May
2007
How Do You Keep From Robbing Yourself?
Proverbs 24:30-34
“I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face of it, and the stone wall there was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So will your poverty come as one who travels; and your want as an armed man.”
GOING FOR A WALK
In this parable today, the writer of the Proverbs takes a walk. He walks by a field, a vineyard to be specific. Today you might call it a farm. He takes a walk. It reminds me a lot of prayerwalking. The man observes something about the field as he walks by. It is overgrown with thorns and nettles.
We all know what thorns are. They are sharp and, in this case, wild, like weeds. They stick you and hurt. They attract birds – the enemy of every garden. Thorns are really modified stems. Instead of a branch growing out, it stops with a sharp point. You might say the field started out right, but the stems never made it.
Nettles, on the other hand, are irritants. They irritate your skin. The Hebrew word. Haral, means “pricking” or “burning. Scholars have supposed that some thorny or prickly plant is intended by this word, such as the bramble, the thistle, the wild plum, the cactus or prickly pear. It may even be a species of the mustard, which is a pernicious weed abounding in corn-fields. This word may designate the prickly acanthus, a very common and troublesome weed in the plains of Palestine. These vigorous plants may grow as tall as six feet.
Nettles are unisexual, meaning they don’t need another plant to reproduce. They are like cancerous cells that spread. Oddly enough, nettles are known world wide for their medicinal purposes. They can be good. But in this case, they are wild and unkempt. Thorns and nettles both can flower. But in this case, they serve only as eyesores.
The stone wall that circled the garden had broken down. No longer did it protect from animals or people that might trespass and rob the crop. What are they going to rob anyway? The broken wall did not happen overnight. It says to the man walking by that this piece of property had been neglected for a long time.
KEEPING AN EYE OPEN
Have you ever heard anyone say, “Keep an eye open for anything suspicious”? That usually means you are going to observe more closely than you ever have. He says that he considers this field, literally “sets his heart upon it”. At this point we know that the walker is no longer looking with his eye, but with his heart. He begins to see something more that thorns and nettles and a broken wall. He sees more than a field overgrown with weeds. He sees deeper than the soil. He begins to see the farmer or the one who owns the field.
This does not mean his is judgmental. He is merely looking at the evidence. I can tell a great deal about you by walking past your house. I can tell if you have money or not. I can tell what your priorities are. If I see you out washing your boat on Sunday morning, that says something about you. If you have marijuana plants growing in your back yard, that says something about you. If your home looks as though you spend every dime you have keeping it up, that also says something about you. If the grass is never cut and the paint have chipped off the walls, that also says something about you. That is not being judgmental. The Bible tells us clearly, “You will know them by their fruits.” If your life is constantly covered with spiritual thorns and nettles and your walls stay broken down all the time, that says something about what kind of person you are.
GETTING A GOOD EDUCATION
The walker learns something here. He learns something about the farmer. He learns something about himself. He learns something about life.
The Bible tells us here that he “received instruction”. It was given to him. By whom? Well, in the context he is talking about Godly wisdom. The Holy Spirit of God is our teacher. That’s how we learn the truths about life, even about ourselves. The world might call it “common sense”. Not everyone uses wisdom or common sense all the time. If we did, we would not do the things that we do or neglect the things that we neglect. We make mistakes. We make foolish decisions, many of which we live to regret. And, even more foolish that the worst decision you have ever made, is to continue in it without making the changes you know you should make. The farmer not only neglected the field. He continued to neglect it without making any attempt to fix the problem. Do you do that?
The Bible says something along this line in the New Testament. “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
WHAT DOES THE WALKER LEARN?
He learns from observing this neglected field that someone had fallen asleep on the job. Have you ever fallen asleep on the job? My parents enjoy taping their favorite television shows so they can fast forward through the commercials. I told my mother not to do that any more because the commercials on television are better than the shows. Each night I would sit on the couch beside my mother. At each commercial break my father, in his easy chair, would fast forward through ten minutes of commercials in about one minute. Then, all of a sudden, my mother and I would realize that we were watching the commercials. She would talk loudly to my Dad and say, “Hey commercial man, you are falling asleep on the job.” After she yelled it three or four more times he would open his eyes, raise his head, and pick up the remote. And can you guess what he would say every time? “I wasn’t asleep.”
The walker reflects back to what he said in Proverb 6:6-11:
“Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler provides her meat in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you sleep, O sluggard? When will you arise out of your sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So will your poverty come as one that travels, and your want as an armed man.”
He tells us there to consider the ant, a little creature that needs no one to guide her or crack a whip over her to get her to work. Yet her work habits put most of us to shame. Then he uses these verses found here in chapter 24.
The Observing Walker realizes that the man who owns this field is lazy. He calls such a person a sluggard in chapter six. That English word comes from the Scandinavian word sluggi. I don’t want a nickname like sluggi. Do you? Of course, the root word is slug. That is a little snaillike creature that moves slowly and leaves a wet, slimy trail behind. These words are not complimentary.
This is a lazy farmer. Proverb 26:13-15 refers to him as a sloth.
“The slothful man says, ‘There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets.’ As the door turns upon his hinges, so does the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hides his hand in his bosom; it grieves him to bring it again to his mouth.”
What is a sloth? It is a mammal that sleeps up to 15 hours a day…upside down. Have you ever gone to the zoo? The monkeys swing and screech. The elephants roar and squirt water. But the sloth just hangs there and does not move. He has feet, but cannot even walk. Boring! This slothful person is so lazy that he makes up excuses for getting out of work. “I can’t go outside. I might meet a lion in the street.” If you want to get out of work, one excuse is a good as another. He makes a joke in verse 14. What does a door and a slothful person have in common? They both move, but don’t get anywhere. One moves on its hinges while the other turns over in bed. He hides his hands in his pockets so that no one will expect him to give any help.
In 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12, Paul told the church, “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.”
MAKING SOME GOOD CONCLUSIONS
Why do people fall asleep on the job? Assuming you are not sick or taking medicine or drunk, here are some concluding reasons you sleep when you should be working.
1. YOU ARE TIRED. You need rest. Spiritually speaking now – about life. A person is spiritually tired because he or she has not spent times of refreshing with the Lord. Spend time in His word and in prayer. Fellowship with other believers. Learn to worship God. God created the Lord’s Day to worship Him and to rest. If we try to go at this life without spiritual rest, we are like the farmer who is not prepared. Imagine a farmer without a tractor or a hoe, without knowledge of seeds or insects or fertilizers, who does not know one season from another. The farmer in this story could see the crop that was yet unseen. Had he been prepared he could have recognized that out of all this dirt, something good could happen. Laziness robs you of potential, of what God could do if you were only prepared to be used of Him.
2. YOU ARE BORED. People will often say they are bored, not because they have nothing to do, but because they don’t recognize that work is good as long as it accomplishes something and pleases God. The farmer knows the power in a seed. He knows that there are hungry people around him. He can see the potential in the ground. But he chooses to nothing about it. He misses out on what can be seen.
3. YOU ARE APATHETIC. You fall asleep on the job because you don’t care enough about what you are doing. The farmer lacked vision. Before the seed was planted, when there was just dirt, he could not see the crop coming in because there was nothing prepared. No seed planted. But once the seed is in the ground, he can still let the field go to waste if he does not have vision to see what could be produced. Before we started talking about a family life center, it was hard to see any harvest. But once we prepared, once we sought out God’s presence, once we began to sow the seed, then we began to see what could be seen. We could envision an abundant harvest.
So, how do you rob yourself? Do nothing. Be lazy. Don’t care. Never discover the purpose of your life. Don’t worry about the future generations. Stay in bed and sleep through it all.
The walker concludes the whole story with this thought: Somebody has robbed the field. Imagine a great field full of ripe fruit. Someone breaks down the wall, tramples down the plants, and steals all the fruit. That’s the scene here. You are like a traveler. That is the word for robber, a traveling bandit. The field looks as though an invading army has hit it and robbed it. It looks like a bomb went off there. He uses the word here for armed man. That means a man with a shield. The farmer became so impoverished because of his laziness that now he has to rob someone else to get some fruit. The ironic point in this story is that the farmer himself, not the invading army, robbed the field. To be lazy and not work for the Lord will rob you of spiritual prosperity the same as though an invading army or a bandit came in and took it from you.
How do you keep from robbing yourself?
1. Train your mind to see what cannot yet be seen. PREPARE
2. Train your mind to see what can be seen. WORK
3. Train your mind to see what will be seen. VISION
Hebrews 6:10-12, “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love, which you have showed toward his name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister. And we desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: That you be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”