In this sermon, the preacher reflects on the story of a woman who poured expensive perfume on Jesus' feet. He emphasizes that the woman's act of love and devotion was seen as wasteful by others, but Jesus commended her for it. The preacher shares a personal anecdote about a woman who experienced a radical transformation in her life after encountering Jesus. He also discusses the importance of prioritizing our relationship with God over worldly pleasures and the need for consistent Bible study and family devotion.

My mother used to tell me to learn something every day. And I learned something, I want to pass it on to you. Never sit right in front of trumpets. I want to read a portion of scripture from the gospel as Luke gave it to us in the seventh chapter. And verse 36. One of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee's house and sat down to meet. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat in the Pharisee's house for meat, she brought an alabaster box of ointment and stood at his feet behind him weeping and began to wash his feet with tears and did wipe them with the hairs of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bitten him saw this, he spake within himself saying, this man if he were a prophet would know who and what manner of woman this is for she is a sinner. Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I've somewhat to say unto thee, and he said, Master, say on. There was a certain creditor which had two debtors, one owed him 500 pence and the other owed him 50. And when they had nothing with which to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them would love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And Jesus said, thou hast rightly judged. He turned to the woman and said to Simon, seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house. Thou gavest me no water for my feet, but she hath washed my feet with tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman from the moment I entered this house hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore, I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. And to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, thy sins are forgiven. And they said that meet. Well, who is this that forgiveth sins also? He said to the woman, thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace. This story is told with some variation by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And we could analyze it analytically, but it's, I don't like bones, I like the chicken, I don't like the bones. And I want to present it as a devotional message. And if I were to label these verses, I would label them this way, the disappointed Christ. There's only one thing I hate more than being disappointed. And that is to be a disappointment. I'm sure that this was a social event of the season in Jerusalem. You know, we say sometimes that if Jesus comes into your life, he'll bring peace. Well, that's only half the story. The other side of the coin is he brings trouble. In the United Nations, I understand in the charter of the United Nations, while it is quite reasonable to name the name of God, because to the Jew that's all right, and to the Mohammedan it's all right, because you mean God. But legally, you cannot mention the name of Jesus Christ. It is an offense. The first thing Jesus did before he could walk and talk was divide Jerusalem, because the scripture says that when his birth was announced, Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And just a minority, an old prophetess about a hundred years of age, and an old man who desired to see the salvation of God, and Joseph and Mary, and Elizabeth and Zacharias, and not a dozen of them were expecting him to come. But the whole city was divided because of him. He divided people before he could walk at all. The last thing he did on the cross was divide men. One had said, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. The other says, get off the cross, save yourself and us as well, do another miracle. And in the middle of his life, he went into the synagogue, and there was a division because of him. And I've seen many a house that was peaceful disrupted because Jesus came. I used to pastor a church in the ancient city of Bath. I mean, I wasn't there when it was ancient, but the city is ancient. It was founded by the Romans in 55 BC. And after the Germans began to bomb London, they moved the admiralty from London to Bath. And I had a lot of society up across people, you know, girls who danced in Buckingham Palace, and they were related to dukes and duchesses and whatnot. And one of those very beautiful girls, she'd studied music in, I think, the conservatoire at Milan, and she'd studied painting under one of the modern masters in Brussels, which is where? Belgium. There's some geography for you. And she was a very charming personality. She was beautiful to look at, she was courteous, she was so well-mannered, she was always well-dressed. And I remember she walked to the altar one day and confessed her need of Jesus, though she was already a communicant in the Church of England. And the Lord came into her life and completely transformed it. She didn't want to smoke anymore, she didn't want cocktails anymore, she didn't want parties anymore, she didn't want dancing anymore. And sure enough, one of her relatives, her mother, actually came down to see me. What's happened to my daughter? She's embarrassing. She doesn't want a glass of sherry before we dine, and she refuses cocktails, and she doesn't want to smoke, and she doesn't want to play cards and gamble, you know, just a little bit. And she's entirely different. I remember another home where the kids were rebels. They came home about two or three o'clock in the morning, and they'd been through hell all night. They'd done every dirty thing you could imagine, but the parents always said, well, it's nice to have you home, you know. So that was a miracle in itself. And one of the, well, the ringleader in the family got one of them, and she quit all the filthy things she'd done, and she didn't come home at midnight, three o'clock or two o'clock in the morning, but she did stay to a prayer meeting that lasted till midnight. The mother was frantic. What in the world do you want to be praying till midnight for? She never rebuked the girl when she was going to hell. And you know, that house got disturbed because Jesus came. And if he comes to your house, there'll be some trouble, sure. I know he'll come at Thanksgiving, because everybody says grace at Thanksgiving. They count their blessings. They've been counting their calories until then, but Thanksgiving, we acknowledge the Lord kind of thing. One of the wisest men I ever met spiritually was Dr. Tozer. And I had the unspeakable privilege of going into his office at any time, and when I was in Chicago, I sure went. And he always greeted me with something that was rather shocking and disturbing. Usually he'd say, let your hair down, you know. It wasn't long, like some of yours, but it was, you know, he was meaning relax, and latch the door, and let's talk. And one day when I went in, he said, you see that rug there? I said, yes sir. He said, Len, some days I lift the phone off the cradle there, and I call my secretary and say, no interviews today, no dictation today. And he said, I get on that rug which I bought in Kresge's for 69 cents. That was in the days of miracles, you know, about 20 years ago, 1951 actually. And he said, I get on that rug at eight o'clock in the morning. Here's a man with a colossal intellect. Here's one of the most best red men I ever met in my life, and I met some geniuses. And he finished school in the eighth grade, but he taught himself some Greek, and he taught himself some Latin, and he taught himself some Hebrew. And he read all the mystics from Madame Guillaume, to the ladder of sanctity, to the cloud of unknowing. You could mention a thing hardly he hadn't read. But I don't remember for his outstanding intellectual powers. I remember him because he had more insights on the things of God than any man I ever met. And he said, I get on that rug in the morning at eight o'clock. I'm still there at 11, or 12, or even one o'clock, and I haven't said a word of prayer, and I haven't said a word of praise. I've just worshipped him. Does that sound strange to you? Many times I used to take my wife, as one man said, well, she was your sweetheart then, she's your wife now. But anyhow, when she was just a nurse, supervising one of the largest hospitals in England, and of course, nurses always look angelic, don't they? Boy, aren't they deceiving? You know, in the white uniforms, and she would come in a white uniform, and a big dark blue cape, and throw one part over her shoulder, and it was lined with red, and oh boy, she looked like the Queen of Sheba to me. And I found out afterwards she was, in some ways. But you know, I never get tired of looking at her, even today. And many times I didn't even talk. I'd hold her in my arms, and look at her, and think of how beautiful she is, both physically, and in her manners, in her customs. And Tosa said, I don't offer a word of prayer. Just this week, a lady wrote to me, I get an awful lot of letters, I wish I didn't, but I do. And this lady said in the letter, I heard you preach in 1976, and my life was completely turned around that day. I was a good Christian, you know, I went to church, I tithed, I testified, that there was a dimension in my life that I had never explored, and that was the dimension of worship. And this is how she quoted. She said, you said that day, that prayer is spoken preoccupation with our needs. Praise is spoken preoccupation with our blessings. Worship is speechless adoration. I've turned it over a thousand times in my life. My life turned around on that, because I'd explored some of the possibilities of grace. I knew something about praise, I knew something about prayer, I knew nothing about worship. And I remember, and he was a pastor in a Baptist church, you know, they don't know everything, but this preacher said to me, he said, you know, Ravenhill, when you spoke on Thursday night about worship, now I can read the Bible in Hebrew, the Old Testament, and I can read the New Testament in Greek, and look, I've got all these diplomas, and all these honors, and I've got a doctorate, and I've got an earned PhD, and I don't know a thing about worship. Dr. Tozer would take some of the language, sure, of people like Faber. He said, I would gaze on the majesty, the holiness, the perfection of Jesus there. See the king in his beauty. And I would say, how beautiful, how beautiful the sight of thee must be, thine endless wisdom, awesome power, and glorious purity. Oh, Jesus, Jesus, dearest Lord, forgive me if I say for very love thy sacred name a thousand times a day. Burn, burn within me, love of God. Burn fiercely, night and day, till all the dross of earthly love is burned, and burned away. I'm convinced that a baptism of love would put the church back into business and revolutionize the world. I'm convinced that if every professing Christian in America lived the Sermon on the Mount, one day we'd transform America. Because it's totally selfless. Everybody envied this man in Jerusalem, I'm sure. Did you hear the news? You know the miracle worker? Oh, they had trouble. Jesus had been in the synagogue. Jesus had made real what they'd been reciting for the last hundred or a thousand years. That when he is come, the eyes of the blind shall be open, and the ears of the deaf unstopped, and the lame shall leap as a heart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. And Jesus was doing that every day, and he astounded the people, and he terrified the priests that were there doing nothing but mumbling. Why? They'd been after Jesus from the very time that they said that there's a rival king. His name is Jesus. We'll be celebrating it before long. Except we celebrate it wrong. You see three wise men kneeling in a manger, and they never were in the manger anyhow. The Bible says so. They didn't go to see the babe, they went to see a young child. But again, Jerusalem was troubled by Jesus. He was a thorn in their flesh. But this man managed to get him, corralled him as it were, and he was coming to dinner. And I'm sure the man had a problem. I'm sure he kind of, you know, he made a list of guests, then he crossed somebody's name out and put somebody else's name in. And when he got the right folk on the list, he got the right food. I don't think he served him hamburgers and potato chips. Would you if the president of the United States was coming? Well, maybe you would. But anyhow, normally you make a banquet. And I suggest to you this man spent everything he had, and he put a banquet fit for a king. And after he got the right folk and the right food, he got the right flowers to give it an aesthetic atmosphere. And then he spent almost a sleepless night. Oh, they're all coming in the morning. The millionaires coming, the mayor of the city, the greatest merchant, and all the famous people. And people are going to be staring out of the windows watching, everybody come to my house. And he persuaded himself beyond any argument that this was going to be a day that he would never, never want to forget. And it became a day that he never, never wanted to remember. Did you ever have a day like that? You know, as soon as you got out of bed, you trot on the cat or something, and oh boy, that's trouble. And everything went wrong. Your mother-in-law came, and all the other tribulations that you can have. You know, one thing after another came, and he said, you know what, people are going to leave this banquet talking about my generosity. And they left it talking about his stupidity, because nothing went right. Oh sure, he was, when the servant said, your excellency, see who's coming down the road. Not in a Cadillac or a Porsche, you know. He was coming in a lovely chariot drawn by a couple of nice black horses, and driven by a couple of Nubian slaves. And man, he was excited. Look who's coming into my house. Boy, I'll put a label on the chair where he sat. I went into one of those nice restaurants, where was it, McDonald's or somewhere, but, and they stuck on the back of the chair, Robert Goulet sat here. I nearly pulled it off and wrote Leonard Reynolds at it. But anyhow, what an honor to sit where an opera singer has been sitting. This man said, these chairs, they'll be kind of sacrosanct after this. I'll say, well, do you know who sat there? You knew sat here, and you knew sat somewhere else. And when the man came in, he did the oriental thing. He kissed him on one cheek, and then in the other, and pointed, and a a servant, because they wore no hose, and you got a lot of grip between your toes, and so they washed their feet after they kissed them. And this parade went on for a while. And then as he, somebody excitedly said, oh, your excellency, look who's coming now. And he rushed to the door. Somebody passed him, but he didn't bother, because he never came on a horse and a chariot, you see. And then a man said, sir, he said, no, no, there's a celebrity coming out. But sir, this is very, very urgent. What's wrong? You're burning the food. No, you know that woman that lives in the city. Well, why bring that up right here? If she comes, turn the dogs on her. Do you think I'd bring a woman like that with such a reputation? He said, your excellency, she's already here. Where? She's in the kitchen. A friend of mine went to the dedication and the almost exaltation of a young preacher. He graduated with honors, and he was to be ordained in one of the established churches, and he had his clerical attire and all the rest of it. And his grandmother was there, you know, weeping. She put him through college. And the other relatives were there, and it was, oh, it was very stiff and formal. Our son, they've already said that he has the potential to be a bishop, maybe the archbishop of Canterbury. And he'd already got the arch. But they said, he's got a lot of potential. And my friend had to preach the, I don't know what he called the service there, but it was a kind of a charge they were giving to the preacher. And do you know what he did? Instead of exalting him, do you know what he did? He said, you today have become a slave of people. Your job is to be their servant and do the most menial task. Not just guide the traffic in the pulpit. You're to bear their sorrows, and you're to go sit with them in their misery, and you have to wash their feet. He's speaking metaphorically there. A hymn writer says of Jesus, a servant's form he wore, and in his body bore our dreadful curse on Calvary. That's why he came. He's the only man that came into the world with an ambition to die. And here is a man who has in his presence the most amazing man that ever lived. He was the greatest preacher that ever preached, because he preached the most perfect sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, which we still can't digest. He had somebody who pre-existed before time ever was, and will last for billions and trillions of years as we count time, but eternity is timeless. And he had the Son of God there at his table to eat, and he never recognized him. And as sure as God is in heaven, some of you will leave this meeting this morning and won't recognize he's here either. He guarantees his presence. His presence makes the feasts. And Jesus goes and looks, and this fellow goes and looks, Simon. He says, in our language, I blew it. I blew it. He's no prophet. If he really were a prophet, he'd know what manner of woman this is. She is a sinner. And you know, Jesus knew what he in that man's mind. And you know what? He knows every thought in your mind this morning. There's not one thing you've hidden. There's not a sin you've ever done. You've forgotten it. You've smeared it over. You've erased it from your mind. And God Almighty knows every sin you ever committed. You say, I got away with it. No, you didn't. Payday someday. That woman's a sinner. She's ruined so many people. And Jesus looked at him and said, Simon, I know what you're thinking. Let me tell you something. There were two men, and there were two men in debt to the same man. One in debt for 500 pence, and the other just for 50. And the man was in a good frame of mind, and he says, well, I want to tell you something. I may surprise you, but you don't owe me 50 dollars anymore. And you don't owe me 500. You're forgiven. Which of them would love him most? Well, you don't need a course in philosophy to find the answer to that, do you? Why, man, I had a millstone around my neck. You mean that I'm not drowning in debt anymore? No, you're not drowning in debt anymore. It's all forgiven. Oh, you're the greatest guy. I remember you as long as I live. I remember the chair I was sitting on when I got rid of my debts. You know, when people say sometimes, you see how you're saved, they say, I don't really know. Well, if you don't, I do, you're not. Somebody once said to a friend of mine, you can't even prove you're alive. He said, you keep your nose there a minute, and I'll show you whether I am or not. So the man took his nose away. Are you suggesting a man carrying 120 pounds on his back, his back's nearly breaking, that somebody lifts it up and somebody says, have you lost your bird? And he says, I don't know. Let me see. Oh, it's gone. I didn't even notice it. Well, isn't sin a debt? Isn't something that wakes you up in the night sometimes? Aren't the times when you feel, oh God, if somebody could get the record of my life, I'd want to jump down a sewer or something. Sure, the Lord has got an account of all of us. I entered into thine house, thou gave us me no water, thou gave us me no oil, thou gave us me no kiss, but this woman, she's not ceased to do this. You see, what I like about this thing is this, you know, that this, this thing that she did was unprecedented, but it wasn't unpremeditated. Are you going to suggest she went and gate crashed a stag party? You could have seen a heart going like that as she stood at the door. They may turn the dogs on me. They may kick me out. Now, why in the world did she go? It took me 50 years to find out. I'll tell you why she went. She didn't just go there to pay homage to a man who'd been doing so much good, blessing everybody, healing everybody, knocking lunatic minds straight and driving the devil out of people and giving blind eyesight and unplugging deaf ears and cleansing lepers. Why did she go? She went to worship him. How do you know? Because she never said a word to him, that's why. And secondly, she took the most precious thing that she owned and gave it to a frankincense and myrrh to him. You bring him the gold of pure adoration. You give him the wine, as it were, of your love. What did you bring Jesus this morning? 10 bucks for the offering? Did you come loaded with thanksgiving? Oh, I can't prove this, but I have an idea that logically it's true that one day Charles Wesley had considered this and he wrote one of his lovely hymns. He wrote over 3,000 of them. And the hymn he wrote was this, Oh, let me kiss thy bleeding feet and bathe and wash them with my tears. The story of thy love repeat in every drooping sinner's ears that all mankind with me may prove thy sovereign everlasting love. This woman says, I know what the custom is. The custom is to get a basin and wash his feet. I won't wash those sacred feet with water. I'll wash them with my tears. I won't even buy an expensive towel to dry his feet. I'll pull the pins of my hair out and I'll dry his feet with the hairs of my head. I won't buy that cheap oil that you usually use for anointing. I'll give him the most precious thing that I have. She washed his feet and she wiped them with the hairs of her head. And Jesus enjoyed every minute of it. And within a few days he was hanging on a cross and everybody was weeping except one woman. And it wasn't the mother of Jesus. It's the woman who said those feet with a nail and the blood running out, I had them in my hands the other day. I washed them with my tears. I poured out my life savings on him. And I took my hair, which is a woman's crown of glory, it says. Some of you have lost it, but a woman's hair is her glory. My thanks to Jesus. All the disciples criticize. They criticize you whatever you do. If you don't want to do anything, if you don't want criticizing, do nothing. Then you'll be criticized for doing nothing. What extravagant love! She washed his feet not with water, but she washed them with tears. She dried them not with a towel, but with the hair of her head. She poured on his feet not cheap oil, but the most expensive thing that she had. And then she took the hair of her head again and wiped his feet with the hair of her head. Well, what happened? The fragrance she poured out on him came back on her. And wherever she went, people said, I never smelled a fragrance like that. I was preaching in Windsor, Ontario, a few years ago. Thirty-two churches joined together. Not one of them invited me back after, but we had quite a good week. At least I did. They didn't, I did. And on the Monday night, I preached on Elijah. And afterwards, we just sang a hymn. A little guy ran on the platform. He was a handsome little fellow. He had a, you know, he was a kind of a straw blonde. He wasn't, you know, these, some of these blondes you see, you know, it's, that's what you call suicide blonde, dyed with their own hand. But anyhow, he was a natural honey blonde, and his hair was parted in the center, and he had bright blue eyes, and he said, could I speak to you? And I said, sure, what do you want to say? He said, I said, first of all, how old are you? He said, 11 years of age. I said, fine. I was once 11, a century or so back, but you're 11. Well, what do you want to tell me? He said, I've just read your book, Why Revival Taris. It's a great book. Then I knew, of course, he was intelligent. And he said, I'm reading your other book now, Meat for Men. Would you autograph my book? Oh, I said, sure, sure, sure. I'd be very happy to do it. So I autographed the book. I said, would you do something for me? He said, yes, sir, I would. I said, would you autograph mine? A little boy, 11 years of age, waded through. Why, that book's made preachers mad. Preacher called me not long ago, and he said, I'm in a fashionable church. I've got everything, marvelous mansion. I got provided with automobiles, and oh, I live in luxury. And somebody gave me a book, Why Revival Taris, and I read the third chapter and said, get out of here. And in my office, he said, I have maybe thousands of books, and my shelves reach about, well, the bookcases reach about seven feet up. And he said, I threw the book, get out of here, and it went down the back of the great big bookcase. And he said, for three years, we had a lot of fun in the church, and then we really hit trouble. And he said, I was crouched on the floor weeping, and oh, I said, God, I need an answer. And he said, the Lord said, the answer's behind the bookcase. So he had to get the bookcase loose from the wall, he had to take hundreds of volumes out, put them on the floor, get somebody to help him yank the thing out, and then he found the book, then he put the shelves back, and then he put the books back. See, it costs you a lot when you fool with my books. But anyhow, then he read the book. Oh, he said it was shattering. And here's an 11-year-old boy, enjoyed the book. And so I signed the book off, he went, the lady came up, blonde, beautiful, you know, smiling, and lovely hair, and oh, just a doll of a woman. And she said, that little boy that came up, I said, he's your boy. How did you know? Oh, I got pretty good eyes. I mean, he's a carbon copy of his mother, he's got your lovely teeth, he's got your rosy cheeks, he's got your blue eyes, he's got your blonde hair. Who did I think he was, Julius Caesar? Sure, he's your little boy. She said, he's a lovely little guy. Oh, he loves the Lord and he prays. She said, I'd like to talk, but I have to go. Would you come to my house? I said, sure. When? Tomorrow. What time is your husband home? Three o'clock, I'll be there at 3.15. I went. Oh, where do you live? It's always good to know that. As the Irishman said, don't bother about the address, just come. Well, I said, where do you live? And she said, two blocks away from the church. What? I didn't say two blocks away from the church, downtown Windsor, can't be much of a house. And it sure wasn't. I knocked at the door and she said, oh, come in. My husband's just drying off, he's been shaving. Come in, Brother Abel, nice to see you. And I walked in and I looked round quickly like that. But boy, you know, women are quick sometimes and not all slow. And she beat me to it. And she said, it's not much of a house, is it? I said, no. Don't think I give you five dollars for everything in it. No, that's right, she said. It's not much of a house. But it's a beautiful home. Never go down the street and see a guy advertising in the newspaper outside, homes for sale. You can't sell a home any more than you can sell a rainstorm. You can sell a house. You make it a home, or not a home. And the husband came out. Hey, my wife told you about your message last night. Good, we sat down. And I said, you've got a marvelous boy. How many do you have? She said, six. That's a load. She said, every night when supper's over, we put all the dishes in the sink. And Daddy takes the Bible and we have a whole hour of Bible study. And then I take one of the children in the room by itself and give them, that child, another hour. Wait a minute, I said, don't the children rebel? Yeah, they do. They rebel if Daddy stops at ten minutes to seven, they say, you're shortchanging us. I said, but really, isn't there any turmoil in the house? No. You said, do you know who's the cause of turmoil? No, me usually. I get up late and I'm fussing and I have to get the children off to school and one upsets his milk and the other fellow forgot the party and something else happened, you know. But I solved it. You see, this house starts moving just after six in the morning, so I'm up at five and I get still with God. Oh, I sang it thousands of times, but I started doing it. Take time to be holy, speak off with thy Lord. And she said, you know, by the time the children start squawking and coming, she says, I'm in peace and quietness and I live in serenity. Now, my Daddy was a hellfire preacher. He sure preached. Believed in the laying on of hands and boy, did it hurt. And, you know, I was far more impressed by my mother's saintliness than my Daddy's preaching, though he's a great guy. The lady said, if I want to impress these children, it's no good saying, read that text and do this and do something else. If they don't see the fragrance of Jesus in me, take the texts off the wall and stop hammering scriptures into them. I want them to see the beauty of Jesus Christ in their mother. And this woman poured ointment and it came back onto her head and therefore she was fragrant wherever she went. What you give out, you get back. Frieda Hanbury Allen wrote a hymn years ago. I don't memorize it all. Most of it I've got. She wrote this, within the veil, that's when you're in your closet in prayer or in your closet in adoration to the Lord. Within the veil be this beloved thy portion, within the secret of thy Lord to dwell, beholding him until thy face, your face, his glory, thy life, his 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, without the veil that fragrance shed abroad. Within the veil by his hand shall tune the music which sounds on earth the praises of thy God. Within the veil thy spirit deeply anchors, anchored thou walkest calm above a world of strife. Within the veil thy soul with him united shall live on earth the resurrection life. Again I say this woman came, she brought her alabaster box of ointment. She wasn't following somebody else's pattern, she just brought that ointment and and put it there on his feet. And what happened to the gift? First of all he recognized it, secondly he received it, and thirdly he rewarded it. He said wherever the bible is printed men will talk right to the end of the age. They'll talk about the woman who came with this gift and did this very beautiful act of adoration. Again there's nothing in the story that ever says that she said a word to Jesus. It was speechless adoration. She kissed his feet and she washed his feet with her tears and she wiped his feet with the hairs of her head. And very shortly after again Jesus was crucified. Simon forgot to do it. He forgot the common courtesies of life is the way of life, that when a person came in you washed their feet and you kissed them and showed that you had some affection for them. And this man forgot to do the decent thing. Do you know how many millions of people have not had any food in the world this week? Hmm? How many times have you thanked God? Or did you just thank him at home? You go in a restaurant and it's convenient to wear glasses in the restaurant isn't it? You know you see somebody go like this. That was when they were saying grace. One of the most famous of modern hymn writers was in a restaurant in California, one of these swell places. I wasn't there, my friend wasn't there, but his friend was there and this famous man did this. He took his glasses off, wiped his eyes and my friend's friend said, why don't we say grace? I just said it. You did? When? Just now? Oh I thought you were wiping your eyes. Well then he said, you say it. I said, all right, all right. Heavenly Father, shut up, we're in a restaurant, he said. Oh you may not have to say it that way on your knees and tell everybody there, somebody might think you're a pharisee. But on the other hand, are you ashamed to do it? You know in the office with that smart crowd that live like the devil. They couldn't get a house next to a hog if the hogs knew how they lived. And you're afraid to honor Jesus by saying your grace in the office or before the office staff or read the Word of God at lunchtime while they're reading Playboy or something and you come in here and sing, my Jesus, I love thee, who are you fooling? Not God. I entered into thine house. Thou gave us me no water. Thou gave us me no oil. Thou gave us me no kiss. But this woman, she's got a fever of excitement. She's got a fever of joy. Here he is, the greatest man in the world. And I'm privileged to bring a gift. Now you'll have to put all the four stories together to get a lot of wealth out of them. You see, it says that this woman bought an alabaster box of ointment and it weighed only a pound. Does that make any difference? Yes, it does. I'm very glad that that's mentioned. Why? Well, you see, a little while after the cross, there were two men going up a hill and they were carrying over a hundred pounds of the same stuff on their backs. It was worth maybe, somebody said, over a million dollars and they were taking it to embalm the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that same stuff was given to Jesus when he was in a cradle. They presented gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But Jesus was too young to take any notice of that. And now he's on a cross and he's died and he's lying in a tomb and they're going to embalm him. And a man brings him a gift of a million dollars and he doesn't see that. So a smart American said, do your giving while you're living, then you're knowing where it's going. That may not be quite Shakespeare, but it's pretty good anyhow. Oh, I've got my will all settled, you know, but my relatives aren't going to get my money to gamble and go to Las Vegas and, you know, drink and all the rest of it. I'm going to give it all to missions. Are you really? Billy Graham tells a story of a, you know, they all like to tell these Texan stories. This Texan died and instead of having a plastic coffin or an aluminum coffin or a steel coffin, he had one of gold, pure gold. As they lured him in the grave, one of his servants said, boy, that's living. But anyhow, there's a scripture that says something about, what is it? The Lord loveth what? A wealthy giver? Is that it? What's it say? A what? Oh, a cheerful giver. Oh, well, here's a guy in his casket and he's left ten million dollars to missions. Now, just before we drop the lid, I want you to come and look at him. He's given ten million dollars to missions. At least he's left it in his will. Now, come and look at him. He's a cheerful giver? He doesn't look too cheerful to me. No, he didn't give it. He'd still have it if he was living today. Death snatched it away from him. And you know what I believe? I believe that if you leave ten million dollars to missions, that God won't give you ten cents for it when you get to heaven. Because you didn't give it, you surrendered it. Oh, it's very easy to say poetically, only one life will soon be passed and only what's done for God will last. But the poet wrote a bit more than that. He wrote this, and when I am dying, how glad I shall be, if the lamp of my life has been burned out for thee. The man of God looked on and he says, wherefore this waste? You could use this stuff, sell it, and give the money to the poor. Not because he cared for the poor, but he felt embarrassed that a strange woman did what he should have done as a disciple. Are you asking why this woman is doing this? Because she loved much. I spent two years almost with Dave Wilkerson in New York. One morning I went in to Tate Chapel, and a little Puerto Rican fellow there, ah, brother Ravenhill come, didn't speak too good English, brother Ravenhill come, he take the class this morning, how nice. Let's stand up and all sing our national anthem. National anthem my foot. That's not the way to start a gospel service, with a national anthem. But you see, I got it, and I didn't notice too carefully. You know, sometimes you say what you thought the preacher said. And sometimes you interpret something that wasn't meant. When I was a little boy, I was thin-shouldered, big head, and the kids used to call me big head. And one day they ganged up on me. Boy, did they give me a bad time. They followed me down the street saying, big head, big head, big head, big head, you know. Oh, I went in the house so joyful. I folded up in a chair and my mother said, what's wrong? Aren't you playing soccer today? It's a nice day. I was only about seven or eight. I said, it's those boys. They followed me home again, mother. And they were all saying, big head, big head. Oh Len, take no notice. She said, there's nothing in it. She didn't help me very much. You see, I thought she meant there was nothing between my ears, but she meant there's nothing in my- and you know, we get hold of truth like that, I think we do, when somebody's preaching. Get it backwards way. Let's go back to the woman. This woman- let me go back to my story. This boy did not say, our national- the national anthem. He said, our national anthem. And this side, there must have been about 60 girls. They've been in prostitution, not gutter girls. Hollywood, sleeping with guys and getting a fortune for the weekend. The boys had been in every kind of thing from murdering folk when they were eight years of age, to a double murder when they were 12. They'd had prison sentences. They'd raped. They'd done every blessed, rotten thing you could imagine. And this little man stood up and he said, now we sing our national anthem. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Well, I've heard that thing sung, I think in Australia and New Zealand. And I don't know where I haven't heard it sung, but nobody ever sang it like those guys sang it. In the end, the little fellow said, we sing the last verse again. When we've been there 10,000 years, let's make it 100,000. I thought, why don't you make it 10 billion? It's just the same. Why were they singing it with tears running down? Because they remember the horrible pit from which they've been lifted. But you say, I was never in a horrible pit. Well, I've got news for you. You've got one coming up if you don't repent. They got out of their horrible pit. You'll never get out of that. You say, oh, I can't die. I can't do with unclean people. Well, listen, you're going to live for all eternity with prostitutes and harlots and wicked criminals and the most diabolical men, Jack the Ripper and Al Capone and all the rest. You'll have their company forever and ever. So you better enjoy life right here because once the thread of your life snaps, it's doomsday forever and ever and ever. Do you remember that statement by Henley? Oh, Henley, the German poet, when he said, out of the night that troubles me, black of the pit from pole to pole, I thank God for my unconquerable soul. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll. I'm the master of my fate. I'm the captain of my soul. Exactly. The deacons aren't waiting with the two before to clobber you and ask you if you're saved and if you're not, drag you back to the other. You have a free will. You can reject God. You come here and pay your little tithe Sunday morning and give him a bit of money and feel you've paid your duties and you won't need God maybe till next Sunday morning. Amen. And don't preach too long because the Cowboys are playing this afternoon. Come on, who's your idol? A woman walked out of a church I was preaching in. Every time the clock got to, say, eight o'clock at night because the service should be over at eight. Twelve o'clock Sunday morning. And I said to the preacher, what's wrong with her? She can't stand being in church an hour. She got up the second Sunday morning, was going out and said, excuse me lady, where are you going? Yeah, five minutes past twelve and you walk out of God's house. Listen, if you can't stand my presence for an hour, how are you going to stand eternity? In holiness, before the blazing majesty of God. If you get weary of heaven and worshipping him, what are you, where are you going to walk? To hell? It's the only alternative. There's no no man's land between heaven and hell, by me between heaven and hell. I am the captain of my soul, sure I am. Your destiny is in your own hand. You'll sign your own death certificate. Isn't that an amazing thing? As I said last night, Jesus did not come into the world just to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live. And there are some men with colossal intellects that are guys that got our things up on the moon and got this Jupiter thing that's gone one billion miles into space without a collision. Isn't that wonderful? It missed more than three or more than ten thousand pieces of hardware are floating up there and it managed to get through without hitting one of them. And that's the genius of man. And he hasn't the sense to ask himself. As I said last night, the government will give you a million dollars to help to find out where man came from. Just get some cronies and go down to Oxyrhynchus or somewhere on the Nile and start digging and the government will give you a bonus and Time magazine will write you up. And the government spends millions of dollars finding whether we came from monkeys or what we came from. They won't give you a red dollar to tell the world or a dollar to tell the world where it's going to. Supposing, for instance, it doesn't matter though I'm sure we didn't come from monkeys. Monkeys are far better behaved than we are. Monkeys don't get drunk. Monkeys don't take dope. They don't have any divorce courts. Did you know that? And they don't go to war every 25 years. And they haven't learned how to barbecue a whole city like we have. I read to you some of you the other night a statement, statement not by preachers but by some of the modern writers. And they're pretty, I think at least, they're pretty devastating. Here's a word from Carl Jung. It is becoming more and more obvious that it is not starvation or microbes or cancer but man himself who is the greatest danger to mankind. That's not a preacher. That's just an intellectual. Anthony Storr says in his book Human Aggression, we are the cruelest, most ruthless species that has ever walked the earth. Paul Torniel says the dance of death goes round and round us endlessly. And somebody whose name I don't know says we moderns live in a theater of the absurd. Every intelligent general in the American army with about the exception of one says we haven't a hopeless chance against Russia if she turns her arsenal on us. Isn't it wonderful that most of those men don't believe in hell? You mean hell? They don't have to. They've created one. I was in Japan. Go look at, go look at Hiroshima, Hiroshima. We liquidated a hundred thousand people that are still there, people whose eyes are almost closed and their mouths, you couldn't get a pencil in their mouths if you tried hardly because they got the fallout from that devilish bomb on the sixth, what was it, 6th of August 1945. And yet you dare to live without a consciousness of God? Come on, when did you last bring him a gift of adoration and worship and thanksgiving? I'm going to finish this message tonight, not this morning. You see, we have taught people to, to, to, to, we've taught people to some degree to pray in our churches or at least we've taught them to work, go knock on doors and we've taught them to witness but we sure haven't taught them how to worship. As the woman said, you talk to us about vocal prayer, vocal praise, speechless adoration. You know, the strange thing about this story, there are many, but one strange thing about it is that I have no proof that Jesus ever took a bite of food at this banquet. I can imagine this man almost saying, but Jesus, look, I want you to see it this way. I, I tried about 40 years to get God to see things my way and he never would, so I gave up. Do you know this banquet has cost me? No. Jesus didn't want food. After all, the devil's no fool. He, he, he wouldn't say to Jesus, now, now you turn those stones into bread if Jesus couldn't have done it. He didn't turn stones into bread, I think he did. Oh, not on that occasion, I think he did it on the resurrection morning when he said to those disciples, hey, come and dine, the master calleth, come and dine. And they met their heart's desire, bread and fish upon the fire. Are you suggesting, because it was dawn, maybe two, three o'clock in the morning, are you suggesting Jesus went to knock the baker up and said, hey, give me some bread in a hurry, I've got to feed my boys. Do you think he whistled to somebody on the lake, have you got any fish? Just give me one, I want to feed my boys for breakfast. I think the Jesus who said, look, you catch that fish and you'll find your income tax money. Boy, I wish I could fish like that, but anyhow. You remember he fished and he found money in the mouth of the fish that paid his taxes. I think Jesus, because he gave dominion to Adam over everything that was living, he said to that fish, you come here, and he picked it up. And he took those pebbles on the beach and said, become bread, and they did. Then he said to the devil, I'll do it when I want, not when you want, that's victory. You can never do the wrong thing at the right time, but you can do the right thing sometimes at the wrong time. I don't know he ever drank a thing, I don't know that he ever ate a piece of bread. The banquet's over, the guest is disappointed, the man is disillusioned. And his friends say, well, why doesn't he come out of the kitchen, what's happening there? And they go and peep, and there's a woman and she's washing his feet, and Jesus is in ecstasy about it. Somebody at last has learned to worship him and bring him a gift. And you find this woman falling at his feet. You know, in some churches they've had a way for a year or two. Well, I was out west preaching and a man said, I'd like to come to a meeting tonight, but I can't. I'm going with a friend of mine, he's guaranteed if I go with a meeting, his meeting tonight, I'll get the gift of falling backwards. I said, that's in what, 1 Corinthians 12? What? Well, isn't it in the scripture? No, no, no, but there's a lot of people, and they fall backwards. I think they used to call it backsliding in my day, but anyhow, they're falling backwards. But I said, everybody in scripture falls forward. They fall on their faces and worship him. No, I don't find Jesus taking any food, he didn't need that. You gave your gift, I'm glad you did. Maybe we can use it for missions. Maybe you say, I can't give as much. Oh, inflation's hard. Well, cost of living goes up 12% next year. If you're going to buy anything, buy it.