G.K. Chesterton in Heretics and Orthodoxy makes the following observation:

“Purity and simplicity are essential to passions – yes even to evil passions. Even vice demands a sort of virginity” (p.55).

In the garden, evil became the norm and righteousness became the outsider. Yet, even an expression of evil demands a sort of rebirth. Once a person discovers a sweetness to sin, whether a tall-tale, or a second look, it craves for a new experience. The practical price of any sin is that it demands a new allegiance every time to make it more captivating.

Solomon understood self deception and the need to make sin something more to inflate the gratification in its execution. In Proverbs 9:17 the woman, Folly, is calling in the street, in front of her house, and shouting for attention from the “highest point in the city.” Folly’s intention is to draw the attention of anyone who would listen, anyone who wanted more out of life. Those who listen are fools – they misperceive reality, they underestimate the cost of her message. They are the people who play the moral shell game. They bet the farm on what they see, what they perceive as really living not knowing the ball they are looking for is in the hand of the one sponsoring the game; it was never even part of the game. Before the fool knows it, all his money is gone and he is left wondering how could he have been so wrong so many times….only to think of how he will outsmart the con-man the next time payday rolls around. He is a fool. In v. 17, Folly proclaims: “stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious.” The trap is set. Water is water, but when you steal it the substance of your perception takes on a level of risk that the flesh craves. Food eaten in the daylight is fine, but when it is eaten in secret it seems to thoroughly fill you…until the next time.

We are creatures, even Christian creatures, that live in a world of deception and intrigue – self deception and self intrigue. Only by chasing God’s law can we see what reality is and what it is not. Only by seeing life through trusting God and rejecting what our senses crave do we find hope in avoiding what the fate of the simpleton of Solomon’s story received – dwelling with the dead and being a guest of the grave.