Well, do you get the point?
You don't.
Well, what she poured out on him came
back on her.
It was a double, it was a blessing
to him.
But wherever she went, that fragrance was there.
And people, she'd go past it, oh, that's,
that's the most, like you say, oh, that's
Chanel or that's something else.
That's the most amazing, the most aromatic, pungent,
powerful, beautiful, costly ointment in the world.
I wonder where that woman got that ointment.
She poured it out on him.
It came back on her.
That's why there's a two-fold attitude in
prayer.
One is pouring out, even if you use
prayer to that degree.
And then there's a waiting until the dew
drops.
The dew falls.
And I remind you again, dew never falls
on a windy morning.
God said he would give the dew unto
Israel, and the dew only drops when there
is stillness.
The old Quaker poet, John Greenleaf Whittier, wrote
that lovely hymn, Dear Lord and Master of
Mankind, forgive our foolish ways.
We ought to sing it every day.
We ought to sing that in the government.
Forgive our foolish ways.
But the last time it says, Drop thy
still dews of quietness Till all our striving
cease.
Take from our souls the strain and stress
And let our ordered lives Confess the beauty
of thy peace.
Breathe through the heat of our desire Thy
fullness and thy balm.
Let sense be done, let flesh retire.
Speak through the earthquake, the wind or the
fire Or the still small voice of calm.
Or this old hymn, an old English hymn.
Frieda Hanbury Allen wrote this.
It's beautiful.
Within the veil.
You know, when you go into the secret
place, the holy of holies.
When you put a notice on the door
not to be disturbed for two hours.
And maybe you'll start off with prayer and
maybe you'll end into praise.
But you should finish up with adoration and
worship.
And Frieda Hanbury Allen said, Within the veil
didst belove thy portion.
Within the secret of thy Lord to dwell.
Beholding him until thy faith is glory, Thy
life is love.
Thy lips his praise shall tell.
Within the veil.
For only as thou gazest upon the matchless
beauty of his face Canst thou become a
living revelation Of his great heart of love.
His untold grace.
Within the veil.
His fragrance poured upon thee.
Like the woman poured the ointment.
Without the veil, that fragrance shed abroad.
Within the veil.
His hands shall tune the music Which sounds
on earth The praises of thy God.
Within the veil.
Thy spirit deeply anchored.
Thou walkest calm.
Above a world of strife.
Within the veil.
Thy soul with him united Shall live on
earth The resurrection life.
She poured out the ointment.
This man must have felt pretty bad, don't
you think?
Watching all this go on.
There's a table loaded with food.
I don't know that he ever took a
bite of food.
There's no record of it in any of
the stories.
Maybe he wasted a fortune on it.
Jesus wasn't wanting food.
He wanted worship.
God wants you to work yourself to death.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
What does it say?
Kill yourself.
Testify.
It says worship the Lord in the beauty
of holiness.
Do the other but don't do it Unless
your soul is bathed in him.
Unless you're anchored deeply in him.
Unless the fragrance of God is on you.
No, I don't know that Jesus Took a
spot of anything to eat Or drank anything.
I think maybe this man was saying, you
know what?
I just about missed it and wasted everything.
I just wish Jesus could see it my
way.
You know, I tried for about 20 years
to get God to see things my way
And he wouldn't.
So I had to give up and see
things his way.
Jesus didn't want food.
How do you know?
Well, I'll tell you what, the devil There's
a lot of things you could say about
him But he's a grade A student, you
know.
He knows the answers.
He'll never ask you to do what you
can't do.
He'll never ask you to walk on water.
He said to Jesus, Get some of those
rocks and turn them into bread.
He knew he could do it.
Look, if you want to know how valuable
worship really is The devil was prepared to
give God the whole world if he'd worship
it for five minutes.
Does that make you realize how valuable worship
is?
You just fall down once and say, and
worship me.
The very fact he knelt would mean I'm
in subjection.
You're a lord, you're a master.
And if you just fall down and worship
me for five minutes I'll give you all
the kingdom of the world.
And the devil, God didn't, Jesus didn't say,
they're not yours to give anyhow.
They were his in one sense to give.
He ruled governments to a certain degree.
And wicked systems.
And yet Satan so wanted worship that he
said, I'll give you the world.
No, you can't.
Jesus isn't going to turn stones into bread.
You say, well that's what miraculously he didn't
do.
Well, I think he did it.
Where's the record?
Well, one morning he called some disciples over
the sea and he said, Boys, come and
eat.
We used to sing a hymn in the
old days, Come and dine, the master callers,
come and dine.
There they met their heart's desire, bread and
fish upon the fire.
You think Jesus went shopping for fish?
You think he knocked the baker up?
It wasn't daylight.
You think he knocked the baker up at
one o'clock and said, Hey, could you
make a few hot buns right away?
Because I want to give my disciple boys
a treat.
Poor boys, they're tired, fishing and all that.
I think Jesus, this isn't in any book.
It'll come up.
Winky's going to put it down.
But anyhow, I think that he put some
stones on the floor and he just said,
become bread.
And they did.
And he said to the devil there, I'll
do it when I want, not when you
want.
That's the way to get victory.
You can do the right thing at the
wrong time, but you'd never do the wrong
thing at the right time.
I think he made bread there just to
snub the devil and laugh at the devil.
But again, there's no evidence that Jesus ever
took anything.
All the dignitaries are there.
I don't know how many disciples and others
were there.
And yet a little unnamed woman is the
only one listed.
She's listed in millions and millions of copies
of the word of God.
Do you know what happened the week after?
Crowds of people were sobbing and sobbing and
they were pointing.
I think there was just one woman who
was really happy at the crucifixion.
It wasn't the mother of Jesus necessarily.
I think it was this Mary.
She looked at those feet.
They had a nail through them and blood
running off them.
And she said to think last week I
had those feet in my hand.
I'm glad I did it.
While the critics said, what's she wasting money?
Jesus said, she's done it against my burial.
The rough thing about this to me is
this, that if you take the twenty-sixth
chapter of Matthew and you read the story
again, it puts another slant on it.
That to me is terrible.
Because it says that he went into the
house of Simon the leper.
Ah.
Does that do anything for you?
You say he couldn't go into the house
of Simon the leper.
A man wasn't allowed in.
That's right.
There came a day when Simon went to
his wife and said, darling I've kept this
away from you so long I can't.
Look at my.
Oh, she said, you've got lifeless feet.
Don't use the towels.
Don't touch the children.
And he went to the temple and they
pronounced him unclean.
And he went to the gate of the
city and they pronounced him unclean.
And he lost citizenship and he lost fellowship
and he lost every relationship.
And he went up the road begging and
crying, I'm unclean.
And they'd throw him a coin, he was
unclean.
Well, what is he doing at home?
Well, there's only one reason I know that
he's at home is that one day he
met Jesus and Jesus cleansed him because nobody
else could heal leprosy.
He runs back to the gate of the
city and they say, we know you Simon.
You're a successful businessman.
You're a leper.
And he says, well, look.
Oh, you've got flesh like a baby.
What beautiful hands.
And he ran to the temple and the
priest said, don't come and defile God's house.
And he said, I can't defile it.
Look at my hands.
And they said, oh, what beautiful hands.
And he ran home and there was Rebekah.
And she looked through the lattices and said,
don't come near.
I know you want to see the Jewel
and don't come near.
You're a leper.
And he said, darling, I'm no leper.
Oh, what beautiful hands.
How did he get cleansed?
I don't know any other way.
There was no other way known to man
that a man could be healed of leprosy
except that Jesus healed him.
Incredible.
If Jesus hadn't healed him, he'd still be
up there with bugs on him.
His flesh would be dropping off.
I've been in the leper colony and preached
to lepers.
I've seen men without ears, without cheeks.
A man you could see down his throat
because all the flesh was eaten off.
You could see his workings.
And in that tropical atmosphere, it sprung like
a manure heap.
In some of the greatest meetings I was
ever in, people without fingers and pots running
off them because there's no medication were clapping
their hands and singing, my Jesus, I love
thee.
I know thou art mine.
And I enjoyed that better than any fancy
choir all dressed up and cheap diamonds on,
doing this stuff on TV.
A man was a leper, was cured, and
he forgot to worship Jesus?
My God, I say reverently, how careless and
forgetful.
What ingratitude we could have.
He was a leper.
Well, in case you forgot, you're a leper
too.
Because in the Old Testament, leprosy is a
type of sin.
There's no cure for it.
And one day, dealing with friends, somebody said
to me, don't shake hands with the leper.
But I said, all right, I'll take the
risk.
And I shook hands with that leper, all
his stubby fingers.
And I said, I love you, and the
tears rolled down what cheeks he had.
And the women there, beautiful women, with half
a cheek or ears off or noses off
and other things.
And you saw leprosy working.
Say, if Jesus hadn't stopped you somewhere on
the road a year or two this morning,
fellow, where might you have been right now?
In hell?
Or serving a life sentence?
Woman, you might have had three or four.
We had girls in teen college, how they
looked as though they'd left school with as
many as three legitimate kids.
And they couldn't tell you how many men
they'd slept with.
Whether they were black or yellow or red
or black or white or what, they wouldn't
know.
They'd just live that lousy life.
But I tell you, one morning when we
went into the chapel and I, and they
said, but the raven is going to talk
this morning.
And a little Puerto Rican stood up and
said, let's sing the national anthem.
I guess I told you this before.
And I thought, national anthem?
Get out of here.
But I didn't notice what he said.
He said, let's sing our national anthem, not
the national anthem.
And they stood up and they began to
sing.
Do you know what they sang?
There were about 30 or 40 young women
on this side.
Beautiful girls, all clean, now prostitutes here.
Not weekend prostitutes.
They were second wives to some of your
most famous film stars and ball players.
They were redeemed.
And here were boys who were murdered and
raped and done every devilish thing.
And so the little Puerto Rican, his teeth
were flashing there.
And he said, let's sing our song.
And they struck it up.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.
Wow!
I was in tears before we got to
the first stanza.
And so were they.
They knew the pitch of which they'd been
listening.
Isn't it amazing that sometimes, come on, let's
be honest, you're so busy working for him,
you never touch him during the day.
We're trying to say, Lord, I served you.
No, I'm going to bed dumb tired.
I can't even read my Bible.
I'm too tired to pray.
Well, that's not the way to go about
it.
Read Jeremiah and say how often that man
of God rose early in the morning.
Give him the dew of the morning when
your mind is fresh and your body is
fresh.
He forgot to kiss Jesus.
He forgot to wash his feet.
He forgot to anoint his head.
And I don't think he's got another chance.
Briefly, that's not my best word, but let
me say briefly.
Somebody said, you say, well, finally, and you
go on for another 20 minutes.
I say, well, I learned that from the
Apostle Paul in his epistle.
He says, finally, write three more chapters.
You expect me to do better than Paul?
There's one story a little more mysterious to
me than this story.
It's the story of the most failed woman
on earth.
There's a new controversy on now.
It's in this present edition of Christianity Today.
Because the Pope, the new Pope, this nice
boy, said recently that he wants to restore
veneration to the Virgin Mary.
And now there's a discussion about it.
We ought to honor her.
Well, I honor her.
I call her the Blessed Virgin because the
Scripture does.
But if you tell me she's called Edemptrix,
I'll ask you why she wasn't crucified with
Jesus.
She's not called Edemptrix with Jesus.
You can't pray to the Virgin Mary.
It's a lie.
It's the biggest fall the devil ever put
on the earth is the Roman Church.
Well, nobody said amen, but it's still true.
So let's go on.
This woman, privileged of all the women in
the world to bear the Son of God.
Isn't that something?
The heaven of heavens cannot contain God.
And he was pressed into the matrix of
the Virgin Mary.
God contracted to a span incomprehensibly made mass.
And there's a big convention on, and people
like conventions.
So Joseph and Mary decided they would go.
And they went.
And they had a great time.
Met all the in-laws and out-laws,
and enjoyed the great preaching, enjoyed everything else.
And then, of course, they had to go
home.
Oh, it was a majestic thing, you know,
when they went up to the temple.
They sang the hymns, the latter part of
the Book of Psalms, which is the Jewish
hymn book of course.
And the women went first, and the men
went behind.
They were doing what we sing.
They were marching to Zion, the beautiful city
of God.
And the women sang a verse, and the
men responded, and the women sang, and the
men responded.
The women went first, in case the brigands
came down the hill to molest them and
destroy and so forth.
And they went back the same, except, you
see like little streams joining up.
The congregation got big, big, big when they
were going.
But as soon as they came out of
Jerusalem, the crowds got less and less, and
they began to filter off.
And at night Mary goes very tired, and
her feet are aching, and finally she says,
excuse me, have you seen my husband?
Have you seen Joseph with a husband in
the eyes of others?
Oh yes, there he is, that tall, nice.
He said, I like your husband very much.
And she said, well, where are we going
to sleep?
Because there's no Holiday Inns, and all those
trimmings we have.
No black top rods, just dirt, roughness, dust.
Must have been something following a million people,
isn't it?
Run your teeth over it.
You swing over your teeth, you clean them,
there'll be that much grit on your lips.
Well, I don't know what I was saying
darling, but I'll tell you what, this is
about the hottest day and my feet are
blistering.
She says, well, mine are too.
You had a bad day too.
Did you get a drink at the well?
No, I didn't.
Boy, those people were very sanctified yesterday, very
selfish today.
They were elbowing at the well, you couldn't
get a drink.
I haven't had a drink since this morning.
I haven't, and I'm tired.
Well, how did Jesus get up?
Oh, Mary, come on, don't fool, I'm too
tired.
You know he's been with you all day.
With me?
He's not been with me, he's been with
you.
He hasn't been with me.
Well, I thought he was you.
Do you know what it says?
They, supposing he was in the company.
That word supposing is used twice in the
New Testament.
When the woman went to the garden and
she heard somebody moving, and she supposed he
was the gardener.
So she supposed Jesus wasn't there when he
was there.
They supposed Jesus was there and he wasn't
there.
We suppose he's in the company.
Well, what do we do?
Well, what do you think to do?
She says, serves him right.
I've told him many times not to go
off here and there.
Let's go to sleep, Joseph.
I, I, I suggest she cried herself to
sleep that night.
After all, if you lost a 12 year
old boy and there were so many burglars
and thieves and wild animals, will you go
to sleep?
She cried herself to sleep and they got
back to Jerusalem.
And again she cried herself to sleep.
They searched everywhere and couldn't find him.
Or maybe he's at the pool of Siloam.
He likes to watch the fish and they
thought he wasn't there.
Maybe he's still down at the bazaar.
He loved to sell, see those men selling
little girls.
No, he wasn't there.
And finally they said, well, where can he
be?
Isn't it amazing that they lost Jesus right
after they'd been to a great convention, a
great religious feast.
We lose him sometimes because God speaks to
your heart.
There's blessing on your heart and you go
outside, outside the sanctuary as a theatre you've
left or something and you talk and talk
and you dissipate the blessing God put there.
There are times I think we ought to
walk home and just quietly not even speak.
Maybe husband and wife and just get still
and say, Lord sink this deep into my
heart so I'll never need to learn that
lesson again.
See brigands came down the hill to molest
them and destroy and so forth.
And they went back the same except you
see like little streams joining up.
The congregation got big, big, big when they
were going.
But as soon as they came out of
Jerusalem the crowds got less and less and
they began to filter off.
And at night Mary goes very tired and
her feet are aching and finally she says,
Excuse me, have you seen my husband?
Have you seen Joseph with a husband in
the eyes of others?
Oh yes, there he is.
Tall, nice.
Yes, he's there.
I like your husband very much.
And she says, Well, where are we going
to sleep?
Because there's no holiday inns and all those
trimmings we have.
No black top roads, just dirt, roughness, dust.
Must have been something following a million people,
isn't it?
Run your teeth over it.
You turn over your teeth, you clean them,
there'll be not much grit on your lips.
Well, I don't know what I was saying
darling, but I'll tell you what.
This is about the hottest day and my
feet are blistering.
She says, Well, mine are too.
You had a bad day too.
Did you get a drink at the well?
No, I didn't.
Boy, those people were very sanctified yesterday, very
selfish today.
They were elbowing at the well you couldn't
get a drink.
I haven't had a drink since this morning.
I haven't and I'm tired.
Well, how did Jesus get on?
Oh Mary, come on, don't fool, I'm too
tired.
You know he's been with you all day.
With me?
He's not been with me, he's been with
you.
He hasn't been with me.
Well, I thought he was you.
Do you know what it says?
They, supposing he was in the company.
That word supposing is used twice in the
New Testament.
When the woman went to the garden and
she heard somebody moving and she supposed he
was the gardener.
So she supposed Jesus wasn't there when he
was there.
They suppose Jesus was there and he wasn't
there.
We suppose he's in the company.
But what shall we do?
Well, what do you think she'd do?
She says, she says him right.
I've told him many times not to go
off here and there.
Let's go to sleep, Joseph.
I, I, I suggest she cried herself to
sleep that night.
After all, if you lost a twelve year
old boy and there were so many burglars
and thieves and wild animals, would you go
to sleep?
She cried herself to sleep and they got
back to Jerusalem.
And again she cried herself to sleep.
They searched everywhere and couldn't find him.
Or maybe he's at the pool of Siloam.
He likes to watch the fish and they
thought he wasn't there.
Maybe he's still down at the bazaar.
He'd love to sell, and see those men
selling slipworms.
No, he wasn't there.
And finding this there, they said, Well, where
can he be?
Isn't it amazing that they lost Jesus right
after they'd been to a great convention, a
great religious feast.
We lose him sometimes because God speaks to
your heart.
There's blessing on your heart.
And you go outside, outside the sanctuary as
a theatre you've left or something, and you
talk and talk and you dissipate the blessing
God put there.
There are times I think we ought to
walk home and just quietly, not even speak,
maybe husband and wife, and just get still
and say, Lord, sink this deep into my
heart so I'll never need to learn that
lesson again.
And they searched and they couldn't find him.
And finally they said, Well, we've searched the
temple.
It was a vast place and they couldn't
find him.
And then they said, Finally, there's a room
there.
Yes, but only the chief rabbis and the
dignitaries go there.
We can't go there.
But love gets desperate.
And maybe Joseph opened the door and he
said, Mary.
What was he doing?
Was he in the pulpit?
Giving a lecture on Daniel, the left foot
on Daniel's image, the middle toe.
This is the explanation.
Was he preaching prophecy?
No, no, no.
He wasn't doing anything like that.
What was he doing?
He was doing what any healthy twelve-year
-old boy would do.
He was asking questions.
And they run up again and say, Don't
you care about us?
Well, it sounds like the men on the
sea.
Remember when the boat lashed the boat?
It looked as though they were, I thought
the disciples loved him so much they'd have
shaked him and said, Master, how are you
going to drown?
But they said, Don't you care that we
perish?
Wasn't that lovely?
I wonder if he didn't say, He didn't
say, You stupid people, I've taught you a
hundred lessons and you still think of number
one first.
Care us thou not that we perish?
Hey, what are you doing?
Is this your gratitude for us?
We've fought you with tears, we've been heartbroken
and here you are sitting in the temple
asking questions.
Oh, his answer was beautiful, wasn't it?
When he said, Well, don't you think I
should be about my father's business?
I wonder if that's the first time he
testified.
I wonder if that's the first moment he
realized what his myth on earth really was.
Do you think it was, Ed?
He's not sure.
Tim, what do you think?
He doesn't know either, so that's very helpful.
Thanks.
I give my contribution, I'm not sure either.
But maybe it had dawned on him, maybe
while he was still in the sanctuary, God
had said to him, This is where it
all begins, at twelve years of age.
And from there, for another twenty years, he
was locked up in silence and locked up
in stillness.
And every great man, it seems to me,
that God has used here in the Word
of God.
He had to be sent to an isle
of Patmos.
The greatest brain the world ever had, I
think, was the Apostle Paul, after Jesus himself.
And he had three years in the wilderness.
And John went to the isle of Patmos
and Moses learned in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians, it says there in the seventh
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.
He was a scholar, he was brilliant, how
do you know?
Because he's learned in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians, that's why.
And it says he was mighty in word.
It doesn't say he was an orator, because
he stammered, but he was mighty in word.
He made laws before he got the Ten
Commandments.
And when he was brilliant in culture, the
armies bowed down to him and everybody revered
him.
God spliced his life.
After all, he lived in three forties, first
forty years.
He lived in the palace as a king,
as a prince.
The second forty years is in the school
of silence and the third forty, God took
him up at eighty years of age.
Can you find me a man that's come
to spiritual greatness that hasn't lived in isolation?
Just one thing, I remember going in one
day, Dr. Paul had got some books and
he never put them on shelves this way,
he stood them up this way, because he
couldn't bother to read them.
And I said to him, I was in
London last week talking to Dr. Martin Lloyd
-Jones in Westminster Chapel and he sent his
greetings to you and he said that your
book, The Pursuit of God, will be living
when most modern writing, theological writing in America
has perished.
And he said, Len, be pointed like that.
His office, one thing I don't like about
my office, it's too small, my other office
was larger and I feel it cramps me
a bit.
You could almost do this in Dr. Jones's
office and touch the walls, it was so
small.
But he looked at it and he said,
Len, that book, The Pursuit of God, is
the distilled wisdom that God gave me for
25 years in this office.
I've never been out of it.
You've never what?
I've never had a vacation in 25 years.
I've listened and listened and listened to God.
And what God has taught me, he said,
I put it down there in that book.
Oh, it's easy to give God things when
they're cheap.
Oh, yes, I like to read a book.
As a matter of fact, I play tapes
going to work and have a great time.
Well, that's all right, but listen, you can
play tapes from here to ends of the
earth.
It won't satisfy the Lord, it may satisfy
you.
He wants you to worship him in spirit
and in truth.
He wants you to put everything else out
and it will cost something.
She bought a small box, and I'll finish
with this, but I'll tell you what she
did.
She bought it while he was living, just
before he died.
And I'm glad it mentions that it was
a pound.
Do you know why?
Because after he died, you would have seen
two men going up a hill with a
staff, and on it they had a great
big bag swinging, and it had exactly 100
pounds of that same ointment bought by Nicodemus.
Some have estimated it was worth more than
a million dollars.
He was going up to that costly mausoleum
or whatever you want to call it where
they were going to bury Jesus because he
made it brave with the rich in his
death too.
And these two men were going up the
hill with a hundred pound weight of the
same ointment that that woman bought one pound
of.
And do you know what?
That one pound of ointment meant much more
to Jesus than the hundred pounds.
Why?
Because he was living when he got it.
People have been shocked, disgusted, arguing with me
when I said, look, if you leave a
million dollars to a missionary group or a
gaffer, leave it to a gaffer, okay, when
you die, God won't give you 10 cents
for it at the judgment seat.
He won't?
No.
Hardly no.
Well, here's a rich man, let's say here
he is in a lovely casket, and he
left a million dollars, and we're all glad
he's left a million dollars to a salvation
army and a million to David Wilson and
a million to a gaffer.
And just before I put the lid down,
I want you all to come and look
at him.
And I want you to keep one thing
in mind when you come.
Remember, he's left two million dollars for these
three distinctive groups.
Now, as you come and look at him,
he's unbarmed, he's got a lovely hundred thousand
dollar suit or something, got a jewel around
his neck.
Just look at him.
And as you look at him, I want
you to remember this scripture.
The Lord loveth...
What?
A what?
He doesn't look too cheerful to me.
Maybe the change is in the amplifier.
I'd better look.
I don't know whether they have or not,
but...
The Lord loveth a cheerful giver.
That man would still have his million dollars.
He didn't give it.
Death took it from him.
He met a bandit on the road called
Death who said, Get out.
Put it out like a light.
One pound of ointment while she was living.
Jesus said, I've got more out of this
than all your fancy show and all the
celebrities here and everything.
She has ministered unto me.
I can feel her feet.
I can smell the fragrance.
I can see the love she laid of
glory there.
She's got hold of the whole thing.
Because he said, didn't he?
You don't worship in Jerusalem.
We Christians don't have to go to Rome.
We don't have to go to Mecca.
The Irish cult every day, we go to
prayer.
We used to pray there a lot.
And one man used to quote every time
we prayed that we prayed on earth.
There's no floor in the hut.
Just drops a shell in a field and
it melts in the grass, melts in the
dirt.
And sometimes the water would run through like
that.
But we used to quote the same old
thing.
Where we seek thee thou art found and
every place is hallowed ground.
The disappointed Christ.
Thou gavest me no water.
Thou gavest me no oil.
Thou gavest me no test.
We need to ask Him.
I need to ask Him.
And you need to ask Him.
How we may learn to worship Him in
spirit and in truth.