Let us return to Proverbs chapter 26 which we have read together, the 26th chapter of the book of Proverbs. That hymn that we've just sung, the cry, here am I, send me, send me, the call, who will go and work for me, is certainly the theme of the emphasis this morning. And let everything that I say in the message today be understood as directed toward the necessity of us being diligent in the things of God, diligent to do His work. To you who are young men and boys, it may be His call to preach the gospel, to expound the scriptures, and to do so diligently. Let that ever be a thought in our minds and our prayers whenever we come to the Word of God. I'm preaching this morning on the title, Hinged to the Bed, the sluggard's way. And you no doubt recognize that that comes from the scripture passage we've read. And I want to read once again the few verses which bring this to our attention from the book of Proverbs. This is our third Sunday in the book of Proverbs and we could be here for the rest of our lives and very practically and I think productively so. Proverbs chapter 26, beginning at verse number 13, we read, the slothful man saith, there is a lion in the way, a lion is in the streets. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom. It grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render reason." Well, we have two terms used in these verses, the slothful and the sluggard, both of which take us, of course, quickly into the animal kingdom. The sluggard. If you're like us, you have a cat on your back porch, and he often eats there, and doesn't always clean out his bowl, her bowl, its bowl. She's been neutered, whatever you call a cat like that. Doesn't always clean out its bowl, but what the cat leaves, the slugs find. You've seen slugs. a long blob of flesh, it looks like, that just kind of slowly slips over whatever it is slipping over, leaving a trail of slime behind it. It is in no hurry. It is like Like schoolboys, perhaps, in the early morning. Sluggard. Emphasis on the slug. You know what a sloth is? I never think of a sloth without remembering this experience. It was several years ago, and I was in Manaus, Brazil, South America, the city that sits on the edge of the Negro and the Solomoi River, where those two rivers converge. The Solomoi is a murky, reddish color water. The negro is like tea, very dark and black and yet clear. And its color is determined by the enzymes of the leaves upriver in the Amazon jungle. And there at Manaus, those two rivers converge, huge rivers, each of them alone would dwarf the Susquehanna River. There would never be such a bridge built across them as we have going across the rivers in this country. And there, those two rivers, the Solomoi to the south with its murky red waters, and the Negro from the north with its dark and clear waters, converge and those two rivers flow then for 14 miles in the same channel without the waters mixing. Go ahead and look at Google Earth when you get home to Manaus, Brazil, and you will see one river, half of it red, the other half of it black, before they finally blend into the Amazon River. And the host of the conference I was speaking with on the day before the conference took all of the speakers on a voyage, a cruise out on the river, where we went from the black Negro into the murky red Solomoi, stopped at a floating restaurant for lunch, and then off to a tropical jungle walking trail, which much of the year cannot be walked in because when the rains upriver are falling, the water of that vast expanse of rivers joining will rise as much as 80 feet as it flows on out toward the Atlantic, yet nearly a thousand miles away. And as we were getting out of the boat to go on the nature trail, I saw a dugout canoe with three children, no one of them taller than that. They couldn't have been more than 10 years old, wearing nothing but shorts and paddling as hard as they could in this dugout canoe over to where we were. And as they approached, one of them had hanging from her arm a baby sloth. You could take a picture of her and she expected a tip for it. You could hold the sloth and have your picture taken. And another tip was expected, of course. And this is how these little children, whose house was on logs that would float when the water arose so it wouldn't be overrun by the water, moored as it was to something in the earth, they had this sloth. The kids were moving. The sloth was a sloth. Sloths move very slowly. I read of one type of sloth which at top speed might move six feet in a minute. That's when he's racing. He's really burning up the trail. The sloth, slow, sluggish, slothful. That's what the passage is speaking of and this is spoken so that you and I not be sluggish or slothful. There are four pictures to observe and I find them rather amusing myself. We notice in verse number 13 The slothful man saith, there is a lion in the way. A lion is in the streets. Now, whether there's a lion in the street or not is irrelevant. Highly, highly unlikely. But the slothful man doesn't need a real reason. All he needs is some kind of self-manufactured excuse, and it does for him. There happen to be lions in the world, so stay inside. Don't go out and do any work. Do nothing out there. You see, the slothful person is ingenious at inventing reasons why he can do what he wants to do, and what he wants to do is absolutely nothing. He is slothful. I can't go to church today, it's too hot. And a few months later, I can't go to church today, it's too cold. It's raining out there, or it might be raining out there. And how many excuses can be found to curtail diligence And so the lazy man doesn't need a reason. Anything will do for him simply to legitimize to his own mind his doing whatever he wants to do, which again is very little or nothing. Lazy people are filled with excuses. That's one of the pictures. the guy sitting inside in his pajamas saying, there's a lion out there, I'm staying home. Rather than getting out in industry and diligence to perform. Well, then verse number 14 gives us a second picture. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so the slothful, so doth the slothful upon his bed. Now I have to think. that the writer of Proverbs had a sense of humor. And I know that God has a sense of humor. You watch a door. Perhaps someone has left it open and it blows in the breeze this way and that way. And when it has moved all day long, it has gone nowhere. It's hanging on the hinges back and forth. You see the slothful man in his bed. First he's lying this way, then he's lying this way, then he's lying this way. Sometimes the hinges squeak, sometimes the bed squeaks, but not much because he doesn't move much. He's a sloth in his bed. Now, I don't doubt that I'm talking to a boy here this morning or a girl here this morning who heard your mother or father this morning say, it's time to get up and get ready for church, who turned over And ten minutes later, father or mother came back and said, it's time to get up. Some of you are smiling. It comes close to home, doesn't it? And then finally, mom or dad had to come in there and stand there and insist, get out of bed. And perhaps they didn't call you a sluggard or a sloth, but I am. And scripture does. Back and forth. Like a hinge on a door, the slothful man turns this way and that way, but never turns out. And out of bed to go. Then there is a third picture, and that is in verse number 15. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom. Some commentators state that this is actually in his bowl where the food is. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom. It grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. And so Proverbs 21 tells us the desire of the slothful killeth him for his hands refuse to labor. He's gotten his hand as far as the bowl. And in the bowl, he's gotten a good grip of chips, but he's just too lazy to bring it back. If someone will spoon feed him, he might find the wherewithal to open his mouth. But outside of that, he's so lazy, he won't even feed himself. And while most slothful people, indeed, find a way rather quickly to get to the bowl and to their mouth, the point is this. The bowl must be filled by some means, and the means by which bowls are filled is hard work. And he reaches to the bowl, but he doesn't have the ambition to get it full so he can truly be fed from it. And then there is the fourth picture. In verse number 16, the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. The word seven is a number in scripture which bespeaks completeness and perfection. It is the number of God himself. And the idea of seven men that can render reason bespeaks wisdom. It speaks of men whose wisdom is to be heard. They are not inexperienced. They are not unread. When they together have consulted They are to be heard, but the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than all of that. The sluggard fancies himself a veritable genius who has all of the answers and who can respond to any criticism of his way with some comeback which satisfies him, though it may not satisfy any other. the sluggard, the slothful. And so we are told in the sixth chapter of Hebrews, those, not Hebrews, but of Proverbs, those words which focus on another animal, go to the ant, thou sluggard, and consider her ways. If you'll not listen to seven men that can render reason, then go to the crawling insect. It shows greater wit and wisdom than you. Go to the ant, thou sluggard, and consider her ways and be wise. which having no guide or overseer, 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 in sleep, so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man." Hear me. Scripture exhorts of God's people diligence. It was a downfall of the church during the medieval ages when the work of the clergy was considered to be the only true work of God and all the rest of human labor was dismissed as just being groveling in the dirt. And so there developed a priestly class who were deemed to do the work of God and everyone else just wallowed in whatever. And the consequence was an unbiblical view of work. The fact is the scriptures elevate work to a place of great prominence, even holiness. And the people of God especially should understand the emphasis the scripture places upon the virtue of hard labor. You who are children, who've not yet had to earn a paycheck in order to feed the mouths of your own children, who've not yet had to pay a mortgage payment or an electric bill or any other kind of bill, you perhaps do not understand fully the value and necessity of work like your parents may have come to understand. But you ought to recognize from scripture that God establishes work not as some dirty groveling, but as a holy calling and as that which is honorable and necessary and good. Now consider with me several truths from the scripture. First of all, the Bible begins by portraying God himself as a being who works. And so we read in Genesis 2 that God rested on the seventh day from all his work. And that's an interesting way of putting it. For God we know from all of Scripture is all-powerful. He that keepeth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. His name is Jehovah, which means the self-existent one, revealing to us a God who is not dependent on anything or anyone but the innate power of his own being. He doesn't have to punch a time clock. He doesn't have to collect a paycheck. He doesn't depend upon anything, and yet he worked. and God himself in creating everything that was put it into being and what work it was when God created the universe. And although he is omnipotent, all-powerful, never exhausted, never fatigued, yet we are told that on the seventh day he rested. There was something sacred about rest, but only as that rest is connected to work. Rest is good. but only good for a working person. And the pattern of that is set before us as the one in whose image we are all created, worked in creating all things. And though he could never be fatigued or exhausted or diminished of his might, yet he rested on the seventh day. God gives us that pattern at the beginning. We are to be workers like the one in whose image we are created. Add to that the fact that when God created Adam and Eve, he placed Adam in the Garden of Eden. And at that time, there were no thorns growing, there were no thistles, There was no weather that would be destructive or damaging. And yet, though all of those effects of the curse of sin were absent the world, God placed Adam there and told him to keep the garden. Adam was not to sit there idly waiting for the fruit to grow and drop into his mouth. He was to tend to the garden. And before sin had brought thistles and thorns and weeds and destruction into the race, even then man was to work. Work is a pre-curse virtue. Before there was ever a curse of sin, work was virtuous, and God gave it to Adam to do. Why? Well, perhaps because Adam was created in the image of God, and God created all things, finished his work, then rested. And so man, created in his image, ought also to live in his image. Thus, God gave work to Adam. God sees it as good. For God's creatures are not to be idle. There is an old saying which is very true, idle hands are the devil's workshop. We were not made to be idle, we were made to be productive. We were made to be employed in productivity continually. That is godliness. Consider a third thing from scripture. And we've touched on this already, the fact that all work is God's work. Anything that ought to be done is that which we should be doing, and doing it because God made it to be done. That which we do is to be done unto the Lord. Whether therefore ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Anything that is not sin can be and should be done unto the glory of God. And you do it to the glory of God when you are doing it for his purpose to advance his kingdom, to make his truth known, to exhibit his own righteousness working through his own people. And so there is not a legitimate job in the world that cannot be the work of God himself. We think, as I mentioned earlier, of clergy as being in the Lord's work. But if we stop and think that way, do we not tend to diminish other professions that may not involve standing in a pulpit or doing other overtly ministerial functions? No, everything that can be done without sin can be done to God's glory, and every work we do is done for his honor. And so, if you are teaching, That is your profession. You do it to the very best of your ability in order to dispel ignorance from the mind of the students and to bring knowledge into them, because the knowledge you teach them is part of this creation, and the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. And therefore, they ought to know what it is and who it belongs to. And if you are a truck driver, you are transporting goods for people to utilize necessary things in their lives. And this is God's calling. It can be done in a godly and a holy manner in whatever occupation you may have. If it is a legitimate occupation and is not a promoter of sin or evil, it can be done unto the Lord and it is your purpose to do so with all of your might, with all of your strength for His glory. Forget the paycheck. Forget the raise and the promotion. Forget the accolades you may get. All of those are simply the byproducts of doing your all for our God. And that is how work is to be viewed by God's people. All work is God's work. And then the fourth item we recognize is that work that is done for any purpose other than God is described by the preacher in Ecclesiastes as vanity. He talks about this in the second chapter of Ecclesiastes. If you'd want to turn there just a few pages ahead, Proverbs is followed by Ecclesiastes. And in chapter two, As the writer looks upon the work he has done, he gives some interesting and important observations. At Proverbs 2 and verse 11, then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do, and behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun. And I turned myself to behold wisdom and madness and folly, for what can the man do that cometh after the king, even that which hath been already done? Then I saw that wisdom exceleth folly, as far as light exceleth darkness. The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness, and I myself perceived also that one event happeneth to them all. Then said I in my heart, as it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me. And why was I then more wise than I said in my heart that this also is vanity? For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever, seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten, and how dieth the wise man as a fool. Therefore, I hated life. because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me, for all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Yea, I hated all my labor which I had taken under the sun, because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me. And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? Yet shall he have rule over all my labor wherein I have labored and wherein I have showed myself wise under the sun? This also is vanity. Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labor which I took under the sun. For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom and in knowledge and in equity, yet to a man that hath not labored therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil. You get the gist of what he is saying here. He has labored and worked to build up all these possessions. And he has labored wisely to protect them from others taking them. And now that he has it all, he must die and leave it to who knows what, maybe a fool. How many times have men who lived to be wealthy achieved their goal, then died and left it all to foolish, spoiled children who wasted it and squandered it and fought over it until it was all in the hands of their legal experts that fought for their side, and they had virtually nothing. And the writer is saying, if all I do is work for this life, if all of my work is to gain stuff and accumulate it so that I have a fortune to leave for fools, then I'm vanity. And life is vanity. The point being this. Work that is not for God is wasted work. It is the toil of foolishness. It may for a time seem to bring a great dividend, but on the spectrum of eternity, it is vanity, vanity and vexation of spirit. Our work is to be entirely unto our God. I must do my best for his honor. And when I do my best for his honor and for the advancement of his kingdom, the glory of his name, all of the other things will take care of themselves. This is exactly what our Lord was saying to his disciples when he spoke to them about the anxiety that says, what am I going to eat? What am I going to do? Where? Where am I going to live? How will I make it in life? Christ said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. They are the product of godly toil for the honor of our God. Work for any other reason is vanity. We notice in scripture as well how it teaches us that work is good for mankind, both individually and corporately. We'll not go to the scriptures, but a number of them are listed there, and I encourage you to look at them as you have opportunity to, perhaps this afternoon. That work is good for the person that works, and it's good for mankind as a whole. What if everyone were a sloth and a sluggard? And finally, the Apostle Paul writing to the believers in Thessalonica made it clear, if any man doesn't work, neither should he eat. A man should eat. but only of the toil of his own hands. And if he will not work, then he should not eat either." This, briefly put, is a biblical theology of work. This is what the scriptures have to say about work, which is why every one of us should be engaged as diligently as we can, as productively as we can for the honor of our God. But there's one thing beyond to recognize. And that is the most supreme example of work. And it is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God. He was in the glories of heaven. He didn't need, to use our expression, to lift a finger. But he left that. He left that willingly. And he came into this earth not to be born a prince with a silver spoon in his mouth in a king's mansion, but to be born in the family of a lowly laborer, Joseph the carpenter. And he was born into such circumstances of poverty that hard work would offer little reward in terms of monetary things. And as he entered into that condition, he entered it with the ability, if he chose, to create food for 5,000 men plus women and children out of a few loaves and fish. He came with the ability to turn water into wine and to provide for the masses, but he didn't resort to that. He was known as the carpenter's son, which is not simply an expression of his lineage, but of his work. He was the understudy to the carpenter He was a laborer with the carpenter. That's how he was known. And when it came to the things that matter most, he bare my sins in his body on the cross. Whose sins would you like to take upon your person? Think of a sinner somewhere and imagine how eagerly you would wish to take upon yourself that person's guilt. Guilt is a very heavy thing to carry. Guilt can be a crushing load. One who is suffering great guilt is by the very burden of it worked unto exhaustion very often. Christ did not shy away from that. He did not flee from the guilt of my sin or from the burden of the sins of all of those who would ever believe in him. In Gethsemane, when Peter would have defended him with a sword, he told Peter, put your sword away. Do you not think I could call legions of angels to help? But then how would my work be finished? And so he made it clear, I came to work the works of him that sent me. He made it very clear the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. And when the Lord Jesus Christ willingly took my sins upon his body and your sins upon his body and carried them to Calvary, it was work such as you and I will never know because he has done it for us. And as he bare my sins in his body on the tree, he was working. because work is good. And work is done unto God. And his bearing my sins was bearing them unto God that they might be pardoned and that I might be accepted. And so the Apostle Paul tells us this. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not grasp after that and its glory, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant. and was made in the likeness of man. In addition to the four pictures of warning that we've seen this morning, and in addition to the biblical theology of work, Let us look to the most glorious manifestation of the most rigorous work that has ever been done on earth and behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. That was work. And let his mind be in us. And let there never be a lazy cell have its way in our bodies, but let us all, with all of the might God has given us, be applied in everything that we do to do it for His glory, who for us has done the work we could never accomplish in saving our soul. Let us all stand together as we pray. our God and our Father in heaven. If there is a soul here that has never received the finished work of our Savior and believed unto the saving of the soul, may that one even now believe and be saved. And may each one who names the name of Christ be possessed of the zeal that Christ exhibited to do thy will, that we each in all things might do whatever we do to the glory of God. Help us to these ends and to the glory of our Savior, for we pray in Jesus' name, amen.