Proverbs 21:5

The Diligent vs. The Hasty: An Introduction to Proverbs 21:5

0:00 Proverbs 21.5 The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness, but every one 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.

0:43 But in contrast, the person that's hasty, that wants a get-rich-quick scheme, he is constantly cultivating. He's 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.

Matthew Henry on the Way to Riches and Poverty

1:20 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, improving all advantages and opportunities for it, and doing 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. Okay.

1:55 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.

2:10 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?

2:22 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.

2:30 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. Their thoughts and contrivances by which they hope to raise themselves will ruin them. All you need is a dollar and a dream.

The Lottery Craze: A Modern Example of Hastiness

2:58 That's what this is talking about. That is the way to want. The whole lottery craze feeds the very thing condemned in this text. And all you need to do is ask anyone what the odds are.

3:14 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.

Warning Against Get-Rich-Quick Schemes and Pyramid Businesses

3:32 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, you better immunize your kids going out into a world with get-rich-quick schemes. I remember, and thankfully it's far enough behind us now, I can say it without causing any trouble, when there was the craze in Christian circles of certain pyramid businesses that were going to get you rich quick. And I saw some of our own churches, and I saw some of our own churches, and I saw some of our own churches, 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.

4:37 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've gone, we've gone off the gold standard.

Personal Anecdote: The Gold Standard and Unwise Investment

4:57 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.

5:25 Paid $250, and they were worth $890. And now, what is it, 74, 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 eight gold pieces just as a matter of convenience.

5:46 I'm telling on myself. You know that by now.

5:52 Now, I didn't fall into the craze that I sought counsel, but I've often wondered, suppose, just suppose that it 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.

6:07 I sought counsel. Looking now, I believe I sought counsel from the wrong people, which is another whole issue.

The Diligent Mind and Righteous Attainment of Wealth

6:15 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'd 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 about the ways of responsible planning and foresight.

6:57 He's not anxious. 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.