“What’s That Smell?”
Introduction
Steak sizzling on the barbecue grill.
Limburger cheese melting on the manifold.
Fresh bread baking in the oven.
Lost Easter egg breaking in the house a year later.
Freshly perked coffee creating a fragrant morning atmosphere.
Freshly filled diaper distributing a foul morning atmosphere.
Smell is produced when a particular object emits particles in the form of gases and vapors in the air. Those particles spread rapidly in the air and can travel long distance.
High in each nasal cavity is a small tract of mucous membranes containing olfactory cells. Hair like fibers in these nerve cells, responding to various odors, send impulses along the olfactory nerve to the brain and thus produce the sense of smell.
Although our sense of smell is our most primal, it is also very complex. To identify the smell of a rose, the brain analyzes over 300 odor molecules. The average person can discriminate between 4,000 to 10,000 different odor molecules. Much is unknown about exactly how we detect and discriminate between various odors. But researchers have discovered that an odor can only be detected in liquid form. We breathe in airborne molecules that travel to and combine with receptors in nasal cells. The cilia, hairlike receptors that extend from cells inside the nose, are covered with a thin, clear mucus that dissolves odor molecules not already in vapor form.
Scent, fragrance, or aroma have a powerful effect on our emotions that help transform the way we feel. Specific aromas have been found to suppress appetite, reduce stress, revitalize and energize, even promote physical attractiveness. Aromas have been found to do the opposite as well.
Companies spend millions to capture just the right fragrance.
“Millionaire”
There is some research being done that connects the sense of smell as more a trigger to emotions than thoughts.
Some feel that smells trigger memories of how we felt about an event even more than what we thought about the event.
Sweet, pleasant smells draw us to receive and relish the emitter.
Sour, putrid smells drive us to refuse and reject the emitter.
There are some things that do not emit their particular vapor until heated, stirred, crushed, or scratched.
Our sense of smell plays an important role in our life.
It enables us to identify and evaluate any number of things.
It can help us determine when something has been hiding in the refer too long.
It can help us determine that the cat was in the house too long.
It can let you know when you are passing by the treatment plant in Bremerton or driving through Tacoma.
Jacob confused his aging father Isaac by making himself smell like Esau.
“See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord blessed.”
When these vapors reach the fibers in the nose, they signal the brain that processes the data and determines an appropriate action.
“linger” something pleasant is in the vicinity.
“leave” something putrid is here.
Smells also affect memory and trigger emotions.
People, places, events.
These smells trigger emotions and memories both good and bad.
Interaction – What smells trigger memories for you?
It is also true that exposure to particular vapors over a long period of time desensitizes the receptors in the nose to those particular vapors which no longer warns us of danger or draws us to delight.
Scripture uses the physical sense of smell to illustrate spiritual reality.
There is definitely a spiritual sense of smell.
God has a spiritual sense of smell.
People have a spiritual sense of smell.
The spiritual sense of smell works in a similar way as the physical one.
Attitudes and actions produce “vapors” which are picked up by the spiritual nose and send data to the soul that makes a determination about the character or condition of the person emitting the odor.
On the basis of the data, a particular response is signaled.
Receive, relish and remain
Reject, resist and run
Sometimes the soul does not release it vapors until agitated, crushed or heated.
God often allows circumstances to bring our certain odors that best demonstrates the beauty of his life in us or that discloses problems needing attention (something rotten in River City)
However, like the organs in the lining of the nose, over-exposure to a particular odious odor over a long period of can cause us to become insensitive to our own odor and even the odor of others.
Ephesians 5:2 admonishes us to walk in love just as Christ also loved us, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of fragrance, or as a fragrant aroma to God.
Smell is referred to in a spiritual sense in several places in the Bible.
In our time together I want to reflect a bit more regarding this idea of smell in the Bible.
What smells good to God?
What smells gross to God’s nose?
What smells good to other people?
What smells gross to other people?
I. The Principle of Smell in the Bible
Smell in Scripture most often indicates a state of acceptance and favor, attraction or rejection and disfavor, repulsion.
It is applied to both God and people.
Ex 5:21 The people complain to Moses and Aaron that his actions have caused the Israelites to “stink” before Pharoah.
Song of Solomon speaks of the smells of romance.
Israel stunk to the Philistines.
Absolom stunk to David.
Levitical offerings were a sweet smelling savor to God.
Not the actual smell but the attitudes and actions behind the smell.
The principle is that certain actions cause God and others to take note and generates pleasurable thoughts and feelings.
Certain other actions cause God and others to take note and generates unpleasant thoughts and feelings.
II. The Particulars
Two basic types of odor.
The sweet savor of obedience and selfless sacrifice.
The sour stench of proud rebellion and selfishness.
A. Sour stench of proud selfishness
Generally the things that smell gross to God are the attitudes and actions born out of proud rebellion and selfishness.
A righteous man hates falsehood, but a wicked man acts disgustingly and shamefully. Proverbs 13:5
Literal “Causes a bad odor and shame.”
Dead flies make a perfumer’s oil stink, so a little foolishness is weightier than wisdom and honor. Eccles. 10:1
"Moab has been at ease since his youth; he has also been undisturbed on his lees,
Neither has he been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone into exile.
Therefore he retains his flavor, and his aroma has not changed. Jeremiah 48:11
"But I will remove the northern army far from you, and I will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
And its vanguard into the eastern sea, and its rear guard into the western sea.
And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up, for it has done great things." Joel 2:20
Even the sacrifices which normally generate pleasant feelings for God will become revolting because they are offered in disobedience.
Even good smells repulse us when mixed with bad smells.
Hear the word of the LORD,
You rulers of Sodom;
Give ear to the instruction of our God,
You people of Gomorrah.
"What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?" Says the LORD.
"I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed cattle.
And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs, or goats.
"When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts?
"Bring your worthless offerings no longer, incense is an abomination to Me.
New moon and Sabbath, the calling of assemblies-- I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly.
"I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, they have become a burden to Me.
I am weary of bearing them.
"So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you,
Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood.
Isaiah 1:10-15
Amos 5:21-27
"I hate, I reject your festivals, nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. 22
"Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them;
And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. 23
"Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
"But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
"Did you present Me with sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel? "You also carried along Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves. "Therefore, I will make you go into exile beyond Damascus," says the LORD, whose name is the God of hosts.
Our self-centered rebellion and idolatrous ways are like dog poop in God’s nose.
Foolishness stinks to God. “Ignore truth without consequences.”
Our attitudes and actions centered in selfishness stink to God.
Our attempts to make God share glory and honor with our other gods stink.
No matter how we try to cover it up with sweet smelling things, the basic distasteful odor is still there.
ILLUS: Joe
We used to have a family friend visit from a care facility that rarely bathed. As hard as we would try; draw him a bath, set out towels etc. He would never take us up on it. He would cover up the body oder smell with a sickening sweet cologne.
Sweet and sour may be good for pork but it is repulsive in people.
On the other side of things God enjoys the pleasant odor of obedience and selfless sacrifice.
B. Sweet Savor of Obedient Selfless Sacrifice
We encounter God’s sense of smell early in Genesis.
Noah built an altar to the Lord and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
And the LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, "I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. Genesis 8:21
It was the obedience and the recognition of man for the need to please God that actually pleased God.
The offering is the act of one who recognizes offense toward God and follows the divinely prescribed means to restore relationship; sacrifice.
Throughout the Old Testament God required sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.
The sacrifices indicated repentance, obedience and restoration of fellowship.
It became a sweet smell to God.
How much more the fragrance of the sacrifice of His very own beloved Son was sweet to God.
Through the mercy of God, we can change our smell.
Promised in the Old Testament to Israel.
"As a soothing aroma I shall accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered; and I shall prove Myself holy among you in the sight of the nations. Ezekiel 20:41
His shoots will sprout, and his beauty will be like the olive tree,
And his fragrance like the cedars of Lebanon. Hosea 14:6
Jesus became the ultimate sweet smelling sacrifice to God.
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Eph 5:1-2
God instructs us to walk in sacrificial love as imitators of Christ.
Paul urges believers to put off the sour stench of the flesh.
Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, malice, death words, stealing, lying, immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, disputes, dissensions, factions envying and things like these.
Paul exhorts believers to put on the sweet fragrance of sacrificial love in the Spirit
Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving each other as God has forgiven us, love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
To the degree we put on Christ, we will smell like Him.
You pick up the odor of the ones you hang out with.
But thanks be to God, who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. 15For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? 17For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God. 2 Cor. 2:14-17
When we give ourselves first to God and then to others, we emit a sweet smell both to God and others.
Paul talked often of pouring His life out for the sake of others.
Here for this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to you; for I do not seek what is yours, but you; for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. And I will most gladly spend and be expended for your souls. If I love you the more, am I to be loved the less? 2 Cor. 12:14-15
But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. Philip. 2:17
We have become so versed in selfishness.
Book on the market called “How to be your own selfish Pig”
The fragrance of genuine sacrificial love is unmistakable.
Too often the smell of love becomes overpowered by the stench selfishness.
He who would save his life will lose it in the saving.
He who would lose his life for my sake will save it in the loosing.
He is not fool who gives what He cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose.
We will never know the fullness of God as long as we continue to live a self-centered life.
God designed the body of Christ to function by mutual service Justas as the individual members of the human body continually support the others members of the body.
When we know the love of Christ for us and the love of Christ through us, only then will we experience the fullness of God’s in us -- for God IS LOVE.
Paul relates how even the sacrificial giving of our financial resources to meet needs becomes a good smell to God.
But I have received everything in full, and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God. Philip. 4:18
God loves the smell of obedient selfless sacrifice because it reflects the character and work of His Son.
It is the way he smells.
It is an odor originating and emanating form the character of God as fragrant and pleasing as any odor known to man.
We do not offer sacrifices today of animals because Christ is the once-for-all sacrifice.
We do still have sweet smelling offering to offer to God however.
Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. 16And do not neglect doing good and sharing; for with such sacrifices God is pleased. 17Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you. Hebrews 13:15-17
Like the Israelites of old, even these sacrifices can turn odious to God if the heart is not right.
Today, a smell has risen to God.
Is it the sour stench of proud selfishness or the sweet savor of obedient sacrificial love?
Every time you act in selfishness or disobedience or operate in the flesh, remember you are emitting a smell both to God and those who are around you.
Also realize that every act of love and obedience and word of praise offered from a pure heart to God becomes a pleasing smell which draws us closer to God and each other.
Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, 21equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21
