A Sermon for Men of Taste 2
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King Solomon, during his lifetime, sat at a feast. The first rich viand was one which he had asked for himself; it was human wisdom. He tasted all its dainty morsels, and he cried, "In much wisdom is much grief: and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." Then an attendant, all bedecked with gold and silver, brought in the lordly dish of riches, and Solomon ate thereof until he cried out, "All is vanity and vexation of spirit, there is no profit under the sun." Then there came in one who looked most bewitching, bearing the dish of carnal and fleshly pleasure, and Solomon greedily sat down thereat, for this time, he thought, full sure he had obtained the honey that would enlighten his eyes. So Solomon feasted to the very full and at the last he said, "vanity of vanities; all is vanity!" But he never would have said this concerning the true wisdom; for at the last, when the old man ceased to be a hunter of pleasure, he bore his willing testimony to the perfection of that love which is better than wine. Dearly beloved, you who know what it is to taste Christ, can witness that Immanuel’s love makes you like Jonathan in the woods, who did but dip the end of his spear into the honey, and his eyes were Enlightened, Oh! What Enlightenment, What Joy, What Consolation, What Leaping of Heart Is There to That Man Who Has Learned to Feed on Jesus, and on Jesus Christ Alone.
6. We must remark, dear friends, that this TASTE of ours is in this life imperfect. As old master Durham says, "‘It is but a taste!" You have tasted that the Lord is gracious, but you do not know how good and how gracious he is. I am sure my soul was hot within me when you were singing that verse just now- "But when I see you as you are, I’ll praise you as I ought." There is another verse, too, which I may aptly quote- "When I have tasted of the grapes, I sometimes long to go Where my dear Lord the vineyard keeps, And all the clusters grow."
We have not yet rested beneath the vines of Canaan; we have only enjoyed the FIRST FRUITS of the Spirit, and they have set us hungering and thirsting for the fullness of the heavenly heritage. We groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption. We are like David; we have had a draught of water from the well of Bethlehem, that is within the gate, brought to us through the valor of Christ Jesus- but we have not yet drank the clear, cool stream, in all its perfection, at the fountain head. We are but beginners in spiritual education; we have learned the first letters of the alphabet; we cannot read words yet, much less can we read sentences. We are but infants now; we have not come to the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus. As one says, "He who has been in Heaven but five minutes, knows more than all the general assembly on earth, though they were all learned Theologians." We Shall Know More of Christ by One Glimpse of Him in Heaven, than We Shall Know By All Our Learning Here. It is but a taste here, and if a taste be so ravishing, what must it be to sit at the table and eat the feast in the kingdom of God?
And here I must again remark, that this imperfection of taste is in some Christians far more conspicuous than in others. There are some believers who seem to have no appreciating taste for Christ, they hardly know the savor of his blessed name. I declare to you all, if Christ were not better than the visible Church, we might be weary of him. His Church, Alas, Is but The Blurred and Blotted Portrait of Himself. Lovely she is; but sometimes those blots and blemishes are so conspicuous to our anxious eyes, that we rather mourn her unloveliness than rejoice over her beauty.
Oh! how many there are among you, professors of Christ, that are none of his. What says the Apostle? "For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame." Dear brethren, let us purge ourselves from the corruptions of these pretenders. Frivolity, Pleasure, Gain, Worldliness, Covetousness, what do these things have to do with us? Get you hence; get you hence; avaunt, you fiends! But how many open their hearts, and say, "Come, hide here, you unclean spirits; come and dwell with us!" Surely, surely, surely, you have but little taste, if any, for the manna of Christ, or you would never eat the dust which is the serpent’s food. God quicken his people; wash their mouths out, if necessary, even with bitter medicine, until they desire Christ anew, and cleave to him with full purpose of heart.
7. Though ours is an imperfect, we thank God it is a growing taste. Old Barzillai told David that he was too old a man to enjoy dainties. He said, "Can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink?" We know that sometimes in the decline of life, the taste, like the other powers of manhood, decays. But glory be to God, a Taste for Christ Will Never Decay. The good bishop, when he was dying, was asked by his wife whether he knew her; but he shook his head, for his memory had failed. His dearest friends and children, after repeating their names, asked whether their dear friend and father had not some recollection of them; but again he shook his head. "Do you remember Jesus?" said one; and oh! how he clasped his hands together, for that was a name he never could forget!
Our ageing friends who are present with us this morning find- I hope they do- that they have a loosened grip for the world, but a tighter grasp for Christ. While your eyes grow dim and you need your glasses; I hope you can see Christ more clearly than ever. God grant that some of you may be called up to the top of Pisgah, and may have a view of the landscape, and see your Master’s love in all the length and breadth of its fullness and richness, before yet you are raised up to Heaven by the kiss of the Most High. In dying moments, the Christian’s taste gets quickened; and whereas before he thought Christ sweet, now he knows he is. Whereas he once compared him to honey, now he declares that honey from the honeycomb is sour compared with Christ. He can cry out with Rutherford, "Black heavens, black moon, black sun! But fair, fair, incomparably fair Lord Jesus!" He can now tread everything beneath his feet as he would a dead and corrupt thing; but his soul cries, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! you are brighter, fairer, and more lovely to me than ever you were before!" God give us grace that we may understand and know experimentally what it is to taste that the Lord is gracious.
II. MEN WHO HAVE THUS TASTED OF CHRIST, HAVE SPECIAL SINS TO AVOID AND SPECIAL OBJECTS TO DESIRE. We first dwell upon evils to be avoided.
Malice: "Revenge is sweet," is the proverb of the Italians, and many an Englishman has half learned it, if not wholly. "Revenge is sweet;" but not to the man who has tasted Christ, for he says, "How can I have vengeance upon my fellow, when Christ has put away my sin?" Now, forgiveness is sweet, and he loathes malice, and turns aside from it as from venom itself.
Deceit: that is craftiness whereby men rob their fellow-creatures. Some men think guile a very fine thing. "That’s a sharp fellow," says one; and sage fathers pat their boys on the back, and say, "If you become a sharp fellow you will be a rich man yet." See yon trader, you must keep all your eyes open or he will take you in; he does not exactly tell lies, but- well, he shaves very closely to the truth. It is guile; low craftiness and cunning. A man of God hates that thing- "What, I; I the servant of the God of truth, crouch, bend, trick or do anything but what is upright, to gain wealth?" As surely as the Lord says concerning the Laodicean Church, "I will spue you out of my mouth," so the believer says concerning anything that is not true and straightforward, "I am sick of it; I loathe it, I abhor it; I turn from it."
The next thing is hypocrisy, whereby men are not so much robbed and injured as deceived. A Christian can be no Hypocrite. Hypocrisy, like All Other Sins, Lurks in Man Until the Very Last. But a believer hates to pretend to be what he is not. A man who has once tasted that the Lord is gracious, is a true and transparent man in his profession. If any suppose him to be better than he is, he does not wish to wear feathers that are not his own; he would not be glorified by another man’s labors, nor build upon another man’s foundation; hypocrisy he utterly detests, and would sooner die a pauper than live a pretender. Any man among you who has tasted that the Lord is gracious, will, I am sure, without my exhortation this morning, loathe all malice, guile and hypocrisy.
Once more, put away all evil speaking. I am sorry to say that there are some, who I hope are Christians, who do not hate evil speaking. "Have you heard about Mrs. So-and-So?" I shall not mention names, but there are fifty, perhaps a hundred, here, to whom it will apply. There is a little mischiefin the village about Miss A or Mr. B, and Mrs. Tittle-tattle is up as early as possible, and calls on Mrs. Scandal, and says, "Have you heard the sad news? I hope it is not true." "No, I have not heard it." "Well, don’t mention it to anybody else, I hope it is not correct; but I have heard about so-and-so." And the two sit down, and they make such a breakfast over it; and they both say they hope it is not true, while all the time they are as glad of it in their hearts as ever they can be. They go on telling others they hope it is not true, and telling them not to mention it to anybody else, until they do all the mischief before they have stopped to inquire whether or not they are telling lies. Then there are the men — they like a bit of scandal in the newspapers every now and then. Public men have often to feel that evil speaking must be very sweet to the people, or surely it would never pay to print such barefaced lies.
A Christian should have nothing to do with scandal, but should say in a company, "Stop! I cannot sit by and hear you say that of an absent person; if he were here, you might say what you liked, but as he is not, please to hold your tongue, for I am here as a defender of those who are Back-bitten." Every Absent Man Should Have an Advocate in a Christian. More especially should this be true when the rumor injures a brother. "It is an sick bird that fouls its own nest;" and he is an sick believer who tells tales about his fellow-Christians. If you, as a Church member, have anything against a brother, tell him alone. And then, if it should be some public and crying sin, tell it in an orderly manner to the Church-officers; but for you to go chattering about things you do not know to be true, is such an offense against Church-order, that if you are expelled from the Church for it, the ejectment will be justifiable. You certainly cannot expect to have fellowship with Christ if you mar the fellowship of Christ’s Church by talking the one against the other. See, also, among our different denominations, how pleased some ministers are if they can get a bone to pick against a brother in another denomination. If there is a new problem in the machinery of the Church of England, how often the Dissenter feels devoutly glad that there is likely to be an upsetting of the Episcopal communion. And I know that some Episcopalians, when they hear that in a Dissenting Church there is something wrong, say, "Well, it is a great pity;" but they think to themselves, "Well, they will eat one another up and will be all the less trouble to us." Rinse your mouths, rinse your mouths all of you who have said anything against your brethren hitherto, and from this time forth, "if so be you have tasted that the Lord is gracious," eschew all evil speaking against your fellow-men.
The apostle, having told us what to avoid, now tells us what to eat and drink. "As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word;" a most unfortunate translation, for who ever heard of "sincere milk?" "Unadulterated milk" is a more sensible translation. The Christian man should desirepure doctrine; he should desire to hear the gospel plainly and truthfully preached; not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but in the words which the Holy Spirit teaches. It Is a Sign of Declining Health in A Christian When He Does Not Love the Means of Grace. "But how, sir, if I cannot get on with my minister?" Well, it may be your sin that makes him such a poor minister as you think him to be.
No doubt, while the pew is to be supplied by the pulpit, the pulpit is acted upon very greatly by the chilliness and hardness of the Pew. If You Prayed More for Your Minister You Would Feed Better under Him. But in London you have not this excuse, for there is such a choice of preachers of the Word here, that if you had a desire for the pure milk, you might obtain it somewhere or other. Oh! what a good thing it is to have spiritual hunger and thirst! When people are not hungry, you may set a fine meal before them, but they will turn up their noses at it. But let a man come fresh from the field, hungry, down he sits; no matter how rough the fare; he only wants it to be sweet, wholesome, and nutritious, and he cuts huge slices for himself, and eats to the full. Give me a congregation of hungry hearers, such as I usually see here on the Sabbath-day, with eyes that seldom turn from the preacher, and with ears that catch every word! I think any man could preach to my congregation, for you come up here hungry. A minister would wish to be like the mother-bird which comes back with the worm to the nest, and finds all the mouths open, every one desiring to be fed. Now, this is just, I think, what the apostle meant- "As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word." You know babes do not have set times for desiring their food, but when they want it they will have it, and will cry until they get it. So should it be with believers. They should have such unceremonious longings to be fed from the breasts of heaven’s comfort that they will cry until they get the heavenly food from God their Father that living food by which they grow and are made strong in Christ.
I have thus enlarged upon text; and now, two or three minutes only, upon the next. "O taste and see that the Lord is good!" Dear Christian friends, I have spoken to you of this taste; but among us this morning, in the galleries, and down below here, there is a large sprinkle of men who do not know Christ. They have come up to this house of prayer, not that they might know Christ, but that they might see a vast congregation, and amuse themselves by novelty. Ah! how many come with this miserable object. Well, let them come for whatever they like, we are glad to see them, for being in the way, God may meet with them. Now, to such of you who are not believers in Christ, and have never tasted that he is gracious, we say this,- "O taste and see;" by which we mean, experience is necessary.
Taste and see; you cannot see without tasting. If you would know whether religion is a good and happy thing, try it. It is not rubbing the bread upon the cheek; it is tasting. You must have an inward sense of the things of God. "My son, give me your heart." "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." Let your heart believe in Jesus. Be not content with ceremonies; rest not satisfied with outward morality. Only that which reaches the core will really affect the fruit of the tree. We must make the fountain pure, or else our filtering the stream is all in vain. "Taste and see." Dear hearers, I cannot insist too earnestly upon this. Get an inward religion; vital godliness; which goes into the secret parts of the heart and dwells in the inner Man. Nothing but Tasting Can Save Your Souls.
And then we say, "Taste and see," we are quite sure that if you will taste you shall see that the Lord is good. I bear my willing witness that Christ makes a man delighted, that religion is a happy thing, and that "her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." But you do not believe me. Then taste and see for yourselves. "Seek the Lord while he may be found: call you upon him while he is near." May the Spirit of God lead you to give your heart to Jesus, and you will find that the true religion of Jesus is a good thing for you- a good thing for you, young woman; a good thing for you, young man; good for the trader; good for the gentleman; good for the artisan; good for every one of you. We feel very earnest that you should do this, and therefore we say, "O taste and see that the Lord is good!" Do not despise our invitation! We beseech you, by the mercies of God, to give your hearts to Jesus. From our very souls, as though we pleaded for our own lives, we would beseech you. Give the things of God a patient consideration. Believe in Jesus; this is to taste. Trust Christ; this is to "taste and see that the Lord is good."
Ay, I know you will turn on your heel, and say that religion is a good thing for Sundays, but you do not see anything in it for every-day life. Ah! sirs, it is for lack of knowing better. If you would but taste and see, you would regret that you had not tasted before, and you would rejoice and bless the Lord that you were brought to taste at the last. But you say, "May I taste?" Oh, yes; grace is free; Christ is free. If you will come, poor sinner, there is none to push you back. If God has made you willing to take Christ, depend upon it Christ was always willing to take you, for where God puts a renewed will into man, it is the image of his own eternal will. If you desire Christ, trust him this morning. This is the way to escape from Hell and fly to Heaven.
Are you black with sin? The fountain is open — wash.
Are you hungry? The door is not shut; it stands open all day; come then and eat. "Ho, every one that thirsts, come you to the waters, and he who has no money; come, buy, and eat; come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." If any of you should regret of trusting Christ come and blame me. Find my Master in your hearts, and if he is not a good and precious Savior to you, if he does not feed your soul with gladness, keep you from sin, and bring you at last to Heaven, come and tell me I am found a false witness unto Christ! From the depths of my soul I say it, I Would Sooner Be a Christian than an Emperor; Sooner Have Christ than a Crown; and Sooner Bear His Cross than Sit upon the Throne of a Caesar. Soul, taste and see that he is good.
"But I am not fit to taste," says one. Well, but who is fit to eat? A hungry man? Are you hungry? Then Eat. "Oh, but my hands are black." Never mind; it is not hand-work here, it is mouth-work. "Oh, but I am afraid I have no taste, and that if I did receive Christ into my heart, I should not taste his sweetness." Mark, the taste is in him and not in your mouth. Come and take him as he is. A little child, however weak; can be fed; open your mouth, you weak and foolish sinner, weary and heavy laden as you are, and by receiving Christ into your soul’s mouth, you shall find him good, and you shall go your way rejoicing. Hearken diligently unto the Lord, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. It will be an awful thing to feed on the wind for ever, and roll the morsels of Hell beneath your tongue to all eternity, but this must be your portion unless you taste of Christ.
May he add his own blessing to his own glory. Amen.
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