Locusts And Wild Honey

Locusts and Wild Honey

Judges 14:9 And he took thereof in his hands, and went on eating, and came to his father and mother, and he gave them, and they did eat: but he told not them that he had taken the honey out of the carcase of the lion.

Mark 1:6 And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey;

He dipped his hands in honey and did eat and his mother and father did eat also. O God ever more give us mountain top experiences, fill us O God for does not your word say that your people will not be borrowers but lenders? (Spurgeon?)

In the Judges passage Samson dipped his hands in honey ate and then gave it to others. Simply put this is an example of a person receiving a blessing and passing it on to others. May God give us much honey in life to eat.

John the Baptist ate honey and locusts. If the honey symbolizes blessings what does the locust symbolize.

This week we want to show you that the God of the honey is God of the locust also. That God is just as pleasant and sweet in the high places as He is in the low places.

How do you eat locusts? Fried? boiled? raw? or with your fingers holding your nose tightly closed.

Life has its honey and life has it locusts.

Life has it sweetness, and life has its wounds.

Today I am not talking about wounds that weaken but wounds that strengthen and that are marks of vitality and life. We are comparing wounds to eating locusts along with our honey.

In the old testament there is a story of Jacob having a dream and in that dream he saw a ladder that went up to heaven, and angels were busy going up and down that ladder.

In the New Testament God gives a different picture of the ladder to heaven, it goes down and not up!

What are you talking about, Pastor?

The first step on the golden staircase is this:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. That is not stepping up it is stepping down.

Another: Matthew 5:6 Blessed [are] they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. Eating locusts will make you hungry for something else. This also is not a step up but down in humility and hunger.

Another: Two men were praying, one beat his breast and would not so much as lift his eyes towards heaven and said, "God be merciful to be a sinner" The lower we go the higher we get!

Another: whoever comes to Me shall be broken.

Finally on the bottom stair tis written, "Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted."

There is a holy mourning. A blessed dourness, a sacred wimpering of which I want to speak to you today.

The mourning here Jesus speaks of is not the mourning of those who have just lost everything in a fire, nor those who have lost a loved one, nor those who have suffered physically, nor those who have suffered reverses and hardships, (though all these will be comforted if they seek Him)

No He is speaking of a holy mourning, He is speaking of the wounds of God upon a persons being, there are three of them, The wound of contrition, the wound of compassion, the wound of longing after God.

Most of this message is my own, but I must be honest, some of it is stolen bread from a lady preacher. She wrote a book 600 years ago, and I know not what she wrote in that book, save those three points I have just given you. Her name is Lady Julian of Norwich, and I know one other thing she wrote in that book: "This I ask without condition." "I ask this without condition, Father; do what I ask and then send me the bill. Anything it costs me will be all right with me."

Many there be which ask God for blessings, who asks God for wounds?

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend," says the Holy Spirit in Proverbs 27:6. And lest we imagine that the preacher or your neighbor is the one who does the wounding, I want to read Job 5:17,18: "Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty: for he maketh sore, and bindeth up: he woundeth, and his hands make whole."

Paul said in Galations: Galatians 6:17 From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. (Explain this text, that wounds indicate complete dedication to Jesus)