Proverbs 10:4

The Problem of the Slack Hand

0:01 Proverbs 10, 4 and 5, He becometh poor that worketh with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathers 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? Here a man's working. He's working.

0:33 He's not sitting on his easy chair. He's learned a little something from the ant. You've got to gather. You've got to provide. So he's working.

0:41 Nobody can say he hasn't punched his clock. 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.

0:59 He's got a loose wrist and floppy fingers. He doesn't have a stiff wrist. He works. He works with a slack hand.

The Biblical Mandate for Diligence: Working with All Your Might

1:09 Oh, he works! But he doesn't do what scripture says. Whatever thy hand finds to do, do with what? Tell me.

1:19 With what? 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...

1:38 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. Not the way I preached to you. I could stand up here and just talk, be a nice Bible talker, go home Sunday night, feel nice and relaxed, instead of feeling like I was wrong to a ringer. But how could I read that verse?

2:15 My hand in the will of God. My task in the will of God. It's a figurative speech, an autonomy. The part standing for the whole.

2:22 It's not only saying you work with your hand, whatever your hand, and brain, and mind, and faculty's 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. If it's the will of God and it's done, it's unto God!

2:42 He deserves your hand. He deserves to have the best we can produce.

Consequences of a Slack Hand: Poverty and Lack of Reward

2:49 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. And he'll abuse it.

3:05 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? 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.

3:25 His boss sees that he works, punches the clock on time, but 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. He's bypassed in promotions, and then he comes and gives a sad story of how he's picked on because he's a slack hand.

Rejecting Rationalizations: Diligence vs. Persecution

3:45 He's a Christian. Now, in some cases, there are men, even in this church, who've been bypassed for promotions because they were Christians. But I'm talking about those who use that as a rationalization. Now, you're not bypassed because you're Christian.

4:02 You're bypassed because you're working with a slack hand.

Biblical Models of Diligence: Joseph and Daniel

4:06 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?

4:22 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.

The General Rule: Diligence Leads to Prosperity and Recognition

4:39 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. 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.