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February 25, 2021 3:00 am
The day where people focus a lot of energy on leisure time pursuing a life of ease and pleasure. But does God's word support that kind of pursuit today on Truth for Life. Alistair Begg turns to the book of Proverbs to teach us about the behaviors that characterize laziness. The book of Proverbs is fantastic.
There is no question of that you can read it and read it and read it and never I think that you've learned it. I found my mother reading the book of Proverbs frequently when I was a boy and the more I read it now an adult hood. I'm sure she was looking for strength and wisdom and courage in order to cope at least with me are one son, it is an intensely practical book you find in the book of Proverbs. If you like godliness in working clothes. There's no sense in which you and reading the book of Proverbs. It would appear that a godly life is somehow at another removed from the everyday events of our journey, but rather we look into the book and we find that it is intensely practical. It is actually distinctly uncomfortable and it is immensely profitable when looking at a number of subjects which a marriage quite naturally and obviously from the text I felt that it would be profitable for us to address the subject of laziness, laziness. I don't want you to nudge the person next to you as if somehow or another. It was perfect for them. That kind of deflection will come back and bite you. But I do resist the temptation to immediately stab your teenage son in the back with the word see I told you that you should come this morning. This one is definitely for you. Be careful of that to be careful the book of Proverbs describes the lazy person as the slugger the slugger at a very contemporary word, but quite a good word. It is defined by the dictionary as one who is habitually lazy or habitually enacted, they have determined a lifestyle that is framed essentially by indolence and by inactivity I want to do then is to look at this individual is described as the slugger and first of all take a look at his lifestyle. We can say everything about him, but something then were going to drive past his house and look at his minion hard and then finally we're going to ask ourselves the question just in what ways does the Fit is it where in relationship to this most important of subjects will first of all in this consider his lifestyle, we can summarize it under a number of headings. I'll give them to you if you take notes you might find it helpful. First of all by looking at chapter 26 and verse 13 and following, we are able to recognize that the slugger is hinged to his bed, hinged to his bed. Verse 14 of Proverbs 26 as as a door turns on its hinges, so I sluggard turns on his bed. He doesn't merely enjoy his bed stuck to his bed. He has if you like. In graphic terms to slots in his back which have been perfectly created to fit into the hinges on his bed and when he gets himself into them and into the correct position. He is capable of movement limited movement he can turn to his left leg and turned to his right, but that's about it.
He absolutely loves it. He makes movement but no progress where you found them at seven in the morning you can find them later at 11 in the morning and perhaps at three in the afternoon. This individual does not like to be approached directly. He doesn't like questions that say will you do this and are followed up by when are you planning on doing it.
He doesn't like some of the common as in the words of verse nine of chapter 6 and say how long will you lie there you sluggard, when will you get up from your sleep.
He never actually refuses to do anything.
He just puts it off bit by bit, he deceives himself into thinking that he will get around to it. But by minutes small increments of time by minutes and by inches. This individual he or she allows opportunity just to slip away. Secondly, this individual hinged to his bed is happy making excuses for his indolence. Indeed, during the Proverbs, you discover that he's quite ingenious at inventing excuses. We see this in all kinds of ways. Our children come dashing home from school on the last day of school, throw their bag down never want to see it again in their lives, and immediately launch themselves into the opportunities of summer and parental responsibility is such that we drive them here would drive them there would dry them everywhere we sit in getting by mosquitoes all through the night as we watch them miss again and again their endeavors to try and connect with a softball with the bad which we brought them only a few days before finally drag ourselves home and it isn't long before one of them.
The marriages at breakfast time can be anywhere between 9 o'clock in the morning and three in the afternoon and marriages at breakfast time to say you know I'm bored I'm bored and so is able why don't you cut the grass and I found out that cutting the grass cures boredom immensely and immediately and also producers at the most ingenious excuses that you ever heard in your life.
The individual who is no mind to work. The individual who doesn't want to work never lacks for excuses for their idleness. If inside of them. They have no desire to engage in endeavor, and incidentally, in the New Testament. Paul says in first Thessalonians. The part of the responsibility of the pastor is to warn the idle to encourage the timid to help the week, but to warn the idle process to Timothy. Make sure the people understand that if they don't work. They shouldn't eat. So that is called to endeavor is not unique to the book of Proverbs, or to the Old Testament you find it all the way out and when you look at the lazy individual there ingenious in excusing their indolence. For example, still in chapter 26 verse 13 the sluggard says there is a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming in the streets. There's not why don't you cut the grass. There is a lion in the backyard.
No there isn't where you get that from what the lazy person is managed to convince himself or herself of addicts and flags that are completely nonexistent in the longer they go in filling their minds with that kind of think they have imaginary reasons for their inactivity and these imaginary reasons. Finally convince them of the fact that they can rationalize the fight that they don't get out goes the real danger is not the imaginary line in the street. The real danger is the roaring lion, the devil, lobster, and low people into indolence and defeat hinged to his bed happy to make excuses thoroughly hopeless at completing things hopeless at completing things chapter 12 in verse 27 the lazy man does not roast his game by the diligent man prizes his possessions.
Why doesn't he roast his game. Well, perhaps because he never got his game set off to Huntington as he began to hunt. He may even short the thing or pierced it with an arrow and is that I'm not going over there for that.
It was another fun firing arrow. I've let somebody else pick it up or he dragged the sorry carcass home and laid it against the side of the shed and his wife asked him. Are we ever going to eat this. This is needed. Don't bog me I Charlotte deny. I'll get around to it. Somewhere in the heart of winter sorry carcass skeletal structure sticks his head out over the snow is a silent estimate identified that the lazy man gives up opportunity, moment by moment injured by a hinge and he is confronted by the five that he is hopeless at completing things if you look at 19 and 24 you find the same statement that is in 2615, the sluggard buries his hand in the dish you will not even bring it back to his mouth when a picture he'd rather enjoy his laziness than his food so you sit them down, delete, and there he goes any things in this is. Don't know if I will need this is be honest gentleman our lives leave us alone. They stack the freezer.
They do it all the business they go out to get it perfect believe the less they stick it where it is supposed to be the tell is all you need to do.
All you need to do is take this out. Pierce's put it in here. And hey, before you know it you will be thing wonderfully well. I've been on my own for 10 days. I tell you that I'm not eating gourmet foot. If I were not for cinnamon life and my toaster. I'm not exactly sure where I'd be why because I understand how easy it is to be lazy. The effort involved seems so demanding me and all of that piercing of the bag and rest in the microwave. I mean that's that's what you have to wait for whose nose was happening to you while you're waiting for it standing so close to all that radiation now give me the cinnamon life. I'll be fine you going to howitzer that is populated by five university students open the refrigerator and what you see nothing some old jar of peanut butter that looks as though I've been infested by creatures from outer space I have finished catch-up in an old bottle of water.
You see what I give you money for picture of laziness, not wishing to be crass or indiscreet. The classic illustration of being unwilling to complete a simple task is surely to be found in the average bathroom sit down.
You look the toilet roll and what is there cardboard to now I ask you what is so difficult about this in our house. There's no magic to it. You don't have. We don't even have to stand up.
It's a right left movement you go here you bring it there, you unhook that you drop it in the wastepaper you put it on your Don everybody knows I get there at six. A silent testimony to indolence. The same person is not only hinged to his bed happy with excuses hopeless at finishing things but he's also hungry for fulfillment. The lazy person will always be hungry for fulfillment. His cravings will always be unfulfilled. The desire says Solomon, 21, 25, the desire of the sluggard kills in because his hands refuse to labor. He knows that he would love to have that he knows what's involved in getting there, but he doesn't want to do it and it is his laziness that short-circuits the slow of the sluggard 1314 13 for the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing. Not because he can't because he wants you made a habit of the soft choice. He says I can plow it's too cold and yet he will hold that he might greet you can read if you don't so and you don't plot and fifthly the final tragedy of this individual is that he is proud in his own self-assessment is the significance of the 16 verse in Proverbs 26 the sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who answered discreetly. In other words, he regards himself as something of a genius. He scorns his friends are working hard, he believes himself to affirm the key to learning without any inconvenient exertion, and if you stay there in verse 16. You will notice that he is the last to see his own features is not a blind spot here. He's no idea that he's lazy. In verse 13 he says I'm not sure Kurt. I'm a realist.
There's a lion in the streets wrong.
In verse 14. I'm not self-indulgent I'm just not at my best in the morning following a funeral will good in the afternoon and as I saw you in the evening you are looking particularly filled with endeavor. Then he in verse 15, his inertia burying his hand in the dish to lazy to bring it back to his mouth is just an objection to people hustling so me finish.
When I'm ready.
There's no rush was a big problem here. I'll get around to it.
I want to be unkind to teenagers. But if a teenage boy and a teenage girl do not seriously address this in their developmental adolescent years. They may give themselves some mountain to climb. That is greater than they will ever conquer because they burned into their psyche tracts and mentalities that will be for them. Their natural default path when ever the move forward in their life's and the picture here is chronic but it is also tragic and we should not allow the comedic aspect of it to prevent us from recognizing just how tragic it is hinged to the bed happy with excuses hopeless and completing things hungry for fulfillment and ultimately haughty in my opinion of myself, but it's kind of representative of his lifestyle. Note more briefly. Let's take a drive past his house. Chapter 24 in verse 30 and following is view his vineyard. I went past the field of the sluggard verse 30 past the vineyard of the man who likes judgment thorns had come up everywhere. The ground was covered with weeds in the stone wall was in ruins. So his approach to life is paid as dividends.
We will pass this house was a either.
There is no one living in that house or the person is unwell within it, or has been removed on account of illness or the person within it is frankly lazy and want those deductions would be violent. Samuel Johnson has an immense quote on laziness.
He says indolence is one of the voices from which those whom it once infects are seldom reformed every other specious of luxury operates upon some appetite that is quickly satisfied and requires some concurrence of art or accidents which everyplace will not supply. In other words, if we had a craving for reading tubs of peaches.
Once you get a tub of peaches you eat 14 of them pretty well satisfied and furthermore, if you have a craving for peaches in your somewhere where there are no peaches then you're going to have to be involved in some skillful art or in creating some context so that you can satisfy that desire. That's true in most of these things, but laziness doesn't mean that you can be lazy anywhere anytime without any help at all because laziness is nothingness. Laziness is defaulting to to sleep and to just abject confusion. He goes on, but the desire of these acts equally at all hours, and the longer it is indulged.
It is the more increased to do nothing is in every man's power, we can never want an opportunity of omitting duties. The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible because it is only a mere cessation of activity, but the return to diligence is difficult because it implies a change from rest to motion from privatization to reality everybody was ever engaged in an exercise program knows this is the case, it takes no difficulty at all.
When the time comes around. When there is an alarm ringing or whether it's a somebody coming and calling on us to see how many objects stay here, and the more that we develop patterns of something I'll do this so I don't and I'll apply myself. I will get around to it later. Whatever else it is we begin to establish a track for ourselves on the day we determine to change what amounted weekly. We were running whatever it was we were able to talk as we ran, we were able to increase our speed or decrease our speed. We could within the limits of our own exercise program to well I never said I don't think so.
I had no I don't think so. No no no no no no no and now suddenly we decided, will go again. We felt we start where we where we didn't start where we where we'd only gone 150 yards and we were walking and here's the thing. The real issue about this in the real tragedy of the man's house is that laziness is not an infirmity.
Laziness is a sin. God made us to work indeed. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh is a Sabbath to the law and the contemporary request for leisure feeds on indolence feeds on a mentality which says nobody is going to tell me what to do or when to work. I will distorted my own program on my desire in life is to reduce the six to a small number as I can and I'm certainly not interested in this one day of worship and rest and study and so on. All I want to do.
All I want to do is have some fun. So that was so was her name, Sheryl Crow, that just came out from nowhere. Sorry on the Santa Monica Blvd. so I wanted to do when I want to do with who are one. Don't anybody talk to me about anything. The Christian is supposed to be radically different from challenging truth from Alastair back about resisting the urge to fall into patterns of laziness patterns. The deed are selfish desires your listening to Truth for Life. Now it while you were listing you thought about someone else who might benefit from today's message we want to encourage you. It's easy to pass along sharing the teaching you here on Truth for Life is not only easy, it's free. When you visit Truth for Life.org or use the mobile app you can use the share feature to send any message to a friend through email or social media. Simply click on the three dots below the message graphic and select the share menu option will be prompted to have their contact information only takes a few seconds could also share the teaching from Truth for Life by becoming a truth partner, partners or blisters like you who give a set amount each month to advance the mission of Truth for Life and when you sign up to become a true partner you choose the amount of your monthly donation and is our way of saying thank you for your support each month you're able to request either or both of the recommended books for no additional gift.
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