The Apothecary

By: Omobowale Mobolaji

The term “Apothecary” is an archaic English word referring to a person who prepares and sells medicines and medical goods. This term was used in the Exodus 30:22-38 (KJV) where God gave specific instructions on how the sacred anointing oil and perfume were to be prepared. For us to understand the relevance of these two items, we need to take a trip back to the Israel of old.

In the Old Testament temple worship, the priest can not enter the presence of the Holy God with his own “scent”. Death is the immediate penalty of entering God’s presence with a scent of your own and to forestall this, God gave a specification for the preparation of a blend of spices which would be poured on anybody who would come into His presence such that when the person enters to minister before the Lord, He (God) would perceive only that fragrant smell from the priest.

“And the Lord said unto Moses, take unto thee sweet spices
…….. and thou shalt make it a perfume, a confection after
the art of the apothecary, tempered together, pure and holy” Exodus 30:34-35

In essence, this particular blend of spices, prepared to specification serves the purpose of preparing God’s people to meet their God by covering the bad odour that may come from their flesh thus making them presentable to God and preserving them from death.

However, there is another blend of spices prepared by the apothecaries of Egypt. These were specialists in embalming dead people. Their own kind of fragrant blend of spices keeps the dead smelling nice and fresh while the rate of decomposition is greatly reduced (the mummies of present day Egypt testify to the effectiveness of this art as some have been preserved for over 3000 years!).

And so we have a comparison between two apothecaries and their fragrant blend of spices; one which makes a man presentable to God and preserves from death while the other keeps the dead preserved in death but smelling nice and beautiful to behold. What can this mean to us?

The true and undiluted word of God we hear can be likened to the apothecary of Israel with his fragrant blend of spices. It serves the purpose of preparing us to meet with God in the beauty of holiness. Be sure of this; there are specifications to it. Anything short of specification is not acceptable to God and would eventually lead to spiritual death.

On the contrary, wherever the standards of God’s word is reduced, where people are fed with what they want to hear and not what the Lord wants, where worldliness is the order of the day, the apothecary of Egypt is at work and the best it can produce is good looking, nice smelling spiritually dead people. Miracles may happen, the word may be preached with the name of Jesus mentioned; similar to the real but ultimately fake.

It is only a pity that many have been entrapped by the modern day church system that keeps people perpetually “embalmed” in sin having perfumed them with good church auditoriums, musical instruments, social activities and what have you. It is even more worrisome that youths seem to be the prime target of this snare. My heart bleeds when I see some youths being carried away in deception but then, I wish to say “we will see Jesus one day and when we do, how would we be smelling? In line with HIS specifications or according to the dictates of the apothecary of Egypt?”

Article Source: http://www.articles.narrowisthepath.com

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