Avoid Laziness - Cultivate Diligence #3

Introduction to the Series and the Sixth Admonition

0:02 How not to foul up the training of your children. This is cassette number 27 in a series given by Pastor Albert N. Martin in the adult Sunday school class of the Trinity Baptist Church on August 25th, 1991.

0:18 Now for the benefit particularly of those visiting among us, let me tell you what we are doing here in our adult class and have been doing now for this the 26th time. And that is we are considering together biblical principles relative to the ordering of our families under the rather strange title How Not to Foul Up the Training of Our Children. And the major focus of our study has been upon opening up the implications and significance of Ephesians 6.4, particularly the latter part of the text in which we read, And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. And from that text we learn that the total nurture of our children is a parental responsibility and that the two major means put in our hands by which to accomplish that responsibility are chastening on the one hand, or the godly application of the rod of correction, and admonition, that is, verbal instruction, reproof, encouragement, and other forms of verbal instruction

1:45 by which we seek to build up, to nurture, to develop our children into mature adults under the blessing of God. Now we are presently concerned with the idea of the Lord's blessing. Now we are presently concerned with the idea of the Lord's blessing. The second of those two major means, namely the matter of admonition, and believing that one of the primary means, if not the primary purpose, I should say, of the book of Proverbs being found within our Bibles is that it might be to parents their major sourcebook of what constitutes admonition, which is of the Lord.

2:28 We have been spending a number of weeks, in the book of Proverbs seeking to extract from that book the major emphases of the admonitory ministry of Solomon to his son. And we have seen that the foundation block of all admonition is what is described in chapter 1 and verse 7 as the fear of the Lord. That is, the chief part of all true wisdom and therefore of the admonition that makes children wise is the fear of the Lord, the rights of God, the existence of God, the eye of God, the judgment of God, the presence of God, the grace of God, the favor of God. In other words, we are not dealing with abstract moralisms in the book of Proverbs. Love. Lovely little catch words about how to be good and how to be successful and sweet and kind.

3:32 But rather, we have specific directions as to what it means to fear the Lord in the full spectrum of the concrete realities of life. And Solomon, as a wise father, again and again, is admonishing his son in these crucial areas. And so we have covered, five major areas in which we find Solomon admonishing again and again and again and again built upon the foundation block of the fear of God. One, two, three, four, five.

4:13 And we are presently on number six. Parents must continually admonish their children to avoid laziness and its devastating fruits and to avoid the fear of God. And to cultivate diligence and industry with their blessed results. And then we started right through the prominent text in Proverbs 6, Proverbs 10, Proverbs 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, all the way through to chapter 19.

The Sluggard's Avoidance of Duty Due to Real Difficulties (Proverbs 20:4)

4:47 And God willing, I want to complete our study and hopefully have time for some practical application and perhaps even questions and interactions as well. As we pick up this theme, focusing now just upon some of the major texts, let us turn to Proverbs chapter 20. And I'll be doing something this morning that I've not done up till now. I have quoted from Bridges from time to time encouraging every family to obtain a copy of Bridges' commentary on Proverbs and to use it in your own family devotions.

5:26 And this morning, I'm going to be quoting several times from Matthew Henry and his comments on Proverbs, which are excellent in most of the book where we come to the individual Proverbs. He has a commentary on every single text. And as is so often true of Matthew Henry, the commentary not only helps us understand the meaning of the words and gives practical application, but also, where proper, he finds some lovely gospel applications as well. So we turn now to Proverbs chapter 20 and verse 4 as we continue to focus upon the sixth area where we as parents must consistently and continually admonish our children, namely, against the evils of laziness and towards the consequences and the cultivation of the virtue of diligence and industry. Chapter 20 and verse 4. The sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter. Therefore, he shall beg in harvest and have nothing.

6:46 The sluggard is conscious that there is a duty before him. And that duty is to plow. But though his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience, his conscience is very much aware of his duty to plow. He is also aware of the difficulties in the way of performing his duty.

7:07 There are the difficulties connected with winter. Perhaps the ground is hard and the wind is biting and cold. And as he, on the one hand, feels the pressure of his duty upon his conscience, he sees the difficulties in the way of performing his duty. And he allows the perceived difficulties, which in this case, unlike the lion in the street, they are very real difficulties.

7:39 The difficulties of winter are real. The soil is harder, the wind bites, and the cold is uncomfortable. Those are real difficulties. And the sluggard, knowing the difficulties, backs away from his God-given duty, and responsibility in the face of difficulty.

8:00 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, you are cultivated in them the spirit of a sluggard. Now, it may be that your kid, very early, manifests the disposition in which he or she just inhales phonics. No problem learning phonics, therefore, no problem reading. Easy.

9:18 It may be very evident very early that your child has a native interest in math, and has a mind that just seems to be put together like a computer. And very early, learns the multiplication tables, and just passes the time by sitting down, putting out big columns of numbers, and multiplying them, and all the rest. No difficulty. But oh, when it comes to nailing down the facts of history, and where the Magna Carta fits in terms of the Declaration of Independence, their mind is just naturally like scrambled eggs.

9:57 And so very early, it becomes evident that whenever they're going to face the matter of history, it's winter in the discipline of their educational process. It's real winter. History does not come easy. The way God put them together in your womb, moms, something was scrambled up in their wombs that phonics came easy, and math came easy, but pegging history and having a native interest, it is nothing but winter, winter, winter, winter, winter.

10:33 Now you can do one of two things. You can say, oh well, two out of three, that's not bad. You bat 666 in the majors, and you go down and you go into the Hall of Fame. That's not bad.

10:45 Two out of three. So I'm not going to press the issue. I mean history's mystery. What's history anyway?

10:52 My friends, history is His story. History is God's footprint. God's footprints over time. And your children must be interested in God's footprints in God's world over the millennia in which this world has existed.

11:12 It is not optional that your child should master some of the major facts of history and have them in their proper place, both biblical history and secular history. So what are you going to do? When the kid will just naturally take first of all to his phonics and to his reading and then to his math and then when he's all tired out say, well I just can't do this. What are you going to do?

11:41 If you do not take the steps to make sure that the first subject he does is his history. And he can't go on to his phonics or his reading and can't go on to his or her math until the history lesson is mastered against all of the wintry blast of your child's native indisposition and native disinterest in history. Its own natural kink in the brain in terms of putting the right things in the right slot and allowing them there. I've met people who are veritable walking encyclopedias of the most innocuous facts of history.

12:26 But they seem to have a lot of a brain that is like a magnet. It will grab on to any name, place and date and it goes right there and it stays in its proper place and nothing ever jumbles it. Some of the rest of us we feel like our heads are like scrambled eggs. Now if you allow your child to run away from the wintry blast of doing his history first and mastering his history lesson you are helping to create a sluggard.

12:58 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 the French doors because doing things you don't like to do develops character. You see it parents? Now I can't give you a list of the hundred areas you need to say Lord give me wisdom to see in my child the areas where there is this tendency to be the sluggard where my child knows his duty his duty mandated

14:24 by the school curriculum his duty mandated by some explicit directive in the word of God his duty mandated by house rules whatever they are and he's just not naturally disposed sees the difficulties Lord give me the grace to be the heavy every time we come to that issue and to say compassionately dear child now honey, sweetheart, son whatever your pet names are for your kids and I hope you have them it's one of the clear indications usually of good parental relations as well as husband wife relations often in pre-marital counseling I ask people I try to do a little role playing and I say what are some of the pet names you have for your husband I don't have any that tells me worlds usually wouldn't make an absolute rule over it but usually same way with your kids if you got no pet names it usually not always but usually indicates a kind of unhealthy emotional reserve but you take the child aside and say now I know this is not easy for you God didn't give you a brain that works naturally in this area but this is what the scripture says the sluggard will not plow by reason of winter therefore harvest time is coming the day is coming when you're going to be interviewed for a job you're going to take tests to get into such and such a school in order to have competent skills to be an adequate wage earner what are you going to do then

15:52 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 hour on the hour to check the progress and the rest you think I delighted in doing that when I heard the other kids out playing no no but here's the text the sluggard will not plow by reason of winter therefore he shall beg in the harvest and have alright Proverbs 20 and verse 13 love not sleep lest thou come to poverty open thine eyes and thou shall be satisfied with bread now when it says love not sleep does that mean that when it's bedtime I should say well it's bedtime

The Danger of Inordinate Love of Sleep (Proverbs 20:13)

17:21 Bible says I should love sleep therefore I Lord help me to hate sleep help me no no no we take the whole teaching of scripture the scripture tells us it is vain for you to rise up early to go to bed late it's the picture of a man taking all the burden of providing upon himself in the wrong way he said he gives to his beloved in sleep you'll get far more done in eight or ten hours with a refreshed mind and body than in fourteen hours with a harried worn out mind and body and God himself when he had a worn out prophet he didn't scold him he put him to sleep and then he fed him and put him back to sleep again Elijah what it means is do not have an inordinate love of sleep for sleep's sake in other words loving sleep so much that you're sleeping when you ought to be performing other duties because notice the rest of the verse lest thou come to poverty open thine eyes and thou should be satisfied with bread in other words get off your bed and get your shoes on and get out to work in your field and then there will be grain enough for your wife to grind into meal in order to make your bread and as I was trying to think of an illustration

18:49 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 filling up his tank and it's all filled up and it burps and splats out and then he holds the thing out just far enough that it won't kick off the mechanism and he just keeps squeezing the handle and it comes gushing out gallon after gallon I mean the tank's all filled up 14.3 gallons it cost him 17 cents 77 and lo and behold he just stands there and he's just squeezing away and the gas is pouring off the purpose for filling up the tank is to get it filled up and when it's filled up to stop why? so that the car might fulfill the purpose for which it came off the assembly line and for which he's plunking out money once a month for three years till he gets it paid for well that's how we need to regard sleep as the replenishing of our tank

20:16 of physical, emotional and mental reserves but once the tank is full and each person must determine for himself what he needs to have a full tank under ordinary circumstances that measure of sleep needed to perform the function for which God made me which is to labor six days to do whatever I do with all my might as unto the Lord and if I have an ascetic view of sleep and I'm deliberately not getting enough sleep not because the kids were sick or there were emergencies but I feel it's spiritual to cheat on sleep I can't fulfill the mandate do whatever your hand finds to do with all your might I don't have enough mental might I don't have enough physical might why? my tank's empty I'm running on fumes so I am to understand how much sleep I need to operate at optimum efficiency and set my alarm clock or use whatever means is necessary to obtain that measure of sleep in order that I might fulfill the will and purpose of God and be satisfied with bread that is whatever is the legitimate reward of my calling in life now that's what we must do in the training of our children

21:44 to have a biblical doctrine of sleep now you see your children ought not to go out into life without having been given by mom and dad a biblical doctrine of sleep I mean it's an activity we all engage in every single day of our lives we spend approximately a third of our lives sleeping what a terrible thing to send a child out into life without a doctrine that covers one third of his life isn't that a tragedy? how many of you received a doctrine of sleep from your parents? raise your hands one, two, three, four, five now do you see why so many of you have difficulty with fulfilling God-given responsibilities? you were brought up with no biblical doctrine of sleep now thankfully when you got converted and began to read your Bible you began to absorb a biblical doctrine so you weren't left totally without anything but God's ordinary and most efficient way is to lay up this truth in the soul in the nurturing period of infancy on up into adulthood fathers nurture them in the admonition which is of the Lord admonition which gives a biblical doctrine of sleep

Diligence vs. Haste and Get-Rich-Quick Schemes (Proverbs 21:5)

23:11 alright, Proverbs 21.5 the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness but everyone that is hasty hasteth only to want the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness in other words the person who is cultivating a proper disposition of diligence even his thoughts will contribute to honest substantial productivity but in contrast the person that's hasty that wants a get-rich-quick scheme he is constantly cogitating and thinking how he's going to make it quick how he's going to get it easily and it tends only to want or to need at this point I want to quote Matthew Henry on page 910 of volume 3 in the six-volume set that I have he speaks to this issue so perceptively

24:34 here is one the way to be rich if we would live plentifully and comfortably in the world we must be diligent in our business and not shrink from the toil and trouble of it but prosecute it closely in proving all advantages and opportunities for it and doing what is necessary what we do with all our might yet we must not be hasty in it nor hurry ourselves and others with it but keep doing fair and softly which we say goes far in a day it must have been a saying common in that day go fair and softly with diligence there must be contrivance the thoughts of the diligent are as necessary as the hand of the diligent forecast is as good as work seest thou a man thus prudent and diligent now when you're reading this to your kids don't read it this way how you read it is say do you see a man prudent and diligent he will have enough to live on the way to be poor those that are hasty that's the second thing the text teaches us that are rash and inconsiderate in their affairs and will not take time to think they are greedy of gain by right or wrong and make haste to be rich by unjust practices or unwise projects and are in the ready road to poverty

26:02 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 that if they take a dollar a day and wisely invest it not gamble it on speculative stocks but wisely invest it in a proper means of getting gain at the end of 25 years they'll be far better off than the person who's plunked out thousands of dollars and has nothing but his dreams and his empty pockets and you better preserve better immunize your kids going out into a world with get rich quick

27:28 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 were saying this is all part of the whole complex problem because we'd gone off the gold standard now I'm not defending going off the gold standard but if you're going to have any kind of financial stability get yourself as much gold and silver as you can and bury it in concrete well I know a certain gentleman that bought a few gold pieces and inside of a few months they went from the price that he paid for them $250 for a 50 peso Mexican gold piece it's 1.1 ounces of gold paid $250 and they were worth $890 and now, what is it, 74

28:57 17 years later you know how much it's worth? about $400 and had that been invested some other way now he's just stubborn enough to hold on to the 8 gold pieces just as a matter of convenience I'm telling on myself you know that by now now I didn't fall into the craze that I sought counsel but I've often wondered suppose, just suppose that had been invested some other way how might that be working for the kingdom of God so I'm telling on myself I don't believe I was violated I sought counsel looking now I believe I sought counsel from the wrong people which is another whole issue but now I'm going to open up this whole matter and then we're going to have a free for all here so I better shush up but the text says the text says the thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness in other words the person who has created by the grace of God through wise parental counsel and the operation of the spirit making that counsel effective a biblical view of the path of righteous attainment of wealth his thoughts are even governed by sound principles and he does think

The Sluggard as a Fantasizer (Proverbs 22:13)

30:23 about the ways of responsible planning and foresight he's not anxious about tomorrow and there's a world of difference between sinful anxiety and righteous thoughts which the diligent think which tend only to plenteousness alright hastening on now Proverbs 22 and verse 13 Proverbs 22 and verse 13 the sluggard says there's a lion without I shall be slain in the streets and as we indicated I believe in the previous study this is what Pastor Huffstetler calls in his four powerful messages on the doctrine of the sluggard in Proverbs the fantasizer the sluggard sluggard is a fantasizer he has a mind that is very prolific not in designing ways to be productive but in finding out all kinds of specious excuses for not getting out of bed and getting off his duff and doing his duty the sluggard says there's a lion without I shall be slain in the streets everybody else they are going about their business for some reason the lion just doesn't like the meat on their bones but I'm sure that I am in that lion's nose and in all his juices

31:52 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 difficulties and you parents will find very early in the development of your children and why it's that way with one and not another I don't know but you know it's true some have the spirit anything to be done that they've not done before there's a sense in which they rise to it they love a challenge and they tackle it it may be way over their head they may get their nose bent they may come back totally frustrated but they're ready to go back at it again and they show that temperament very very early now someone was telling me about my grandson recently that there was something he wanted and it was a legitimate object

33:19 it wasn't a no-no for which he'd get his hands spanked and he climbed up on the chair and reached over and tried to get it and fell off the chair on the rug and went got up the chair again reached out a second time fell again and up the third time fell again went up and the fourth time he got it now if God will ever get that thing channeled he'll be worth something but there's some of us the way God put us together in our mother's womb halfway up the chair we saw we might fall and we never even climbed up the chair we are naturally timid we are naturally fearful and you can't explain that but if you see that tendency here's where the devil will seek to settle into the psyche of the soul of your son or daughter and make him a sluggard who will then fantasize that the whole world is full of lions the school is full of lions there's a lion's teachers expect too much of me they get too much homework they make too many demands Sunday school teacher makes us memorize verses in the church and they're just full their world is full of lions everyone else gets by fine no teeth mark no fang mark

34:45 no shredded skin and bone and blood but they're convinced the lion is there and you as a parent you can't just holler at your kid and say that's stupid you've got to draw near and encourage and seek to admonish and lovingly exhort until they realize no no there is no lion mommy or daddy go with you right out in the street and let's show you there is no lion out here and lo and behold you go out to the task together and you as it were gently nudge it into the lap of your child and you see that he accomplished it you go out and you come back home and say where was the lion well he wasn't there today but he's going to be there tomorrow well that's not me too sure and you labor at overcoming this disposition or they will end up like this adult fantasizing sluggard who stays in his home lies upon his bed saying I can't go to my work I'll be slain in the streets being lazy is bad but being dead is worse and he rationalizes as well as fantasizes read Matthew Henry on that passage excellent page 918 but we must hasten on Proverbs 24 this is one of the classic passages on the sluggard when people think of the sluggard this is one of the passages to which they most often turn at least in their minds

The Subtle, Cumulative Devastation of Laziness (Proverbs 24:30-34)

36:13 if not actually in their Bibles verse 30 I went by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding and lo it was all grown over with thorns the face thereof was covered with nettles and the stone wall thereof was broken down then I beheld and considered well I saw and received instruction yet a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep so shall thy poverty come as a robber and thy want as an armed man now Solomon says that he was out taking a walk one day and he came by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard and notice the parallel term for the sluggard a man void of understanding a sluggard is a man void of understanding he's not in touch with the real world void of understanding is the sluggard the sluggard is the man void of understanding so he tells us about his walk and where he went and he went by the field of the sluggard the vineyard of the man void of understanding now he describes what he saw verse thirty one

37:41 and lo it was all grown over with thorns anything that might have been a productive crop had long since been choked out by a system of thorns and of other wild vetches as it's called in the margin of the nineteen oh one we would say all kinds of wild unproductive choking underbrush the face thereof was covered with metals and the stone wall that which should protect it from outside intruders and predators was broken down so he says I went for a walk and I went by the field of the sluggard now he tells us what he saw a field totally overgrown with thorns and thistles and underbrush that would choke any productive commodity coming out of that field and furthermore the wall was broken down well he didn't simply observe that and say too bad but as a wise father seeking to learn lessons about life that he might pass them on to his son he says then I beheld and considered well I saw and received instruction I let what I see register the cognitive faculty in the cognitive

39:08 faculties and I drew a certain conclusion and here's the conclusion he came to a little sleep a little slumber a little folding of the hands to sleep so shall thy poverty come as a robber and thy want as an armed man the same terminology used in verse thirty four is found in chapter six in verse eleven concerning laziness and what he learned was this here is a field rendered totally unproductive a field from which no food will be gleaned from which no produce can be gathered and sold and by fair exchange turned into such commodities as a winter jacket shoes a car a home and he says what I learned was this as the slugger just overslept on Monday and the part of the field that was marked out to be weeded on Monday got left undone and then he overslept a little on Tuesday over the course of months it didn't happen at once a little slumber a little sleep that allowed a few weeds here and a few nettles there and a loose stone here and a loose stone there the end result over time was just as devastating as if in one night a robber came to the door held the man up stripped

40:37 him of all of his goods all of his savings and all of his possessions just as devastating so shall thy poverty come as a robber and thy want as an armed man you see that's the subtlety of the sin of sluggardliness its effects are imperceptible in pieces but devastating in their destructive effect and that's what you must teach your children now there's one area where they learn that in the various disciplines very early and that's with regard to math everything's built on everything else especially when you get up into geometry and trigonometry you can't bluff it I mean you miss some of those fundamental axioms on the front end and you're lost no way you can bluff it everything's built upon the other in the same way with phonics I have a brother who came to that experimental stage when no longer were they going to teach ah ah ah the various ways the vowel a can be pronounced and all the rest it was sight reading look and see and all the rest and he was hindered in every other discipline not because he lacked grey matter but because the building blocks gradually accumulated by mastering phonics

42:05 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 sees it you want it such that when you're done God can do a white glove inspection and he says well done good and faithful servant and so you come in to check the room you've told them what it means it means that in the corner and in the closet they must dust the floor not just shut the closet door and push everything in and shoulder it and it clicks shut and hope nobody opens it some of us are old enough to remember Fibber McGee's closets when that thing would open on the radio and all the clunk clunk clunk would

43:32 come out and so you come in and you give it a once over and say good job very good and you don't check above the trim above the window what are you teaching your child you can leave a few weeds today and get away with it you don't check in the closet you can leave a stone loose today and what happens later on they're given responsibilities at work and the boss lays out very clearly the fifteen items essential to that task twelve of them are absolutely crucial three are only peripheral your child does the twelve leaves the three after six months the boss sees a pattern it's time for evaluation to maintain the job or be promoted and the boss says he or she is not thorough terminate as soon as possible and their want comes as an armed man where did it start when cleaning the room was something less than cleaning the room and you as a parent were too lazy yourself to take the time to tell them what it meant to clean the room and to make sure the room was clean and that's what the text says a little sleep a little slump the time

The Sluggard's Non-Productivity and Self-Conceit (Proverbs 26:13-16)

45:00 it would take to do those extra things I'll just lie in the bed I'll just read a book or I'll look at the newspaper or I'll watch an approved program on TV whatever it is a little folding of the hands a little sleep and thy poverty shall come as a robber and thy want as an armed man and some of you are facing as mature adults some of the tragic results of not having this woven into the fabric of your life in your formative years well let's hasten on to Proverbs 26 Proverbs 26 beginning with verse 13 here's our friend again the sluggard who says there's a lion in the way a lion is in the streets you see the situation gets worse now he's not only out in the street he's even in the way little alley that leads into the street his territory is getting larger now used to be he just confined himself to main street now he's going in the back alleys see the disposition of the sluggard grows on a man's mind once indulged the sluggard says there's a lion in the way a lion in the street so he turns away from these imagined dangers but now verse 14 shows the total

46:28 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 people come for counseling over the course of the years the edge of that door has traveled miles but it ain't gone nowhere you see there's the picture there's the sluggard his bed is like the door jam in the hinges and his left and right side are the plates and he just one side the other side turns oh my I've got so much to do how about a little more sleep and I'll do it better back to sleep he goes and he wakes up and says oh my you see he gets disturbed

47:54 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 and you say okay kids there's an old there's an elder in the church in England and he had been a sergeant major in the second world war and he conducted his home like he were still in the military when it came to entertaining guests the home was always full of guests on a given weekend they might have ten fifteen college students there and I'll never forget the first time I heard the terminology at about six thirty or quarter to seven one Sunday morning he went barking up and down the hallway and the various bedrooms were off the side of the sides of the hallway and my wife and I were in one of them all right now show a leg show a leg

49:19 first time I'd ever heard the terminology but the more I thought about it the more I liked that in other words get your feet out from under the sheets and on the floor all right now show a leg show a leg now whatever term you use when you bark the orders to your kids time to get up don't tolerate turning on the hinges otherwise you're encouraging the disposition of the sluggard but now the next text right in line the sluggard buries his hand in the dish it wearies him to bring it again to his mouth we saw that imagery before we won't go over it again it's simply a picture again of desire devoid of necessary effort but now look at verse 16 this is crucial add something we haven't heard before in proverbs the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason or answer discreetly you see one of the problems with the sluggard is he is demented in his self conceit everyone else can see his sluggardliness but he

50:47 has so calmed his own head that he can render all kinds of reasons he's a rationalizer as well as a fantasizer and he's wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason you take seven mature level headed men and ask them for a reason for what they are doing or for giving an answer to something and they answer discreetly but in his own head he believes he's wiser seven wise well proven commodities could stand before him and lay out the case that he's a sluggard and he has all the marks of a sluggard and he can argue the whole thing away he's full of self conceit and oh when you see in your children that tendency to begin to argue with you when you see what is patently a mark of a sluggard don't let them argue with you don't let them develop the skill of debating with you about the issue lovingly but firmly say honey you were lazy you were a sluggard you've lost a good grade on that thing because you didn't get to it don't blame the teacher don't blame the fact that you had the flu blame yourself don't let your children

The Virtuous Woman: A Model of Diligence (Proverbs 31)

52:15 develop this horrible wicked art of justification of their of themselves and self conceit that is the mark of the sluggard and then I must close very quickly by turning you to the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 and I think it's a very fitting conclusion whatever this virtuous woman is she is a woman of industry and there isn't a lazy bone in her body I went through last night and circled in red starting in verse 12 all the verbs that point to what she does verse 12 she doeth him good verse 13 she seeks wool works willingly with her hand she brings her bread from afar she rises she gives food she considers the field with the fruit of her hand she plants the vineyard she girds her loins with strength verse 19 her hands her hands verse 20 her hand her hands to the needy verse 22 she makes verse 24 she makes she sells verse 26 the only one that says anything about her mouth isn't it interesting

53:44 she opens her mouth with wisdom and the law of kindness is in her tongue then we're right back to what she does with the rest of her members she looks well to the ways of her household eats not the bread of idleness in other words she's not going to have her husband labor at the expense of his sweat and then she eats the bread that he's earned by his sweat while she's not expended any sweat and then verse 31 says this is what you do when you give her a tribute give her of the fruit of her hand and let her works praise her in the gates so whatever else a virtuous woman is if you men and women are determined to rear them under God they're going to be diligent and they're going to be diligent primarily with their hands and not their mouth and they're going to be beautiful not with what they can stick on from Max Factor or Helena Rubinstein or anybody else because he says grace is deceitful and beauty is vain but a woman that fears the Lord should be praised and it isn't interesting that the primary manifestation of the fear of God in this noble woman is in her hands that is the part of her body that's mentioned more than anything else the organ of labor and that's true throughout the scripture whatever thy hand finds to do do with all of thy might

55:13 as unto the Lord and not as unto men and the greatest warning to young mothers and widows and women in the New Testament epistles has to do with the misuse not of their hands but of what with all they go about idle talkers busybodies dear women if you must put yourself under a rigid discipline regarding your telephone that wonderful instrument can be your curse because you don't need to take the time to leave your home to indulge the sins of the tongue at the expense of the labor of your hands all you need to do is push it through numbers or pick up the thing out of the cradle some of you may need to exercise a discipline over that that to others may look like it's thematical but whatever you need to do do it until Proverbs 31 not in its particular cultural applications is true of you but in its overall flavor of this diligent woman whose fear of God is manifested in her incessant diligence in the fulfillment of her household tasks as unto the Lord may God help us to bear such a bevy of beautiful maidens for the rising generation well our time

Conclusion and Call to Application

56:40 is gone God willing we'll take up next week the last of the major emphases in the book of Proverbs as far as admonition is concerned and then hopefully bring this whole study to a conclusion with some practical exhortations within the next couple of weeks so as we enter the fall this study will be behind us but let us pray that God will help us to exemplify these things in our own lives by the grace and strength of Christ and where failure has been pointed out don't sit and stew in your own sense of failure run to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness seek forgiveness then determine as the apostle I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me let's pray Father we're so thankful for your holy word we thank you that it addresses us where we live and where we are and we pray that the things we've contemplated this morning will be written upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit and help us in our influence with our children and grandchildren and the children that come within the orbit of our influence that by example and by precept we may admonish them against the horrible devastating influence of

58:09 laziness and the posture of the sluggard and may encourage them to diligence and industry with all of its noble fruits Lord write these things upon our hearts and to your name be praise and honor and glory in Jesus name Amen 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