Proverbs on Wealth 
Part 9 – Laziness: Assorted Proverbs

Baxter T. Exum (#1751)
Four Lakes Church of Christ
Madison, Wisconsin
September 1, 2024

Good morning and welcome to the Four Lakes congregation! If you are visiting this morning or joining us online or on the phone, we are especially glad to have you with us, and we’d like to ask that you fill out a visitor card – either online or on a card from the pew in front of you. And we also invite you to pass along any questions or prayer concerns in that way. In terms of our schedule, please remember that Gary Mueller is planning another Pontoon Fellowship one week from today – 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday, September 8. If you are interested, please see Gary and please sign up on the bulletin board in the entryway.

We are here this morning to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. God loves us and sent his Son to save us. He died on the cross, he was buried, and he was raised up on the first day of the week. This is the good news, and we obey this good news through faith, repentance, confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and baptism (a burial in water for the forgiveness of sins). And this morning we are sharing some good news from Alexander Rodanev, from somewhere in Ukraine. He says that, “Ivan was added to the family of God today. We welcome him as our brother, and we wish that God protects him and his brothers in the difficult military service.” I don’t know about you, but to me it looks like the preacher has a mohawk in these pictures. We are thankful for the good news from Ukraine this week.

This update comes to us from Logan Cates, who preaches in Durant, Oklahoma. He says, “Meet your new brothers in Christ, Dewayne, Kamden, and Karson. All three of these men (grandpa and grandsons) put on Christ in baptism this morning. Their sins are washed away and angels rejoice in heaven. So thankful for God’s grace and His Son Jesus Christ! Please be praying for their family!! Got the best question ever last Sunday: ‘Logan, can you come study with us at our house?’” So good to see it!

And this last one comes to us from the Okeechobee Church of Christ down in Florida. They posted this week and say that, “We rejoiced this afternoon with Kay Kail as she was baptized for the remission of her sins. God Bless you Kay on your decision.” There are many more examples we could have shared this week, but we’ve shared these to show what it means to obey the gospel, and if you are ready to do what these people have done, or if you would like to learn more, please let us know. We invite you to get in touch using the contact information on the wall up here, or if you are joining us on the phone, you can send a text or give me a call at 608-224-0274.

This morning, we are headed back to the book of Proverbs! As of this moment we have now covered 412 of the 915 Proverbs, or right at 45%. And this summer, we  have been looking at everything King Solomon says about WEALTH. We started with Solomon’s advice on GETTING wealth. We looked at how to LOSE your wealth. We then looked at the idea of ENJOYING OUR WEALTH. We looked at what King Solomon had to say about POVERTY. We looked at the value of GIVING our wealth to others, and we are concluding this series by looking at a somewhat related study on LAZINESS. We’ve looked at two larger chunks on laziness, and today we come to the end of this study by briefly reviewing 18 of the remaining Proverbs on laziness.

And as we’ve done previously when looking at several Proverbs at a time, we’ll be looking at these in canonical order, in the order in which they appear in scripture…
       
1-2. 	...so we start today with Proverbs 10:4-5, and since these are right next to each other, we will look at these together. In Proverbs 10:4-5, King Solomon says, “Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully.”

On one hand, poverty comes to the one who works with a “negligent hand,” but those who are “diligent” have a way of becoming wealthy. We’ve seen this before in Proverbs, but the new information here comes in verse 5, where it’s not just diligence, but the TIMING of our diligence that can be so important. Sleep isn’t foolish, in and of itself, but it is foolish to sleep during the harvest. So, we learn here that those who are wise will prioritize their working hours to not only get things done, but to be doing the right work at the right time. Today, we think of having four seasons: spring, summer, fall, and winter. In Bible times, though, we often read about two seasons: summer and winter, or seedtime and harvest. And to sleep during the harvest would be incredibly unwise (and wasteful), and there is “shame” involved with this. So, a wise person will not only be diligent, but those who are wise will do the right work at the right time.

3.	Our third Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 10:26, where King Solomon says, “Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the lazy one to those who send him.” 

I’m not too familiar with vinegar on the teeth, but most of us are at least somewhat familiar with “smoke to the eyes,” aren’t we? We have a campfire, and the smoke has a way of following us around the fire pit. At home, we heat with wood, and there is a weird atmospheric condition that happens once every few weeks where the air is heavy. I refer to it as a “cold air plug.” And if you don’t overpower it immediately with some burning newspaper, the heavy damp air literally serves as a plug in the chimney, and instead of heading up and out of the house, the smoke pours into the living room. It’s 4 in the morning, the smoke alarms are going off, the doors and windows get opened, and it’s a real hassle, “smoke in the eyes.” Solomon has a way with words, and this is how he describes sending a lazy guy on a mission.

In my mind, when I ask somebody to do something, and if they accept that responsibility, I have a way of checking that thing off my list of things to worry about. Going back to my work as an election official, a lot has to happen on election day, and a lot of it has to happen at the same time. There are machines to set up, booths to deploy, paperwork to be filled out, and so on. And I have to assign everybody a task. If I assign a task, I expect that task to be done, and I try not to think about it anymore. Later in the day, though, if I find that that thing has not been done, that’s a problem. Now I need to not only find somebody else to do it, but now I may need to fill out more paperwork, explaining why that thing was not done. And I’m thinking that Solomon has probably had the same experience as king. When you trust somebody to do something and it doesn’t get done (due to laziness), it’s like “smoke in the eyes.” Everything grinds to a halt, and you have to go fix the problem before moving on.

Laziness causes trouble. It’s annoying. Perhaps some of you have had to deal with a lazy co-worker, a fellow teacher, a spouse, a kid, a parent, a supervisor who never follows through as promised. Preachers can be lazy. I’ve heard some horror stories through the years. Laziness has a way of showing itself all over the place, and it is just as annoying as “smoke in the eyes.” And this, by the way, really has nothing to do with talent or skill. What we are dealing with here is reliability. The task may be simple or complex: The lazy guy doesn’t get it done, and it’s as annoying as “smoke in the eyes.”

Around a campfire, when you get smoke in your eyes, the conversation stops, eating stops, everything stops until you either get up and move or deal with the smoke. So also when you send a lazy person to go do something. It’s irritating, and it’s irritating in a way that’ll ruin your day. So, we may have two very practical lessons here: First of all, don’t be the lazy guy. When we take on some assignment, let’s get it done. Don’t be smoke in somebody’s eyes. But secondly, there’s also a lesson for leaders: Be careful when assigning responsibilities. Certainly this is a lesson King Solomon learned the hard way, and now he is teaching it to his sons. Asking a lazy person to do something is just like getting smoke in your eyes.

4.	Our fourth Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 12:24, where King Solomon says, “The hand of the diligent will rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor.”

As I understand it, the word “diligent” in this Proverb is a word that is sometimes translated “sharp,” and it may go back to the idea that a hard worker would take the time to sharpen his tools. This person, then, is thoughtful and conscientious. A lazy worker, on the other hand, would just grab any old tool and try to get something done. The diligent worker, though, would get more done. One of the first things my dad taught me as we worked in the garage was that tools should never touch the concrete floor. And the reason is: Touching the concrete would make a tool dull and less effective. A sharp tool makes for safer and more efficient work. And it’s this man who will “rule, but the slack hand will be put to forced labor.” The diligent, then, will rule over those who are not. The diligent will go above and beyond. And it’s not just skill or natural talent, but it’s getting the job done, being consistent and reliable over the long run, not goofing off, but getting it done. This person will rule over the one who pretends to work only when someone is watching. Over time, consistent effort has a way of winning out over those who slack off. Those who are lazy will often end up oppressed. Even talent, and skill, and education cannot make up for a lack of diligence. Those who are lazy will often end up working for those who are not. Ideally, someone with skill and training will be hard-working as well, but that is not always the case. Solomon, then, makes this observation and passes it along to his sons, and the message is: Don’t be slacking! Show up early, do more than the minimum, be diligent.

5.	Our fifth Proverb on laziness comes just a few verses later, in Proverbs 12:27, where King Solomon says that, “A lazy man does not roast his prey, but the precious possession of a man is diligence.”

What an interesting picture! As I see it, King Solomon is inviting us to imagine two men. Both head out to go hunting, and that right there takes some effort, doesn’t it? There is some skill involved, there is some gear involved, there is some time involved. Both may get up before sunrise to go do whatever needs to be done, and they both come home with their prey; they are both successful in the hunt; however, one man roasts his prey while the other man apparently gets home and takes a nap! So, the lazy man goes hunting, but dealing with the meat is too much work, and whatever he kills is wasted. So, the prey, which might have been quite valuable, is wasted due to negligence. This is the difference between a lazy man and a man who is diligent. One starts a project and doesn’t finish it (resulting in waste), while the other gets started, hits some difficulty, and keeps on working until the project is done (even though he may not feel like it). And I think we may also take a lesson from the fact that hunting itself may be somewhat exciting, but butchering an animal, not so much! And so, I will do the fun thing, but when real work is involved I may slack off. We might compare it to a kid cooking an elaborate meal for the family but then leaving the kitchen a mess. Have we ever experienced that? Cooking something new may be fun, but dealing with the overflow in the bottom of the oven, not really! Or, we might compare it to buying a new car. We may love the excitement of shopping and making the purchase, but the real work happens over the next several years as we maintain that car. The lazy guy does the fun part but quits before the real work starts. The diligent man, however, sees a project through from beginning to end, even when he would much rather be resting. When I maintain my house, when I paint the fence, when I trim trees and mow the grass, it’s not because I’m in love with the things of this world, but it’s because I value the time I’ve already invested in this property. If I slack off now, I may lose my initial investment. Solomon, then, teaches his sons the importance of sticking to it.

6.	The next Proverb on laziness comes in the next chapter, in Proverbs 13:4, where King Solomon says that,“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat.”

The way I see this, the lazy man is always wanting something he doesn’t have, and he’s almost paralyzed by the constant craving, “I want, I want, I want,” even to the point where he never actually gets any of it. On the other hand, the guy who works hard toward a goal over the long term is “made fat,” which, in the ancient world, was a sign of great wealth. In a way, the constant “craving” of the sluggard is a punishment of its own – always wanting, but never getting. He never gets because he doesn’t work for it. Meanwhile, the desires of the diligent are fulfilled. So, instead of getting paralyzed by always wanting something that’s just a bit out of reach, I think Solomon would encourage his sons to lock onto a goal and then get to work on it. Be diligent.

I’m thinking of some advice my dad gave me for cleaning my room as a kid. You know, sometimes you walk into a messy room, and it’s easy to get paralyzed by everything that needs to be done. You walk in, and, “Oh no! This is terrible!” And then you give up. His advice was to walk in, point to a corner, and then pick up everything along that line. When that’s done, move one degree to the right, and repeat, until the room is clean. There are times when I still use that advice to this day. Instead of getting paralyzed by the big picture, focus in on one part of it and get it done. Be diligent!

7.	The next Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 15:19, where King Solomon says that,“The way of the lazy is as a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway.”

So, we have a comparison in the form of a simile, a figure of speech. On one hand, the way of the lazy is compared to a “hedge of thorns,” but on the other hand, the path of the upright is compared to a “highway.” The lazy guy always seems to have a hard time moving forward. And I think Solomon is suggesting here that much of this difficulty is self-inflicted. When we slack and delay, we make life harder than it needs to be. I’m thinking of a sign I remember seeing in the library at my high school. It said, “Your procrastination does not constitute my emergency.” That’s a wise librarian right there! Just because you waited to research your huge project until the day before it’s due doesn’t mean that it’s my problem. You’re the one who procrastinated! Laziness has a way of making life more difficult than it needs to be, like a “hedge of thorns.” I spent some time in a hedge of thorns this week. You know that outlot I mentioned last Sunday? I volunteered to go find the survey markers on that property. So, I set out with a metal detector, and a shovel, and some stakes, a 100-foot tape measure, and a map, and I spent some time tromping through some thorny hedges this week. I have burrs in my socks that may be permanent. Nobody likes coming up against a “hedge of thorns,” but that’s how Solomon describes the life of the lazy man. Contrary to what some may assume, laziness actually makes your life more difficult.

8.	Our next Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 18:9, where King Solomon says that,“He also who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys.”

All he’s saying here is that a slacker is very closely related to someone who wastes or destroys. There is a family resemblance between the two. The guy who doesn’t bring in any income is pretty close to the guy has an income but wastes it. They both end up with nothing. There’s in-come, and there’s out-go. The lazy guy fails on the in-come side of the equation, and the wasteful man fails on the out-go side of the equation. They come from the same family. Both are foolish.

9.	Our next Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 19:15, where King Solomon says that,“Laziness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle man will suffer hunger.”

This is simply the other side of those Proverbs we looked at earlier in the summer, where we learned that wealth comes as the result of hard work. On the other hand, here we find that laziness has a way of progressing to deep sleep, and it ultimately results in hunger.

10.	The next one comes later in this chapter, in Proverbs 19:24, where King Solomon says that,“The sluggard buries his hand in the dish, but will not even bring it back to his mouth.”

This is very similar to the one we looked at a week or two ago, but it’s pretty clear that Solomon is openly mocking lazy people. In a time when they would often eat with their hands, Solomon describes a guy who buries his hand in the dish, and he’s too lazy to bring that hand back to his mouth. He can’t do it. It’s too much work! And I think we noted a week or two ago, it’s hilarious when a baby does this. Children are hilarious, but especially when they fall asleep as they are eating. It’s less funny, though, when a grown man is too lazy to feed himself. But since we’re talking about children, I’ll just briefly suggest that kids need to learn how to work from an early age. Even little kids need to have work to do – washing dishes, taking out the trash, and so on. Ours were always good at stacking firewood. I miss having that help sometimes! But kids learn from an early age that there is a connection between work and eating. We pick the garden and we have food. There is a connection between work and having a warm house. We stack the wood, we burn the wood, and we stay warm in the winter, and so on.

But here, the sluggard is too lazy even to bring his hand from the dish to his mouth. He has completely lost the connection between work and food. And Solomon makes fun of him for it. Solomon had a huge problem with lazy people.

11.	Our next Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 20:4, where King Solomon says that,“The sluggard does not plow after the autumn, so he begs during the harvest and has nothing.”

We’ve had variations of this one before, but this one is pretty straightforward, especially in a time and place where they were highly dependent on the cycles of planting and harvesting. Without plowing, there would be no harvest. The sluggard, then, refuses to plow (perhaps due to the cold, as some translations have it), and then he begs during the harvest when he has nothing. I don’t think we had the “begging” on earlier versions of this one. But here’s this guy who refuses to plow when his neighbors are out there plowing, and then when he doesn’t have a harvest he begs these same neighbors for food, and ends up with nothing. And that makes sense, because they saw him slacking when they were working.

The application, though, goes far beyond farming. Solomon isn’t necessarily telling his sons to go plow a field, but he’s explaining that hard work comes before the reward. And if you don’t work yourself, you certainly can’t expect others to bail you out. And on that side of it, I think there might be an application as well: If your neighbor is a slacker when you’re out there working hard, you have no real obligation to feed him. Hunger can be a good motivator (and it should be, if that hunger is caused by laziness).


12.	Our next Proverb on laziness comes a few verses later, in Proverbs 20:13, where King Solomon says,“Do not love sleep, or you will become poor; open your eyes, and you will be satisfied with food.” 

Once again, we have the reminder that loving sleep leads to poverty, and the solution is waking up and getting to work. In fact, if you can just wake up and get out of bed, you are already ahead of your lazy neighbor. So, wake up and get moving! By the way, when we are told, “Do not love sleep,” Solomon is very clearly saying that love is a choice, isn’t he? Biblically speaking, love is a decision we make. If I love sleep, I can read this Proverb, and I can decide to stop loving it. I can obey this. And let’s also note that Solomon isn’t telling us that we can never sleep again. He’s not telling us that we can’t enjoy sleeping. But, he’s telling us not to love sleep when it’s time to get up and go to work. There’s a point where loving sleep results in poverty. So, “Do not love sleep,” he says.

13-14.	The next two Proverbs on laziness go together, in Proverbs 21:25-26, where King Solomon says,“The desire of the sluggard puts him to death,for his hands refuse to work; all day long he is craving,while the righteous gives and does not hold back.”

As with the last one, we’ve had this thought before, but this time it comes with some new information. On one hand, we have a sluggard whose desire is putting him to death. He wants, and wants, and wants, to his own destruction. He sits there all day craving what he doesn’t have, and it’s killing him. We’ve seen this already. But the new information comes in verse 14, where Solomon makes a contrast with the man’s righteous neighbor who “gives and does not hold back.” So, on one hand, we have the sluggard not working and clinging to the little that he has, craving what rightfully belongs to somebody else, and we have a righteous neighbor who works, allowing him to give and to share. The sluggard could have what he wants and enough to share, but he refuses to work, so he sits there always wanting and never having, and he’s miserable. Solomon’s point, I think, is that the pain of work is actually a whole lot better than the misery of not working. And not only that, but in this man’s case, his refusal to work is a moral failure. The man who shares is “righteous,” while the sluggard is not. By refusing to work when he is able, the first man is sinning. We come back to Jesus, who said that “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (in Acts 20:35). The lazy man might think that work is miserable, but that’s not really the case at all. And one thing I love about the slight repetition here is that Solomon, in a sense, is holding up a mirror, at different angles. He’s asking his sons: Do you see yourself here? And if not, how about over here? And so on. And the mirror is for us as well. He’s emphasizing to his sons (and to us as well) that diligent work is much better than the alternative.

15.	Our next Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 22:13, where King Solomon says that,“The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside;I will be killed in the streets!’”

We saw this a week or two ago in another Proverb, and the point is that when a person is lazy, one excuse is as good as another. It would certainly be rare to be killed by a lion on the streets of Israel, so this guy is pretty much making stuff up. It reminds me of the Israelites we studied just this past Wednesday. When those ten spies came back from the Promised Land, they spoke of giants in the land, and they saw themselves as grasshoppers in their sight. They were making excuses for not doing what God had told them to do.

16.	Our next Proverb on laziness comes in Proverbs 24:10, where King Solomon says that,“If you are slack in the day of distress,your strength is limited.”

He’s not commanding anything here, but he’s making an observation. He wants his sons to stop and think about this for a moment: If you slack off when it really matters, you’re really not good for much at all. Other translations say, “If you lose courage in the day of trouble” [Darby], “If you are weak in a crisis” [GNT], “If you give up when trouble comes” [NCV], and “If you fail under pressure,” [NLT] – if you slack off when your help is truly needed, then the strength you think you have means nothing. Today, we might refer to “choking under pressure.” If you cannot do what you need to do when it needs to be done, then you really aren’t that strong at all. We have a modern proverb that seems to apply here, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going!” That’s the positive side of what Solomon says here.

17.	We have two more, and the first of these is Proverbs 27:18, where King Solomon says that,“He who tends the fig tree will eat its fruit,and he who cares for his master will be honored.”

I’ve included this one here because of comparison between caring for a tree over a long period of time and someone who cares for his master (also over a long period of time). Tending a tree is really a relationship that stretches out over years, even decades. In a sense, we take care of each other! I prune, and water, and care for those trees, and in exchange, they provide me with fruit and with shade. So also, someone who serves his master faithfully will be honored and rewarded for that service. In 1 Corinthians 9, Paul was making the argument that a man who works hard teaching and preaching has a right to be paid for his labor, and right in the middle of it, Paul brings up several examples and says, “Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock?” His point was: It’s the same with preaching the gospel, and it’s the same with all other honorable work, “He who tends the fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who cares for his master will be honored.” It is in our best interest to not be lazy. Our relationship with an employer should be mutually beneficial. We shouldn’t be a parasite on the organization.

18.	This brings us to the last of the Proverbs on laziness, Proverbs 28:19, where King Solomon says that,“He who tills his land will have plenty of food,but he who follows empty pursuits will have poverty in plenty.”

Once again, King Solomon lays out the options: You can work hard and have plenty of food, or you can do a whole bunch of nothing and plenty of poverty. “Tilling the land” is whatever we do to make a living – teaching a class, diagnosing an illness, recovering data, raising children. On the other hand, an “empty pursuit” is something that occupies our time but really doesn’t benefit. If you don’t know what the “empty pursuits” are in your life right now, ask your spouse, “How do I waste my time?” I’m guessing they’ll be able to let you know. Most of us, though, already know. King Solomon just givers the reminder, and he presents us with a choice. One leads to food, and the other leads to poverty.

Conclusion:

Thank you so much for sticking with us through these proverbs on wealth this summer! I am looking forward to getting back to some more chunk-based preaching over the next two weeks! For now, let’s close our study by going to God in prayer:

Our Father in Heaven,

You are the God who created us, and we praise you for putting us on this earth where we can learn to work and to serve as we should. We ask for your help in identifying the sin of laziness in our own lives, we ask for forgiveness for those times when we have failed in the past, and we pray for the strength to do what you would have us to do.

Restore to us the joy of salvation. Help us to keep on keeping on, knowing that our reward will be spending an eternity with you, serving you forever, without the limitations of these earthly bodies.

We are your servants, and we come to you this morning in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

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