I think you know what I'm going to preach out of this chapter, but no, I'm not preaching on the main part of the chapter.
This is not a political sermon.
And so, what I want to preach about is just something that's found in the first part of the chapter, actually,
when Jacob is brought in and speaks with Pharaoh, and Joseph reveals unto him that his brethren and his father are there with him.
I wanted to point out this phrase that Pharaoh speaks when he says in verse number 6,
The land of Egypt is before thee, and the best of the land make thy father and brethren dwell, and the land of Goshen let them dwell.
And this is the phrase I want to preach on.
And if thou knowest any men of activity among them, then make them rulers over my cattle.
And the title of my sermon tonight is Men of Activity.
Now, it's interesting that if you look throughout the Bible at God's people, let's start with Joseph,
because that's who we're dealing with in this story.
Joseph was sold into slavery into the land of Egypt at the age of 17 years old.
If you remember, his brethren were jealous of him because dad loved him more and bought him the coat of many colors.
They entreated him evil. They basically lied in wait for him, threw him into a pit, sold him into slavery.
And when he went into slavery, he was sold from the Ishmaelites to a man in Egypt named Potiphar,
and he basically became a slave in Potiphar's house, and yet he excelled so much in Potiphar's house
that it got to the point where the Bible says that Potiphar did not know anything about his finances.
He didn't know anything about what was going on. Everything was in Joseph's hands.
All he did was just sit down at the table and the food was there, the Bible says.
Just basically, the food was there for him to eat. He didn't worry about it because he had put everything under Joseph's hands.
Then, of course, Potiphar's wife lied and tried to seduce Joseph, and he ended up getting thrown in prison.
But notice how he excelled in that house in Potiphar's house.
You look at Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the four most righteous and godliest men that were taken into captivity to Babylon.
Look how they excelled to the point where Nebuchadnezzar said,
these four young men are ten times better than any of these other guys that are standing before me.
And here, Pharaoh, he's already put Joseph in charge of the whole nation.
He's already put him in this key position. Joseph's brethren come, and he basically says,
well, if there are any men of activity among them, put them over my cattle.
And I want to preach tonight on men of activity. We're going to go to a lot of Bible verses tonight.
But the opposite of activity is doing nothing. It's being idle. It's sitting around.
And we, as God's people, should be men of activity. We should not sit around.
We shouldn't waste our life. We shouldn't be idle. Let me give you some scriptures on idleness.
But first, let's turn to, let's go to Ezekiel 16.
Ezekiel chapter 16, toward the end of the Old Testament, those three great big books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.
Look at Ezekiel chapter 16.
Ezekiel chapter number 16, and we're going to begin reading in verse number 48.
The Bible says in Ezekiel 16, 48,
As I lived, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done,
she nor her daughters as thou hast done, thou on thy daughters.
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom.
Pride, fullness of bread, and look at this next phrase,
an abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters.
Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy,
and they were haughty and committed abomination before me.
Therefore I took them away as I saw good.
Where did the wickedness of Sodom begin?
I mean, where did it all start?
How did they go from being a normal city to turning into the perverted cesspool of sodomy and homosexuality that it turned into?
It started out, the Bible says, with pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness.
It started out with just sitting around, you've got all the food you need,
so you start taking time off from work, start taking it easy, you're sitting around, you're not doing anything,
and what do you know, they committed abomination.
Now people will try to take this passage, and you know, the sodomites will abuse this passage.
I mean, literally, there are sodomites in weirdo churches.
I mean, right here in Tempe, my friend, there is a church with a faggot rainbow.
Whoops, I can't believe I just said that.
A rainbow on the sign of a church, of a United Methodist church.
Now let me tell you something, that is abomination, it's wicked, it's disgusting, it's filthy, it's vile,
and they would actually put it in the name of Jesus Christ by claiming to be a church that preaches the Bible,
and to have that kind of a symbol on the outside of the church because the pastor is a lesbian.
Unbelievable! That's the world we're living in.
And these kind of ministry, clergy type people will say,
oh, the real sin of Sodom, they'll take you to Ezekiel 16.
And say, oh, the real sin was just pride.
Oh, the real sin, I've had so many people try to say,
it doesn't even mention homosexuality, it's just pride, idleness, not helping the poor.
But wait a minute, keep reading, what does it say in verse 49?
I'm sorry, verse 50, it says, and they were haughty and committed abomination.
Somebody said, oh, it's just talking about pride. No, that's what led to the abomination.
That's why it says in Jude, it says, even as the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,
he said, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication,
and going after strange flesh. Let me translate the word strange for you, queer.
Going after strange flesh or set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
That's what it says in the book of Jude. But it started with idleness.
You see, the first point of the sermon tonight is, when you are idle,
when you're not doing anything, when you're sitting around with nothing to do,
that's where you go into sin. Now, obviously, nobody's going into that weirdo sin.
But what I'm saying is, they didn't get that way overnight as a society.
It was a progression. It was a downward spiral.
You know, we come into the story in Genesis 18 and 19, and they're at the bottom of that spiral,
where they're basically trying to attack these two angels that have come to see Lot.
That's at the end of the line, but they didn't get there overnight.
It started out with an idle society of people sitting around, and an idle mind is truly the devil's workshop.
That's what my mom taught me as a child. She said, Stephen, an idle mind is the devil's workshop.
She would say that to me all the time, and how true it is.
It's Mother's Day, so I had to give a little shout-out for Mom.
My mom taught me that an idle mind is the devil's workshop, and I'll tell you what the problem today is.
I'll tell you what the problem with teenagers is. They don't work. They don't do anything.
They get out of school. They're sitting around, and they just turn on the TV.
They get into magazines or get on the Internet and serve who knows what,
and they get into perversion and abomination.
I find the best thing to keep me out of trouble or to keep anybody out of trouble is to be busy and work and do something with your life.
I tried to be a good Christian as a teenager. I remember going to church.
I used to go to church practically every night because I'd go to this youth group and this youth activity.
I had my hands in so many youth groups. I remember I was going to church with my parents Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
Then I found a church that had a Thursday night service. I'd go to that service.
Then I'd go to a small group Bible study on Tuesday nights. I went to a different Bible study on Monday nights.
Then usually on Friday or Saturday, between one of those churches, there was some kind of a youth activity going on.
Literally, almost on a daily basis, I was involved in something.
I'll tell you something. My Christianity had no activity in it because, yes, I'm at a Bible study.
I'm reading the Bible, but nobody was telling me what kind of work I needed to do as a Christian.
Does anybody know what I'm talking about? I remember just sitting in church, and they'd be like,
Serve God! Do something for God! Work for God! I'm just like, what do I do?
I didn't know what to do. Do I clean the building? Do I just come here and mow the lawn? I don't know what to do.
Thank God that I got into church when I was 17 years old that gave me some work to do.
Put a Bible in my hand and said, here, go knock the doors. Go win souls to Christ. Go preach the gospel.
Then I had something to do. Then I could have some service to do for God.
But let me tell you something. When people don't have anything to do, they get into trouble.
I remember as a teenager, I had two jobs. I was doing school, and that kept me out of trouble.
Then you get married. You're busy. It'll keep you out of trouble.
You've got to work overtime to pay the bills, to support your family.
Even today, I'm so busy, it's insane. People say, man, how do you do that?
But you know, I'm glad I'm busy because it keeps me on the right path.
I want to be a man of activity. I don't want to be idle.
I don't want to be sitting around dreaming up things to get into trouble.
Look at David, 2 Samuel 11, when he was supposed to be out fighting the battle, leading the troops.
At the time when kings go forth to war, he stayed behind, and he's just walking around on top of his rooftop.
Just walking around, walking around, and then he sees a woman bathing, Bathsheba.
That's where he got into sin. The problem was he had too much time on his hands.
Let me tell you something. You're not thinking about going out and fornicating and getting drunk and partying when you're working.
Because if you work hard, if you work 12-hour days, 6 days a week, at the end of the day, you just want to go to sleep.
You just want to go to bed. You don't want to go out and party and be with friends.
I remember people would try to get me to party and stuff when I was a teenager.
Usually I was just too tired to really go out and party much or stay up really late.
Because I had to get up early the next morning.
And you know, today we're living in a day where temptation abounds. It's unbelievable.
We are living, as Philippians 2 says, in a crooked and perverse nation among whom we shine as lights in the world.
There's a lot of temptation out there. You don't want to be in David mode, walking around on the top of your roof,
just looking at everybody's yard, wondering what to do with yourself.
And get something to do. See, I don't know what to do.
Hey, go out solely and he wins souls to Christ.
We have plenty of opportunities to go out on the highways and head just preaching the Gospel to every creature.
Plenty of opportunity. You know, get a job. Build something. Do something.
And don't let yourself get idle. Because that's where you're going to get into sin.
But number two, not only that, you'll get into false doctrine when you get idle.
Not only will you get into sin, you'll get into false doctrine.
You know, somebody asked me today, is there a time when I can just come and we can just talk?
And I'm just thinking to myself, you know what? If you want to talk to me, let's go soul winning.
You know, we can talk between the doors.
The people in this room who probably talk to me the most, you know when you probably usually talk to me the most?
Is when you came on one of my crazy work trips where we drove like 3,000 miles.
We had plenty of time to talk, didn't we?
But we were also doing something. You know, we were also getting something done.
And most of you that I've talked to a lot, I usually talk to you out solely.
Talk to you while we're doing something.
Instead of just sitting around idle and talking, want to get something done, look at Proverbs 14.23.
I didn't have you turn anywhere else that we didn't read, did I?
Look at Proverbs 14.23.
Proverbs 14.23, you know it's great to talk and fellowship, but you know what?
When you sit around and talk and you're idle, idle means what?
Think about when your car is idling, you're not going anywhere, you're not doing anything.
When you're idle, when you're not out winning souls, when you're not doing the work of the ministry,
when you're not out preaching the gospel, you just start sitting around and dreaming up foolish ideas.
I find that the people who go out soul winning and actually do the work and preach the gospel,
their doctrine stays straight.
Because they're not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word.
He said, be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own self.
For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man, beholding his natural face in a glass.
He beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and forget it what manner of man he was.
But if so, looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueeth therein.
He be not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word.
This man shall be blessed in his deed.
The ones who do the work are the ones who know the Bible.
And when you get a bunch of people who aren't doing the work, sitting around and talking, you get confusion.
Let me tell you what the Bible says, avoid foolish questions.
Avoid them.
It's not answer foolish questions, it's avoid foolish questions.
And you know what else you should avoid?
Oppositions of science, falsely so called, which some professing the verb concerning faith.
Right, 1 Timothy 6.
He didn't say, let's build a science seminar, we're going to prove this science.
He said, avoid oppositions of science, falsely so called.
Ants are not a fool according to his folly.
Do you think I'm going to get up and debate somebody for an hour about whether or not I came from a monkey?
I don't have time to debate that.
I don't have time to talk to somebody who the fool has said in his heart there is no God.
I'd rather just go out and preach the gospel to every creature.
I'd rather instead of arguing and debating with somebody who doesn't have a clue,
and doesn't want to learn, and doesn't care what the truth is,
I'd rather get to that next door where somebody wants to hear the gospel.
I was out soul winning with Matt's friend today, Matt's friend Matt.
Matt's got a friend named Matt and we were out soul winning.
And he and I were knocking doors and basically somebody said they didn't want to hear it.
I said, all right, see you later.
He said, oh, I like the way you're not really too pushy with people that don't want to hear it.
And I told him, I said, well, you know what?
I said, I'm not going to sit here and battle with somebody when I said,
I guarantee you there's somebody down the street who wants to hear the gospel.
I'm not going to sit here and get some argument with some false religion.
A man that is a heretic, the Bible says, after the first and second admonition, reject.
Don't just sit there and just blah, blah, blah.
So I basically, I just finished telling this guy Matt that and then we knocked the next door.
And this lady, we were walking away from the door.
She kind of followed us out and said, oh, you know, sorry, I wasn't at the door.
Sorry, my dog, what do you guys need?
And then she really wanted to hear the gospel and ended up getting saved.
And I basically told him, I said, see what I mean?
I said, I'd rather get to these kind of people than to sit there and argue about science.
And it's not even science.
I would love to talk about real science.
But not this kind of stuff of billions and billions of years ago
and all the matter in the universe was the size of a marble and stuff.
I don't have time for that kind of stuff.
It just doesn't make any sense to me, debating that.
Or debating these Bible doctrines.
Could God make a rock so big that he couldn't pick it up?
That kind of garbage.
That kind of garbage needs to just be, you know what?
If somebody asked me that question, I'd just say, avoid foolish questions.
I'm not going to sit there and get tied up in stuff that people, when they sit around,
and they're just idle, and they go to a church that doesn't win souls.
That's the problem.
And then therefore all they want to do is just, oh, Pastor Anderson, can we talk?
How many times have people said, well, other pastors in town have contacted me.
You seem like a nice guy, but I think you're off on some things.
Let's sit down and have coffee. I'll buy you a cup of coffee.
I don't have time to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you.
I'm too busy working. I'm too busy paying my bills.
I'm too busy spending time with my family.
I'm too busy winning souls to Christ.
I'm too busy pastoring my church than to sit and talk to you about why you're wrong about the Bible.
It's not my fault that you call yourself a pastor and you've got a bunch of letters behind your name
and you think that God chooses some people to go to hell and other people to go to heaven
when the Bible says God's not willing to any comparison.
I don't have time for you. You already made your choice.
You already went to the seminary and then taught all this false doctrine.
You already decided to use the NIV, the non-inspired version.
You already decided to use the New American Standard Version and the RSV, the really stupid version.
And you've already decided to use the NRSV, the new really stupid version.
That's not my fault. I don't have time for it.
I'm trying to sit around and drink coffee with you, but many pastors, they're sitting around drinking coffee and they're idle.
They're idle.
They need to be men of activity, being active, doing the work, getting out there and doing something for God.
Where did I return?
Proverbs 14.
Proverbs 14, 23. The Bible says this.
In all labor there is profit.
This is one of my favorite verses, by the way.
In all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.
Penury means poverty.
In all labor there's profit.
You see, when you get to work a little early and you say, well, I wasn't really on the clock yet,
and you stay a little late and you weren't really still on the clock, there's always profit in all labor.
Any work you do, any time you go out and work.
I mean, there are times, literally, when I'll go fly somewhere, do a bunch of jobs, and even lose a little bit of money on that proposition.
You know, because I run a business, some jobs you do at a loss.
Sometimes you make a lot of money, and at the end of the day you balance it out and you make a good living.
But you don't profit from every job.
Some jobs you take a little bit of loss.
But I find that just using this as my business model right here, I'd rather work than sit around.
Even if I'm just going to break, even if I'm going to make five bucks, I'm just going to go out and work,
and I find that work leads to more work.
Sometimes I'll go on a trip and think, oh, I'm not going to make any money.
I'm going to make five bucks, I'm going to lose five bucks.
But then when I get there, it'll turn out they needed some additional work, or that customer can turn into another customer.
In all labor there's profit.
Doing something produces something.
But talk of the lips can lead you into poverty when you're not working, when you're just talking all the time.
Just chatting and sitting around, you're not getting anywhere in life.
Look at Matthew chapter 20.
Matthew chapter 20.
You see, the church that wins souls stays out of false thoughts.
The church that's out there doing the work, the church that has the right emphasis.
But when you're just sitting around reading, and I'm not talking about reading the Bible,
because you can never read too much Bible.
Don't ever let anybody tell you you read the Bible too much, they're full of baloney.
You can't read the Bible too much.
You know what, when you've read about one paragraph of mostly devotionals and books from the Christian bookstore, you've read too much.
When you get on page one of the Prayer of Jabez, you just read too much.
When you get on the Left Behind series, you've read way too much.
When you're sitting around and you've got our daily bread, which should be called our daily dead, because it's so dead.
It should be one verse or a half a verse, and then a whole page of man's wisdom, of what man thinks.
Boy, we need God's word.
I talked to a guy one time and I said, you need to read through the Bible cover to cover.
I said, I want to help you get on this program. I said, I'm giving you this chart. This will really help you out.
And I wasn't being condescending, it was a guy that was a friend of mine.
And he and I talked and got along good and everything.
And I said, man, this chart, I don't know if you've seen this, I think this will be good. Try this.
Because he said he'd never read it cover to cover.
And he said, well show me how the chart works.
I said, well you read this much per day, you read about four chapters a day and you're done in one year.
In one year you've read the whole Bible.
He said, I can't read that much.
He said, I'm reading too many other things. He said, I'm reading the Prayer of Jabez right now.
And he listed off a few Christian books he's reading.
So he doesn't have time to read the Bible, but just a little bit.
He said, I can maybe do one chapter a day.
Oh, five minutes. Wow, I'm sure God is really going to do something with that.
Five minute little reading.
You can't even read it for 15 or whatever, 20 to get through it in one year.
Let alone a sweet hour of prayer.
You know what I mean? It's just this little, have a little talk with Jesus.
The music says it all, right?
We went from sweet hour of prayer being sung in church to, who are those people, the Oak Ridge Boys or whatever.
Have a little talk with Jesus.
I want to have a little talk with Jesus. I want to sit down and have a real big talk with Jesus right here in the Bible.
I'm not saying you can read the Bible too much, but when you start reading a bunch of commentaries,
and you know what the worst thing is? Surfing the internet for your doctrine.
I don't want to get my doctrine off the internet, because you know what? I don't know where it came from.
You've got all this stuff on the internet, all these articles written by who knows who,
and you're just surfing the internet to get your doctrine. Read the Bible.
I like what my pastor told me when I was 17 years old.
He said, don't even think about studying the Bible until you've read it.
First read it, then study it.
He said, in fact, read it five times, then study it.
I read it five times. I said, you know what? I'm going to do that.
I read it once when I was 17, and then I read it four times when I was 18.
I got to my 19th year, and I read the Bible five times.
I'm like, okay, I'm ready to study the Bible. I was like, I don't even want to study it anymore.
I think I'll just read it five more times, see where I'm at.
I read it five more times and just decided not to study it.
Just decided to keep reading.
I still don't study the Bible.
You know what I mean? I'm not going to sit around and do some word study and dig into one word.
I just like reading it.
I love what the Bible says.
You do err not knowing the strictest.
He says, how readest thou, Jesus said.
Almost in every chapter of the book of Matthew that Jesus is preaching,
he either says, you've not read, have you not read, how readest thou.
It says in Deuteronomy that you should read in the book of the law all the days of your life.
Read it, read it, read it.
Not going down deep, staying down long and coming up dry,
but reading it and then putting it into practice, thou soul winning.
And when you get idle, when you stop doing the work,
when you stop just reading the Bible and just using it,
that's where you start drifting into false doctrine.
And the idle church, they don't have a soul winning night.
They have a Bible study night where everybody sits around in a circle
and everybody's got a different version
and everybody's got their own idea and their own agenda
and they sit around in a circle.
What does this passage mean to you? What do you think?
You know what, you'd be better off going out and doing the work
and maybe you'd learn something.
The Bible says, he that win its souls is wise.
So you get idle and you start getting into false doctrine.
But not only that, not only do you get into sin,
you can get into fornication, get into false doctrine.
You can do it at 1 Timothy 5.
1 Timothy 5, toward the end of the New Testament.
1 Timothy 5.
While you're turning there, I'll read you another scripture.
While you're turning to 1 Timothy 5, it says in Ecclesiastes 10.18,
you're going to 1 Timothy 5, which is toward the end of the New Testament.
For those that are newer to the Bible,
Ecclesiastes 10.18 says,
By much slothfulness the building decayeth,
and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.
There's always plenty to do, isn't there?
Because when you're idle, when you're sitting around,
something's going undone.
I know that at my house, I can never keep up with what needs to be done at my house.
And part of the reason my schedule,
I work literally 70 hours a week at my job,
which has nothing to do with pastoring this church.
I've got five children, a sixth on the way,
I'm married, I've got all this stuff going on.
But let me tell you something.
That house needs attention.
There's always something breaking.
Anybody who owns a home knows what I'm talking about.
Even if you buy a newer home, they have problems.
My home's from the 50s.
It has all kinds of problems.
And that thing will start dropping through.
I mean, the weeds just grow, and you're like,
man, I just cut the weeds, and they're just...
Things are leaking, things are breaking.
There's a lot to do.
What are you doing sitting around in front of the TV?
What are you doing sitting around, just laying on your back,
listening to music and playing a video game?
There's something to do.
I guarantee you there's something to do.
Win souls, read your Bible.
Clean up the church building.
Help maintain the church building.
Do something.
Get another job or something.
But if you sit around, you're going to get into trouble.
You're wasting your life.
You're wasting your time away.
It's not just men.
Here's a good scripture on the women.
Because we're talking about men of activity tonight.
I preached to the women this morning in my Mother's Day sermon.
But in 1 Timothy 5, this is one that's primarily directed toward women,
but look what it says in verse number...
Let's just read verse 8, even though it has nothing to do with what I'm preaching,
just because it's a good verse.
1 Timothy 5, 8,
But if any provide not for his own,
and specially for those of his own house,
he hath denied the faith that is worse than an infidel.
Look at verse 9.
Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old,
that's sixty years old,
having been the wife of one man, well reported of for good works,
if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers,
if she have washed the saints' feet,
if she have relieved the afflicted,
if she have diligently followed every good work.
But the younger widows refuse.
For when they have begun to wax Watson against Christ,
they will marry, having damnation because they have cast off their first faith.
And withal they learn to be idle,
wandering about from house to house,
and not only idle, but toddlers also,
and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
I will therefore that the younger women marry,
bear children, guide the house,
give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully,
for some are already turned aside after Satan.
Now, look at that right there.
He says that a lot of younger women,
when they are sitting around,
and they have nothing to do,
they don't have any children to raise,
they don't have a household to keep,
they basically are just idle.
Okay?
That basically they begin to wax Watson.
They begin to go into sin.
They begin to be a tattler and a busybody.
You know, we would call that like a gossip queen,
or they basically just, today,
many women don't follow real people's lives,
but they're just into, like, reality shows and People magazine,
and they follow all the celebrities and so forth.
But just a busybody,
just worrying about everybody else's life
and living everybody else's life,
and tattling, running their mouth,
speaking things which they ought not, the Bible says.
You know, just hanging on the phone with everybody
and just really not getting anything important done
because they don't have anything to do.
And he says that's why they need to just, like, get married.
If their husband died, you know, if they're a widow,
get married, have kids, guide the house
to give them something to do.
Do you understand what it's saying here?
They need something to do with their life
or else they're going to begin to wax Watson against Christ.
And when the Bible says having damnation,
it's not talking about going to hell.
A lot of times the word damnation or condemnation
is just talking about just an earthly condemnation,
just like the Bible talks about a Christian,
you know, he that doubted is damned if he eat, Romans 14.
It's not talking about going to hell.
It's just talking about a condemnation
or basically just being guilty is what that means.
But he's basically saying here
that women who don't have anything to do
are likely to become a tattler, a busybody.
They start getting into sin.
They get wanton.
They speak things which they ought not.
And that's why every man and every woman
should have something to do.
Remember Adam in the garden?
You know, it's like he shouldn't be alone.
He said, I'll find and help meet for him.
He needed something to do.
He needed someone there with him.
And so many people today,
they don't have any direction in their life,
they don't have any purpose in their life,
and therefore they get into trouble.
You know, they get into sin.
They wax wine.
And so ladies also need to heed the admonition of Proverbs 31
where the virtuous woman in the Bible says,
eateth not the bread of idols.
She's busy.
She riseth also while it is yet night,
and giveth meat to her household,
and apportion to her maidens.
It says she worketh willingly with her hands.
You know, she does something.
And if you're at a point in your life,
you know, I don't know what stage of life you're in.
You've got children here,
and children need to hear this sermon more than anybody.
If they would listen to it,
if teens and children would hear what I'm saying right now,
they're the ones who have the most free time on their hands,
and they're the ones that need this the most.
Don't be idle.
Find something productive to do.
If you're at home and there's nothing to do,
do the dishes.
Sweep the floor.
And by the way, if you're at your job,
you say, oh, my job lets me stand around when there's nothing to do.
You know, your job will like you more if you grab a broom
and start sweeping when there's nothing to do.
Amen.
You know, and thank God,
when I started into the workforce as a teenager,
I didn't really have a great work ethic.
I'll just be honest with you.
I didn't.
You know, I grew up in the video game generation.
I mean, my thumbs worked hard.
I mean, my thumbs,
I probably have the strongest thumbs in America, you know,
from playing with video games all day.
But I'm going to tell you something.
I didn't have a good work ethic.
I didn't.
You know, today I've learned,
and you know, I've prayed literally hundreds of times
that God would help me not to be lazy,
that God would help me to work hard
and to get over that sin in my life
and to be a man of activity.
You know, to be somebody who's not idle and sitting around.
But, you know, it didn't come naturally to me.
But I thank God that my first job,
my first real job besides just, you know,
working with my dad and stuff like that on the side,
at Round Table Pizza,
that manager cracked the whip.
I mean, this was the most strict round table you can imagine.
And you did not stand around.
I mean, I don't care if there's no customers.
I don't care what's happening.
You did not stand around for five seconds at this place.
I mean, they were on you.
What are you doing?
You know, why are you standing around?
Sweep the floor.
Fold boxes.
Do this.
I mean, they worked you hard.
I mean, there was no standing around at this job.
I mean, you worked and you worked and you worked.
And so it got to the point where when I went to other jobs,
even where some standing around was permissible,
I would just find myself just doing so.
You know what I mean?
I figure I'm on the clock, you know,
and I just find myself organizing parts,
clean out my truck.
Do something.
Not be idle.
That's how you're going to excel at the job.
And all labor there is profit.
And that's somebody else's job.
Roll up your sleeves and do it.
It doesn't matter if it's somebody else's job.
You want to be like Joseph where Pharaoh says,
boy, have you got any more guys like you?
Oh, your family's here?
Great.
Are there any men of activity?
I'd like to put them over my flock.
I'd like to hire these guys.
Yeah, you have any friends?
You have any relatives?
Let me hire them.
Like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Ten times better than what the world had to offer.
You've got to be ten times better on the job
because you're a child of God, because you're a Christian.
With the Holy Spirit living inside of you,
you've got to be the best worker on the job.
Ten times better should be your motto on the job.
Not trying to see how much you milk the clock,
how little you can do, but rather saying,
you know what, I've got a little extra time here.
I'm still on the clock.
Where's the broom?
Oh, wait, let's pull out this, you know, a round table.
When we had nothing to do, we'd pull out the oven
and clean under it.
You know, we'd go to those places,
these drains that you'd never see.
We, you know, they were bad.
Those drains.
Who's ever worked at a restaurant and cleaned the drains?
It's bad, isn't it?
And some of these drains don't get cleaned for a long time,
and that was the worst job.
But you know what?
Everybody at that restaurant, even the high up,
even the supervisor, I mean,
he'd pull it out and we'd get in those drains and clean them.
Because we were busy.
We were staying busy.
We were working hard.
And you know what?
When you work hard at your job,
you do it, your day will go by way faster.
The people who are saying, oh, man, three more hours,
two more hours, one more.
It's because they're not hardly working.
That's right.
I remember on the busiest nights when that pizza place
was jam-packed, we'd be working so hard,
it was just, whoa, it's already 9 o'clock?
Whoa, it's 10 o'clock?
It's when you're sitting around wasting time
that you usually find the day dragging on.
Here's another verse that I like.
Look at Ecclesiastes chapter 5.
And boy, this is really true.
Ecclesiastes chapter 5.
The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 5, verse number 12.
And again, this is kind of another one of my verses
that's kind of a motto.
I've served verses in my life that I kind of live by,
certain mottos and things that I think about a lot.
The whole Bible is profitable for doctrine.
You know, you have your favorite verses
that kind of stand out to you that you think about.
These are verses that kind of enter my mind a lot.
Ecclesiastes 5.12 is one of them.
It says, the sleep of a laboring man is sweet,
whether he eat little or much.
But the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
Now look at that right there.
The Bible says the sleep of a laboring man is sweet.
If you don't know what it's like
to just get into your bed at night
and to just feel ecstasy
as you put your head on the pillow
and close your eyes and just,
I finally get to go to sleep,
then you don't know what it is to work hard.
It's true.
I mean, it's like Jeremiah said the same thing.
We won't turn there, but Jeremiah said the same thing.
He said, my sleep was sweet unto me.
You know, your sleep is sweet.
I mean, there are times when I would just
rather get in bed and go to sleep
than to ride any roller coaster you can give me
to do the funnest activity to eat the best food in the world.
I mean, I've been so many times where I was just too tired to eat.
Didn't have dinner. I don't want to eat.
Just let me go to bed. Let me go to sleep.
And the sleep of a laboring man is sleep.
And then you have others that say,
I can't sleep. Give me drugs. Right?
Now let me tell you something.
I used to suffer from insomnia as a teenager badly.
I mean, I'm talking my bedtime when I was a child,
and this isn't really when I was a teenager.
This is maybe like a younger teen.
My bedtime was 9 o'clock.
You know, my mom made me go to bed by 9 o'clock.
You know, as mothers say, shout out to moms.
Made me go to bed at 9 o'clock.
And I would fall asleep usually at about 11.30 or 12.
That's not normal to lay in bed for two or three hours.
But who's ever experienced that before,
where you just lay in bed and can't sleep?
But you know what? I don't have that problem anymore.
I haven't had that problem in a long time.
I'm to the point now where I'm just, I'm narcoleptic.
I mean, I sit out on the airplane, click.
I go, how long do you think it takes me to fall asleep at night, honey?
On average, when I get into that bed?
Like two seconds.
She's not kidding.
I don't even know what it means to lay in bed at night.
I mean, I get in bed, and I'm asleep at five seconds.
I mean, it's just, literally, it's that fast.
You say, what's your secret?
You just got to be tired tonight.
People are like, how can you sleep on the floor in the airport?
How do you sleep in the car?
People are like, I can't sleep in the car.
I'm like, come with me for a few days.
You'll sleep in the car.
I'll cure anyone of insomnia.
I mean, you will sleep in the car with me.
I mean, just the other day, I was with Victor, and I couldn't go to sleep.
It was the weirdest thing.
Remember, I was trying to go to sleep because I'd only slept like three hours a night before.
And I was trying to take a nap while Victor drove.
And I couldn't go to sleep, and I was like, I can't sleep.
And it was so weird because I could always sleep.
But when I was a child, I could never sleep.
Why? Because of just TV, video games.
I wasn't doing any physical work.
I wasn't using my muscles. I wasn't doing anything.
And then I'd go to bed at night, and my eyes still flashing from the video games.
I'm thinking about how I'm going to beat that next level.
I'm thinking about beating the next boss in Mega Man.
I just can't sleep. I just lay there and can't fall asleep.
But the sleep of a laboring man is sweet.
Whether he eats little, eats much.
You say, how do I cure sleeplessness? Work.
Stop watching that TV. That flickering is what's keeping you awake.
The flickering of your screen on your TV.
The 30 frames a second is keeping you awake.
You go to bed. You lay there, and you can't sleep.
And so if you have a TV in their bedroom.
The last thing they do is watch all the devil's programming.
Right before they go to sleep.
And then the first thing they wake up.
Okay, what do you have for me today, Satan?
Who do you think is controlling the dial down there? Jesus?
You think it's God down there that's controlling the dial?
And I don't even know. I haven't watched TV in like seven or eight years.
But I dread to think what it is.
Because when it was seven or eight years ago, it was filthy.
Have they cleaned it up? Somebody help me out.
Has it gotten better since eight years ago?
Tell the truth.
I don't know. Nobody else knows either. Man, I love this term.
But nobody knows.
You got to go to the new believers who are new to church.
They'll tell us.
Anybody who's been to church for like a year or two is like,
Who knows?
But you want to cure sleeplessness?
Work.
Look if you would at James chapter 4.
And while you're going to James 4, I'm going to read you something from Matthew 20.
Remember the story in Matthew 20 where...
The story of the laborers. You know, it was a 12 hour work day.
And people today, they think that their 40 hours is just killing them.
Can't handle it.
But in the Bible, you know, God says,
Six days shalt thou labor.
You know, that was what he said whenever he said the Sabbath day and everything like that.
So he wasn't even on a five day work week.
He said, Six days shalt thou labor.
And you notice in the Bible they were pretty much on a 12 hour work day.
They were like 72 hours a week.
And today we complain and whine about working 40.
Do something with your life.
And you say, well my job is only 40 hours.
Then do work for God.
You know, do work at your house.
Find something to do.
Find something to build.
Learn how to speak another language so you can win souls to Christ in Spanish or another language with your time.
Learn how to play the piano so you can play piano in church.
You know, learn something, do something, build something, work something.
But in Matthew 20, Jesus goes out and basically he's hiring laborers.
You know sometimes there are day labor places?
Well that's basically what's going on here.
There are a bunch of guys standing around.
And the good man in the house comes out and he says,
Hey, I'm going to hire you guys today.
And they said, well how much are you going to pay us?
And it says he agreed with them.
So they bargained a little bit and said, okay, one penny per day.
And obviously inflation is a killer.
Penny doesn't get you what it used to, let me tell you.
You used to be able to hire a guy to work in your field for 12 hours per penny.
Now you can't even buy a piece of candy.
I'm just kidding.
But the penny was a monetary unit obviously for a day's work for an unskilled laborer.
So he hires these guys and hires them for a penny, sends them out in the field.
And then about the third hour he sees some more guys standing around.
And he hires them.
Puts them into the field.
Puts them to work.
He gets there at the sixth hour, the ninth hour, does likewise.
Well he gets there at the eleventh hour and here's what he says at the eleventh hour.
It says, I'm sorry, let me find my verse here.
Matthew 20 verse 6, it says,
And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and saith unto them,
Why stand ye here all the day idle?
They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us.
And saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.
And he didn't really bargain with them.
He just said, look, just go do something.
Why are you standing here all day doing nothing?
Just go work for one hour at least.
Just go work and I'll give you what's right.
And he gave them a penny.
He gave them the full day's work.
And then the other people got angry and upset.
But I think part of what he's teaching there is that the other people didn't really trust him.
They basically said, well, let's nail down the wages now.
He said, okay, he nailed it down to a penny.
These other guys, just by faith, just went and said, okay, we'll work, we'll do it.
He'll be fair.
And boy, was he fair.
He gave them twelve times as much as everybody else got.
But the spiritual application there is not to stand around idle.
And maybe you've spent your life up to this point too idle, not doing anything for God.
Maybe you're in the eleventh hour of your Christianity.
It's not too late to get into the vineyard and get a full reward to do the work now.
You may have been saved for ten years and done nothing with your life.
You may have been saved for twenty years and never wound up sold to Christ.
It's time for you now to get in that vineyard and do the work and not be idle any longer.
And God will give you a huge reward.
You will get the reward.
Many that are first shall be last, the last shall be first.
It's not too late to get in the game and do something with your life and get people saved.
Where did I have your turn?
James chapter four, great passage here, famous passage.
He says now in verse thirteen,
Go to now ye that say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such a city,
and continue there a year, and buy and sell and gain,
whereas ye know not what shall be on tomorrow.
For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appearth for a little time, and then vanishes away.
For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that.
But now ye rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing is evil.
Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.
He says don't think to yourself, oh yeah, this is what I'm going to do someday.
It reminds me of missionaries who someday they're going to go win the loss to Christ in some foreign country,
but you can't get them to go soul hunting here in America.
It's unbelievable to me.
They're going to go out and get the masses saved in Africa and Asia and all these different places.
God says, you know what, you don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow,
and you know to do right now, and you're not doing it, it's a sin.
Don't say today or tomorrow I'll do this, and I'm going to do that,
and I'm going to build this church and start a church.
I love these missionaries too.
They've never even started a church, and they put on their prayer card, we're going to be planting churches.
You know, why don't you just start one and then we'll talk?
Because you know, I know what it is to start a church,
and it's not easy to start a church by the way from scratch.
You know, I've done it.
And let me tell you something, I'm not starting churches.
You know, but oh yeah, we're going to go start churches.
We're planting churches.
And then it's like, hey, let's go soul hunting.
Oh, she's got to go to the doctor, and oh, we've got to go buy some stuff at Walmart,
and oh, we've got to get, you know.
But tomorrow, tomorrow I'm going to be reaching the masses.
I'm going to be like the next David Livingston, you know,
turning the continent of Africa upside down or something.
It's unbelievable to me.
If you won't do it today, you won't do it tomorrow.
And let me tell you something, you younger guys that are thinking about starting a church someday,
do the work now.
You're not just going to turn it on like a switch one day and just say,
oh yeah, when I start that church, man, I'm going to be out there knocking the doors,
I'm going to be bringing visitors, I'm going to be getting my converts baptized.
Now you won't do it then.
You've got to do it now.
If you do it now, then you'll do it then.
If you won't do it now, you're just boasting about the year.
You're boasting about how you're going to start churches, plural,
and you're going to go out and do all this great stuff.
You know, the missionaries, they call me, and they want to show their little slide show.
I say to them, I say, I don't want to see your slide show.
I want you to go soul hunting with me.
I don't need your slides. Let's go soul hunting.
And the ones who say, okay, what time? Let's go soul hunting.
That's the missionaries that we support at this church.
And when you throw your money in the plate on Wednesday night in that mission's offering,
it's going to a bona fide soul winner,
because that's the only kind of missionaries we support.
We don't support missionaries who have to go to the doctor all the time instead of doing the work.
They go to the doctor.
I'm sure you couldn't go to the doctor some other day.
It's always on soul hunting time that you have to go visit people,
and go to the doctor, and you've got to go buy stuff,
and you've got to buy shoes, and you've got to go shop.
You know, we all buy shoes.
We all go to the doctor, you know, as little as possible.
We all go and visit friends.
We all go to the grocery store.
We all have to do work around the house.
We all have to live our lives, but you know, we take the time necessary to win souls to Christ.
And it's funny how so many of these missionaries just don't have time to go soul hunting with us.
And they don't want to do the soul winning.
But man, when they get over there, they're going to tear it up.
You know, I thank God for the missionaries that have come through our church.
I said, well, you know what?
They say, you know, I want to come preach at your church.
I want to show my size.
I just say, I don't want your size, but we're going to go soul winning for three hours.
We're going to go soul winning for four hours on Sunday afternoon,
or whatever time we have that Sunday afternoon.
And I say, it's going to be 115 degrees outside.
So bring a hat and sunblock and water and Gatorade.
That's the acid test right there.
Because guess what?
Africa's hot too.
It's true.
Those people aren't walking around in a fur coat, you know?
It's hot.
It's the desert.
Zebras and lions and all that, you know, giraffes and stuff, they live in the desert.
It's hot.
It's a hundred and some degrees outside.
And if it's too hot here, it'll be too hot there.
Or it'll be too cold, Pastor Goldilocks.
Brother Goldilocks is here.
He goes soul winning five months a year, because the other seven, it's too cold, you know?
And then in Phoenix, it's too hot, right?
But in just a couple months a year, it's just right.
And we can go out soul winning together.
No.
If you won't do it now, you won't do it then.
Don't tell me what you're going to do someday.
Tell me what you're doing today.
I'll tell you what I'm doing today.
I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do years from now.
Be idle today.
You'll be idle tomorrow.
You'll be idle the rest of my life.
And children, don't grow up like I grew up idle.
You know, that was something I had to overcome and it was difficult to overcome.
If you have nothing to do, children, then why don't you help mom with the dishes without being asked?
Why don't you clean up the house?
There's always something to do.
Why don't you find a job to do around the house and do it?
You know, get something done with your life.
It'll keep you out of trouble and make a difference in your life.
Look at Proverbs chapter 6.
Proverbs chapter number 6.
You know, I always want to do more than I'm even doing.
You know, it's like, I want to have so many irons in the fire because I only have one life to live.
I don't want to waste my life.
I don't want to just go through life and just be satisfied, to be mediocre.
It's not enough to me to just do a little bit and say, well, I'm better than so and so, or compare myself amongst myself to someone else.
To me, I want to do the maximum for Jesus Christ in my life.
Maximum.
And so I want to do the max and I don't have time to sit around and watch TV.
If I even wanted to fill my mind with that filth.
I don't have time to sit around talking to people about doctrine who aren't even saved.
You know what I mean?
I don't have time to sit around and compare sports statistics with you and trade baseball cards with you.
And I have nothing wrong with having a hobby, but why don't you pick a hobby that has value for the kingdom of God?
There are plenty of hobbies that can bring value to God.
Let me give you some examples.
How about a hobby of learning a foreign language?
You can use that to win people to Christ.
And that's a great hobby.
How about this hobby?
Let's say you say, what about sewing and crafts?
You know you can make that for someone as a gift?
Or clothing for your own family so that they don't look like a hoochie mama?
Like what's being sold at most stores?
You can make nice clothes for yourself and your family.
You can make clothes and give them as a gift to other people.
And be generous and kind in that way if you're a lady.
If you're a man, you could say, what kind of hobbies?
How about learning to play a musical instrument?
You could use that for God.
You could praise the Lord on an instrument of Tim Strange.
You could praise the Lord with musical instruments.
That's a hobby that has a value for the kingdom of God.
You know, a lot of people in our church have a habit of, or not a habit, kick that habit.
That's a different sermon.
A lot of people in our church have a hobby of shooting guns.
That's a hobby that has some value to it.
Amen.
It might save your life someday.
But you know, whatever the hobby.
Pick a hobby that has some value.
Don't just play Tiddlywinks or something.
Pogs.
Who remembers Pogs?
I can see who's like my exact age.
That was the silliest thing, wasn't it?
Oh, I'm so cool.
What kind of slammer do you have?
You know, everybody gets these hobbies.
Why not pick a hobby that you're doing something for God?
Like you pick a hobby of learning a foreign language.
Playing a musical instrument.
Somebody give me another.
What's another hobby that you could use for the kingdom of God?
Cooking.
Cooking?
Yeah, there you go.
Why do you guys have food on your mind?
Cooking.
You know, obviously, ladies cook for your family.
You could give them a healthy diet.
But you know what?
You could cook meals and bring them to people in church.
There are usually always people in church who are having a bad time
that are sick, that are ill, or people that are shoving or whatever.
You could cook a meal and bring it to them.
And cooking is a fun hobby, isn't it?
Who likes to cook in here?
You like to cook.
You know, cooking's a fun hobby.
Showing's a fun hobby.
Music is a great hobby.
The Bible talks a lot about music.
It's a foreign language.
It's fun.
It's entertaining.
It's interesting.
You could read, but you could read things that matter.
You could read things that are going to help you be a better Christian, like the Bible.
You could read things that are teaching you about skills that you could use in your job
to provide and so forth.
You see, you just want to do things in your life that matter and not just say,
well, I've just got to get through my week.
Let me just kill some time on this video game.
I don't want to kill time.
If I only have 70 years on this earth, or maybe even a lot less,
you never know when you're going to die.
But let's say I have 70, 80 years on this earth.
Don't I want to use that?
Instead, just say, well, I'll just get through it.
Let me just get through another day.
You know, I want to use that time.
The Bible says redeeming the time because days are evil.
Look at Proverbs 6.
Here's a famous passage.
Verse number 6, it says,
Go to the ant, thou sluggard.
Consider her ways and be wise.
You know, one thing that offends me about the Bible is it's always name calling.
You know, like when Paul is preaching about the resurrection,
he says, thou fool.
You know, and here he's calling me a sluggard.
I mean, the Bible's always calling me names.
But grow up, you know.
People are so thin-skinned, aren't they?
It hurts my feelings.
You know, this Barney and Friends generation,
Sesame Street Baptist Church is afraid to offend anybody.
You know, he says, go to the ant, thou sluggard.
I love the word sluggard, by the way, because it comes with the word slug.
Isn't it such a descriptive word?
When you hear the word sluggard, you just know what he's talking about.
It's funny because he uses two words a lot, sluggard and slothful,
and they're both based upon an animal that moves really slow.
Sloths move very slow.
Slug, I mean, a slug is not exactly racing across the sidewalk, is it?
And you know what?
Have you ever seen somebody at work and they're moving the pace of a slug?
They move really slowly.
Move quickly.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard.
Consider her ways and be wise.
Isn't it amazing how God knew that the female ants were the ones who did the work
and the male ants don't work?
Did you know that?
The male ants don't work.
The female ants are the ones out doing the work.
God knew that.
Even before modern science discovered that through experimentation,
the Bible was written thousands of years ago
and knew that it was female ants that were the workers,
just like female bees are the workers.
That's an interesting scientific fact there.
He says, go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise,
which having no guide, no overseer or ruler,
nobody standing over you making sure that you're working,
nobody having to just crack a whip on you constantly.
Get to work, get to work, get to work, do this, do this, get something done.
The ant just works.
He says that's who you need to model yourself after in that area.
Work without having somebody having to breathe down your head
and put you to work.
Find your own work.
Be a self-starter is what he's saying here.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise,
which having no guide, overseer or ruler,
provided her meat in the summer and gathered her food in the harvest.
How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard?
When wilt thou rise 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 travelth and thy want as an armed man.
The Bible also says love that not sleep, lest thou come to poverty.
Open thine eyes and thou shalt be satisfied with bread.
That's one of the great keys to financial success.
Don't sleep too much, work more.
Get up early, go to bed late and work the whole time.
Any questions?
You'll have plenty of the bread to eat.
But look at Proverbs 19 and 15, it says,
Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep,
and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.
He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul,
but he that despiseth his ways shall die.
He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord,
and that which he hath given him he will pay again.
Chasten thy son while there is hope,
and let not thy soul spare for his crying.
Look at verse number 20.
Hear counsel and receive instruction that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.
There are many devices in a man's heart.
Nevertheless, the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.
The desire of a man is his kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar.
The fear of the Lord tendeth to life,
and he that hath it shall abide satisfied.
He shall not be visited with evil.
A slothful man hideth his hand in his bosom,
and will not so much as bring it to his mouth again, smite a scorner.
Is he talking about hitting somebody?
Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware,
and reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge.
He that wasteth his father and chaseth away his mother
is a son that causes shame and bringeth reproach.
Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge,
and so on and so forth.
Verse 29.
Judgments are prepared for scorners and stripes for the back of fools.
If you look at the pervading theme of all these scriptures that we just read,
he's saying, look, God is the one.
I'll just kind of sum it up for you, some of the things he's saying.
You know, God is the one.
You have all these devices in your heart, verse 21.
But the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.
God is the one who kind of controls your destiny and your faith
when it comes to how well you do at your job, how you're going to do financially.
I'm not preaching a prosperity gospel.
But you know what?
God is the one who can cause you to be promoted or demoted at your job.
So if you just do the work, work hard, follow God's command, don't be a sluggard,
don't be slothful, don't be lazy, don't be idle, don't sit around.
God says, you know what?
I'll take care of you.
And this is what he's trying to teach his son.
He keeps saying over and over, son, listen to me.
And that's why I try to teach my sons to work hard.
You know, I do the best I can with it.
I should probably do more of it.
It's hard today in our society because I usually can't bring my children to work with me
because most jobs don't allow anybody on the site that's under 18 and so forth.
So it's difficult for me to take my children to work.
But whenever I get a chance to, I bring them to work.
But I try to put them to work around the house.
I try to teach them how to work.
I try to not let them be idle and sit around and become slothful and lazy.
And I'm trying to get them to learn how to work hard.
Because I feel like whether or not you work hard really determines every area of your life.
I mean, you show me a person that doesn't know how to work hard,
they're going to be a failure in their life.
It's true.
I mean, other people have other faults and other sins,
but that one thing of laziness and not working hard, you're done.
You're going nowhere.
You're never going to be a successful pastor.
You're never going to be a great father and husband
because you're not going to be the breadwinner that you need to be.
I mean, if you're lazy, pretty much just your life's shot.
You know what I mean?
You know, ladies or young girls that is,
when you're looking for a guy to marry, just marry a hardworking man
if you want to live a happy life.
Because the slugger, the sloth, is going to mess up your life.
And guys, if there's one thing that you need, it's to be a hard worker.
That's why Jacob was so blessed by God.
That was a hard worker.
You study the story of Jacob in Genesis?
He was a hard worker.
Look at his son Joseph.
He was a hard worker.
Those guys succeeded because they worked.
Jacob was just out working.
I mean, day and night, he worked, he worked, he worked.
And Laban kept ripping off his wages, but God made sure he got paid, didn't he?
Even when Laban gypped him.
God made sure that he got paid.
And then whenever he went to go meet his wife,
when he met his wife for the first time,
she said, oh, we've got to wait for these other guys to come
so we can take the stone off the well.
He said, hey, I'll take the stone off the well, baby.
We don't need these other guys.
That's the first time that Jacob met Rachel.
You remember that?
He said, we don't need to wait for these guys.
He went over there and lifted off the stone and said, here, go ahead.
How did he get so strong?
Is he a body builder?
Did he have a weight bench?
No, he worked.
He worked hard.
That's why he was strong.
He wasn't a mama's boy, like some preachers will tell you.
If he was a mama's boy, God wouldn't have blessed him and chose him.
God would have given him a swift kick in the pants.
And that's what a lot of guys need today,
these bunch of effeminate, queer little sissies.
They need to go out and get a manual labor job.
These bunch of sissies and little homos, you know what they need to do?
They need somebody to put a shovel in their hand and send them out to work.
But they've been mollycoddled their whole life.
They don't want to break a nail swinging a hammer.
And we need some men to rise up in this country that are hardworking men.
And we need men of God, by the way.
We need pastors who know how to work, not pastors who sit around all day
and you can look at their hands.
I remember we went to a church and my brother-in-law said about this pastor,
they said, I like this pastor because you can look at his hands and tell that he works.
You can just look at his hands and he has the hands of a worker.
He doesn't have these little girly, soft, little smooth hands.
He's not up there rubbing lotion on his hands between the services.
Boy, you learn how to work or you'll never be the pastor you need to be.
You'll be the typical pastor, is what you'll be, who rolls out of bed.
He doesn't even know that the sun comes up gradually.
He didn't even know that because every time he gets up it's already out there.
He didn't know it comes up gradually.
Then he rolls out of bed and goes to Panera for a while and hangs out on the internet
or drinks coffee and talks doctrine with some Calvinist pastor across the street.
Then he does a little bit of visiting.
Then he goes and locks himself in the study for a few hours.
He's got to do his study of the Word of God and theology.
He doesn't know what it is to work.
Look, I pastor this church, but you know what, I'm just like you.
Just like you, I go to work.
Just like you, I'm busy.
Just like you, I have to pay my bills.
Just like you, I'm in the world.
You know what it is, you go to work and you're around ungodly people, huh?
You're around wicked people.
So am I.
You say, oh Pastor Anderson, you know, I go to work and it's all this wickedness.
So do I.
You know, Pastor Anderson, I'm so busy, so am I.
You know, that's life.
But you know what, the difference between the person who excels at their job,
and I'm going to wrap it up with this,
the difference between the person who excels at their job,
excels in soul winning,
excels in their study of God's Word and reading of God's Word,
not studying a bunch of theology and man-made books,
the person who excels with achievements in their life,
the difference is not talent,
the difference is not charisma,
the difference is not good looks,
the difference is idleness.
Because if you would just take the idle time in your day
and put that toward the kingdom of God,
you would be a great Christian.
You would be a great employee.
That is what makes the difference.
See, you know what, I'm kind of a type of guy,
I'm kind of a jack of all trades.
I don't have any one talent that really stands out.
Honestly, I'm just kind of a jack of all trades.
You know, when I went to work in the alarm business,
I was not the fastest at wiring a house.
I wasn't.
I mean, when we pre-wire the houses, I was never the fastest.
I wasn't the fastest at any kind of work that we did at round table, really.
I mean, I was fast at certain things,
but I wasn't really just blowing everybody away with speed or anything.
I've never really had a talent for this or talent for that
that was just outstanding.
I mean, I play piano, but I'm not outstanding at playing piano.
I'm just kind of a jack of all trades.
But you know what, the reason that I excel at certain areas in life
is really just using my idle time
instead of sitting around doing something for God.
Like, for example, I learned the great truth a long time ago
of just carrying a New Testament in my pocket.
That right there will change your life.
I mean, you want a life-changing truth?
Buy a New Testament for $2.99.
Because of the fact that you have so much dead time
that when you're in that elevator, just whip it out, read a chapter.
You're in line at the post office.
You're in line at DMV.
You're on your lunch break.
I mean, if you whip that thing out every time you're sitting around doing nothing,
you'd be reading through the Bible like you wouldn't believe.
You'd be reading 15 chapters a day, easy.
Just pulling it out when you have time.
You know, or getting in the car and turning on Alexander Scurby
listening to the Bible on tape being read.
You know, listening to God's word on tape.
If you'd use your idle time, you would excel.
If you'd use that idle time on the job,
that's what makes the difference between the great worker and the mediocre worker.
The one guy just keeps working.
He may not have the time, he may not be the fastest, but he just works.
He works, he works, he works.
He never stops, he never stops, he never stops.
It's like the tortoise and the hare.
Get the idle time out of your life and you'll find it easier, young men,
not to fornicate, not to have lustful thoughts
when you're busy with other things, working.
But you know what?
When you're sitting around in that apartment by yourself,
when you're sitting in that hotel room by yourself,
when you're sitting around with nothing to do,
that's where you're going to start to be tempted.
And you know what?
It's hard to be pure these days, isn't it?
But you know what?
You can stay pure.
It's possible to be pure, guys.
It's possible to be pure, ladies, by staying busy.
That's how I stayed pure.
It wasn't easy then, it's not easy now, but I stayed pure by staying busy.
Because as soon as I started sitting around, that's when the temptation would come.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, please just help us not to be idle, dear God.
Help us to be men of activity.
Help the pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzes of this world to look at us and say,
boy, these guys know how to work.
Oh, okay, but it's because they're Christians.
Oh, that makes sense.
It's because they're saved.
Oh, that's why these guys work so hard.
Because they're Christian.
Of course they're going to work hard.
Of course they love God.
They're going to obey His commandments and not be idle and lazy.
God, help us to use our life that's just a vapor
that appears for a little time in advance.
Help us to ask ourselves the question in James 4.
What is our life?
What are we doing with our life?
Help us to redeem the time, win people to Christ,
that at the end of it all we can wear a crown and say,
I did something with my life.
I worked.
I built something.
I learned the Bible.
I didn't sit around chatting doctrine,
but I actually picked up the Bible and read it and then did something with it.
God, help us never to be lazy or idle.
We all need help in the charioteer, God.
Help us out, dear God.
Give us your grace to grow in this area.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.