What's That Smell?

I have been to the Salvation Army Home League meeting at Ripley, this afternoon, the speaker was Major Julie Johnson, from Nottingham Memorial Hall. She spoke about fragrance, and brought quite an assortment of perfumes and objects associated with fragrance. Oil burners, and candles etc. the Home League have their own blog and so you can read some of what was spoken about this afternoon here… Heaven Sent      

She told us a story about and expensive perfume which had been bought on the internet which had been £30 cheaper than its normal price. Julie explained that she was rather reluctant to use it because it was expensive, but finally when they were going away she put it in her bag. When they arrived at their destination, the bottle was broken and its contents poured out into the bag, it wasn’t a pleasant smell. Further investigation revealed that in fact it wasn’t the genuine article but a fake.

I thought about this, the Bible tells us that we are the fragrance of Christ.

2 Corinthians 2:14-17

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 among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?

But there are many fakes, the genuine article stands up to the searching of scripture, but the fake is soon broken, and its contents stink. We have the Word of God, which exposes the false teachers, and the hypocrisies. The true believer, the true teacher, preacher etc. diffuses the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ. The fake knows nothing of this knowledge and promotes his own agenda, taking money from the poor, sick, and the vulnerable, and those who are weak in faith. Beware of the fake who are like the Pharisees, this is how Jesus describes them.

Matthew23:27

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The tomb may have been whitewashed to make it look presentable, but inside it stank. We are to discern these things, and if we truly love the Lord Jesus, and His Word, then we will be careful not to fall for the fake.

Don’t go by appearance, don’t go by show, test all that you see and hear with scripture, and ask the Holy Spirit to help, guide and lead you in understanding God’s Word.