Proverbs 21

Proverbs 21:25

SELF- BY Proverbs 21:25I BEGIN this sermon with a text touching sloth for two reasons. In the first place quite a number of fathers and mothers of this congregation have asked the repetition of a sermon preached a few Sundays since on “The Universal Duty of Labor” from the text, “If any man will not work, neither let him eat”. I am opposed to repeating sermons to the same audience but glad to prepare new ones along lines that have seemed helpful to others. Then again, idleness is such a prolific root of evil that other faults and failures will be better understood if they are studied in their natural relations to this forerunner of vice.It is not putting it too strongly to speak of “Indolence” as one of the diggers of graves for young men. The inspired text affirms the same, saying, “The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour”.Let us think for a while about the extent to which indolence has the power to destroy.FIRST OF ALL, IT WRONGS AND RUINS THE BODY The best physical development is impossible to the indolent man. One may say, “I don’t believe that”. Some of the noblest physiques that I have ever seen were those of the laziest men.” But hold! What do you call a perfect body? For a man to be fat is not to present a good physique to the world.Ofttimes flesh is the first evidence of ill-health and of down-right laziness. The muscles are lost in extraneous growths; the nerves are so encased that their tension is no longer strong and fine; even the very mind appears to be involved in that overgrowth that comes of too little exertion, too great love of ease.I know a man who stands some inches over six feet and tips the scale at 230, whose body is beefy because this text is the truth of his existence, “The desire of the slothful killeth him”.

Oh, it means something to make the most of these bodies that God has given us; these tenements of clay yet tabernacles of the Holy Ghost. Their proper exercise will richly repay the pains taken to effect good physical development.

Men of weak bodies have been great; and such afflicted ones as Pascal, Nelson, Johnson, Pope, Milton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alexander Stephens, and Robert Hall, prove that the mind may master all opposition from physical defects; and yet young men need to be reminded that the mightiest men of the past, viewed from whatever side, have had great physiques; for instance, William E. Gladstone, the octogenarian, whose body kept itself so healthy by means of work that a noted editor said of him, that like his mind, his body gave no evidence of failure, but was fresh with every returning day and equal to the ever increasing burdens that his offices and honors imposed. Such a physique was, and is, a fortune above all gold, and God only gives it to those who spurn. the sloth that consumes one’s very bones.Again, indolence wrongs the body in that it fails to furnish satiety to natural cravings, “The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour.”We sometimes read of those extreme cases of hunger when men, maddened by unsatiated appetites, turn upon themselves and tear their own flesh and drink its blood. It is a good deal so with the desire of the slothful man. His hands bring nothing to his parching lips or hungry throat, and finding nothing upon which to feed, nature falls upon the man himself and makes him its prey. To be sure, now and then there is an indolent fellow that fattens himself at the expense of others; either at the father’s cost, or through depending on friends, or winning the hand of some silly girl whose greatest charm is carried in father’s pocket in hard cash.We heard of one such fellow, who had been paying regular attention to a bond-holder’s daughter, until the old man suspected that he meant marriage and said to him one day, “Young man, I notice that you call to see my daughter quite frequently; and as she- er -appears to be favorably impressed by you, I think I have a right to inquire concerning your prospects.”The young dude answered promptly “I shall be rich one day!” “Ah”, said the bond-holder, “l am glad to hear that”. “Yes”, continued the young man, “your daughter and I have been secretly married and she has promised me the half you leave”.But the world is not full of such fool girls.

The rule is that the young man who won’t work has to go hungry and wear rags; and be kicked out of decent company before his days are done. The desire lives, and not being fed from the frugal hand that provides food, shelter and raiment, it turns to feed upon the indolent himself; consumes him away, and throws out his poor remains upon the world to wander up and down the earth a vagabond.

I stood one day just outside a great depot in Chicago, and looked into the face of a young man who had seen not more than twenty and two or three summers, and saw in him the most perfect illustration of this text that life could furnish. His coat had literally dropped away to a point above his waist, his vest and pants looked as rags strung on rotten threads; his face wore the marks of hunger and gave evidence of physical disorder; and yet his hands were in his pockets and he whistled an indolent air. No student of Scripture could pass him and forget that long ago Solomon said, “The desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour”.Of course indolence does not often dig so deep a grave for youth as it had made for him. He was buried out of sight from the people who moved in first circles of society, or engaged industriously in honest work. His very name was unknown to the thousands that hurried past. Every son of this third decade of the twentieth century confronts the same dilemma that beset the tramp who called at a kitchen door to ask a little something to eat.

The tender-hearted woman set a well-filled plate before him and said, “There now! But I should think a great big, strong fellow like you would be ashamed to beg.” “So I am ashamed, but what am I to do, I must beg or work.”To beg is to fill the deepest grave and be buried of sloth, no matter whether you beg of strangers, or sponge on family and friends.

To work is to build the body and save it from being eaten up of unsatiated desires.But, in the second place, let it be remembered thatI WEAKENS AND THE MIND OF MAN Bodily exercise is no more essential to physical endurance and feats of strength than mental activity is indispensable to the growth and power of the intellect of man. We hear a great deal said about men being geniuses by birth; but for every such a one there are a dozen Samsons of intellect who have cultured their thought and brains by earnest, persistent study and work. I am more and more persuaded that the elements of success which we call genius were better named diligence. That was the genius that made the poor, fatherless boy, James Garfield, grow fit for the world’s highest political station, the presidency of these United States. I was much interested some years since in reading the letter that Mark Hopkins, the President of Williams College, Garfield’s Alma Mater, wrote to him shortly after his nomination for that exalted office. To Garfield, Hopkins said, “The hour has struck sooner than I thought!

You know I thought it would come; and now that it has come, I rejoice with you. I congratulate you not only on your nomination but on the manner of it; and the enthusiasm with which it is received.

The students here are wild over it, and I care not how wild, if they will but learn the lesson there is in it. It is one reason of my joy, that there is a lesson in it.How well I remember those early struggles and your manly bearing under them; the confidence you at once gave your instructors and received from them; and the combination, so apparently easy, and yet so rare among students, of a genial spirit with pure habits and high aims uniformly pursued. That was the beginning of a course and the lesson therefore is that this honor is the result of no accident, but of achievement in scholarship and statesmanship by steady work, so that when the occasion called, the man was there.”Dr. Twing, in referring to that letter, said to a company of young men, “Crises are always striking, and crises will, at no distant day, strike in your life. When a crisis does strike the result of its striking depends upon whether you are a man.” Aye, and he might have added, Upon whether you have prized your intellect; preserved and made it powerful, by discarding all sloth and forming habits of thought and study.A slothful man is sure to be one of distempered imagination. This same intellectually vigorous and wise Solomon said, you remember, “The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets”; and Dr.

Parker sagely comments on those words, “A singular illustration this of how the decay of one faculty may be the beginning of the activity of another. Industry has gone down but imagination has risen.

The slothful man seeks to make up by excuse what is wanting in energy. How ridden by the nightmare is the slothful man’s imagination! He sees foes in the air; he hears voices that none other can detect; he is anxious to impress upon his friends the fact that he, himself, is most willing to go out; yea, even eager to work, and prepared to undergo any amount of sacrifice, but he sees a lion; he is sure of a supreme difficulty. The man that is thus a lion-maker in his own imagination will soon bring himself under the subjection of his own diseased fancy.”That is why so many young men fail in life. They have a faculty for seeing all the dangers that lie ahead but want the faith to overcome them. That was a wise thing that Charles Dickens said about the journey that Nicholas Nickleby and Smike had to make when they were running away from Squeers and his school.

It was after the second day’s walk that Dickens wrote, “It was a harder day’s journey than yesterday’s ‘for there were long and weary hills to climb, and in journeys, as in life, it is a great deal easier to go down hill than up. However, they kept on, with unabated perseverance and the hill has not yet lifted its face to heaven that perseverance will not gain the summit of at last.”How true!

Be diligent; study, work, and every lion that lies close to your path will prove, like Bunyan’s, to be chained and harmless to the man that keeps to the center of the road and marches boldly on. Life presents no difficulty that may not be overcome provided sloth does not fasten its fangs in our flesh or brain.When Daniel Webster entered Exeter Academy, Philadelphia, the boys poked fun at his manners, his dress, his stupidity, and spoke of him as from the back woods. They called him a moss-back. Webster determined to do his best. At the end of the second quarter of the year Prof. Emery said, “Daniel, gather up your books and take down your cap.” He obeyed, wondering if he had unconsciously done something that meant expulsion.

Prof. Emery went on, “Now, Sir, you may report yourself to the teacher of the first class! and you, young gentlemen, may take an affectionate leave of your classmate, for you will never see him again.”They never did, as classmate; but as statesman and orator they came to his feet and bowed in admiration.

A little sloth, and Daniel’s name had never been known outside the circle that made him the butt of their jeers and jests. Ah, truly, it is the desire of the slothful that killeth him, by setting seeming lions ahead and checking progress and forcing death on the intellect of man.But again,Sloth destroys the mind by deluging it with criminal and destructive thoughts. William Douglas Morrison wrote a book on “Crime and Its Causes.” Prominent among the causes he set this of indolence, and his figures affirmed this as the truth, that a righteous man among indolents is seldom, or never found. The whole file of beggars and vagrants are marching straight to that criminal hour that will send them to the lockup, the jail, and to prison. Chaplain Phillips in an address delivered before the prison congress of some years ago, related how a young boy having served out his third term, was dismissed, and when about to depart, the chaplain said, “Charlie, what are you going to do?” He held up his pale white hands and said, “Chaplain, these hands know much of theft but nothing of work”, and went out.No wonder the Chaplain said, “Idleness is the main root of crime. You may cut off all others if you like, but until the boys and girls are taught to work they cannot be kept out of prisons and alms houses.” Truly, my young friends, “An idle brain is the devil’s workshop.” Paul’s counsel was of the best when he wrote, “See then, that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time”.