The 34th Psalm. And I'm gonna
begin reading verse one. Go to verse eight. I will bless the Lord at all
times. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast
in the Lord. The humble shall hear thereof
and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me
and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he heard
me and delivered me from all my fears. They looked unto him
and were lightened and their faces were not ashamed. This
poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all
his troubles. The angel of the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear him and delivereth them. Oh, taste
and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in him. I'm gonna stop right there. I thought about something this
past week. You know, sometimes things get
in your head, and you can't get rid of them for a while. But
I thought about this. If you knew exactly what I meant,
and if we knew this Bible like we should, I could preach the
gospel in four words. The Lord Jesus Christ. If you knew what I meant by that,
if you know what this Bible means by that, he's the gospel. He's
the answer to any relevant question. I'm gonna put it that way. He
may not be the answer to your foolish questions, but they're
foolish questions, that's the whole definition. He's the gospel,
he's the good news, the good news of love, of life, of knowledge,
and to know him is to know the father. Every good and perfect
gift comes down from the father through the son, through the
son. He's the gospel, the good news.
And everything I try to say from this desk, and I know Walter
and Paul would agree, everything we try to say from this desk
is the message of Jesus Christ. Because he is our message. Every
sermon, Paul says he's determined to know nothing among you but
Jesus Christ and him crucified. And that's what I want to try
to do today, is to preach Christ, his person and his work. from
Psalms 34 in verse eight. O taste and see that the Lord
is good. Blessed is the man that trusteth
in him. Now those first two words, o
taste, o taste. Now, up until here, David is
writing about himself, except for verse three. Verse three
he says, oh magnify the Lord with me. But before that he says,
I will bless the Lord. His praise shall continually
be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast.
I sought the Lord and he heard me. This poor man cried and the
Lord heard him and saved him out of all of his troubles. But
here he comes and he says, oh taste, oh taste. What did he say in verse three?
Oh magnify the Lord with me. This he is imploring you. He's imploring me. He's speaking
to everyone. Everyone should taste. Taste. Why? Because it would
be good for you to taste. I like that. I did look up in the Hebrew through
Strong's Concordance what this word taste means. Well, it literally
means taste. That's what it means. It means
taste. Also, eat, which is good. Now, oh, taste and eat. Consume. You understand? He's talking about putting something
in your mouth and tasting it. That's the illustration he's
giving here. That's the word he's using. Taste it. Eat it. Consume it. Take this into your
body. Take this into yourself. Taste
it. And this brings us to the figurative
word. The figurative meaning of this
word taste is the word perceive. Perceive. You understand? You want to know what you're
putting in your mouth. And if you put something in your mouth,
you're going to know what it is. You're going to know what's
going on, because you're going to taste it. To perceive, to
recognize, and to some extent, understand. To know, taste, and
perceive. David is telling us to do this. But he adds something else. He's
not done with this instruction. He says, oh, taste and see. See. Now, I looked that word
up in the Hebrew also. And it means to see. It's been
real difficult so far, I understand. Taste and see. Taste and see. Look, behold. To actually see. To gaze at. Literally and physically. To see and discern. And to actually
look. So we have this statement here.
Put it together, it is O, taste, and C. Now I don't know if you ever
thought about this, but it got a hold of me, because I want
to tell you something here. The way David wrote this is not
the natural way that we do things. Did you realize that? It's not
the natural way of doing things. It's not, put it this way, it's
not man's way of doing things. The usual way that men look at
things is to see and then to taste. Well, David wrote it exactly
the other way. With natural things, seeing and
tasting is not wrong. That's the normal, natural way
in this world. But David is not writing of the
way of men, David is writing of the way of the Lord here in
this psalm. What's David saying here? Let's
see if I can put it kinda plainly. Something has to happen to you
in order for you to see. There has to be a change in you
in order for you to see. You have to be able to taste
to see the Lord. Before you can see, you have
to taste. In that order, David wrote it
and God meant it, oh taste and see that the Lord is good. In
that order, not see and then taste. I understand the way man
is, because I was, and still am, actually, in some ways, a
natural man. You understand, you can talk
to people about the Lord, and they say, well, I can't see it.
And what they mean is, I can't see it, and I can't taste it.
I don't understand it. I can't perceive it. And unfortunately, they're right. What did Paul say? Well, first, what did John write
in his gospel? The scriptures state plainly
that men love darkness rather than the light. They like darkness better than
they like the light. They like darkness instead of
the light. That's what men want. They want
to see, and then maybe they'll agree to taste. No, they won't. The scriptures also state, you
will not come to me that you might have life. Christ said
that. Paul wrote the scriptures, the
natural man cannot understand the things of the spirit of God. And he also wrote, if our gospel
be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Whom the God of this
world hath blinded so that they cannot see. You understand, man thinks the
problem is with somebody else. But what they don't understand
is the problem is with man. The problem is with us. It always
has been. Jesus Christ is the light, whether
we see him or not. And his being the light, he shines. He glows. He's everywhere on
this earth. But we don't see it. Man cannot
see it. The blind cannot see. Man naturally cannot see. The ability to taste, the ability
to perceive, the ability to understand comes before you see. The world doesn't understand.
The world cannot understand. But these are the words of the
Lord through his prophet David to us, oh, taste and see. Taste and see. Then he says these
three words, that the Lord, this is where David's going. The Lord,
Yahweh, Jehovah, blessed be his holy name. David's telling us
he's writing of the God above all. taste and see that the Lord. Understand, man's not important
here. Tasting and seeing man might
just give you a heartache, a headache, and a stomachache. But God Almighty,
the maker of heaven and earth, the supreme ruler, the one who
reigns over all, That's the one we are to taste and to see, the
supreme ruler, the one who does as he wills in the armies of
heaven and among all the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay
his hand or say unto him, what do you think you're doing? That's
the one we are to taste and see. Glory to his name. And we are to taste and to see
that the Lord is good. Good. You understand, this
is real good. This is not our version of good. This is real good. The Lord is
good. Now we throw the word good around. That's just the way we are. It's what we've become part of
the English language. You know, good morning, good
evening, good night. And if you're Charlie Brown,
it's good grief. We throw out good coffee, good
food, good dog, and even good kids. That's not what David's
writing about when he says taste and see that the Lord is good. Because the word good doesn't
mean the same thing to us that it means to God. What did Jesus
Christ say about it? Well, when a rich young ruler
came up to him and said to him, good master, what must I do to
be saved? The first thing Christ said to
that man was, why do you call me good? There's none good, but
one. And that's God. And you understand,
through the rest of that account, that young man never called him
good again. But Jesus Christ was good. And Jesus Christ is
good. Why? Because Jesus Christ is
God. Whether we know it or not, whether
we believe it or not, he's good. He's absolute good. Oh, there's
none good except God. Paul the apostle agreed, and
he wrote in Romans three, quoting from the 53rd Psalm, and he's
writing about men, Jew and Gentile, that's everybody, they are all
gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable,
that there's none that doeth good, no not one. Now you understand why there's
none that doeth good? It's because there's none good
but God. Oh my. That's the point. Man is bad, God is good. The
Lord is. Taste and see that the Lord is
good. The Lord is essentially, infinitely,
perfectly, immutably, and solely good. You know, I wish I wrote
that. I stole that from John Gill.
But it's a good statement. Essentially, infinitely, perfectly,
immutably, and solely good, good. He is the creator and author
of all that is good. The Lord communicates his goodness
to men. How? First and foremost by his
son. His son. He spoke unto the fathers
by the prophets, but it says in the Hebrew, he hath in these
last days spoken unto us by his son. God himself came down here
on this earth and spoke good words to us. Now granted, naturally, we can't
understand them. but by the power of His Spirit.
Oh, the Spirit understands all things, and shows some of them
to us. Those who believe. The Lord sent
His Son to speak, and He speak to us of the Lord's will, His
way, and His words. And Jesus Christ did. He came
and spoke to us. I like that, I do. Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good, is good. Now, what's the results of tasting
and seeing that the Lord is good? What'd he say? Blessed is the
man. Blessed is the man that trusts
in him. You understand? David's here
talking about taste and see the Lord is good. If you do, you're
blessed. You're blessed. You're blessed
of God. It's not a natural thing to trust
Jesus Christ. It's not a natural thing for
a man to believe Christ. It takes the power of God. to
taste and see that the Lord is good. It takes the power of God
to trust in him. We are too prone to trust ourselves.
We are too likely to trust ourselves or another man. Maybe even a
good man. But no, blessed is the man that
trusts in him who is all good. Who is all good. If you truly taste and see that
the Lord is good, you're blessed. And I like the meaning of that
word. It's happy. It's happy. Understand, if you
come to trust Christ, to believe in Jesus Christ, It'll make you
happy. Granted, your circumstances may
make you miserable, but you're happy in Christ. There is a joy in believing Christ. There is a joy in knowing Christ,
in knowing the Father, in knowing the Son, in knowing the Spirit
that this world will never know. Blessed is that man. Understand
talking about God, but yet man gets blessed In that great He has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places what in Christ
in the Sun in Christ Blessed is the man that tastes and sees
that the Lord is good and They'll trust in him, they'll trust in
him. His word, this word right here, will become more important
to you than your own word. That's not natural, it's not. His word, the Lord's word, becomes
more important to you than almost anything on this planet. Because
His way is the way you want to go. His light is the light you want
to see. His words are the words you want
to hear. And His love is the love you
want to feel. Blessed is the man that trusts
in Him. Trust in Him. I read something the other day. It was just a simple statement, and I really liked it. I found
out the guy who wrote it certainly doesn't think about it the way
I do. But it's still a good statement,
and I'm going to share it with you here in just a second. But
this was actually written by a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, OK? The miracle is not to walk on
water. The miracle is to walk on the
green earth. And I thought about that and
see what hits me before I found out who this guy was, okay? The
miracle is that God was manifest in the flesh, abided Us on this earth. That's the miracle that he walked
on the water. That's just gravy The miracle
is that he actually God condescended to come down he humbled himself He was up there with the father,
but he came down here with the express purpose of saving his
people from their sins. That's the miracle. And he did
it. He did it. Now this fellow was trying to
tell people that they're all miraculous in and of themselves. That ain't so. But the miracle's
not that he walked on the water, the miracle is that he walked
on this earth. And I'm talking about Jesus Christ. who is all
good and all perfect and all holy. And he came down here to
die as a perfect substitute for his people and save his people
from their sins. The incarnation of Christ was
a glorious prophesied miracle. God became man. Taste and see that the Lord is
good God became man. He took on the form of a servant
He didn't come in glory But he came gloriously I Like that He came in love in
truth in reality and in power That's the miracle. That's the
miracle. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. And he still is. He still is. Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good. Blessed is the man that trusts
in him today. Understand? This is just like
anything else in the scriptures, you understand? Oh, taste and
see that the Lord is good. This is all written in the present
tense. You need to taste and see that the Lord is good today.
Not just yesterday, not maybe tomorrow. Today's the only day
you got. Today's the only day any of us
had it. Tasting and seeing never stops.
continue to grow in the knowledge and the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Oh, I like that. Tasting and
seeing never stop for the child of God, never. Because we are
to taste and perceive and comprehend and know every single day. And we are to look and to behold
and to see every day, every day. I'm going to close with this.
Isaac Watts wrote this little song. Not with our mortal eyes have
we beheld the Lord, yet we rejoice to hear his name and love him
in his word. On earth, we want the sight of
our Redeemer's face, yet Lord, our inmost thoughts delight to
dwell upon your grace. And when we taste thy love, our
joys divinely grow, unspeakable like those above and heaven begins
below. We are allowed here on earth
still clay pots clay pots Made out of mud To taste and see that the Lord
is good and be blessed As those are blessed in those that trust
him That's our privilege that's he's
given that to us We didn't earn it He gives it to his people. I would not have you to be ignorant,
brethren. Paul used to write that occasionally.
I don't want to be ignorant. I want to know him. I don't want
to wander around in half darkness. I want to see the light. Taste
and see that the Lord is good, and blessed is the man that trusts
in him. Our Heavenly Father, we're thankful
again for this day and this time. Lord, you have given all to us
through your son. Oh, and your son is faithful.
He came and performed everything on this earth. All of your will kept your holy law. saved us
from our sins, redeemed us unto you. Thank you, Lord, for your
faithfulness in bringing in your people. Be with Walter and Paul
as they come and preach your word. And we'll give you all
the honor and the glory. In Christ's name we pray, amen.