Sweetness of Christ

By Nick Bibile

 

Ps 104:34 My meditation of him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the LORD.

 

Almost everyone knows the meaning of sweet. It means a pleasant taste like sugar or honey, which is opposed to bitter. Then there are other meanings like a pleasant smell, a fragrant smell, a pleasant sound to the ear, something which is very beautiful and pleasing to the eye or it could be someone who is very gentle and kind, we say, he or she is a sweet person. 

 

Every human being born into this world is longing for sweetness, in other words when you have sweetness you are happy.  If you want to make a little child happy, give them a candy bar. Everyone born into this world is looking for happiness and they are looking to enjoy the sweetness of the happiness. They believe when they receive this happiness it will bring much satisfaction. Looking for happiness is a universal appetite of human nature. The opposite of happiness is to be sad, to be in a state of misery. No one born to this world is craving to be sad or looking for misery.  Young and old, good and bad they are all looking for the sweetness of happiness.

 

The craving for happiness never cease, how much sweetness of happiness they receive, yet they are not contend as they would crave for more and more happiness. It is like having a vessel with a hole, how much you fill the vessel with all kinds of sweetness of happiness, it will ask for more and more and it never ends. These outward senses of happiness will not bring contentment. It may bring contentment for a little while and then later that happiness is gone, would crave for another happiness.  Remember those days when you thought if I get a good job I will be happy, if I get a car I will be happy, if I buy a home I will be happy.  What happens after few years, you bought so many things and now you are not happy as you want a raise or you are looking for another job with a high raise. What happens to that car you bought after few years you want something better and new.   There was an article in CNN, which said, “Can money buy happiness?” "We always think if we just had a little bit more money, we'd be happier," says Catherine Sanderson, a psychology professor at Amherst College, "but when we get there, we're not." Indeed, the more you make, the more you want. The more you have, the less effective it is at bringing you joy, and that seeming paradox has long bedeviled economists.

 

Every human creature born into this world came naked. And since birth the cry is, give me, give me more, I want, I need, I like are the words as everyone is craving for happiness. However, happiness if just temporary, as they look for more and more sweetness of happiness. You will be never happy unless your souls if fed. The flesh will look for happiness until you die. The answer to fill your sweetness and happiness is Jesus Christ. Jesus told the woman at the well to draw water, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.” (John 4:13) Yes, when you are very thirsty, you drink a cool glass of water and you are satisfied but it is just temporary, later you will be thirsty again and again it never ends. That is how this life is. You think if you buy this and buy that or get married, get a nice job you will be happy. No, it is just temporary. In this, world men are never content.  But Christ said, “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (Joh 4:14) Beloved it is the sweetness and the happiness of Christ that fills your soul.

 

Isa 55:1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money,
come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.
Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

 

Carnal flesh is looking for happiness but gives only a temporary happiness only Jesus our Lord gives the true sweetness of happiness because all the sweetness if found in him. The soul that comes to Christ eats the bread that came from heaven, the soul feeds upon this bread does is content what they have, they never go after the appetites of the world anymore. Jesus feeds our soul with the heavenly bread and living water and daily we look to the sweetness of Christ, which gives us, unspeakable and full of glory.

 

1Ti 1:15 This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

 

No man will taste the sweetness of Christ unless he has tasted the bitterness of sin first. Let me ask you, do you feel the bitterness of sin?

 

 Ps 32:1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputed not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. 3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. 4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. 5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgave the iniquity of my sin.

 

Do you feel the pressure in your soul that you have sinned against the holy God and God’s curse is upon you? All the sins that you have committed against the righteous holy God? Have you cried to the Lord, “Lord have mercy upon me for I am a sinner?”

Do you hate sin and when pleasures of sin come as a delicacy do you flee from them?  If you do be, of good cheer as you have tasted the horrible bitterness of sin and now you taste the sweetness of Christ’s pardon, sweetness of his love, mercy and grace.

 

Remember how Mary Magdalene when it was still dark went to the tomb where Jesus was buried and she did not see the body of Jesus and began to weep bitterly, when Jesus himself appeared and said to her, “Woman why are you weeping?” She said, they have taken away my Lord.”  Because it was still dark, she could not recognize it was Jesus. But when Jesus said, “Mary” how she wanted to cling to him in excitement! This is the sweetness of Jesus that attracted the sinners when they realized their sins were pardoned, they put their first love on their Savior and he becomes their Master.

 

So 2:14  O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely.

 

Now you are a Christian, what is it that attracts us to Christ? Is it not the sweetness of Christ that attracts us to him?  Was it not the sweetness of his pardoning love? Is it not the fruits of Christ?

 

So 2:3 As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

 

This forgiveness of love which we will never forget as we remember how he took the wrath of God’s curse in our behalf, how can we forget how he demonstrated his love for the believing sinner. He over powered the enemy, he was triumphant as he removed our sins and conquered death. Now we taste the sweetness of Christ for the rest of our lives. Everyday when we wake up our souls are delighted as we can say, “He is my salvation and all my desire, he is my portion and my cup runneth over as I have an intimate fellowship with Christ.” He is my Lord, Savior my Master who is very sweet, my soul cries out in sweet praises to him and sometimes I blush at my poor attempts.

 

Many have head knowledge of Christ but they never taste the sweetness of Christ. Head knowledge of knowing Christ will not take to heaven unless that knowledge flows to your heart. Once it flows to our hearts, there is a sweet communion with Christ. This communion comes in prayer, meditation and praise.  Sometimes in prayer and meditation, that Lord draws his servants like a consuming fire and such times his servants can faint. C.H Spurgeon tells this true story.

 

Mr. Flavel (Referring to Puritan John Flavel, one of Spurgeon’s favorites) tells us that riding on horseback on a long journey to a place where he was to preach, he had such a sense of the sweetness of Christ and the glory of God, that he did not know where he was, and sat on his horse for two hours together, the horse wisely standing still, and when he came to himself he found that he had been bleeding freely through the excess of joy, and as he washed his face in the brook by the roadside he said he felt then that he knew what it was to sit on the doorstep of heaven, and he could hardly tell that if he had entered the pearly gates he could have been more happy, for the joy was excessive.

 

By the way, John Flavel said, “Jesus is the loveliest person souls can set their eyes upon.”

 

Here is another true story by C.H Spurgeon.

 

To quote what I have often quoted before, the words of Mr. Welsh, a famous Scotch divine, who was under one of those blessed deliriums of heavenly light and rapturous fellowship, and exclaimed, “Hold, Lord! Hold. It is enough! Remember, I am but an earthen vessel, and if thou give me more, I die!” When we are in deep meditation tasting the sweetness of Christ, God sometimes pours out his glory to this poor earthen vessels and we cry out saying,  “Depart, Lord: we are not ready yet for thy glorious presence.

 

Remember how Satan showed Jesus the sweetness of this world?

 

Mat 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

 

Satan shows us the delicacies of this world, the sweetness of worldly enjoyments, the sweetness of worldly entertainment, the sweetness of worldly amusements, the sweetness of worldly pleasures, the sweetness of worldly materialism. Satan is deceiving many as telling them, it’s ok to come to church, it’s ok to read the Bible and pray but do not meditate and think of Jesus all the time, think of the world, your self those are important to your life. What he is saying is to worship him more than God.

 

How can I compare my Lord and Master to the harlot of this wicked world? How can I compare the materialism of this world to the solid gold of heaven? How can I compare the sweetness of Christ to the sweetness of this world?

 

When we meditate the works of Christ for our poor souls, then our faith is increased, hope is established, and love to Christ is kindled.

 

So 7:5 Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple; the king is held in the galleries.

 

God’s Holy Spirit is in the believer and we can hold our King Jesus in the galleries.

 

Remember when Jesus came to the house of Mary and Martha, Martha got so busy in preparation of the food but Mary sat at the feet of Jesus, she forgot the cooking as she was tasting the sweetness of his words which was sweeter than honey.

 

Ps 119:103 How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

 

The two disciples who were walking on the road to Emmaus had fellowship with Jesus as Jesus opened the scriptures concerning himself.  When Jesus wanted to leave, they urged him saying, “Stay with us” They did not want the Lord to leave.

 

How can you say, It is enough of the word of God. How can you say, I do not want to read and study the Bible all the time. How can you say, Jesus it is enough now I have to go. When the two disciples recognized Jesus and Jesus vanished from them, they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened the scriptures?”

 

It is better to have our hearts burn for Christ than heartburn of the world.

 

When Christ Jesus comes to our heart, he gives us a new heart of obedience. Out of this new heart flows godly thoughts and godly behavior. There was a radical change in us.

 

Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 

Now see the difference when the Holy Spirit comes and lives in us, we do not walk according to our flesh but according to the Spirit.

 

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

 

We believers are changed from sinners to saints. And to God we become sweetness to him through Christ Jesus.

 

2Co 2:15 For we are unto God a sweet savor of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish.

 

Before we were enemies of God and to God we were dung, he turned his nostrils away from the smelling of our sins but now, what Christ had done in us we are changed from sinners to saints and God loves us as we become a sweet aroma to him in Christ Jesus. We become a living sacrifice to him in our lifestyle. It is all because what Christ had done for unworthy sinners like us.

 

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