Proverbs 20:13

Clarifying the Command: 'Love Not Sleep'

0:00 Proverbs 20 and verse 13, love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty, open thine eyes, and thou shalt 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.

0:25 Bible says I should love sleep, therefore I, Lord help me to hate sleep. 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 a picture of a man taking all the burden of providing upon himself in a wrong way.

0:44 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 14 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.

1:03 And then he fed him and put him back to sleep again. Elijah. But 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.

1:22 Because notice the rest of the verse. Lest thou come to poverty, open thine eyes. And thou shalt be satisfied. And thou shalt be satisfied with bread.

The Purpose of Sleep: Enabling Work and Provision

1:31 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, 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.

Illustration: The Gas Tank Analogy for Sleep

1:59 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.

2:13 We're glad to do it ourselves. 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.

2:23 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.

2:38 I mean the tanks all filled up 14.3 gallons and it cost him 1777 and lo and behold, he just stands there and he's a squeeze in the way and the gas is pouring off. You say that that's crazy.

2:51 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 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.

Sleep as Fuel for God-Given Labor

3:29 That measure. The 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.

3:58 Do whatever your hand finds to do with all. Our might. I don't have enough mental might. I don't have enough physical might.

4:05 Why? My tank's empty. I'm running on fumes.

Determining and Obtaining Necessary Sleep

4:09 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 to have a biblical doctrine of sleep.

The Parental Mandate: Teaching a Biblical Doctrine of Sleep

4:45 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.

5:02 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?

The Tragic Absence of Sleep Doctrine in Upbringing

5:17 Raise your hands.

5:19 One, two, three, four, five.

5:25 Now, do you see why so many of you have difficulty with fulfilling God-given responsibilities? You're brought up with no biblical doctrine of sleep. Now, thankfully. When you got converted.

God's Ordinary Way: Nurturing Truth from Infancy

5:37 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.

5:51 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.