Walking with the Wise #120: Lasting Satisfaction

“Whoever is wicked covets the spoil of evildoers,
but the root of the righteous bears fruit.”
—Proverbs 12:12

Wickedness is never satisfied. God has made it so that wickedness can never satisfy the deepest longings of the heart. We will always want more, vainly believing the lie that if we can just have a little bit more, we will be satisfied --like those on a boat adrift at sea who foolishly believe that drinking the saltwater will quench their thirst, yet never learning that their drinking is in fact doing the polar opposite—killing them.

Sin will never satisfy. Sure, gratifying our sinful desires is enjoyable for a time, but it’s the consequences of sin and the diminishing pleasure of sin that reveal its true nature. It’s a bit like eating spoiled food from a buffet table. It may look and taste good at first, but it’s going to bite back in the very near future.

Nevertheless, we continually go back to sin and we do this for two reasons. The first reason is that we believe that sin will ultimately satisfy us—even though God has promised it will not. The second reason is that we see other people doing it without suffering any of the expected consequences. But sin is always a lie, an illusion, presenting itself as an alternative reality to the world in which we live—in that world, lies are true, sin satisfies, and there are no painful consequences to our choices. That world passes away under the reality of life and is exposed as a fraud under the penetrating light of God’s Word. Only those who live for Christ will experience true and lasting satisfaction.

Where are you trying to find satisfaction? In your sin or in the Savior? Find your satisfaction in Him and in Him alone. Drink from His cistern, eat of the delicacies of His table, and you will find not sickness but true and lasting satisfaction for which the things of this world are only warm-up acts. Amen.