Episode Transcript
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Well, this morning I were going
to take a brief break from the book
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of Romans and read a section from
proverbs, proverbs chapter six. I've been
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thinking a lot about how we it
is that we learn from nature, and
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have even enjoyed some discussions with some
of you on this, so I thought
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it might be nice to consider this
together. Proverbs six, versus six through
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eleven, God's word about work and
a few other things. Let's hear God's
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Word from proverbs chapter six, verses
six through eleven. Go to the ant,
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Oh sluggard, consider her ways and
be wise. Without having any chief
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officer or ruler, she prepares her
bread and summer and gathers her food in
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harvest. How long will you lie
there, Oh sluggard? When will you
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arise from your sleep? A little
sleep, a little slumber, a little
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folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a
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robber and want like an armed man. The God bless his word to us.
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Please be seated. Well, as
many of you know, the book
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of proverbs is a book of Wisdom. It says as much and is obviously
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so. It contains all kinds of
conclusions about life, things that we ought
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to do and we ought to see. Sometimes they come in just one sentence,
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so one little statement about the way
life is, the way that we
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should live it. Other Times there
are these extended sections. This is one
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of them, proverbs six, six
through eleven. It's a one of the
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smaller ones, but nevertheless it gives
us a little bit of a picture,
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more than just a single image.
It gives us this conclusion and includes with
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it warnings and various admonitions. There's
two obvious commandments here, or well,
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at least one of them is obvious. Will start with that one. The
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obvious commandment here is that we are
to work. It's pretty simple, isn't
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it? It doesn't require a complicated
exegesis, it doesn't require a lot of
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proofs. It's right there on the
surface. We're not to be lazy,
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we're not to be sluggards. It's
not a word we use a whole lot
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anymore, but we all, I
think, know the meaning. If you
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don't that the picture of a sluggard
is given here. It's given throughout proverbs
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and different ways. Here the picture
is in versus. Nine through eleven.
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It pictures a person who is lying
there, who's just inactive, not sleeping,
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not resting, not doing something in
along those lines, but just lying
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there. Well, I guess sleeping, yes. So when will you arise
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from your sleep, it says,
but it pictures this person as something of
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an escapist. They're using sleep,
using rest and being lazy as a way
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to avoid problems, as a way
to ignore certain things, certain realities.
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Verse Ten comes somewhat in the voice
of the sluggard. A little sleep,
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a little slumber, a little folding
of the hands to rest, and sort
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of the sluggard saying they're it's is
not a big deal, I'm just taking
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a break, I'm just easing myself
a little bit. But then after this
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sort of relaxed no big deal,
don't worry about it, everything's fine.
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Kind of verse eleven comes in the
Voice of the sage and hits strong.
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So verse ten is kind of relaxed. A little sleep, a little slumber,
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a little folding of the hat rat
hands to rest, and poverty will
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come upon you like a robber.
Want will come upon you like an armed
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man. I have, fortunately,
never had the experience of getting mugged.
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Maybe I hope none of you have, but that's what's being described here.
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A robber coming upon you, slamming
you up a well, against a wall,
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taking your things. This kind of
surprise attack is what will happen to
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the sluggard. Poverty will come upon
you like a robber, like an armed
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man. So there's the picture we
have. This sluggard, then, is
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commanded to go and work as people
made in the image of God, if
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we are to be wise, we
are to be workers. The Bible Commands
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US and tells us that being lazy
is not an alternative and that bad things
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happen. Bad things happen. Proverbs
gives various kinds of things that happen when
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we're lazy and not hard workers.
Proverbs ten, twenty six. Twenty six
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says that it irritates those who we
do business with. Have you ever had
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a coworker who was lazy, somebody
who is on your team and we were
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expected to get a job done,
and yet they were always saying verse ten,
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don't worry, it'll get done,
just relax, they don't show up
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for work. Coworkers, employers,
it's irritating, it's frustrating. Proverbs ten
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five says that the sluggard shames his
parents. In Proverbs Nineteen and twenty four.
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Chapters nineteen and twenty four says that
the sluggard destroys a family inheritance.
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All that has been worked for and
gained, perhaps even for generations, can
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be lost when a person says I
don't really feel like working, I don't
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really feel like being a wise person
going out into the world engaging. But
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it's not merely these sort of interpersonal
conflicts and money problems that come, like
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poverty and want, mentioned in six
through eleven, but it's a moral problem
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too. It's not something that you
can simply say, well, I would
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just prefer to have that kind of
lifestyle. I'd prefer to be poor and
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in want and I don't care about
my family's inheritance and I don't care about
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my employer or shaming my parents.
It's not really a decision and an alternative
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that you can make because it's a
moral problem. In proverbs there are many
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verses. I won't all list some
of the chapters and verses here. Sixteen
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six through eleven, ten, four, eighteen, nine, two, thousand
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and thirteen, twenty one, twenty
five through twenty six. The list goes
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on. It connects being a sluggard
with the loss of life. It's contrasted
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in fifteen nineteen with being upright.
It's contrasted in twenty one, twenty five
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through twenty six. If being righteous, being a sluggard is the opposite of
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being upright. It's the opposite of
being righteous, and this makes sense when
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we consider how it is God made
man. You remember that God made the
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world in six days and he placed
man in it to do what, to
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work. Now, God gave him
a day of rest as well, and
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even exhibited that pattern in his own
working. Six Days, you shall labor
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and do all your work, and
on the seventh you shall rest, the
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fourth commandment says. But there is
a command to work, there isn't there?
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We were made for this. Sometimes
we think of work as being a
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cursed thing, and that's true,
it is, but it's not work itself
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that is the problem. God Gave
Adam and Eve this task of cultivating and
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creating, of living in a way
that expanded the garden that we're in,
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that multiplied their children and taught those
children the ways of the Lord. There
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is this thing that we were built
for, and I think you know that
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you experience it. A job well
done feels good in your bones. You
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look at a a clean room or
a sale that you've made, or a
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house that you've built or or a
case that you've won, and you said,
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how is good, it was fun, it's hard, I enjoyed it.
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We like, I'm getting outside even
and doing manual labor. Even if
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we're not able to do it,
we kind of find ourselves missing it in
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some ways. There's this way in
which we really are made to enjoy our
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work, and so when we are
lazy, when we are sluggards, were
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cutting against all of that and bringing
about these consequences that God warns about.
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And so here he commands us to
work, to work like the aunt.
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Don't wait around for people to tell
you what to do, don't wait to
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be instructed and reprimanded and commanded.
Just do your job, do the things
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that you were made to do.
So this is the first and obvious command
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that we have in proverbs six through
eleven. It's not only here but throughout
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scriptures and in our very hearts and
nature built in. But there's a second
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command here that's also important to consider, and it's the very first word.
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Go, go now, not just
go anywhere, of course, but go
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to the aunt now. It's a
specific command, but it's meant to be
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understood in a more broad way.
God is commanding us not only to go
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to the aunt to learn this lesson, but to go out into the world
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and learn wisdom. We are to
be observers, reflectors. We are to
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learn how to make analogies and see
things in the world and learn moral lessons
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from them. In some of the
texts that we've read this morning we've heard
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about how in creation itself, God
proclaims things, he tells us of himself
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and his commands. So it makes
sense that we would be studiers of that,
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that we would go and learn the
natural laws that God has made,
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that we would be deeply reflective about
them. And that's exactly what it the
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God commands here in six through eleven
to the sluggard. He doesn't only tell
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him the conclusion. He doesn't merely
say go sluggard and work. He knows
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that he has to feel it inside, he has to kind of realize it
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for himself. He needs to see
the lesson played out. It's not only
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a matter of doing the thing that
is to be learned, but he's also
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to learn the lesson. Go to
the aunt, consider her ways and be
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wise. This is such an important
lesson when we think about what it means
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to be moral people to follow God's
law. Sometimes we want to reduce God's
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commandments to just a list of things, maybe ten things. And indeed scripture
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gives a summaries of God's laws,
a commandments which are to be understood and
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followed. Proverbs itself gives us lots
of lists of things to do and to
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see. But God didn't merely give
us ten or twenty or a thousand principles
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or rules to follow. God created
a moral order that can be in many
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ways compared to the world that he
has made. Consider God's world. It
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is complex, beautiful, interrelated.
You don't just have water, air and
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fire or something like that. You
don't just have these basic elements or things
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a periodic table sort of floating around
somehow. Know, you have rivers,
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hurricanes and candles. You have things
that overlap and work together, things that
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influence one another. There's a there's
a complex system and order in a way
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of life. There's divisions. Right
when God made the world, he separated
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things, male, female, sky, land, Sun, Moon. But
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these divisions aren't aren't these held in
these little boxes they are. There are
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ways in which they interact with each
other. They relate to one another,
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male and female. He made them, and yet they become one when they
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join together in marriage. That's complex. It creates relationships that are complex.
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It creates a world that is complex, complex and beautiful and studiable. Well,
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this world that God is made is
not only a thing of matter,
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but there's also this moral order that
God has made, an order that we
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learn and grow from. We don't
just have a periodic table of commands,
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we have an orderly world, a
system that works in particular ways, and
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that's what a lot of proverbs is
about. Deuteronomy, when God gives the
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laws to Israel, is much more
boom boom, boom boom, a very
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strict list of commands with all kinds
of sanctions and things like that, blessings
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and sanctions. Proverbs goes out in
that world and says, let's look at
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the way things work. What happens
when you decide not to be a worker
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and a hard worker? What happens
when you decide to be a sluggard?
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Well, they are consequences. Poverty
comes upon you, want comes upon you,
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shame comes upon you. This is
the way the world works. There
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are laws and consequences and blessings.
There's this created moral order God has made,
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and we are called not merely to
glean from it particular principles, but
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we are to observe it. We
are to go to the ant and to
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the stars and to the forests.
We are to go to the relationships that
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we have with one another and and
learn from these things. We can't treat
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our ethical lives as though it was
simply following a set of ten little rules.
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We are to be studiers, pursuers
of wisdom, and that takes time
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to observe, reflect, make analogies. This kind of thing is illustrated in
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proverbs twenty four. I'll read a
few verses to you there, and it's
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related to our passage in proverb six. Proverbs for twenty are, sorry,
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twenty four versus thirty through thirty four. Here we have an example of the
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kind of thing we are to do. In proverb six, the the wise
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man commands the sluggard to go out
and observe. Here the wise man is
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doing the observing. He shows us
how this works, exemplifies it. I
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passed by the field of a sluggard
by the vineyard of a man lacking sense.
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So he is going out into the
world, right, he sees something,
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okay, he takes the time to
observe it. What are as observations?
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And behold, it was all overgrown
with thorns and the ground was covered
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heard with nettles and it's stone wall
was broken down. So you see,
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he doesn't merely pass by the field
and notice it and move on. He
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takes the time, he notices particular
details, but he doesn't stop there.
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Verse Thirty Two. Then I saw
and considered it, I looked and received
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instruction. And then this will sound
a familiar a little sleep, a little
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slumber, a little folding of the
hands to rest, and poverty will come
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upon you like a robber and want
like an armed man. So you see,
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you have two people doing similar things
here in Chapter Twenty Four. You
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have the wise man doing this.
He's learning his lesson right. He goes
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out and he sees this field.
Here's a field that is owned by a
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sluggard. He has a vineyard,
he has something that can produce him wealth
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and joy. What does he do? He doesn't work and instead of having
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this vineyard, this man who has
less lacks sense, has a field that's
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overgrown with Thorns, oh stone wall
that's broken down, animals and people coming
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in and out. Poverty is upon
him. Want is like an arm man.
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He's learned this lesson in for chapter
six it's turned just a little bit.
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Instead, the command is to the
sluggerd hey, why don't you go
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out? Why don't you go out
into the world and learn a lesson?
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Why don't you go consider something and
become wise? Pay Attention, wake up,
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get to work, stop lying there
thinking that everything's going to come to
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you or that you can escape the
harsh realities of poverty and want. Go
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consider the ant, be wise without
having any ruler officer. She prepares her
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bread in the summer and gathers her
food in the harvest. What about you?
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So this is the way that we
are called to go into the world.
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Sometimes proverbs gives up straight up conclusions, but other times it teaches us
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how to reach those conclusions on our
own. This is where wisdom comes from
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and it's how it's obtained. Now, when we think about this and how
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we do or don't do this in
our own lives, I find that I
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come up short in many ways,
and I think you probably do too.
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We want wisdom, at least in
some ways. We want to know how
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to how does the world work?
How can I make a lot of money
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or how can I have a good
marriage? But it's not merely about obtaining
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these things, although that's good,
but it's an inside matter too. How
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do we live before the Lord?
How do we fear him in a way
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that respects the world that he has
made, this moral order that he has
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put into place? How do we, as his image bearers, go out
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into the world and act accordingly?
But what we often do is what we
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ought not to do. Sometimes we're
lazy. Say I don't have time and
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I don't want to bother with thinking
and reflecting and considering. I don't want
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to bother with working and obeying and
doing the things that God has commanded.
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We act as though we are masters
of our own orders, as oh the
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world that God has made is simply
not the world that we want to belong
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to, that we'd rather do something
else, we'd rather live in another way,
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do things according to our plans,
in our ways. That's, in
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some ways, what the sluggard's doing
and what all the fools in the book
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of proverbs. Do they look at
the world as it's made and say,
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AH, I'd rather not. And
they're fools. Right, we know that
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they're fools, because bad things happen
to them when they do these kinds of
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things. But we're fools too whenever
we go against the world that God has
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made, against the order that he
has created, and this is no little
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thing. Ultimately, it's an act
of idolatry, it's an act of rebellion
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to tell us ay to the God
who has made all of these things,
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who has brought forth into the world
not only this good created a creation,
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but a balanced, wise moral world
filled with goodness and blessing, and to
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rebel against that, to say no
to God, to say no, I
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don't want to work, no,
I don't want to study. No,
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I don't want to reflect, I
want to live how I want to live,
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on my time, on my schedule. It's not just being foolish,
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it's being rebellious. The Bible gives
us these strong commands and uses these strong
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words like struggles or sluggard or fool
or death or shame to wake us up,
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to wake us up from our moral
slumbers, to say hey, things
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are not good here. If God
didn't love us, if God didn't care
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about us, he wouldn't tell us
these things. We'd simply slip into our
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deaths, and just fully, rightfully
so. But God is gracious and uses
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this, these things, to wake
us up. But he does more than
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that as well. God even saves
us from these things. If you struggle
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with laziness, if you struggle with
taking the time to learn and to think
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about the world God has made,
if you find that your sell you live
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in a way that is rebellious and
foolish, then God has given us a
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salvation from these things. It's a
salvation that comes not just from waking up
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and moving forward. Indeed, some
of US find I can't wake up,
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I'm dead. I'm so entrapped by
these feelings, by my own desires,
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by my own lefts, that I
don't know what to do. That's why
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God works for us. He does
a work that we are unable to do
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and that he saves us from our
sluggardly. I don't sluggardliness, our laziness.
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He saves us from ourselves. You
remember what Roman says, that Jesus
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Christ saved us while we were still
sluggards, sinners. Ungodly. God comes
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into the world in all of our
not working, in all of our doing
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ungodly things and all of our refusing
to obey and live as he has called
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us to do, and he has
sent us a son to work on our
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behalf. Jesus is called our wisdom
in the Bible because he lived not just
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according to rules one, two,
three, four, five, six,
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seven, eight, nine and ten, but he lived rightly in accord with
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the whole moral order that God has
made. Have you ever been in a
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situation where you say, I want
to do the right thing, but I
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don't know how, I don't know
whether I should do this or this,
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I don't know what the consequences are
going to be. I don't know how
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to be wise? Jesus was always
wise. Jesus was always able to perceive
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motives and intentions and consequences and to
act rightly in the world. It wasn't
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just obeying a particular list, though
he does that too, but every aspect
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of his life he lived in perfect
wisdom, a King Wiser Than Solomon,
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and he does that not only is
an example for us, but to save
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us from our own laziness, from
our own deaths and poverty and want spiritual
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and otherwise. So when the Bible
says to go to the aunt and work,
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we do that not in our own
strength, but in the fear of
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the Lord, the fear of Jehovah, our Covenant God, who has made
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us in a particular way and saved
us in a particular way, who's given
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us Jesus to work on our behalf
and bring us into the kind of life
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that is the opposite of poverty,
that's filled with blessing and joy. In
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the Kingdom of God, we don't
live in a place that broken down walls
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and overgrown fields, because our lord
is a worker. He's given US vineyards
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and and he's given us a house
that is rich and full of blessing,
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much like when God brought the Israelites
into the Promised Land and gave them these
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kinds of things. When God brings
us into his kingdom through Jesus Christ,
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he gives us all these blessings,
and that's the light in which we work,
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believing not that if we simply get
up and live, that we will
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how we we will avoid all of
our sins, but we get up and
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work knowing that Jesus is already worked
on our behalf, that he's given us
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a vineyard that we can move about
Freelian and tend to, and all for
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his glory. Frustration with our sin
is often overwhelming. Sometimes our laziness,
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be it in the sort of sense
of just working or our or the greater
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sense of our moral laziness, our
moral slackerdom, it can be frustrating.
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It's a parent and appalling. But
that's why Jesus saved us. That's why
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Jesus brought us in and changed our
hearts so that the burden of the law
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would be gone and that we could
receive a yoke that was easy and light.
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Matthew Henry says that the yoke that
we are given in Jesus is easy
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because it's lined with love. God's
Love, God's love spread in our hearts,
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God's love given to us on the
Cross, God's love and saving us
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from our sins allows us to work, enjoy and anticipation and thankfulness for the
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things that he has done. Let
us be thankful to God for these things
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and get to work. Let's pray
