Can't you smell that smell? PT 1

Joh 11:39 Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.

We had a dead mouse in our garage today. Nothing smells quite like a dead mouse. I don’t know what it is about mice, perhaps their diet, but when a tiny little mouse dies, in a very short time, their stink becomes unbearable.

Different creatures give off a different stench when they die. When a skunk has been hit by a car and lies dead in a ditch, we do not even need to see the skunk to know there is one nearby, even when all of our windows are rolled up in the car.

The worst smell that has ever assaulted my nostrils has been the smell of rotting human flesh. It was close to a dead cat combined with rancid urine under extreme heat, but even that does not quite compare. The human body takes first place in the worst smelling dead contest, hands down.

In Bible times, dead bodies were bathed and wrapped in expensive spices, because they stunk so bad. Jesus was anointed in 100 pounds of ointment. Martha says to Jesus, “Please don’t roll the stone away from my brother, it will stink so bad, we will all get the dry heaves.” The human body stinks.

The New Testament makes it clear that all humans are spiritually dead. Eph 2:1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.

Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)

Rom 6:13 And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

So all people are in need of the new birth, of being raised in the power of Christ’s resurrection. So if most people are spiritually dead, (Mat 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”) What is the characteristic stink that they emit? I would submit that there are some who give off the bloated deer, others that rancid raccoon, still others, skunks, moose, birds, mice, etc. There is a plethora of different “stink” given off by the spiritually dead. 2Co 2:16 To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.

In the next series of posts I will use this illustration of stink to show how people emit a stink that indicates they are still dead or at the very least, that they are being led by the flesh and not by the Spirit.