Evening, November 29
Go To Morning Reading
“Spices for anointing oil.”
Exodus 35:8
Much use was made of this anointing oil under the law, and that which
it represents is of primary importance under the gospel. The Holy
Spirit, who anoints us for all holy service, is indispensable to us
if we would serve the Lord acceptably. Without his aid our religious
services are but a vain oblation, and our inward experience is a dead
thing. Whenever our ministry is without unction, what miserable stuff
it becomes! nor are the prayers, praises, meditations, and efforts
of private Christians one jot superior. A holy anointing is the soul
and life of piety, its absence the most grievous of all calamities.
To go before the Lord without anointing is as though some common Levite
had thrust himself into the priest’s office—his ministrations would rather have been sins than services. May we
never venture upon hallowed exercises without sacred anointings. They
drop upon us from our glorious Head; from his anointing we who are
as the skirts of his garments partake of a plenteous unction. Choice
spices were compounded with rarest art of the apothecary to form the
anointing oil, to show forth to us how rich are all the influences
of the Holy Spirit. All good things are found in the divine Comforter.
Matchless consolation, infallible instruction, immortal quickening,
spiritual energy, and divine sanctification all lie compounded with
other excellencies in that sacred eye-salve, the heavenly anointing
oil of the Holy Spirit. It imparts a delightful fragrance to the character
and person of the man upon whom it is poured. Nothing like it can
be found in all the treasuries of the rich, or the secrets of the
wise. It is not to be imitated. It comes alone from God, and it is
freely given, through Jesus Christ, to every waiting soul. Let us
seek it, for we may have it, may have it this very evening. O Lord,
anoint thy servants.