Taste and See

Honey. We all know that honey is made by honeybees. The bees collect nectar from flowers and then transform the saccharides in the nectar into honey through a process of repeated regurgitation until it is partially digested. The last regurgitation is still high in water content, so the process continues through evaporation and enzymatic transformation. The enzyme invertase synthesized by the bees and digestive acids hydrolyze the sucrose from the nectar to give the same mixture of glucose and fructose. So, honey gets its sweetness from these monosaccharides, and depending on the variety is slightly sweeter than granulated sugar.

Sweetness is almost universally regarded as a pleasurable experience. Foods rich in simple carbohydrates such as honey are those most commonly associated with sweetness. The tongue uses a different taste receptor pathway for each of the five basic tastes: sour, bitter, savory, salty, and sweet. So, when incoming sweet molecules in the honey bind to their taste receptors, it causes a conformational change in the molecule. This change activates certain proteins, which in turn cause the release of ions that ultimately cause neurotransmitter release, which is then received by a primary afferent neuron. So basically it takes all that for your taste buds to tell your brain that honey is sweet.

Now, I have just described to you more than you probably ever wanted to know about how the human body determines the sweetness of honey. But one thing I did not do, in fact cannot do, is cause you to experience the sweetness of honey.

The following quote comes from Jonathan Edwards’ sermon A Divine and Supernatural Light –

There is a twofold knowledge of good of which God has made the mind of man capable. The first, that which is merely notional…And the other is, that which consists in the sense of the heart; as when the heart is sensible of pleasure and delight in the presence of the idea of it…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.

In other words, there is this “head knowledge” of God where you believe certain truths about Him. But then there is a “heart knowledge” where you not only acknowledge these truths about God, but you sense them, you feel them, because you experience the pleasure of His presence with you. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible to accurately describe the taste of honey. That is because honey was not meant to just be described, and analyzed and studied. Honey is meant to be tasted and experienced; its sweetness is to be enjoyed. In the same way, the Holy Spirit is not Someone merely to be described and studied, but He was given to us as a pledge of our inheritance, a deposit, or a taste, if you will, of the sweetness we will experience when we are with the Father for all eternity.

This may be overly simplistic, but it seems there are two extremes in churches today. Some emphasize knowing the truth of God’s Word. Others emphasize experiencing the Holy Spirit. But shouldn’t there be both? Isn’t that what Jesus meant when He said to the Samaritan woman, “the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.” (John 4:23)

Which extreme do you think Three Rivers leans towards? And if you think we are a good balance, then I would suggest you are guilty of what is called confirmation bias; you have surrounded yourself with people and information that confirms your own beliefs and bias. But how many of you woke up this morning and begged the Holy Spirit to impart to you a supernatural gift so that you could edify the church? How many truly understand what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit? I don’t mean you can write a paper on it, but you understand it because you have experienced it. It has been real to you. None of us have arrived, not your pastors, not Mitch, not Emmett, and especially not me. The Apostle Paul himself confessed that he hadn’t obtained it, but he longed to gain Christ so he pressed on to make it his own, because Christ Jesus has made him his own (Philippians 3:12-14). He wanted more of Christ.

Many of us stop short of a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit because we are satisfied with good theology. Let me be clear, there is nothing wrong with good theology; it is essential and without it we will not come to a saving knowledge of the truth. Just before Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman about worshiping in spirit and in truth, He told her that she worshiped what she did not know; the Jews worshiped what they knew. The Jews knew, but they had not yet experienced Immanuel – God with us. As someone once said, “The word of God is to lead us to the God of the word.” People without experience tend to be overly confident in their beliefs or theories, or good theology. To continue the analogy, they can describe to you down to the molecule the sweetness of honey, but they have rarely if ever tasted it. But people with experience tend to long for more; they crave the frequent and tangible interaction of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Christ came to earth to die and be resurrected so that we could experience Him. He left earth so that He could send the Holy Spirit to be with us and in us so that we could proclaim to the world with King David: “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34:8)

Holy Spirit we confess that we do not know You as we should. We know about You, and we are intrigued with the idea of You, but the realness of You in our lives is sporadic at best. We want to know You in a deeper way. We want to experience You. We want to be continually filled with You. Jesus, You suffered and died to make that possible. You purchased that on the cross. Father, You are seeking worshipers of You in spirit and in truth. Seek us out, Father; make us pleasing to You. Let us taste and see that You are good.