THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR"Consider the Ant and Be Wise”Rev. Rodney Kleyn February 1, 2009; No. 3448
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haak
prca.orgDear Radio Friends,
If you have your Bibles, I ask you to open them to
Proverbs 6:6-11.
In this message, and in the one next week, I plan to speak to
you on the important subject of labor, or work. When we come to this subject,
there are two dangers that the Scripture addresses for us. The one is that we
work for the wrong reasons. That is the one we will look at next week. We
should not labor to be rich. The other danger is that we do not work as we
should, that we are lazy. And it is that which is addressed in the passage
before us.
Proverbs 6:6-11:
“Go to the
ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: which having no guide,
overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer,
and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt
thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little
sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy
poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as
an armed man.”
In this text the Bible gives us
two examples from which we should learn. The first is the example of the sluggard—the lazy man. Solomon says, in
Proverbs 24:30-32,
that he went by the
sluggard’s field and he saw and considered it well and looked upon it and
received instruction. We must receive instruction from the example of the
sluggard.
The second thing from which we
should receive instruction in the text is the ant. In the text: “Consider the
ant and be wise.”
The text that is before us is
addressed to the sluggard. Solomon says, “Go to the ant, thou sluggard.” What
is a sluggard? A sluggard is a lazy person. It is someone who has work to do,
who has the ability to do that work, and either refuses to do that work or does
that work with a completely wrong attitude. He does that work out of compulsion
or out of necessity.
Solomon, in the book of
Proverbs, highlights four characteristics of the sluggard. First of all, the
sluggard is a procrastinator. His motto is given in the text before us,
Proverbs 6:10.
He says, “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding
of the hands to sleep.” Soon, because this is his motto, the day passes and he
has nothing done. Every opportunity to be productive in life slips away.
The second characteristic in
the book of Proverbs with regard to the sluggard is that the sluggard does not
finish the things that he is given to do. Sometimes he begins those things;
sometimes he maybe even begins those things with great enthusiasm. But the
novelty of those things wears off. The effort required to finish is too much, and so he does not finish his work. In
Proverbs 12:27
Solomon says, “The
slothful man roasteth not that which he took in
hunting.” Here you have a man eager to get out with his comrades and hunt. He
goes out and, what a disappointment, he kills an animal. Now he has the work of
cleaning it. Now he has the work of doing something with the meat so that it
can be eaten. Instead of doing that, the slothful man leaves that which he took
in hunting outdoors to be eaten by a wild beast or to rot.
In
Proverbs 26:15,
“the
slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth.” The word that
is used here for “bosom,” could be “bowl”: the slothful man puts his hand in a
bowl of food and he is too lazy even to bring it to his mouth to eat. This is
the tragedy of the lazy man. He does not finish that which he starts to do.
The third characteristic of a
sluggard is that he is a man full of excuses for why he should not and can not
work. In the text, he is too tired to get up and work. “A little sleep,” he
says, “a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep.” In chapter
26:13, the slothful man saith, “There is a lion in
the way; a lion is in the streets.” He comes up with excuses for why he should
not do his work. In chapter 22:13, “I shall be slain in the streets.” He thinks
it is not safe to go out, so “why should I go out and work?” In chapter 20:4 he
says that he cannot “plow by reason of the cold.” He always has an excuse. He
knows that it is very clear to others that he is not doing his work, that he is
not being productive. And so he has a reason, an explanation, for why he does not
do his work.
But all of his excuses are
ridiculous. Chapter 14:23, “In all labour there is
profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to
penury [poverty].” This is the lazy man. He has plenty of ideas. He always has
an excuse. He is full of talk. But he never does anything productive. And so he
comes to poverty.
The fourth characteristic of
the lazy man in the book of Proverbs is that he is a dissatisfied
man, an unhappy man. He is covetous, he is jealous of others. Everyone else, in
his view, has it so good. But he has it so bad. He views himself as a victim. In
Proverbs 21:25, 26,
“The desire of the slothful killed him; for his hands
refuse to labour. He coveteth
greedily all the day long.” He does not think that life is fair. He covets and
he wants and he thinks that everyone else has it so good. He views himself as a
victim. And, yes, he is a victim. But he is a victim of his own laziness.
The text before us is warning
us against this attitude toward our work and this lazy approach towards life.
“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” The Bible wants
us to learn a lesson from the sluggard.
The Bible does not tolerate
this man. In chapter 26:14 it almost makes fun of him: “As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his
bed.” When you go to wake him, he says, “Just a little more sleep, just a
little more slumber,” and then he rolls over in his bed like a creaking door
hinge. A few minutes later, his alarm rings again, he presses the snooze button, and he rolls over one more time, creaking like that
door hinge. This is the figure and the picture that the Scriptures give of the
lazy man.
The lazy man needs to learn a
lesson. And we need to learn a lesson from the lazy man. The lesson that we
should learn is that his laziness will result in poverty. First of all, it will
result in a physical poverty. The text before us makes that plain in verse 11:
“So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth,
and thy want as an armed man.” The one that traveleth
and the armed man are thieves—a bandit or a gypsy or an armed robber who comes
and takes all your things. If you are sleeping, and the armed man has been in
your house during the night, you wake up in the morning and your possessions
are gone. The lazy man will awake someday to find out that he has nothing—that
the world and its opportunities and the things that he could have had for
himself have passed him by.
But this poverty is not only
physical. The poverty that will come on a lazy man is a spiritual poverty. There
is an old saying that “idle time is the devil’s playground.” That means that if
a man is not productive, if he does not work, Satan will soon fill that void
with temptation and with sinful thoughts. You have only to think of the parable
that Jesus told of the prodigal son. Jesus builds that parable around the
proverb in chapter 28:19, “He that tilleth his land
shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth
after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” You think of the prodigal son.
He followed vain persons. Not only was his time occupied with the wasting of
his goods, but his time was also occupied with partying and rioting,
and he came to a spiritual dearth. There is a great danger. And that is a
danger for your soul.
The apostle Paul addresses this also in his epistle to the Thessalonians,
II Thessalonians 3.
The Thessalonian church was plagued with an error. The error
was that Christ’s coming would be very soon and that, therefore, they need not
concern themselves at all with their earthly occupation or earthly things. And
so the people, instead of working, were waiting—sitting and doing nothing and
waiting for the coming of Christ.
The apostle Paul addresses this in
II Thessalonians 3:11.
He says, “We hear that there are some which walk
among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are
such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they
work, and eat their own bread.” Because of their laziness and because of their
idleness, they became busybodies. The devil filled the vacant time in their
minds and in their life with sticking their nose into other people’s business.
And this was destructive not only for themselves, but
also for the church.
Now as we think about the
sluggard, we should recognize that his attitude and his sinful inclination is in every one of us. We can think of lazy people when we
think of the sluggard. Maybe we think of people who try to live off welfare for
as much of their life as they can. Maybe we can think of somebody in our
relations or in our church who is lazy, or someone in our workplace, and we
want to take this text and apply it to them.
But laziness is a sin of the
heart. It is an attitude that we should recognize in every one of us. Do we
procrastinate? Do we take the easy road when it comes to work? Are we jealous
of others and think that they have it so much better than we do? Do we make
excuses for not being as productive as we should be in the work that we have?
Maybe you have a job. Are you fair to your employer? Maybe you are getting an
education. What is your goal? Is it so that your life can be easier, or is it
so that you may use our talents best to serve the Lord?
Over against the sluggard in
the text, there is the positive example given of the ant. “Go to the ant, thou
sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” This is a humiliating example for
man. Here God comes in the Word and He addresses one whom He originally created
in His own image, to multiply and subdue and to keep the earth (this creation),
and He takes him to one of the smallest of the creatures of the creation and He
says, “Look at that ant and learn from him.”
We should be like the ant. We
have only to watch the ant for a few minutes and we can see that it is an
industrious animal. We can see that it is a cooperative animal. We can see that
it is self-motivated. We can see that it perseveres. And this is a very
convicting example for us. The ant, according to the text, has no guide or
overseer or ruler, and yet she provides her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest. She plans. And if you
have ever tried to stop an ant from doing its work, you know that an ant does
not stand still for a minute. It will hesitate if you block its path, and then
find some other way to accomplish its goals.
We have to look at the ant, and
we have to learn from the ant, and we have to gain wisdom. Consider the ant and
be wise.
What is wisdom? Wisdom is a
knowledge that takes God into account, a knowledge that applies the reality of God
to daily life. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. With regard to
work, this is wisdom: to look at the ant and learn. We should recognize, first
of all, that work is God’s design for man. God created man to work. This is
what God is saying when He tells us to consider the ant. He is saying, “I made
you like the ant.” He does not tell us to consider some other creature, like a
snail or a turtle or a slug or a sloth. But He says, “Look at the ant. Consider
the ant. This is how I made you. I made you like the ant to be an industrious
creature.” This was His original design for man. This is what He told Adam
immediately after the fall into sin: “In the sweat of thy face thou shalt labor.” And this was His plan in the original
creation-week: six days shalt thou labor and do all
thy work. Work is not a curse. The curse is the difficulty of work and the bad
attitude that we would have towards our work.
Wisdom, with regard to work, is
also this, that God not only created man to work, but He created work as the
way for man to meet his necessities. This is not true of all creatures. Some
creatures do not have to work to get their food. But God gives us our food
through our labor. And God creates an inseparable connection between work and eating. In
Proverbs 28:19,
“He that tilleth his land
shall have plenty of bread.” And in the New Testament, the apostle Paul makes
this connection. Speaking to those who will not work, he says, “If a man does
not work, he should not eat.”
Wisdom with regard to work is also
this, that God expects diligence from us in our labor. He expects us to do our
best. He expects us to be stewards of the gifts and the time that He has given
us to work. If you look at the ant, this is his outstanding characteristic: he
is diligent in his work. And the Bible tells us that God created us like the ant to be industrious creatures. In
Ecclesiastes 9:10,
“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.” And believers have a
special reason and a special purpose to be diligent in their work. According to
Colossians 3:23,
we labor unto the Lord; and we must
do our work heartily as unto the Lord. This is good stewardship. God
expects us to do our best in our labor.
God rewards such diligent
labor. There is, for the child of God in his diligent work, peace of mind. In
Ecclesiastes, the sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eat much or little. Contentment comes, not through having
all our needs met, not through making a good income by our work, but simply
through working diligently and happily in the labor that God has given us to
do. The sleep of the laboring man is sweet.
So we must learn from the text.
We must learn from the sluggard and we must learn from the ant. We must learn
that God puts us here in this world as Christian human beings, stewards, to
labor. And we have a calling to labor in the vocation and in the place that He
has given us in life.
We have to do this in a world
and in a culture that is opposed to work and labor; a world and a culture that
views work as simply a necessary evil; a world and a culture that emphasizes
pleasure, vacation, wealth, the weekend, retirement, and laboring with those
things as our goal. Rather, we have to work simply because God gives us this
calling as believers.
There is also in this text a
spiritual application. And that comes in two areas. The first is this: we must
balance our work. Someone says, “Yes, I know I must work; but how much should I
work? Should I work six days a week on the job? What about my family? What
about my marriage? What about my church? What about my spiritual
responsibilities?” The answer to that is this, that we are called to work in
our day-job (whatever that may be), but we are not to do that to the point that
we jeopardize the priorities of our health and family and church and spiritual
well-being. God is not a slave-driver. And the family concerns and the
spiritual concerns that He gives us are also our work. If we neglect these for
the sake of our day-job, there is a laziness involved.
God gives us work to do in our homes and families and church and with regard to
spiritual things. And we must throw ourselves into those things as well, and
labor diligently in them. We should not leave these for other people. That
would be laziness.
How much do you give yourself
to these spiritual labors and work? How much do you give yourself to the work
of love—in the church and in the home? The lazy person says, “Well, love just
happens.” But the Bible says, No, it takes much labor. How much do you put into
your personal spiritual growth? That is something that does not just happen,
either. And it is not something that we should simply leave for others to do.
How much do you put into the work of being a good Christian witness in this
world and into the furtherance of the gospel and the name of Jesus Christ? This
requires labor as well—from every believer. We have to be warned against
laziness with regard to the spiritual aspects of our life.
The Bible calls us to be
diligent—to be diligent in spiritual things; to be fervent in prayer; to be
zealous in love; to be like the Bereans who searched
the Scriptures daily; to realize that there is a battle and we have to be
vigilant in this battle against the spiritual dangers. The Bible calls us not
to put off these things. It has been said that the road to hell is paved with
many good intentions—people who say, Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow I will be
concerned about spiritual things. And then they wake up in hell. The road to
hell is paved with many good intentions. We must move beyond the good
intentions and the talk and the excuses. The Bible calls us not to wait. We
should not put off repentance for a sin and hold on to that sin. If you have
heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, you should not wait to believe. But you
should believe the gospel today.
This work, this spiritual work
that has to do with the well-being of your soul, should take priority. We must
labor. We must labor diligently in the work that God has given us to do. May
God give us the grace to do that.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank Thee that Thou hast put us here in this earth with this great calling to labor. Help us to be diligent in the work that Thou hast given us to do and to do it in such a way that we live to the glory and honor of Thy name. For Jesus’ sake we pray it, Amen.