“O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” Psalm xxxiv. 8.
You see by these words what love Almighty God has towards us, and what claims He has upon our love. He is the Most High, and All-Holy. He inhabiteth eternity: we are but worms compared with Him. He would not be less happy though He had never created us; He would not be less happy though we were all blotted out again from creation. But He is the God of love; He brought us all into existence, because He found satisfaction in surrounding Himself with happy creatures: He made us innocent, holy, upright, and happy. And when Adam fell into sin and his descendants after him, then ever since He has been imploring us to return to Him, the Source of all good, by true repentance. “Turn ye, turn ye,” He says, “why will ye die? As I live I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” “What could have been done more to My vineyard that I have not done to it?” [Ezek. xxxiii. 11. Isa. v. 4.] And in the text He condescends to invite us to Him: “O taste and see how gracious the Lord is: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him.” As if He said, “If you would but make trial, one trial, if you would but be persuaded to taste and judge for yourself, so excellent is His graciousness, that you would never cease to desire, never cease to approach Him:” according to the saying of the wise man, “They that eat Me shall yet be hungry, and they that drink Me shall yet be thirsty.” [Eccles. xxiv. 21.]
This excellence and desirableness of God’s gifts is a subject again and again set before us in Holy Scripture. Thus the Prophet Isaiah speaks of the “feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees; of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” [Isa. xxv. 6.] And again, under images of another kind: “He hath sent Me … to give … beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called Trees of Righteousness.” [Isa. lxi. 1-3.] Or again, the Prophet Hosea: “I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon.” [Hos. xiv. 5-7.] And the Psalmist: “O that My people would have hearkened unto Me … the haters of the Lord should have been found liars, but their time should have endured for ever. He should have fed them also with the finest wheat flour, and with honey out of the stony rock should I have satisfied thee.” [Ps. lxxxi. 13-16.] You see all images of what is pleasant and sweet in nature are brought together to describe the pleasantness and sweetness of the gifts which God gives us in grace. As wine enlivens, and bread strengthens, and oil is rich, and honey is sweet, and flowers are fragrant, and dew is refreshing, and foliage is beautiful; so, and much more, are God’s gifts in the Gospel enlivening, and strengthening, and rich, and sweet, and fragrant, and refreshing, and excellent. And as it is natural to feel satisfaction and comfort in these gifts of the visible world, so it is but natural and necessary to be delighted and transported with the gifts of the world invisible; and as the visible gifts are objects of desire and search, so much more is it, I do not merely say a duty, but a privilege and blessedness to “taste and see how gracious the Lord is.”
Other passages in the Psalms speak of this blessedness, besides the text. “Thou hast put gladness in my heart,” says the Psalmist, “since the time that their corn and wine and oil increased.” [Ps. iv. 7.] “The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground, yea, I have a goodly heritage.” [Ps. xvi. 6.] Again, “The statutes of the Lord are right, and rejoice the heart, … more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.” [Ps. xix. 10.] “My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I praise Him.” [Ps. xxviii. 7.] Once more: “Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and receivest unto Thee: he shall dwell in Thy courts, and shall be satisfied with the pleasures of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple.” [Ps. lxv. 4.]
I wish it were possible, my brethren, to lead men to greater holiness and more faithful obedience by setting before them the high and abundant joys which they have who serve God: “In His presence is fulness of joy,” “the well of life;” and they are satisfied with “the plenteousness of His house,” and “drink of His pleasures as out of a river;” but this is, I know, just what most persons will not believe. They think that it is very right and proper to be religious; they think that it would be better for themselves in the world to come if they were religious now. They do not at all deny either the duty or the expedience of leading a new and holy life; but they cannot understand how it can be pleasant: they cannot believe or admit that it is more pleasant than a life of liberty, laxity, and enjoyment. They, as it were, say, “Keep within bounds, speak within probability, and we will believe you; but do not shock our reason. We will admit that we ought to be religious, and that, when we come to die, we shall be very glad to have led religious lives: but to tell us that it is a pleasant thing to be religious, this is too much: it is not true; we feel that it is not true; all the world knows and feels it is not true; religion is something unpleasant, gloomy, sad, and troublesome. It imposes a number of restraints on us; it keeps us from doing what we would; it will not let us have our own way; it abridges our liberty; it interferes with our enjoyments; it has fewer, far fewer, joys at present than a worldly life, though it gains for us more joys hereafter.” This is what men say, or would say, if they understood what they feel, and spoke their minds freely.