
THE saintly McCheyne used to say, when urging his brother ministers to diligent  preparation for the pulpit: "Beaten oil for the sanctuary.'' And he strove never  to present to his people truth which had not been beaten out by careful devout  meditation.
But there is yet another thought. That lamp in the Holy Place  was an emblem of the testimony of the Church, that is, of believers. As the  incense table was a type of their aspect toward God, as intercessors, so the  seven-branched candlestick was a type of their aspect toward the world, as  luminaries. In the Book of Revelation the Lord compares His churches to  candlesticks: "the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven  churches."
The oil is, of course, as always in Scripture, a type of the  Holy Spirit. He in us is the only source of light-bearing. But the beaten oil  reminds us of the chastisement and discipline through which alone our best  testimony can be given. The persecutions of the Church have always been the  times when she has given her fairest, brightest witness to the Redeemer. The  sufferings of believers have ever led to the tenderest, strongest words for the  Master, whether by the sick bed or in the hospital ward. That brokenness of  spirit, which is the surest mark of mature work of God in the heart, is also a  rare condition of light-giving. The more beaten and broken you are, in poverty  of spirit, the purer will be the heavenly ray of love and light which will shine  forth from your life; and it is the purpose of God that you should be "blameless  and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and  perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world" (Phi 2:15).