Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words became a delight to me and the joy of my heart, for I bear your name, Lord God of Armies. [Jeremiah 15:16 (CSB)]
“Son of man,” he said to me, “feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving you.” So I ate it, and it was as sweet as honey in my mouth. [Ezekiel 3:3 (CSB)]
Back in 1919, pharmacist W.K. Buckley created a concoction to treat coughs, colds, and bronchitis called Buckley’s Original Mixture. Buckley’s elixir was tremendously effective but its flavor was horrid. Nevertheless, their nasty tasting blend of things like menthol, camphor, Canadian balsam, and pine needle oil is still being sold more than 100 years later. The mixture’s longevity is due as much to the company’s straightforward and humorous “awful taste” ad campaign as it is to its reputed efficacy. With the slogan, “It tastes awful. And it works!” Buckley’s is described by consumers as “the worst tasting, foulest smelling, yet most effective cough remedy.” Apparently, it is. Despite ads admitting, “People swear by it. And at it,” consumers continue to endure Buckley’s ghastly flavor. Never having used Buckley’s (and not about to try), this is not an endorsement!
While nowhere as unpleasant tasting as Buckley’s Mixture, many Christians tend to treat imbibing in God’s word as they might taking a dose of it or some other nasty tasting medication: hard to swallow and consumed only out of necessity! While Scripture’s writers sometimes likened God’s word to food or wrote of its taste, they never described it as “drinking turpentine and transmission fluid mixed together, with a hint of menthol and petroleum” as do some of Buckley’s customers!
While the Bible can be said to be “good for what ails you” and “just what the doctor ordered,” reading Scripture isn’t like taking a dose of Buckley’s or castor oil. God’s word never should be treated as a horrible-tasting medicine—something taken only when absolutely necessary. Peter likened God’s word to milk while Paul and the writer of Hebrews compared it to both milk and solid food (like meat). Job reported treasuring God’s words more than his daily food and Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Apostle John all wrote of eating God’s word. And, unlike those who consumed Buckley’s, there were no complaints about its foul taste. In fact, Jeremiah found God’s words a delight and the joy of his heart while Ezekiel and John said they were “sweet as honey” in their mouths. In fact, Psalms 19 and 119 refer to God’s words as even “sweeter” than honey!
When God fed the hungry Israelites in the Sinai desert, His provision included more than earthly food. Along with manna, He gave them something beautiful with which nourish their very souls—His Word! When Israel arrived in the Promised Land, the manna stopped but God’s voice didn’t; He provided mankind with a feast from Genesis through Revelation—and that feast remains with us today. As Moses told the Israelites and Jesus repeated to His followers, “Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
While God’s Word has been described as “sweet as honey” in one’s mouth, unlike cotton candy and sugary sodas, there’s more to it than a sweet taste. Rather than empty calories, God’s words were described by Charles Spurgeon as, “full of substance—they are spirit, they are life, they are to be fed upon by the spiritually hungry!” Remembering that God spoke all of creation into existence with His Word, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that God’s Word is what sustains us, as well! Fortunately, the words of Scripture are sweeter and much easier to consume than Buckley’s disagreeable mixture!
The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts. [A.W. Tozer]
Devotions of the Heart 