Morning By Morning #241

…olive oil for the light.

Exodus 25:6

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

My soul, you greatly need this oil because your lamp will not burn long without it. The wick will smoke offensively when its flame goes out, but it will not relight once the oil is gone. There is no oil well springing up from within your human nature, therefore you must go to Him who can supply you with oil or you will be like the foolish virgins, who cried out, “Our lamps are going out” (Matt. 25:8)! Even the consecrated oil lamps of the temple in Jerusalem could not give light without oil. Though they shone in that holy building, they needed a constant supply of oil, and though no strong winds blew on them, their wicks needed to be trimmed. Your need is equally as great, for even under the happiest of circumstances you cannot give light for another hour unless the fresh oil of grace is given to you.

Yet not just any oil could be used in the Lord’s service in the temple—not the petroleum that flows so plentifully from the earth, oil from fish, nor the oil extracted from various nuts. Only olive oil was selected and it had to be the very best. Likewise, no counterfeit grace arising from natural goodness, nor imaginary grace from God’s priest or his spiritual ceremonies, will ever serve the true saint of God. He knows the Lord would not be pleased even with rivers of such oil. Instead, he must go to the olive press of Gethsemane and draw his supply from Him who was crushed in it.

The oil of true gospel grace is pure and free from dregs and other impurities; thus, the light it fuels is clear and bright. Our churches are the Savior’s golden candelabra and if they are to be bright lights in this dark world, they need a great supply of holy oil. May we pray for ourselves and our ministers and churches that they will never lack oil for their light. The beams of this sacred light are truth, holiness, joy, knowledge, and love, but we cannot shine them forth unless, through private devotion, we receive the oil from God the Holy Spirit.

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

In this morning’s devotion Spurgeon mentions the olive press of Gethsemane. Yet there is a difference between an olive press and an olive crush. The garden of Gethsemane is the place where the Jews of Jerusalem would take their olives to have them crushed. In fact, Gethsemane refers to an olive crush, and an ancient one was actually discovered in the garden of Gethsemane. It is a round stone hewn from solid rock with another stone that rolls on end around its top. It was used to crush the meat of the olive from the pit. Then the meat of the olives would be placed in an olive press to squeeze the oil from them.

Surely it is no coincidence Jesus went to the place of crushing to pray before He was arrested. “He was crushed for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:5). Not only was He crushed but He was also “pressed,” for in Gethsemane “his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

Another thing to know is that the oil in the temple had to come from only one place—the Mount of Olives, where the garden of Gethsemane is located. Jesus went there to be prepared to be the “oil” to light the temple of our lives.

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).