Avoid Laziness - Cultivate Diligence #1

Introduction to the Series and the Rediscovery of Proverbs

0:01 How not to foul up the training of your children. This is cassette number 25 in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on August 4th, 1991. You see, I've already worked up a sweat in praising God, and my stomach muscles already feel a bit tired.

0:25 But what a privilege!

0:28 What a privilege to sweat and get tight tummy muscles in the praise of God when I could be roasting in hell. You start thinking right. Do you begin to feel what a rotten thing it is to stand there and mumble God's praise? I hope you feel it.

0:42 It's rotten. And I don't want to get distracted from what we're to study, but I'm having to fight not to. All right. The spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets, and those of you who have been with us in recent days know that we are in the adult class, considering together the subject of the training of our children.

1:03 And by way of introduction to our study, this morning, I want to say that in a day of crass selfishness and the sickening religion of self-worship, that one of the most encouraging indications of the grace of God at work in the hearts of men and women is to be seen in the growing commitment to the part, on the part of many men and women, to the flesh-withering, self-denying, long-term task of seeking to mold their children by the grace of God. By the principles and precepts of the word of God. And one of the most tangible evidences of this fact is that the book of Proverbs has undergone,

1:45 before my very eyes, in my generation, nothing short of a widespread resurrection. It has come up from the relative obscurity of the rubble of just occasionally being referred to for a little moral snippet to a place of great prominence, among our sister churches and here in our own assembly. And just as in the period of the Reformation, the Romish doctrines of salvation by sacraments, by rituals and human inventions, could not remain entrenched before the careful and powerful preaching of and belief in the truths contained in the book of Romans,

2:29 so careless, humanistic, simplistic and naive views of rearing children cannot long remain entrenched when the book of Proverbs is rediscovered, retaught, re-preached and implemented by the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God's people. Now today marks our 24th study in our series entitled How Not to Foul Up the Training of Our Children. And after addressing the crucial issue of the emotional and spiritual climate of our homes and the spiritual climate of our homes, and the spiritual climate of our homes, and the spiritual climate of our homes, and the spiritual climate of our homes, and directing our attention to the two great means by which God has ordained that we should mold our children, Ephesians 6, 4,

The Centrality of the Fear of God in Admonition

3:14 godly chastisement and godly admonition, we have for a number of weeks been focusing upon the whole question of what constitutes godly admonition. And we have taken the book of Proverbs, not as our exclusive, but as our primary source book, and we have taken it as our primary source book, and we have seen that in this matter of godly admonition, the second great means for the molding of our children, there is a fundamental issue that is to be central in all of the admonition of our children. And that fundamental issue is the fear of God. Proverbs 1, 7, the fear of the Lord is the chief part,

3:58 the main building block of all wisdom. That is, in the nurture of our children, by verbal instruction, reproof, correction, and all that the word admonition means, as we saw in our word study of that verb and of that noun, it is God's claims, God's authority, God's throne of judgment, God's eye, God's law, that is to interlace the entirety of the admonitory influence we bring upon our children. And then we began to consider some of the major categories

Review of Previous Admonition Categories

4:42 in which we find admonition in the book of Proverbs as Solomon instructs his own son. And we have thus far considered five such categories. Parents must consistently and repeatedly admonish their children to be attentive listeners to godly parental instruction. We examined 12 key texts.

5:04 We studied 15 texts in Proverbs. Secondly, parents must consistently and repeatedly admonish their children to be active and earnest in the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. We studied 15 texts together. Thirdly, parents must consistently and repeatedly admonish their children to learn to desire, welcome and heed, rebuke, correction, and counsel.

5:31 And we looked at 20 texts in the book of Proverbs, and then fourthly, parents must consistently and repeatedly admonish their children to recognize and avoid moral defilement and to avoid those people and influences which would lead them into it. And there we studied approximately 12 key texts. Now as we came to the fifth major category of admonition found in the book of Proverbs, we could really put it up here because internally, in terms of numerical weight, it is the most frequently repeated area of admonition. And it is this,

6:14 parents must consistently and repeatedly admonish their children concerning the righteous use of their tongues, or you might want to phrase it, the nature of godly speech. And in three class periods, we went through some 65 to 70 texts in the book of Proverbs, and that was by no means exhaustive. So that when you now read in the book of James, if a man can harness and tame his tongue, he can govern his whole body with the analogy of the rudder in relationship to the ship and the bridle in the mouth of the horse in relationship to 1,200 pounds of muscle and bone and sinew.

6:58 So I trust you will know that James is not indulging in spirit-inspired, rhetorical overkill when he says, if the tongue can be controlled, everything else will come into rightful place. Now, this morning, we take up category number six, and God willing, unless in my speed reading through Proverbs a few more times, I see something I haven't yet seen, we will complete our studies with the seventh or the eighth major category. And again, that's not the exhaustive category, but simply, the major categories emphasized in the book of Proverbs. Category number six, when I opened it up for discussion a few weeks ago, several of you focused upon this,

Introducing the Sixth Category: Avoiding Laziness and Cultivating Diligence

7:43 and you were right. Here is category number six. As we fulfill Ephesians 6-4, committed that we will not unnecessarily provoke our children to wrath, but nurture them, bring them to their God-given potential by the grace of God in a context of consistent, corporal punishment, and consistent admonition that is of the Lord, we must continually admonish our children to avoid laziness with its horrible fruits, and to cultivate diligence and industry with their blessed rewards.

8:24 We must continually admonish our children to avoid laziness and its horrible fruits, and to cultivate, diligence and industry with their blessed rewards. Now, let me say by way of introduction, what I think needs to be said, if we are to think clearly in our own minds, act biblically, and therefore instruct our children convincingly. And it's always in that order. In an area where you're not thinking clearly and acting biblically, you'll never, never convincingly instruct your children.

The Theological Grounding of Work: Pre-Fall vs. Post-Fall

9:03 You must think clearly and biblically, act biblically, and then your instruction will carry the weight, both of biblically grounded knowledge, and the amen of your own example. One of the most difficult things for us to understand and to believe is that before sin entered the human situation, arduous labor, and I worked at what word to choose, hard labor. You think of a concentration camp or a chain gang. I said, no hard labor's got to go.

9:39 What word can I use? Arduous labor. I mean, labor in which Adam and Eve would really be going at it, was as natural and delightful to unfallen man, as was breathing.

9:55 Now, how laborious was breathing to Adam and Eve when they came forth from the hand of God, their Creator. Did Adam and Eve ever sit on a rock somewhere and scratch? Their heads and say to one another. Why did God make us so that breathing is such a laborious thing?

10:14 There was no asthma, no emphysema. Breathing was both natural and delightful in Eden. So was work before the fall. It was as natural and delightful for Adam and Eve to work and to work hard before the fall as it was for them to breathe.

10:37 God, did not stick them down in the garden to be stargazers. It says that the Lord God, having made the man, put him in the garden to dress it and to keep it. That is, God had created into his world such a plethora of life that that life would have overrun itself, as it were, not with thorns and metals, but with the sheer profuseness of its own God, given, the power to reproduce itself. Had Adam not been there to cut back and to use his aesthetic sense to dress the garden and to keep it.

11:19 And whatever time was spent in that task before the fall, Adam never once had a negative thought about work. Eve never once had a negative thought about work. It was as natural and delightful as breathing. But with the fall, what happened?

11:37 And here I ask you to turn to Genesis three, for you'll never really feel the grip of the admonitions of Proverbs concerning laziness and its opposite diligence. Unless you understand this, you see, all questions are ultimately theological questions. And when God comes to the sinning man and woman and begins to deal with them, both in judgment and in mercy, this is what God says in verse 16 unto the woman. He said, I will greatly multiply by pain and by conception in pain, shalt thou bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

12:22 And unto Adam, he said, because you've hearkened to the voice of your wife, there was a role reversal and has eaten of the tree of which I commanded the saying, thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. Until then, there was no curse of God upon the ground and all of the faculties and powers and principles that God had worked into the relationship between the ground and what it bore. And the task of Adam undergoes a radical disruption.

12:55 Cursed is the ground for thy sake in toil or sorrow, shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth. To thee and thou shall eat the herb of the field and in the sweat of thy face, shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground for out of it. Thou was taken for dust, thou art and unto dust, thou shalt return. And while it would be irresponsible for me, given the amount of study, I've given to this passage to attempt anything like an extensive exposition of the whole spectrum of the implications.

13:38 To this passage, this much is clear. Whatever of work brings with it the sense of toil and sweat from an unyielding earth is post fall, not pre fall. Until the fall, Adam's labor, as with Eve's reproductive role, would have been undertaken with sheer delight and without any reluctance. It is.

14:08 Because of the fall, that work and labor now have the overtones of sorrow, the overtones of the element of toiling in the midst of an unyielding and a hostile earth. Now, when God says in the Ten Commandments, the first part of the fourth commandment, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. That commandment is articulated in a post fall context,

14:46 which means that the command to work for six days is to give ourselves to that concerning which there is, on the one hand, some inbuilt difficulty. And in the light of Romans 8, 7, the difficulties not only in the earth that brings forth briars and thorns, whose influence has to be overcome, but there's an internal difficulty, Romans 8, 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. So when God says, thou shall have no other gods before me, the enmity against God says,

15:31 I will make a God of anything and everything I can get my hands or my heart on. And when God says, six days shalt thou labor, how does the enmity of the human being, human heart naturally express itself? Six days shall I goof off.

15:46 So that laziness, the disposition to be a sluggard, the antipathy to work is not only a result of the fall as it touches the world, the earth and its material existence, but there's an antipathy inbred into the texture of fallen man's heart.

16:12 You see that? If the carnal mind is enmity against God and is not subject to the law of God, it is no more naturally subject to the first part of the fourth commandment than to the last part of the fourth commandment. And just as natively we say, who is God to tell me one day out of seven has to be marked out totally for him? I'm my own man.

16:34 I can do my own thing. Sunday's fun day. Fee with God, to use an old English word. Well, we're just as full of antipathy, but the first part of the fourth commandment, six days, shout down labor, labor, not play at work, not coast, not indulge our flesh, but labor.

17:01 Now, put those two things together. After the fall, there is an unyielding Earth. In spite of all of the bounty we see, we don't have a clue of what it would have been like had the earth not been cursed for man's sake and elements introduced that make it in many ways. It's an unyielding Earth.

17:20 And that reluctance can only be overcome by toiling unto sweat and to discomfort. Add to that man's innate indisposition to obey God and to be a lazy bum. Now, do you see why there needs to be constant admonition to ourselves and to our children, to diligence and industry and the curse of theological framework? Now, that's what you got to.

17:49 Teach your kids. That's what you got to open up to your children and tell them had sin not entered, they wouldn't have to be admonished to clean their room. They wouldn't have to be admonished to stick at the job until it's done and done right. But we don't live in pre-fall in Eden.

Admonition from Proverbs: The Ant and the Sluggard (Proverbs 6:6-11)

18:12 We live in post-fall Eden. And therefore, Solomon wisely, by the guidance of the Spirit, again and again and again and again, admonishes his son, admonishes his pupils to avoid, excuse me, laziness and its fruits and to cultivate diligence and industry. Now, as we turn to Proverbs itself to see this repeated emphasis, let me in passing, heartily recommend to you the four tapes by Pastor Huffstetler that are circulating to some degree among us already on Solomon's school. And,

18:52 and his expositions on the passages dealing with the sluggard. It is masterful stuff. And I seriously urge you to buy not steal, but do anything short of that to get hold of that series of tapes. And if we don't have them in our tape library, we'll make sure we get a set there so you can borrow them very properly and ethically and listen to them and sit down and take 20 minutes at a time for family worship, maybe for a couple of weeks and listen to them with your family.

19:22 And discuss them because in the blessing of God, he deals very faithfully with those pivotal texts that specifically mentioned the sluggard in the book of Proverbs. But now let's open up to Proverbs and do as we've done in recent days. We just make a broad sweep through Proverbs and God willing, the rest of today, which is about 24 minutes left, 25 minutes. And next Lord's Day, we'll complete this sixth, major area of emphasis in the admonition found in the book of Proverbs.

19:57 Proverbs chapter six is the first and probably the most well known, or maybe it runs a close second to another passage that we will study, or maybe it comes neck and neck and it's a photo finish, but very familiar words. The first treatment of the subject of admonition concerning this matter of industry and diligence and its opposite laziness and sluggardliness comes in the form of the imperative of Proverbs six. Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Now you see,

20:41 right at the outset, nobody can be truly wise who's not ready to be humbled. If someone was on his way to a given place and someone said, Hey Henry, where are you going? He said, I'm going to school. Well, where are you going?

20:54 I'm going to find the nearest anthill. They said, you're what? I'm going to find the nearest anthill. The anthill is going to be my instructor.

21:05 Well, if you told me you're going to the university to hear Dr. So-and-so professor of such and such with three or four earned degrees in philosophy and the rest, but you're going to an anthill. Yep, sure am. Why are you doing that?

21:18 Because God says that's where I can learn some lessons. You got to be humble to sit down and learn from Porter Lance. You're squishing with your foot. You put down one of the little lamp things and they go in there and you kill him by the dozens and you never twitch.

21:33 Never have any fun. God says, let them be your teacher. So the sluggards got to be humbled before he'll learn anything. That's the problem with some of you.

21:42 As we'll see later, the sluggard wiser to excuse his sluggardliness than seven men who can give a reason. You got to get humbled and some of you will never get delivered from your sluggardliness, nor will your children until they're humble. Don't go to the end. Thou sluggard consider her ways and be wise.

22:03 And then he focuses upon the wisdom that comes from the ants, which having no chief or the marginal reading, no judge, they have no moral consciousness and any sense of accountability for what they do or don't do. They have no overseer or ruler to bark commands to them. They operate purely on instincts created in their little ant, like brains and nervous system by Almighty God. Little squishy ants.

22:33 God created them with a programmed mechanism in their created being that causes them to do two things. Provides her bread in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest. In other words, the ant works diligently where she ought to work, when she ought to work, and nothing deters her. She provides her bread in the summer and gathers her food in the harvest.

23:05 Go to an ant hill and watch them work and learn from the ant. Then the question, verse 9. How long will thou sleep, O sluggard? When will thou arise out of thy sleep?

23:23 The ants do not provide and gather by fantasy, while they are rolled over on their little sides dreaming little ant dreams. Whatever ants dream. They gather and they provide as they labor. Go to the ant, you lazy bum.

23:45 Humble yourself and learn, you sluggard. How long will you sleep? When will you arise out of your sleep? When will you shake yourself to realize you have work to be done?

23:59 And the answer comes back, yet a little sleep. Just a little slumber. A little folding of the hands to sleep. In other words, I don't intend to hibernate all winter like a bear.

24:16 I don't have any intention to appear like a perpetual chronic lazy bum. I just want an extra hour today in the recliner. A little sleep. A little slumber.

24:31 A little folding of the hands to sleep. So what will the result be? Look at verse 11. Graphic imagery.

24:37 So shall thy poverty come as a robber, and thy want or thy need or thy lack as an armed man. He says that laziness that says just a little more sleep when you ought to be working, a little more slumber when you ought to be diligent and active in your legitimate calling, and the end result will be as devastating, as if someone came into your home and robbed you in a moment of time of all of your assets, or an armed man came in and at the point of the gun, here it's a shielded warrior, comes in and strips you of all your possessions. The only difference is the one is done in the moment,

25:22 the other is spread out over a period of time. But the result is exactly the same. You see what Solomon is saying? He's saying you must look upon this matter, of laziness and the picture of the sluggard, as that which is utterly destructive.

25:42 Though the destruction is by degrees and imperceptible at any given point, the end result is as real as though you had been violently robbed and pillaged by an armed man. Now that's what you got to teach your kids. And they say, but oh mommy, just 15 more minutes in the pool. You say, no.

26:05 Our schedule for the summer was in the pool from 10 to 11, after we'd done some work in the garden from 9 to 10, back in the house from 11 to 12 for this. But mommy, just a little...

26:18 No! Well, just a little more walking about in the pool. Just a little more. And you say, okay.

26:32 And you give in. You know what you're doing? You're creating a sluggard. And then some poor woman has to live, with that bum.

26:42 Oh, he doesn't miss weeks at work. He doesn't miss months at work. He doesn't go hibernate into an irresponsible cop-out. But it's the hour here and the half hour there, when he's on his lounge chair, when he ought to be working, that brings that household into devastation as real as if a thief had come in and stripped everything clean.

27:08 Now, folks, I didn't write it. That's what God says. Now, if you believe that, and you lay that to heart, and you operate that way, and you're going to be able to lay that on the consciences of your kids, and they ain't going to like it. But someday they'll rise up and call you blessed.

Admonition from Proverbs: Slack Hand and Timely Labor (Proverbs 10:4-5)

27:26 And thank God for your keeping on their case about the horrible dangers of being a sluggard and the great rewards of diligence. Alright, next key passage, Proverbs 10, 4 and 5. Proverbs 10, 4 and 5. He becometh poor that worketh with a slack hand, that the hand of the diligent, that the hand of the diligent, maketh rich.

27:56 He that gathereth in summer is a wise son. But he that sleeps in harvest is a son that causes shame. Now, look at verse 4. You see where the emphasis here falls?

28:08 Here, a man's working. He's working. He's not sitting on his easy chair. He's learned a little something from the ant.

28:18 You've got to gather. You've got to provide. So he's working. Nobody can say he hasn't punched his clock.

28:24 Nobody can say he's not out in the yard, he's not up on the roof looking for the hole in the shingles that's producing the leak. He's working. But what's his problem? He becomes poor that works with a slack hand.

28:40 He's got a loose wrist and floppy fingers. Doesn't have a stiff wrist. He works with a slack hand. Oh, he works!

28:51 But he doesn't do what Scripture says. Whatever thy hand finds to do, do with what? Tell me. With what?

29:01 All thy might, as unto the Lord, and not as unto men. Whatever thy hand finds to do. Whatever my hand finds to do in the will of God, in the way of work, is to be done not with half my might, three quarters of my might, nine-tenths of my might, but with all of my might, as unto the Lord, who commands me to love Him with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength.

29:42 Not the way I preached to you. I could stand up here and just talk. Be a nice Bible talker.

29:49 Go home Sunday night, feel nice and relaxed instead of feeling like I was rung to the ringer. But how could I read that verse? My hand in the will of God, my task in the will, it's the will of God. It's the figure of speech and autonomy.

30:03 The part standing for the whole. It's not only saying you work with your hand. Whatever your hand and brain and mind and faculties find to do in the will of God, do it with all of your might. Throw the whole weight of your redeemed humanity into it.

30:20 If it's the will of God and it's done as unto God, He deserves to have the best we can produce. And the one who works with a slack hand becomes poor. Why? Well, in the ordinary course of things, unless he gets an inheritance that he didn't work for, in which case, if he works with a slack hand, he'll blow it.

30:43 And he'll abuse it. And he will not be a good steward of it because he doesn't appreciate how it came to be in the first place. He becomes poor that works with a slack hand. What happens?

30:56 He doesn't get the full reward that comes from the knowledge that by the grace of God, I did my best with all of my might. His boss sees that he works, punches the clock on time, that he may as well punch it two hours later because others, in the same amount of time, get a third more work done. Why? Because they're working with all their might.

31:20 And he's bypassed in promotions and then he comes and gives a sad story of how he's picked on because he's a Christian. Now, in some cases, there are men, even in this church, who've been bypassed for promotions because they work with a slack hand. They're Christians. But I'm talking about those who use that as a rationalization.

31:39 Now, you're not bypassed because you're Christian. You're bypassed because you're working with a slack hand.

31:46 Joseph was promoted in Egypt by people who didn't want a thing to do with his religion. Daniel was brought to high places of influence in the Babylonian Empire, in the Medo-Persian Empire. They hated his God and his religion. But what did they like?

32:02 They liked that whatever those men did, they did with all their might as unto God. And they reaped the benefits of it, though they didn't like the roots of it. They're our model of what we are to be in the work world. They're the model that we're to set before our children.

32:19 He becomes poor that works with a slack hand. The emphasis here is not upon working and non-working, but upon the manner and the diligence. Notice the last part of the verse. But the hand of the diligent makes rich.

32:35 And as a general rule, there is greater productivity, there is greater recognition of the worth of a worker, and therefore liability for promotion and increase of ability to earn when a man is perceived to be a diligent man. Then verse 5. Here the emphasis is upon kindly working. He that gathers in summer is a wise son.

33:02 But he that sleeps, he that decides to take his vacation in harvest is a son that causes shame. Why do you need to gather in summer? Because that's when the crops come to their full ripe condition. Unless you gather them then, you're not going to gather.

33:18 They're going to rot in the field. Ah, but you see, the only time I could plan my vacation was...

33:25 He says, the man who is sleeping in harvest time is a son that causes shame. I spent enough time when I was in an itinerant ministry in rural Mid-America, what's called the heartland of America, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, places where some of the foodstuffs on our table day by day are raised. And I've been there in harvest time. And I've seen men from the very first rays of the sun that peek over the eastern horizon until the sun set.

34:01 And then often with the lights on their equipment in harvest time they worked. There was no eight-hour call. There was no four-hour clock punching. No ten, no twelve, sometimes not even fourteen-hour days.

34:15 Why? It was time to work! And they knew that timely work was crucial if they were to reap the benefits of all their previous labors. We need to teach our children that.

34:27 We need to impart that understanding to our children. We need to teach them that there is a time when in their school work they may have to miss some sleep. They may have to give up some playtime. They may have to give up some recreation time.

34:41 It's coming to exam time and so much depends on the cumulative influence of that report card on the image it projects to future opportunities for usefulness and for fulfillment in a God-given calling. And we must teach them there is a time to say no to those legitimate and innocent diversions which at other times would be perfectly appropriate. The emphasis in verse 5 is upon the necessity of timely labor. Verse 4, diligence in labor.

Admonition from Proverbs: Focused Commitment and Task Completion (Proverbs 12:11, 27)

35:17 Verse 5, timeliness in labor. Now, Proverbs chapter 12, verses 11 and 27. Verse 11. Proverbs 12 and verse 11.

35:32 He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread. But he that follows after vain, and you'll notice in the old 1901 the word persons is in italics. In the original there's no persons there or things. You have to make a judgment.

35:51 He that followeth after vanity or vain, it could be persons, things, is void of understanding. And I believe it's left indefinite for a very good reason. See the contrast? Here's a time to go out and till your land.

36:05 You're thinking down the road if I'm going to have bread through the winter, my wife's got to have grain from which to make it. If there's going to be grain, there's got to be a harvest. If there's going to be a harvest, the stuff has to be planted and if it's going to be planted, it's got to be plowed. So way back here in the spring, I'm determining whether or not there's going to be plenty of bread out here in the winter.

36:29 And what I do here will affect that there. But when a man knows he ought to be out and be plowing, he gets the thought of, oh, man, the conditions are beautiful. I mean, I bet the bass are jumping down at the lake. And you know, I can always catch those fish and put them in the freezer and they'll help with food.

36:52 He can rationalize. Oh, good, it's hunting time. It's hunting season. Certain things are, now you get them or you don't get them.

36:59 He follows after things that are what? Not evil necessarily or people that are evil necessarily, but he follows after vain things. He follows after that which is vain, profitless, useless in terms of the thing he ought to be doing at that time, and that is tilling his land. He ought to be behind his mule out there plowing.

37:24 And if he doesn't, obviously, see, there was no welfare system to pick up the fruit of a man being a lazy bum. He that tills his land shall have plenty of bread. But he that follows after vain persons is void of understanding. There the emphasis falls upon the focused commitment to labor and to work and to recognize that anything that will keep me from my timely work is vanity, whether it be persons or things innocent in themselves.

37:56 And we must teach our children that that's true. When they need to be studying that extra hour for that exam, when they need to be spending that extra half hour pulling weeds from the shrubs and their favorite monitored TV program on, that you and mom and dad have agreed is good for them to watch as a means of legitimate diversion or perhaps a National Geographic nature film that would be good for their instruction and their appreciation of God's world. That's what would normally be there. But at this time, that other task must be completed.

38:32 You must teach them that to be even watching something that will make them appreciate God's world at that point is a vain thing when they ought to be tilling land. And you and I need to teach them that as Solomon taught his son. Then verse 27. A slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting, but the precious substance of men is to the diligent.

39:03 Now I'm conscious, as are most of the commentators and translators, so there will be footnotes as there is in the NIV and as there is here in the 1901, that the precise nature of the Hebrew word translated roasteth is difficult to ascertain, but most translators settle on something akin to this, so let's assume that's the right translation. The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting. He gets up one morning early enough to go out on the hunt, and he gets on his camouflage clothes and he gets on his equipment and he's got his bow and his arrow, his .30-06 Mauser and he's going to go out there

39:47 and he's going to go catch him some. Why? He wants to put some meat on the table. I mean, he shows real diligence.

39:54 So he goes out on the hunt and he brings down his game and he guts it and hangs it up and bleeds it. Then he hauls it back home and the whole family is thrilled. Oh, man, what can I have meat tonight? And he says, I'm so tired from getting up early and walking through the woods and hauling that beast out.

40:14 I've got no time to roast it. And the flies begin to gather around it. After a day or two, it's nothing but a bloating, stinking carcass. And then the buzzards begin to eat it.

40:26 You say, what a tragedy. What's the emphasis here? The emphasis is upon the man who stops short of completing his task. What was the whole end for which he went out hunting?

40:37 To have some nice venison on the table to nourish his family. So bringing down the game and gutting it and bleeding it and bringing it home was not enough. That was a means to the end. And he stopped short of the end.

40:50 And God says he's a slothful man who does not roast that which he took in the hunting. But the precious substance of men, a full belly with good tasting venison, is to the diligent. The man who when he's dog tired and his legs are aching from tromping through the woods and bringing down his game and hauling it out of the woods pushes himself beyond. What he feels comfortable doing until he sits back and in his weariness he delights to see his family licking their chops and saying, Daddy, thank you for bringing home some nice meat for us.

41:32 So he says, though you and I may not be called on to go out and hunt, we are called to a legitimate task. And so often the problem is we fall short of the completion of the task. And Solomon recognized this and he's exhorting men his son, his pupil, that in his whole thinking about this matter of laziness and diligence and the horrible fruits of laziness and the blessed fruits of diligence and industry, it's the slothful man who roasts not that which he took in his hunting. Now before we move to any other verses, I want to say something in tribute to my own father

Personal Testimony and Parental Example of Diligence

42:17 and my own mother. I received a letter this week in which my dad summarized what he said at a family picnic a week ago. I was hoping to attend it. It was to be the first time all ten children would be together in ten years.

42:32 My unconverted brother from out in the West Coast flew out with his family and we were unable to go because of the family crisis that many of you are aware of. And a sister of mine was unable to be present. She was in having an ovarian tumor removed the night before. But my father wrote down these thoughts to share with his family.

42:53 Listen to what he said. By all worldly standards, ours should have been a failed marriage, speaking of his own marriage, two high school dropouts, a husband with only the prospects of a temporary job, and in a period of time known as the Great Depression, no pre-marriage counseling and not one seminar on how to have a successful marriage. Yes, there were mistakes. I don't claim to have been a perfect husband or father.

43:20 Far from that. I confess many failures. I can say this, however. In all the nearly sixty years your mother and I have been together as husband and wife, she and she only has had my love and affection in our relationship as husband and wife.

43:37 And I can testify that not once did I ever see my father's eye rest upon another woman. Sixty years of absolute fidelity. You children are the products of two inexperienced babes who wanted each of you and never felt that as each of you joined the family a burden had been placed upon us. Our home was our castle, not things, nor prestige.

44:03 Now listen to these next words. We tried desperately to model stability, a God-fearing example, and a dedication to this work principle, quote, a thing worth doing is worth our best effort and should be brought to conclusion. He said that was a conscious work effort we tried to impart to you children that a thing worth doing is worth our best effort and should be brought to conclusion. One enough to bring the deer home and plop it in the backyard.

44:44 You had to cut it up and roast it. I never went hunting. I'm using the imagery. It meant that a mother, most of the time big with child, had time enough to get on her knees next to me when she's teaching me how to scrub floors and say, son, the scrub brush won't get into the corner.

45:01 You've got to take the rag with your finger and go into the corner because you're going to get dirt in the corner. That's right. Dropping all she had to do with no easy care clothes, clothes that'd be sprinkled one night and wrapped and ironed the next night and clothes that had to go through two or three ringings in the old soap tubs in the basement. Some of you are old enough to know what I'm talking about.

45:25 But time enough to say it's not enough to roast the beast, not enough to fell the beast and quarter him. You've got to roast him. It's not enough to get the bucket and slosh up most of the dirt. You've got to get the dirt in the corner.

45:40 Son, clean the French doors between the dining room and living room. But, Ma, I hate cleaning windows. I know it, son. And that's why I'm giving you that task because doing things you don't want to do develops dirt.

45:56 And she examined the corners and if they weren't clean, as clean as the finger could get them, they had to be done over again. You say, what's the fruit of it? Well, it certainly isn't perfect fruit. But I tell you, it's that drummed into me that drove me after being in this building from 8.30 yesterday morning

46:19 till 5.30 till we left this building to go home, grab an hour's nap and push myself up in my study till after 11 o'clock last night that I might feed you precious sheep. My flesh didn't want to do it. Couldn't I wing it and freewheel it?

46:38 Preaching for 40 years, plenty to say, yes, I could have freewheeled it and winged it, but I would have had the frown of my God upon me and I regard you as worth something more than that. I regard you as worth my best. And I bless God for parents that reared me that way. Your children are going to rise up someday and say that of you?

Call to Personal and Parental Diligence

47:05 Not if some of you go on the way you're going because your very patterns of life exemplify too many traits of the sluggard. And you've got to start getting your own act together so you can start having some clout with the consciences of your kids to help them get their act together. How crucial, how vital in a day that says do as little as you can for as much money as you can get have people whose attitude is whatever my hand finds to do I'll do with all my might. And it may mean you get mocked out for it.

47:44 When I did dog work as a construction worker the other guys used to say hey Martin what are you trying to do? Show us up! No I said but I work unto not the boss and I named him but I said I work unto Jesus Christ. And they said he's a hopeless religious nut.

48:05 I don't care what they thought. Folks this is serious business. Solomon thought it important enough to repeat it again and again. God willing we'll take up the remaining text there are about 20 altogether on this subject.

Prayer of Confession and Supplication for Diligence

48:20 May God give us grace to lay it to heart. Let us pray. Father we do confess with shame our many sins of laziness. Laziness in prayer.

48:36 Laziness in worship. Laziness in the mundane duties of the home. Laziness at the shop, in the office. Laziness in the care of domestic affairs.

48:49 We pray that we will begin to look upon the life and the patterns of the sluggard the way you look upon them. Make them ugly in our eyes. Give us grace to resist them. Strength to overcome them.

49:05 Until whatever our calling in life may be we may be marked as diligent men and women. Seal your word to our hearts and help us to rear a generation of those who learn well the lesson of the ant. We ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Closing Information

49:28 You have been listening to How Not to Foul Up the Training of Your Children by Pastor Albert N. Martin. These cassettes are distributed by the Trinity Book Service. If you would like a free listing of other audio cassettes and books please call us at 1-800-722-3584 or if you prefer you can write us at the Trinity Book Service Post Office Box 569 Montville, New Jersey 07045