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Lots of good things in Proverbs. We'll be focusing on the very, very last few verses in this chapter. Before I get to Proverbs 24, there's one verse I want to quote from Proverbs 15. We're actually spending a lot of time in Proverbs, so we'll be hanging out there. We'll be flipping through a few different passages in Proverbs. But Proverbs 15, 19, there's one verse. It says, The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns, but the way of the righteous is made plain. What we'll be preaching about tonight is slothfulness and idleness. Now, you say, what does slothful mean? What does it mean to be a sloth? Slothfulness is basically just laziness. It's just being lazy and not doing work and not doing what you're supposed to be doing. What the Bible says in Proverbs 15, 19, it says, The way of the slothful man is as an hedge of thorns. So you think of the way, right? A way is like a street or a path, right? That's the way. So the way of a slothful man, the Bible says it's like a hedge of thorns. You just have this big hedge, and it's thorns, and it's difficult, right? It's definitely not easy. It's not something you're going to want to get up and deal with. And the Bible says that the way of the slothful man, hey, his way is like a hedge of thorns. It's just a lot of stuff you'll want to deal with. And I think being lazy creates more problems of itself. Like, if you weren't lazy, you wouldn't have all of these extra problems. Thank you, sweetheart. It says, but the way of the righteous is made plain. So to them that's doing the work, people who are righteous, living the way that God wants them to live, their way is made plain. I mean, the plains are a nice, flat, open area, no obstructions, no hills, no major problems to get in your way. It's just made plain. But the slothful man is like a hedge of thorns. So if you want your life to be difficult, just be a sloth, be slothful, be lazy. It's funny, you would think the opposite. The reason why a lazy person doesn't do things is because they think it's too difficult, right? They think, oh, man, everything's just so hard and so difficult, and they don't want to do it. But really, if you just get up and do the stuff, your way is going to be made plain, and it's going to be a lot easier. But Proverbs 24, 30, this is the verse that I thought of when I read that other verse, the way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns. Look at verse number 30 where we started off in chapter 24. It says, I went by the field of the slothful and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding. So a slothful man or a lazy person, if I was equating that with someone who's void of understanding, they just have no understanding whatsoever. And it says in verse 31, and lo, it was all grown over with thorns and nettles that covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Basically, he's got some kind of substance, and he's just letting it all go. He's not maintaining it, not keeping it up. He walks by, it's just overgrown. You've got thorns and nettles, and everything's just being broken down. It says, then I saw and considered it well. I looked upon it and received instruction. So you learn from this. It says, yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall that poverty come as one that travelth and that want as an armed man. So basically, he's saying this kind of stuff is all just going to be ruined and destroyed. It's just going to come to nothing, and that's going to make you poor. I mean, you're not going to have anything. If you're not willing to get up and do the work and invest the time, you're going to become poor. And he's saying, just a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. Oh, I'm just going to take a nap. Oh, I'm just going to sleep a little bit. Oh, I'm going to sleep in. I'm not going to get up early. I'm not going to go do any work. I'm just tired. And it's funny, the laziest people always seem to be the ones that are the most tired. And they don't get really good sleep because they're not doing anything. You know, a person who works really hard and goes up, gets up early and works late and works hard all day, that person doesn't have a problem sleeping. That person goes to bed practically on their way down to the pillow. But the person who's slothful, the person who doesn't do anything, they're just interested in sleeping. You know, other things are just too difficult. They don't want to deal with it and they're going to end up poor. And since slothfulness is laziness, the Bible says in Exodus 29, when he gives the Ten Commandments, he says, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work. When he's talking about the Sabbath day being a day of rest, he's saying six days shalt thou labor. Meaning we're supposed to labor six days. I mean, that was something that he was telling them in the Old Testament that, you know, you've got six days to work. And you should be working. And we should be putting in that type of work. I mean, we live in a culture today where, you know, full time is 40 hours a week, or it's just Monday through Friday, eight hours a day. But that's not the way things have always been. I mean, a day of work in the Bible is sung up to sundown. That's what people would work. They'd get up and they'd spend an entire day out working in the field or wherever. I mean, there's a lot more agriculture then, but people were working. They'd be working with their hands. Just like in Genesis 3.19, God said unto Adam, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it was thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And the day that they sinned, when God made the curse upon the land, he said, look, the sweat of thy face, that's how you're going to eat your bread. You have to work for it. You have to work really hard for it. And God made it this way, and we ought to not be lazy, and do what we're supposed to do now, especially, here's the thing, nobody should be lazy. Man, woman, boy, or girl. Nobody should be lazy. It's a poor attribute to have. It's just going to lead you to have problems for the rest of your life. It's like a hedge of thorns. It's always going to be a problem in your life. But here's the thing, if you're a man, you better learn how to work hard, because it is your responsibility to provide for yourself and for your family. Of all people being lazy, the man that better denture better not be lazy. We're going to read a little bit here about slothfulness, too, which is the same as, well, this is slothfulness. There's a few other terms that the Bible uses, basically for slothfulness, and we're going to get into that in a little bit. Proverbs chapter 19, I'll turn back to that, just a few pages. Proverbs 19, verse number 15, the Bible says, Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep, and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. Again, just talking about coming to poverty, right? Just going into a deep sleep. Ecclesiastes 10, 18 says, By much slothfulness the building decayeth, and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. Again, if you're lazy, you're going to let everything just go to nothing. Now, you could say in Proverbs, I'm going to read for you, this is a parable that Jesus Christ was given in Matthew chapter 20. Matthew chapter 20, Jesus Christ gives this parable. This should be familiar to you. The Bible reads, For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and said unto them, Go ye also unto the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way. Again, he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing idle, and said unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive. So here in this story, I'm not gonna continue, it goes on and it explains a little bit more, but you know, here's a man that has a vineyard, right? And he's looking for people to work in his vineyard. He wants people to go and to reap and to do the harvesting of his vineyard. So he goes out, he finds some people and hires them to, you know, come work in my field. And he just keeps on going out, just the day gets later and later, he's just like, Man, there's still a lot of work to do. I need to hire more people. I'm gonna hire more people. And notice the eleventh hour, meaning that there's only one hour left to do the work. The eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle. So there's still people just standing around, right? And he's just like, Why stand ye here all the day idle? Why are you just standing around doing nothing? They say, Oh, because no man has hired us. Now, you think this is the best way to find a job? Just to stand around and just wait for someone to come to you to hire you? That's a really poor way to do that. I mean, it's funny, but it kind of makes me think about the day laborers in Phoenix that just, they stand around on beefboil, they stand around wherever, just waiting for people to hire them. Now, I get it. There's other reasons why they're not applying for jobs. Usually they're illegal and not allowed to be in this country or whatever. But here's the thing. If you need to get some work and if you're a man and you need to get some work, you shouldn't be standing around idle and just waiting for a job to come and fall into your lap. You need to be getting out there and hitting the streets and making your full-time job obtaining a new job. And it ought to be the way that a day of work was here, a 12-hour day. You ought to be getting up early and getting out there. Now, the people that he hired first, these people who are still standing around all day until the 11th hour are probably not his first choice people to hire. I mean, they probably weren't the top pick and that's why they've been standing around all day. And it's probably because they're idle and lazy. No one wants to hire a lazy person. So you need to make sure that you're not a lazy person. I mean, make sure you just look. If you have a problem with this, if you have a problem with sleeping too much, you have to force yourself sometimes to do things. And you have to build the routine to get yourself into the habit of basically not being lazy. And what that does is you have to identify the things in your life that are causing you to be lazy or that are tempting you and trying to drag you in and away from doing the work that we're all supposed to do. I mean, if you're a man, obviously you have work to do. You have to go out and earn money for your family. If you're a woman, you have work to do. If you're married, if you're a wife, you have work to do at home. There's a lot of things that need to be done. There's all kinds of things that we need to be doing in our proper roles and nobody ought to be lazy. We all ought to be able to do our work. Why am I preaching about this anyways? Well, I want everyone here to succeed. Laziness is a terrible attribute to have because it's gonna stay with you. It's gonna make your life difficult. I mean, just for the rest of your life, it'll cause you to be poor and to stay poor. I mean, if you're a lazy worker, let's say, okay, well, yeah, you're mad and I have a job, but you don't work very hard at it, you're never gonna get promoted. Now, you're never gonna get, you know, given more responsibility and hence more pay if you're just a lazy worker, if you're someone who just shows up, you don't put your heart into it, you don't really work that hard, you're just there to collect a paycheck. Guess what? You're gonna be one of the first people out the door because nobody wants to have someone like that working for them. And it's the same thing, you know, if it's, you know, if you're a wife, if you're a mother, there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the house. There's a lot of things that need to be done. Now, you ought not be fired because we're against divorce, but the thing is, look, you want your husband to love you and to appreciate you and respect you more, just like the boss would appreciate and respect their employee more, that's working harder for them, do a good job, don't be lazy. You see, you're never gonna get anything done ultimately with your life if you're a lazy person. You're gonna look back on your life when it's all said and done and just be like, man, I slept a lot. I really didn't do much of anything. That's one of the reasons why we sang that song earlier, you know, I wonder if I'd done my best for Jesus and that song could really hit home. Have I done enough? Am I doing enough for Christ? Am I doing exactly what He wants me to do or am I just being lazy or am I just being wrapped up in the cares of this world or something else, just letting other things distract me and get in the way? The work that you have to do for God is not always easy, okay? It's not gonna come easily. You know, giving someone the gospel, yeah, you can wait around and wait for the perfect opportunity to fall in your lap before you ever talk to somebody, but that's a poor way, like these guys, a poor way to get a job. It's a poor way to give a gospel. Now, should you be doing that? Absolutely. Absolutely, don't pass up those opportunities, but you ought to be going out and making those opportunities happen. You can't just sit around and wait for it to fall into your lap. It requires work, and in order to do that, in order to go out somewhere, you need to know your Bible a little bit. You need to be studying. You need to be reading. You need to be praying. There's a lot of things that you need to be doing to prepare yourself to be the proper Christian, to be used of God in the way that He wants to use you, but you're never gonna do anything for God if you're a lazy person. It just won't happen. You're in Proverbs. Look at Proverbs 19, verse 24. The Bible says, The hand of the diligent shall bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute. So, again, the lazy person, they're gonna be ruled over. They're gonna be the one that's just paying the taxes, paying the extra fees, but the hand of the diligent, if you're diligent, if you wake up, and diligence is the exact opposite of being lazy and slothful. Diligent is just sticking to your work and being focused and doing it and doing a really good job, versus being slothful and being lazy and not caring and not doing anything. The diligent, the Bible says, is gonna bear rule, but the slothful shall be under tribute. Proverbs 18, oh, I'm sorry. That was Proverbs 12. I don't know if I told you. I think I said 19. That was Proverbs 12, 24. Look at Proverbs 18, verse number nine. I apologize for that. I just realized I made that mistake. Proverbs 18, verse number nine, the Bible says, he also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. So, another key attribute of someone who's lazy and slothful is someone who just wastes things, right? People on the job, who cares if you're lazy, you're not worried about efficiency, you're not worried about doing the best you possibly can with whatever resources you're given. And I'm being real generic right now, but there's so many different types of jobs. You're given some raw materials. I'm thinking about, okay, I used to work in a machine shop and they would give us a stock of metal, right? It's a metal bar and from the metal bar, we'd set up all the tooling and set up the job to just, the machine would cycle through that and make these parts, so whatever parts they are, the stupid parts that we sold. Now, if you're diligent, if you're not lazy at the job, you're gonna be concerned about, hey, when you set it up, you have to use some of that stock that they give you. You use it up in doing some of the testing and getting the tools all in the right position. Now, if you're lazy and you don't care, it's gonna be like, well, whatever, just keep on doing it and eventually it'll just get right and you could just be a big waster of this material that costs money, as opposed to being diligent and caring about the efficiency and making sure it gets done. You're not gonna be that great of a waster or even in the home. You're lazy, you don't wanna deal with collecting the leftovers and saving them and storing them and then reusing it later. You can be a great waster and just, well, just throw everything away and just get more. Again, not everyone's in the same situation. I'm not trying to condemn people for doing that, but here's the thing, is that it's not a good attribute to be a great waster and just let everything go to waste. You don't wanna be sloth-pulling your work and be lazy with stuff because then you will just end up wasting stuff. There's gonna be a lot of waste that happens when you don't just keep up on things as they happen, whether it be on the job or at home. There's so many different areas where this can happen, where you're gonna end up wasting money, wasting time, wasting resources to maybe redo something that you just let go and let slide and just let it get out of the way and let it get out of the way, these types of things. You know, a lazy person is gonna be a great waster, so the Bible's saying here in Proverbs 18, but let's move on from that. Let's turn to Proverbs 26. Proverbs chapter 26. Proverbs 26, verse number 13, the Bible says, The slothful man saith, There is a lion in the way. The lion is in the streets. As the door turneth upon his hinges, so does the slothful upon his bed. So you notice here in that first verse, verse 13, you know, the slothful man's gonna come up with any excuse possible. Oh, there's a lion in the way. There's a lion out in the streets. Like, that's why I can't go out in the streets because there's a lion out there that's gonna eat you. Now, you better not be using that excuse today because that would be ridiculous unless the zoo just had some outbreak of animals and they all got really... But here's the thing. I think that was still pretty ridiculous statement to make even back then at this time to think, oh, well, if I go out, a lion's gonna kill me. That would be like saying, well, I can't go out. I can't go to my job because I might get in a car accident. Right? I mean, is it a possibility? Sure. There's some level of risk, but here's the thing. The lazy man, they're just thinking of any excuse they can. It doesn't even matter how ridiculous it is. They're just gonna come up with an excuse not to do anything. And if you don't wanna do work, believe me, it's not gonna be hard to come up with an excuse not to do it. Don't let yourself give into excuses. It's a matter of character. I mean, something that we all should be just trying to improve on to be diligent and not to be lazy, not to be slothful. And that's what the Bible's saying here in verse 14. As the door turns upon the hinges, so does the slothful upon his bed. The lazy person's not gonna be able to sleep easy because they're not doing any work. In order to get a good night's sleep, you need to be working hard and then you'll be able to get some good sleep. Verse 15, the slothful hideth his hand in his bosom. It grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. That's extreme laziness right there. And then look at verse number 16. It says, the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason. And here's the thing. When you're dealing with someone who's really lazy, oftentimes what you'll see happen is that he thinks he's so much smarter than everybody else and he's got an answer for everything, right? It says the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit. I mean, you know someone who's conceited? What does that mean? It means they're full of themselves, right? They're really proud. They really think a lot, think highly of themselves. So the sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can actually render a reason. They're saying, you got seven people that can actually render a reason and the sluggard in his own mind thinks he's wiser than them. He thinks he's got much more knowledge than them. He thinks a lot higher of himself. This might be someone who's lazy and too good to do other jobs, right? I mean, someone who's got no work, they're lazy, they don't wanna go out and get a job because I'm not gonna go work at McDonald's or I'm not gonna go work at this job. I'm not gonna be a plumber. I'm not gonna work in a sewage all day. I'm not gonna do whatever it is because they think they're just too good for it, right? The lazy person, they come up with all these excuses and they're conceited and they think that they're too good. And that also reminds me of people that think they're smarter than all the pastors and church members, the people that are too lazy to get up and actually find a good church to go to, right? There's so many people that are out there like that. No church is good enough for them. So they lazily sit at home and they're wise in their own conceits. They just think that they're so smart and they know everything and they're smarter than the pastors. They're smarter than the other people that come to church and they just ignore the commandment of God to not forsake the assembling of themselves together. So be aware of this. Don't let yourself have that proud attitude that could make you turn down work or to not do things because you think that you're above it because we're not. If it's part of your job, then just do it and if you don't have a job, get one. Proverbs 20 verse 4. The Bible says, The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold. Therefore shall he beg and harvest and have nothing. Again, just talking about how a lazy person is going to come to nothing and they're going to be poor. Proverbs 10 verse number 4 says, He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the diligent maketh rich. He that gathereth in summer is a wise son, but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causes shame. Now, that was all dealing for the most part with slawfulness, laziness. We also have to watch out for idleness. Now, idleness and slawfulness are not exactly the same thing. They're very similar and they're related, but they're not exactly the same thing because even people that are not lazy can fall into a trap of idleness where there's nothing to do. I mean, it doesn't necessarily make you a lazy person, but we definitely have to watch out for idleness because idleness can lead us into a lot of trouble. Idleness is like we have nothing to do, right? When you're idle, you're not doing anything. You're not keeping yourself busy. And again, this is something that, whether you're lazy or not, I mean, even if you're not lazy, the most diligent worker, if for whatever reason you fall into this state where you don't have anything to do, that's dangerous because that's when sin abounds is when you find yourself just, you wake up one day and just be like, wow, I have nothing to do. What am I going to do with myself? And you just start wasting time and you get into sin that way very often. The Bible says in Ezekiel 16, verse 49, it says, Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom. Now, Sodom was an extremely wicked place that God rained fire and brimstone died. We all know the story about that, but it says this was the iniquity, pride, fullness of bread, they were rich, right? They had things going for them. And 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. So here you see, I mean, for one, they were just full of pride. They thought that they were so great, they were doing so well financially, and they had abundance of idleness because, I believe, because they were so wealthy, they probably didn't have to work as much or work as hard. They had a bunch of free time, and look what that turned into. I mean, I'm sure it didn't start off that way, but one sin turned into another turned into another, and they just, I mean, the whole place just went to hell, literally. Like, it just, God rained fire and brimstone on them. So this is something we need to watch out for. Like I said, even people who could be considered successful, maybe someone who's a hard worker, watch out for idleness. Watch out for when you get to a point. I mean, people, you can work and work and work and be a really hard worker and then get to the point where you're pretty well established financially, and maybe you don't have to work that hard in order to continue to live the way you're comfortable living. Watch out for idleness. Don't let yourself get idle. Idleness is going to lead to all kinds of sin when you don't have anything to do. So here's the thing. How do you make sure that you don't allow yourself to get lazy or to get idle? Because you don't want to do either of them, right? Our time is a very valuable resource to us, and we ought to budget our time the same way that you would budget your finances, right? I mean, money is important. You need money to survive. You need money to pay for things and to do stuff. So what a lot of people do is they choose to budget their finances. They budget and say, okay, well, this is how much money we have. We're going to use this to spend this, use this to spend this. And a lot of people who are suffering from financial hardships, oftentimes they don't budget their money. They don't sit down and take the time to think, what are we actually doing with our money? What can we afford, and what can we not afford? And when you don't know those things, you end up living outside of your means, and you spend your money foolishly. So right now we're going to use this example of budgeting money because basically, I mean, a budget's real simple. I mean, there's all kinds of complexities you get into, but just a basic budget is very, very simple, and it's not very difficult to do. It's hard to implement and actually follow, but just the concept of it and coming up with it is very easy. Basically what you do is you figure out, this is how much money we have coming in. What are we going to do with this money? Where is it going to be devoted to? And here's an example of a financial budget that I would use. Because what you have to do is you have to prioritize. What's the most important? What is getting paid first? Okay, what's getting paid second? What's getting paid third? You go on and on and on the list, and then you say, well, how much money do we have left? It's nothing. It's just, well, we need to make more money or whatever. And then you have to go back and reanalyze, you know, well, where can we save money and yada, yada, yada. Basically, though, what I would do is, okay, the first thing that gets paid is the tide. God gets the first fruits of all my labor. So whatever it is that I make, however much that is that comes in, I know usually how much I'm making. I say, you know what? The very first thing that gets paid is God. My tide is going to go to God, and everything else I'm going to just have to make do with, and He gets top priority. Now, for my situation, the second thing is going to be the mortgage. I want to have this house. I want to have a place, a shelter where we can live. So I'm going to continue to pay rent, mortgage, whatever, in order to stay sheltered from the environment. Next is food. I mean, obviously, those two go hand in hand. But, I mean, between the tide, mortgage, and food, you ought to be able to be making enough at least to make those three be fulfilled, okay? Keeping the heat on, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Just go on down the list. I'm not going to just continue to go on. There's a lot of things you could get into, but basically you just decide, hey, what's the most important in our lives? Where does this money really have to go? And then once you do that, you can look at it and say, okay, well, our rent costs this much, you know, our food costs this much, and you can look and see, well, we can make do on less or whatever you have to do, of course. And then once you do that, then you could make your resources work with what you're actually making, so you don't end up getting into debt. You don't end up losing everything because you're being foolish with your money. Well, on the same token, we ought to budget our time to help us not to become lazy and not to become idle. The most likely time to get idle is when you don't have a plan on what you're going to do with your day. That's usually what happens. When you don't already know in advance what you plan on doing with your time, then you're going to just fall into idleness and fall into laziness too because who wants to go out and do anything? Unless you've already kind of thought about it and thought about doing it. So you need to set priorities in your life. And here's an example, again, of my priorities. God comes first. God is top priority personally in my own life. So he comes at the top. My second priority in general is my family. Okay? They are next to list. My wife and then my children. They are what is, as far as priorities in my life, things that are important, they come next, then church, and then work, and then doing godly things, going out the whole way and doing things like that. These are the way, and then again, I mean, this might not be the same for you. This is what I do. This is an example. We need to set priorities of the things that are important to you so that you can, when you're figuring out what you're going to do with your time, you can look at it in the sense of, well, how does it line up in the structure? So for example, since God's first, just like God's first with my finances, the first thing I do with my money is going to be the tithe check going for God's work for the church. The same way with my time, hey, I'm going to be in church. I make sure that God gets priority in my time with my life that no matter what I'm doing, I'm going to make sure that I'm in church. And with my family, I'm going to make sure that my time, I spend enough time with my family, doing things for my family, that I'm investing the time I need in my children, with my wife, and that we have the right relationship, that everything's going good. Hey, that is a priority. That's something I need to do. And work, with the things I do for work, that is a priority. I need to make sure that I'm putting in enough hours to work and to provide the money that we need to survive. So again, this is something that we need to do. Now, I come last in this list, this list of the priorities of my life. The Bible says that we should esteem others better than ourselves. I don't do things, or I try not to, I don't want to say that I'm perfect by any means, but in my priority list, I'm coming down at the bottom. This includes the me time. And again, am I perfect at this? Absolutely not. And I don't want to stand up here and make you think that, oh, as a person, I'd be a hypocrite if I said I was perfect at this. But it's something you have to continually analyze when you're thinking about your time and how you spend your time. But the me time would be like playing video games, scrolling through Facebook, just basically kind of doing things and just wasting time. I'm not saying those things are a sin or it's wrong to ever do that stuff. But these are the types of things that are going to lead you down the path of being lazy and being idle and just wasting time. What's more important use of your time? Go down the list and think about all the other things you can be doing. Think about other people you'd be helping out. Instead of just sitting there and just wasting time, what can you actually be accomplishing? Because here's the thing, right? And this is one of the reasons why this idleness is just, I mean, when you look back on your life, don't you want to be able to at least look back and be like, I accomplished something. Here's something that I did that was worth something. Here's what I did that I'm going to be rewarded for and that I actually worked hard. And I love the feeling of working really hard on a project, working hard on something, sweating, and then finally completing it. I mean, you go through the struggles, you go through the trials, and man, it's just a bear of a project or a process. I was thinking about changing out the head gasket on that car. Man, talk about a nightmare of a project. But the satisfaction when it finally was just done and put together, I mean, it's great. I accomplished something. You did something. You finished it. And here's the thing. I mean, that's kind of a silly example because, I mean, that car was just going to be gone. It was just trash. It was a piece of metal, right? It meant something because we needed, I mean, I needed to be able to commute to work, right? So it was kind of necessary. It was high on my priority list in the sense that it allowed me to get to work. But overall, when you think about the time that you have, and this is why the me time comes last. I'm just wasting time. What about when you stand at the judgment seat of Christ and God's going to give you rewards based on the work that you did? And it says that every man's work is going to be tried in the fire to see what sort it was. So all the works that you've done in your entire life is going to be tried by fire. And the stuff that you did that's meaningless, that just had absolutely zero eternal value, it's just going to burn up and be gone forever and won't even exist anymore. It'll be as if you just never did it. But the stuff that you do that's of eternal value, that'll stay with you and that'll remain forever. And the point I'm trying to make here is just let's try to make it so that we don't have very much of the stuff that just burns up and is gone. Let's be aware of our time. Let's use it. Let's make the plans. Let's plan in our mind, hey, I've got a Saturday coming up and we don't have anything planned to do. Let's plan something out to do for that day. And whatever it is, however it falls into your priority structure, things that you want to do, I'm not saying you can never have time, you never enjoy some time together. I use that as part of my family time because it is important. It's important to build our relationships and we go out and do things as a family that are fun and entertaining, but it's not just a waste of time. We're actually doing something and growing our relationship. But think about your priorities when you come up with your time and when you're kind of planning out your week or your month or whatever you're planning out. Now, not having that plan is most likely where you're going to end up doing something stupid. Now, there is specific advice in the Bible, actually, specifically for a younger woman to not be idle. In 1 Timothy 5, verse 11, the Bible says, But the younger widows refuse, for when they have begun to wax once and against Christ they will marry, having damnation because they cast off their first faith. And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house and not only idle, but tattlers also of busybodies, speaking things which they ought not. I will, therefore, that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion of the adversary to speak refroachfully. So one of the solutions for young women to avoid idleness and being a busybody and getting involved in other people's business is to marry. Have kids, guide the house. Hey, you start doing that, you're going to be busy. Whether you like it or not, you're going to be busy. You have a lot of work to do. And that's definitely one good way for young women to make sure that they're not idle. Now, the last point I'll make is don't be a lazy Christian. Matthew 9, verse 37 says, Then saith the unto his disciples, Jesus Christ, that is, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. Pray ye therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. So he's saying, look, there's a harvest that is out. There's a harvest of souls. And God needs labourers. Labour means it's work. It's easy to be slothful or to be idle and to just say, I don't want to do the work. That's the easy way out. But Jesus is saying, pray the Lord of the harvest that he'll send forth labourers. Don't be a lazy Christian. I mean, especially if you're not a lazy person in general, if you're not lazy at your work, you're not lazy doing the things that you do. Don't be lazy with your Christianity by any means. I mean, I'd rather have you lazy at work than being a lazy Christian because doing the things of God is way more important than doing the things of this world. Don't be slothful. Don't be idle, especially in your Christianity. Hopefully that'll make the plan. If that's something that's important to you, make a plan to work hard at becoming a reaper, someone who's going to be able to reap souls for Christ, someone who's going to be a labourer for Christ. And don't be afraid of the hard work because here's the thing. The more work you put into it, and like I was saying earlier with my earlier example, I'm sure everyone could relate to this. When you put a lot of work into something, you put a lot of heart into it, and then you finally accomplish something, the joy is great. I mean, it's one of the best feelings you could have of just accomplishing something and accomplishing something good. And when you put in the time and the effort, you study your Bible and you go out, and you go out soul-willing, and then you finally open up your Bible and you're able to lead somebody else to put their faith in Christ, there's a great reward in that. There's a great reward for you. I mean, you put in that time, you put in that effort, you study, you learn, and to show somebody and just to watch them and to help them to understand what it means to be saved. And when they make that decision and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as a result partially of all of the hard work that you've been doing, that's amazing, I mean, and it's very fulfilling, and that's something that is going to last forever. That's eternal value. So let's try really hard. I mean, this is something that I'm sure everybody in this room can look at some aspect of their life and be like, I'm lazy here, I'm idle here, or I do this wrong, myself included, okay? I need to take this to heart just as much as everyone else does because it's really easy to fall into being lazy and being idle. So let's guard against this as much as is possible and keep our minds focused and try to be diligent to get our work done and to get it done properly. Let's bow our heads on a word of prayer. Dear Lord, I thank you so much for the Bible. I thank you for the wisdom in the book of Proverbs. Lord, I pray that you would please help us all not to have this slothfulness and laziness and idleness in our lives, dear God. Help us to remember your word at the times where we might catch ourselves just wasting time and really not being productive. Lord, I pray that you would please strengthen us and give us the will and the strength to get through the day and to continue working hard, dear Lord, and to continue doing things for you. Help us to make the right priorities in our lives that we're not wasting our time but we're actually using it to the fullest. And Lord, we just pray for your blessings on this church and on everybody that's here tonight. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.