In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of preaching the word of God with authenticity and power. He emphasizes that preaching is not about charisma or personal character, but about delivering the message of God. The preacher shares his own experience of initially being hesitant to listen to a sermon due to the speaker's accent and poor grammar, but being compelled by the life and power in the message. He highlights the significance of the veil being torn in the holiest place, allowing believers to boldly enter into God's presence. The sermon also touches on the need for a continuous supply of God's word and the importance of preaching with a sense of dread and reverence for the weight of the moment.

Come up to the platform and open the Bible and clear his throat and call the congregation to attention and pray a prayer and open his mouth and commence without a terrible sense of dread or foreboding of all of the great weight that falls upon that moment. Because if it's not the word of God, instead of life going forth, it seems death goes forth. There's a deadening. There's no neutrality here. Either something is going to forward the life of God or there's going to be a numbness, a dullness, a dull spiritedness by just hearing something that is only merely good. We probably would be better off not to hear at all. Silence is more to be desired than a mere clever good play on words that does not communicate the life of God as God's word. The result is a deadening of spiritual sensibility. So in a message that he is entitled, The Task of the Ministry, he cries out, How can human utterance carry an irresistible and compelling meaning? How can it be capable of bearing witness to God? How can mere human speech? This has got to register on us. This paradox, this terrible contradiction that is going to come out of the mouth of a man, that the vessel is human and earthly, that the word itself is divine and heavenly, and it's not as if the instrumentality is some kind of utilitarian thing that is objective and does not participate in the process and something discourses through him like an enema. He's involved. The Lord employs his personality, his accent, his disposition, his heart. The Lord, who knows this history, who formed him in his mother's womb. And there's an aliveness of the play of all of these factors in that given moment that will never be quite the same the next Sunday. It's his mood, it's disposition, it's what happened yesterday or on the way to the church or some episode or crisis or something brought to his recall. There's a dynamic, there's an amalgam, it's an electric existential moment, preaching. This is probably worth more than most homiletics courses. In fact, I wrote a paper and I shared it in previous classes of the Prophetical School on the anatomy of apostolic proclamation. I always come up with fancy titles. That is to say, what is the genius of apostolic preaching as it is distinguished from other kinds? Why does Paul say, how shall they believe on him of whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear except one preach? For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. A Danish theologian said of that statement of Paul, Jews are waiting for apostolic proclamation. They may not know it, but four spiritual laws is not going to do it for them. They need to hear a word of an apostolic kind by a man who is sent from a sending body that bears the whole configuration of apostolic reality and that word will create faith in the hearing of it by those who not only did not have it but were antagonistic to it. Well then, what's the genius of that? What's the anatomy? What's the specific character of the apostolic proclamation that's not to be found elsewhere? Tune in at this station. Come back next year. But just to say, to give you this much to chew on, if you can but understand it. True preaching, apostolic proclamation, every time is the reiteration of the cross. Whatever took place at Calvary in the suffering and death of Jesus has somehow to take place in the preached word. Whenever the preached word becomes safe, predictable, where the man knows in advance, where he has prepared himself with an eye toward being impressive or being found acceptable or being saved from embarrassment or humiliation of failure, there is the guarantee that that word will not be apostolic. The reiteration of the cross is trembling, fear, public nakedness, the prospect of humiliation and altogether failure and trust of an ultimate kind that ye though he slay you, yet will you live. And it was clear to me in a seminary for two years, going to the chapel every day and listening to a Bible dissertation from very competent men that I'm not able to remember one such statement in two years of speaking of men who were theologically very sound because they knew months in advance which day would be theirs and they prepared themselves to the teeth. I suspect not because they wanted to be right but also that they should not fail, should not collapse in front of their students and their colleagues. There was no room for the life of God to get in. Now how many men have stood in profound places of responsibility and hearing or hearing themselves having been introduced and are now up and have not even the knowledge of what they ought to speak. They have to trust God in the moment for the proclamation. I don't say that that's a standard operating procedure. It's the prophetic mode and I wouldn't expect for pastors necessarily or teachers to have that kind of utter radical necessity but there's got to be some measure of it. There's got to be some abandon before God, some willingness to risk failure to let go of the security of your prepared message and let God be God because in those moments his life is revealed. It's a suffering of the kind, minuscule kind of what was experienced at the cross. But first we need to get the dilemma in our spirits, the impossibility of it and then we will appreciate all the more the place of unction and anointing. What rights or spoke, what are you doing you men with the word of God upon your lips? Upon what ground do you assume the role of mediator between heaven and earth? Who has authorized you to take your place there and to generate religious feelings and to crown all to do so with result, with success? Did anyone ever hear of such overwhelming presumption? But doesn't the profession of the ministry inevitably involve this? Is not the whole situation in the church an illustration of man's chronic presumption which is really worse here than in any other field. Can a minister be saved? It's so hopeless, it's so untenable that a man is going to speak for God? What? What? What presumption can such a man be saved? I would answer that with men this is impossible. We may, but as far as we know there is no one who deserves the wrath of God more abundantly than the ministers. We may as well acknowledge that we are under judgment. As a matter of fact the church is really an impossibility. There could be no such thing as a minister. Who dares? Who can preach knowing what preaching is? The situation of crisis in the church has not yet been impressed upon us with sufficient intensity. One wonders if it ever will be. Because he's seen generations of men go through the diploma mill and be fitted and ordained and come into churches and move their way up the religious ladder. These are objections which we would have to raise against ourselves if we were more clearly conscious of what as ministers we are daring to do. If God has chosen us, if he will justify us as ministers in the church situation we may be certain that he will do so only when we come under judgment. When the church comes under judgment, when our ministry comes under judgment. For it is not until then that we can obtain the promise that we can believe. Judgment must begin in the house of God. A judgment from which only the word of God can extricate and save us as it can extricate all flesh, save all flesh. Our refusal to examine ourselves first can mean only that we are not satisfied with the promise that we will not believe. How are the people to hear this in the Christian preaching of the church? If the church itself has not yet heard it. How is the world to hear that the church has not heard the realization of this predicament? The ministers who are concerned for the church are no longer equal to the infinite seriousness of our present condition. We need ministers who are efficient but not necessarily efficient in business. Ministration of the word is not administration however smoothly it may go. Its efficiency will have to prove itself in situations into which in business only the inefficient are grown. Well, I'm just reading just to get the sense of his existential anguish. His awareness of the impossibility of what a man is called to do as a minister to bring God's word as God's word. Well, what is needed is the key of David. And whether we're using it rightly or not, at least in this context, we're using it to refer to the remarkable phenomenon of anointing. You know, even an awkward message, even one that's ungrammatical, even one that is slipshod and lacks polish, and if it has unction and anointing, it's a vehicle for life. It moves men, it performs something, it creates, it sets in motion. The unction is all. And so we want to understand where does it come from and who has it and how is it to be obtained. And a brother who has come into our knowledge wrote an article called The Key of David. And I took that article, I was impressed by it, and then I revised it, I sifted it through myself. By the way, are you writing articles? Every serious believer ought to be writing articles. It may be that no one will ever see them, but it's good for you to wrestle with the word and to get down on paper. Barth says in one place, I need to write this or speak this so I can find out what my thought is on this subject. Yeah, sure. And I think I've shared with people that I was an academic whiz kid. They used to post my grades on the top of the board and then they went down and went into the bell curve for the rest of the class. But when it came to be a teacher and to communicate what I thought I knew, I was an absolute flub. I stood before junior high school kids with an American history class and I thought I knew it, I had it somewhere in my head, but when I had to get it out in a word, it simply was not there. And it was going all the way back to square one. I had to re-educate myself all over again because I did not know as I ought to know, because I could not communicate it to others. You don't know until you can communicate it. Don't think that, well, I've got it. I know what salvation means and the Holy Spirit and the church and the last days and the mystery of Israel. You don't really know it until you can communicate it. So, writing is good. And here's this article and then my adaptation of it. It begins with the revelation to Peter when Jesus said, and Peter answered, and Jesus said, Well, we know what Catholicism has done with that portion of scripture and has celebrated Peter rather than celebrating the anointing or the anointed revelation by which he understood who Jesus was. And that this knowledge was not even given to John the Baptist though he was a cousin of Jesus and grew up with him and had every daily opportunity to see that this was a spectacular child. This was one who was able to dispute in the temple at the age of twelve with doctors of the law and confound them. You mean that he was so dense he could not recognize there's something unusual about my cousin. And I've heard somewhere down the line how his mother became pregnant with him and the Holy Ghost spoke to her and that he used to be the deliverer of Israel. None of that was a factor in setting forth Jesus before the nation Israel. He had to reveal Jesus to the nation not on the basis of any natural observation or knowledge but on the basis of the revelation that came in the very waters of baptism itself when the dove came and abode upon him. He said, this is the land of God who has come to take away the sins of the world. Revelation is a mighty phenomenon and an operation of the Spirit of God. It's an anointed kind of seeing where you gasp. You know that there's seeing and seeing and knowing. There's some kind of knowledge where you can nod your head and technically it falls into place. There's another kind of knowledge that when it comes you gasp. You clap your hand over your mouth. And it's virtually the same thing. The difference is one has come by deduction and the other has come by revelation. And maybe as much as we are talking about the phenomenon of anointing and speaking we might one time as well speak about the phenomenon of anointing in seeing. And that Jesus the Christ means the anointed one. So great reverence for this phenomenon of anointing which I think has been lost to the church. And it's interesting that this key that is given to Peter on the basis of a revelation that did not come to him from man but from the Father by an operation of the Spirit is the key of binding and loosing the things which are in heaven and in earth. It becomes foundational to all the church that what you shall bind on earth will be bound in heaven and what you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. How come? Because your binding and your loosing will be as much the operation of revelation as the revelation of who Christ is. You're not going to be binding arbitrarily and you're not going to be loosing arbitrarily. It's not that you're given an office of a kind where you can indulge yourself and bind and loose at will. The reason that what you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and what you loose on earth is loosed in heaven because it's the same agreement. Because you're binding by the revelation of what is the will of God in heaven. The union is the anointed binding and anointed loosing. It's not that God is condescending to come behind and say, because you bound that I'll bind it too. It's union with God and with his mind and heart and will and maybe that's what they mean when they say God anoints what he appoints. When you're in agreement there's an unction from heaven that indicates God's approval on that word. So this brother saw the revelation of Peter to be the manifestation of the anointing upon him and not Peter himself. Likewise it is upon the operation of the anointing that authority is exercised to bind them to loose. That the key of David is not to be found in any office quote and unquote that a man might necessarily hold but in the operation of the spirit that is a statement of union through relationship with the bestower of spirit. A man's heart in unison with God's heart. That this is not fixed or irrevocable rests on a moment by moment abiding in that union because the same Peter in one moment who says thou art the Christ in the next moment says Lord let this be far from you and he's rebuked and says Satan get thee behind me. I'm so grateful for that. Lest we would think that something permanent had happened to Peter that is irrevocable and will go on now and all of his judgments will be flawless and faultless. The very next statement he reverts back to his unanointed humanity and mere sentimentality that sounds so kind Lord let this not be far from you. He didn't need the anointing it goes without saying that the Lord should be spared any suffering of that kind and he received the most severe rebuke that a man can receive who is equated with Satan who the moment before was called blessed. If nothing else would show that the moment before God is a moment by moment thing and not some fixed thing upon which we can cast our assurance as if we have it made. We would be in a much greater place of respect and trembling before God. I'm a little bit suspicious of men who seem always to be under a kind of unction and wonder whether it's the unction of the amplifier turned up and their kind of sense of camaraderie joie de vivre how do you French say it a certain spirit of vitality but is that the unction? Is that the holy unction? Or is that some kind of other oil the oil of human personality which can dupe untold numbers in congregations of God's people who don't even know the difference. That if a man is smooth impressive and has a certain flair about him that's considered to be the anointing. But it's remarkable when the anointing does come before the very same people they are almost invariably offended. So I praise God that it requires a moment by moment union an agreement with God in his purpose and his will and his understanding. And I shared an illustration of how very early in my service for the Lord just one or two years maybe my first year as a believer giving my testimony how the Lord withdrew his anointing in one moment of time because he heard my secret heart boasting as if it was with me because everyone was falling like flies they were all captivated by this testimony it had such power that I thought it was my baby in one split second one infinitesimal thing that felt like an eternity. There is no way to describe the feeling of the anointing being removed. Now Samuel is the first of Israel's great prophets now why did God not allow any of his words to fall to the ground because he was fastidious not to allow any of God's words to fall and the very first words that he was given as a child were from himself and his house which he did not withhold a syllable in his obedience what a picture of the prophetic man from its inception that it begins with judgment the Lord didn't start him out with some more elementary thing he gave him the most severe word and that had to be communicated with uttermost fidelity and all Israel knew that a prophet had come to the nation let's dwell on this that the office of prophet is such that the anointing is continually on such men or that they are in such a quality of relationship with God continuously that they're enjoying a moment by moment presence in that union of anointing this is like we have to dissect this lest we think it's a fixed administrative thing what we need to recognize is the consistent faithfulness of the prophet if he seems to be for always under the anointing it's because he's always in the place of obedience and yieldedness to God even with Jesus when it says that the spirit came down as a dove and abode upon him was that then a fixed dispensation so to speak or that the spirit of God as a sensitive dove had no offense to that sensitive spirit by which it would be grieved and be required to lift from him it's the one or the other and I choose to think it's the one he walked so consistently in obedience to the father that the holy dove never had a reason to be repelled so the key of David is not to be found in the office that a man might necessarily hold but to be taken of union through relationship with the bestower of spirit a man's heart in unison with God's heart this is not fixed and irrevocable but rests on a moment by moment abiding and is demonstrated by the shameful let this be far from you rejection of Messiah suffering by Peter that followed there is no other foundation that is laid than that which is laid which is in Christ Jesus then he talks about the five foolish virgins who had no continuing supply and whose lamps were going out at midnight of all time for the light to fail it's when it's most powerfully needed in the hour of darkness that shall come upon the earth midnight being the darkest hour but they ran out when it was most desperately needed which may be a statement of an inadequate relationship with the source why else would the bridegroom later say when they came I tell you the truth I do not know you in a word the oil symbolic of the anointing is relative to the degree of intimacy of the reality of his presence through his spirit I would say in proportion to what I said earlier in our talk it's a statement of union and of an alignment with God in the things that are true as God himself sees it that is utterly real things as they are without the subtlety of deceit especially as it pertains to ourselves in ministry and in calling the moment that there is a divergence and a moving away from an alignment with the truth of God which is God we are no longer in that union by which that life is given which is called anointing so there is a conjunction between reality and anointing there is a conjunction between truth and anointing it's not some magical disposition that has to do with character charisma and character which has not been underlined or made clear you know what this is? this is an experimental program we're trying to feel for something understand for something and so I'm appreciating all of the input I'm just sharing with David that this is how Chabad himself wrote his church dogmatics his 14 volumes he made his papers and then he brought it the next day to school and shared it with his students and they interacted over it then he went back and redid and adjusted and edited and then finally it found its way into the publication so this is more like what church ought to be more of God's people involved in wrestling through these issues of truth and the issues of the faith and having a participation in it rather than the passivity of mere Sunday attendance of looking up and nodding yeah good so I'm appreciating this for the benefit that comes to me to hear the responses well I wrote nowhere is this issue of character and charisma the connection between union and truth and reality with God more violated than by ministers who are feel free to use the phrase God said to me I remember my stupefying astonishment at a full gospel I forgot in Germany I think it was a speaker who was a minister I don't know if it's coincidental or significant he was wearing like a Gucci shirt a real elaborate clothing and chains on his wrist and all that kind of stuff but he began by saying what God said to me this morning and when he said that I startled and I leaned forward and my jaw was open I wanted to hear what God said to him it's evidently for us and then he went on to say what it was and I slumped back into my seat and sagged God had said nothing it was a cliche it was a truism it was a kind of a thought with the preface God said to me this is the kind of presumption that will assure that the dove will flee had already and maybe for that reason such men need to be compelling externally and have a certain air to them so the subject the issue of hearing from God and to say that you hear is a remarkable question in the issue of anointing I'm quoting from a scholar who talks about prophetic hearing and he says in most cases there can be no talk of audition in the strictest sense it's a rare thing to hear from God audibly I can count the occasions in 32 years on the fingers of one hand but there's another kind of prophetic hearing with that which is audible with that which is inward something about he says the ideas that emerge in the soul of the inward being of the prophet because of the conviction that it was given him from God and did not originate in the man himself like for myself the awareness that Israel present political Israel has to die there must be a resurrection so that when the text comes or the inf tafada breaks out to punctuate the text there's already a yea and amen in my spirit I've heard, I understand something has already grown up in my heart of understanding inwardly that God has given by the process of God then he talks about this the original writer the spirit of God is is the oil we are the jar that contains the oil and if when Jesus returns we do not contain the oil our testimony of his reality is merely words and not our very life being sustained by the power of the oil of his spirit living in us and he will express this unreality and say I never knew you my spirit when he says when the Lord says I never knew you the Lord is saying the spirit of my being with your essence there was a cup of wine on the Shabbat and I watched my eyes went large they poured and I thought well sure the cup is full by now and they continued pouring and I wanted to restrain the brother and hold his arm back and he just went on insanely until the cup overflowed what waste but that in their view Kirush is not Kirush unless the cup overflows onto the saucer merely to fill the cup is to fall short and we sing fill my cup Lord we ought to be singing overflow my cup Lord and when I think of oil the sons of oil who are lubricated and oiled up somehow the very sense of that implies overflow just to fill it to the level that it does not quite meet it the issue of unction is that that very point and I've never said this before I've never thought this before it's at that very point that unction is unction it's at the point where utility is exceeded and the legitimate amount overflown is the place of the luxuriating unction of God more than what the moment requires of utility and we westerners are so utilitarian we want to measure sufficient for the level of operating efficiency but praise God for these Jews who know that it's not valid until it overflows the cup Kirush it's the cup of sanctification I chanted that prayer Friday night when we had that wonderful meal we had wine we had coffee Amen that's the prayer for the cup the sanctifying cup out of which the Lord from the Passover table gave us the communion so I wonder if even then the understanding was the overflowing cup is the true cup and merely to bring it to the line is yet somehow to fall short and what did Jesus celebrate there's only one act works as a rule were anathema to him and the thing that he called the good work was the woman who came with the alabaster box and broke it and poured the ointment out upon him lavishly and wastefully Watchman E on his comment on this says the principle of power is the principle of waste it's when it's lavish when it's out poured like the Lord himself his life was poured out as a sacrifice for many but we are stingy and they've never forgiven me in New Zealand what's the word that I use you know the way in England not fastidious begins with a P but it doesn't matter instead of bringing the dishes on the table and then you take according to your appetite they give you your plate here's your piece of meat here's your one and a half potatoes it's nice it's adequate it's good but it's not lavish it's not extravagant it's not over it's at the level of need and I gave that as an illustration in New Zealand I don't think they've forgiven me since it says of that woman who maybe another episode of the same kind that broke the box that thing was merry and poured the ointment on his feet and the disciples had the indignation at the waist but Jesus said leave her alone for she has done a good work upon me and wheresoever this gospel shall be proclaimed in the world this that this woman has done shall be spoken of as a memorial to her talk about himself being lavish himself giving a compliment of the most remarkable kind he never made a compliment to his disciples or said well done good and faithful servant never anything like that he doesn't act he makes this thing wherever the gospel shall be proclaimed in all the earth in all future generations this that this woman has done shall be a memorial unto her because what she has done is the epitome the essence and the heart of what the gospel itself is and what God himself is as the lavish God who pours out I think we need to adjust our brain boxes because our mindsets can't bear waste I'm schooled in the depression I can't bear waste but this kind of waste I have a tolerance for this is extravagance unto the Lord and it's the kingdom measure is above that which is merely required or sufficient and that's where we fall short and I would say an anointed vessel would be the description of that they just luxuriate they squish because there's an abiding overflow there's a continual communion and a seeking of the Lord so if I never knew you is a statement of the absence of that kind of communion by which the life of God is imparted which is the oil of God I would say that the deepest source of that oil of communion is in the fellowship in our discussion this morning that preaching which is a suffering and not a blast is going to not only be anointed for the hearer but is going to unctionize the soul of the bearer of that word it's as if God knows the suffering and gives a compensatory thing a certain kind of unction to bear it because true preaching true witness is painful true prayer is painful true intercession is racking and demanding in a word every aspect of the faith is an untoward demand it's an exceptional requirement it strains us it stretches us and maybe the Lord's compensation it's not the soul reason is the oil the oil of gladness above his brethren because he loved righteousness and he hated iniquity that's not merely that he had an academic category but that hating iniquity was going to be a remarkable drain on him and mark him as an enemy with men make him an object of derision and hatred and the love of righteousness will always bring a retaliatory thing in a world that does not have a heart for righteousness so his very love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity required and gave him an oil of gladness even beyond that of his brethren I remember was it last year coming close to the prophetical school and the Lord had not given me a glimmer of what direction it would take or what themes would be considered and I was getting a little anxious I mean you would too and I don't want to see them return disappointed and that they should receive something worth the expenditure of time and energy and coming and yet I had them and a woman from Alaska called me and I said pray for me I don't have the faintest direction for the school oh don't worry about it Archie said just when the time comes open your mouth what she was saying is it's already there it's resident God will give you just let the overflow work and I think I see something of that truth I'd like to see more of it and I'd like to suggest that as a picture not just of responsibility for school but for what God would desire for us all that we open our mouth that we're always oiled up there's always an unction we're in season we're always ready there's a lubricating quality of our life nothing can take us by surprise we're instant in prayer we don't have to get prayed up to meet the demand of a situation that suddenly is stressed upon us our conversation our fellowship between ourselves is anointed I've had conversations with Reggie in the car that we've had to record I mean they were golden moments and breakthrough of a creative kind of popping just like so all of these are expressions of that overflowing oil that comes in communion with the Lord and I think especially in his sufferings and I go on now to develop that my suspicion is that a certain residue remains from every vital act of communion in prayer real prayer prayer that is urgent fervent consistent it is in every act of obedience that brings peril to body and soul to reputation and self-interest it's a residue that comes in confessions at our humiliation in self-denial of food and sleep in abandonments of faith that stake all for his namesake every costly act of righteousness is it righteous if it costs nothing is a fragrant aroma of Christ because it is the reiteration of the cross and the revelation of himself so if in millennial Israel her righteousness goes forth as brightness and her salvation is a lamp that burns what of ourselves presently as the church it's Israel's righteousness that goes forth as brightness so I'm saying there's a residue compounded and obtained and accumulated with righteous acts with devoted service with communion with God with sufferings that come from obedience and obediences that are not required but are freely given in acts that the Lord does not compel you to perform but which you choose to hear and to do at your own loss and at your own inconvenience that instances like that are productive of the forming of the residue of oil and if that's true that would explain why it is that one would have a greater supply than another there's more of a history more instance of faithfulness, sacrifice true communion, true prayer relationship in which that unction is expressed because it's the aroma of Jesus it's himself who is righteous and comes forth in the righteous act and in the righteous moment out of yourself maybe that's what it means that they had the oil of themselves or in themselves it's the residue of God that came from a history of faithfulness and obedience with each act of devotion something cumulative is added we are storing up for ourselves this brother writes a reserve of oil which will sustain our spiritual lives in the time of testings that are to come that phrase about storing up others are storing up for themselves judgments now I'm just talking like a fool here this is not definitive this is not Thus Saith the Lord I'm just feeling and suspecting trying to understand why it is that some have a greater residue than others and what other the principle so to speak or the dynamic by which a residue is obtained trying to understand why it is that such have a greater residue than others and what other the principle so to speak or the dynamic by which a residue is obtained accumulation of the oil of God, that at midnight we should not be found wanting. Every act of devotion, with each act of devotion something cumulative is added. We are storing up for ourselves, he says, a reserve of oil, which will sustain our spiritual lives in the time of testing to come. In sum, the anointing is the attestation of the cumulative, the evidence of the cumulative increase that comes from God through the moments of costly obedience, reproach, and rejection born for his sake, that could have been avoided if we had not been jealous for his glory. There's a getting by where we avoid conspicuous sin and we keep our noses clean, we don't get into trouble, and we have a fairly clean record. But there's a realm of conduct, of life and relationship and devotion that takes risks because the issue of God's glory is at stake that need not be taken, is voluntarily undertaken because of a jealousy for his glory that God does not make as simple requirement. And in those places something is given of himself because it's the essence of himself, it's the outward God now finding that same expression in the saint and the giving of himself in his own character is the oil. This guy says, it's living a life of dying, the carrying around in our body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body for we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 5 through 11 I think is about as accurate a statement of this. Verse 10 says, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh so death works in us but life in you. This whole conversation today began in a discussion of life and versus death. The life of God is given in proportion to the measure of death suffered for his name's sake. We're always subject to death that the life of God may be manifest in us. That life is his spirit and his spirit is the oil and it's fragrant as well as illuminating. That's why elsewhere Paul says we are the fragrance of life unto life unto some and death unto death for others. It's the same fragrance. And I've experienced that going up at the elevators with big shot charismatic personalities that didn't even know me. I didn't know them but something went forth in silence that made these guys arch their backs because there's a fragrance emitted of which we're not even conscious. That is the cumulative deposit of God that men either sense as fragrance unto life or something that is unto death and it's the same fragrance but it's come by process of communion. Well maybe in conclusion we can go back to where we began in Zechariah chapter 4 with the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth who empty the golden oil out of themselves. In Revelation 11 they're called the two witnesses which I think is the same word for martyr. It's not that they die as that but that they have lived as that and that that is the witness and the fragrance of Christ. And there's something about that unction and that anointing that invariably seems to provoke a radical response of one kind or another. Men either gnash at you with their teeth or they fall before you and say men and brethren what must we do to be saved? The anointing of God invites radical response. It's virtually impossible to be neutral in regard to it. It will excite the one response or the other. And maybe that may be an unconscious reason why people would avoid being in that unction. They will not welcome radical responses to themselves. This is about being in the counsel of God that have received my counsel in the secret place and we're told about the tabernacle construction in the holiest place of all where we are bitten to come that we might receive before the Shekinah presence of God instruction and commandment for the sons of Israel. So men who are not just preaching sermons to fit the need of the hour to satisfy their hearers but want the word of the Lord in commandment for sons can only find it in one place. It's in the holiest place of all before the Shekinah presence of God where his Shekinah presence is the admitting of his own glory. And while you're seeking him and waiting and dwelling in that place for an illumination and an understanding you're also receiving something emitted out of that Shekinah. So our true and consistent proximity to the Lord is the key to this key of David that unlocks and binds the infusion of the spirit of glory out of his Shekinah presence. So you have to pray for me because I'm often consciously seeing myself in that place asking the Lord for inspiration and for his commandments and I say and let there be an infusion of the spirit of your glory that comes out of that holy place where you've told us to wait and to seek you for instruction for sons. If we have made our own determination of what we think is a suitable message and acceptable to our hearers we have not sought the Lord in that place and therefore not only has there not been a communication of the now giving thing of God but we have not received the infusion that would have been ours by waiting in that place. So I want to encourage you that this is more than the play on words or fancifulness there is such a place in heaven and we're called to dwell in it by faith and that there's a place to seek God all the more if we're conscious what do we speak? What is the life-giving word? What needs to be proclaimed? Whether men seem to be ready for it or will desire it or refuse it or be offended Lord this is beyond any ability for man to determine what would you have for me to say? And men who make this their frequent and continual pattern receive in that place not only instruction and it doesn't always come as a clear understanding you sometimes finish your prayer and get up and away from that without even knowing that you've received something and you hear it out of your mouth when you get up to speak but my point is that not only have you received an answer you've received infusion in the holiest place of all where God is by his Shekinah presence the spirit of his glory which is the fragrance and the essence of God So that's all I have to say on the subject Believest thou that? Do you have the faith to come into the holiest place of all? Do you have the faith to believe that there is such a place to come? Do you have the faith to believe that you come not by any virtue of your own or qualification other than the blood of Jesus and that his blood and his rent side has made a new and living way says once and for all that God never intended for any of us whether we're preachers or not to live a believing life in an inhospitable world on the basis of anything less or other than the unction of God that is communicated out of his presence and that his presence is available because the veil is rent and we're told to come boldly to the throne of grace to find help in time of need so often a man will come with his own agenda and his own intention and his own opinion will find some supportive scripture that seems to confirm it and present that as the message who has not sought the Lord with a whole dependency and so it's rare for us to hear a word that comes out of the holy place of God and God even says in the other words you steal it from one another so there's a famished body of Christ that has not received life-giving words because they're only to be obtained in one place Does everybody know the chorus within the veil? I now do come I will teach it to you, it's a precious chorus This whole revelation about the holiest place of all where you need not be an ironic high priest coming once in a year but as frequently as you desire and as you seek him came through a brother's tapes called within the veil that had come to me some years ago that I almost turned off when I heard his southern accent and his lack of proper grammar and I was just about to press the stop button when something restrained me it was something of the life coming through even the accent, the speech and the poor English that was compelling and I could not stop it and I continued to hear it, it was a series of tapes and I heard them all the way through of a preacher who had known frustration and defeat and up one day and down the next and despair because he had the same urgency as Calvot he knew the impossibility of bringing the word of God as God's word and he read the scriptures in Hebrews about the veil that's rent and come and enter boldly and he had not the faith to attempt it but he was encouraged and he describes how finally he came and something of a new kind happened and has been consistently his experience ever since and I myself was going through that rising up and down good days and bad days and I remember on the second or third night of hearing his tapes I shut the machine off at that point and I prayed and I said Lord now by faith without any other qualification that has not to do with any virtue or giftedness on my own I believe I am coming now into the holiest place of all through a new and living way made through the blood of Jesus and his rent side that I might wait before you and your presence and receive from you the things that are out of your heart and convey your life and that's it and I said Amen and there were no bells going off or trumpets or glorious things to attend it and the next day I was walking to the Ben Israel prayer meeting and there was something simmering in my spirit of a new kind and the Lord impressed me to share that same message with the Ben Israel family and Paul Volk who said he felt like that leper who had gone down into that river how many times? that this was that one last time can he believe this? can he trust this? is this another vain hope? is this another answer for his distress and frustration? another gimmick? another new vogue that will pass? or is this the definitive way of God? and so at the end of my sharing of that prayer time I just invited people to pray as I had prayed and Paul prayed and it was for him a turning point and I trust it remains so to this day so long as this faith will lay hold the chorus goes like this within the veil I now do come into the holy place to look upon his face I see such beauty there no feather can compare I worship you oh Lord within the veil do you follow that? within the veil I now do come into the holy place into the holy place to look upon your face to look upon your face I see such beauty there I see such beauty there none other can compare none other can compare I worship you oh Lord within the veil Lord we thank you that there is such a place you're not playing games with us you're not teasing us you're not putting before us misty vague things that have not the hope of substantial promise you've called us to the most exacting requiring life to which men can be called in the earth to stand before the Lord of all the earth and not only to stand for him and with him but to stand as anointed trees anointed vessels sons and daughters of oil and Lord surely you would not call us to this were there not also a provision made a place of communion where there might be an actual impartation of the spirit of your glory as often as we will seek you and believe you in that place for it and I'm asking my God that the faith of the children whom you've collected to yourself tonight would be enlarged to believe for that that you've not asked them to succeed on the narrow limits of their own humanity and ability but the overflowing wonderful grace of the life of God the oil, the unction of the Holy One himself available out of your presence so Lord may there be a coming tonight and tomorrow and as often my God as we will to find not only the things that you would have us to speak which alone is your word but the unction by which it is to be spoken out of the very same presence thank you for the blood of the Lamb that made a new and living way thank you for the flesh of the Messiah that was rent by which that curtain was torn apart that we might have continual and frequent access as the holy priesthood into that presence my God as the very source of life itself oh may your life go forth my God again and again in every obedience that requires a suffering of death that life might come to the dying and we thank you and give you praise for so great provision in Yeshua's holy name Amen