I'm mighty happy to be here.
Good to see old friends, isn't it? Oh my. Turn this morning
in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 8. I'm having you turn in your
Bibles to the very first time that the word Sweet is used in
the Scriptures. We're going to talk about sweetness
this morning. The sweet of the Scriptures. Now, by nature, we have no ability,
none at all, to tell the difference spiritually between sweet and
bitter. Now, there's nothing wrong with
these taste buds on our tongue. In Genesis 8, we're going to
talk about sweet this morning. We have no ability by nature
to tell the difference between sweet and bitter. There's nothing
wrong with these taste buds. I remember the first time that
we tried to feed little Luke some solid food, and boy, he
went for the strained carrots. And the beets he liked real well.
And then, boy, Becky gave him a spoonful of strained peas. And it went something like this. It went everywhere. And she was
like, well, let's try that again and gave him another spoonful
of it. And it was everywhere. And we looked at each other and
both stuck our finger in it and tasted it. And we both went.
It was awful. I mean, they were so bitter.
They didn't taste good. There's nothing wrong with our
physical taste buds. But boy, spiritually, our taste
buds are a real mess. We have a tendency to always
think that the bitter is sweet and that the sweet is bitter.
And you see in Genesis 8, verse 21. Begin in verse 20, this is Noah
built an altar unto the Lord. This was after the flood and
the ark had come to rest and they came out of the ark and
Noah built an altar unto the Lord. And he took of every clean
beast and of every clean fowl, and he offered burnt offerings
on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet
savor from this sacrifice. And the Lord said in his heart,
I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake, for the
imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither
will I again smite anymore everything living as I have done. By nature, let's be honest, the
old man, all of us by nature, do not understand or much less
embrace what we just read here in the Scriptures. God finds
sweetness, listen to me, in the death of a clean beast. God found sweetness, it says
here, in the death of a clean animal. By nature, we don't get
that, do we? We do not see that. That seems
so bitter to take a little lamb who's spotless and cut its throat
and watch it bleed to death and put it on fire and burn it up.
That's not very sweet to us, is it? That's repugnant to us
by nature. When Adam fell, what's wrong
with us? When Adam fell, he disobeyed God and he died spiritually. which means that he lost his
ability to discern between spiritual sweetness and spiritual bitterness. In mercy, God left us with a
conscience. Aren't we glad for that? That
this still, small voice when it comes to us, aren't we glad
our children, even our children, hear that still, small voice
saying, don't, don't, don't do that. Don't do that. God is so
good in mercy that he doesn't let our nature just run wild
all the time perpetually. But by nature, we don't have
the ability to discern between good and evil. We think evil
is good and we think good is evil. By nature, none of us will regard
the spiritually sweet of God. It will always be bitter to us.
Turn to Ecclesiastes chapter 11. Left alone, all of us will spend
our entire life running after things we think are sweet, only
to find out that in the end, they're oh, so bitter. You ever
give one of your children a Christmas present and they beg for it?
They say, oh, I want this, I want this, I want this. And it just
went on and on and on. So you got it for them. And boy,
they tore the package open and looked at it and they played
with it, what, maybe 30 seconds and wham, it went in the corner.
What they thought was going to be so sweet is Now it doesn't
mean anything to them. It's bitter to them. You and
I are the same way, aren't we? And we need to be aware of the
fact that the Scriptures do teach us this principle. We ought not
give our life to something that we think is sweet, when in fact
the Scripture says it's bitter. What's the root of all evil?
The love of money. And boy, it has its attraction
to us by nature, doesn't it? And if we're not careful, we'll
give ourselves to the pursuit of houses and lands and all the
things that don't matter. That in the end, they're going
to be burned up. And they'll be bitter to us even
when we get them. So the Scriptures do teach that,
but there's an even more important lesson here. In Ecclesiastes
11, verse 7. Truly, the light is sweet, and
a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun. But if
a man live many years, and rejoicing them all, yet let him remember
the days of darkness, for there will be many. All that cometh
is vanity." It doesn't matter how sweet the little thing is.
Don't we like it when our children First come, mommy, mom, mom,
mom, run to us and we swoop them up and they laugh and giggle
and it's so pleasant. Well, it's just a matter of time
till a darker day is coming when they'll just act like you're
just as dumb as a rock and won't have anything to do with you.
They'll break. Henry said very early on, he said, you love your
children, he said, but they will break your heart. Just a matter
of time. So the day is all lots of days
of darkness. There's sickness, there's heartache,
there's disappointment. All these things will come. And
therefore, those are naturally not put our heart into those
things, give ourselves to them overly much. Now, look at verse
nine says, Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth and let thy heart
cheer thee in the days of your youth. and walk in ways of thine
heart and in the sight of thine eyes." We ought to be a happy
people. God is good to us all. And we
ought to rejoice in the goodness of our God and in the daily blessings
and things that we enjoy—friendship, fellowship. But know that for
all these things, God will bring unto thee judgment. That's why
you need to bring your children here so they understand life's
just not all going to the amusement park and having a good time and
playing sports and doing all these things. There's a day of
judgment coming. Verse 10 says, Therefore, remove
sorrow from your heart and put away evil from thy flesh, for
childhood and youth are nothing but vanity. If God never reveals
Himself to us, if He doesn't show us Christ, we'll act like
children our whole lives, just running after the silliest things,
won't we? All right, let's find Isaiah
chapter 5. A little further over to Isaiah chapter 5. And this principle I'm talking
about is what makes false religion so seductive and dangerous. It
sounds good. It appeals to the flesh, doesn't
it? You think about what they're saying in our day on television. You know, you do the best you
can. Just do the best you can. It'll work out. They say God
loves everybody and Christ died for everybody. That sounds good.
Sounds sweet, doesn't it? God prospers his people. He gives
them wealth and prosperity. Gives them money. Then they say,
you give and God will give you tenfold. That sounds good, doesn't
it? I know every place has its own
brand of this. Around here, I know they have
this little thing about where if you grow a beard and wear
a certain kind of hat or a bonnet and drive a dark car, it's going
to be okay. And that's so foolish. It's going to end in such a bitter
way. There's no truth in it. But the problem, you see, is
what false religion does in Isaiah 5, verse 20. Woe unto them that call evil
good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light
for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
False religion is telling a lie about God. and his Christ and
what he's done, who he's done it for, and why he did it where
he is now. It's making evil good, bitter
sweet, and it's a lie. Now, turn back just a page or
so to Isaiah 3. My message today is that God
is good and we're evil. God is sweet. and we're better. God is light and we're darkness. I'm sorry, that's just the truth.
And false religion may sound good. They may look good to us. This business of looking good.
When you think about who you see on television, these false
prophets now, what they look like. Here's a description in
Isaiah 3, verse 16. It's always been this way. Look
what the false prophets in Isaiah's day looked like. Here's what
the women, you see so many women on the television, don't you
now? And they look pretty good and they're saying a lot of things.
Look what it says about him here. Moreover, the Lord saith, because
the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth
necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go and making
a tinkling with their feet. I watch them, and they're so
arrogant and act like they know everything. And they make it
sweet. You want to see what they're
like? I mean, this guy, Joel Osteen, you see him? I don't
know how much that suit costs, but it looks good. And I don't
know what he does to his hair, but it looks a lot better than
mine does this morning. And he's got that big gold, and he's got
the whole world revolving around him in the background, doesn't
he? And he looks at you with those intense eyes, and butter
just drips off his tongue and his mouth. He sounds like these
women back then, doesn't he? Let me tell you how this is going
to end up. Have you got verse 24? It shall
come to pass that instead of sweet smell, there's going to
be a stink. Instead of a girdle, that is,
instead of looking real good in that suit, okay, it's going
to be a shredded garment. It's going to be torn up. Instead
of well-set hair, it's going to be baldness. And instead of
a stomacher, that's a fine altogether look, okay? You're going to look
like you came out of the grave. Grave clothes. And burning instead
of beauty. Do we see where the end of all
that false religion is? And we're to be warned by that.
That which is bitter is not sweet. All right, turn to Psalm 119
with me. And I realize, except for the
grace of God, we'll all run after that false religion because it
sounds good. But God in His mercy does reveal
His sweetness to His people. He reveals to us who Christ is,
and then who we are by his word. If you've got Psalm 119, find
verse 103. How does God distinguish to his
people the true difference between sweet and bitter? How sweet are
thy words unto my taste. Once God gives us life, boy,
His Word tastes good. Does anybody else here remember,
I remember as a kid being drugged to church and sitting there and
going, is he going to read out of that book again? I just didn't
want to hear it. You couldn't hardly make me pick
up a Bible and read anything in it because it was bitter to
me. It didn't taste good. But he said, How sweet are thy
words unto my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through
thy precepts, through thy truth, I get understanding. Therefore,
I hate every false way. The only way we ever learn to
distinguish between the bitter and the sweet is by the preaching
of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's by His Word. All right. Turn back a little
bit to Psalm 104. When, by faith, God's people,
we see ourselves as the bitter sinners we are, then we also
see Christ as the sweet Savior. In Psalm 104, have you got verse
33? Psalm 104, verse 33, it says,
I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live. I'll sing praise
to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be
sweet. I'll be glad in the Lord. Let
the sinners be consumed out of the earth and let the wicked
be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise ye the Lord."
What's the difference between when I was a kid and couldn't
stand the Word and now can't get enough of it? Why is it that
those of you... I'm sure there was a time when
a lot of us, we didn't want to be here. We had to be drug here. We had to be made to come. And
now you can't be drug out of here. You can't be run off. I used to hate it when the preacher
would say something about a sinner. What is that? That sounds ugly
and nasty. I'm not one of them. I'm a good
kid. My parents tell me I am. And
then one day, We see who we are and we see who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. Oh, woe is me, woe is me, and
how glorious is the Lord Jesus Christ. How better I am and how
sweet he is. When he reveals himself to us,
that's what happens. Now, the revelation of who and
what we are, sinners, dead and trespassers of sin, it's a bitter
pill, isn't it? It's a bitter pill. But the revelation
of Christ and who He is, the living Savior of God's people,
that's the sweet cure. Proverbs chapter 24. Turn over
there with me. Proverbs chapter 24. The gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is so sweet. When we hear it, We want others
to hear it then, don't we? Once you taste the sweet of Christ,
you want more and more of it. You just can't get enough. Ice
cream sort of loses its, well, not completely, but ice cream
loses some of its sweetness to us compared to the Lord Jesus
Christ. The things that used to allure us so much, the love
of money, that's the only cure there is, is the sweetness of
Christ. to see the bitter of that affection and see the sweetness
of his affection. Proverbs 24. You see, the gospel
of Christ is so sweet when we hear it. We want others to hear
it, especially our children. Look at Proverbs 24, verse 13. My son. My son. Is there anybody here who has
a son? You don't want me to hear this. Desperately we want our sons
and our daughters to hear this, don't we? My son, eat thou honey,
because it's good, and the honeycomb, which is sweet to your taste.
So shall the knowledge of wisdom be unto your soul. When thou
hast found the Lord Jesus Christ, then there shall be a reward,
and thy expectation shall not be cut off. You see, what's the
reward in accumulating all the money in the world, all the stuff
in the world? What's it lead to? It leads to
judgment. It leads to the end. Judgment. What's the result, the reward
of finding the Lord Jesus Christ? We have all. Now we've got it
all. We've got all the sweetness, all the joy, all the peace, all
the contentment. We have all and in all if we
have Christ. And we see things in their true
perspective. And you notice that word reward
is not plural. There are no rewards in heaven.
I saw a billboard coming up the road yesterday in Florida that
said, God's plan pays big dividends. And I thought, boy, now there's
a hunk of false religion. Dividends? First of all, it's
not a plan. It's a purpose. God's purposed
what He does. He didn't plan it the way we
do and say, well, I hope this works out. No, He established
His purpose, which is that Christ will be glorified and it's going
to come to pass. And it's not dividends as if
we put in something and hope to get a lot more back. No, we
put nothing in. If we put something in, we've
made the sweet into bitter. That's what false religion is.
But no, He gives all the sweet and we rejoice in the reward. It's not a dividend. It's a reward
and it's singular and it's Christ. Remember, in Genesis 8, God told
Noah, take a clean animal and kill it. Sacrifice it to me,
and I'll be pleased. It will be sweet to me. Now,
by nature, that does not appeal to us. But what that is is a
type or a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, at Calvary,
the Lord Jesus Christ was an innocent, clean man, the only
one that ever lived. And what happened is we who were
bitter, angry, took him up Calvary and we sacrificed him. We killed
him. We set him on fire in that sun. And that's a type or a picture
of the clean dying for the unclean. See, God said after he Got the
sweet smell of that sacrifice that Noah gave. He said, I'll
never show my wrath again on them. I won't kill everything
like that again. No sirree. And to all who are
in the sacrifice at Calvary, there's no judgment. That's sweet
news, isn't it? That's good news. You see, if
the Lord Jesus Christ was sinless, why did He die? Well, He took
on Himself the sin of His people. Now, you talk about a bitter
pill. It's bad enough to take a licking for what we did, but
to take a licking for what every one of his children did. Oh,
what a bitter pill. So why would he do this? In order
to put it away, to pay the price of sin and death. A clean man
died for the unclean. God's sweet solution for our
sin. Turn to Exodus 15. Here's the
second time in the Scriptures that the word sweet appears. Exodus 15. See, when Christ was
crucified. When He who knew no sin was made
sin, so that our sin was put away, what became of the perfect
life of the Lord Jesus Christ? What became of His righteousness?
We know He lived 33 years perfectly. He was righteous. He established
this righteous life. What happened to it? They killed
Him. What happened to that righteousness?
Did it evaporate? Did it burn up? Did it go away? Let me show you what happened
to it. In Exodus 15, verse 22, so Moses brought Israel from
the Red Sea, and they had crossed the Red Sea, and the Egyptians
had all died there, whatever. And they went out into the wilderness
of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found
no water. And when they came to Marah,
they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.
You ever have bitter water? You can't drink it, can you?
Therefore, the name of the place was called Marah, and the people
murmured against Moses, saying, Well, we drink. And Moses cried
unto the Lord, and look what the Lord said to him. The Lord
showed Moses a tree, which when he had cast it into the water,
the waters were made sweet. There he made for them a statue
and an ordinance, and there he proved them." You understand
what happened? They came up to this vast water
in Marah, and everybody went to get a drink, and it was... And God said, Moses, take that
tree and throw it in the water. And he did, and that water was
so sweet. Now, that's a picture. We who
by nature are nothing but bitterness. If God ever takes the man that
he put on a tree at Calvary and throws him into you, oh boy,
that is so sweet. There will be an eternal change. We will be made sweet in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And what a beautiful picture
this is. We can change. We can be made
new. We who are bitter can be sweet
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Turn to 2 Corinthians 2, one
last scripture. You and I by nature are like
the waters of Mara, bitter sinners. By casting the Lord Jesus Christ
into us, we are made sweet. He is in God's people, and they're
in Him. Once that occurs, it never changes. Once the tree went into the water,
it was sweet forever. And once we're found in Christ
and He in us, there's a change forever, eternal change. Look
at 2 Corinthians 2. You see, every human being, to
us all, there's going to be an end. Every time I come to visit
Doris and Henry, Henry says, the end is near. He says it won't
be long, won't be long. And I'm getting old enough where
I think it's not going to be long. The end is coming to each
of us. It is appointed unto men once
to die and then the judgment. And that end is going to be only
one of two ways. It's going to be unspeakably
bitter. or unspeakably sweet. Nowhere in between. Now, look
what the Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 2, verse 15. For we are unto
God a sweet savor of Christ in them that are saved and in them
that are perished. Notice, all the savor, whether
it's bitter or sweet, is a result of where we are in relation to
the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 16, to the one we are the
saver of death unto death, and to the other the saver of life
unto life. Now, who's sufficient for these
things? I can barely stand up here and talk to you about it.
The one is so bitter, I don't want to think about it. The other
is so sweet, I can't explain it to you. Can't begin to. But we, verse 17, are not as
many which corrupt the Word of God. Aren't you thankful you
have a pastor who will not corrupt the Word of God? He won't tell
you that something is sweet when it's bitter. He won't tell you
something's good when it's evil. He won't tell you something that's
wrong is right. He won't do it. He can't do it.
We are not as many which corrupt the Word of God, but as of sincerity,
But as of God, in the sight of God, we speak of Christ. If a man gets up here and speaks
of Christ, that's sweet enough for you, isn't it? That's plenty
sweet enough for you. Gospel preachers tell the truth,
the bitter truth about all men by nature and the sweet truth
about Christ, all who are in Him.