"Speak for eternity. Above all things, cultivate your own spirit. A word spoken by you when your conscience is clear and your heart full of God's Spirit is worth ten thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. Remember that God, and not man, must have the glory. If the veil of the world's machinery were lifted off, how much we would find is done in answer to the prayers of God's children." - Robert Murray McCheyne |
UNCTION
is that indefinable, indescribable something which an old, renowned Scotch preacher
describes thus: "There is sometimes somewhat in preaching that cannot be
ascribed either to matter or expression, and cannot be described what it is,
or from whence it cometh, but with a sweet violence it pierceth into the heart
and affections and comes immediately from the Word; but if there be any way
to obtain such a thing, it is by the heavenly disposition of the speaker."
We call it unction. It is this unction which makes the word of God "quick
and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart." It is this unction which gives
the words of the preacher such point, sharpness, and power, and which creates
such friction and stir in many a dead congregation. The same truths have been
told in the strictness of the letter, smooth as human oil could make them; but
no signs of life, not a pulse throb; all as peaceful as the grave and as dead.
The same preacher in the meanwhile receives a baptism of this unction, the divine
inflatus is on him, the letter of the Word has been embellished and fired by
this mysterious power, and the throbbings of life begin -- life which receives
or life which resists. The unction pervades and convicts the conscience and
breaks the heart.
This divine unction is the feature which separates and distinguishes true gospel
preaching from all other methods of presenting the truth, and which creates
a wide spiritual chasm between the preacher who has it and the one who has it
not. It backs and impregns revealed truth with all the energy of God. Unction
is simply putting God in his own word and on his own preachers. By mighty and
great prayerfulness and by continual prayerfulness, it is all potential and
personal to the preacher; it inspires and clarifies his intellect, gives insight
and grasp and projecting power; it gives to the preacher heart power, which
is greater than head power; and tenderness, purity, force flow from the heart
by it. Enlargement, freedom, fullness of thought, directness and simplicity
of utterance are the fruits of this unction.
Often earnestness is mistaken for this unction. He who has the divine unction
will be earnest in the very spiritual nature of things, but there may be a vast
deal of earnestness without the least mixture of unction.
Earnestness and unction look alike from some points of view. Earnestness may
be readily and without detection substituted or mistaken for unction. It requires
a spiritual eye and a spiritual taste to discriminate.
Earnestness may be sincere, serious, ardent, and persevering. It goes at a thing
with good will, pursues it with perseverance, and urges it with ardor; puts
force in it. But all these forces do not rise higher than the mere human. The
man is in it -- the whole man, with all that he has of will and heart,
of brain and genius, of planning and working and talking. He has set himself
to some purpose which has mastered him, and he pursues to master it. There may
be none of God in it. There may be little of God in it, because there is so
much of the man in it. He may present pleas in advocacy of his earnest purpose
which please or touch and move or overwhelm with conviction of their importance;
and in all this earnestness may move along earthly ways, being propelled by
human forces only, its altar made by earthly hands and its fire kindled by earthly
flames. It is said of a rather famous preacher of gifts, whose construction
of Scripture was to his fancy or purpose, that he "grew very eloquent over
his own exegesis." So men grow exceeding earnest over their own plans or
movements. Earnestness may be selfishness simulated.
What of unction? It is the indefinable in preaching which makes it preaching.
It is that which distinguishes and separates preaching from all mere human addresses.
It is the divine in preaching. It makes the preaching sharp to those who need
sharpness. It distills as the dew to those who need to he refreshed. It is well
described as:
This unction comes to the preacher
not in the study but in the closet. It is heaven's distillation in answer to
prayer. It is the sweetest exhalation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates, suffuses,
softens, percolates, cuts, and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like
salt, like sugar; makes the Word a soother, an arranger, a revealer, a searcher;
makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live
like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly as the
spring opens the leaves. This unction is not the gift of genius. It is not found
in the halls of learning. No eloquence can woo it. No industry can win it. No
prelatical hands can confer it. It is the gift of God -- the signet set to his
own messengers. It is heaven's knighthood given to the chosen true and brave
ones who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling
prayer.
Earnestness is good and impressive: genius is gifted and great. Thought kindles
and inspires, but it takes a diviner endowment, a more powerful energy than
earnestness or genius or thought to break the chains of sin, to win estranged
and depraved hearts to God, to repair the breaches and restore the Church to
her old ways of purity and power. Nothing but this holy unction can do this.