someone does that. And Daniel did it. And we have this ninth chapter, this beautiful, beautiful confession of Israel's sins. But if we come all the way down to verse 21 now. I'm going to take you from verse 20. Now, while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God in behalf of the holy mountain, Jerusalem, Zion, the holy mountain of my God, while I was still speaking in prayer, the man, Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, came to me in my extreme weariness. And what does he say? About the time of the evening offering. I just love it. Because to Daniel, that's a reality. Why did the Holy Spirit put that in there? I mean, you realize this is way after the destruction of Jerusalem. Everything's a shambles there. There is no evening offering. But Daniel is still telling his time by that evening offering. And I think it's because Daniel knew that this is more than just an animal being slaughtered at evening. It speaks more of the Messiah and of the coming one. OK. But then, don't you love the way the Word of God does it? Let's go to Psalm 40. In Psalm 40, verse 6, David says something that just seems to turn everything upside down, put everything on its ear. Because he says, sacrifice and meal offering, that was not desired. But what do you have in the law? The law has set up all these. We could have looked, well, we could spend months in Numbers and especially Leviticus where it's all about these offerings. Soothing aroma, I think, is mentioned 46 times in the Old Testament. But then David, under the ministry of the Holy Spirit, looking forward to the Lord Jesus Christ, says, sacrifice and meal offering thou'st not desired. It's not about an animal. I can remember in Sunday school, growing up, And questions came out, you know, little kids can ask questions that baffle you. And I can remember, you know, along the lines of, well, did their sin, were their sins really taken away because of an animal? And I remember Sunday school teachers kind of being set back on their heels and not really knowing the answer to that. You know what I mean? In other words, well, more like, well, in that day, yeah, they took care of it. Really? David says, thou hast not desired. Burnt offering and sin offering, thou hast not required. And then this great prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then I said, behold, I come in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O my God. thy laws within my heart." So let's go to the New Testament counterpart to that. Hebrews 10, verse 4. What do we have? Here's the answer to that Sunday School question. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He comes into the world, now we know this is Jesus Christ. Therefore, when he comes into the world, he says, this is his statement as God, he says, sacrifice an offering thou hast not desired. Those words of David prophetically put down in the Old Testament a thousand years before Christ. But a body thou hast prepared for me. Now, Jesus Christ as God says, the Son of God says, a body thou hast prepared for me. In whole burnt offerings, which is what we had twice a day, every day. In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast taken no pleasure. So the soothing aroma simply did what? It was soothing because it pointed to Jesus Christ. Because there's no, it says, possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. In whole burnt offerings, verse 6, and sacrifices for sin, thou hast taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come in the roll of the book it is written of me to do thy will, O God. After saying above, sacrifices and offerings, verse 8, and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin, thou hast not desired, nor hast thou taken pleasure in them. which are offered according to the law. Then He said, Behold, I have come to do Thy will. He takes away the first, the first covenant, in order to establish the second. Now here's this great verse. By this will, I have come to do Thy will. By this will, we have been sanctified, set apart through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ." And then these wonderful words, once for all. Done. And so we have this lasting, eternal result coming out of that once-for-all sacrifice where Jesus Christ bore our sins in His body on the cross. But, let's go back to Philippians 4, verse 18, and let's see what Paul says. He says, But I have received everything in full, the gift brought by Epaphroditus, and have an abundance, and I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent." But then he describes it this way. He says, a fragrant aroma. The first thing I thought of was, well, it smelled good to Paul. But then he says, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. So, you start to understand that... Do you ever notice how God takes things infinitely farther than we could ever imagine? So now, because I'm in Christ and you're in Christ, and He sees us in Christ, the things that He leads us to do by His Spirit become actual, well, because He said He wasn't pleased by the blood sacrifices in the Old Testament. But now, this is astounding, that you and I, as we live out our days here on this earth, led by the Lord, are actually as we walk with Him, producing sweet aromas that are pleasing to God. I love to contrast that with the message of the Old Testament is, do not come near. Is it not? See it again and again. Whoever walked into the Holy of Holies? Nobody. You went in there and you carried blood. And they had those little pomegranates and bells on the hem of the garment. I've read that they even had a way to extract the high priest if he was killed in there. They had a way to pull him out with a hook so nobody would else have to go in there and die. Well, that does not say, this is open. Everybody come. And yet when Jesus Christ dies on the cross, the veil is rent from top to bottom, exposing the Holy of Holies. And it does say what? Come. But it says more than come. Now it says that God, having made us sons of God and put us in union with Jesus Christ, can actually, by walking with him, have acceptable, well-pleasing sacrifices. That's something to get excited about, isn't it? You can't wiggle around on this. God is saying, yes. And this isn't for some spectacular Christian. This is for all of us. We're all the same in Christ. And this is for anybody that's a believer in Jesus Christ. I get really excited as I looked at this. Okay. Second Corinthians chapter two and second Corinthians chapter two. Paul has this, you know, he does this in a number of places where he uses the imagery of the Roman triumphal entry. If I could do this quickly. The Romans had this practice. when one of their great generals had conquered land in other places, northern Africa or wherever, and he might be gone two years, three years, whatever, he would come back. And when he came back with his troops, and he would bring back two groups of people. He'd bring back the group that were in the front of the parade. Those were people that were going to be made Roman citizens. It's a great honor conferred on them. Back of the parade were people that were enemies of Rome, had been set apart to show the might of Rome. And they're at the back of the parade. And when they got, the parade would wind down and go to the place called the Mamertine Dungeons. And down there, the soldiers would fall out and slaughter the people at the back of the parade, kill every one of them. While this is going on, There's incense being offered to the gods of Rome. And on either side of the parade, and people would all come to see this because there were spectacular things to see, all the pieces of spoil, things that were just wonderful animals that have been captured that weren't common in Rome. They would bring these things in big cages and so forth, and lots of people would come to this. Okay, so this parade comes down. You smell the incense. There's a big difference between how you interpret the smell of that incense if you're in the front of the parade or the back. If you're in the front of the parade, this is a great day for you. You're going to be made a Roman citizen and have all the ability to go into business and do all kinds of things. If you're in the back of the parade, it says, maybe I've got half an hour to live and then I'm going to be cut to shreds. So notice how Paul uses this. Verse 14, this whole parade is about this conquering general, okay, to bring him glory. But thanks be to God. who always leads us in His triumph. ESV, English Standard Version, says, leads us in His triumphal procession. It goes back and uses the words of Rome. Okay. But thanks be to God who always leads us in His triumph in Christ. Now get this. And manifests through us. The sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place." What a picture. He's saying, as our great commander is leading us in this parade of life, through us, there's a sweet savor. And we got both groups. Notice what he says. Verse 15, for we are fragrance of Christ the God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing to the one and aroma from death to death. How often are we that? We don't ever want to be that. You know what I mean? But the Word of God says as we proclaim Jesus Christ and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we all know that That message goes to those who are spiritually dead and are going to be eternally, because they reject Christ, spiritually dead. And so we're a Roma from death to death. That's something I have to constantly remind myself of, because all I want to be is what? An Roma of life to life. I come in, I manifest by the power of the Holy Spirit who Jesus Christ is, and people come to faith in Christ and it's all wonderful. But God says, no, you do both, just like Jesus Christ did. The wonderful aroma of who he was was not accepted by many, many people. So it says, to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And then this great question, and who is adequate for these things? The answer is only God could do this through us. It's so clear that it has to be his power to do this. And I'm going to close with this passage in John. Let's go to John chapter 12. This is after Lazarus had been raised from the dead and he goes to the house of Lazarus and Martha and Mary and they put on a dinner for him and says, well, verse one of chapter 12, Jesus therefore six days before the Passover came to Bethany where Lazarus was whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they made him a supper there and Martha was serving. We find Martha continually serving. But Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with him. Now notice this. Mary therefore took a pound of very costly, genuine spikenard ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. You know, as I read this, I just think that is so outside of the box. I mean, I think that this was a shocking thing that she did. But you know what? I just was caught by this last phrase in verse 3. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment. I'd like to lighten that with, you are a fragrance of Christ. From death to death, from life to life, wherever He leads you, you're a fragrance of Christ. And I'm absolutely convinced that Mary had no thought whatsoever that she was going to fill the house with this fragrance. She was doing it, what? To anoint the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ and then to wipe it with her hair. And I just love the idea of just by doing what we're led to do. I have to believe the Holy Spirit led her to do this. Even though a lot of people would say, we might say a lot of things, might we not? I've thought of it. Shouldn't that money go to missions? It's 300 denarii. 300 days wages, roughly a year's wages in that time in Rome. She put it all into that one thing. And Judas, who was the treasurer for the group, he was upset about that because what did he want? Notice what he said. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples who was intending to betray him, said, why was this ointment not sold for? Isn't it interesting? He knows the price right off. Not sold for 300 denarii and given to poor people. Now, he said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief and he had the money box used to pilfer what was put into it. You know, don't you see, this is something that goes on pretty often. People who claim to be for the poor people, but the money's coming to them, and they're using that money for their own purposes. It's just kind of an interesting side light there. Very much like Judas. But notice what Jesus said. Jesus therefore said, verse 7, let her alone, in order that she may keep it for the day of my burial, for the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me. The Lord put a stamp of approval on what she did. OK, I just love it. But I'm thinking of this as a picture of, how's your fragrance? Do you know what I mean? seeing Jesus Christ in what we do. Because it's God's intent that that be the case. Father, I would thank you for your word. What grand things you have done to bring those who were your enemies and hostile and rebels against you to not only faith in Christ, but to be made like the Lord Jesus Christ and to be a pleasing odor. Lord, may we focus on these things and allow Your Holy Spirit to lead us through Your Word that Jesus Christ might be manifested wherever we are. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.