There is no need to deny that 'bread of deceit is sweet to a man.'
There is a certain pleasure in a lie, and the taste of the bread
purchased by it is not embittered because it has been bought by
deceit. If we succeed in getting the good which any strong desire
hungers after, the gratification of the desire ministers pleasure. If
a man is hungry, it matters not to his hunger how he has procured the
bread which he devours. And so with all forms of good which appeal to
sense. The sweetness of the thing desired and obtained is more subtle,
but not less real, if it nourishes some inclination or taste of a
higher nature. But such sweetness in its very essence is momentary,
and even, whilst being masticated, 'bread of deceit' turns into
gravel; and a mouthful of it breaks the teeth, excoriates the gums,
interferes with breathing, and ministers no nourishment. The metaphor
has but too familiar illustrations in the experience of us all. How
often have we flattered ourselves with the thought, 'If I could but
get this or that, how happy I should be'? How often when we got it
have we been as happy as we expected? We had forgotten the voice of
conscience, which may be overborne for a moment, but begins to speak
more threateningly when its prohibitions have been neglected; we had
forgotten that there is no satisfying our hungry desires with 'bread
of deceit,' but that they grow much faster than it can be presented to
them; we had forgotten the evil that was strengthened in us when it
has been fed; we had forgotten that the remembrance of past delights
often becomes a present sorrow and shame; we had forgotten avenging
consequences of many sorts which follow surely in the train of sweet
satisfactions which are wrong.
So, even in this life nothing keeps its sweetness which is wrong, and
nothing which is sweet and wrong avoids a _tang_ of intensest
bitterness 'afterwards.' And all that bitterness will be increased in
another world, if there is another, when God gives us to read the book
of our lives which we ourselves have written. Many a page that records
past sweetness will then be felt to be written, 'within and without,'
with lamentation and woe.
All bitterness of what is sweet and wrong makes it certain that sin is
the stupidest, as well as the wickedest, thing that a man can do.