A Served Notice

Today’s Verse:

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: ~Proverbs 6:6

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When someone is served a notice, it is an announcement of great importance requiring his attention. Typically, a served notice is mailed with a short amount of time to respond. This morning, we see a notice that God serves upon the man who is a sluggard.

We see the nature of the sluggard.

“Thou sluggard….” “Sluggard” is a word that describes someone who is careless, complacent, indifferent, and lazy. He procrastinates and slowly takes his time. He is unconcerned about the vanishing of time, halted progress, lack of supply, decay, and missed opportunities. Solomon describes this man who gives a lot of his day to sleeping. “How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?” He sleeps while others plan, work, and accomplish things. Could it be that you have slipped into the pattern of a sluggard?

We see the negligence of the sluggard.

“So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man.” A sluggard lacks foresight and motivation to prepare for the future. His negligence will deprive him and his family of their needs. His negligence will result in the loss of harvesting. His negligence will not lay away for old age. His negligence will result in souls not being reached with the gospel. The end result is poverty! He will be a beggar when he could be blessed. He will be lacking when he could be living. He will be on the outside, looking in when he could be on the inside, looking out. He has no one to blame for his poverty except for himself.

We see the notification to the sluggard.

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” Solomon issues a direct and solemn notification to the sluggard. He tells him to go outside and carefully study the nature of an ant. An ant has discipline. It does not have supervisors telling it what to do. Its instinct moves it to be attentive to the limited time it has to harvest food. An ant has direction. “Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler….” An ant understands the task at hand and requires no oversight. An ant is discerning. “[It] provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.” An ant is dependable. It is an example of faithfulness and reliability. Solomon rebukes the sluggard: “Go to the ant”!

We see the negating of the sluggard.

We must deal quickly with the tendency of becoming a sluggard. Paul tells us that if a man will not work, neither shall he eat. We should not encourage anyone to allow the characteristics of a sluggard to develop in them. We must be careful not to have close associations with sluggards. Be careful of idling time away in fruitless endeavors. Live by a schedule, assign timelines for accomplishment, and build margin for rest. We must be diligent to not fall in the trap of procrastinating. We must endeavor that whatever our hand finds to do, we do it with all our might. We should engage our young people and teach them the requirements and reward of work.

Solomon served an important notice: go to the ant and consider her ways. Be diligent and always abounding.

Have a diligent God Morning!

Bible Reading Schedule: Daniel 10-12

#Diligence #Discipline #Proverbs #Laziness #Ant #Sluggard