The Sweetness and the Sickness Text: Proverbs 13:19
Introduction: Two Appetites, Two Destinies
Every man is driven by his desires. We are creatures of longing, creatures of appetite. We were designed this way. God made us to want, to seek, to pursue. The question is not whether you will have desires, but rather what those desires are, where they are aimed, and what you are willing to do to see them fulfilled. The soul has a palate, a spiritual sense of taste, and it will find certain things sweet and other things bitter. This is not a neutral process. What you find delicious ultimately determines your character and your destiny.
Our text today from Proverbs sets before us a stark and simple diagnostic tool. It presents two contrary appetites, two opposing sources of pleasure. One is the universal human experience of satisfaction, the sweetness of a desire fulfilled. The other is the fool's perverse delight in his own evil. And the verse hinges on this pivot: what a man finds abominable. Is it evil he detests, or the very thought of turning from it?
We live in a therapeutic age, an age that elevates the fulfillment of desire to the highest possible good. "Follow your heart," the world preaches. "Be true to yourself." "You deserve to be happy." The assumption is that all desire, simply by virtue of being desire, is legitimate. But the book of Proverbs, and indeed the whole counsel of God, laughs this foolishness to scorn. It tells us that while a desire fulfilled is indeed sweet, there is a kind of fool whose desires are so twisted, so corrupt, that the only way he can attain them is by refusing to turn from evil. For him, repentance is not a bitter pill that leads to health; it is an abomination. It is unthinkable. His sickness has become his sweetness.
This proverb, then, forces us to ask some hard questions. What is the great desire of your soul? And what are you willing to abandon to get it? Or, more to the point, what are you unwilling to abandon? Your answer to that question will reveal whether you are walking in the way of wisdom, which leads to life, or in the way of the fool, which leads to destruction.
The Text
Desire realized is pleasant to the soul,
But it is an abomination to fools to turn away from evil.
(Proverbs 13:19 LSB)
The Universal Sweetness (v. 19a)
We begin with the first clause, a simple observation of human nature:
"Desire realized is pleasant to the soul..." (Proverbs 13:19a)
This is a truth everyone understands, from the toddler who finally gets the cookie, to the student who receives his diploma, to the entrepreneur who sells his company. The Hebrew says it is "sweet to the soul." This is not just a fleeting happiness; it is a deep, internal satisfaction. God wired us this way. He gives us desires for food, for companionship, for rest, for achievement, and the fulfillment of these desires is a good gift from Him, intended to be received with thanksgiving.
This is a foundational principle of a biblical worldview. Unlike the Stoics, we do not seek to eliminate desire. Unlike the Buddhists, we do not see desire as the root of all suffering to be extinguished. God is not anti-desire. He is the author of it. The Psalms are filled with the language of holy desire: "As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God" (Psalm 42:1). Jesus promises fulfillment to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). The problem is not desire itself, but the object of our desire.
When our desires are aimed at things that are good, true, and beautiful, their fulfillment is a taste of Heaven. When a husband and wife desire one another in the covenant of marriage, their union is sweet to the soul. When a craftsman desires to create something of quality and he holds the finished product in his hands, it is sweet to the soul. When a believer desires to see a friend come to Christ and that friend is converted, it is a sweetness beyond words.
This principle is a common grace. Even the ungodly know this sweetness. The drug addict who gets his fix experiences a fulfillment of desire. The greedy man who closes a big deal feels a rush of satisfaction. The adulterer in the arms of his illicit lover is chasing this sweetness. The problem is that sinful desires, when fulfilled, are like saltwater to a thirsty man. They satisfy for a moment, but they ultimately increase the thirst and lead to death. The sweetness is real, but it is laced with poison. The pleasure is a down payment on an eternity of pain.
The Fool's Abomination (v. 19b)
This brings us to the sharp contrast in the second half of the verse. The proverb pivots from a general truth to a specific and damning diagnosis of the fool.
"But it is an abomination to fools to turn away from evil." (Proverbs 13:19b)
Here is the heart of the matter. The first clause tells us that getting what you want is sweet. The second clause tells us that the fool has structured his wants in such a way that turning from evil has become utterly detestable to him. It is an "abomination." This is a very strong word in Hebrew. It is used to describe idolatry, sexual perversion, and things that are ritually and morally repugnant to a holy God. And here, Solomon turns the tables. He says that for the fool, the thing that is truly repugnant, the thing that makes his skin crawl, is repentance.
Why? Because the fool's entire identity, his entire system of desires, is built upon a foundation of evil. His "sweetness" is found in his sin. The liar enjoys the manipulation. The thief enjoys the ill-gotten gain. The proud man enjoys the feeling of superiority. The sluggard enjoys his sloth. To ask him to turn from evil is to ask him to abandon the only source of "pleasure" he knows. It is to ask him to tear down the entire house he has built for himself. It is an assault on his very being.
Notice the logic. The wise man says, "I desire X, which is a good thing. In order to get X, I must turn from this evil, which stands in the way." For him, turning from evil is the necessary, and even desirable, path to true sweetness. But the fool says, "I desire Y, which is an evil thing. In order to get Y, I must continue in my evil." For him, turning from evil is the one thing that would prevent him from getting what he wants. Therefore, turning from evil is an abomination.
This is the definition of a reprobate mind. It is a mind that has become so enslaved to sin that it calls good evil and evil good. The fool is not simply someone who makes mistakes. A fool is someone who hates correction. He is someone whose heart is set. He has tasted the poisoned saltwater of sin, and he has declared that it is the finest wine. He loves his chains. To offer him freedom is to offer him something he finds disgusting.
The Great Collision
So we have two competing sweetnesses. The sweetness of a godly desire fulfilled, and the sweetness of a sinful desire fulfilled. And we have two competing abominations. For the righteous, sin is the abomination. For the fool, turning from sin is the abomination.
This explains why the gospel is so offensive to the natural man. The gospel comes to the fool and says, "The sweetness you are chasing is death. Your desires are disordered. The thing you love is killing you. You must turn from your evil." And the fool's reaction is not gratitude, but revulsion. It is an abomination to him. "What? Give up my bitterness? Give up my lust? Give up my pride? That's who I am! To turn from that would be to die." And he is right, in a sense. The gospel calls us to die to ourselves, to crucify the old man with his corrupt desires (Galatians 5:24).
The fool cannot imagine a greater sweetness than the fulfillment of his current, corrupt desires. He has no category for the joy that lies on the other side of repentance. He is like a man who has eaten nothing but garbage his whole life, and when you offer him a steak, he finds the smell repulsive. His palate is ruined.
This is why regeneration must be a supernatural act. God does not just offer the fool a different menu; He must give him new taste buds. He must perform a miracle of spiritual gastronomy. This is what happens at conversion. The Holy Spirit changes our "wanter." He rewires our desires. The things we once found sweet, the petty sins and rebellions, become bitter and foul in our mouths. And the thing we once found abominable, turning from evil, submitting to Christ, becomes the very path to the greatest sweetness imaginable: fellowship with God Himself.
The Christian life is a process of retraining our spiritual palate. We, by grace, begin to find sin abominable and righteousness sweet. We begin to desire what God desires. And we discover that the desire He plants in us, a desire for Him, when it is realized, is a sweetness that makes all the poisoned pleasures of the world taste like ash.
Conclusion: What Do You Hate?
This proverb puts a finger on the central nerve of our spiritual condition. It all comes down to what you find abominable. A man is not defined by what he says he loves. Many a fool will say he loves God, family, and country. A man is defined by what he hates. What is it that you cannot stand? What is utterly repugnant to you?
Is it the thought of humbling yourself? Is it the thought of confessing your sin? Is it the thought of forgiving someone who has wronged you? Is it the thought of surrendering your pet ambition, your secret lust, your cherished bitterness to the lordship of Jesus Christ? If the idea of turning away from that evil is an abomination to you, then you are, by definition, a fool. And the sweetness you are tasting is the candy coating on a cyanide pill.
But if, by the grace of God, you find your sin to be the abomination, if you hate your pride, if you detest your selfishness, if the evil in your own heart is what is truly repugnant to you, then you are on the path of wisdom. For you, turning from evil is not an abomination; it is a liberation. It is the only way to the true and lasting sweetness your soul was made for.
The good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ came for fools. He came for those of us whose desires were so twisted that we found repentance itself to be an abomination. He lived the perfect life we refused to live, and He died on the cross to take upon Himself the abomination of our sin. He drank the cup of God's wrath so that we could be offered the cup of His fellowship.
And He sends His Spirit to perform a great reversal in our hearts. He makes us hate what He hates, and love what He loves. He gives us a new set of desires, chief among them the desire for God Himself. And He promises that this desire, when it is finally and fully realized in the new heavens and the new earth, will be a sweetness to the soul that will last for all eternity.