203: Mick Roberts - Exhortation: The Fragrance of Christ

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1. 0:13

   Welcome to good for selfie and talks. I’m Levi and I’m Chris and I’m Brian, thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one taco week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode of the start of each week with a short intro before. Hand to kind of set the stage for the talk. You’re about to listen to and now let’s talk more about this week’s talk.

2. 0:50

   This week were listening to an expectation. That was given by Brother McRoberts at the Idyllwild. Bible School in 2022. And brother Mick is taking a At the topic of the scent of Christ, he opens his excitation talking about the smell that you get from attending. Idlewild as a bible school, it’s up in the mountains surrounded by a lot of pine trees and without spoiling too many of the different examples that he uses as he talks through his excitation. What I really appreciated from brother Mick was The concept of the smell of the fragrance of Christ that we all are supposed to be giving off.

3. 1:26

   You hear lots of times when people talk about the glow that Moses had when he came down from the mountain. And I’ve heard the example before where people talk about coming down from a bible school and having that glow about them, that sometimes will fade over time as kind of the day-to-day grind of Life takes over. And I appreciated, this is just a different way of kind of saying something similar, but also a good reminder of ways that you can keep The smell or the glow of a bible school going long after you have left, the Bible school and I appreciated his call to action at the end about making sure that we encourage one another when we’re doing things that give off the scent of Christ.

4. 2:08

   So really enjoyed this excitation, it was a great way to kick off the Bible school and listen to it and I hope you find it to be just encouraging for the start of any week. Doesn’t have to be just a week bible school. So, With that. We’ll turn it over to our brother McRoberts for his extrication, the fragrance of Christ, very good evening, brothers and sisters.

5. 2:30

   That’s good. It’s really good to be here. At least I assume for me, it’s really good to be here. I say that because I’ve never been here before, so you would expect wouldn’t you that somebody coming for the first time would want to check things out? I want to know what Idol was all about.

6. 2:52

   So, I did my research. I went online. That’s what we all do. Is knit, we go Ogle. If you want to check something out. So I went online and I found some really interesting pictures. I found some interesting video clips. I saw a lot of action going on. So I saw that as sites of what either wild looks like.

7. 3:16

   I also listen to one or two of the talks, so I had an idea of what either was sounded like I even talked to a few people have been before who gave me a sense of what Idlewild feels like.

8. 3:33

   But I don’t know what Idlewild smells like. Now, I’m not being flippant. But, you know, there is something about the power of smell, which is really important. And if I said to you, what’s the smell of Idlewild your mind is already racing, perhaps Is that the is it the Pines? Is it the food?

9. 3:57

   Is there a smell of Idlewild? You see the power of smell? I don’t know whether you know about this, but it’s one of those things which is so powerful in triggering memories. In fact, there’s been some research going on right now among neuroscientists about the impact of covid which caused loss of smell. And if that’s impacted on loss of memory for people, and those of us who are old enough.

10. 4:24

    And I guess that’s most of us are old enough to know that there is a certain smell that transports you into Time or in location to something. A long time ago, you just catch that smell and it transports you. I can think of the old sort of carbolic. It was called, It’s A Hard medicated soap, that we used to have at first grade school. And if I, if I smell that, it takes me back 60 years and it kind of transports me to a memory to a place and a Time. The other thing about smells is that smells tend to cling to, you don’t know, some of you may be in lines of work. Where when you get home, your husband, or wife says, before you step through that door, go and shower, go and get changed our daughter.

11. 5:22

    When she was a teenager worked in in a, well, I call it fast food. If I say a fish and chip shop, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. But, Fish and chips. Okay, so it was a fast food store, a lot of frying going on and when I daughter Naomi came home, we would just shout out to a don’t come in, she reads the fish and the grease and of the oil, and the frying pans and it just stuck to her. Now, I’m saying these things because I think there is something about Idlewild which is really important about the smell of Idlewild.

12. 6:05

    Because I the world is a place I guess where you make memories and you take them with you. I guess Idyllwild is a place where you would like to think that things stick to you. So that when you go somewhere, People know where you’ve been.

13. 6:25

    And I wonder if this idea is partly behind what we read about smell and Aroma in Scripture, There’s a lot when you start to look and I just want to take us to two or three passages to bring this point home, so that, hopefully, you can really take away something practical because you and I between us are going to create the odor. Idlewild To take away.

14. 6:55

    The first time we read about it, can you go with me to Genesis and that chapter 8, We find in verse 20, that Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal, and every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings to on the Altar. And the Lord was 21 smelled. A soothing aroma And the Lord said in his heart, I will never again, curse the ground for man’s sake. Although the imaginations of a man’s heart is evil from his youth.

15. 7:37

    Nor will I, again, destroy every living thing as I have done. Now, when we talk about the power of smell, did God change his mind because he could smell a burnt offering.

16. 7:52

    Kind of disgust. Or was it that what God was responding to was the action of a faithful man? And it was so powerful that when this offering was made on the ultra and the aroma lifted up to the heavens, The God said, the smell that I can smell. Is a smell that indicates, there is a man who cares and a man who with wanting to commit himself to me and such is his faithfulness.

17. 8:25

    Then I’m not going to destroy. Now that’s powerful is that that’s powerful, but God didn’t need the smell. God didn’t need the animal. He needed the commitment, he needed the action, he needed the dedication. That Noah was showing. So, of course, when we, then move through Exodus and Leviticus and numbers, We find about 40 times. The phrase of a sweet-smelling savour rising up to the Lord and that’s a lot, isn’t it?

18. 9:00

    It’s embodied into the law that to the children of Israel to indicate their dedication. Their love for the heavenly father. They would offer incense, they would offer sacrifice and it would rise to the Lord not that the Lord needed the smell. But that’s a rumor was an indication that they were people here who were following my commands, who listened and loves me and who acted in faith.

19. 9:35

    We also know as we’ve read in our Jeremiah reading. that there came a time when the Lord wouldn’t accept those offerings, he didn’t want them. In fact, if you look with me, if you go to Leviticus, let’s turn to Leviticus.

20. 9:59

    Actually no let’s go. Yeah let’s go to Exodus re Exodus. Let’s go to Exodus chapter 30 We find that the children of Israel were given Specific Instructions when they were to create an aroma to the Lord and indeed, the altar of incense was devised, it was designed by God and it was built by man. And they were to carry out precisely the instructions that God had given.

21. 10:37

    And we read in in Exodus 30 that in the opening verse, you’ll make an altar to burn incense on it. You’ll make it of acacia wood and so goes the description verse 7. Aaron shall burn on its sweet incense every morning when he tends the lamps and he shall burn incense on it and when air and light the lamps at Twilight he shall burn incense on it. It’s a Perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your Generations, you shall offer.

22. 11:09

    Not any strange incense, or a burnt offering or a grain offering nor shall you pour a drink offering? On it. The Lord was very precise and we know that there were indeed incidents. Where there were individuals who offered strange incense, they thought they could concoct their own recipe of how you approach the Lord. We think we know what the Lord wants to smell. Own the stories of Nader and a bike. You the story of Cora are incidents where men thought they could change what God wanted, and God destroyed them for their actions and for their Disobedience, it’s interesting that when you read on in the chapter, the precise details of how these things are to be made and look what it says. As you get down to verse 31, you shall speak to the children of Israel saying.

23. 12:01

    This shall be a holy anointing oil to me. Throughout your Generations. It shall not be poured on man’s flesh. Nor shall you met any other like it? According to its composition. Its holy and it should be holy to you. Whoever compounds any like it or however, put any of it on an outsider shall be cut off from his people.

24. 12:23

    So it’s a, it’s a component parts that come together and God says, I want you to bring these component parts and I want you to bring them before me on as a Perpetual offering. I want you to live in a way that I can smell this smell that you care and you love me and you obey my words, but they didn’t.

25. 12:46

    So I was taken to look to Leviticus too soon. Was nine his Leviticus that’s just turn Leviticus 26. Because the warning was if you disobey me.

26. 13:03

    Leviticus 26, verse 14. If you do not obey me and don’t observe my Commandments, you despise my statutes or if your soul of bores, my judgment. So you don’t perform my Commandments but break my Covenant. Here’s what I’ll do. And the Lord lists the various things, which he will do in response to that disobedience.

27. 13:27

    And then we come down to verse 30. I’ll destroy your high places, cut down, your incense altars and cast your carcasses on the lifeless forms of your Idols that my soul will have bore you and I will lay your city’s waste and bring your sanctuaries a desolation. And I will not smell. The fragrance of your sweet Aromas. It’s just dog, isn’t it?

28. 13:55

    And it’s to do with obedience and disobedience is not because the Lord needs to smell that smell, because he loves the smell. He needs to smell that says you love me and obey me. You’ve listened to me and you carry out those things which I want and maybe just like David in the psalm says my prayers are going to rise up like incense to you because it’s about my relationship with you.

29. 14:24

    I love you and I want to dedicate myself to you. So it’s easy, isn’t it? We’ve got to make sure that we are the aroma that the Lord wants to smell. Because we to are, are a sacrifice on me. That’s what it says. Let’s just look at Romans 12. You know, the verse is, we’re going to look at perhaps Romans 12 the opening verses. I beseech you, therefore Brothers by the mercies of God, that you present, your bodies, a Living Sacrifice, holy acceptable, to God, which is your reasonable service. So, here we are.

30. 15:03

    We’re a Living, Sacrifice, you present yourself, your bodies, your whole self. To God. That’s what we’re called to do as a sacrifice. and when you make a sacrifice, just like, Noah, just like the faithful children of Israel, the sweet Aroma Rises to our Heavenly Father, and that’s what we’re told. If you just turn on a few pages, when Paul wrote to the Corinthians second letter to the Corinthians, I was struck by this verse Depending, which translation you’ve got.

31. 15:44

    I’m reading from the new King James version. When I read this, in the new King James, for the first time I thought this is really neat. I thought the Apostle Paul knew all about diffusers. How do you do that? Two thousand years ago is what it says.

32. 16:08

    The verse for verse 12, furthermore, when I came to troas to preach Christ’s gospel and the door was open to me by the Lord by had no rest in my spirit because I didn’t find Titus, my brother, but taking leave of them. I departed from Macedonia. So he’s talking about the challenges in his preaching work.

33. 16:25

    Now, thanks be to God who always leads us in Triumph in Christ and through us. Diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place for we are to God the fragrance of Christ. Now, when I read this the first time now I know that some of you will have these in your homes.

34. 16:53

    I can confirm that our host knows that this has been appropriated from her home. But the idea behind a diffuser is just so simple. You put the appropriate oil inside and you put your sticks inside and the sticks, absorb the oil. When it’s absorbed the oil you can turn them over. You can put them back in and that Aroma is now diffused around the house.

35. 17:26

    Now, I know I was told that these these steaks, haven’t had the company of oil for quite a while. But I can still smell a little on them.

36. 17:38

    I wonder whether you and I are sometimes like these dry sticks. You see if we are here to absorb Christ. And diffuse it about the house. The Ecclesia.

37. 17:56

    Or maybe for this week, the Ecclesia in the mountain. We can diffuse Christ. What’s what it says, isn’t it through us? He diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place for we are to God, the fragrance of Christ. We have the smell of Christ because Christ smell clings to us. Just, as we said about the workplace smell that clings.

38. 18:28

    Well, if we’re about the Lord’s work, it clings to us. And that’s why I said about the smell of Idlewild. When we go back, will we have absorbed enough of Christ, to diffuse it in our neighborhood, among our families, among our friends, among Eric loses. And those that we’ve remembered who can’t be with us for this week, what an opportunity we have and what a responsibility we have of being the diffusers.

39. 19:04

    This fragrance of Christ. You know sometimes in our language we we confirm or convey that the olfactory system in our heads you know the smell processed, the smelling sense is particularly important to us. People sometimes talk about the sweet smell of success. I Can Smell Trouble. This smells fishy to me. Yeah.

40. 19:34

    Well, you might also notice this week. I don’t know as the week goes on. And the clothes need more washing. And the cologne is not coming out as often as it should. But sometimes, you know, we might be Sat by someone or walk by someone and you. Sometimes catch an ice melt. Are you what are you wearing today?

41. 20:01

    Well, what are you wearing, brother or sister, and what am I wearing? And I am wearing Christ to catch the smell of Christ. About me. Do we catch the smell of Christ about each other? Do we catch it as it were in this room and across Idlewild? when we see someone, Acting in that loving Christ.

42. 20:27

    Like faithful dedicated. Gentle kind way. And we you just cast this as a christ-like way of doing things. We’ve got to maybe take the time because if there are wearing a really expensive cologne, we might go well that smells good. What is it? well, if we catch the smell, One of our brothers or sisters or young people who are acting in that christ-like way, and they’re showing and diffusing the fragrance of the knowledge of price then, just let them know. You know, that smells good.

43. 21:06

    I can I can sense that christ-like behavior. Let’s encourage each other when we see these things so that indeed they may continue. So when we break bread and drink wine, where does this fit in? We’ll just turn with me. If you will to Ephesians Ephesians 5.

44. 21:41

    Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. That’s what we want to do this week. Be imitators of God. And walk in love. That’s what we want to do this week. Because that’s how we’re going to create the smell of Idlewild. That’s how we’re going to bottle. Idlewild. But there’s someone has already done this for us. As Christ also has loved us and given himself for us. An offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet-smelling savour.

45. 22:23

    You see the offering has been made. But we can let this Aroma cling to us and shape us in our thoughts, in our actions and continue to transform us into the people who we want to be. As we share the Bread and Wine. And we reflect on that challenge. To be more like him to be imitators and to walk in love as children. May our prayer be that all that we do. All that, we say all that.

46. 23:05

    We think? All that we sing. All that we do. And pray. Be as a sweet-smelling savour. That rises up to the father. Not because he needs that smell. It’s because he needs what motivates people who create it. people who love people who walk with him, and with his son, may God bless us in our week together. Maybe bottle, Idlewild That Others May know that we have been with him and they’ll know because we love each other. Thank you for listening to the good christadelphians talks podcast.

47. 24:13

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48. 24:31

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49. 24:54

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