Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1227
“The full soul loathes the honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.” Proverbs 27:7.
IT is a great blessing when food and appetite meet together. Some have appetite and no meat, they need our pity. Others have meat but no appetite. They may not, perhaps, win our pity but they certainly require it. We have heard of a gentleman who was accustomed to take an early morning walk and frequently met a poor man hastening to his labor. One morning he said to him, “I have to walk this early each morning to get a stomach for my meat.” “Ah,” said the other, “and I have to trudge to work this early to get meat for my stomach.” Neither of them was quite satisfied with his position—only the happy conjunction of the appetite and the food could secure content.
Are we thankful enough when we have both? It has often happened that men have been so luxuriously fed that appetite has departed from them altogether. The Israelites, when they were in the wilderness, became so squeamish that though they were fed with the bread from Heaven and, for once, men did eat angels’ food, yet they said, “Our soul loathes this light bread.” And you in the world are in great danger of falling into the same condition, for you do not enjoy the rarest luxuries! You pick and choose as if nothing were good enough for you and, like the old Roman gluttons, you require sea and land, earth and air to be ransacked for your gratification and then crave pungent sauces and strange flavorings before you can eat.
The fact is, the old proverb is true, that the best sauce for meat is hunger, and while the confectioner and the cook may labor with a thousand arts to produce a dainty dish, Nature teaches us the way to enjoy our meat, namely, not to eat it till we need it—and then to partake of only so much as our bodies require. That hunger gives a relish even to objectionable diet is certain. Our forefathers found it possible to live upon food which we could not touch. Even so late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the mass of the poor seldom tasted wheat bread, but fed on rye or barley cakes. And they often had to be content with bread made of beans, peas, tares, oats, lentils and even these had to be frequently mixed with acorns. They had a saying that, “Hunger sets his foot in the horse’s manger,” meaning that food which was only fit for horses was devoured by men in the time of famine.
Those delicate people who are forever complaining of this and that, and regretting the, “good old times,” would change their tune if they had a trial of such fare—and could earnestly pray to be projected, again, into the times in which we live. The rules which apply to the bodily appetite hold equally true of the mind. We easily lose our taste for anything of which we have our fill. Many men of the world have gone the round of amusement and now nothing can please them. They have worn out all their playthings and are tired of every game. Poor things, more wearied of their follies than the slave by his servitude!
For them laughter and mirth have become ghastly mockeries—men and women singers are no delight—and instruments of music are discordant. Gardens and palaces are dreary—and treasures of art a vexation of spirit. By the road of folly they have reached the very point to which Solomon came with all his wisdom and like he, they cry, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” In a higher order of things the same process can be observed. In the pursuit of knowledge men may come to loathe honeycombs through sheer repletion. Many a literary man has reached such a condition of fastidiousness that the books which he can enjoy are as few as the fingers of his hands. With a toss of the head he passes by volumes with which ordinary readers are charmed. His delicate poetical taste is shocked by the hymns which delight his countrymen and his ears are tortured by the tunes to which they are sung.
For my part, I would sooner retain the power of enjoying a simple hymn, sung to a tune which delights the multitude, than find myself proclaimed king of critics. And I would sooner be able to sit down and read a child’s storybook
with interest, than rise into the sublime condition of those literary gentlemen who glance over every book with a sharp critical eye—and see nothing meriting their attention. In fact, they never will see anything worth reading unless the book is written by themselves or one of their party. “The full soul loathes the honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”
I would not have said so much upon this principle of our nature if it had not happened to enter into religion. It is upon religious fastidiousness that I have to speak this morning. Men, in the things of God, have not always an appetite for the sweetest and most precious Truths of God. The Gospel of Jesus, revealed from Heaven, is full of marrow and fatness. But the condition of men’s minds is such that they cannot perceive its excellence. They regard it as a tasteless thing, at best, while some even treat it as though it were wormwood and gall to them. They feed upon the husks of the world with greedy relish, but turn from the provisions of Mercy with disdain! They are full of the meat from the flesh pots of Egypt—for the Bread of Heaven they have no desire! Nor will they, till the Holy Spirit quickens them into spiritual life, and makes them feel the keen pangs of spiritual hunger.