Go with me if you would back
to Psalm 34. I don't know if the lunch that
you all spread Sunday had anything to do with drawing me to this
particular verse. But Psalm 34 verse 8 says, Oh, taste and see. That the Lord is good. Blessed
is the man that trusteth in him. Oh, taste and see, taste and
see. Experience it. Experience it, bring it in. taste
and see. I know you've heard people talk
about things that they have seen that just struck awe into them. Took their breath away as we
say it, you know. On two separate occasions, I've
had brother John Reeves and brother Kevin Thacker both tell me what
it was like to see a 3,000 foot vertical rock cliff in Yosemite
National Park called El Capitan. You ever heard of that? Probably every time they see
it, they feel this way, but they said the first time you see this, It's just all striking. Brother
Kevin told me he said he had seen some things before that
were truly amazing. He said, I've been around. He
said, I've seen some things that were truly amazing. But he said,
when I saw the magnitude of that mountain. I was awestruck by
it. Just awestruck. He said he laid
down on the ground for an hour and just stared at it, watching
people try to climb this. This mountain. Now I have heard
about that. I had heard of that before they
told me about it. I've heard of it before, but
I've never seen it. And I believe this is a pretty
good illustration. I imagine it and you are right now too. Okay. I have heard of it. I have
imagined it, but I've never seen it. Therefore, I cannot truly enter
into what they're talking about. I can't. Only those who have
witnessed it with their own two eyes can truly enter in to the
experience of what they're talking about. Has anybody in here ever
seen it? Anybody? None of us can enter into what
they're talking about. They can try to tell it, they can try
to tell it, but none of us, only those who have seen can experience
what they're talking about. Now, this is how it is with our
Lord. This is exactly how it is with
our Lord and our God, our Savior and our King, our Rock. This is how it is with our Rock.
David said, taste and see for yourself. Don't just hear about
it. Don't be satisfied to just hear
about it. Don't be sad to say, well, that's
good enough. I'll just hear about it. Don't
just imagine it. He said, experience it yourself. Experience it at the end of the
book of Job. Job said, Lord, I had heard of
you with the hearing of the ear. But he said, now mine eye has
seen you. I have seen you and all your
glory, all your greatness, all your majesty, all of your highness. And he said, I am nothing before
you. You are God and I am nothing. And I think I'm going to put
my hand over my mouth now. As I've seen to all of God's
people, David says, don't just hear about it. Don't just know
that it exists, taste and see the goodness of the Lord, the
Lord of glory, the Lord Jesus Christ. I thought about this, if John
17, if the declaration in John 17 was, if we read in John 17
that the declaration was, Father, this is life eternal, that they
might see El Capitan. If that was the declaration,
then we all had better get to El Capitan. We all had better get there and
see it. We need to see with our own two
eyes the rock that's higher than us. But that's not the declaration. There is a declaration. There is something to see. And it's our rock. Someone to
see. I rock. See the Lord. I rock. The one in whom we hide. He that seeth the sun hath life. The one who sees the sun has
life. Salvation is in truly seeing,
tasting for ourselves, and seeing for ourselves the glory of the
goodness of the Son of God. Let's ask the Lord to reveal
that to us. Lord, give me eyes to see. Eyes to truly see. David said, don't just hear about
it. Don't just know that it exists. Taste and see the goodness of
the Lord, the goodness of His grace, the goodness of His mercy,
the goodness of His forgiveness. Taste and see that the Lord is
good. The Lord is so good. The word
good right here means pleasant. It means beauty. It means grace. It means bountiful. It means
happiness. Taste and see that the Lord is
happiness. Everybody's looking for happiness.
It means kindness. It means loving. It means benefit. It means welfare. He went on to say, blessed is
the man. Blessed means happy. It means
how happy. It means, oh, how happy. Is the man or woman that trusteth,
that means seeks refuge, flees for protection, confides and
hopes in him. Blessed is the man or the woman
who is caused to do that, caused to look to him, truly look to
him. and truly hope in him and truly find confidence in him. You know, I thought about, again,
I was thinking about this rock. Our brother said he sat there
and watched people try to climb this rock. They must have had
faith that the rock would hold them. I can only imagine seeing
this rock. There's no doubt in your mind
that rock will hold me. Blessed is the man who sees the
Lord our Rock and sees his confidence there, sees his hope there, sees
his trust there. David said that is a blessed
man or a blessed woman. Now let's look at the seven verses
that lead up to verse 8 and we'll see why David is saying what
he is here. I pray we'll be able to say this
right along with David. Verse 1 says, I will bless the
LORD at all times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth." By God's grace. By God's grace. I read that and
I think, by God's grace. We say that by the grace of God. David said that too. All of God's
people say that. By His good, kind, loving grace
to us. By Him doing a work in us. Creating a desire in us. Causing us to. We will bless
the Lord at all times. If He will do that for us. See
if you can enter into this. If He will do that for us, then
we will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually
be in our mouth. Continually. If He'll do that
for us. We've talked about good times
recently. We've mentioned the fact that
we're in a good moment in time. That's what we were saying last
Wednesday night. We're in a good moment in time here. Any time with God is a good moment
in time. If He's with us, if His blood
is on us, it's all good. Like Brother Henry used to say,
but it's all good, right? It's all good. But earthly speaking,
to our simple and weak, sinful flesh, there are moments when
it's hard for us to acknowledge good. Very difficult for us to
acknowledge what we would call good at a moment in time. Even
so, what will God's people do when those moments in time come?
This is only by His grace. only by His work, only by His
doing, by His grace, we will bless Him. Good times, bad times,
happy times, sad times, all of our times are in His hands. And
by His grace, we will bless Him for them. I can honestly say
that throughout everything that's happened in my life, He has done
all things well. I can honestly say that. A lot of we've had a lot of times.
But he has done all things well, by his grace, we say that. It's
not the natural response of the flesh, but. Because of his goodness
to us and what he does for us and what he does in us. We bless
him, we bless him for every single one of his times that he gives
to us. And the reason is because every
one of those times leads us back to him. Every one of them. It is all of these times. If
you're in a difficult moment in time right now, if anybody
is, if you're not, you're about to be. And either you are or you're
about to be, if you're in a difficult time, remember this, taste this
and see this. It is these times that remind
us that we're in his hands. It is all of these times that
continually brings back to him when we are in a good time. Who knows where we are? Mentally,
emotionally. It's all these difficult times,
it's all these hard times that bring us back to him, constantly
bring us back to him. Taste and see that the Lord is
good no matter what the time is. He's good. Look at Psalm 31 with me just
a page over. Psalm 31 verse 15 says. My times are in by hand. Deliver me from the hand of my
enemies and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon
thy servant. Save me for thy mercy's sake.
Clearly, David is in a time of distress at this moment. But it was this time that caused
David to cry out to the one who held all of his times. David said, my times are in thy
hand. I'm in your hand. Everything
about me is in your hand. I acknowledge your hand in this. Everything about me is in your
hand, all of my times. Back in Psalm 34, verse one says,
I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. His praise. His praise. Psalm 42 says, I will praise
him for the help of his countenance. I'll praise him for that. Psalm
150 says, praise Him for His mighty acts. Praise Him according
to His excellent greatness. We're not gonna praise men by
God's grace. I can't help but think about
all of these things and preaching as I study and do this. And you
think about how many men are standing up in pulpits right
now praising men. You want to upset God's people,
stand up and praise men. By his grace, we're not going
to praise men, we're not going to praise ourselves, we're going
to praise him. We're going to praise him, praise him, tell
of his excellent greatness. Verse two says, my soul shall
make her boast in the Lord. My soul will boast. In the Lord, what he's saying
is, if any man glory, let him glory in the Lord. God forbid
that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. Concerning the cross of Christ,
what is any time compared to that? Think about that time,
the time that all of eternity pivots around. What is any time compared to
that, any sorrow compared to that, any heartache compared
to that, any trouble? That was the time of trouble. Verse two says. My soul shall
make her boast in the Lord, the humble, the low, the sinful,
the weary, the poor and needy, and that's us. They shall hear thereof. They will hear of this. They'll
hear and they'll be glad. They'll be so glad. Happy is
he that has the God of Jacob for his help. The savior of sinners. He's the God of Jacob. Savior
of sinners. Taste and see the goodness of
the Lord toward his people in the cross of Calvary. Oh, the
love. Oh, the kindness. Oh, the tender
mercy. Verse three says, Oh, magnify
the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. Magnify the
Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. A lot of times
while I'm here in the week studying as I move around the building,
you know, I'm in my office back there and I'll I like to come
into this janitor room and make a hot tea. And, you know, I don't
know, I'm just moving around the building. I'll look into
this auditorium. The lights are off. Sometimes I just need to
take a little walk. I'll walk into this auditorium.
I look at all these empty pews. I think this all the time. I
think, I wish all the brethren were here. I'm here alone. You
know, I wish all the brethren were here right now, sitting
in these pews. And we were worshiping. I wish
it was the time. I thought about it today. I thought,
today's the day. We're going to have the time. The time for us to come together
and magnify the Lord. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Magnify Him with me. Let us together
exalt His name. True heartfelt worship with God's
people. That leaves such a wonderful
taste in my mouth when we truly do worship and you you know that
we we want to we want to so badly, you know, we do, but we come
in here and we come so weak and so frail and so prone to wander
and just so. I do, too. I come in this way,
too. And I come in begging and pleading, Lord, help me. Help
me to focus on Your Word and connect with the message. Help
me to worship You. Let me not stand up and deliver
my speech. Help me to worship You. Help
me to preach. And in those moments when He lets us do that, when
He overrules us and His Spirit truly blesses the Word to our
heart and we see the Savior and we're just so thankful, That
leaves a wonderful taste in our mouths. That leaves a wonderful
taste in my mouth. It honestly does. True heartfelt
worship. Can't we say with David, how
sweet are thy words unto my taste? Yea, sweeter than honey unto
my mouth. When the Lord really lets us enter into this word. It is so sweet. Peter said, if
it If so, be that you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. If
you've tasted. The grace of the Lord, that the
Lord is gracious, he said, desire the sincere milk of the word. Christ, the word. Magnify him
with me. Let us exalt his name together. Let's exalt his name together.
What is his name? Savior. Call his name Savior. Oh, let us exalt him for being
our Savior. Thank God for being our Savior. Verse four says, I sought the Lord and he heard
me and delivered me from all my fears. Look at the heading
under Psalm 34 under the, if you have heading notes up there,
it says, this is a Psalm of David when he changed his behavior
before Abimelech who drove him away and he departed. You remember that story when
David. He was brought before an enemy and he was afraid for
his life. So he acted like a madman. He let spit run down his beard.
He was just scratching on the gates. And they said, what'd
you bring him to me for? He's a crazy man. Get him out of here.
He was afraid. He did that because he was afraid. He wrote this at a moment in
time when he was afraid for his life. All of God's people have
times of fear. Fear of death, fear of condemnation,
fear of not being able to satisfy and appease God, fear of daily
troubles and trials and heartaches and sorrows, everything that
life brings to us. All of God's people have fear.
We all have fear. But here's the thing about it.
I love this. You ask the Lord to bless this
to you. This may be a moment where the
spirit helps you. I just love this. The last three
words of verse four say, all my fears. Okay. Verse five says they, all my fears. Verse five says, looked
unto him and were lightened. Do you have
a center margin for the word for we're lightened? They flowed unto Him. Every fear
I had flowed unto Christ and everything was okay. Cast your burden on Him and He'll
take care of it. Taste this, see this, experience
this for yourself. Cast your burden on Him You have
something that you're burdened about. Cast it on Him. He'll
take care of it. Take your burden to the Lord
and leave it there, and He'll take care of it. Verse 5 says, All my fears looked
unto Him, and they were lightened, and their faces were not ashamed.
That means He took care of it. He delivered me. Everything I
was afraid of, He delivered me. Verse six says this poor man
cried, this man full of fear and worry and the wretchedness
of sin. This poor man cried, poor in
spirit. Why did he cry? It's because
he was made to cry. That's the reason why. Why do
any of us cry to the Lord? It's because we're made to cry.
We're given life to cry. When a baby's born, the first
thing that doctor wants to see is that baby cry. That means
the baby hath life. Made to cry. Who did this poor
man cry to? Verse six says the Lord only
to the Lord. And what was the end result of
it? The beginning cause was the same thing as the end result.
But what was the end result? Verse six says, and he saved
him out of all his troubles. He has, he will save us from
all of our troubles. He will save us from all of our
troubles. Here is the glory of the gospel.
Here's the heart of the goodness. I pray this is what. All of us
taste and see tonight, OK, verse seven says the angel of the Lord
in campus round about them that fear him. And deliver them, the
angel of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. The Spirit of our God
at all times encamps around His people. He guards His people. I love knowing that. He has put
a hedge around us and He is the hedge. He's put a wall around
us and He is the wall. We have salvation for walls. And He delivers us. Every time,
every time we need delivering, he has delivered us. He does deliver us and he will
deliver us. And I've always loved these two
verses of scripture that confirm that to us. Go with me to Psalm
125. I'm going to close with this, but Psalm 125. Psalm 125 verse 1, it says, They
that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot
be removed, but abideth forever as the mountains are round about
Jerusalem. So the Lord is round about his
people from henceforth even forever. Don't you love knowing that?
Just like those mountains surround Jerusalem, the Lord is round
about his people from henceforth even forever. Doesn't that bless
our hearts to know that? May God, by faith, cause us to
experience that, truly experience and trust. Oh, taste and see
that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusts
in Him. That's been caused to and given
faith to, given the gift to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray
that's us. All right, let's all stand together.