Morning and Evening

November 29, Evening

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Spices for anointing oil." — Exodus 35:8 · KJV

Much use was made of this anointing oil under the law, and what 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 offering, and our inward experience 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 is 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 have been sins rather than services. May we never venture on hallowed exercises without sacred anointings. They drop on us from our glorious Head; from His anointing, we who are as the skirts of His garment partake of a plenteous unction. Choice spices were compounded with the rarest art of the perfumer to form the anointing oil, to show 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 on 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 from God alone, and 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 Your servants.

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