February 3, 2012

• "The honeycomb I lift!" ~ Will you join me? I Samuel 14:24-30

  I Samuel 14:24  And the men of Israel had been hard pressed that day, so Saul had laid an oath on the people, saying, “Cursed be the man who eats food until it is evening and I am avenged on my enemies.” So none of the people had tasted food. 25  Now when all the people came to the forest, behold, there was honey on the ground. 26  And when the people entered the forest, behold, the honey was dropping, but no one put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath. 27  But Jonathan had not heard his father charge the people with the oath, so he put out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb and put his hand to his mouth, and his eyes became bright. 28  Then one of the people said, “Your father strictly charged the people with an oath, saying, ‘Cursed be the man who eats food this day.’” And the people were faint. 29  Then Jonathan said, “My father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted a little of this honey. 30  How much better if the people had eaten freely today of the spoil of their enemies that they found. For now the defeat among the Philistines has not been great.”

  

  The honeycomb I lift!

  Entreating for full supply
  Vitality comes from the Head
  Pleading with God Almighty:
  "Feed us! and we will be fed!"

  I seek His baptism spiritual
  No vigor, no power, no might
  No strength to fight the battle
  Apart from Jesus the Christ

  Feed Your flock for we are Thine
  Deliver us from ruthless blast
  Winter begone! Spring come at last!
  Water us, vineyard of red wine

  O! Heavens, be rent!
  O! blessed Paraclete
  Grant us favorable ascent
  Carry us to the mercy seat

  O! my soul nearly fainting
  Behold! See the honey drips!
  My Beloved for the taking!
  Sweetness for my parched lips!

  Tarry not! Hurry! Be swift!
  O! Anticipation!
  The honeycomb I lift!
  Glorious consummation!

  Tasting the inheritance
  Countenance brightening
  Rejoicing in the dance
  Refreshing, enlivening

  Clap! thunderbolt descends
  Sudden dark eruption
  Shadowy gloominess
  Serpent's interruption:

  "No enjoyment for thee!"
  What? Delight forbidden?
  Saul's troubling decree
  O! great grievous burden

  Hearken now to the King's voice:
  "Come now! eat and drink freely
  Weary souls, taste My sweetness
  Glorify and enjoy Me!"

  Lamb of God for sin was tendered
  From slavery He bought release
  God's propitiation offered
  Entrance secured to the feast

  Every yoke was broken
  Sin's fierce bonds were ruptured
  Hear His invitation spoken:
  "'All things are now prepared!"

  Pleasure from the true vine
  Showers in abundance
  Superlunary, divine
  For our sorrow, gladness!

  "Make merry, drink wine
  All I have is thine
  Let My goodness satisfy
  Take flight sorrow and sighing!"

  "Sweet torrent for bitter curse
  Joy for mourning I bestow
  From the Rock honey bursts
  Gladdening streams overflow!"

  Jesus! sweetest sustenance!
  My everlasting portion
  O! grace pouring upon grace
  Spirit-breathed, honeyed communion

  Religion raised above cold notion
  How much better if we freely eat
  Trysting, fiery, flaming devotion!
  To sensibly enjoy the sweet!

  "True religion's more than notion,
  Something must be known and felt."
  (Joseph Hart)

  "Thus there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance. There is a wide difference between mere speculative rational judging any thing to be excellent, and having a sense of its sweetness and beauty. The former rests only in the head, speculation only is concerned in it; but the heart is concerned in the latter. When the heart is sensible of the beauty and amiableness of a thing, it necessarily feels pleasure in the apprehension. It is implied in a person's being heartily sensible of the loveliness of a thing, that the idea of it is sweet and pleasant to his soul; which is a far different thing from having a rational opinion that it is excellent."

  ~ from Jonathan Edwards' "A Divine and Supernatural Light"

  How we come to this sense – the Scriptures & the Holy Spirit

  Has your soul become heartily sensible of the sweetness, pleasantness, loveliness, beauty, holiness and excellence of the Lord Jesus Christ – or do you merely have a rational opinion that He is sweet, pleasant, lovely, beautiful and excellent? Joseph Hart used the phrase "known and felt." Christianity comprises a definite body of knowledge, and so we come to the Scripture first, never neglecting, never marginalizing and never discarding the Bible or Biblical doctrine. All Scripture is God-breathed!

  John 5:39  You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40  yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

  However, as we go to the Scripture – and we must go there!  – we must also go to the throne of grace and ask the Holy Spirit to shine His light on the truth that is written there, for that is the way we come to Jesus Christ and come to have life and life abundantly. The devil is a deceiver and a liar. At every turn, he is prowling and engaged in a fierce battle against the truth – for it is the truth that sets us free. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and He is sent to us to lead us into all truth.
  
  

  Open my eyes, that I may behold
  wondrous things out of your law.
  (Psalm 119:18)
  

  ... these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
  (I Corinthians 2:10-12)

  There is a body of truth, independent of and outside of our own thinking and our own whimsical and wishful musings about the character of God, truth which comes down to us from the Father of lights, the God who is light and in whom there is no darkness.
  
  

  For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
  neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
  For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
  so are my ways higher than your ways
  and my thoughts than your thoughts.
  (Isaiah 55:8-9)
  
  
  Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
  
  “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
  or who has been his counselor?”
  “Or who has given a gift to him
  that he might be repaid?”
  (Romans 11:33-35)

  We need to continue to read the Scripture in conjunction with the Holy Spirit or we will be led astray. Like the Bereans (Acts 17), we must continue to check all things against the Bible. Throughout both the Old and the New Testament, clear warnings are heaped up for us: take heed, do not forget, remember, test and try all things, be on guard, etc., etc.. Why is that? Because if we don't remain rooted in the Bible and Biblical doctrine, each and every one of us will be tossed to and fro, and we will end up like the people in the book of Judges, who did what was right in their own eyes, and like those later on in the Old Testament who walked after the imagination of their own evil hearts – because all of our hearts are "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9-10, KJV), and each one of us, as Robert Robinson wrote, is "prone to wander."

  All of that was all a precursor, but a very necessary precursor, to what I'm going to say now...

  My prayer for you...

  Christian, I pray God would anoint your eyes so you might begin to have a spiritual sight of the riches of your inheritance, the inheritance for which Christ died to bequeath to you, the inheritance which you share with all the saints. May God give you grace to begin to pursue God in earnest, to desire an experiential sense of God's love, mercy, grace, power and might (e.g. - see Ephesians 1:15-23), so you might enter into a living fellowship with the living God, so you might know the love of Christ and be filled with all the fullness of God (see Ephesians 3:14-21).

  O! turn away from your flesh and from the world and all its vain charms and inventions – and look away to Jesus! Do not be deceived! Do not keep going after what does not profit! Look! The honey is dropping right before your eyes – as you open your Bible, all the treasures of our inheritance are set forth for you and for all the children of God to begin to take and eat and drink! May the blessed Holy Spirit give you ears to hear the Lord Jesus Christ as He invites all who hunger and thirst to come to Him to eat and drink so they might be satisfied, supplied, strengthened and sustained all the days of our pilgrimage!

  My pilgrimage: "they look like trees, walking"

  I've previously written how I'd trudged through years and years of lukewarm Christianity, and I never had an inkling of what eating and drinking of the Lord Jesus Christ really meant (e.g. - see here and here). (Not that I have very much sense of it now, but by the grace of God, I have got some...) I liken myself during that period of time to the man at Bethesda who was blind (Mark 8), and upon being touched once by Jesus, he professed that he saw men, "but they look like trees, walking." The devil wants to keep us locked up and bound in that sort of Christianity for it  leads to either a reliance on our own flesh or else a profound paralysis (in either case, the center remains self). The devil wants us to be complacent with what we already have of Christ, and not to press on to seek a clearer and higher sight of Christ. Our adversary wants to be remain lukewarm, not pressing in and upward and higher and higher so we might come to know, to really know, more and more of the Lord Jesus Christ. The devil loves miserable and forlorn Christians! What kind of testimony is that to a dying world? And yet – infinite and inexhaustible riches await us at the throne of grace! Jesus asked the blind man if he saw anything. Have we really seen anything? Have we begun to get any spiritual sight of the Lord Jesus Christ? How can we in our right minds restrain ourselves from picking up that honeycomb and being filled and satisfied with the fullness of God? What does the world have to offer that can compare to Jesus Christ?!

  When I first started blogging five years ago this month, I would have been the last person I thought would be writing over and over again about the wellspring of living water that is available to whosoever is thirsty and whosoever will come – because I had no understanding that this type of Christianity existed! Though I was going to the Bible, much like the Pharisees, I was blinded and stuck hewing and drinking from broken cisterns. However, God was gracious to me (who am I but a worm and the chief of sinners), His Spirit blew, He shone on my path, He opened my eyes, He began to draw me to Himself, giving me a hunger and thirst to know Him, and in His merciful kindness, He has permitted me to lift that honeycomb and allowed me to begin to taste and see the Lord Jesus Christ and experience foretastes of glory divine – and I fervently desire for all of you to do likewise.

  Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
  to dwell in your courts!
  We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
  the holiness of your temple!
  (Psalm 65:4)

  
  My grief and my prayer for you: "How long will you put off going in ... ?"

  I have encountered far too many Christians who have not begun to experience this blessed satisfaction, and it grieves me. (Well, seeing even one of you is one too many!)

  Are you going to sit back – or are you going to be violent and take the Kingdom of God by force and seize the inheritance that is rightfully yours as a child of God? Throughout the book of Joshua, we find the people of God urged to enter into their inheritance.

  Joshua 18:2  There remained among the people of Israel seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been apportioned. 3  So Joshua said to the people of Israel, “How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?...”

  
  And today, I urge you . . .
  
  

  How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land, which the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you?

  What are you doing with the freedom you have in Christ?

  Through faith in Christ, the veil has been taken away, and the Holy Spirit has been given. Why? That we might seek to behold Him!

  II Corinthians 3:16  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

  What are you doing with the freedom God has given you? Are you seeking to behold the glory of the Lord? Is Christ your best thought by day and by night? Or, are your desires no different than the world? Do you barely give God a thought, except when Sunday morning rolls around – or when you get into a difficult situation? Does your Bible continue to collect dust? Have you ever even read through the entire Bible? Are your prayers all filled with petitions for your kingdom to come rather than His? Is your desire for your own glory of for His? Are you making a mockery of your Christian profession and trampling the precious blood of Christ underfoot?

  My friends, our God is not a liar. He has told us He is a rewarder to all those who diligently seek Him. Ask Him to give you a passion to follow hard after Him, and to bless you with a continuing desire to cleave to Him. After all, where else can we go? Jesus Christ has the words of eternal life! Who is a god like unto Him?! Jesus Christ is the fount of every blessing! Every blessing! O! Consider Him! God's Beloved Son! The Alpha and Omega! The Author and Finisher of our faith!

  About shepherds like King Saul

  May God guard us from false and misguided shepherds like King Saul, whose teachings hinder God's flock from pressing on to know the Lord, those who want us to remain content with a sterile and frigid head knowledge, a Christianity that stops at only notion, a Christianity that forbids a taste of the honeycomb! O, don't get me wrong – I am all for orthodox teaching and Biblical rooting (hence the large section devoted to it above), but we can be very orthodox but at the same time effectively dead like the Church at Sardis (Rev. 3). We can be very orthodox, but have we abandoned our first Love like the Church at Ephesus (Rev. 2)? What kind of Christianity is that? Is that the life and life abundantly of which Jesus spoke?

  Is that how Jesus Himself defined eternal life?
  
  

  John 17:3  And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

  Is that the experience the disciples on the Emmaus Road had with Jesus?

  Luke 24:32  They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

  May God guard us from false shepherds and false teachings which seek to quench and extinguish the believer's pursuit of the experiential knowledge of and communion with the living God.

  Galatians 5:1  For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
  
  Matthew 23:13  But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
  
  Isaiah 5:20
  Woe to those who call evil good
  and good evil,
  who put darkness for light
  and light for darkness,
  who put bitter for sweet
  and sweet for bitter!

  Asking, seeking and knocking... Will you lift the honeycomb with me?

  May God's Spirit open our eyes so we might be granted a spiritual sight of our Father's perfect, all-satisfying and sweet provision for us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

  Psalm 81:16  But he would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.

  May God open the eyes of our understanding so we might have full assurance that all that our Father has is truly ours, so we might be lifted out of the pitiful position of the tasteless, joyless, empty and unfelt "Christianity" of the older son.

  Luke 15:25  “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26  And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27  And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28  But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29  but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30  But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31  And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32  It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

  May God make us importunate to ask, seek and knock for His full supply, and then to keep asking, seeking and knocking... Is there any time we do not have need of Him?

  Luke 11:5  And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6  for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7  and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8  I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9  And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10  For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11  What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12  or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13  If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

  The life we have received in the Spirit requires our being continually supplied by the Spirit...

  The honeycomb I lift!
  Will you join me?

  ---

  Related:

  • Finding pleasure in Him
  • How's your spiritual appetite? (Jonathan Edwards)
  • don't waste your new year ~ teach us, satisfy us, make us glad (Psalm 90:12-15)
  • "The Christian should not just believe the truth, and know it..." | the Father's assurance
  • Mistakes about Religion & What Religion Is
  • "Alas! if this be not true religion, what is?" ~ George Whitefield
  • The flags unfurled ... Christ's eternal banner | Lloyd-Jones ~ a third type of assurance
  • Happy Birthday, John Piper ~ reflections on year-ends, aging, fruit bearing & Christian hedonism
  • The Father's Inheritance (Eleven days' journey ~ A lamentation & an exhortation)
  • Advent #1 WHY HAS JESUS COME? that we might have life & life more abundantly
  • Advent # 5 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might draw near to God | Even a Vapor
  • Advent # 7 WHY HAS JESUS COME? So we might be satisfied with Him
  • As a deer pants ... Is your soul panting for God? (Psalms 42 & 43)
  • Letter 3 on assurance and fighting for joy (Jesus' desire vs. Satan's desire)
  • Letter 18 on assurance and fighting for joy (my testimony of joy)
  • dear devil/dear flock of God (day in, day out): Letter 63 on assurance & joy
  • experimental assurance of the Father's love (letter 67 on assurance & fighting for joy)
  • this earthly manna ~ the Christian hedonist's plea
  • adopting God's purpose for the nations is for your joy & His glory (Letter 76 on joy)
  • Pleasures abounding, pleasures from above | letter 117 on assurance & fighting for joy
  • "Who wants candles when he has the sun?" ~ Edward Payson | letter 124 on assurance & joy

  Scripture quotations unless otherwise indicated are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Emphasis mine.

  Work found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Honey_comb.jpg  / CC BY-SA 3.0

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