Proverbs 6:6
Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise,
Here King Solomon challenges a sluggard (lazy person) to go and learn from ants, creatures who illustrate hard work and discipline. Being too lazy to work is becoming more and more common. We are to consider the ways of an ant. Yes, even an ant can give us an example of how we should live and if we will humble ourselves then we will allow ourselves to learn, even if it’s from an ant.
It goes on to say..
7 Which, having no captain, Overseer or ruler,
8 Provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest.
They don’t need someone to give them orders and yet they do their work and this fact puts many of us, that are created in the imagine of God, to shame.
Proverbs 21:25
The desire of the lazy man kills him, For his hands refuse to labor.
We are often times much too busy chasing after vanity and it would be too humbling for us to go and consider the ways of ants. Yet God instructs those that are lazy to step out of their sluggishness by beholding the way an ant works. God can use even an ant to give us an example of how we should live, if He must.
The morning hours are wasted by many in bed. These precious hours, once lost, are gone never to return, they are lost for all eternity. Only one hour lost each day, and what a waste of time in the course of a year. Let slumberers think of this, and pause to consider how they will give an account to God for lost opportunities.
A person that’s too lazy to work for their bread and water is automatically too sluggish, too lazy to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. Too lazy to search through scripture to see what their duty towards God is. In fact laziness is one of the greatest reasons why many of us will remain unsaved. We allow other people to work out our salvation and often times we blindly follow them and we do not even question it because we ourselves are too lazy to pick up the bread of life and study it for ourselves.
Ezekiel 16:49
Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
We are to look at some of the reasons why Sodom was destroyed. One of her sins was idleness (laziness). Great was the abundance of her laziness. She was full with food, caring not to strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Satan is never more successful than when he comes to men in their idle hours. Might it then be said we are weak, and Satan is strong? No, this doesn’t need to be the case. We are weak only because we were idle as were the dwellers of Sodom and Gomorrah but there came a time when God’s endless mercy came to an end.
It was in the evening when 2 Angel’s, in human form show up at the gates of the cities. Who in these cities would have realized that these heavenly messengers were Angel’s from the courts above? Almost 100 percent of these people in these cities had no idea that they have been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting. They spent their very last evening on earth chasing after the things of this world. Scripture states that the sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar and after his entry into Zoar, fire rained down from heaven. What a way to start the day. Perhaps most of them were still sleeping when the fire fell. Imagine how surprised they must have been? This is how sudden it will be when the Son of God returns again to this earth. It will be sudden and many of us will not see it coming for the world will have rocked many to sleep.
I admit, I once enjoyed just going on utube and listening to inspirational sermons. But, my bible was lying on the shelf collecting dust. I had no passion to see what can be found in this bible. This bible that many people in the world aren’t even aloud to have in their possessions. I guess you could say I was too lazy to read it and had a greater zeal to just listen to what someone else said.
But there came a time when I passed through dark hours that caught me by surprise. I was placed into this trial that caused me to get a picture on how brief life here on earth is, how fleeting it really is. In the midst of this trial a strong wind destroyed our phone booster and I was left with no internet service to watch those utube video’s that had come to be my comfort.
Well here I was, trying to fill this emptiness but my comfort was no longer within my reach. I was in the perfect place where God could at last start leading me, so at last I started doing something that I didn’t like to do and that’s reading. It didn’t take long and I started to pick up something that I wish I had not been this lazy and slow to pick up, the word of God, the one thing that is to be a lamp to my feet, a light to my path.
Psalms 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
I soon realized that no utube video had ever come close to breathing life into my soul as did His word. Searching through it, comparing scripture with scripture, made my heart burn within me in a way that no utube video ever had the power to accomplish. I then understood that fire that burned within the 2 disciples that walked on the road to Emmaus as Jesus was opening scripture to them.
Luke 24:32
And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?”
This is what scripture has the power to do, it starts a fire within, that simply can not be quenched. This fire within me made me hunger for his word and it was then that scripture came alive. It was when the Holy Spirit drew near and made scripture come to life, that it became alive.
Jeremiah 23:29
“Is not My word like a fire?” says the LORD, “And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
It was then that convictions started, it was then that I desired to obey every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Matthew 4:4
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
We do not know how much longer we will have access to His word, time is short and we better make it count. May we pray for God to shake us out of our idleness so He can open scripture to us and cause our hearts to tremble and burn, giving us a desire to walk in His ways.
Philippians 2:12
“Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
I still thank Him for the days when He did whatever it took to draw my attention to His word, it has forever changed me. I realized that the endless video’s that I had watched had taught me little about the bible. Many may be interesting, give us some inspiration but often times they are misleading and do not direct a person to this narrow road where Jesus is waiting for us with open arms. These video’s cannot and will never compare with opening scripture and having the Holy Spirit meet us there to guide us through the words of life.