Spiritual Discipline

The 5 Senses of the Body

Nose
2018-11-19

Sense of Smell - Nose

Apart from breathing the nose is also used for smelling. This gives a sense of
anticipation to what we might be expecting to smell, a sort-off quick
understanding of what we are smelling. Is it something we might enjoy,
accept or disapprove off?

Psa 115:6 They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they
smell not:
“Noses have they, but they smell not.” The Psalmist seems to heap
together these sentences with something of the grim sarcastic spirit of Elijah
when he said, “Cry aloud' for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is
pursuing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be
awaked.”
In utter disrespect towards God’s Will for the children of Israel, they built idols
of silver and gold. With the same disrespect, Elijah mocks at those who burn
sweet spices, and fill their temples with clouds of smoke, all offerings to an
image whose nose cannot comprehend the perfume. He seems to point his
finger to every part of the countenance of the image, and pours contempt
upon the noblest part of the idol, if any part of such a covering can be noble
even in the least degree.

It is a grim piece of sarcasm which the psalmist here aims at the idol gods. I
do not know, sometimes, whether this is not all that superstition deserves of
us, to be utterly laughed at and put to scorn. The spirit of Elijah is not
altogether the most Christlike; and yet even the Christian may well say to the
priests of Baal, in ridicule and contempt, “Cry aloud, for he is a god.”

What do they deserve to degrade themselves to worship things which their

own hands have made, things which can be seen with the eye, and touched
with the hand? Yet, even in this country, we have thousands, who call
themselves Christians, who prostrate themselves before idols made in
different forms and shapes; yea and say to a piece of bread that the baker
made, “This is our god.” Well says the psalmist:

Psa_115:8. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that
trusteth in them.

They are as stupid, as blind and as deaf, and as ridiculous as the gods that
they make; no man was ever better than the god he worshipped.
Man is created in God's image and likeness; he got his sense of smell from
God. God is the only one who can create a creature with the sense of smell.

God says of the idols which the children of Israel made:

Gen 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his
heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the
imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any
more every thing living, as I have done.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
Babylon was a land in which life was overshadowed by a immense idolatry.
What this idolatry was, we may see, in part, by a visit to the British Museum.
There are to be seen figures and inscriptions which might well have been
gazed on by the writers of this very psalm, and which show how the Baal
worship which, in its different forms, prevailed from the Mediterranean Sea to
the Indian Ocean, was the most striking feature of the life of the Imperial race
that had conquered Palestine.
To this hour, the ruins of what was the great Temple of Belus within the city,
and of the Temple of Nimrod without the city, show how powerfully this idolatry
must have addressed itself to the senses of the people. And the same
conclusion is warranted by the anxious warnings of Isaiah in anticipation of
the captivity, and by the language of the later psalmists who wrote in Babylon.
Isaiah describes with a fine and indignant irony how in Babylon, too, the smith
with the tongs, and the carpenter with his rule, would combine to make an idol
according to the beauty of a man, and how worship would be paid to what
was, in reality, only the stock of a tree. And the psalmist of the later epoch
was, we can hardly doubt, inspired to write at the sight of the splendid images
in the Babylonian temples, and notably, perhaps, by that of the golden image
of Belus. “Their idols are silver and gold,” etc. (Psa_115:4-8).
It was this idolatry which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resisted at the
risk of their lives, and at which Daniel struck a deadly blow when, according to
the Alexandrian account - till lately read in our churches, and undoubtedly
embodying a germ of substantial history - he exposed on a great scale the
fraud of the priest of Baal and destroyed his image. (Canon Liddon.)
God wants to sanctify the sense of smell through the Blood, Fire, and Water
until our nostrils will find sweetness and fragrance only in those things
pleasing to God. In the Song of Solomon the Spirit of God compares the nose
of the Bride to the lower of Lebanon and to the smell of apples.

Son 7:4 Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools in
Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon
which looketh toward Damascus.
Son 7:8 I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs
thereof: now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of
thy nose like apples;
It is precious to let God possess and sanctify our sense of smell until it is like
a strong, defensive tower on the one hand, and on the other hand, like the
fragrant drawing power of the smell of apples.

Notes:

While studying the Word, many things entered your mind, bringing all sorts of
feeling, even resentment and fear to the front.

1. Bring those matters and feelings before the Lord.

2. Acknowledge, repent and submit to God for cleansing and sanctifcation.
3. Surrender unconditionally to the guidance of the Holy Spirit for
discernment and awareness.
4. Make a commitment to God and be self-aware to what you may be
smelling.

Prayer Card
5 Senses of the Body
Body Heb 4:12
Sight Mat 5:27-29, Lust
7:3-5 Uncleanliness
Judging
Taste Romans Idle talk Malicious and Defamation Blasted
3:13,14 Cursing Wicked words Slandering (blame)
Bitterness Lying Wound Poison
Smell Disrespect Trust
Idolatry
Superstition

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