God is abundantly good. The solid fact that God is good is either taught, expressed or implied in nearly every page of the Bible, but few passages in the scripture more clearly and dramatically describe God’s goodness than Psalm 34.
In verse 8, David invites us to “Taste and see that the LORD is good.” Have you ever been to a restaurant and the meal was so good that you wanted people at your table to try the food for themselves because words seemed to fall short of describing exactly how good the food really was? It’s like going to Hog Wild and you take that first taste of the perfectly flavored meat and you say to your spouse, “You’ve got to taste this. It’s incredible!”
David is expressing something similar about our God. He’s saying that God is so indescribably good that you need to experience His goodness for yourself. He is inviting us to try God’s way and trust Him at His word so that you can see for yourself that He is better… He is better than anything else:
- God is better than Hog Wild.
- God is better than possessions.
- God is better than our clever schemes.
- God is better than success.
- God is better than health or wealth or even life itself!
Seeking the LORD leads to multiplied blessings poured out in our lives. Those who trust in their own ability to figure things out or their savings account or their own power to overcome may be let down, but multiplied blessings are given to those who put their faith and trust in the Lord.
The word for “Blessed” in verse 8 is the same word (esher) used in Psalm 1:1 and in Psalm 32:1. 
I’ve mentioned previously that one old time theologian (and Hebrew expert named Ainsworth) translated the word as “blessednesses.” meaning that is it is like a piling up of God’s good gifts in our lives.
- In Psalm 1, the path to blessing was a delight in God’s Word.
- In Psalm 32, the path to blessing was confessing sin and finding God’s forgiveness.
- Now in Psalm 34, we’ll find the path to blessing is seeking God’s goodness.
Today’s main idea is that:
God is Good and He gives good gifts to those who seek Him.
God’s goodness is fundamental to a basic understanding of who God is and it is a foundation stone that every other Biblical belief is built upon. Turn back a couple pages to Psalm 31. King David wrote these powerful words about God in Psalm 31:19,
“Oh, how abundant is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you
and worked for those who take refuge in you,
in the sight of the children of mankind!”
He said, “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you…” There is a sense of awe and wonder whenever the Bible speaks of God’s goodness.
We see this awe and wonder again as we approach Psalm 34. As David reflected back on the work of the Lord in his life, he was able to say with confidence that in every horrible trial and every difficult situation he faced, God proved Himself over and over again to be perfect, merciful and good.
In the storms of life, David found that God was unwavering in His role as shield, protector, defender, strength and refuge. This morning we’ll be looking at the first 8 verses of Psalm 34 and the exhortation to praise, testify and seek the LORD.
The heading of this psalm suggests that David wrote this passage as he recalled God’s goodness to him when he was fleeing from Saul in the Judean Wilderness. Let’s take a moment to read about David as a young man. Keep a finger in Psalm 34 and turn in your Bibles to 1 Samuel 21.
Let me set up for you the historical context of this text. David was probably in his 20’s. He had been anointed as the next King of Israel, but he was not king yet. Saul was livid over the fact that his dynasty would not continue and was dead-set on killing David. So, David was on the run for his life.
He fled to the wilderness area around Judah. The Judean Wilderness was bleak, inhospitable and harsh. Today, the Judean Wilderness look like this:
It looked pretty much the same way back in David’s time. It has remained virtually unchanged for thousands of years.
David described it in Psalm 63 as a “a dry and weary land where there is no water.” It was a logical place for him to go and hide because of his familiarity with the area from his childhood and because of its rocky terrain and deep ravines. David lived out a “Robin Hood” type of existence where he and his men (who were all essentially considered outlaws by King Saul) lived in the Judean Wilderness and occasionally lived among the Philistines. He was on the run for about a decade before he was able to take over the throne from King Saul.
During this time, God was refining David’s character and teaching David some of the lessons he wrote down in Psalm 34. David was literally running for his life all the time and taking refuge was a real and tangible thing for him. He tried taking refuge in a priest and in weaponry and in a king. Ultimately he would learn that he was most blessed when he took refuge in the Lord. He would learn that God is good and He gives good gifts to those who seek Him.
Let’s pick up the narrative in 1 Samuel 21 verse 1. 
Here we find David in Nob (a town where priests lived located just outside modern-Day Jerusalem):
Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. And Ahimelech came to meet David, trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no one with you?”
2 And David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has charged me with a matter and said to me, ‘Let no one know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.’ I have made an appointment with the young men for such and such a place.
So, David ran to a priest to acquire provision. He was without his men and he told the priest a bold-faced lie (to a priest). The king hadn’t sent David there. David was on the run from the King and the only appointment the King had for David was an appointment with the sharp tip of his spear. David and his men must have been desperately hungry from being on the run. Instead of running to the Lord and relying on His provision, David took matters into his own hands and lied to a priest in order to get some bread.
In the temple, there were often 12 loaves of bread put out for a week to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. 
It’s called the showbread (and it’s from Exodus 25:30). On the Sabbath, these loaves were replaced and the old bread was designated for the priests to eat. Let’s read on in verse 3:
3 Now then, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.” 4 And the priest answered David, “I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread (showbread)—if the young men have kept themselves from women.”
5 And David answered the priest, “Truly women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition. The vessels (bodies) of the young men are holy even when it is an ordinary journey. How much more today will their vessels be holy?” (They were not on a holy mission from the King)
When this account is retold in the next chapter (22:10), Ahimelech recalls that he sought the Lord at this point and decided to take the old bread, that was no longer sacred, and give it to David and his men to save their lives.
6 So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread there but the bread of the Presence (showbread), which is removed from before the Lord, to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.
At this point it looks as if taking “refuge” in a priest paid off for David – even if he had to lie to get the bread he needed. Little did he know that a spy was observing what was going on. Look at verse 7:
7 Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg, the Edomite, the chief of Saul’s herdsmen.
Not only did Doeg watch David as he acquired food for his company of men, but he also watched as David asked for weapons. Eventually Doeg would report back to Saul, and Saul’s deadly army would arrive at Nob.
David was now seeking “refuge” in weaponry (instead of “refuge” in the Lord). David once again lied to Ahimelech about the true nature of his mission in order to acquire a spear or a sword. Look at Verse 8:
8 Then David said to Ahimelech, “Then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand? For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.”(not a truth)
9 And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”
Now the situation David found himself in must have left him with few choices. Doeg reported back to Saul and apparently he heard the Saul was on his way to Nob and fled to Philistine territory.
He took Goliath’s sword and instead of running back into the Judean Wilderness, he ran off to Goliath’s (former) hometown, Gath, in order to seek “refuge” with the king of Gath – a man named Achish. (Many scholars believe his title was “Ahimelech.” That would make him “Ahimelech Achish”)
Well, someone recognized David as the killer of their champion warrior, Goliath. The people of Gath didn’t think it was a great idea to have David (the giant killer) and his men hanging around. Look at verse 10:
10 And David rose and fled that day from Saul and went to Achish, the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is not this David the king of the land? Did they not sing to one another of him in dances,
‘Saul has struck down his thousands,
and David his ten thousands’?”
12 And David took these words to heart and was much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.
Taking refuge in a priest, in a sword or in a king did not work out so well for David so far. It says in verse 13, “David changed his behavior.” The Hebrew word for “behavior” (‘ta’am’) in 1 Samuel 21:13 is the exact same word that is used for “Taste” in Psalm 34:8 when it says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.”
The Hebrew word ‘ta’am’ can be translated either as “behavior” or as “taste” and it can be used figuratively to mean: “making a judgement.” In other words, David changed his “taste” or he altered his“judgement.” At this point, David altered his behavior in another negative way, but eventually the Lord lead David to alter his behavior in a godly way.
David wasbeginning to realize that everything he’d been running to for protection had come up short. He needed a better “refuge,” but he still took matters into his own hands. He needed to discover that God is good and He gives good gifts to those who seek Him. Look at verse 13 again:
13 So he changed his behavior (tastes) before them and pretended to be insane in their hands and made marks on the doors of the gate and let his spittle run down his beard.
14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Behold, you see the man is mad. Why then have you brought him to me?
15 Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to behave as a madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”
Drooling in your beard was considered intolerable behavior in ancient Eastern culture. Saving face was important to them and a man who acted insane would have lost face and humiliated himself.
Additionally, the ancient people who lived in Gath believed that the presence of a madman was a bad omen from the gods. They would attempt to send the insane man away without harming him so that they would not provoke the gods any further.
David seemed to have hit rock bottom:
- He was on the run.
- He feared for his life.
- He was let down by everything he ran to for protection.
To top it all off, he had publically humiliated himself in front of the King of Gath, the Philistines and his own men. It would be a bad position for anyone to be in and it was a particularly bad position for the future king of Israel.
This position of utter humiliation is the context for of Psalm 34. David was at a tremendous low point in his life. He was young, scared and made some regrettable decisions as a result. Later in his life, when he recalled this difficult time, he recognized the Lord’s goodness and the Lord’s protection in the midst of it all and wrote a song about it… Psalm 34.
As he remembered the impossibly difficult struggles he faced in his past, David delighted in boasting about the Lord’s ability to deliver Him – especially when everything else he had turned to (besides the LORD) had only led to more defeat and more humiliation. Psalm 34 encourages us to follow David’s example of praise during the difficult times we might face.
Following David’s Example of Praise in Adversity
Please turn to Psalm 34. In the first three verses of our text, David is leading us by example and praising God in public because of the wonderful things God has done. When we sing, we are celebrating God’s goodness together and we are inviting those who have not experienced His goodness to “taste and see” it for themselves. God is good and He gives good gifts to those who seek Him. In every trial, trouble or tribulation, there are reasons to praise God.
Praise God for His goodness – Psalm 34:1-3
Let’s look at the beginning of the psalm and consider together some reasons we have to praise God for His goodness. Verses 1-3:
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.
3 Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together!
David was glad to have been delivered out of enemy territory even if he had to act like a fool to escape. He was glad that God had protected him from King Saul’s murderous schemes. Those were all small and temporary gifts that God gave to David, but the greatest treasure David had was the gift of God Himself.
Without the Lord, his soul didn’t have much to boast in. When David took things into his own hands, it went from bad to worse. Instead of humbling himself before the Lord, he tried things his own way and suffered humiliation as a result. David changed his “taste” as a result of this hard lesson and he discovered that God is good and He gives good gifts to those who seek Him.
As a result, David invites others to share their experiences about the Lord. I love the word picture of magnifying the Lord together as a church.
- When we magnify something, we take a small thing and make it bigger so we can see it and appreciate it more.
- Sometimes God is too small in the minds of His people and they can get overwhelmed by their circumstances. When we magnify the Lord together, we blow God up in our minds and lives so that we can see Him more clearly and experience Him more fully.
Sometimes we need to change our tastes too. We can have a craving to be protected by money or medicine or the government. All those things will eventually let us down. BUT… when we realize what a treasure God is, we quickly find that He is fully sufficient to give his people every good thing they need to grow in Christ-likeness. He is preparing the souls of His people to live forever in His eternal kingdom. God is good and He gives good gifts to those who seek him.
David described God’s people as nothing without God. Without Jesus, he said in verse 2 that they are humble and in verse 6 that they are poor. But… those who seek the Lord have a totally different experience. Those who fear the Lord (7,9), who seek righteousness (10,15,19,21) and who are servants(22) receive every good gift they need for this life and the next. My soul doesn’t have much to boast in without Jesus. In the next part of the passage, David encourages us to testify to others about what God has done in our lives.
Testify about the Lord – Psalm 34:4-7
Look at Verses 4-7:
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
David said in verse 4 that he prayed during the time he was running from King Saul. David’s prayer must have been pretty convoluted. In 1 Samuel 21, we saw:
- He was living in self-sufficiency.
- He was resorting to methods of questionable morality.
- He was behaving like a madman.
And yet… David recalls that in his dire situation, he offered up prayer. It must have been a poor limping prayer, but it was enough to invite the Lord and His abounding mercy to enter into his precarious circumstances.
God didn’t look at David in his foolishness and say, “Well, you made your bed, now lay in it.” No, God dealt with David on the basis of His abounding mercy. Once again we see that God is good and He gives good gifts to those who seek Him. In David’s case, He gave mercy for the rebellious and (for the NT believer) in Christ, He provides a heavenly advocate for all who stumble into sin.
David is showing us that when we seek God after we’ve fallen, He doesn’t condemn us. God loves us and restores us when we seek Him.
- He is a protector and a refuge.
- He makes every provision to deliver us from any sin that might entangle us.
Don’t run from God when you stumble. Instead, run to God and find light where there was once only darkness.
Verse 5 says that when we look upon the Lord, our faces begin to shine and our spirits are uplifted. We know blessing – the multiplied gifts of God – when we seek the Lord. There is no time when we need blessing more than when we are in trouble. There is life, light, liberty and love when we look to the Lord during our times of trouble:
- There has never been a broken heart or a broken body that looked to the Great Physician in vain
- There has never been a dying soul that found help without seeking refuge in Christ
Jesus, the Great Shepherd, keeps his sheep surrounded and protected on every side. When Jesus shows up in the Old Testament, He is often referred to as “the angel of the Lord.” Verse 7 says that He camps out and surrounds those who fear him. He serves, defends, helps and consoles hurting and broken people.
God never promises that we’ll avoid trials. In fact, He tells us to expect and to prepare for them. When trials come, it is a time when we can know and experience the goodness of God first hand.
Seek God to enjoy His goodness and to receive His blessings – Psalm 34:8
We’ll end where we started. Verse 8 says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”
You can learn everything there is to know about barbeque. You can be an expert at sauce recipes. You can become proficient at various cooking techniques. You can know where to get all the best meat. But, you can’t enjoy good barbeque until you taste it for yourself.
In the same way, you can build up an intellectual knowledge about God. You can have all your theology in order. You can show up at church and sing all the songs on key. But.. you can’t enjoy God until you“taste” Him and experience Him for yourself. He wants you to experience Him personally because God is good and He gives good gifts to those who seek Him .
So you may wonder how to experience God for yourself. To put it simply (I’ll borrow a line from Spurgeon), faith is the soul’s taste.
Application:
Faith is the soul’s taste
You might remember from our previous series that we defined faith this way
: Faith is trusting God to fulfill His promises.
Faith is taking God at his word and trusting God so much that you actually make real-life decisions based on the scriptures. David acted faithlessly when he resorted to lies and deception and foolishness to get what he wanted. God called him to change his “tastes” and to trust God’s provision by doing things God’s way.
Maybe today you have some “tastes” to change. Perhaps it’s time to try it God’s way. “Taste and see” if it’s true that He blesses (he pours out multiplied blessing) to those who stop making excuses, who stop acting in sin and who stop all the world’s techniques
“Taste and see” if it’s true that He blesses those who run to Him
Taste and See that God is Good – Psalm 34 | 1 Samuel 21
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