Address—Mark Allan
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Maybe we could start the meeting this evening by singing 275.
And I'm thinking particularly this evening, and I think you'll see this later about verses 4 and verses 6.
The topic I'd like to take up this evening is taste and see that the Lord is good.
And that may seem like an easy topic to take up, but I've been.
Actually struggling with this one for a little bit, not because.
I don't believe it, but because I realize the importance of it in my own life. So maybe we could just start by singing 275.
Help.
Our God and Father, we just thank you that we can be here this morning, this evening, to have your word open.
And our God and Father, we just would thank you for the Lord Jesus, the one who came from heaven to go to that cross so that our sins could be forgiven.
And her father, we just look to you for help as we consider this topic this evening. We just let us know the heart of every single person.
In this room, know my own heart. You know how often we don't appreciate you, Lord Jesus, in the way that we should. And so we just ask for your help and we pray that your Spirit would be able to open your word to us, that it would be sweet to our taste and that we'd be able to enjoy it. And we just asked us in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen.
So over the last.
I guess since last fall perhaps, I've been enjoying.
Psalm 34. And I had noticed when I was reading that chapter, there's a number of things in that chapter that really touched me that I I spent a little bit of time chewing on just for my own.
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Help and there's a quite a few things that David does in that chapter This is a chapter where David has failed and.
He gets himself in a very, very difficult situation and he cries out to the Lord and the Lord delivers them. If you look at the beginning of that chapter, says the Psalm of David when he changed his behavior before Venelect, who drove him away and he departed. And then you read through this chapter and there's a it's a wonderful chapter.
And David does a number of things. He blesses the Lord, he praises the Lord, he boasts in the Lord, He magnifies the Lord, He exalts the Lord.
He seeks the Lord, he cries to the Lord, he tastes and see, he fears the Lord, he trusts the Lord, he Harkins to the Lord. And if you go through it, there are a number of things and I've just been considering.
Specifically this evening I'd like to look at taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trust in Him, you know?
I had gone through the verses in the Word of God with respect to seeking the Lord, and it's amazing to see how when somebody seeks the Lord.
They find him. It's an incredible thing. And then I went through, you know, and people cry to the Lord. He hears them and delivers them. And that's an incredible thing too, to search out in the Word of God. There are very things that we can do in our lives. But you know, I got to this one and it says taste and see that the Lord is good.
And, you know, this one's a little bit different because, you know, it's one thing.
To maybe you're in a difficult position to cry to the Lord and feel like he helped you. It's a total other thing to enjoy the Lord. You know, that's something that we all look for in our life is the enjoyment of things. And so here it's to taste and see that the Lord is good, Not just that he's there, not just that he saves us, but that he's good.
And you know, I'll be honest, I avoided this one for a little like just in terms of digging when I say avoided it in terms of.
Digging into it and searching it out and looking out versus associated with it and actually my daughter.
Brin about a month and a half ago, she said to me that I should speak on tasting and see if the Lord is good. And she, what she specifically said is I want to know how you do that. You know, this relates very much to the question, the last question that we had this morning, and I thought there were excellent answers to it. You know, there's a lot of young people here and I know that one of the things sometimes that people struggle with is why do I get out of bed in the morning?
I don't really have a lot to look forward to.
And so this thought of taste and see that the Lord is good is an important one. You know, I could tell you that till I'm blue in the face, and it wouldn't do any good at all.
You know, when it comes to taste, maybe my taste is a little different than your taste. And maybe you say, well, maybe that person enjoys the Lord. But I, I don't, when I read, I get, I don't get anything from it. I don't really enjoy the Lord. You know, I thought about that because I see it even in my own life a little bit sometimes.
And I I can honestly say.
That.
I have taste, doesn't seem that the Lord is good, but I forget it within 12 hours or less. It happens over and over and over again. And so that's what I want to look at this evening. It was interesting. We were at the dinner line this evening and I was listening to.
Tim Muruga talked about how he didn't like vegetables.
And there was I I discussion that was going on there.
Specifically about that and you know, I don't, I don't mind vegetables, but you can't make somebody like them, right? You know, I have here.
An apple and maybe some people here like an apple and some don't, but what I'd like to look at and I, I honestly, when I thought about this just off the top of my head, I couldn't think of that much that would be very, I don't want to say convincing, but I just want to go through the word of God and the verses that I enjoyed and I can say this honestly.
Even in searching this out, there was a little bit of a sense that when I tasted.
He was good. It was very good. Now the interesting thing about it is when you read about this in the word of God, it's not just.
Good, it's the Lord is sweeter than honey. It's not just a little bit good, it's absolutely amazing. So how do you how do you portray something like that so.
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I'd like to turn, I'm going to go through 10 points and I'm going to try and make it as practical as I can.
And.
Ultimately, the Lord is behind every single one of these points, and it's nothing that I could ever do.
It's nothing that I could ever say, but the Lord is good. Taste and see that the Lord is good. You know, in order for me to taste this apple, I have to take a bite of it. And when it comes to this topic, you personally need to do it yourself. And so the first portion I'd like to turn to is in Exodus 15. I'm going to go through.
10 instances and I hope to give it.
An example.
In each one.
And I was very thankful that the question came up this morning.
I was thankful actually at the hymn thing last night. It gave me a perfect example of this first one. And you know this, there's different places where these verses are. The first one I'm going to read is when the children of Israel escape from Egypt across the Red Sea. They come into the to the wilderness. They just have had a tremendous victory.
They're desperate. They look for water. They can't find it for three days.
They're incredibly thirsty. They finally come upon water, and the water is bitter.
I think everyone here probably knows these verses well, but if we could just read Exodus 15.
Verse 22 And Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of sure, and they went three days in the wilderness, and they found no water. When they came to Mara. They could not drink of the waters of Mara.
For they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Mara. The people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord. And the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet.
There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.
So here, in this first instance, they're in the wilderness and we're all.
In a sense in the wilderness and they're desperate for water. And you know, what's interesting to me is sometimes we think of.
The Lord, perhaps like a vending machine, he should just keep it giving us good things. And the reality is, is that almost all of these instances that I go through, they are actually in incredible difficult circumstances. You know, I was even thinking about my brother. He is no fellowship. He has to put a pile of money into traveling. His flight was cancelled and it was the one.
Week that he had coming here was delayed 3 days.
So he lost three days of his vacation.
He found that very hard. They finally get here.
And two days into it, Matthew gets his head all head up and he's off to the hospital and they have to drive back tomorrow. There's a drop him off the airport. He goes to a wedding and then he goes back to Newfoundland and you know.
Is the Lord good in that circumstance? Maybe that's a question you should ask. He. He and I have had some very nice discussions about this. You heard what he said this morning.
Difficult circumstances often drive these times.
When we need to taste and see that the Lord is good.
The first place we need to go is to the cross.
If we want to taste and see that the Lord is good here, they come to Mara, the waters bitter. And what does the Lord say?
Take a tree, cast it into the water, and it will become sweet.
And in order for them to drink that, drink that water and it was sweet, but it took going a picture of the cross. And I will say this, going back to the cross, if you want to enjoy the sweetness of the Lord.
Is incredibly important. Last night the hymn singing made a perfect example of that. Cummins. You can say it, Andrew.
Mentioned that he was really struggling.
The breaking of bread.
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And he recognized that he just, the Lord hadn't had the right place. He said, I'm going to pass. I'm going to taste and see if the Lord is good. So he cut off his Internet for a week, even into the Lord's presence, where he remembered him in his death. And the Lord was sweet.
I've had that happen to me.
Many times.
And I can honestly say that one of the sweetest places.
Even haste and see that the Lord is good.
Is remembering them and we need to go back and go back and go back to that. And so if you want to taste and see that the Lord is good, spend some time considering the cross and its implication in your life. I got to keep going because of time. The next one is in the next chapter.
It is in Exodus 16 and this has to do with.
Mana Hey, you know, man is an interesting one because they didn't have food in the wilderness. And again, we're continuing to talk about the wilderness, which is where we are.
And the Lord makes a miraculous provision.
For food that appears.
Every day.
We have to go pick it up. It doesn't last more than a day.
And they have to take two days for the Sabbath day.
And you know, it's interesting what it says about mana. Actually, let's just read in chapter 16.
Verse four It says, Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will send, I will reign bread from heaven for you.
And the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day. And actually let's just flip to later in the chapter, verse 31, it says those of Israel called the name thereof manna. And it was like coriander seed white. And the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. So here is the.
Second thing.
Or point that I'd like to make about tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, you know, it needs to be done.
Every single day.
You know, very often I think of this, people say, well, just read your Bible every day.
And you know, sometimes you do that and you don't necessarily get it. It's interesting with respect to manna. They get tired of it and bored with it. And even though it was a miracle, they struggled with it, but it never changed the flavor of it that it was.
Like wafers made with honey.
You know, it's Sean said this morning. He said we need to look for the Lord.
And you know, I think that's a good thing for us to do every day of our life is to look for the Lord. And I think you will find sweetness. You will taste and see that He is good when you look warm. It might not be in your reading. It might be when you're reading a calendar verse, something pops out from the calendar verse. It might be when you go for a walk.
And you're just spending time with the Lord, and he gives you something that is.
Sweet to your taste?
It is the Lord Himself that provides that sweetness that we need, you know.
In the New Testament, we can turn to it quickly. In John, the Lord Himself very specifically said that He was the bread from heaven. Referring back to this, and I just want to point out one point there that has been a huge help to me. I go back to this verse over and over again. This is in John 6.
31.
This is our fathers Nadeep Manna in the desert and it was written he gave them bread from heaven to eat, Jesus said verily.
Unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of heaven is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth light life unto the world. They said unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst, the Lord himself.
Is that bread that were to feed on that manna that were to feed on every day?
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You know, I was getting up in the morning and I was contemplating the difficulties of the day.
And realizing that I was struggling with believing the Lord and this verse that is directly related to this, it just it jumped off the page to me. It was like a little bit of sweetness that the Lord gave. But you don't even have to believe. It says here, I'm the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger. You know, you just need to come to the Lord.
With open hands.
And it says you'll never hunger, you know when you do that.
The next part of the verse is he that believeth on me shall never thirst. That is a very, very, very powerful and significant. You know the Lord gives us the ability to believe when we come to Him. And so when it comes to tasting and seeing that the Lord is good on a daily basis, the question that I would have is the first one, are you remembering the Lord 1/2 Are you looking for the Lord?
Every day.
He will give himself to you.
And it will be sweet.
So that's the second one. This is in the wilderness.
There are two. The third one I'd like to look at is.
Moving on a little bit further.
And it's actually over in Numbers chapter 13. And this has to do with.
Our future.
And perhaps in some respects.
Is very more pertinent to us as heavenly citizens and just about anything, because we're not really guaranteed anything on this earth.
Here we have Joshua.
And Caleb, and they're sent to spy out the land of Canaan. So this is the promises that God has given Israel, and he sends them into the land.
And you know, all of us as believers, if we trust the Lord, have.
Incredible promises. You know, sometimes it's hard.
To really appreciate those promises. But the reality is, is that those promises trump anything else I was listening to.
Someone who does the news from a Christian perspective, Albert Mohler and he made the comment to a couple that just got married. He says what I really they person wrote in and asked the question, what advice would you have for us having just been married or what would you say? He said I I just really hope that the Lord lets you enjoy a little bit down here.
Of what you're going to have for all eternity, even though you're not necessarily promised it. And he set the focus on what was ahead, not necessarily what was now. Because we know that things aren't necessarily easy down here. And so maybe it's not comforting for a young person to think.
Oh, I'm going to be in the most amazing place with the most where everything will be perfect and there'll be no. And I know that almost sounds ridiculous because when you actually do think about it is absolutely incredible.
But it sometimes is not a comfort when you're wandering through the wilderness and you're looking at Egypt and saying, man, the food was good there. What am I doing? This is crazy. I don't even know if I'm going to get there.
But you know, we need to have eyes of faith and you know, we have a place where we can go to find out about what's ahead of us as believers.
And I think if we can, even in a small way.
Enter into it, we will be able to taste and see that the Lord is good. We look for the Lord in it. I'm not going to go into this story, but Caleb and Joshua and the 10 other spies go into the land.
And it struck me just in reading it today.
The order of which things happen in this chapter.
So if you go to numbers 13 and you go down to.
Verse 21.
So they went up.
And searched the land from the wilderness of Zen under rehab, as the men come to Hamath. And they ascended by the South and came to Hebron, where him and Shishi I and Talmay, the children of Anak were. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zohan in Egypt. And they came to the brook of Aschol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bear between two upon a staff. And they brought of the pomegranates and of.
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Figs. The place was called the Brook Ashgall because of the cluster of graves with the Children of Israel cut down from fence and they returned from searching the land 40 days.
So.
The first thing they come across when they go to spy out the land is giants.
Big. Terrifying.
Gaius. But then they come to what the Lord promised, which was.
It was the time of grapes, time of first ripe grapes, it says in verse 20. And they picked this massive cluster of grapes and they carry it back.
I'm sure they tasted it, and I'm sure.
That it was good now if you were in the children of Israel.
You're hearing it from somebody else. You're hearing it from Joshua and Caleb. Are you going to believe it?
You know I.
There's almost no point in explaining. I think if you read the chapters in the word of God that explain.
The joy of having And I know there's not a lot explicitly said about the eternal state, that some of the pictures that are given are just absolutely stunning.
We need to think about that. You know, Joshua and Caleb were able to look at that and recognize that that was the Lord was.
And you have to look at the Lord and everyone of these situations far greater than the giants that were there. You know the question I didn't was not able to make to the covenant theology to me one meeting. One of the biggest things to me is.
We have before us the hope of the Lord's return, Him coming out of the heaven, gives a show, calls his home marriage supper, the Lamb. We come back with Him, and for 1000 years the greatest Kingdom, where the Lord is given His rightful place as King of kings, can have the most.
There's no description of how amazing it will be.
In that thousand years, and then the eternal state comes after that, you know if we.
Lose sight of the fact that the Lord is coming and this is going to happen and we think things as they are today are going to get better what's there to look for? We see morality falling apart every single day. We see the government in its crumbling. We see the polarization, we see the family being destroyed, we see the role of.
A man and a woman being mashed together and mixed up, we see just a complete crumbling. And so if we're looking for a hope in this earth without the Lord in his return.
It totally changed our perspective. We're trying to clean up something that is falling apart, but what we're looking for is for the Lord's return from heaven in an amazing, amazing future ahead of us where we don't have to worry about trying to turn the tide of evil that just seems to be in an uncontrollable slide right now.
And that's something that I can wake up and I can read the news and I can look and see CNN and MSNBC and Fox or whoever it may be and just say I don't need to worry about this. I'm going to come back with the Lord as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And there's going to be a perfect government set up and there will be no polarization. And he will judge everything rightly. And I don't quite understand how I'm going to be.
Part of this as the heavenly bride and a ruling over the earth. Maybe they don't understand the details of that, but it's going to be amazing. I don't even need to try and figure it out what I'm looking for.
Is him to come. Things may be falling apart now, but they're falling together from his perspective. And that's an amazing thing. You know, that's a very sweet thing. And Caleb and Joshua got that and they tried to convince the others, but for 40 years they went through the wilderness and that was before them. I'm not going to turn the verses just because of time, but you know, they got there.
The very first day they arrived.
The mana stops.
They eat the old horn of the land, and they enjoy the fruit, the taste, the delight of that promise of that land that flowed with milk and honey. And we will, if we know the Lords, our Savior, enjoy a future day, even if we don't see it the way that we should right now. And that is a tremendous, tremendous thing that should be sweet to our taste.
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I can't imagine.
And I see it even in the comments of dialogue.
But people just say, I don't know what's happened to the US in the last 10 years.
And they're just hopeless and helpless when they comment on what's happening. But for the believer, it's not that way. And that's an amazing thing. And that is.
Tasting and seeing that the Lord is good. So that's the third thing. First thing is going back to the cross. And there will be sweetness every day looking to the Lord and there'll be sweetness in that. Looking to the future that's ahead of us and there will be sweetness in that. The next one I'd like to go to is.
Umm over in First Samuel 14 and this has to do with tasting.
And seeing that the Lord is good.
In battle, and this has to do with Jonathan and you know, we see. It's not my intent to get into this at all.
A beautiful picture.
In Johnson and Saul, where Saul is father.
Does everything in his own power and Jonathan has a remarkable amount of faith.
And you'll notice in and I won't turn to a first Samuel 14, he comes three, He says come three times in this chapter, which is exactly what we read in John and the Lord does he? He says, I'm going to test the Lord even though there's impossible odds against me here.
Maybe the Lord, he says, come, let us go up under the Garrison of these uncirculated verse six. It may be that the Lord will work for us. There's no restraint to the Lord to save by many or few by few.
You know he tasked the Lord.
And the Lord gives him an amazing victory. So the fourth point.
I'd like to make about pasting and seeing.
Is in battle.
In impossibly difficult circumstances in our life.
We can test the Lord.
And he will help us.
You know, earlier this year I was doing.
Person who is my peer got laid off because he wasn't performing and I took his job. They tried to backfill my job.
And then they laid off. My boss and I was doing 2 1/2 jobs, and by the end of February, I was a wreck, a complete wreck. We went on vacation in Myrtle Beach and I, it was terrible, for lack of a better word. I couldn't get my mind off work. I couldn't sleep. Everything was bothering me and I knew.
I thought that there's nothing I could do, but you know, I read and I prayed.
And I felt peace that the Lord was going to deliver me from it. I had prostrated myself on my face.
Before the Lord.
I ended up going off work for five weeks unstressed. Lord gave me a completely different job where the stress levels gone for about 150% down to about 2%. And I'm not saying things are going to get easy because they could be hard tomorrow.
But in that battle.
The Lord showed himself.
Good.
I can't explain that to you.
But I do know.
That if we taste and see.
We will see He wants to help us. It may not be the way that we expect. It may not necessarily be a good.
I mean, I've been trying for years about difficulties with respect to my job, and the Lord's given different answers along the way, but you know.
I I can honestly say that I can see his hand working in a remarkable way and so I'm not going to try and elaborate this. I can't do it. But if you're in a difficult situation in your life, genuinely take it to the Lord and trust him and I think you will taste and see that He is good.
You think about that verse, it says, and see the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in him. The two are connected together.
We need to trust the Lord. We need to step out in faith. Jonathan here does something that is almost ridiculously foolish. He and his armor bearer go and try and attack a whole squadron on their own energy, but the Lord doesn't.
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And he brings amazing victory. And what made me think of this passage was later on, Jonathan comes and he finds this honey.
And he dips his this in verse 27 of chapter 14 it says Jonathan heard not that his father charged the people with the oath. And he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand and dipped it in a honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth. And his eyes were lightning.
In the flash there will be nothing to enjoy when we trust the Lord their will. It's beautiful to me to see that. So that's the next one that I wanted to look at with respect to tasting and see the 4th 1 tasting and seeing and battle that the Lord is good. The next one I'd like to look at is Tasting and seeing the Lord is Good in failure.
And you know, this is a beautiful one. We can fail. And it's not my intent to go into any specific.
Example of this one. But have you ever failed in your life?
I know I don't even need to ask the question.
But if we go to the Lord again, this gets to going back to the cross.
We will see that He is good. He forgives us when we don't deserve it. He is the creator of the universe, perfectly holy, can't stand sin, and yet He forgives us. Here you have David. And you know, it's interesting to me if you consider David's circumstance when he failed in this Psalm 34 in the context of Psalm 34.
David.
Had a sense of who the Lord was.
He spent time with the Lord daily.
He appreciated the Lord and promised him he was going to be king.
And he entrusted the Lord in battle and defeated Goliath, but he failed.
And here in this situation, he dries out to the Lord, and the Lord delivers him.
And he can write compend these words.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Blessed is the man that trusts in him. So if you've failed in your life.
I will say that that's a fifth time when you can very tangibly go to the Lord and taste and see if He is good. He will forgive you. If you're willing to turn to Him and repent, He will. And that's an incredible and amazing thing.
To enjoy well the next one that I'd like to look at and we've been looking specific more specifically at.
At.
People.
We've looked at Moses, we've looked at Joshua, we've looked at Jonathan, we've looked at David. I'd like to turn and these are words written by David and then.
In Psalm 19 and Psalm 103, and this struck me as I consider this topic.
Because it has to do with sometimes reading the Bible is.
Maybe we don't get a lot from it, but what it says, what does it say in Psalm 19?
About the Word of God.
I just.
It says there more to be desired than gold. Yeah, than much fine gold. Sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. You think of the absolute best thing.
Or sweetest thing that you can taste.
And this book.
Is better.
And if that being in the Word of God, once is not enough.
It actually says it again in Psalm 119. You could turn over to Psalm 119.
And verse 100 and.
Three, it says.
How sweet are thy words to my taste? Yeah, sweeter than honey to my mouth.
I can't make the word of God sweet to you when you read it.
And you know, sometimes when I read it.
It's not as sweet as it could be, but you know, it's amazing to me and I talked about there being different ways that we can.
Find the Lord in the morning or whatever it is through the day.
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One of them is the word of God. You know, I was, I had a friend since I grew up. He's a couple years older than me. He was turning 50. Him and five friends were at our house all last week. And I was thinking, but what can I say when he turns 50 from the word of God? And the only thing I can think of is that the priest no longer were allowed to do any physical labor. And so it's like saying, oh, you're physically falling apart when you're 50. And I'm almost there.
Great message. You know I was reading in numbers in my.
My reading, and I read the passage and it's in Numbers 825. I just would like, and it just struck me it was just something very small. It says. And from the age of 50 years they shall cease from waiting upon the service thereof. This is Numbers 825. They shall serve no more, but shall minister with their brethren in the Tabernacle.
You know, I thought, you know what?
He didn't have official responsibilities for physical labor, but they got to actually be close to the Lord and the minister there.
That's, for lack of a better word, like promotion. And it was just beautiful to me, just a little firm. I had always sort of when I was younger, I'd stop and say, oh, you're 50 each probably backing away from things.
You know, it was just sweet for me to read that, you know? Then I was reading Corrodes and a Byron, which is a brutal story.
So they all get swallowed up by the earth. This is a few chapters later. I was actually in Johnstown. I was driving from the hotel to the workplace and I listened to it on the audio Bible twice. And the Lords response, this struck me. He says to them, he said you were near to me.
And he wanted something more.
It was just a little.
Sweetness.
Of.
How precious it is to be near to the Lord that they took for granted.
And so.
This book.
Has sweetness in it. It may not. If you give it a 2 minute read in the morning, you're probably not going to find it. And I'll be honest, the example that I had for this was I was struggling with talking about this because I wasn't sure if I could find anything that would be useful.
But when I looked up verses about tasting.
And I thought about people who had enjoyed.
Pasting in the Word of God, it was like the Lord just brought out a little flavor for me to enjoy, and I appreciate that. And I've had that happen to me.
Anytime almost that I'm willing to put a little bit of concerted effort and time into digging into the Word of God if my heart's in the right place, and it's remarkable to me every time.
I would rather.
Go on social media or rather than spend a few hours going into something in the workplace. But when I do.
When I taste it, it is sweet and I can't explain to you how to do that, but I think if you do it for yourself, maybe it's searching a word or looking at the topic or considering something. The depths of what's in here is amazing. I have to watch my time.
That's the 6th one. The 7th one I'd like to look at is in Song of Solomon chapter 2.
And verse three it says, as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight.
And his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Here you have a comparison between.
Apple trees and the trees of the wood.
And what's better, you have some apple farmers here. You know I love apples if we compare the Lord.
To the options.
There is no comparison, you know, I think. And The funny thing is, is what Satan presents to us, may be it looks better on the outside, but the after taste is horrible. And all you have to do is go back to the Garden of Eden and you can see that, you know, I can work and I'm tired and maybe I want to flip through Facebook. I come home from work. I'm tired and I want maybe I want to flip through Fox News.
00:45:09
But you know if I compare.
What comes out of spending some time chewing on those things?
Versus chewing on the Lord Himself, there is no comparison.
And.
Maybe a book these days looks boring.
In comparison to something that's.
Flashy and well designed.
But the reality is that if you do the comparison.
I think you will find the same thing every time.
That this is what actually brings sweetness to the taste.
There is no comparison I find myself.
Like Andrew?
Letting away my time, doing various things and then just feeling.
Empty and drained and with nothing leftover at the end of it. But when I spend time with the Lord or I spend time with His Word.
It's sweeter than honey, and that's an incredible thing. The next one I'd like to add is further on in Song with Solomon, and this gets.
In some respects more personal, you look at Song of Solomon chapter 5 verse one, which is actually.
And Josh spoke on this several years ago here.
The consummation of love.
Happens here.
And it says in five verse one, it says I am coming into my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O ye friends, drink. He drank abundantly, O beloved.
All of us long for personal connections and intimacy in our life, whether it's worth with family.
Whether it's worth friends, whether it's worth a spouse, and ultimately.
With the Lord Himself.
And.
If we spend time with the Lord, you know there is an intimacy of enjoyment that comes with that, that.
His almost Holy Grail. I don't know how to explain it beyond that.
I was thinking this morning when singing was mentioned as something that, you know, you see people lifting their hands very often. It's coming from a personal.
And I realize it can be manufactured, but there are times when we're enjoying the Lord where we just can't help but just be in awe of His love and what He's done for us. And maybe that doesn't happen all the time, but ultimately.
And I mentioned this earlier, I enjoyed it from my sister Malina. I've been chewing on it since Newfoundland, that one of our great purposes is to know him and to make him known. To know him in a very personal way is just the most incredible thing that we can imagine. And I realize that that's not something that I can. You can't force it on somebody, but I think.
You will realize it when you spend time with the Lord, that the intimacy of the coming. I know this is a picture of the Lord in Israel.
But even as you go from the cover to cover the Bible picture of the husband and wife all the way to the bride of Revelation 22, it's a theme of of oneness and communion. It starts with the Father and Son, the Holy Spirit. And you know, that communion, that joy and the sweetness that comes from that is incredible.
The next one I'd like to to look at is in First Peter chapter 2.
This is the 9th 1:00.
This is one I hadn't even considered or noticed at all before I looked up verses on this topic I had been watching. Well, let me read the verses first, says in first Peter two it says his newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that they make. That ye may grow thereby, if so be that ye have tasted that the Lord.
00:50:00
Is gracious.
And my comment here is to.
Taste like a child tastes. You know, as we get older, we sometimes get a little more crusty. We get bitter about things. The flesh comes out more. But a child?
Has a perspective of just considering things with an open mind without all the baggage that comes from the flesh. And I just, I don't even know, maybe I'm going too far to connect versus 2:00 and 3:00, but I just appreciate the connection here.
As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the work that you make, word that you may grow thereby. If so be the ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.
I was watching a YouTube video a few weeks ago of a Mormon who went out on his missionary 2 years, mandatory missionary 2 years at 18 and came to a Christian's home somewhere here in the US. First was a Christian.
And the Christian just said to him, listen, I want you to take the New Testament and read it like your child.
And see if it matches with what you're teaching.
So he went home.
And I think he spent nine months just reading the New Testament as a child over and over and over and just thinking about, OK, what's who is the Lord? What was? And he went through it, and his eyes were just completely opened. And he became a Christian. His mother was a professor at BYU University or whatever the place is. Every single one in his family was intimately involved.
He was on his mission trip.
He had to go home and basically blow his girlfriend. But you know what the Lord did? He saved his girlfriend, he saved his parents, he saved his brother just by going through the word of God like a child and seeing its sweetness. And you know, as we get older and maybe it starts more in our teens and things, you have this vision of where things should go and they don't start going that way and you start getting.
Frustrated and bitter, and it gets harder and harder to read.
Like a child.
You know, I've seen that even in my own life that I bring an agenda to the table before really having the simplicity of a child tasting the word of God. And so I just as a 9th 1 here.
Would say to taste the word of God as a child just read it simply it says if you tasted the Lord's grace. She's connected with graciousness Lord here and if you consider.
The Lords, the undeserved favor that we have in our life as believers, it is phenomenal.
So that's the 9th, 1:00 and then the last one.
That I'd like to look at.
It is a warning, and again, I hadn't even really considered this one and it it.
Won't say it scared me a little bit, but in Hebrews chapter 6.
And this is actually I believe has to do.
With someone who isn't truly a believer.
But the principle of.
If you have tasted that, the Lord is good.
To walk away from that.
Is an incredibly serious thing.
Incredibly serious thing. And I'll just read these verses. I don't even know that I could explain them in the proper way that they deserve, but it just, it struck me.
To consider what it says here, it says first impossible for those who were once enlightened to have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the word of God and the powers the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again under repentance.
Seeing they crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open chain.
You know, I looked back at my peers from being your guys's age.
There's a few of them who call themselves atheists now.
There's a few.
Who? There's zero evidence of Christianity in their lives.
And sometimes I I look at them and I say, did they ever?
00:55:04
Taste.
The sweetness of the Lord in any aspect and I don't I don't have an answer to it, but I can tell you that if you consider the verses that we've had before us of tasting and seeing what the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts in there to walk away. Why? Why would you? The Lord is in every single one of them. It's actually himself.
That we taste.
As we read the Word of God and as we spend time with them. As we go to them in battle, As we go to them when we fail. As we go back to the cross on Wednesday morning. As we look forward to a future that is incomprehensibly good. As we compare them to other things. As we spend.
A closeness with him, that is.
Incomparable.
They're to walk away from it is like saying, what's the use of the cross? And I won't say anything more than that other than to say just consider this a little bit. You know, it struck me. I had gone through this and I probably organized the verses four or five different ways. And then, you know, I, I considered in and I like whenever I take out the topic to look what it says at the beginning when it says at the end.
You know, Adam and Eve were put in the garden. All the fruit trees and herb yielding fruits were there and they were allowed to eat anything. But there's one tree they were told not to eat. Satan wants to put in front of us something that looks incredibly good.
But just, well, absolutely.
Destroy.
You know, we go through the word of God and the Lord deals with that when you get to Revelation and I just and I haven't spent enough time meditating on it, but you know, I just was considering.
That tree that yields fruits every month in Revelation 22?
And that tree of life that anyone who has their garments washed have access to. And it's a phenomenal thing, a phenomenal thing, you know, from the beginning to the end, the Lord wants us to enjoy himself, to enjoy his company. And he makes a way for that to happen through the Word of God. Well, that there are my thoughts on that.
I hope and pray that each one of you here.
We'll be able to try to taste and see that the Lord is good and that Placid is the man tosts in him and that it is a true statement. It's not something that I can do for you. It's not something that anybody else can do for you when you take a bite of an apple.
You have to do it yourself.
But the results are clear and amazing.