The vanity of irreligion.
In a few vigorous touches the prophet sketches the utter Vanity and the condemnation of idolatry. The idolatrous man:
1. Is relying on that which will miserably disappoint him; what he takes for food turns out to be nothing better than "ashes."
2. Is misled into the most grievous error; he has been "turned aside" from the highway of truth.
3. Is continually enacting a falsehood; there is "a lie in his right hand." Idolatry is the supreme mistake as well as the most heinous sin. But what is palpably and particularly true of this great iniquity is essentially true of all sin. A sinful life is—
I. A LIFE OF SADDEST INSUFFICIENCY. "He feedeth on ashes." Like the "apples of Sodom," like the "little book" of the prophet's vision trey. 10.), a guilty action (or a sinful life) is very pleasant on the outside or at the beginning; but within, afterwards, it is bitter and disappointing in the last degree. Crime begins in successful violence or enriching fraud; it ends in the prison or the garret. Vice begins in unholy pleasure, in unprincipled companionship; it ends in distracting pain, in mortal sickness, in cruel loneliness. Ungodliness begins in the delights of eager but unhallowed ambition, of happy but unsanctified affection; it ends in weariness, in heart-ache, in the discovery that earthly distinctions and human love cannot fill the heart that God made for himself, cannot gladden and ennoble the life that he fashioned for his service. A life spent without God, devoted to selfish gratification, is a life of deep disappointment; the mistaken sinner finds out that the delectable food which he plucked with such keen anticipation is only ashes between his teeth.
II. A LIFE OF SERIOUS DEFLECTION. "A deceived heart hath turned them aside." The straight road is the path of piety, of purity, of truthfulness, of sobriety, of justice, of kindness. When men "see light in God's light," they recognize this path as the one right road in which a man should walk, any deviation from which is error—a spiritual wandering. But when the heart is deceived, when the soul is corrupted by "the deceitfulness of sin," when the inward "eye is evil" and consequently the whole body is full of darkness, then it seems to the deluded spirit that the wrong way is the right one, that the green, downward slopes of folly and sin are the highway of wisdom. And the worst of it is that the path of sin does not run near to and parallel with the way of life; it goes off from it at an angle which is continually increasing, so that the further a man goes along this evil road the greater distance he is away from that in which he should be walking. Every step takes the mistaken traveller further from his course. And when men have wholly lost sight of the beauties of holiness, of the excellency of holy service, of the claims of Divine benefaction; when they are so far off the true track that the voices of heavenly wisdom no longer reach their ear;—they are helpless, they are lost. The deceived and deluded pilgrim "cannot deliver his soul."
III. A LIFE OF PRACTICAL FALSITY. "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" Men are often living falsehoods when they are not putting them into words; the lie is not on their lips but in their right hand. The man who is withholding his heart from God and his life from his service is saying, by his chosen course, by his daily doings, by his deliberate action, that it is better to live a selfish than a devoted life; that the claims of Christ may be neglected; that the temporal is of more consequence than the eternal, the material than the spiritual; that happiness is more worth seeking than blessedness, the honour that cometh from man than the approval of the heavenly Father. These are fatal falsehoods, which lure men to sin and lead them down to death. Happy is that wandering soul who sees a form that comes to rescue, who hears a voice that summons to redeem—that One who says, "Man shall not live by bread alone;" "He that cometh to me shall never hunger;" that voice which says, "Return unto me, and I will return unto you;" "In the way of righteousness is life, and in the pathway thereof there is no death" (Proverbs 12:28).—C.