Book of Proverbs chapter 6 and reading from verse 6. We're looking this evening here at the ant, the little creature. But this little creature has something to teach us. Proverbs 6 verse 6. Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, 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 to sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man. reading there at verse 11, we'll ask for God's blessing to be upon our thoughts upon the Word of God tonight. Father in heaven, thank you, Lord, for thy truth and word. As we consider it, we pray that thou wilt bless its message to our hearts. We thank thee already for thy presence among us. We pray that this will continue. And we pray, Lord, that The Word before us will speak, especially, Lord, to any who are unconverted. We pray that Thou wilt speak strongly by Thy Holy Spirit, win them for Thyself, reveal to them the Lord Jesus, and may they consider their ways and be wise and flee to the Lord Jesus. Fill with Thy Holy Spirit now grant power to speak and declare the Lord Jesus and His great truth. And we pray that our time now spent around the Word of God, it'll be sweet, it'll be blessed and used of thee to the building up of the saints, to the saving of the lost, and to the strengthening of the Church of God. Remember us now, we pray, and keep thy loving, tender hand upon us. We ask all of these things In the name of Christ, the Lord, our Saviour. Amen. It is not unusual in the Word of God to find evidence of God's creation giving encouragement, lessons for us as individuals. Way back, for instance, in the book of Job, And in the 12th chapter, if you would like to turn to that reference, and verse 7, we are reminded, Ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee. And the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee. Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee. And the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. When you look at creation, creation tells you something. It tells you God hath done this. God hath made these creatures. Of course, the evolutionist will tell you it all happened by chance, but the more you look at creation and the more you examine creation and witness the complexity of creation, you can only come to one conclusion. God hath wrought this. And in verse 9, don't we read those very words, who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? How hard the heart of man is against God when he can look and examine creation and still believe that it simply came as a result of millions of changes over millions of years. No, God hath wrought this. When you look at creation, You are taught this. Also, in Job chapter 39, God speaks there about members of creation. That is, creatures themselves and the lessons that they have got to teach. In Job chapter 39 and verses 13 to 17, we learn there of the ostrich. And what does this ostrich do? Well, in verse 13, it asks the question here, The Word of God gave us thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks, our wings and feathers unto the ostrich, which leaveth her eggs in the earth and warmeth them in dust, and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones as though they were not hers. Her labour is in vain without fear because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. This creature will take its eggs, lay them, cover them up and then leave them, forsake them. Why? Because God hath deprived her of wisdom. And there's a lesson in that. How many people are so careless They're careless about what God has given to them. They do not look after it. They do not care for the good things that God has provided. Go down the passage, you'll learn about the horse. The horse is a creature that can go into battle. My, when we read the history of warfare, you'll not read that history before you understand that the horse is the creature, or was the creature, that was greatly used in battle. But what an experience for the horse! The horse charged in the midst of conflict, the roar of the cannon, the sound of a gun, at least in a more modern era. Well, in Bible times, the horse had to charge through the spears and the swords and the noise of thunder, this passage says. And yet in verse 25, it's as if the horse is speaking here, and it says, He saith among the trumpets, Ha! Ha! He smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and is shouting. The horse is a fearless creature. Christian, if you want to learn something about fearlessness, in your stand for the Lord Jesus Christ. Consider the horse in the midst of the battle. You see, right through the Word of God, the creatures of the earth have lessons to teach to us. And in chapter 6 of the book of Proverbs, and in verse 6, we are told, go to the ant. Here is a creature that has got something to teach us. And we are told here that the sluggoat That is, the slothful person, the person who is careless about things, is to go to the ant and learn something. The school year is over so I'm not going to say anything to the young persons about being sluggish at education. I wasn't much good at it so I wouldn't lecture you about it at all but I'm sure many a teacher has had to lecture the student about being sluggish in their studies and maybe they reminded them about the ant and how hard working it was. Of course the lazy person with regard to employment could go to the ant. The passage here in reality has much to do with that. A person who refuses to work, though they've got ability, refuses to engage in labour, well they could learn from the ant and learn about industry and learn about work. But this evening I want to apply these words concerning the ant to those who are careless about their souls, careless about coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour. And they do have a great application there. We want tonight to consider the ant, that which the Bible here has got to say about the ant. We want to make an application of it, to show you that the ant, though it has no guide, No overseer, no ruler, yet she makes preparation, we're told there in verse 8. She provided her meat in the summer and gathered her food in the harvest. And so in the time whenever there's food and plenty, the aunt is industrious and she is at work. And God tonight in this house through the ministry of the Word of God in the bringing forth again of the message of Christ and His redeeming grace comes afresh to your soul. This is a time of plenty for you. This is a time where you can learn of the Lord Jesus. You have the opportunity to come to know Him as your Lord and Saviour, as you hear once again the Gospel message presented I wonder, will you be like the ant? And will you now make preparation for eternity and come to know the Lord Jesus? The ant is a creature you can learn from. Or would you fold your hands, as it were, and say, as a sluggish person, oh, a little slumber, a little more sleep in my sin, a little folding of the hands, oh, I warn you, your poverty will come, your poverty of soul will be realised one day if you go on as you are. Let's learn from the ant though. First of all, could we make some comparisons between the ant and ourselves? You say, well that's not going to be something you're going to do easily, but think of it for a moment and I think we will be able to make some comparison. First of all, we're told here, go to the ant. So the sluggish person is told, go to the ant, there's something for you to learn, so immediately there's a comparison there, isn't there, that is being drawn. The ant is a small creature of course. I'm sure if we keep to millimetres, maybe some of the older folk are still like me, we work with inches and then I work with millimetres and metres and so forth, and I get myself all confused when I'm measuring a piece of wood, for instance, for we've got the two systems in our head, but if you stick to millimetres, about half a centimetre, five mil perhaps the size of an ant. It's not a very large creature, is it? A small, insignificant creature amongst all the other creatures in the earth, and yet the Bible says, go to this creature, Could I remind you that we do have a similar characteristic with the ant, because the Bible says of us, what is man that thou art mindful of him? We look at the ant and say, a little creature, if it crawled onto our hand, we would flick it off. It would be nothing, an irrelevance. But you know, the Bible says about man, what is man? that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of Man, that thou visitest him." The astronauts tell us that their first visit into space is something that almost overwhelms them. For as they would look out of their craft or perhaps step out and do one of those space walks, and they look down upon the blueness of the globe, they begin to realise how small, how insignificant we really are in the whole scheme of the universe. We are nothing. And the Bible says that. What is man that thou art mindful of him? You know, whenever you consider ourselves before a holy, God before He who rules over all the heavens and all the earth. Don't we realize that we are nothing? Haven't you realized that you're but one sinful creature upon the face of this earth? And that what are you before a holy God? My God's people in Bible times brought face to face, as it were, into the very presence of God. were forced to realize that. Isaiah, he said, as he witnessed the holiness and grandness of God, he said when he viewed and heard those words, holy, holy, holy, woe is me, he said, I'm a man, I'm undone, I'm a man of unclean lips. Haven't you realized what you are before a thrice holy God? You are but as nothing. What is man that thou art mindful of him? You can think of the creature called the ant and think of its lifespan. I don't know if you know how long an ant lives for, but it's interesting looking these things up. But roughly about, I suppose, eight to ten weeks. You could almost say seventy days. And when we think of what is man, that God is mindful of him. What is he? We spend our years, the Bible says, as a teal that is told. If we have even our 70 years, what are they? They are but a blink. Go to the oldest person in this meeting, I'm sure there's somebody over the age of 70, and ask them what have the 70 years previous been like? They will tell you like a teal. like a meditation, like a thought. Though the years ahead seem long, the years behind have gone like a flash. What is man? See, the ant has some characteristics, you can see right away, that are relevant to us. But then there's a specific feature in this passage that we are to examine and consider about the ant. We're told here in verse 6, consider the ways of this creature. Consider her ways and be wise. Why is she wise? What does she do that makes her wise? Well, if you look there at verse 7, you'll see the reason we are directed to this creature. We are told, first of all, that she has no guide, overseer or ruler. And yet she has the wisdom to make preparation, especially in the summer and especially as the harvest is gathered in. Though she has no guide, though she has no ruler, yet she knows what she must do. Now, in this we are most unlike the ant. If you take society, for instance, society is not like the ant. That is, as a society of people in this province, we are not left to our own devices. God has initiated government. God has put the sword into the hand of government in order to rule over people. That's why we have government. We're not each going along our own way, as it were, in society. There is a government, there is a rule. Now at times we may greatly criticise our government, and rightly so, but the fact is there is a government in society. We're not like the ant then. God has given a rule. God has given government to rule over society. He has not left us like the ant. Take for instance also our homes. We are not left like the ostrich. Remember we looked at her at the beginning. The ostrich laid her eggs, she forgetteth about them. They hatched out and whatever happened, happened to them. But when we were born, we were born into a home. We had somebody to care for us. We had somebody to nurture us. Had that not been the case, we would not be here. But for many months we had to be fed, we had to be nurtured, we had to be looked after. The vast majority of people here in this house, I'm sure, have grown up in a home. Young people, you're growing up even now. Some starting out life's journey almost. You've still many years to go before you make out for life on your own. Older young people here can look back across their teenage years, many years. You see, we're somewhat different, aren't we, from the ant? We're not the same. The ant, you see, has the wisdom to get on with what she needs to do. But God has done something in our lives. God has initiated a government, a rule, We even have that in the house of God. We have elders. We have a session that looks after the spiritual life of the church. God has a rule over us. Why is all that? Because we're not like the ant. We're not wise. You know what the Bible says? Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. There's something wrong with us. We are sinners. We're born in sin. We're shaping iniquity. And God has put government into our lives because of what we are. We're sinners. And we have to be guided. And we have to be directed. And especially when it comes to our soul. When it comes to the great need that we have in our heart. We don't understand what's wrong with us. We don't understand our nature. We go our own way. We live our own life. Why do we do it? Because we're sinners. Why do we reject the Word of God? Because we're sinners. And we defy God. And God has put barrier and barrier and barrier up against us to help us. But still we break through to go our own way. Why? We are depraved. We're sinful in ourselves. God still comes to you this evening in His mercy through what He has accomplished through His Son on the cross of Calvary. He who has gone to the cross and died for us to save us and to redeem us. This evening, you in your sin, God calls you to repentance, to turn to Him that you might know salvation, that you might know Christ as your Lord and as your Savior. That's what God does for you, to guide you to himself because you're a sinner. We're not like the ant. See, having no guide, no overseer or ruler, she has wisdom. We don't have that wisdom. God, therefore, commands all men He directs you through His Word to repentance from sin and to the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, would you not be wise this evening? And would you not come to know the Lord Jesus Christ? You will notice the aunt does something that we are told here in verse 8. She provideth her meat. in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest." Now draw your attention to the fact that the ant gathers in good food. It's called meat here, food in the harvest. She's not gathering trinkets for herself or for the nest. She's not gathering rubbish, but she is gathering food which she knows that she needs. Could I suggest to you there's another element of the ant's wisdom in that? I wonder, perhaps you do feel, yes, my soul does need something. But I wonder, how are you providing for your soul? Perhaps you're saying tonight, but listen preacher, I'm doing the best that I can. I'm attending a church. I'm living a good life. I'm following a practice. And I believe that if I do this, then I'll be alright with God. Listen, for your soul to be provided for, it must have good food. And the only food that your soul can rely on safely is that which is found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and in His redeeming works. That's why we ask you, have you been born again? Are you saved? Are you washed in the blood of Christ? Are you depending upon the Saviour and what He has accomplished on the cross of Calvary? This is the good food for your soul. Do you remember the Lord Jesus often times, He used this analogy of His own self. He said, I am the bread of life. When you come to Christ, That's the food that your soul needs. That's what you need to prepare for heaven. Do you have Christ as your Lord and as your Saviour? Oh, there are many verses that we could turn you to to sum up what the Lord Jesus Christ is for the soul. What He does for the soul. But let me give you just a few verses from 1 John chapter 4 and look at verse 9 and 10. In this was manifested the love of God toward us because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. You're not going to live before God with your good works. You're not going to live before God with your own opinions and your own ideas. You're only going to live before God if you have Jesus Christ as your Lord and as your Saviour. This is the good food here in His love. Not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Are you preparing for eternity? Based on good food, that which is in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, have you been redeemed? Are you saved? Are you born again? Are you relying only upon Christ and His righteousness and the cleansing power of His blood? This alone will feed your soul. This alone will meet its great need. Christ, Christ, Christ. Why does the aunt prepare? Because she knows the future survival of both itself and the whole colony depend upon such preparation. It says here She provideth her meat in the summer and gatherth her food in the harvest. Because the aunt knows the survival of itself and of the colony depends upon this provision. May I remind you that the future of your soul depends on how it is provided for now in this life. You might be making a lot of preparation for family life. A lot of preparation for your future. The Lord Jesus Christ had something to say about that in Matthew's Gospel and in chapter 6. He said concerning what men and women do regarding this life and their preparation for it. He said these words, Matthew chapter 6. Let's read verse 19. Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Where are you laying up treasure for? You can have the best provision for this life. and absolutely no provision for your soul. What are you doing to provide for eternity? This is the question. Mark 8.36 says, What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Your soul friend is much more valuable than the body that you possess. What provision are you making for it? For unless you come to know Christ as your Lord and Saviour, your soul will be ruined in hell for all eternity. What a tragedy! How you prepare in this life will decide for eternity. Oh, tonight would you not come and be wise and flee to the Lord Jesus Christ? The aunt makes this preparation as opportunity presents itself, you will notice. Here in Proverbs chapter 6, notice what she does. The aunt recognises the season for gathering in the food. It says, Provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest. Because the aunt knows that the other seasons will not provide for it. They'll not provide for the colony. And so when the season of summer comes and harvest, it seizes the moment. When we were living in Devon, we had great problems with ants. The warmer climate seemed to breed them. And one of the things that we had to learn very quickly not to do, especially on Sunday, is to watch the children. They didn't drop bits of food on the floor, and especially meat, for they seemed to love the beef. And if there was a bit of beef lying on the floor, you would come down the next morning and the ants would be in lines all through the hallway where we ate. I didn't understand, I couldn't I comprehend how it was that these aunts had found this piece of meat, but I learned this, that they were adept at seizing the opportunity. When they found the piece of meat, they seized it. And many of them would come in through the door and take hold of little bits and off they'd go. Can I remind you tonight that God gives you the season of opportunity, not tomorrow, But He gives you that season of opportunity in the Gospel today. Today, not tomorrow. Nor is it the case that the Word of God is far away from you. Doesn't the book of Romans chapter 10 remind us of that? It speaks there of those who will say that somehow, well, the Word is far away. It's not near. And if you turn to the book of Romans chapter 10 and verses 8 and 9, you will see what Paul there does. He's actually taking Old Testament prophecy from the book of Deuteronomy. And he says in verse 6, But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down from above. There are some people who want Christ, as it were, to appear before them right now to show Himself. But say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? That is, to bring Christ down from above. Or who shall descend into the deep? That is, to bring up Christ again from the dead. The Lord Jesus is not going to appear before you physically. But rather, this is what the Gospel is, verse 8, but what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised them from the dead, thou shalt be saved. This is the gospel. This is the opportunity God gives to you this evening. Today, God says, if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God has raised them from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Will you not be wise like the ant and seize the opportunity of God's grace that he gives you and come to know him as your saviour? Lastly, you will notice that the ant does this with great industry. The very fact that she provides her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest." That phraseology makes us think of the work the aunt does. She is an industrious aunt. She works hard. That's why attention is drawn to the aunt because the sluggard could learn something about industry and work. We don't say to you that you have to work your way to heaven. No. But we do say to you, you're not to be careless and you're not to be heedless when the gospel message comes to you. You're not to think of folding your hands, as it were, and going to sleep again. There are many people, that's what they do. When they hear the gospel, they say, well, yes, I have a little concern. And then they go out the door and they go through another week without Christ. Learn from the ant. Seize the everlasting prize this evening. Come to Christ. Lord Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. And what that verse means is that you must seize the opportunity today. Don't say somehow, no, not now. Or I'll think about it a little bit longer. Or when I'm a little bit more convinced. No, that's not the Gospel. That's not the way to respond. You must come now. Come now. Let us reason together. Thank God your sins today, though they are so sinful, thank God they can be cleansed today. This is the Gospel. This is the word. It is nigh thee. Consider the ant. Go to the ant. Consider her ways. Be wise. If she seizes her meat in the summer, if she gathers her food in the harvest, should ye not learn from her tonight, ye are not saved. And come to know Christ today, this very day. O God, today comes with his word. He calls upon you. Repent. Turn from your sin. Oh friend, without the Saviour your soul is in danger. You need to make provision. Come to Christ. Come to Him today. He will save you. May God bless His Word to each of our hearts.