Taste and See

For the preacher

Spine (do not say it, let them find it): your feelings are not reports on God. The tongue knows one thing, how a thing tastes right now, and cannot see the end. So it lies both ways: it calls the Word that feeds you nothing, and the sin that kills you good. The cure is not a stronger feeling. It is a truer judge. Taste, and see.

Shape: one instinct, trust your taste, let down in two directions. First the dry Word the tongue undervalues, then the sweet sin it overvalues. Then the second word David gave you and you dropped: see.

How to use this: the Open is written out, because an opening is worth rehearsing. Everything after it is pointers, not a script. Glance, then say it in your own words, to one person, slowly. The lines in bold are the only ones to land close to word for word.

Open

Read Psalm 34:8. Then slow all the way down. This is a conversation, not an announcement. Talk to one person.

“I want to introduce you to the most trusted liar in your life. You have carried it since the day you were born, it goes everywhere with you, and you believe it without a second thought. It is your tongue.

Here is how much you trust it. You have never once swallowed a second bite of something that tasted awful, just because it was good for you, and gone back for a third. But you have finished the whole bag of the thing you promised yourself you would not touch, because it tasted like more. One small muscle, and we let it decide what goes in.

And of all your senses, it is the only one that can only tell you about now. Your eyes can look down the road and see where it ends. Your tongue only knows this bite, this second. It has no idea what this does to you in an hour, or in a year. And that is the sense we put on the throne.”

Two ordinary hungers. The same small lie underneath both.

1. When you feel nothing

The dry Bible morning: flat page, wandering mind, and you wait for a better one.

• The rule sounds humble: “I’ll read when it moves me.” Flip it. It is a demand: the Word has to perform for you first. And it is a gate that never opens, because the being-moved comes only after you have already come.
• The dry morning is not the obstacle. It is the test. Anyone shows up when the page is sweet. Only the nothing-morning shows whether you came for God or for the feeling.
• The wilderness was on purpose: the manna tasted of almost nothing, “testing you to know what was in your heart… man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD” (Deuteronomy 8:2-3). Will you live on his word when it is only bread, not yet honey?
• So eat before you feel. One verse, not a chapter, chewed slowly (“meditate,” Psalm 1:2, means to mutter, to chew). Order: “I ate them, and your words became to me a joy” (Jeremiah 15:16). Ate first. Joy second.
• Keep it honest: some seasons stay dry no matter how you chew. Not failure, the wilderness working. “Incline my heart to your testimonies” (Psalm 119:36).

2. When it feels too good

Now the tongue lies the other way: the thing that goes down easy.

• The feed you scroll till 1am, the voice that flatters exactly what you already believed. It feels good, and the feeling is your proof it is fine.
• Sugar does not lie. It tells the truth (it really is sweet) and says nothing about the cost. Even honey: “eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it” (Proverbs 25:16). Your mouth keeps saying yes long after your body says no. The tongue is the loud one.
• “Spit it out when it turns bitter” fails on the worst things, because they never turn bitter in your mouth. “sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be full of gravel” (Proverbs 20:17). Sweet now, gravel later.
• Why the tongue can’t catch it: it only reports now. Sweet, this bite, this second, and blind to the hour and the year. Seeing the end was never the mouth’s job. That is what eyes are for. You cannot taste the end, and the end is the only part that matters.
• Guard before the turn: not “sweet bad, bitter holy.” The Word is sweet, joy is no trap, and not every hard thing is good either. The tongue does not rule, in either direction.

Land: taste, and see

• “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8). We do the first word and skip the second. Taste is now. See is the end, where it lands. Your mouth can never reach that far. Your eyes can.
• You cannot see the end on your own, you have not been there. The Word has, and it tells you where a thing comes out before you swallow it.
• Same cure for both hungers, and it is not a feeling. It is a judge: “Test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Not what tastes good.
• Sweet is not safe, and bitter is not bad. Your feelings were never a report on God. Take the tongue off the throne. It stays at the table. It does not rule.

Leave them with three, slowly, one at a time:

1. The thing you swallow most easily: a year on, more like Christ, or just more fed and more sure you were right?
2. What good and solid thing have you put down lately, not because it was wrong, but because it was work?
3. Your rule, “I’ll read when it moves me”: what is its actual track record?

A good feeling is not proof you are fed. A flat one is not proof you are starved. Taste, and see.

Appendix: the deep read

The long form, for going deeper or pointing people to.

• Chew Before You Feel: the dry morning is the test, not the obstacle.
• Sweet Is Not Safe: you cannot taste the end, so test what you consume against the Word.

Verses in order: Psalm 34:8 · Deuteronomy 8:2-3 · Psalm 1:2 · Jeremiah 15:16 · Proverbs 25:16 · Proverbs 20:17 · 1 Thessalonians 5:21