But it says in Proverbs 12, 24, "The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful
shall be under the tribute."
The first thing I want to point out there is that, again, if you don't need an overseer
all the time and a guide, pretty soon you'll be the supervisor.
You'll be the manager.
You'll be the boss.
You will bear rule in that situation.
But then look at the second part there.
It says, "But the slothful shall be under tribute."
Now, what is tribute in our modern vernacular?
What would we call tribute today?
Taxes, right?
So the Bible's saying here that, you know, the slothful are going to be under tribute.
They're going to be taxed.
And I think this applies to our nation as a whole.
Because we've become a slothful nation, we're heavily taxed.
Why?
Because people are not willing to go out and work and pay for themselves and care for themselves.
So we have this entitlement system where we have so many people who are on welfare and
so many people who are on unemployment and so many people who are just getting paid that
could be out working.
But instead they just get paid to do nothing and because our society is slothful, government
expands.
Because you see, if everybody in America worked hard, if every man would go out and work hard
and provide for his own house and make the money to pay the bills, here's the thing,
we wouldn't be clamoring for all this help from the government, but we have all these
people clamoring for the handout today and voting for the people that are going to give
it to them.
Why?
Because it's slothful and sluggardly because our society has become slothful and we don't
have this ethic that says, you know what, let's work hard, let's do it ourself, let's
pay our own way.
It's just, no, no, my name's Jimmy, I'll take all you give me, is what it becomes, okay?
Instead of going out and doing it yourself.
So that's why the slothful shall be under tribute.
Now unfortunately, we all have to pay tribute, no matter, and the ones who work the hardest
pay the most, but we're all under tribute because just as a society, we've just become
slothful and everybody wants something for free.
And you know, when you give people something for free, you've removed the incentive to
work for it.
You know, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, okay?
And you take away people's incentive to work when you just give them everything.
And the bottom line is today, that when people are given a handout, for example, unemployment,
let's say it's given to them for 16 weeks, they start looking for a job at week 15.
If it's given to them for 50 weeks, they're going to start looking for a job at week 49,
okay?
It's just human nature.
And if it's free, you know what I mean?
Now, look, I'm not criticizing you if you've taken it on point, because you paid into the
crazy thing your whole life, you know?
I've never taken it, but I'm not going to judge people because that's between them and
God and whatever they want to do.
And I can understand the philosophy that says, "Well, I paid into this my whole life.
Give me some of it back."
But you know what?
If you're just going to take that time and just sit around and do nothing, you're going
to become a sluggard and a slothful person, going to ruin your life.
You'd be better off to just go to work, just do something, do some kind of work, stay busy
every day of your life because listen, men were born to work.
We were created to work.
Adam was told, "You're going to work by the sweat of your face all the days of your life."
And we are created to work.
And let me tell you something.
When you don't work as a man, you're depressed.
Show me a man who's unemployed.
Show me a man who doesn't work and I'll show you a man who's depressed.
They're down.
And people, even when they retire, they get depressed and down unless they find something
else to do, some other productive work to do with their life.
People will sometimes live and be healthy and as soon as they retire, they die just
because they just fall apart because we're designed to work, we want to be busy.
And when you see a man who is not working and he's down and then you see him get a job,
it's like you just see a spring in his step, he's happy, he's doing something.
Even if it's not the best job in the world, it's just, it makes people happy to go to
work and to do something.
And people get depressed when they don't work.
And they get tired and they get depressed and then they go to the doctor to figure out
what's wrong with them.
Because they're so tired and they're so depressed and they're down.
And then they're prescribed the antidepressant.
Right?
And then it's like, oh man, I just hurt all over, I'm just pain all over my body.
It's just from sitting around.
Sometimes if you get up and get moving, the pain will go away.
You know, you just need to use, I mean, your body is not designed for the sedentary life
of 2013 America.
That's not what God created your body to do.
And so when you live this really sedentary life where you drive to the mailbox to get
your mail and then drive back, you know, even though it's like, you know, 100 feet away.
You know, when you just live this completely sedentary life, you drive everywhere you go,
then you take the elevator, then you sit in a padded chair.
You know, you don't do any hard work physically.
Yeah, it's great, it's comfortable, but you know what?
Your body's paying the price and then all of a sudden you wonder why you have all this
pain throughout your body.
It's because you've abused your body with a sedentary lifestyle and eating junk food.