HELEN SANDERS
12-16-2025
THE SACRED OIL

As those of us that follow Jewish customs and those that are Jews celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, let us learn from it.

The story goes that Antiochus Ephiphanes, the evil emperor of Rome hated the Jews and did an atrocious act. Knowing that the Jews were not permitted to eat or touch pigs, he had a pig sacrificed in the Jewish temple. This was the vilest act he could do.

The Jewish priests were so backslidden that they went along with the Emperor’s edict of doing this. One family, the Maccabees, were so incensed by this act of defilement that they went to war with the Romans and defeated them and recovered and cleansed the temple.

One of the sacred pieces in the temple was a candlestick called a Menorah. It had seven lamps made of pure gold and it stood on a stand. The sacred oil that was used to light the lamps was made from a special process. It took seven days of processing and pressing the olives to get the sacred oil.

Moses’ law, given to him by God said that the lampstand was to burn continuously. When the Maccabees won the battle and took back the temple, there was only enough sacred oil for the lamp to burn for one day. They did not have enough time to produce the sacred oil and keep the lamp burning. That is when a miracle happened. The one days’ oil lasted 7 more days until the sacred oil was ready. God’s light did not go out.

Hanukkah celebrates this event, remembering the miracle that had happened.

In meditating on this, the Lord reminded me that we have the Holy Spirit, and the emblem of the Holy Spirit is oil. We must keep our lamps [spirits] filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit continuously to let our light shine out of our temple [spirit] into a dark world.

Salvation is just the beginning of having the Holy Spirit in our lives. As we continue to receive revelations from the Word of God, our “lamps” [spirits] grow brighter and brighter with the sacred oil of God, [the Holy Spirit] until the day God calls us home.

Keep filled up with the Holy Spirit so the light in your lamp never grows dim and watch God do miracles again.