I may speak in the tongues of men

Or of angels,

But if I have no unction,

I am only a sounding gong

Or a clanging cymbal.

I may have the gift of prophecy and

The knowledge of every hidden truth;

I may have faith enough to move mountains;

But if I have no unction, I am nothing.

Unction is powerful and effective.

Unction can convince, convict, convert

And can change lives.

There is nothing unction cannot face;

There is no limit to its work,

power, and endurance

There are three important things in preaching:

Preparation, Presentation and Unction;

But the greatest of the three is Unction.

(With apologies to St. Paul for my re-contextualisation)

As a result of unction, God’s truth comes and becomes powerful. It vitalises and energises the people. It will edify as well as convict and convert people. With unction we can preach long sermons and people do not mind. Try preaching a long sermon in the absence of unction. The people will become restless and listless and that may be the last time we are called to preach at the church. With unction, when we give an invitation we will see results often accompanied by tears of repentance. “Unction will pierce and percolate; it will sweeten and soften. When the hammer of logic and the fire of human zeal fail to open the stony heart, unction will succeed” (Ravenhill).

There is all the difference in the world between preaching merely from human understanding and energy, and preaching in the conscious smile of God. . . . There is an eternity of difference between the two things. To me there is nothing more terrible for a preacher, than to be in the pulpit alone, without the conscious smile of God. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

When unction is present, there is power. We will be caught up with the message and made aware of some supernatural power, not our own. When God ignites us, our preaching will be powerful. When the heavenly flame descends upon us in our preaching, we will be different. Preaching is powerless without the fire of the Holy Spirit. It makes the sermons different; from dry to exciting, convicting, and converting. With unction there is freedom, fullness and flow; overflow and outflow. James Hervey, a friend of the Wesleys, describes the difference between preaching with and without unction:

Before, my preaching was like the firing of an arrow, all the speed and force depending on the strength of my arm in bending the bow. With the anointing, it was like firing a rifle-ball, the whole force depending on the powder back of the ball, and needing only a finger to release it.

In sum, we may be able to calculate the velocity of the planet Jupiter and understand all mysteries. We may even be able to speak a hundred languages and decipher ancient texts. However, if we have no unction in our preaching we are nothing and accomplish nothing from God’s perspective. A preaching that is devoid of unction is like a land devoid of lakes, streams, or any living thing.

Today, we seem to have lots of action without much unction! Action without unction leads to motion and commotion, like a merry-go-round. Without the power of the Spirit, we may go through the motions of preaching, but it is all energy of the flesh that produces no fruits.

How to Obtain Unction

Supplication (Prayer)

According to those who have experienced Spirit-empowered preaching, unction is connected to prayer. It has been reported that three days before Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God,” he prayed fervently for three days and three nights. As he paced up and down the room, he cried, “Give me New England. Give me New England.” On the following day, he read his sermon and the Spirit of God came mightily to the congregation. A revival broke out. Men and women were deeply convicted of their sins and clung to the seats and pillars in the hall for fear they would be swallowed in hell. It spread from the church throughout New England and is called in Church history as the Great Awakening. That’s what prayer can do.

We need preachers who believe in prayer and are willing to be intercessors and “lay hold of God’s power in the secret closet and then go forth and proclaim the Word of God with the anointing and quickening power of the Spirit.” (James Braga) Indeed, much of contemporary preaching is powerless because the preacher is prayerless. It appears that prayer is part of the gateway to obtaining unction. Like Jacob, we must ‘wrestle with God’ and say, “I will not let you go unless you bless me” (Gen. 32:26). We need to travail in prayer till God prevails. As preachers we yearn to have the powers of the early apostles of Christ. However, to have apostolic powers we need to engage in the apostolic practice of ardent prayers and only then will we experience apostolic possibilities.

This unction is not an inalienable gift. It is a conditional gift, and its presence is perpetuated and increased by the same process by which it was at first secured; by unceasing prayer to God, by impassioned desires after God, by estimating it, by seeking it with tireless ardor, by deeming all else loss and failure without it. (E. M. Bounds)

There is a traceable connection between the ‘plus of the Spirit’ in preaching and a man’s secret life of intimate communion with God. (William Sangster)

Prayer, much prayer, is the price of preaching with unction. (E. M. Bounds)

We must pray till we prevail. To prevail with God we need to travail. We need to be ‘shut up’ to God. “The men who have worked in the anointing and unction at some time or other in their lives waited alone with God until they were endued with power form high” (Oswald Smith). To obtain unction we need to spend more time agonising than organising (“sue it out with God,” to use Thomas Goodwin’s phrase).

Any man can be a powerful preacher if he will only yield himself unreservedly unto God. It will not matter in the very smallest degree whether a man is eloquent or whether he is not. Believe me, eloquence or learning have not the slightest influence on the power of our message. Every vestige of any power there may be in our words is due to the Holy Spirit of God. (Unknown Christian)

Therefore, a preacher needs to surrender himself to God daily. When we believe in the empowering of the Holy Spirit it deepens our dependence on God. Unless we spend hours alone with God, we will never know the unction of the Holy Spirit is all about. (see Acts 1:14; 2:2, 4; 4:31; 8:14–17).

God has no favourites when it comes to dispensing unction. Neither is unction dependent on credentials or qualifications. Those who had the power did not accidentally stumble upon this blessing. Rather, they were willing to meet God and having counted the cost, were willing to pay for it. Confession of known sin is a pre–requisite to obtain this blessing (Oswald Smith).

Other conditions for receiving unction include “desire and thirst, earnest expectation, and expectant faith” (Smith). Power on high is available to all but are we prepared to pay the price of tarrying?

Sovereignty of the Spirit

Unction is also dependent on the Sovereignty of the Spirit. There is no neat formula. Sargent says,

To receive unction the preacher must be open and expectant as he moves into the pulpit. Dependent on the Holy Spirit, he should enter the pulpit open the Word. He should endeavour to unfurl the sails of his mind to the wind of the Spirit and proceed along the course, which the Holy Spirit directs.

God is unquestionably sovereign in the dispensation of this blessed influence. He giveth it in such measures, on such occasions, and to such instruments, as it seems good to him. He that directs the course of the clouds, and causes them to drop their treasures where and when he pleases, makes the dew of his grace, and the rain of his Spirit, to fall according to the counsel of his will. (Unknown)