05/10/2020
Today’s message has to do with God’s sense of smell. The first is the sweet savor of the smell of the prayers of the saints. During this unprecedented event, let us not only pray for one another, but also this serves as a wake up call to unbelievers that God is in control and that they should repent and trust in Jesus!
The second smell in the Lord’s nostrils is the stench of sin. God opened my eyes this week as to how he sees sin and is disgusted by it. If I, if you as redeemed sinners are repulsed by sin, how much more a holy and righteous God? This same God gave His only begotten Son that through His death and resurrection made it possible for us to be redeemed. How odious must the blatant and ongoing sin of mankind be to Him?
A wise man once said that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck! So let me preface this next section by saying two things. I have no direct knowledge that what I suspect is true, but the inference is clear. Second, this illustration focuses on the situation that is before me now. All sin is odious to God. Whether it’s blasphemy, idolatry, lying, stealing, coveting, fornication, adultery or any other sin, it is an abomination to God!
Someone that I know is practicing a sinful lifestyle on a nearly daily basis. Individuals who I assume to be ‘lovers’ come and go. The are there for a couple of hours or for the night and then they are gone for a while. The next day, a different one is there and then they are gone. The frequency of the ‘rotation’ has increased as of late. One can only imagine what sinful practices are being performed!
Every day, I see it. It is disgusting! The point of this message is not whether I am a busybody Pharisee peeking in windows to catch someone in the act of adultery. The point of the message is that if this lifestyle sickens me, how much more must it sicken a holy and righteous God? How long will He tolerable this abomination? It’s consistent and ongoing. It’s not only unrepentant, it “in your face”. By today’s standard, I am some kind of intolerant bigot or have some kind of “phobia”. My point is that by God’s standard, this and many other behaviors, are sin. It IS sin, it WAS sin and it will ALWAYS BE sin! In the end, God will judge ALL sinners and the unrepentant, those REJECT God will be cast into the lake of fire. God cannot and will not accept or tolerate sin of any kind. It is only His grace and mercy that stays His mighty hand from destroying sinners right now.
What does this mean for believers? We need to realize that we were once sinners before God and equally deserving of judgment and justice. We therefore should pray all the harder for sinners of every “stripe” that they may realize their sin, repent of that sin, and receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior! Let us send into heaven the sweet savor of our prayers. Let us remember that it was Abraham’s intercession that let God to agree not to destroy S***m and Gomorrah for the sake of 10 righteous people! Amen.
