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It is no wonder that Jesus taught so effectively with parables, because our basic human nature is often revealed through everyday things. Take the normal ice cream shop for example. If you are not one of those boring people who always order "chocolate" or "vanilla" every time that you go in there, then you probably do like me and you browse the selection and stare longingly through the glass at the tubs waiting for one of the ice creams to "speak to you." Then you think about what you had last time, and "should I get the cookies and cream, or the rocky road, or how about the new moose droppings?" And for people like me and you they have a wonderful invention of a itty-bitty plastic spoon and all you have to do is point to one of those huge, delectable tubs of flavor and they will -- without charge or without receiving a commitment to buy -- dip those itty-bitty spoons and give you a free sample of the ice cream to see if you like it. And most places -- and I've tried this -- will give you free sample after free sample. Before you buy it, they let you try a small bit of it, to see if you will like what is to come! They are doing that not because they want to give ice cream away, but rather they want to make money on that triple scoop, chocolate-covered, waffle cone that you are about to fork over an hour's salary for!

It's human nature, that people are more likely to buy something if they are allowed to first taste it a little bit. That's why they let you try on shoes and clothes before you buy. That's why it's possible to test drive cars and RVs. That's why nobody ever buys a house without walking through it and kicking the walls and such. There is a golf store in San Antonio, that will let you take clubs and pay the money up front, and take the club and try it for three days on the course, and if you like it you just call them up and tell them "I want it" and it's a done deal. And if you don't like it? Just take it back and they'll refund your money. I learned a long time ago selling peanut brittle for our church building fund when I was a kid, that the best way to sell peanut brittle is to take the broken ones and put them in a bowl and let people sample a little bit. If it's good, then they will buy, buy, buy! That's why when you walk through the mall that little guy with the tray is standing in front of the cookie store saying "would you like free sample?" It's in your nature to want a little taste of what is to come. It's why there are "sneak previews" and movie trailers and pre-album releases of songs. We like being let in on things early.

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If you and I can figure out and understand this quirk of humanity, then certainly God already knows about it. And He does not fault us for it, but rather works the same way in getting us interested in His blessings. God likes to give a foretaste of what is to come even before humans commit themselves to His will.

In our text, the story is of the children of Israel in the wilderness on the edge of the "Promised Land" that God has promised to give them for an inheritance. They have already been delivered from Egypt and have received the commandments of the Law, and now they have followed Moses through the wilderness to the edge of the Promised Land. And it was here in the 13th chapter of Numbers that God commanded Moses to select one man from each of the twelve tribes to go forward and "spy" out the land. God understood the human curiosity of needing a "sneak preview" and so these twelve "spies" crossed the border and for forty days and forty nights traveled secretly through the land, seeing what sort of place that God was giving them.

In our text, the Bible says that one of the last things that they did was come to what would become known as the "valley of Eschol," which literally means the "valley of grapes." And obviously there were vineyards there, but they were unlike any vineyards that I have ever seen, because the Bible says that they cut down one cluster of the grapes and had to tie it on a pole and tote it between two men, "Peter Wolf style!"

Now I have seen some big grapes, and one time walked into HEB and saw some grapes that were the size of those little bouncy rubber balls that you get in the vending machines and I thought "wow, those must have come from the Promised Land." But really if the Bible is true, then those grapes were nothing. We are talking about a cluster of grapes so big that one cluster had to be carried by two grown, fit men! How big would the grapes have been? What is the world record for the largest grape? I don't know. But I can easily imagine these grapes the size of golf balls and maybe even larger. And to those Israelites who were coming from trekking across the wilderness, they probably seemed in their eyes even bigger!

I know that we always preach this story from the standpoint of the outcome of doubt. Because there were also giants in the land and ten of the spies went on in their report to tell of how big those giants were and caused doubt to ripple throughout the people so that their generation never entered into the promised place. But lost in all of that is the grapes. What truly fabulous grapes they were and I think God intended for them to be the showpiece of how great the land that they were getting truly was. God was giving them a foretaste of their future blessings and was trying to whet their appetite for what great things that He had in store for them. And the devil -- knowing what a foretaste of blessing would do to the faith of the people -- brought the giants around and tried to give them a foretaste of the fight to come so that possibly their fear of the enemy would overcome their faith in God because of the grapes, and they would not trust God. And unfortunately, that is exactly what happened in all but two of the spies.

Times change but the cycles of human behavior never do, and so here over 3500 years later, we can see the same process at work in our lives. We first come to God sin-filled and broken without much that pleases Him and certainly not deserving of His great mercy. And what does God do? Before we ever even think about committing our lives to Him, He lets us hear of His mercy. He lets us read about the testimonials of what He has done for others. And greatest of all, before we have even taken a step in His direction, He blesses us with His presence and lets us feel His awesome power and many times even answers our prayers and responds to us! He does this for a person who has not even thought about serving God or crossing that line of commitment. What God is doing is allowing you to taste of the fruit of the Promised Place that He has for you before you ever cross that line! He's giving you a foretaste of what great blessings the future holds for you if you will live for Him!

And so the reason that most of you came back to church the second time was that you felt God dealing with you and drawing you. And the reason that you came back the third and the fourth was that you liked what you felt. Now you know why the scripture used "taste" in referring to spiritual things and why it said:

That's why the Bible also speaks of the ways of God as being "sweeter also than the honey and the honeycomb" (Psalms 19:10). Those who have tried Him will find that He is better than they said that He was. If you will taste of His goodness, you will find that He is sweet! And after a while, you become addicted to the taste of God's blessings and goodness! The foretaste of what to come proves to be too good! And so many of you -- having tasted the grapes of the future that you have with God, dove in and have given it your all and now your life is transformed and you will never be the same again -- you are more blessed than you have ever been, and it all started with a taste!

I'm reminded of the old story about a professor who it was announced would be coming to a college town and giving a public lecture on the "myth of Jesus Christ." This infuriated the local church community and so when the day of the lecture came, interest was so high, that the auditorium was packed out. For two hours, the professor tried to use philosophy and man's ideas to "explain away" all of the beliefs that Jesus was the Son of God and anything more than just a moral teacher. And after two hours of his exertion that Jesus did not do miracles and that He did not rise from the dead and that He was just a good person with some good ideas that let His good ideas get to His head, finally the professor ended with saying something like "I'm a Christian, but only because I know that Jesus was a good moral teacher, and not because He was our Savior." He then opened the floor for questions only to be greeted with dead silence from the crowd. Finally, in the back, a man dressed in old clothes and carrying his lunch in a paper bag stood up, pulled an apple from the sack, took a bite and while munching on the apple said "Professor, do you mind if I ask you a question?" The professor was a little annoyed about such ill manners but he responded "sure, go right ahead." The man took another bite and with his mouth half full said "I'm enjoying this apple." And the professor said "that's obvious." And the man took another bite, and said "would you say that this apple is delicious?" To which the professor replied somewhat sarcastically "my good man, how could I know that information because I have not tasted of your apple, it would be impossible for me to know how it tasted without trying it." And the man held up the apple and said "and obviously neither have you tasted or know my Jesus, because if you had, you would know that He is as sweet as everybody says!"

That's the way I feel when people say "oh, there's nothing to the God thing in your life." You obviously haven't tasted what I have tasted! It goes beyond just a need for religious activity. It goes beyond just a need for somebody to trust in. It goes beyond a need for acceptance by a group. At the heart of my living for God is the relationship which I have with Him and I have found that the more I taste of Him, the better it gets! He truly gets sweeter as the days go by!

And so God gives us a small taste of His blessings before we even take the plunge, because He knows that we will like what we taste! If that is so, then why do so many not serve our God? For many of them it's a case of never having tried Him! They've never tasted and seen that He is good! They've never even felt His presence! They've never had Him respond to their cry for help. For many in this world, their lack of serving God comes from a lack of ever trying Him!

But for those who taste and see and receive the first blessings of God, there are some that liked what they tasted but are not serving God because of the same reasons that the Israelis did not enter into the Promised Land. When God allows you a foretaste of your future with Him, the devil gets worried, and so he tries to also bring a foretaste of the battle that will ensue if you move forward into God's promises! Israel allowed the report of the giant enemy, to overcome their desire to taste more of the fruit of the land and their fear of the enemy caused them to not act upon their tasting of God's blessings.

It is the same in our lives today. There are many people who have tasted of the first things of God and felt His presence and like it. They have sat for the first time in a service where God's Spirit was moving freely and liked it. For the first time, they have shed traditions of men for understanding the truth of God's Word and they like what they have received. But about the same time, the devil gives them a foretaste of the fight that will come if they want to embrace the promises of God. A family member rises up against them coming to church or Bible Study. A job situation causes them to have to make some choices. Friends put the pressure on them that "you're not going to become that, are you?" Their past rises up and says "you can't partake of that because you are not worthy." Religious tradition rises up and says "you've always been this, you cannot change now, what about your family tradition." The enemy is rising up and trying to put fear in their life that overcomes their faith and desire that arose at tasting the fruits of what God has for them. And too many people give into the fears and despite having tasted that the Lord is good, never commit and sell out to Him because they are afraid of having to fight their family or their past or their traditions or their friends. And so like the nation of Israel, they let the report of the enemy of their soul, scare them away from the blessings and inheritances of God and walk away having just had a taste!

Hear this preacher: worse than those who will die never having had a foretaste of the blessings and power of God, are those who have tasted and seen that He is good, and yet because of fear of failure turned and never entered into what God has for them! Can you imagine how often the Israelis thought about those grapes as they trudged through the wilderness, waiting to die? What of those ten spies who had actually tasted the fruit? Could the manna in the desert ever compare? And they died having lived their lives haunted by what could have been!

Somebody ought to stand up to the persecution and the past and the traditions and the voices that are trying to keep you from going all the way with God and let your fear of not having the blessings of God overtake your fear of the fight! If God brought you this far so that you could have a foretaste of His blessings, can and will He not take care of any enemy for you!? Can He that can provide the sweetest blessings not also help you win and last through the fight? Can the God who first gave you breath for your body, not help you to sustain it and make it!? He fights for those who will not cower in doubt and unbelief at the enemy that stands between them and selling out! It's time to take the excuses away and if you have tasted and seen that He is good, to fight for your right to have more of His goodness and blessings!

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God gives us a foretaste of our future blessings before we even commit to crossing the line! That's a great promise, and yet there comes a danger with it as well. There is a very real danger of someone tasting of the foretaste and thinking that what they have experienced is all that there is to it. I've heard more than one doubter say "oh, I've tried Jesus, and it didn't work for me" when in reality, they simply felt His presence for a service or prayed once or twice. Or they had a moment of faith where they repeated a sinner's prayer and said that they believed. Can I contradict you for a moment and tell you the truth? They did not "try Jesus" for any type of fair trial, but rather just tasted of the fringe benefits. Saying a sinner's prayer may have been a religious experience for you that soothed your conscience, but it is no substitute for a true, heart-felt prayer of repentance that you prayed because you sincerely desired a change in your life. And coming to church a few times is a good thing, but it is not even in the same league at the feeling of cleanness and a bright future that comes from having your sins washed away in the waters of baptism by being immersed in the perfect, saving name of Jesus Christ! And feeling God's spirit is a good foretaste that He is real and has much in store for you, but feeling God's presence on the outside is absolutely nothing to receiving the Spirit of God on the inside when you receive the Holy Ghost! And confessing Him as Savior is a good and needed step to coming to Him, but it cannot compare with the experience when the Holy Ghost comes in as it did in the Book of Acts and the Spirit of God changes your language to speak in a heavenly one!

You see, if you are of the attitude that "you have already tried God and experienced that," then chances are that you think that your experience is all that God has for you. You are like somebody standing at the ice cream parlor and taking that itty-bitty spoonful and walking out and saying "oh yeah, I've experienced everything that they have to offer." Liar! That itty-bitty spoonful does not even give you a complete experience. Until you've had a triple scoop of that ice cream with nuts and smashed Reese's cups over it and chocolate syrup and caramel dribbled over it, and then whipped cream on top with a cherry, and until you've sat down and taken your spoon and devoured the whole thing, and then returned time after time until you have done so with every flavor, only then can you truly say that you have experienced everything that they have to offer! And chances are by then, that you will have such an appetite for the ice cream that you'll keep coming back -- that is, if you can fit through the door!

We live in a world where churches serve up God in itty-bitty spoonfuls! They offer just a small sample of what God really wants to do in their life. And so we have people walking around judging God by what they have experienced of Him in these churches, and they think that they have experienced all that there is to know about God! And they come to our church where God's Spirit really moves, and where people actually receive the Holy Ghost, and they think that we are crazy and extreme! We're not crazy and extreme, God is just much more powerful than what you have experienced in these churches that only preach to you part of God's Word! Somebody needs to make up their mind today, to throw the "itty bitty spoon" away and get out the triple scoop and decide that I'm not going to be satisfied with just a foretaste, but I want the whole blessing! I refuse to die outside of the Promised Land, with the taste of a few grapes on my lips, when God has promised me the vineyard! I will fight what I have to fight and change what I have to change, but I will not settle for just the foretaste, but I want the entire promise! It's time for the itty-bitty spoonfuls to go and for God to do what He wants to do!

Let me belabor the point and really bring it home to you today. Listen to this scripture from the words of Jesus:

Jesus is talking about them listening to the Word of God and He says "with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Catch this: whatever measure that is used in dishing the Word of God out, will be the determining factor to how much blessing the hearer receives. If you go to a church that you know what they are going to preach before they preach because it's the same thing over and over again and they avoid certain books and chapters and teachings from the Bible. Then that church or preacher is dishing the Word out with "itty-bitty spoons" and therefore the people in the congregation will only receive blessings in "itty-bitty" amounts. But if the preacher uses the whole Bible, then the people will experience everything that the Bible has for them! Do you want to know why so many churches never have anybody get the Holy Ghost? Because the preacher's spoonful of the Word that he preaches is too small to hold the promise of the Holy Ghost. "Let's avoid those scriptures in Acts!" Therefore the people miss out on the blessings of Acts! Understand that I'm glad for the blessings that you have received, but if you have never received the Holy Ghost and really looked at the Bible through the Spirit's eyes, then you have only received a foretaste to what God has in store for you! Thank God for the foretaste, but don't stay there at that level, but dig on in and experience everything that God has for you!

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We cannot emphasize the importance and power of having the Holy Ghost operational in your life. When the Holy Ghost was poured out on the Early Church in the book of Acts, the Early Church had great revival that spread throughout the world. When the Holy Ghost was received with the evidence of speaking in other tongues in the lives of those first believers, their lifestyle changed so much that people would say "you have been with Jesus, haven't you." Once when Paul and his entourage got to a city the Jews of the city heard about it and said "we have heard about these men, these are the ones who have turned the world upside down!" When the Holy Ghost came upon them, people were set afire and church was so exciting and fun that they wanted to have church everyday, not just a few times a week! Go read your Bible starting in Acts chapter 2, it's there!

The Holy Ghost made such a difference, that even with Jesus Christ gone in bodily form, the Early Church regularly experienced notable miracles and the supernatural. They anointed handkerchiefs with oil and sent them off and when the sick people touched the cloth, the power of God healed them! They cast out devils. The disciples preached with fervency and power and passion because the Holy Ghost was upon them. When the lame man was healed at the gate called beautiful, he ran into the temple and interrupted the starchy worship service by leaping and jumping through it praising God! Church was exciting because the Holy Ghost was involved! Lives were changed and murderers became preachers and kings trembled and even the very family of Caesar were changed by the Holy Ghost!

My point is that the scriptural model for what church should be like goes very much against the traditional church services that are most often conducted in America. We have churches today, that the pastor himself hasn't even received the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues, nevertheless his congregation. We have many churches today that avoid doctrine altogether and never even teach on such things. We have churches today that are mostly characterized by dull, dead services where you can set your watch by where you are in the hour-long service schedule. The Apostles like Peter and Paul would not have been comfortable in such an environment, and their style of impassioned preaching and worship would not be welcome. Sadly, neither is Jesus free to do what He really wants to do. He comes with a barrel full of blessings and yet has to dole it out with the "itty-bitty spoon" used by the preacher. If we want our church to be like God wants it to be, then we should compare and contrast it with the church of the Book of Acts. It was to that church that all the Epistles and remaining books of the Bible are written. If the Holy Ghost is not moving in your life or church, then from Romans on is not even addressed to you!

My point is that there is a principle in the Word of God that God gives a foretaste of His blessings at first before the real blessing comes. When the Holy Ghost was first poured out on the Day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, Peter stood up and preached quoting Joel 2 which said:

If you go back to the 2nd chapter of Joel and read the entire passage, you will find that it begins with this:

In Israel, there were two primary rains, one that came at the beginning of the season after the seeds had been planted and one that came at the end right before the last growth of fruit before the harvest. These rains were known as the "early rain" and the "latter rain!" Both Joel and Peter used the rain to represent God's Spirit being poured out and people receiving the Holy Ghost. If that is true, then the Holy Ghost outpouring in Acts chapter 2 was the "early rain" at the beginning of Grace. The "latter rain" can only then refer to a Holy Ghost outpouring at the end of Grace right before the coming of the Lord! Here in 2005, I'm preaching to people who have received that latter rain, and whose lives are evidence that it is being poured out! The point is this: for a good harvest to come in a normal year, the latter rain was always heavier than the early rain! The early rain was just a foretaste of the heavy downpour that the latter rain would be.

The tragedy is this: we have churches today arguing whether or not God will really pour out the Holy Ghost as He did in the early rain, in the books of Acts chapter two. They are questioning whether or not God does now to the level of what He did back then. Their teachings of what God can do doesn't even match up to the level of the early rain, and God is up there shaking His head, and saying "it's not a matter if I want to do up to the level that I did back then, but rather that I want to do more!" The latter rain should be greater than the early rain! The latter should be greater than the former! That's the way that God does things! It's time that we throw away the "itty-bitty" mentality of the moving of God's Spirit and realize not only does God still want to move like He did back then, but He wants to move greater! Not only does God still pour out His spirit and still do miracles, but He wants to do so in a greater amount than He did back then! The Holy Ghost outpouring of the Book of Acts was but a foretaste of what God has in store for us who are alive today before Jesus' return! Don't settle for the foretaste, but let's embrace all that God has for us!

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I close by finally bringing up our other text. Our verse in the book of 2 Corinthians is one of several times where Paul makes a statement such as this. Paul says in effect that it is God:

He has "given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." The Greek word for "earnest" there is a legal term that refers to a small deposit given that represents a larger amount. We still use it today. If you go to buy a house, you will have to write a check for "earnest money" which will be a small part of the large amount that you are pledging to pay for the house. It might be a check for $500 and yet that small amount of earnest money is a pledge that you are going to take out a loan and pay the $90,000 or so. It represents a small amount of the total amount. The NIV puts this verse this way:

The Holman Christian Standard says this:

There was another way that the "earnest money" was used in Biblical times, which is how it is being used here in this scripture. If you were to inherit a large amount of money in time, they would often give you a small amount of the money ahead of time as a pledge that the rest was coming. The point that I want to get across to you is that an "earnest" was a very miniscule amount compared to what was coming. It only represented a smallest fractional percentage of what you would eventually have.

And Paul said that when we receive the Holy Ghost, we have been given the "earnest of the Spirit." What that means is that everything the Holy Ghost does in our life; every blessing and anointing and touch and great thing that we receive from it's work. Everything that we experience in God down here on this earth is just a earnest, a fractional amount, of what God has in store for us in our future in eternity with Him!

That's why you ought to get excited about when Paul writes:

Receiving the Holy Ghost and having God move supernaturally and miraculously in your life is an awesome feeling and experience, but remember that it is just the "earnest of our inheritance." Every blessing of God that you can experience on earth, is just a small fraction of the great things that God has waiting for us in glory! The blessings and promises that we receive on this earth alone are great enough to be worth living for God for! But when you factor in that all the blessings of the Spirit on this earth are but a small foretaste of what the future holds to those who live for God, then there is no other way to live!

Truly we should be able to stand and say with Paul:

Come try Him and see if He is not as sweet as has been told! Come feast on the goodness of God and His Spirit. And then remember that everything that you have experienced is just a small foretaste of all that He has waiting for you to inherit in glory! This blessed way is just a foretasted of the future! That's a reason to serve God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength! That's a reason to worship Him!