Suppose a captain had a vessel of his very own, and one day he bid his wife and children good bye and started off to Australia with a valuable cargo on board, telling them that he expected to be away about a year. After he had reached Australia, and emptied the vessel of its cargo, he sailed about among a number of islands, and anchored off one of them, and allowed the sailors to row to shore and spend a few hours on the land.
When they came back in the evening, we will suppose that they told the captain that it was a desert island, not a single person living there, but they had found a number of trees, such as they had never seen before, covered with the most delicious fruit, and had all eaten plenty and enjoyed it very much, and had brought a basket full for the captain to taste of.
“But what does it taste like?”
“O, captain, we cannot explain, it is simply lovely! better than peaches, apples, pears, grapes, plums, strawberries, or any other fruit.”
So the captain tastes it, and is delighted, and tells the sailors that they must wait there a day or two, strip the trees, and take home a great ship load of this wonderful fruit.
Suppose, when they reached home, the captain took a basket full to his house, and gave some to his wife and children, and they were all enjoying this new fruit, and praising it very much, except his youngest little girl eight years old, who would not have any, and kept on saying, “I don’t like it, father.” “But, my dear child, just taste it.” “No, thank you, father, I don’t like it.” Now what a foolish child she would be to say she did not like it, when she never even TASTED the fruit!!
Those who have not tasted the grace of God, and the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, and say that they would not like to be Christians, are quite as foolish as that child, for how can they tell before they taste?
The precious word of God says to all such:
“O taste and see that the Lord is good.”
It is a new kind of joy that nobody can know until they taste for themselves.
You would think that the little girl could hardly be in her right senses to say that she did not like the fruit that she had never tasted!
ML 08/11/1912