Avoid Laziness - Cultivate Diligence #3

The point: Recognize the areas in which your children begin to manifest the spirit of a sluggard, knowing their duty but perceiving difficulties, and do not allow them to back off.

Martin illustrates how children manifest sluggardliness by avoiding difficult academic subjects (like history) while excelling in easy ones (phonics, math), urging parents to make them tackle the hard subjects first.

And as a result of it, come harvest time, he is left without the legitimate fruit of labor performed against a tide of difficulty. Now this is why it is so crucial that you as parents recognize, and each child is different, the areas in which your children, begin to manifest this spirit. They know what their duty is, but they perceive the difficulties that stand in the way of performing that duty, or which will inevitably accompany that duty. And if you allow them to back off in the very early stages of their development, simply because of real difficulties, but not impossible difficulties, yo...

8:00 - 9:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek wisdom from God to identify areas where your child tends to be a sluggard and compassionately but firmly insist they perform their duties, even when difficult.

Martin recalls his mother's command to wash French doors, emphasizing that doing disliked tasks builds character, connecting it to the sluggard's avoidance of duty.

Because later on in life there will be issues where things are not dictated by the curriculum in the sense they'll be crippled in the performance of their God-given task as wife, mother, person in the workplace, churchman, whatever it may be and you have developed the psyche of a sluggard who knows what he ought to do but who perceives the difficulties of defending the path of duty and turns away and will not stick his moral face into the stiff biting bitter wind of winter and do what he's supposed to do because he's supposed to do it. That's my mother again thundering in my ear son you wash t...

12:58 - 14:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Seek wisdom from God to identify areas where your child tends to be a sluggard and compassionately but firmly insist they perform their duties, even when difficult.

Martin recounts making one of his children sit at a desk for three hours every summer morning to read and outline books, to overcome a sluggardly attitude toward intellectual activity.

that's reaping time and you'll have nothing son you'll have nothing my daughter my dear I can remember one summer with one of my children when I saw this attitude of a sluggard with regard to certain areas of intellectual activity I was beast enough to make that child sit at a desk in the summer time imagine that when school was out sit at that desk from nine o'clock until twelve o'clock three hours every morning reading certain books and outlining them in order to try to overcome the spirit of a sluggard in a given area now you think I like that coming home coming down out of my study every h...

15:52 - 17:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand how much sleep you need to operate at optimum efficiency and use means like an alarm clock to obtain that measure of sleep to fulfill God's will.

The analogy of filling a car's gas tank is used to explain sleep: it's for replenishing physical, emotional, and mental reserves, and once full, one should stop and get to work, not waste time.

I thought of what we would think if the next time we pulled up to fill up our car with gas there in the gas station in the do it yourself island where most of us will go if we can save a penny or two for a gallon it doesn't take much brains to read the thing punch a button here punch a button there and squeeze a handle and since we don't have a problem with feeling we want to be waited on and can have a servant for a moment we're glad to do it ourselves if we can save a couple of bucks or get in and out more quickly well imagine if you saw a guy standing there wide awake to what he was doing f...

18:49 - 20:16 Read in full sermon

The point: Immunize your children against the 'get-rich-quick' mentality, teaching them the value of diligent, wise investment over gambling and speculative schemes.

Martin uses the lottery craze as an example of the 'hasty' mentality condemned in Proverbs 21:5, contrasting it with wise, diligent investment over time.

their thoughts and contrivances by which they hope to raise themselves will ruin them all you need is a dollar and a dream that's what this is talking about that is the way to want the whole lottery craze feeds the very thing condemned us to in this text and all you need to do is ask anyone what the odds are that's why people who deal in money don't mess around with buying lottery tickets unless they are compulsive addictive gamblers brought into that addiction by their own volition I don't call it a sickness it is a moral perversity but people who in common grace know what the odds are know t...

26:02 - 27:28 Read in full sermon

The point: Immunize your children against the 'get-rich-quick' mentality, teaching them the value of diligent, wise investment over gambling and speculative schemes.

Martin recounts seeing church members get 'sucked into' and 'burnt' by pyramid businesses in Christian circles, illustrating the dangers of get-rich-quick schemes.

I remember and thankfully it's far enough behind us now I can say it without causing any trouble when there was the craze in Christian circles of certain pyramid businesses that were going to get you rich quick and I saw some of our own church members get sucked into it but because it was a matter of liberty and they didn't seek my counsel as an elder I felt I had no right to step in and tell them you can't do this that was their liberty but I wasn't surprised when they got burnt and some of them burnt badly I remember back in the early 70s with the first major Middle East oil crisis people we...

27:28 - 28:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Immunize your children against the 'get-rich-quick' mentality, teaching them the value of diligent, wise investment over gambling and speculative schemes.

Martin shares his own experience of buying gold pieces during the 1970s oil crisis, which initially soared in value but later declined, illustrating the folly of speculative 'investments' compared to wise, long-term gain.

I remember and thankfully it's far enough behind us now I can say it without causing any trouble when there was the craze in Christian circles of certain pyramid businesses that were going to get you rich quick and I saw some of our own church members get sucked into it but because it was a matter of liberty and they didn't seek my counsel as an elder I felt I had no right to step in and tell them you can't do this that was their liberty but I wasn't surprised when they got burnt and some of them burnt badly I remember back in the early 70s with the first major Middle East oil crisis people we...

27:28 - 28:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not just scold children for imagined fears; draw near, encourage, and admonish them lovingly to confront and overcome these 'lions' by doing the task together.

Martin shares a story about his grandson repeatedly climbing a chair and falling to reach a desired object, eventually succeeding, illustrating a temperament that loves a challenge, contrasting it with the timid sluggard.

I am choice meat for the lion I mean the texture of my skin the amount of hair on my arms the shape of my body I mean a lion looks at me and says mm-hmm filet mignon lion style others I mean look how ridiculous it is if the lion's out in the street why isn't everybody splitting? why isn't everybody eating up? but the lion's very real in the mind of the sluggard he's always fantasizing now see the difference the sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter there you have real difficulties faced by the sluggard and they intimidate him and he backs off from his duty here you have imagined diffi...

31:52 - 33:19 Read in full sermon

The point: Teach your children thoroughness in tasks, like cleaning a room, ensuring every detail is done as if God were inspecting it, to prevent the subtle accumulation of neglect.

Martin references the radio show character Fibber McGee's closet, which would spill out its contents when opened, to illustrate how children might hide mess in their closets, symbolizing superficial cleaning and the neglect of thoroughness.

were devastating in their end result well so it is with the sin of a sluggard it's end result is as devastating as an armed robbery that begins and is over in ten minutes and you've got to teach your children this when you've told them what it means to clean the room to clean the room means and among them is you totally dust everything in the room you start on the top and work down and you take the rag on which you've sprayed the end dust and you go over the top of the trim around the windows but mom who sees it God sees it sees it mommy doesn't see it daddy doesn't see it you don't see it God...

42:05 - 43:32 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not tolerate children lying around in bed when it's time to get up; use firm commands to get them out of bed and into their responsibilities.

The analogy of a door turning on its hinges, moving much but going nowhere, is used to vividly describe the sluggard's unproductive activity on his bed, turning from side to side without getting up to work.

non-productivity of the sluggard as the door turns upon its hinges so doth the sluggard upon his bed as I was meditating on this passage last night I almost took out my calculator and my yardstick or my sliding rule to measure the distance that the door into my study travels from door jam to open at 90 degrees where it stops at one of the bookcases and I wanted to figure out how many feet the edge of that door covers in the course of a month I think it would be amazing I think how many times I go up those stairs and down those stairs in the day and elders come up and down every Thursday and pe...

46:28 - 47:54 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not tolerate children lying around in bed when it's time to get up; use firm commands to get them out of bed and into their responsibilities.

Martin recounts an English elder, a former sergeant major, barking 'show a leg' to guests in his home to get them out of bed, illustrating a firm approach to getting children up and out of bed promptly.

enough and awake enough to have to turn but he goes nowhere there's the picture now again when people say the bible doesn't have humor and irony I don't know what bible they're reading as the door turns upon its hinges there's motion and activity but it goes nowhere so doth the sluggard upon his bed whatever his activity is it's connected with his bed not with his legitimate sphere of responsibility and this is why you must not tolerate in your children lying around in bed when it's time to get up feet on the floor now five more minutes you're encouraging this spirit when it's time to get out ...

47:54 - 49:19 Read in full sermon