Proverbs 25:16 Have you found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for you, lest you be filled therewith, and vomit it. I. The world HAS ITS HONEY. 1. It has a gastric honey. What pleasures can be derived from a participation in the precious fruits of the earth! 2. It has a gregarious honey. How great the pleasure men have in mingling with their kind, merely as social animals; the pleasure of mates, parents, children. 3. It has a secular honey. Pursuit, accumulation, and use of wealth. 4. It has aesthetic honey. The beautiful in nature, art, music. 5. It has intellectual honey. Inquiry into, and discovery of, the Divine ideas that underlie all the forms, and ring through all the sounds of nature. II. The world's honey MAY BE ABUSED. 1. Some eat too much of the gastric honey, and become gourmands, epicures, voluptuaries. 2. Some eat too much of the gregarious honey, and become profligate debauchees, bloated animals. 3. Some eat too much of the secular honey, and become wretched misers, haunted with a thousand suspicions. 4. Some eat too much of the aesthetic honey, and grow indifferent to everything but what they consider the beautiful and harmonious. 5. Some eat too much of the intellectual honey, and they have no life but in that of observatories, laboratories, and libraries. III. The world's honey abused PRODUCES NAUSEA. Over-indulgence in any worldly pleasure issues in a moral sickness and disgust. There is what the French call the ennui that comes out of it — "that awful yawn," says Byron, "which sleep cannot abate." The intemperate use of this honey often makes life an intolerable burden. Conclusion: Take care how you use the world. You may have too much of a good thing. There is a honey, thank God! of which you cannot take too much, which will never surfeit or sicken — that is, the honey of spiritual enjoyment; the enjoyment of studying, imitating, worshipping Him in whose presence there is fulness of joy, etc. (D. Thomas, D.D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.WEB: Have you found honey? Eat as much as is sufficient for you, lest you eat too much, and vomit it. |
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