Let's take our Bibles. Turn with
me to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter 27. Proverbs
27. Last Tuesday morning, I got up thinking on the events that had
taken place over the last 24 hours. And I ask sincerely, as
I tried to be sincere, I ask the Lord, would you direct my
heart to a passage of Scripture? You know, it's wonderful to be
able to have a heart truly have a desire to want to ask. He said, you have not because
you ask not. And I ask the Lord to wreck my
heart. I know you can. And this is a
Scripture that I don't think I've ever read this passage of
Scripture. I don't remember. Proverbs 27, verse 7. The full
soul. loatheth and honeycomb. But to the hungry soul, every
bitter thing is sweet." Let's pray together. Our Father, this evening as we
come before You, we thank You that we can call and ask and
knock and seek Lord, I ask You, would You bless this service?
Would You bless the preaching? Bless the hearing? Lord, bless
this message to the heart of Your people. May Christ be honored. These things we ask for Christ's
sake. Amen. Every bitter thing is sweet. This evening we've come together for one reason. We've come together
to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. We have no other motive, no other
reason to meet. We pray that this evening that
Christ might be honored. We're here to honor our Lord. And sincerely, we are. We're
trying. We're trying to. While we're
here tonight, we're very aware of the events over the last 72
hours. We know that last Monday morning,
our Lord was pleased to remove One that we love and still love. One that was ushered into the
very presence of our Lord, June Clevenger. Just like eight other times before
since I've been here. Eight times. It's going to be
the ninth funeral that I've preached here. We bow. We praise Him. We thank Him. And do you know, we still hurt,
don't we? To all of us that loved her,
humanly speaking, that's a bitter thing. Now, the Scripture bears
out. to the hungry soul every bitter
thing." So I know, I'm quite aware that there are things in
this world, in this life that are bitter. But here's what Scripture
says, every bitter thing to the hungry soul is sweet. Sweet. Three things I found out, I looked
up, I considered about death for the believer. This is what
Scripture says concerning the death of a believer. Number one,
Psalm 116, 15 presses, in sight of the Lord is the death of His
saints. Precious to Him. And by faith, we bow. And in
the midst of this bitter thing, it is precious to us. It is sweet.
Revelation 14, verse 13, And I heard a voice from heaven saying
unto me, Write, Blessed, Blessed are the dead which die in the
Lord. From henceforth, yea, saith the
Spirit, that they may rest from their labors. And then Apostle
Paul says, a letter to the Philippians, Philippians 1.21, for me to live
is Christ and to die is gain. So here's what I know about death
for the believer. It's a bitter thing humanly.
I know that. But I know this, it's sweet.
It's precious. It's blessed. It's gain. We have, by the grace of God,
a hunger, an appetite, a spiritual appetite that rejoices in that
which the world knows nothing of. To sit and talk about such things,
I know, to our flesh is hard. How, one might ask, can you rejoice
and find something as bitter as this to be sweet? How do you find
that to be sweet? Well, I know first of all that the Lord has revealed the
source of this which is bitter to our flesh to be His will. Now, I can find that which is
bitter to be sweet when I consider that this is the will of God. Ephesians 1.11 concerning the
Lord Jesus Christ, it says, "...in whom also we have obtained an
inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of Him
who worketh all things after the counsel of His own
will. Last Monday morning, the Lord
revealed His will. And you know when you stop and
you think on that, you think this is the will of God. This
is God's will. That was the Lord's will. That which is bitter is sweet. But what's the purpose of Him
that worketh all things after the counsel of His own will?
That verse continues. It says that we should be to
the praise of His glory, God's glory, He who first trusted in
Christ. The Father Himself was the first
one that trusted in Christ. Shall we not do the same tonight?
Shall we not bow to Him who has made evident His will? A bitter thing, but to the hungry
soul, every bitter thing is sweet. We know. Oh, how many times has
Romans 8.28 come to our minds in times like this? We know.
We know. We know it's not a matter of
opinion. We know that all things, peace, prosperity, health, happiness. Boy, I tell you, we
love it when we're healthy, we're at peace, we prosper. How about sorrow? How about sickness? How about death? We know that
all things work together, cooperate under God's direction and God's
control for good, for eternal good. Eternal. Not necessarily present comfort
or ease. You say that was a bitter thing. But when you consider that the
Lord has called one of His own home and ushered them right into the
bosom of Abraham, that which we've seen wonderfully, graciously
seen by sight, to no more see a man by faith. We've graciously
seen by faith and now no more by faith than to see perfectly.
To know perfectly? To be eternally well, healthy,
alive for the first time. For the first time really alive. This world and the flesh and
Satan that all desire that we would doubt, to question. Why? But every bitter thing that providentially
comes our way, the believer, by the Holy Spirit's teaching, for sure in time. It just seems
as though that time has a way by the Spirit's blessing show
us it's good that I've been afflicted, that I might learn His statutes.
Things are bitter to our flesh when they run contrary to our
will. But the same things are sweet
when they're viewed in the light of His will. Father, I will. Boy, how many times have we looked
at this one? John 17, verse 24, "...Father, I will that they
also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am, that they
may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me, for Thou lovest
Me before the foundation of the world." It is His will, not sweet. His will. We say in the midst of every
bitter thing that comes our way, and believe me, they do. No chastening, Paul says for
the moment. Oh, that's not sweet. It's grievous. Oh, but what the Spirit of God
does produce. When you think back, think back
on what you've gone through, think back on what what you've
suffered, what you've seen, what you've had to endure. Really, would you go back and
change it? Now think about it. Would you go back and change
it? No, you wouldn't. Not a believer. No. No, that's my Lord's will. My
Lord sent that to me. This is this evening. We're honest about it. We're
human beings. And we love each other. And we
cherish each other's presence. When our Lord is pleased to remove
one of His own, when the flower of His garden
is ripe, it's time. And He takes it. Did he not have
the right to take it? Yes. He bought it. He made it. Purchased it in the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Father, I will that those that
You've given me be with me where I am. Oh, to the hungry soul. To those that hunger. Every bitter thing is sweet.
The fool loatheth a honeycomb. I looked up that word fool. I thought about that. Fool. And
sickened by excess. Sickened by access, the full
soul, that soul that is full of himself, full of self-sufficiency,
the one that thinks that he's increased with goods in his flesh. He says, I'm rich. I have need
of nothing. thinks he needs nothing, thinks
that he can justify himself before God, one that's full, thinking
that he can rest in his own wisdom and knowledge of divine things,
in his own strength, his own power, his own free will. He's
just one that thinks that his purity, his holiness and his
goodness and righteousness will stand the scrutiny Him who is of pure eyes and to behold
iniquity. One that thinks his works are
going to answer in the day of God's judgment. That soul loathes the honeycomb. What do you mean,
honeycomb? I looked this up. Listen to this.
Proverbs 16, 24. Pleasant words. Pleasant words
are as a honeycomb. Sweet to the soul and health
to the bones. The honeycomb of God's Gospel. Honeycomb of God's Word. God's
promise. God's truth. God's surety. The full soul, full of Himself,
He loathes. He loathes the pleasant words
of God. Pleasant words of God's truth.
Oh, but to that soul that hungers after Christ, he's hungry. I'm
not talking about one that just ate about an hour and a half
ago. You want a snack? You're not hungry. You're not
hungry. You're just trying to think. I'm talking about somebody that
spiritually, the Spirit of God has made them hunger and thirst
for righteousness, true righteousness. Realizing, if He does not robe
me in His righteousness, I don't have a righteousness. All of
my righteousnesses are His filthy rags. The Lord rode me. One that knows something of His
need of salvation by grace. One that has nothing to bring
to the Lord. What do I have? As Brother Scott
used to say, any man, woman that can come to the Lord empty-handed,
that empty hand is everything. been made so by the grace of
God. The hungriest soul, he that hungers
every bitter thing to somebody that hungers after God Almighty
doing something for them, or they are going to perish. They realize that everything
that God sent them, if God has been merciful to me in the salvation
of my soul, Everything that He sends my way, Mark, is good.
Everything He sends my way. He who has loved me with an everlasting
love. He who made Him, Christ, sin,
who knew no sin, that I might be made the righteousness of
God in Him. He who says that with one eye,
one of the eyes, of His bride that He's ravished. His heart
is stolen. Anything He sends my way is for
my good. All chastening is to those that
He loves for their good, for their profit, for His honor. It causes them to behold this
world, not my home. Every bitter thing that is going
to be bitter to my flesh is sweet being savored with His presence,
with His grace, with His will. If He is here tonight, and you
know He is, is this bitter thing not sweet
to us? Think about the mercy of Almighty
God that He would give anybody a hunger after Him. Teach them. Put them under the sound of the
gospel. Keep them there. Keep them under the sound of
the gospel. That they would just week in,
week out, week in, week out, come, sit, learn, be taught And then when He puts them under
the trial of their faith to prove to them, not to prove to Him,
He knows what He's going to do, but to prove to His people His
faithfulness. The trial of your faith being
more precious than silver and gold. And then you see the sufficiency
of His keeping power. The Lord's kept me. Oh, what
I've learned through that trial, that the trial of your faith,
the Lord proving Himself by faith that's given from above and shown
to be enduring, those that endure to the end, they're going to
be saved. The Lord is showing us. We're just pilgrims. We're just
here for a little while. Last Wednesday night, I made
this statement. There was a big group of people
here. I like the night. It's a nice
group. And I made this statement. I said, we'll probably never
meet again just like this. Remember that? We'll probably
never meet. We'll probably never have another
situation just exactly like this. None of us ever dreamed. what
would transpire. I had services last Sunday morning. And Monday morning I was vividly
reminded of the responsibility of being prepared, asking the
Lord for a message. I never know when it's going
to be the last time I ever preach to somebody or whether I'm going
to be preaching for the last time to. Based upon the confession of
faith that was given by our sister, June, she is right now in the
presence of God. She's not dead. She's alive. And this is what Scripture says,
no more tears, no more death, neither sorrow nor crime, Neither
shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed
away." May the Lord bless these words to our heart and cause
us to see the wonder of His blessed and marvelous grace. One day this is all going to
be real. One day it's going to be real. all of a sudden, for those that He's everlastingly
loved, immediately they'll see Him and
be like Him. May the Lord bless these words
for Christ's sake. Amen.