Morning, August 28

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"Oil for the light."

  Exodus 25:6

   My soul, how much thou needest this, for thy lamp will not long
   continue to burn without it. Thy snuff will smoke and become an offence
   if light be gone, and gone it will be if oil be absent. Thou hast no
   oil well springing up in thy human nature, and therefore thou must go
   to them that sell and buy for thyself, or like the foolish virgins,
   thou wilt have to cry, "My lamp is gone out." Even the consecrated
   lamps could not give light without oil; though they shone in the
   tabernacle they needed to be fed, though no rough winds blew upon them
   they required to be trimmed, and thy need is equally as great. Under
   the most happy circumstances thou canst not give light for another hour
   unless fresh oil of grace be given thee.

   It was not every oil that might be used in the Lord's service; neither
   the petroleum which exudes so plentifully from the earth, nor the
   produce of fishes, nor that extracted from nuts would be accepted; one
   oil only was selected, and that the best olive oil. Pretended grace
   from natural goodness, fancied grace from priestly hands, or imaginary
   grace from outward ceremonies will never serve the true saint of God;
   he knows that the Lord would not be pleased with rivers of such oil. He
   goes to the olive-press of Gethsemane, and draws his supplies from him
   who was crushed therein. The oil of gospel grace is pure and free from
   lees and dregs, and hence the light which is fed thereon is clear and
   bright. Our churches are the Saviour's golden candelabra, and if they
   are to be lights in this dark world, they must have much holy oil. Let
   us pray for ourselves, our ministers, and our churches, that they may
   never lack oil for the light. Truth, holiness, joy, knowledge, love,
   these are all beams of the sacred light, but we cannot give them forth
   unless in private we receive oil from God the Holy Ghost.