The Aftertaste of Deceit Text: Proverbs 20:17
Introduction: The Candy-Coated Lie
We live in an age that has made a high art of dishonesty. Our entire culture is shot through with it. Our advertising lives on it, our politics thrives on it, and our entertainment celebrates it. We have convinced ourselves that a lie is not really a lie if it serves a "higher good," like self-esteem, or personal advancement, or the right political cause. We have become connoisseurs of the candy-coated lie, the gilded fraud, the airbrushed falsehood. We have developed a taste for it. And why not? The immediate results often seem quite pleasant. The lie gets you the job. The affair feels exhilarating. The fudged numbers on the tax return result in a welcome refund. The flattering untruth smoothes over an awkward social situation.
But the book of Proverbs is a book of spiritual physics. It deals not with how we wish the world worked, but with how God actually made it work. God has built certain cause-and-effect relationships into the very fabric of the cosmos. Gravity is one. The laws of thermodynamics are another. And here in our text, we are given another one, a law of moral consequence that is just as inexorable: the law of deceit's aftertaste.
Solomon, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is not giving us a pious platitude here. He is not saying, "Lying is naughty, so please don't do it." He is giving us a field report from reality. He is describing the nature of a particular kind of bread, the bread of deceit. He tells us what it tastes like at first, and what it turns into later. And in so doing, he warns us away from the entire enterprise of dishonesty, not simply because it is forbidden, but because it is fundamentally stupid. It is a bad bargain. It is to trade a moment of sweetness for a mouthful of gravel.
The Text
"Bread obtained by lying is sweet to a man, But afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel."
(Proverbs 20:17 LSB)
The Seductive Sweetness (v. 17a)
The first clause of this proverb is disarmingly honest about the nature of temptation.
"Bread obtained by lying is sweet to a man..." (Proverbs 20:17a)
The Bible never downplays the appeal of sin. It does not pretend that sin is, from the outset, a miserable and repulsive affair. If it were, it would hardly be a temptation. No, the forbidden fruit looked good for food, and was a delight to the eyes (Genesis 3:6). Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant (Proverbs 9:17). The Bible is realistic. The lie works, for a time. The ill-gotten gain feels good in the hand. The praise obtained through falsehood is music to the ears.
The word for "lying" here is sheqer in the Hebrew. It means falsehood, deception, a sham. And "bread" refers to more than just a literal loaf. It is sustenance, gain, profit, the stuff of life. So, "sustenance obtained by sham" is the idea. This covers everything from cheating on an exam to get a degree, to telling lies on a resume to get a job, to carrying on a secret affair to get affection, to building a business on fraudulent claims to get rich.
And the Bible says this bread is "sweet." Why? First, because it appeals to our pride. We think we have outsmarted the system. We have pulled one over on God, on our neighbor, on our boss. We have manipulated reality to our own advantage. This is the essence of the satanic temptation: "You will be like God" (Gen. 3:5). You will be the one who defines reality. The liar is playing God on a small scale, creating a false world with his words and getting others to live in it. This is a heady, prideful sweetness.
Second, it is sweet because it is a shortcut. God's way is the way of patient labor, of sowing and reaping, of diligence and integrity. The liar wants the harvest without the sowing. He wants the prize without running the race. He wants the benefits of a good reputation without the costly work of building character. Deceit offers a bypass around the hard road of righteousness, and our lazy, fallen hearts find that offer very tempting indeed.
The Gritty Consequence (v. 17b)
But the proverb does not end with the sweetness. The law of moral consequence must have its say. The second half of the verse is the divine rebuttal to the liar's short-term success.
"...But afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel." (Proverbs 20:17b)
The transition is marked by that crucial word, "afterward." The sweetness is temporary. The gravel is permanent. The image is visceral and powerful. Imagine taking a bite of what you think is a soft piece of bread, only to have your teeth grind down on a mouthful of sharp stones. The shock, the pain, the disgust, the grit that gets into every crevice, the impossibility of swallowing it and the difficulty of spitting it all out. This is the biblical description of the long-term consequences of dishonesty.
How does this gravel manifest itself? First, there is the gravel of a guilty conscience. The lie must be maintained. It must be covered by other lies. The liar can never rest. He lives in fear of exposure, constantly looking over his shoulder. The sweet morsel becomes a knot of anxiety in his stomach. He has traded peace for a profit that he cannot enjoy.
Second, there is the gravel of broken trust. When the lie is inevitably discovered, relationships are shattered. A reputation for honesty, which takes a lifetime to build, can be destroyed in a moment. And once trust is gone, it is like trying to put sand back into a bag in the middle of a windstorm. The sweetness of the one-time gain is utterly overwhelmed by the bitterness of lost friendships, a ruined marriage, or a disgraced name.
Third, and most seriously, there is the gravel of God's judgment. The liar is not just fooling other people; he is attempting to fool God, who is the author of all reality. This is an act of cosmic treason. The Scriptures are clear: "Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD" (Proverbs 12:22). And in the end, "all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death" (Revelation 21:8). The gravel in the mouth in this life is but a foretaste of the grit and gnashing of teeth in the next. God's universe is built on truth because God Himself is truth. To be a liar is to be at war with the very structure of reality, and that is a war you cannot win.
From Gravel to Grace
This proverb, like all of Proverbs, diagnoses our disease with unerring accuracy. We are all, by nature, lovers of the sweet bread of deceit. Our first father, Adam, swallowed the lie whole in the Garden, and we have inherited his appetite for it. We have all lied, we have all deceived, and we all have the aftertaste of gravel in our mouths, whether we admit it or not.
What, then, is the remedy? It is not simply to "try harder" to tell the truth. That is like telling a man with a mouthful of gravel to just "chew better." The problem is not the technique; the problem is the gravel. The problem is the sin. The gravel must be removed, and a new appetite must be created.
This is precisely what the gospel accomplishes. Jesus Christ is the one who came as the "bread of life" (John 6:35). He is the true bread, the bread of total integrity, the bread of perfect truth. And on the cross, He took our lies upon Himself. He, who was Truth incarnate, was treated as the ultimate liar. He bore the abomination of our falsehood. He, who never sinned, had His mouth filled, as it were, with the gravel of our judgment. He was crushed for our iniquities.
Why? So that we, by faith in Him, could be forgiven for every piece of deceitful bread we have ever eaten. So that He could spit the gravel out of our mouths and replace it with the sweetness of His grace. He does not just command us to be honest; He makes us into new creations who love the truth. The Holy Spirit gives us a new set of taste buds, so that we begin to find sin bitter and righteousness sweet.
Therefore, the application for us is twofold. First, if you are a Christian, you must be a sworn enemy of all sheqer, all falsehood. You must cultivate a love for the truth in all things, small and great. When you do lie, you must confess it immediately and forsake it, running to Christ to have the gravel washed out by His grace. Second, if you are outside of Christ, you need to recognize that your whole life is a kind of lie. You are pretending to be your own god, living on the stolen bread of God's common grace, and your mouth is full of the gravel of sin and death. You must repent of your lies and turn to the Truth. Come to Jesus Christ, the Bread of Life. His bread is truly sweet, and there is no bitter aftertaste. There is only life, and that more abundantly.