The old story is typical, and may stand as a well, developed specimen of the whole set of evil deeds. When she saw that it was pleasant to the eye, and good for food, and a thing to be desired,' then the inflamed desire' perceiving the attainable object, went straight at it. And that is the history of all the evil that we do. It is either for the sake of winning a desirable object, or for the sake of avoiding some undesirable issue; we never do the wrong thing, and go away from God, except under a delusion that we shall be bettor and happier when we have got the desired thing than we should "be without it.
Now I do not mean to say for a moment that there is not a very solid reality in the pleasurable results of a great many wrong things. If a man chooses to sin to gratify sense, he does get the sensuous enjoyment out of it. The food that is stolen will stay hunger, and be sweet upon the palate, just as much as that which is the product of honest industry. The things which tempt our desires we may get; and there will be no illusion at all about the reality and solidity of the pleasure. But there is another question to be asked. You have got the thing you wanted; have you--what then? Are you much the better for it? Are you satisfied with it? Was it as good as it looked when it was not yours? Is it as blessed now that you have stretched your hand across the flames of Hell and made it your own as it seemed when it danced there on the other side? Is not the giant painted on the canvas outside the caravan a great deal bigger than the reality inside, when you go in to look at him? Is there anything that we have got by doing wrong for it, howsoever it may have satisfied the immediate impulse in obedience to whose tyrannous requirements we were stirred up to grasp it, which is worth, in solid enjoyment, what we gave for it? Having attained the desire, do we not find that it satisfies not us, but only some small part of us? If I might so say, we are like those men that old stories used to tell about that had swallowed some loathly worm. We feed the foul creeping thing within us, but ourselves continue hungry. We cannot slake our thirst out of empty cups, however jewelled Besides, sin's pleasures are false, because along with them all comes an after tang that takes the sweetness out of them. Like the prophet's book, they may be honey on the lip, but bitter as gall when swallowed. Some foul-tasting preparation of naphtha is put into spirits of wine to keep people from drinking it. The cup that sin brings to you, though it may be fiery and intoxicating, has got the nasty naphtha in it too. And you taste both the one and the other.
There is only one thing that promises less than it performs, and which can satisfy a man's soul; and that is cleaving to God. Go to Him, let nothing draw you away from Him. Let us hold by Him in love, thought, obedience; and the lies that tempt us to our destruction will have no power over us; and we shall possess joys that neither pall nor end, nor leave behind them a bitterness upon the lips. Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness.'
Better what Christ offers in the cup which He drank off, whereof, though the taste may be bitter at first, what remains is His own joy, perpetual and full.
