THE DANGERS OF LAZINESS

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.

Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor.

The lazy do not roast any game, but the diligent feed on the riches of the hunt.

A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.

Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless go hungry. 
A sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth! 

Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing.

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.

The craving of a sluggard will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work. All day long he craves for more, but the righteous give without sparing.

The sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!” 

Proverbs 10:4, 12:24, 12:27, 13:4, 19:15, 19:24, 20:4, 21:5, 21:25-26, 22:13

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

NOTE: From Proverbs, Chapter 10 through Chapter 22:16, Solomon writes a series of individual proverbs for us to consider. I will try and group similar proverbs in my devotions as I cover what Solomon wrote over these chapters.

I’ve been one who has worked hard for a long time. Still do although it’s not the 70 to 80 hours a week I put in while in the United States Navy.

I think it all got started with my parents.

My father always labored hard for his family to make sure we were provided for. I remember he would do whatever was needed to be done to that end. We weren’t rich by any means but we had what we needed.

My mother later would work in a nursing home caring for the elderly, often having to transfer them from their beds to wheelchairs. It was very demanding and physical work but my mother did it out of her love and heart for others.

Following their lead, I got started when I was 11 years old. It was in the early 70’s and I had six yards I mowed in the summer which earned me $30 a week, a lot of money back then for someone so young. I also was the official scorer for the town softball league. I would not just keep score but figure out batting averages and post the statistics in the local newspaper. They paid me $20 a week to do that. My work ethic continued all the way into adulthood and I have always tried to ensure I work hard and earn my keep.

And this was well before I was so knowledgeable about God’s word and what it has to say about labor.

For had I not been so industrious, I would have been counted among the lazy, those unmotivated and unwilling to go out and do much of anything. The scriptures we will look at will also use the word “sluggard” or “shiftless” to describe someone who prefers to remain idle. The words are defined as:

Sluggard - noun: 1. a lazy, sluggish person. synonyms: ne'er-do-well, do-nothing, idler, loafer, lounger, good-for-nothing, shirker, underachiever, slacker, slug, lazybones, bum, couch potato.

Shiftless - adjective: 1. (of a person or action) characterized by laziness, indolence, and a lack of ambition. Synonyms: lazy, idle, indolent, slothful, lethargic, lackadaisical; spiritless, apathetic, feckless, good-for-nothing, worthless, unambitious, unenterprising.

Solomon had some warnings for anyone who chooses to adopt these qualities and as we’ll see, there are spiritual dangers that go along with opting for laziness. Look at these proverbs:

Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth. 10:4

Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor. 12:24

The lazy do not roast any game, but the diligent feed on the riches of the hunt. 12:27

A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied. 13:4

Laziness brings on deep sleep, and the shiftless go hungry. 19:15
A sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he will not even bring it back to his mouth!  19:24

Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing. 20:4

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty. 21:5

The craving of a sluggard will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work. 21:25

The sluggard says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!” 22:13 

Want to be lazy in life? Here’s what you can expect.

1. Poverty

Lazy hands make for poverty.

If you don’t work, you won’t have income. And if you don’t have income, you won’t be able to get what you need to live. It’s simply a fact of life.

2. Forced labor

Laziness ends in forced labor.

In biblical times, people who became indebted to another and could not repay ended up being forced to labor for the person they owed, paying back the money borrowed through work. Those who were lazy would borrow and borrow and borrow to be able to live vice seek employment and the end result was that they would be forced to do so.

Today, we don’t see this happening much, at least in America, but we do see people working when they don’t want to in order to either pay off debt or get enough money to survive.

3. Hunger

The lazy do not roast any game.

A sluggard’s appetite is never filled

The shiftless go hungry.

Sluggards do not plow in season; so at harvest time they look but find nothing.

The message here is clear. If you want to eat, you need to work for it.

If you choose to stay home and not hunt, then you won’t roast any game.

If you choose to not plow in season, then you will have nothing at harvest time.

The lazy go hungry and find their appetites unfulfilled but it’s of their own doing. If they would be willing to labor for food, they would have what they needed.

4. Death

The craving of a sluggard will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work.

Sluggards crave laziness. They love it more than work and that’s why they are lazy. Read any health literature about people who are habitually sedentary and you’ll find it leads to a multitude of problems, negatively impacting a person’s wellbeing. A lack of activity typically leads to obesity which can lead to any number of diseases that can lead to death like diabetes and heart disease and cancer.

There also have been more than a few cases of lazy people seeking to get rich by illicit means because they refuse to work legitimately for it. Maybe this means stealing either goods they want from businesses or robbing money or material things from honest, working people. This road is only going to eventually lead to prison or to death if the lazy person is killed while trying to commit a crime.

Truly, there are no positive outcomes when it comes to chronic laziness.

Conversely, the diligent, those who make a concerted effort to work, those who show legitimate ambition to get what they need, these people will end up fulfilled. They will enjoy the fruits of their labors, whether in employment, or harvest, or in the hunt.

In the end translation, you reap what you sow. No output will lead to no input.

Now, you may be reading this and thinking it’s non-applicable to you. You work hard and thus cannot be counted in the number of the sluggards. You are an earner, a laborer who puts his or her time in to make ends meet.

But what if this passage is not just talking about physical, worldly work? What if it’s also calling us to look at our spiritual lives as well?

For if there are a lot of physically lazy people in the world, there are far more spiritually lazy ones. In fact, there are a multitude of hard-working people who have earned an abundance and, in turn, a comfortable lifestyle who are bankrupt spiritually, mostly because they have not shown the same ambition toward the Lord as they have toward material gain.

These people look like they are well off from the outside looking in but they are really in a bad way when you look at the inside out. And that is what the Lord looks at.

Don’t take this as meaning it’s wrong to work and enjoy the fruits of your labor. As we’ll see in our future study of Ecclesiastes, Solomon writes that the Lord delights in allowing us to enjoy what we have earned. However, we’re to look at the Lord as the source of our blessings, the Object of our affections. And we so this by dedicating as much time and labor to our spiritual life, answering Christ’s call in the Great Commission, as we do to our physical labors in the jobs that the Lord has provided for us.

Friends, ambition runs two ways, physically and spiritually. You can’t be diligent in one and lazy in the other. For as we have seen in our word today, there are dangers that accompany laziness.

Work hard to avoid them during every day the Lord grants you.

Amen. 

In Christ,

Mark

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