God's Work in the Darkness — Leonard Ravenhill

The Holy Anointing Oil and Priestly Consecration

OK, we'll look in the book, Exodus chapter 31, Exodus 31, verse 30 says thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. Verse 22 says moreover the Lord said unto Moses, take thou also unto thee principal spices of pure myrrh, five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon.

And then it goes on to Calamus, and verse 24, Cassia, and in verse 25 thou shalt make it an oil of the holy anointing. Anointment compound after the art of the apothecary, it shall be a holy anointing oil, and thou shalt anoint the tabernacle of the congregation therewith, and the ark of the testimony.

I'm sorry, chapter 30. Now after this, this is the anointing ointment that has to be put on the inanimate things, the furniture in the tabernacle, and then also on the general congregation. And then there's a changeover when we come down to, let me read verse 30 again, sorry.

And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, This shall be a holy anointing oil unto me throughout your generations.

Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured, neither shall ye make any other like it, after the holy composition of it. It is holy, and it shall be holy unto you. Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or whosoever putteth it upon a stranger, shall even be cut off from his people.

The Lord said unto Moses, Take unto these sweet spices, these are strange names, stacty, onica, and galbanum, these sweet spices with pure frankincense, and each shall be like weight. And thou shalt make it a perfume of confection, after the art of the apothecary, tempered together pure and holy.

And thou shalt beat some of it that is small, and put some of it before the testimony of the tabernacle of the congregation. I was reminded of this today for a number of reasons. I believe it is in the fourth chapter of Luke, you remember there that Jesus had gone through the forty days of temptation and trial.

The Anointing of Jesus and the Spirit-Filled Life

Then he went to the temple, and he read, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me. I don't believe he would have gone through that temptation without that anointing. And it says he returned from the trial of forty days full of the Holy Ghost, not exasperated, not fainting, not weak, he was as full when he came out of the battle as he was when he went into the battle.

And that's where God wants us to be. We say they were all be filled with the Spirit, but the scripture really says be being filled with the Spirit, it's a continuous inflow that there may be an overflow and an outflow.

You know these two anointings are very different again. Sometimes read the constitution of the first one I read, it's ingredients are very different from the ingredients of the second one. In these days there's such fantastic research, I read recently there are no less than sixteen million perfumes in the world that have been identified.

We were in Neiman Markets just before Christmas, a lady passed me and she had them all on. When she went past it was swish, could hardly breathe I thought. She didn't get any came out I'm sure. What a perfume, it was gorgeous.

Sixteen million, can you imagine that? And they have all been identified. And one of them is so pungent that it's as little as one five hundredth part of a milligram. Have you got that? Doctor will understand that.

One five hundredth part of a milligram can fill fifty cubic feet of air until it's almost unbearable to breathe it. Well the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Jesus said, because he hath anointed me. You know I've come to this conclusion, I've got some preacher friends here tonight, that preaching without anointing isn't preaching, it's lecturing.

If Jesus didn't preach without anointing, how in the world did I preach without anointing? This ointment could never be purchased, it could never be imitated. But let's take it down bit by bit here. Notice it says, upon man's flesh shall it not be poured.

Holiness, the Mercy Seat, and the True Altar

Do you remember what it says in Psalm 133? It says the anointing was put on the head of a priest like it was on the head of Aaron, and it says it ran down his head and down his beard, and on to his clothes, and on to his forehead.

It never touched his flesh. God never anoints flesh. The oil on his head, the oil on his beard, the oil on his body, but never on his flesh. Not on his cheeks, but on his hands. Upon man's flesh it shall not be poured, verse 32, neither shall he make any other like it, after the competition of it.

It is holy and shall be holy unto the Lord. There can be no imitation. In Leviticus 10 God says you can't offer strange fire, or imitation fire. In Exodus 20 he says you can't offer strange altar. It must all be according to the word of the living God, the measurements.

You see the first thing in that beautiful tabernacle, the measurements that were given, were given about the mercy seat. We talk about coming to the altar. In 1856 when William Booth founded the Salvation Army, he never used the term altar.

He used to say, come to the mercy seat. They used to sing a song. Come ye disconsolate where 'er ye languish. Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel. Here bring you wounded heart. Here tell your anguish.

Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal. And you never went to that altar for two minutes. You didn't go, today we've prostituted the altar. Come if you don't feel well. Come if you're frightened of living tomorrow.

Forget it. The altar's for two things, all I know of. One is death and the other is sacrifice. And when he came to the altar there, immediately he knelt down. The Salvation Army lassie would put her arm round the girl that was there.

The Salvation Army soldier would put his arm round the fellow. And they would read scriptures and take them step by step by step. You know, I've come to the altar with 50 years of sin and it takes 50 seconds to get rid of it.

The least emphasized aspect of the Holy Spirit's work today is conviction of sin. I'm going to preach to a thousand preachers and what not soon. I'm going to tell them. I believe the biggest enemy to revival in America today is evangelism.

Conviction, Prevenient Grace, and Genuine Conversion

We've prostituted the altar. There is no man on TV preaching, or radio hardly, preaching salvation. They're preaching other things. There isn't time. You'd have to go, first of all you begin with something that preachers don't know much about anymore.

Don't check on these boys here, they're smart. Prevenient grace. When God started working in your life, before ever you were born again of the Spirit of God. Somewhere he intercepted you when you were going to step over the brink and go to hell and he just came in like that.

Somebody else got killed in a car crash, you missed it. That's prevenient grace. It's God mercy when I, as a hymn writer said, I had long withstood his grace, long provoked him to his face, would not hearken to his call, grieved him by a thousand for...

Has anybody here came to Christ the first time you heard the gospel? I've never heard of that except in heathen countries. Isn't it amazing how God watches, prostitutes our bodies? By that I mean waste our time, waste our efforts, waste our brains and he doesn't interfere.

But there's been a cut off in our lives and we don't realize that. No strange fire on the altar, no strange altars. The altar calls have got weird. I, I, I'm almost ready to vomit when I hear altar calls given these days.

People used to pray, stay at the altar till, in the old days. Brother Farrar remember this. He's getting on for 90, he's not there yet but he's getting up there. But no, I remember when you went to a meeting.

I preached one night, would you believe it? I'm sure you will. I preached 3 hours and 20 minutes on the judgment seat of Christ. When I went to breakfast next morning they said, you know, people were still at the altar at 2 o 'clock and 3 o 'clock.

They prayed through. They just let God work on them. We feel a little pang and think all the angels in heaven ought to come and heal us. There's no birth without trouble. In natural spiritual birth you have conception, birth, you have conception, gestation and birth.

Long Evangelistic Labor and the Cost of Revival

I don't know one top line evangelist tonight that's prepared to go to a city and stay there 5 or 6 weeks. Last year I got invitation to go preach a Jubilee service in a church I helped found 50 years ago.

And then another invitation to a church we found it 50 years ago. We went to a city with no money. We got a guy to lend us a tent. We had enough money to pay for it. We slept in the tent. We ate in the tent.

We did our cooking in a little bell tent outside. We prayed in the tent. We wept, we groaned, we traveled. We stayed there 8 weeks. Mr. Moody went to London and turned parts of London upside. What did he go for 6 days?

No sir, 6 months. He went to Scotland for 6 months. And there's a wonderful Bible school in Glasgow called the, what do you call it, BTI, Bible Training Institute. It came as a result of Mr. Moody being there for 6, 6 months.

They went to pull down strongholds. They didn't hit and miss evangelism. There is no scriptural foundation for a one night stand in any city. Now I'll get into trouble for saying that with the preachers but I'll say it.

They want quick results. Oh well do you know how busy I am? Well why are you telling me that Gabriel made your schedule and brought it down to you made the schedule? That's why you're busy. Don't blame the devil, he gets enough blame.

Darkness, Suffering, and the Formation of Anointed Character

Oh no, no, no, no. This anointing is the most precious thing on earth. It doesn't come by reason of age, it does come by reason of trial. What does it say? Okay. The Lord said unto Moses, take unto thee, take unto thee sweet spices.

Stacty, that's actually, stacty is actually a kind of a gum that comes out of a small scrubby tree but it has fierce thorns on it. The peculiarity about this thing is that the only, the gum is taken from it in the night time.

In the dark time. And not only is it taken out in the night time but the tree has to be, someone has to slit in it to make that gum come forth. In other words it's typical to me of the Lord Jesus because a tree with thorns, he went through the darkness of Gethsemane, he tasted all the bitterness, he tasted the anger of God because he says, it says in that prophetic psalm, all thy billows are gone over me.

And you see these things that make up this holy anointing oil, they're very costly, they're very rare. And if you're a candidate for the anointing of God then this somewhere will come in your life, there'll be darkness, there'll be woundings.

After all it wasn't one of the five hundred, Jesus was seen of five hundred brethren at once, it wasn't one of them that betrayed him, it was one of his closest friends that betrayed him. A man who had slept at the side of him, a man who had seen him raise the dead, a man who had seen him do miracles, and yet he could betray the Christ of God?

You see, what's hurting Jesus Christ today isn't the sin of the world so much as the sin of the church. Blair Pascoe was, I consider, maybe the most brilliant man that ever lived. By the time he was about twenty-five he exhausted all the sciences.

I could tell you some details I want. He was a genius in the scientific world, and one day he said, I've tried them all and there's nothing in them. And he turned to Christianity, which he said religion, or the Christian religion, the theology of the Christian religion is the queen of the sciences.

Well if that's true, and I believe it is, then holiness is the crown on the head of that queen. You see, Jesus is only coming for a holy church, he's not coming for a bag woman, he's coming for a church without spot, without wrinkle.

I've told you before how we went to the marriage of a millionaire's daughter. As she came down the aisle the Lord said to me, look at this girl, I looked at her, she was blushing and she had a gorgeous mantle of lace from Brussels.

He's inheriting millions of dollars we'd eaten in her home, her father's home, on the front of the sea, in a yacht there and everything. And I looked at that bride, and I said, oh the Lord simply whispered in my ear, look at the bride.

I've seen tall ones and small ones and fat ones and thin ones, rich ones and poor ones, wise and otherwise, but anyhow. Here's this charming young lady, and the Lord said, but you never seen a dirty bride.

Again, do you ever see a bride, I know these girls are fussy, I mean exciting, do you ever see a bride stand at the altar with curlers in her hair? Or mustard running around her dress, oh I was eating, George, I'm sorry George, I was eating a sandwich and the mustard ran out.

She's pure, Jesus is coming for a church, a pure church, and we're going to go through tribulation and trial to get there, individually. Again, there were ten virgins. Why didn't they all go into the marriage?

They're all pure, they weren't five harlots and five virgins, they were five, all pure. They had oil in their lamps, some of them, but not enough. And they shut the bridegroom wouldn't open the door, they rapped on the door, and he said, I don't know you.

I expect to see the dying thief of the marriage supper, I'm absolutely sure he won't be the bride, he won't be part of the bride. I'll tell you what, the bride does carry some lovely perfume, doesn't she?

And I believe this is typical of the adornment of the bride. But there's a first step, darkness, betrayal. Somebody stabbing you in the back, or somebody doing some cruel thing that's not legitimate to you.

What do we do when God starts to, we start crying, oh would you pray for me, I'm going through a rough time. The Lord says, listen, there'll be no perfume if you don't go through this thing. You go through it alone, you go through it in the darkness.

In other words, what God is doing, he's making character. I used to think God was going to capture all the big preachers, forget it gentlemen, you're not even big preachers, but anyhow, apart from that.

I love them, they know what I mean. But you see, I'm realizing now, a man may have an enormous ministry and be a dwarf, a moral dwarf, and a spiritual dwarf. So the first thing is stacte, that's taken from the tree in the night.

Anonica, what's that taken from? Well, the scholars disagree, but they do say it's taken from a shell, from the sea, or it's taken from the claw of something like a crab or something that's in the sea.

But the perfume will not come out until it dies. You see, I don't know what's wrong with my life. There's no perfume coming out of my life, well, die. A lady said a fabulous thing to me just a few days ago.

This lady said, when my mother comes in the room, I don't have to, she doesn't have to speak, I don't have to hear her steps. When my mother comes in, I know that for all the years I've known my mother, she always has the same fragrance.

Joy, Holiness, and the Fragrance of Christlike Character

When we were singing tonight, this wonderful hymn, Holy, Holy, Holy, I rejoice in the fact again that God is not capricious. He doesn't pull any tricks. All he's doing, whatever it is, it's as black as hell, and it seems all hell has a hand, that we sang tonight.

When through fiery trial thy pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not harm thee, I only design thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. The anonica comes only after death.

I was thinking today of a man I haven't thought of him for many years, but his name was Barclay. He was one of the family that owned Barclay's Bank in England, and there was an elegance about him, a distinction about him.

Even when he walked on the platform, he didn't seem to walk like other people. When he smiled, he had a different smile. When he spoke, he had a different accent. His whole attitude had a fragrance of beauty about it.

Some friends of mine were asked to go to his house for dinner, and they thought, oh, it's great. Then a Rolls-Royce pulled up, and they weren't so happy. There were no heaters in the cars in those days, and they sat in the car, and they had a chauffeur, and they had a footman.

And this man took out his, the chauffeur pulled up, and the footman got out, and he took a beautiful fur, and he threw it over the knees, over the legs of these people in the back of the car. They got to the mansion.

When they got there, the servants there had knee breeches and white stockings and black shoes with big silver buckles, and the whole house was, had decorum and dignity. He's a very wealthy man, a banker anyhow.

But, you know, he lived on that level not only socially, but he lived on that level spiritually. He was so gentle, he was so compassionate, he was so loving. You would think that everybody in the world existed except himself.

There was a grace about him. And you know that same thing is true of the Lord Jesus Christ, a consistent grace. They wondered at the words that proceeded out of his mouth. If you have a gracious spirit, if the death has happened in your life, or if God has applied, shall we say, here this stacty and this onyca, it will soon show up in your life and in mine.

He speaks here in the same verse, verse 34, about stacty, onyca, and galbanum. Now the first one is collected in the night, in the dark. Galbanum is another tree, but it exudes its best early in the morning, in the joy of the morning.

There's a scripture, I was looking for it, I don't know where it is. If it isn't there, it should be anyhow, but it is there somewhere. It says, nobody can go into the King's presence with a sad countenance.

That's something. It doesn't mean you can't go when you're sorrowful. It means you can't go in there with a depression. Why doesn't the scripture say, in his presence there is fullness of joy? And we mentioned that about eternity.

It doesn't mean that. If I live in his presence now, I have fullness of joy. That doesn't mean I'm always on top. Happiness. It's not happiness. Happiness depends on happenings. Joy is independent of happenings.

Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross. Tell me this, would you like, I don't know what age you are now, Mr. Farrar I know isn't 99 yet, but anyhow. Would you like it at your age? What are you, 22, 23?

If somebody said, look I've got a book here. It's a prophecy. And the man who wrote this prophecy has never been wrong. And it tells you what's going to happen in your life at 22, and then at 25, and then at 29, and then at 30, and then at 40.

And it's all getting worse and worse and worse and worse. And finally you're going to be humiliated, you're going to be dragged through a town, you're going to be nailed to a cross. How did Jesus read the book and continue the way that it is going?

For the joy that was set before him. I love the old hymn that says, go labor on, spend and be spent. Thy joy to do the master's will. It is the way the master went, should not the servant tread it. Come on, why in the world do I expect better treatment from this lousy world than Jesus had?

Are you super holy? Did you slip out of heaven when Gabriel wasn't looking and you're not normal? I know you're not normal, but apart from that. Could we maintain our dignity? Could we maintain our testimony?

Could we maintain our faith? There's a hymn that says, I know not what awaits me, God kindly veils mine eyes. I'd rather walk in the dark with God than walk alone in the light. Would I really? Or as another hymn says, hidden in the hollow of his blessed hand.

If I'm hidden in the hollow of his hand and he hides in the rock, what chance has the devil of getting to me? If I'm living in a place of obedience and submission to him, I should be able to defy the world, the flesh and the devil.

So you've got the stacte. You've got the onyca that comes from the fish or some creature of the sea. And they say they get it from the claws, the hardest part, but it's very pungent and galbanum that's collected in the morning.

So you see you've got darkness and you've got light. And sweet spices and pure frankincense. Now frankincense is mentioned no less than 17 times in the different ceremonies that Israel had. But you see it has this power.

It's the main one in all this collection of different things. It's the main, it's the most powerful of the perfumes. It actually ignites the other perfumes. As soon as they're touched with it, they develop a stronger perfume.

Remember that in case of Jesus they presented unto him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. It was given for royal people. You see this anointing, it says in verse 32, there shall be no other like it.

Let's just repeat it again. In verse 48, whosoever shall make like unto it, to smell thereof. There's no imitation, there can be no imitation. You can't have an imitation altar, you can't have an imitation fire, you can't have an imitation anointing.

Ordination, Spiritual Power, and the Necessity of Prayer

What do we do? The imitation we have is to give men ordination. But ordination and the holy anointing are a million miles apart. Sure I got ordination, I didn't have any more sense. My ordination is in the supreme court in England, it's as good as the Archbishop of Canterbury.

What good is it to me? Does it make me a better preacher? No it doesn't. You see we use so many substitutes for the anointing of God. Education, or inspiration, but not so. Organization. Personal talents.

I've said in one of my books we so often we mistake action for action. We mistake zeal for anointing. We mistake oratory for power. Or a meeting where there's noise. What a powerful meeting. Come on, that's not, that's not, that's not anointing.

The Spirit was upon him, anointed him. But look when you've got all these ingredients together they're difficult to get. You have to get up early in the morning to get one. You have to go through midnight to get the other one.

You have to go to the sea to get the other one. You have to pay an exorbitant price to get them. Then it says what? Verse 36, Thou shalt beat some of it that is small. Isn't that great? The Lord says I'll stop soon.

You say Lord it's getting, I mean I'm getting punched around, I'm going to be brought into bits. He says that's what I'm trying to get at. We say Lord take the pressure off. He says I can't. Not if I'm going to produce that perfume, I can't do that.

There's going to be a grinding, there's going to be a beating. To get all these things to gel together and become what they should really become. You see the Lord said he would meet with Aaron and his sons.

You find that if you read chapter 29 for instance. Or if you go back to 28. Make a mercy seat and there will I meet with thee. I was going to say I had a friend, I didn't have a friend. He's an acquaintance.

He lives in the Bahamas and he was called to the court in England to be knighted. Do you think he went in his suit and polished his shoes when he got to Buckingham Palace? Brother he was excited for three months he could hardly sleep.

He's going to kneel before the Queen, she puts a sword on one shoulder and takes it over like that and his name happened to be Leonard, it wasn't me. And she said rise Sir Leonard. And just that moving from there to there he becomes, he moves into a different realm entirely.

But he bought the most costly suit he could. He wore everything of the very finest, he was excited about it. He was thrilled to get even to Buckingham Palace, even to look at the palace. But when he got into the courtroom, saw the Queen on the throne, all the rest of it, my goodness, he forgot all about the way he'd been trained for that.

You know God demands that of us. We rush into God's presence sometimes and have to get down before we give him our shopping list. Lord I need this today and that and something else. How often do we fall in speechless adoration?

That's what worship is as far as I'm concerned, is speechless adoration. John fell at his feet just dead. Why? Dear God, he'd lived with Jesus for three years. He'd slept with Jesus, he'd eaten with Jesus.

And yet when he sees the glorified Christ of God, he falls dead, he's speechless. We need to learn more about that. It's a forgotten art. Worship is a forgotten art. And it is an art in the truest sense in the spiritual life.

But all these perfumes were on the Lord Jesus Christ. I read a thing about the Song of Solomon, I've been reading it lately and I like it. I read something that Spurgeon said the other day. He said some people read the Song of Solomon and say this is just Solomon and his bride.

He said well they're looking with one eye. And he said some say no it's Solomon and his bride and Jesus and his bride. And he said they're cross-eyed. But some see it's just the Lord Jesus Christ and his bride.

And he said they're seeing it with a single eye. But it's so majestic, the speech that comes from the bridegroom is beautiful. Precious words, precious truths come from him. There's a fragrance. Even unbelievers said no man ever spake like this man.

When he was anointed, the Lord Jesus was anointed. For what? For service? For suffering? I was reading Lamentations chapter 2 today. Pardon me, chapter 1. Lamentations of Jeremiah. Lamentations chapter 1.

Verse 18 says the Lord is righteous, I have rebelled against his commandment. Here I pray you all people and behold my sorrows. My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity. Verse 20, behold Lord, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled, my heart is turned within me.

I have grievously rebelled. Now if you go to chapter 2 and verse 11 you get something added to that. You know what I'm seeing here? This is a picture to me of an anointed man. He's not seeing with the natural eye, he's seeing with a divine eye.

His inward ear is open to the voice of God. His eye has been anointed with divine eyesalve. And he says in chapter 2 and verse, let's take verse 11, my eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured forth for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Well there you are. Here is a man who's internally torn up, let's put it that way. Unless he had an anointing from God he could never stand this. He's no longer thinking rationally, he's no longer thinking like other men think.

He's been brought into the very heart of God himself. And I don't see how a man can be brought into the heart of God and have the anointing of God without tears, without brokenness. We live in a broken world.

Marriages are broken, children are broken, minds are broken with drugs, bodies are broken with disease, bodies are broken with alcohol. We live in a broken world and there's nobody can heal it but God.

And his agency is the church of the living God and yet where are the servants? I don't see how a man can live and not weep, I couldn't anyhow. He sees the tragedy, he sees the brokenness, he sees the victory of the devil.

He says men and women taken captive at his will. We know once a man gets into that anointing, he gets into the place where the spirit of God has come and touched him. And he's not thinking like other men think, he's not acting like other men.

His values are all changed. I find it astounding. Why is Americus so dead tonight? You know, I think I've got a good sense of humor. But I think jokes are out of place in a funeral parlor. I heard recently one of the great advantages now in the church, we've got spirit-filled comedians.

They'll come to your church and they guarantee if they come people will roll on the floor, so then you've got your holy rollers, you see. They'll tell such funny, and they make it out of twisting scriptures.

We've got some people now who make their faces white and their hands white. They go in shopping malls and say that they're presenting the gospel. Can you imagine, come on, can you imagine men coming out of the upper room, Peter with his face like a white mask and hands?

By God's name do we advertise our bankruptcy? There's no mistaking holy anointing. There's no mistaking holy authority. There's no mistaking holy fire. The substitute is no good at all. It has to be God himself that does it.

The Holy Spirit, Clean Hands, and Restitution

The cost is so great, isn't it? If Jesus had to say the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, and he did, then dare I go anywhere, minister, without the anointing of God? You know, D. L. Moody was offended when two women told him he needed to be filled with the Holy Ghost.

They said, you're a good preacher, but you need to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Praying Hyde went to India, and when he got out in the ocean, he found there was an envelope on his bed in his stateroom, and he opened it, and somebody said, you're a good man and you have great potential, but you still need to be filled with the Holy Ghost.

And between leaving America and India, the Lord met him in a marvelous way. And the Lord gave him that awesome ministry of intercession. I don't believe we can pray without the anointing of the Holy Ghost.

We can say words, but if I want something from God's heart to my heart to your heart, I've got to be very sure of my standing with the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the devil gets so often, he gets charged with stopping our prayers, but I'm quite sure that we sabotage our own praying.

We've unclean hands and impure hearts. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, only that one can pray and receive an answer from God. We need to pray both now and after.

I trust you'll pray for this conference at Dave Wilkinson's. Well, at least he has organized it. If there are going to be twelve hundred people there, it's ten times the number that were in the upper room.

If the Holy Ghost falls out of the conference, it could change the history of America. If it doesn't, it'll be pep talks about repentance. I don't believe in repentance without restitution. I don't care who repents.

It doesn't take any spiritual or moral courage to kneel down and cough up a lot of things. Lord, I'm sorry about this. Sorry. But the scripture says, confess your faults one to another. If those men repent one night, they should go back to the churches the next Sunday and stand in the pulpit and confess everything publicly that they've confessed secretly to God.

Otherwise, they don't bring forth fruit for repentance. But that means a broken heart. It means a broken spirit. It means I've died to public opinion. That all I want is a supreme reality in my being that I have the anointing of God for the day in which I'm living.

There's no hope without it. There's no substitute for the oil. If a man makes a substitute oil, if we read further in the chapter, it says put him to death. That's pretty serious. Making an imitation.

Imitation preaching, imitation anointing. Zeal, what seems like authority. Strong words, gesticulations, raising your voice, doing the other thing. But they are no substitute. I read a statement this week that really stuck with me.

A crucified leader demands crucified followers. Now, something, the heart is so corrupt, so deceitful, that until we really die to self and sin, that fragrance can't come out. As that little song says, within the veil did this beloved I portion.

Obedience, Sanctification, and the Life of Christ

Within the secret of thy Lord to dwell. Beholding him until thy face is glory, thy life is love. Thy lips his praise foretell. Within the veil, thank you, within the veil his fragrance poured upon thee.

Without the veil that fragrance shed abroad. Within the veil his hand shall tune the music which sounds on earth the praises of thy God. Within the veil thy spirit deeply anchored, thy walk as calm above a world of strife.

Within the veil thy soul with him united shall live on earth the resurrection life. I know it's not the resurrection after that, but it is the resurrection of life that Jesus had. The spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead quicken our mortal body.

You've heard me say before, I still say, I'm tired of lean and lanced pygmies. I want to see some mature men, some strong men, some men that pull down strongholds. Some men that are itching for praise and glamour and glory and projection.

That want to be hidden and lost and become the seed in the ground that dies and brings forth fruit to the glory of God. It's not easy, it's very costly. But again in your life, in that dark patch you're in now, he's working everything after the counsel of his own will.

It's the first step maybe. The other ingredients will come as we progress and we come to maturity. It's not based on years, it's based on obedience. There's no substitute for obedience. To obey is better than sacrifice.