The full soul loatheth an honeycomb.
Spiritual appetite
It is a great blessing when food and appetite meet together. Sometimes men have been so luxuriously fed that appetite has departed from them altogether. The rules which apply to bodily appetite equally hold true of the mind. We easily lose our taste for anything of which we have our fill. Men in the things of God have not always an appetite for the sweetest and most precious truth.
I. Jesus Christ is Himself sweeter than the honeycomb. This is clear if we consider who He is, and what He gives and does. Our Lord is the incarnation of Divine love. The love of God is sweet, and Jesus is that love made manifest. Jesus is in Himself the embodiment of boundless mercy to sinners as well as love to creatures. Jesus must be sweet, for He meets all our wants as sinners. He breathes into our hearts the sweetness of abounding peace. His very name is redolent of celestial hope to believers. Jesus is sweet to God Himself, and to the angels in heaven. It is His presence that makes heaven what it is.
II. There are those who loathe the sweetness of our Lord. Some loathe Him so as to trample on Him. Others are always murmuring at Him. Some are utterly indifferent to Him. The loathing manifests itself by little signs. It comes of a soul’s being full--of the world; of outward religiousness; or of pride.
III. There are some who do appreciate the sweetness of Christ. Pray for a good appetite for Christ, and when you have it, keep it. Do not waste a good appetite upon anything less sweet than the true honeycomb. When you have the appetite, indulge it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
An appetite for good things essential for their enjoyment
To appreciate a thing you must first feel its want. This applies to--
I. Corporeal good. It is appetite that makes bodily food sweet and enjoyable. Delicious was the manna to the Israelites at first. Which of the two is the more blest, the man who has the abundance of the enjoyable without the power of enjoying or he who has the scarcest and humblest fare with the full relish of the hungry soul?
II. Intellectual good. A man may have an immense library, and no appetite for books. To him the priceless library is worse than worthless. I’d rather be the man of one book, nay, of no book at all but the book of my own soul--the book of nature--with an appetite for truth, than the owner of the choicest library of the world with no desire for knowledge.
III. Spiritual good. (D. Thomas, D.D.)