In the fall of 1558 till the spring of 1559, John Calvin was so sick that he couldn’t preach at all during this time. And before we think that he probably could have fought through the sickness and preached if he had really wanted to, we should note that Calvin’s typical practice was to preach regularly about ten times a week and give four additional lectures. In addition, he wrote so much that the definitive edition of his works fills forty-eight volumes that are double columned. In the years of 1550-1559, he also averaged performing thirty weddings a year, along with all his other duties. So, when we read that he was too sick to preach, it’s probably best to give him the benefit of the doubt.

So, what did he do in that time? Crazy enough, he used those months to revise and expand the Institutes. In fact, in the preface to that edition of the Institutes, he wrote that he believed the sickness would end in his death, so “the more the disease pressed upon me the less I spared myself, until I could leave a book behind me that might, in some measure, repay the generous invitation of godly men. Indeed I should have preferred to do it sooner, but it is done soon enough if it is done well enough.”¹

If that weren’t enough, he preached his final sermon on February 6, 1564 with his speaking impeded by asthma, before dying about three months later. Even then, his closest understudy reported that when they would tell him simply to rest in his final days, he’s respond, “What, would you have the Lord to find me idle?”²

On the one hand, we might credit Calvin’s refusal to rest in the final days of his life to an overwhelming desire always to be accomplishing something. And perhaps it would be valid to ask whether Calvin’s diligence reflected an unhealthy pursuit. On the other hand, however, it should serve to remind us of the great evil that is found in being lazy.

No doubt we’ve often thought about what we would like to be found doing when the Lord returns. How glorious we might think, to be doing this or that. Or perhaps more often, we’ve thought in terms of sin. Perhaps, “I don’t want to be found doing this or that.” But I wonder how many of us think to ourselves, “I hope I am not found idle.”

There are certain sins that may not register as high on the scale of evil as they should. And one of them might very well be laziness. It’s tempting for us to remind ourselves that others are lazy as well, to come up with reasons why laziness isn’t all that bad, or even to joke about our laziness. Procrastination as a college student can almost become a badge of honor among your peers. But when we look at the book of Proverbs, we’re reminded that between the two of us, perhaps we’re the ones who are more off-balanced than Calvin because the book of Proverbs condemns laziness perhaps as much as any other sin addressed in these chapters.

It’s seen as nothing short of sin and as that which characterizes the way of the fool. In fact, the lazy one is called the “sluggard” in the book, and his actions are condemned at every turn. Therefore, this morning, since we all (I believe) have struggled with laziness at times and perhaps are deeply struggling with this issue right now, Proverbs serves as a helpful rebuke to us and I pray will serve to convict us as it teaches us lessons concerning laziness.

As we did, then, last time we looked at a theme in this book, I simply want to note some summary points concerning laziness that I believe are stressed in this book. And, hopefully, as we see these realities, we will turn from our sin to the gospel, repent and find forgiveness, and then change our lives by the grace of God and power of the Spirit so that we lives honoring lives unto the Lord.

With that said, the first lesson we see from Proverbs on laziness is that . . .

Laziness has serious consequences.

The Proverbs list a number, and I’ll note two.

1. Laziness often results in poverty

This probably is the most repeated lesson concerning laziness throughout the book of Proverbs. Solomon clearly wants his sons to know that if they are lazy and do not work, there is likely poverty in their future. We read this lesson, for example, in the following Proverbs:

6:6-11 – “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”

10:4 – “A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.”

20:4, 13 – “The sluggard does not plow in the autumn, he will seek at harvest and have nothing. . . . Love not sleep, lest you come to poverty; open your eyes, and you will have plenty of bread.”

24:30-34 – “I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”

Now, of course, as we’ve mentioned again and again, Proverbs often do not offer us statements without exceptions. So, we can find someone who is lazy and yet inherits a fortune and lives with riches his or her who life. And on the other hand, we can find individuals who face great poverty and yet work hard. However, instead of focusing on the exceptions, it is good to learn what this general rule is teaching us, and the lesson is that laziness breeds poverty.

In our own country, there is great poverty faced by a great number of people. And there are many reasons that there is such poverty. But one of them is laziness. Therefore, it is helpful to make clear that the notion that we are okay to be lazy and let other people take care of us – whether government, our neighbors, or whomever – is simply unchristian. Paul tells the Thessalonians in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

Do you see? He is forbidding us from enabling the lazy man in his laziness. When the source of poverty is laziness, we do not love our brother when we attempt to eliminate his poverty but fail to address his laziness.

2. Our laziness negatively affects others

Perhaps this is obvious in settings where we have group projects where all students are graded the same or on a sports team where the whole team is dependent on each individual. But it is true outside of these circumstances as well that our laziness negatively affects others.

We see this in at least two places. The first is in Proverbs 10:5 – “He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.” Children serve to bring honor or dishonor to their parents. This is shown throughout the Scriptures, and we find it true in life, don’t we? Whenever I get a chance to meet the parent of a student who is godly, mature, and wise, I find myself eager not only to get to know their parents but to ask them a lot of questions when I do. Why? It’s because their child’s actions serve to honor them. Similarly, a lazy individual dishonors his or her parents. Our actions do not merely affect us, but they cast light on even our parents. In fact, I remember one night when a brother stood in our midst and publically repented of his sins, noting, “My parents deserve better.” That’s good awareness that our sins do not merely affect us. They serve to cast honor or dishonor on those who pour into us, and laziness serves to dishonor them.

Solomon notes something similar in 10:26, writing, “Like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to those who send him.” The lazy individual has such negative effects on others, that he becomes repulsive to them. Our actions affect others and drive others from us.

We also see that . . .

Like other sins, laziness is deceptive

The author of Hebrews tells us that sin is deceptive. Sin doesn’t typically present itself to us as something that looks terrible. If gossip always presented itself to us in all of its ugliness, we would not be tempted to gossip. But it doesn’t, does it? In the moment of being tempted to gossip, there are a hundred things that seem appealing about it and a hundred reasons why it seems okay to our hearts that are longing to sin. Well, the same is true with laziness.

1. Laziness will mask itself behind dreaming and talking

Oftentimes we are blind to our laziness because we spend time dreaming. We have dreams of what we want to accomplish, what we would like to do, where we would like to be. But at the end of the day, we are actually not doing anything. One of those demotivational posters reads: “You’re not being paid to believe in the power of your dreams.”

But this idea that a person has a bunch of dreams but won’t actually do anything to make progress is not a 21st century phenomenon. Rather, we read in Proverbs 13:14 – “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” And again, in 21:25 – “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.” The problem isn’t his lack of craving or desire or ambition, but his unwillingness to work. We can also note 14:23 – “In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.”

2. Laziness will mask itself behind unnecessary pursuits

That is to say, sometimes we fool ourselves in to thinking we’re not lazy because we’re doing things. The problem is we’re simply not doing what we need to be doing. So, for example, we read in Proverbs 12:11 (and 28:19) – “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”

One of the ways we display laziness is in our willingness to do anything but what we need to be doing. So, we might fool ourselves into thinking we were very diligent because we straightened up our dorm room, but we only did that in order to avoid writing that paper we need to write. I’ve often told myself when I had to do certain things that if I didn’t have to do that thing, I would be able to be so productive. If I didn’t have to spend time reading this assigned book, for example, I’d read ten other books that I really want to read. The problem is that I often proved otherwise when I had a chance to read those books. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have time to do some of both – assigned reading and desired reading – but that I was lazy.

We also see that because laziness can be as deceptive as any other sin . . .

We will be tempted to make excuses for our laziness

Solomon warns his sons of the excuse-making by the laziness on a couple of occasions:

22:13 – “The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!”

26:13 – “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!’”

Now, perhaps we’re to see this as a legitimate threat or a ridiculous notion, but either way, the text serves to remind us that we will be tempted to make excuses for our laziness. Perhaps we’ll say, “Well, that person doesn’t have to do as much at his job as I do, so I deserve to work a little less,” or “If I get out of bed now, I’ll just feel tired the rest of the day,” or “I just work better under the pressure of having to get this done at the last possible minute,” or “Hey, my boss isn’t complaining yet.” But in each of these things, we forget that we work hard not for the sake of man but for the Lord.

Paul writes in Ephesians 6:5-8, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of god from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”

I also want to add a note about resting here because one of our biggest excuses (and I say this from experience) can be that we need rest. And that’s true, we do need rest. The problem, however, is that our laziness actually works against us getting the rest we need. Say, for example, you need to be using a good portion of your day to work on your paper. So, you go the library, sit down, and start writing. Only after a while, you allow yourself to get distracted, and you think you should read a few blogs. Then, you decide that you will check some sports scores, read some Facebook messages, or look at some news headlines. And let’s say this goes on for a good eight hours. So, you walk out of the library at night and feel exhausted. After all, you’ve been sitting in the library, in front of a computer for a good part of the day, and you think to yourself, “Wow, I need some rest.” Well, the reality is, that’s true. You probably do need some rest. The toll of the computer on your eyes for eight hours alone will make you tired. The problem, however, is that you may have only spent three of those eight hours actually working on your paper.

Do you see, then, what’s happened? Not only did you spend eight hours staring at your computer screen in the library, but you still have five hours’ worth of work still to do, and you’re exhausted. Whereas, if you had put in an amount of time being diligent, then gone and thrown a Frisbee or taken a nap, and then gotten back at the job, not only would you find yourself to have accomplished more, but you would have actually used a few of those hours rejuvenating yourself and resting. But what is the key in that scenario? It’s that you have to use the time allotted for working actually working, not being distracted by our temptations to laziness. Otherwise, we will find ourselves not really resting well or rejuvenating ourselves and we will not get our work done.

Simply put, it is by working hard that you free yourself up to rest well and enjoy it. The Lord is not against enjoyment. In fact, it is a gift from his hand. But listen to Solomon’s words in Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 – “Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.” Again, it is only when we work hard in the hours allotted for working that we will have the freedom to rest well in the hours allotted for rest. So, let us not find ourselves excusing our laziness in the name of wanting to get some rest.

Finally, laziness dishonors the Lord, while hard work brings him honor

Now, on the one hand, we can make this point simply because God’s word condemns laziness and honors hard work. After all, if God forbids laziness, then it’s pretty obvious that it dishonors the Lord when we’re lazy and that it brings him honor when we obey him and work hard. So, this is a point we can make from all of these lessons from Proverbs combined.

But I do want to draw our attention to one Proverb specifically. In 22:29, we read, “Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.” Now, the point of this text is to say that those who work hard and craft their skill will be recognized by others. Even men in influential positions will recognize them.

Now, we could respond to this one of two ways. On the one hand, we could say, “Who cares? I don’t want to praise of man.” And, it’s true that we do nothing in order to gain man’s empty praise. On the other hand, though, we could recognize this text to be telling us something very similar to Matthew 5:16, where Jesus told us, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

You see, you may be a carpenter and think to yourself, “I don’t have much opportunity to do anything that really honors the Lord. I’m just building a table for someone this week.” But you know what this is an opportunity to do is to work hard in such a way that your work stands out, draws the admiration of others, and opens up a door for you to honor the Lord. After all, it is the Lord himself who commanded us to work hard. Perhaps the greatest door that will be opened to you for the sharing of the gospel will come because you build good tables, are a diligent student, or labor diligently to teach kids math in the classroom. Whatever our labors are before, we have a chance to dishonor our Lord before men or to honor him so that they might glorify our Father who is in heaven.

Let us, then, repent this morning, knowing that there is forgiveness through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. And let us labor diligently refusing to compromise to laziness, knowing that it is loving toward our brothers and honoring to our Lord – whose death we now proclaim as we come to the table. Amen.

¹John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1995), 3-4.

²Quoted in Theodore Beza’s Life of John Calvin in Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, vol. 1, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet, 84.