The Oil Still Speaks

“What do these people know that I don’t?” wondered a quizzical young man on the back row of the church as he saw the long queue of people eagerly but slowly progressing to be daubed with oil from the bowl of the priest in what had been tagged an “Anointing Service.”   They seemed to submit so totally to the ritual as if their very breath depended on it.  His mother was later to explain something to him about the mystic potentials of the simple ritual.

A certain part of David’s dirge composed to mourn the unfortunate death of King Saul laments that Saul had died “as though he had not been anointed with oil” (1 Samuel 1:21). The implication is that the anointing is otherwise a preservation over the anointed, such that they cannot die the kind of unfortunate death generally called a “useless death.”

I am aware that some translations point to the anointed shield rather than the man, but the sense I seek to pursue is also implied in God’s proclamation in Psalm 105:15; a proclamation to devils and diseases and all possible storms in the entire universe: “Touch not MINE anointed, and do my prophets NO HARM.”  In other words, the anointing protects from harm and from the devilish “touch” that often leads to the “harm” – whatever the harm.  The Oil still speaks.

The anointing of God is a guarantee.  The life of the anointed, who lives faithfully according to the righteous rules of the anointed life, cannot be expended like fodder.  Others might be wasted premature in crashes, not the anointed. Others might be taken out by a strange disease lately coming into town, not the anointed.  Others might be dispensed by stray bullets from the sudden outbreak of a gang fight in the street, not the anointed who listens and obeys.  However, if the anointed should walk out of grace, like King Saul, and begin to live like any other, as though they had not been set apart with the oil of anointing, then they might fall as though they were never anointed with oil – even if the mighty Moses had anointed them.

Still fresh with the oil from Prophet Samuel, and powered by that anointing, Saul ran into consecutive encounters with relational, material, and spiritual favours (1 Samuel 10:1-6).  On the contrary, years later, at the counter altar of the witch of Endor, where also he had regretfully had a reverse communion served him by that witch, he stood naked.  Stepping out from that diabolical altar, he walked into “night” – a darkness that eventually swallowed him on Mount Gilboa, as though he never was anointed with oil (1 Samuel 28:24-25).  The Oil could not follow him to where the Lord had not sent him.

Prophet Balaam appears to have well understood this, hence his wish, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his”- like the seed of the anointed Jacob (Numbers 23:10). Unfortunately, that prophet strayed from grace, tempted by the prospects of unrighteous gain.  He died with the enemies of Israel, as though he was never anointed with oil; his prayer wasted by a lifestyle that had not matched his earnest wish expressed.

You cannot die like any other. You cannot be wasted by death in some regretful manner. The anointing on you, if it is, marks you for life, not death; life “more abundantly” (John 10:10).  Fear not.  The oil still speaks, if it be the Lord’s oil.  The blood speaks “Passover”; the oil speaks “Touch not!”  The oil also has a voice.

Were you and your land ever anointed?  Or you would now? I pray, as directed by the Master, that the Father would lead you this day and ever “not into temptation,” or otherwise deliver you “from evil” in case you have already walked yourself into some deep waters (Matthew 6:13).  May you never be ensnared by that conceited stubborn foolhardiness of the godly King Josiah who took the anointing for granted (Matthew 4:6-9) and zealously ran himself into a battle that God was not sending him, perishing premature to the lamentation of everyone, even the prophet Jeremiah, as though he never was anointed with oil (2 Chronicles 35:20-25).  Despite those, the oil still speaks. Be preserved. Amen.