Sour Wine
They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Psalm 19:10
Honey – Do you agree with David? Are God’s judgments sweeter to you than honey, more precious than gold? Be careful! There is a lot more at stake here than endorsement of what is obviously good. God’s judgments often take a form that we find difficult to swallow. Are they still honey to your tongue?
Do you want to know what honey sometimes tastes like? Consider this: Jesus hung on the cross. He was offered sour wine – a fulfillment of prophecy. He experienced the judgment of God. Was that wine not the same as the sweetest honey? The end of His mission was near. God’s plan would soon be fulfilled and He would be found obedient to the last. Is not that honey? But the world saw only the sour wine. It never knew that honey sometimes tastes like vinegar.
Honey (debash) is often used metaphorically in Scripture. It describes the taste of a lover’s lips, the fertility of the land and the wonder of wisdom. But honey from God does not always appear so sweet from the world’s point of view. David certainly knew this. He had moments of sweet triumph, and days of bitter defeat – both personally and as king. David looks on all of it as honey, even those times when the taste seemed to be vinegar. There’s a lesson for us here. The real taste of honey is not to be found in the moment of consumption but rather in the result it brings. If you want to experience God’s judgments as honey to the soul, you will have to have eschatological taste buds. You will have to be able to lick your lips from the other side of the grave and realize that even vinegar can be as sweet as the honeycomb in the mouth of the Lord.
Today is a good day to improve your palette. Today, write a recipe for honey-tasting. Include all those things that were once vinegar, but now you see as the sweet hand of God. Then make a list of those present sour wine circumstances. Where God’s judgments find fulfillment, honey is inevitable. Is that the taste on your lips today? Can you drink that sour wine with Jesus and know that God will make it honey tomorrow?
