Proverbs 27:7 ¶ The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to
the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
Taken very literally; a person who is sated with
the delicacies he desires, for that moment, wants no more and, in fact, wants
nothing to do with them. The starving person will eat almost anything. But,
look at this. In the Old Testament, under the Law, the body and the soul were
talked about as sharing their fates. Even, as Jesus spoke before the
resurrection the Jews were still under the jurisdiction of the Law given to
Moses. They were not born again. They carried no Spiritual presence of God
within them predicated upon their belief and trust in Jesus Christ, God in the
flesh, as their Saviour.
Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill
the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able
to destroy both soul and body in hell.
But, after the resurrection, when a person can
be born again spiritually by believing on Jesus Christ the soul is separated
from the sins of the flesh.
Colossians 2:11 In whom also ye are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body
of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Pleasant words are likened to a honeycomb in the
following Proverb.
Proverbs 16:24 Pleasant words are as an
honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.
The words of the pure are pleasant in this
verse.
Proverbs 15:26 The thoughts of the wicked are
an abomination to the LORD: but the words of the pure are pleasant words.
God’s words are said to be sweet.
Psalm 119:103 How sweet are thy words unto my
taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Now, let’s take this very Old Testament Proverb,
written under the Law, and give it a spiritual application to Christians.
One of the things that is amazing about American Christians
is their self-righteous certainty that they’ve gotten all of God that they will
get or need. They sit in a church and hear a preacher exhort them to do right
or, if he’s got an agenda, to vote a certain way or to hate certain people.
Leaving, they feel smug and self-satisfied, full of themselves and sensing that
they’ve done what God expects. Some of them don’t even make the effort to meet
with a body of believers as the church regularly and often. Often, in churches
across the nation, and this is true of even Fundamentalist churches, humanism
is taught from the pulpit like a lecture on philosophy in a college lecture
hall.
These Christians are full, they leave the
building in which the church meets and want nothing more to do with God’s
words. They might mutter a hurried prayer each day or even read a verse or two
for “inspiration”. But unless some tragedy or calamity confronts them it is
doubtful they’ll even crack open the Bible. Some will go to the Bible for a
story or a lesson or some moral principle underlined, particularly, though, for
verses to comfort or support.
They lack the love and hunger for God’s words
that the hungry soul of years before thirsted for every day. It is ironic to
hear preacher’s talk about the “old time religion” when their religion is
anything but old when daily Bible reading is not a part of it.
“The American version of Protestantism was a
religion of a book, and to practice the religion required being able to read
the book. In many a log cabin, parents taught their children the rudiments of
reading in the only book they had; a Bible……” (page 192 of Daniel Walker Howe’s
Pulitzer prize winning What Hath God Wrought.) By the way, this was
always a King James Bible, called “the common Bible” in colonial America. Bible
reading was important to be an American and to be a Christian. Christine Leigh
Heyrman, in her book Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt also
underscores the importance of Bible reading in early America. The book Pagan
Christianity points out that it was the Puritans who believed that God
spoke to His people principally by the weekly sermon, which they required you
to attend by law, rather than Bible reading at home, as well.
The hungry soul will find even the harshest,
bitter judgments of the Bible sweet. The hungry soul will come to the Bible to
be fed and filled every day, to have God speak to them from His own words each
day. Hungry souls will “take up and read” as Augustine reported he heard a
disembodied voice tell him. Whether or not you believe what Augustine said, the
hungry Christian soul will want to read and to hear God’s words. They are sweet
to his taste and we know from the Bible that….
Job 34:3 For the ear trieth words, as the
mouth tasteth meat.
As I said, many Fundamentalist preachers do not
teach and exhort a love of God’s words read and heard directly from the Bible.
Mostly that is because they want to control what you think and believe about
God’s words rather than guiding you and keeping you from heresy, in spite of
the Baptist doctrines of soul liberty and the priesthood of all believers. As
Dr. Ruckman has so accurately pointed out, from most fundamentalist pulpits all
you hear is about attendance and giving.
Christians need to know about the power of God’s
words. The Christian needs to come to the Book expecting that God will use it
to change Him, not merely by the Christian’s assent to the doctrines and moral
teachings of the Book, but by a supernatural power the Bible has been imbued
with by God to reach into the person and make him or her different. The Holy
Spirit can take His own words and change your heart, your circumstances, and
your life even while you simply read a list of names in a book of the Bible. It
is daily Bible reading, expectation, and submission to accept whatever God’s
will is for your life that enriches a Christian’s life far beyond his mere wish
to be a “good Christian”.
God’s words go beyond your intentions. They take
you further than your seemingly heartfelt desire. The Bible is the principal
way that God speaks to His people; read, heard, preached, and taught, and there
is no substitute for daily reading of it accompanied always with much prayer.
Ephesians 6:17 And take the helmet of
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: 18 Praying
always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto
with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Paul tells the young preacher, Timothy, to “give
attendance to reading” in 1 Timothy 4:13 and I assure you he wasn’t talking
about Plato. The king of Israel was to read the Scriptures every day.
Deuteronomy 17:19 And it shall be with him,
and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear
the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do
them:
And the psalmist makes these declarations;
Psalm 119: 9 ¶ BETH. Wherewithal shall a
young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
11 ¶ Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Christian, be a hungry soul and fill yourself
with the delicacies in God’s words in His Bible. Even the bitterest of words
will be sweet to your ears in its judgments. And, as Dr. Ruckman has said,
“either the Bible will keep you from your sins, or your sins will keep you from
the Bible.” Amen to that.
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