Well, do you have a book with you that contains the book of Proverbs? If you do, I would invite you to open it up. Let's open to the book of Proverbs. If you don't have a Bible with you, we've got them on the back tables. We'd invite you. If you don't have a Bible overall, you can just take one and make it your own. And we are going to get into the book of Proverbs here this morning. And if you're new to being a part of our church, if you've just been visiting or started to come recently, hopefully one of the things that you learn about us quite quickly is that we are a church that loves the Bible is what we want to get into every time that we gather together in a service like this. But not only do we want to get into it when we gather together, we want it to be on our minds and our hearts all throughout the week. And so, we're reading it together day by day and talking about it together. And God is doing great things as we learn from his Word together. And as we've been getting into Proverbs, we've learned that wisdom is calling out. And the question is, are we going to be the type of people that will listen to it? And so, we're going to pay attention to a part of Proverbs, chapter 6 that we'll be reading on Monday, but we're going to get into it here this morning. So, once you've got Proverbs, chapter 6, would you stand with me, and we will pay attention to this portion of Scripture together. Proverbs, chapter 6, verses 6 through 11. Read with me. It says,
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.
That's the reading of God's Word. You may have your seat. And it was just a couple of weeks ago in my house, when it was unseasonably warm, that one of my sons looked at me and exclaimed, Dad, we're going to have so many ants, right? This is the time of year as the weather gets warmer, where you start noticing some uninvited guests in your house. Have you had this experience? Well, just wait. It might be coming as the weather continues to warm up, and here in Proverbs, what we have and what we've seen, kind of, that many sections of the Proverbs that we've read so far is from the perspective of a father instructing his son and calling out and wanting to pass along wisdom to his child. And that's what we see here in this chapter. And we've got the father encouraging his son to go to the ant to actually think about the way that ants operate, and interacting with ants is a pretty, pretty common human experience, one that we can all relate to.
And so, if you're taking notes, I'd like to have you write this down for point number one is that we need to “Consider the ways of the ant.” Consider the ways of the ant because, as wisdom is being passed along, one of the things that we all need to be very clear at is that we need more of it than we have. I don't know about you, as I was reading the last part of the Psalms, it felt like many of these Psalms, they're short. I can kind of wrap my head around the whole chapter in not too long of an amount of time. And as I've started reading the Proverbs, I'm like, there is a lot, these chapters are long. Feels like so much wisdom is being poured out. It's almost hard to process it all in one sitting. Sometimes it's like, I’ve got to go back to it multiple times throughout the day and I don't know if you've encountered this temptation like I have after I started reading it is, as there are many different topics being discussed, sometimes I can kind of want to hone in on the ones that I already feel good at. Have you felt that yourself? Whereas you read it, you're like, I feel like I'm already wise in this area, I'm going to focus more on that today, but this other area where maybe I might seem a little foolish, not so much like there's a problem that you and I have as human beings, is we kind of want to congratulate ourselves and be wise in our own eyes and think we've got all the wisdom we need. And it's like, what the Father wants to do with his son is, he wants to say, there's actually something out there that is objectively wise, right? Like, if you want to be wise, you need to not just look at yourself, you need to compare yourself to something that is actually wise outside of you. And the father doesn't seem to think that wisdom is this very subjective thing where it's like, well, you have your truth over here and you’ve got your truth over here, and they're different, but it's all good. No, there is objective wisdom to be found. But the question is, will we listen?
And so, because of this, the father says, go to the ant. But then he uses a word that we need to address. He says, “O sluggard.” When even just you hear that word said, I mean, it just is not a positive word, it feels a little slimy coming out. It's like, oh, it's a very negative word. And this word means lazy or slow or sluggish, right? The opposite of this word, you could say is being diligent, being a hard worker. Now in America, it seems that many people actually want to live a life of a sluggard, but no one actually wants to be described as a sluggard, right? We might prefer the term convenience enthusiast, right, or some other way. I don't want to think of myself as a sluggard. I mean, if Matt Shew was up here in the announcements, and he was like, on Friday night, we're going to have The Press happening over here, and then in this other room over here, there's the Sluggards Ministry. I mean, are you scanning that QR code? Are you putting ink to that sign up sheet? I mean, I don't know that when the father is addressing his son, I don't know that the son wants to think of himself as a sluggard. I doubt that any one of us in the room want to think of ourselves as a sluggard. But the ant is talked about in the Proverbs as being wise, right? You could write down Proverbs 30:24-25 which says four things on Earth are small, but they are exceedingly wise. And what is the first of those four things? The ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in summer. And so, he says to his son, who is described as a sluggard, he says, consider her ways, right? Consider the ways that ants operate.
And the first thing that he gives for his consideration is something that ants don't have, something that ants don't do. In Verse seven, it says, without having any chief, officer, or ruler. So, within the ants there, you know, we might think of like a queen ant, but there's really not a chain of command. There are no levels. There's not a hierarchy within the way that ants operate. And I know some of you, right as I say that you're like, Pastor Bill, I've seen Bug's Life, and there are these older ants, and they've got megaphones, and they're telling people what to do. And can I just remind you, Disney movies are not real. It's not the way it actually operates. Like ants, one of the thing that we need to learn about them is that they don't need supervision. Ants are self-supervising. They don't need to be reminded to do what they do. And, you know, ants are out there. They don't have a great many activities that they're involved in their life. Maybe they're like, kind of building up their colony, but particularly this time of year, they are going to be out there searching for food. I don't know. Have you had the experience where you just woke up in the morning and you were like, I'm coming up from rest, about to put some coffee on, and you realize the ants were out there, and they were doing work while you slept. They were busy. And to understand this, I'm no entomologist, so I had to actually do some research about ants to kind of understand more of the way they operate. And I was like, well, do ants sleep? Like I've never seen a snoozing ant. How does this work? And what I found online was that ants don't sleep. They take, like, a one-minute nap. And they take, on average, 251 minute naps in a 24 hour period. And I'm like, do they have, like, the an-cam out there, where they're like, watching the naps? How do they even come up with this information?
But even the way that the ants work together, it's like, at any one given time, only 20% of the ant colony is taking their one-minute nap, and 80% of them are working. And I'm like, that is incredible. That is amazing. And what Proverbs wants us to know is that they don't have a supervisor telling them to do that. It's not like, hey, wait, this is your minute to go on break. Why don't you pause for a second? All right, you guys off of your break over here. No, ants, they're just doing it, and they are relentless in doing the work, and they don't need somebody telling them to do that, right? They are going to go find the trash that you left on your garbage can, right? They're going to go find the scraps you left on your plate. They're going to that food that you didn't realize was on the counter. They're going to find it. They're going to clean it up for you, they're going to be going for it, and once they do, it is just back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Until the work is done, they don't need supervision.
And this is wise, like, this is a father telling his son this is the way of wisdom right here is that you shouldn't need someone to tell you what you already know to do. So, let's put down a couple of dashes as questions to ask ourselves. And this first one is, “How much supervision do you need?” Like, are you wise? Are you and I, if we're going to go to the ant and consider her ways, and we're meant to consider that the ant doesn't need reminders. It doesn't need supervision. How much like the ant are you? I mean, let's think about your work at the job that that you have. I mean, in many jobs, it's quite likely that you have reoccurring tasks that you need to do in your job, things that aren't new, things that aren't a mystery. You were told to do them. You were trained to do them. How often do you need reminders to do those things? Or if your supervisor, if you do have a supervisor, an officer, a ruler, kind of over you, and they were to come and they're like, hey, what about this? Are you the kind of person who says, yeah, yeah, I'll get to that, but you don't mean I'll get to that right now. You mean I'll get to that later on, right? If this were Take-Your-Pastor-to-Work week, which it's not, but should be, that'd be awesome, right? If I were to go up and I were to interview your supervisor and I were to ask them, hey, how often do you have to remind this person to do the things you've already told them to do? What would your boss have to say about you?
Just got real for a moment here in the sermon, right? I mean, if you and I are wanting to be wise like the ant, we should be the type of people that our boss could even forget they told us to do something because we are so on it that they know we're not going to require a reminder. They're giving us tasks. They're giving us things to do. We are attentively downloading that information and formulating a plan where it's like, I'm going to get after this. I'm going to get after it right now, and you're not going to have to tell me twice. A wise person needs to be told what to do once. They don't require supervision, just like the ant. It's like, okay, there's the food, let's go get it. And they just go and relentlessly do it. They don't need someone constantly telling them to do what they know they should do, right? They aren't the type of employees that kind of turn it around on the boss and say, well, you should have reminded me. No, I should have reminded myself, right? That is wisdom. When I am a self-supervising type of person, I don't need someone else to tell me to do again and again the things I already know I should do.
Well, let's talk about at home. There's lots of work to do at home, and I hope that in your home that we're like a team, and we're working together, and we're dividing up the responsibilities, and everybody's got a role to play, to kind of accomplish the work that we have to do. And if your house is at all like my house, there are some of the same things that need to be done over and over and over and over again, right? One of those things in my house is the unloading of the dishwasher. Do you have one of these machines in your house? You've cracked this technology? Some of you are like, we don't use the dishwasher. We wash everything by hand. And praise the Lord for you if that's you. But in my house, there's like, the unloading of the dishwasher. And there's actually kind of a specific time when the dishwasher needs to be unloaded. And it's like, if we ran it overnight, the morning time it needs to get unloaded, like, before we leave for school, we need to address the unloading of the dishwasher, because guess what, we're going to make more dirty dishes, and we would like to have a place to place them that's not the sink or the counter, because guess what, the ants then are going to find them, and we will have these uninvited guests. And you know what I have found is that it's like, hey, every day this is going on, but yet, there are the need of reminders. There's like, a hey, you know, we revolve this chore. This is not someone's like, you know, servitude for the rest of their life. It changes on the month. And it's like, okay, it's your turn to do this. Let's go do this. And sometimes there's the need of a second reminder, and sometimes it doesn't get done before school, and it's like, okay, after school, there's another reminder. And I'm thinking about this day where I could just go in the morning and open up the dishwasher, and there it is, empty. It's been unloaded. And I would be like, wisdom has come to this house today. Praise the Lord. There didn't need to be a reminder.
First thing we're meant to learn about the ants is that they don't need the reminders. Do we need the reminders? And then the second thing it says here in verse 8, says she, now we're kind of personifying the ant as a female, as wisdom is also personified as a female throughout the Proverbs, it says, “she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.” And so, this one really made me scratch my head for a minute as I was trying to understand what this is like. And I'm like, okay, she prepares her bread, okay. I understand bread in summer, okay. I can understand summer. It's that season that we're coming towards here in the year, “and gathers her food in harvest.” And I was like, okay, what is this trying to say? Because, I mean, not only am I not an entomologist, I'm not very skilled with harvesting things. Are you like me, right? Like you haven't really done a whole lot of harvests in your life. My version of harvesting is like, I went to the grocery store and I harvested something off the shelf and into the cart. Praise the Lord for a bountiful harvest. Praise the Lord we got groceries going on.
And so, I was confused, because I'm like, okay, prepares your “bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.” And I'm thinking, harvest, that's got to be, like, October or November. So, like, okay, well, prepare. She's preparing her bread before she's harvested. Things like, what is this talking about? What am I supposed to what are we supposed to learn from this? And, you know, the problem that I had is that, I grew up in America, you know, and I was taught in school that there are four seasons, right? Have you been like living in California? I don't know what that's actually like, because we just have awesome all year round. But in other parts of the world, it's like, yeah, we got winter, we got spring, summer, fall, and it's back to winter again. Or even that song that we sang, “Great is thy faithfulness,” right? We've got summer and winter and springtime and harvest. So, I just assumed harvest has got to be the one that they didn't call out. It's got to be the fall, and I'm thinking about Thanksgiving feasts, and we've got all these harvests. And so, I'm so confused. And I had to remember the Proverbs was not written while America existed. It was written long ago, and it was written in the nation of Israel. And so, I was like, okay, I need to actually think we're talking about bread, and we make bread from grain. So, when is grain harvested in Israel, in the Bible? And you know what I found, it's in the summer. It's right, like, so even that, the nation of Israel, God instituted certain feasts where everybody was going to gather to Jerusalem. One of those feasts was the Passover that happened right around the time not long ago, where we celebrated Jesus dying and rising again. It was during that feast, and then what they would do is they would have another feast that would follow somewhat closely after that, called the Feast of Weeks, where they would have seven weeks, right? So, seven, seven, so 49 days after the Passover, is this Feast of Weeks. And one of the things that they would even do during this Feast of Weeks is they would bring an offering of the first fruits, particularly of the grain harvest, and offer it before the Lord, because that's when the grain is harvested. And I actually looked up like, well, this is why Easter kind of jumps around every year, because it's going off of a lunar calendar rather than the solar calendar, like we have it. And I actually looked up, okay, well, when is this Feast of Weeks this year, and they're celebrating it while the underground is going to be going to their college retreat on Memorial Day weekend. We think of it as Memorial Day, in the nation of Israel, it's like the Feast of Weeks where we're having the grain harvest. And I was like, That makes a lot of sense, actually, because when I've been to Israel the couple times that I've been, it's been during the summertime, and one word that I would use to describe it is hot, like, unbearably hot, like, when you're outdoors, it's like, you better get one of these towels and soak it in cold water and put it around your neck so you don't overheat because it's so hot. And I'm thinking, like, well, how is grain going to do in this kind of heat? Well, it's probably going to wither. It's probably going to die. So, when it's saying here in verse 8, “she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest,” these are talking about the same time.
Now this is foreign to us, because we're not really in tune with the agricultural flow of crops like they would have been in this time. But let's just think for a moment like, if you didn't harvest your grain when it needed to be harvested, what would the effect that would have on you? Well, what would we do with this grain? Well, that would be how we would make bread for the whole rest of the year, and then when it came time to plant crops for the next year's harvest, what would we use to plant? Well, we would actually use some of the grain that we harvested this year. And during the winter time, when it's like, maybe the vegetation is not super plentiful, what would we feed some of our livestock. We would feed them some of the grain that we harvested this year. And so, you could tell that, like this father, his son, being like the ant, even for the particular thought of, what should we do during the harvest time? He's pretty intense about it.
Go back with me to verse 9. “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.” Now, the first time I ever heard this passage, it was from my dad, Bruce Blakey. And maybe there's a morning where I'm a little slow to wake up for school, and it's like I've had a Scripture quoted to me in the morning, “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest,” and I'm like, whoa. Like my dad wants me to get up right now, and that's why I kind of, maybe for a portion of my life, thought about this, like, this is the anti-sleeping in verse. Like this is the verse that tells you you should get up. But even more specifically than that, it's talking about now is the harvest time. Like now is a time in particular where you don't want to be delaying your work. You don't want to be putting it off. You don't want to be resting like this time is critical. This time is actually crucial. And this is so clear when I read.
Go over with me to Proverbs, Chapter 10, verse 5. Proverbs 10:5 says it very clearly, like this. It says, “He who gathers in summer,” so you can see, when are they thinking the grain is going to get gathered, it's going to get harvested, it's going to get gathered in the summertime. “He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest,” remember, that's the same time harvest in summer. “He who sleeps in Harvest is a son who brings shame.” So, it's not like this dad is just crashing out, as the kids are saying these days. This dad has a real concern for his sluggardly son, because it's like the time is now to harvest the grain, and if we don't do it now, guess what we have for the rest of the year? Poverty. This is not metaphorical. This is quite literal, because if we don't harvest our own grain, then, what are the consequences of that? It feels like they are many and compounding. Well, what are we going to do to have bread for the rest of the year? Now, we're going to have to go buy that from someone else, rather than we can make it ourself, and we're going to have to go buy stuff to feed to our animals, and we're also going to have to buy stuff to plant so that we have enough to plant for next year. So, you could see how missing this critical window of time of the harvest would have a great many consequences for the whole rest of the year in the life of that family. And so it's like, son, get up, get to work.
Go back to chapter 6. Let's just examine what specifically does he address? He says in verse 10, “a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.” So, I mean, as we're trying to piece together, what is this conversation between father and son? Looks like the son is not saying, Dad, hire someone else. I'm out. I don't want to work. I'm not engaged. You know what the son is saying? Oh yeah, yeah, dad. I'll get to that later. Just five more minutes, dad, five more minutes of sleep. I'm not going to get up and get after it right now when I should. I'm going to snooze a little bit. I mean, we in America, we have such a positive view of sleep, we want to get our eight hours. But have you ever slept too long? Have you ever had the consequences of actually sleeping through something where there was a particular time that you need to be at a particular place, and you were sleeping instead. This is a terror to wake up like this, right? I remember this happened to me when I was in college, and I had a Tuesday morning class at 8am and I had a test in this class period, so I went to bed, set my alarm, thinking everything was going to be good, and the class is over at 9:30 and I wake up and what is the time that I see on my clock? 9:23. And I'm thinking, my life is over. My life is over because, wait a minute, like if I get a zero on a test, there's no way I'm coming back from that, right? I'm going to fail this class. I'm going to have to take this class over again, and then what am I going to do? How is that going to affect all my schedule, right? Like you could see that one moment of sleeping when I needed to be working, could have compounding effects in my life. And so, I ran to the classroom as fast as I possibly could, and I got there just as the class is ending, and my professor took pity on me and was gracious and allowed me to take the test right then with a 20% deduction for not showing up on time. And I ended up passing the class, but I was like, okay, after that day of class, you know what I did? I went to the store and I bought multiple alarm clocks, and I realized I am too talented at sleep like I can. I had set my alarm the night before, but I had just turned it off in my sleep. I can do things in my sleep. This is a real problem, and so I'm like, I'm going to put alarm clocks at all different places in my room where I am going to force myself to get out of bed, because I never want this to happen again in my life. And this son, you know, it's not like he's saying I'm not willing to work, but he's saying, I'll just do it later. I'll just snooze it a little bit. And this is what the father's trying to correct. This is why he's pointing them to the ant. The ants don't snooze. I mean, for a minute they do, but then they're right back to work. After that, the ants are getting after it.
And so, let's get this down for our second dash: “How much of a procrastinator Are you?” Are you an amateur procrastinator? Like, procrastination has become almost a way of wisdom, of virtue in America today, where people are like, yeah, the 11th Hour, that's when I do my best work. I thrive on precious situations, right? Like, I mean, it's almost like, yeah, I don't have to write that paper on time. I'll just stay up all night, the night before and get it done. It's like, that's a way of wisdom, so called that many of us have learned in America and have subscribed to. But the sluggard is not wise. The sluggard is not an example that any of us should imitate. The sluggard is a fool.
Let's examine some other passages in Proverbs. This guy, he shows up a few times. Go with me to chapter 13. Proverbs 13, verse 4. Look at what it tells us about the sluggard. It says, Proverbs 13, “for the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” The diligent, like the ants that just know what needs to be done and say, I'm going to get after it, and I'm not going to stop getting after it until the job is complete, right? Like there is going to be a sustained period of effort and work and diligence, but the sluggard is not going to experience the fruits of diligence. He's going to crave and get nothing because he's not getting to the work. Go with me to chapter 20, verse 4. Proverbs 20, these are just a few of the examples of where the sluggard is mentioned in Proverbs. Proverbs 20, verse 4. It says “the sluggard does not plow in the autumn.” Okay, so this is actually the season that we might think of as the fall, or getting towards the winter. The sluggard does not plow in autumn. He will seek at harvest, which is like the next summer, and he will have nothing. So, wait a minute, and it's not only like there's a key moment in time at the time of the harvest, where I've got to get to work, there's actually work that needs to happen months before that so that there will be a harvest. There's some plowing of the ground, there's some breaking up of the earth that needs to happen at a particular season of time so that things could even come much later on than that. And I don't know about you, but I lack the patience for farming. I got a lot of these cups with soil in them from elementary school where it's like, oh, I've watered, I put the seed in, and nothing happened. And I'm like, this is lame. I'm going to go play some video games, right? Like, some instant gratification. This thought that, like, I would do work, but I would not see fruit from that work for an extended period of time, until later on. I don't know about that. That's what the sluggard does.
Go with me to chapter 21, verse 25, Proverbs 21:25, it says, “The desire of the sluggard kills him for his hands refuse to labor.” Meaning, the problem with a sluggard is that he's following his desires. There might be things that need to be done, but the question the sluggard asks is, what do I want to do. I mean, think about it. I mean, maybe one of the other reasons why I've never harvested things, it's like work to harvest things. I mean, think about as it's beginning, and we're at the beginning of the summertime, the temperature is starting to rise, it's getting hot, and you're out there doing manual labor of harvesting grain. Right? Without the modern technologies and equipment and machinery that we enjoy, you're out there like with something and cutting stuff down by hand and carrying it from one place to another and having to beat out the sheaves of grain. That just sounds like a lot of work. Would I rather do that? Or would I rather sleep in a little bit longer? I'd choose sleep, right? That's what I would want to do, right? Like, that's what would feel good to me. That's what I would desire, right? Very few of us desire hard work. Some of us are like, yes, get me after it. But so many of us, like, one of the big problems we have in our life is we are following our feelings. We're following our desires, and friends very, very few times, not very many times, will your desires lead you in the right direction. Your desires are often going to lead you in exactly the opposite direction of what is good for you. And that's what the Father wants his son to realize. It's like your desire for just a little more sleep, it's going to kill you, right? There's going to be poverty you're going to want and not have, and it's going to come on you like a thief, like something you're not expecting it to happen. Don't follow your desires, right? If there's something that needs to be done and it needs to be done now, why would I follow my desires and do it later? Right now, there are some things that don't need to be done now, and so I don't need to do them now, but there are a great many things that there is a particular time that they need to be done. And the sluggard wants to feel good remaining a sluggard.
Go just to the next chapter, 22, verse 13, where it says, the sluggard says there is a lion outside. I shall be killed in the streets. There's no lion. There's no lion outside. He's not saying that in response to an actual lion sighting in the field. This is what we like to call an excuse. Oh, yeah, you wouldn't want me to get eaten by a lion, Dad. You're not going to get eaten by a lion, son, there's no lion out here. You're lying about the lion. There's no lying about it. This is an excuse, right? Like, well, I feel justified staying in bed because I could perish out there, dad, right? Go to Proverbs 26:16 where it says this about the sluggard. It says the sluggard is wiser in his own eyes. Proverbs, 26:16, “The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.” It's almost like the sluggard wants to continue to feel good about his sluggardliness and protect it and keep operating that way, but it's not wisdom.
And I just want us to know here in the room that there will be a great many problems that can come into any one of our lives if we just take something that needs to be done now and say, I'll do it later. I'll procrastinate. I'll push it off as you're hearing this sermon. I mean, I've been trying to examine myself as I've been thinking about this over the last few days, and I'm realizing I have more sluggardly tendencies than I would have liked to admit when I first started thinking about this. Are you feeling the same way by this point in the sermon, or am I just looking like a doofus up here, like the one with the sluggardly tendencies? I mean, there are days where I think, you know, work that's for tomorrow, today, rest. Or there's days where I think, you know, yeah, I'll do the work that needs to be done today later, after I've rested, it's almost like I can have this like, well, yeah, I'm trying to work a little bit so that I can rest, rather than, no, I might need a little bit of rest so that I can work and do what God wants me to do.
There are some of us here in the room this morning that we need to resign our membership in the procrastinators club. We need to resign it now, not later. There's one thing we need to put off. It's putting things off to later that need to be done now. And I mean, this is something in particular that the young people need to consider, right? I know some of you in the room, you're like, oh, yeah, I was waiting for him to get to the young people. We got to pray for the young people. And it's true, we do need to pray for the young people. I mean, this might be the most sluggardly generation that has ever existed in the history of the United States of America, right? It's sluggardliness is almost a virtue, right? Like, how can I live a life where I never need to get out of my sweatpants, I never need to go to work? Or I can just go to work, where I don't have to be at work at any certain place a certain time, I can just travel the world and always be having fun and type a little bit on my computer, like, go with my phone a little bit, and I've got all the things I need. I'm not going to be in want. There's going to be no poverty for me.
And we do need to pray for the young people, because I've seen this happen. And there's a time or two that, you know, as I've gotten older, I'm kind of late to the game on some of these things, but there are times where I'll realize, hey, that young man here at the church, he seems to be interested in that young lady over there. And I'm like, well, I noticed this one ahead of time, before they announced that they were engaged. And I'm like, feeling pretty good about that. And I've seen people where it's like, oh, I can tell these two people, they're becoming very fond of each other, and they would like to get married to one another, and then as they think about actually doing that, they realize, wait, if we're going to, like, move out of mom and dad's house, that's going to cost money, right? We've got this lie that's being perpetrated on young people in America today, like the time at the end of high school and of college should be all about fun. Should be all about you doing what you desire and fulfilling yourself, rather than like hey, if you have a season of your life before you need to be responsible to provide for yourself or even to provide for other people in your family, you know what that time is for? It's for you getting ready to do that, right? You learning how to work hard. You gaining skills that people would actually want to employ and pay you a wage for that, you could actually provide for your needs. And I've seen it happen where it's like, I got to that point and but then, when I think about the last years of my life, they haven't been getting ready to work. They've just been full of worthless pursuits. I've been playing video games for years and I haven't been doing work. I see it in the young people, and they're like, well, calculus or this hard math class. What am I ever going to use that we've got computers and iPhones and all this stuff? Well, yeah, you might not use calculus in your job, but you know, a skill that you could really use in any job, learning how to work hard, and being like an ant, where it's like, I'm just going to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and do the work and pay attention to it with diligence as long as it requires to get done.
And I've seen people and it's like, oh, I would like to do this, but I can't, and now I'm frustrated. And it's like the young man is frustrated. And guess who else is frustrated? The young lady, and she's like, when will this guy get on his horse? And the truth is, he should have been getting on his horse years ago to get ready for something like this. Like we need to pray for the young people. We need to encourage them. And you know what? We need to show them an example. We need to not be against them. We need to be for them. We need to be encouraging them and building them, building them up, right? And go back with me to Proverbs 6, because I think it's important, you know, as we look at verse 6, “Go to the ant, O sluggard,” and then after this, in the second half of the verse, There are two commands. It says, “consider her ways.” That's what we've been trying to do so far. Consider her ways like when you look at the Proverbs, it's wisdom, but it's not a suggestion. You should not look at the Proverbs like they aren't promises, they are principles, but you should not look at them as things that you are free to take or leave, right? Good advice. I'll take it under advisement. I'll consider it, that's not the way that the father is positioning this with his son. He is commanding his son to do this. Consider her ways right that you and I, we might realize we’ve got some sluggardly tendencies that we need to be done with. And during the nine o'clock service right across the way, we've got the Bible class that meets every week. And next week, we will be starting a new series called honest work where it's like sluggardly tendencies will go to die. So, if you're realizing like, hey, I think I'm actually a little bit more like this sluggard than I should be, join us in the Bible class next week. We'll be opening up the Scriptures and encouraging one another to have wisdom in the way that we operate, like the ant does. But then it says, consider her ways. And then the second command is, and be wise. And be wise. And I'm thinking about it, if this was just specifically about the harvest, right? It's this one year where his dad's trying to teach his son something about the harvest. He could have said, you know, consider her ways and imitate her and get out of bed, you lazy bum, and let's go do the harvest together, right? But that's not what he says. He says, “Be wise.”
So, let's get that down for our second point, point number two on your notes: “Be wise,” that you and I are meant to learn something from the consideration of the ant here this morning that is meant to give us wisdom, and wisdom is not just knowledge, right? There are a lot of people that they have a lot of facts in their brain, and they are not wise at all. Wisdom is actually taking what you know and living it out with skill, right? Wisdom, some people might say, is the art of living skillfully. Really, it's living life the way that God designed life to be lived. That is wisdom.
And so, there's this principle that we're learning that when there is a time that things need to be done, it is very unwise to put that off till later when it needs to be done. Now, that is the type of wisdom that you and I need to take and apply in any type of situation that that is the case in our lives. And I was kind of, okay, well, let me look at this word for wise. And I was kind of looking at other places where this Hebrew word is used in the book of Proverbs, and it's all over the place, forms of this word. That seems like the whole goal of Proverbs is that you and I would be wise. Go with me to Proverbs 9:10 because this is going to sound very similar to a verse that we read in Proverbs, chapter 1. But in Proverbs 9:10 it says that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.” Like, hey, you and I, if we're trying to be on a journey of gaining wisdom in our lives, there's a starting point for it, and the starting point for it is when I actually start fearing God, when I actually realize the way that things actually are in this life. It's not the way a lot of people talk about it out in the world, but there is a God who created the world, and he's the boss. He's the ruler of it all. And guess what? You and I, we haven't done what he said. He's so good. He's giving us his commands and his ways because he wants us to have wisdom. He wants us to live life the way he designed it to be lived. And you and I, and each and every one of us in the room, we've all said to the Lord, no, I'm going to do things my way. Thank you very much. In our life, we've said, no, I'm not going to make my life all about you. It's going to be all about me. And you know what? God takes that personally. He's not neutral towards that. He has anger towards that. And God has said that he is going to judge just like in the days of Noah, where righteousness was being proclaimed. But then there was a point where the door to the ark got shut, and even if people wanted to get climb on board afterward, they were unable to do so. You and I need to realize that God has set a day where he's going to judge the world in the future, and that judgment is going to come. And you and I, being people who have offended the righteous and holy God, we should be afraid of him. We should not take him lightly. There should be a fear of him that would actually lead us to think I need to get right with God, like, if I'm not right with him, I need to get right with him, and that would focus me in on the good news of the Bible, that God has actually provided a way for us to be right with him. And it's not through us trying harder. It's not through us doing better and improving ourselves little bit by little bit in baby steps. It's through us being made new through his Son, Jesus Christ, that he's provided a sacrifice that can forgive us of all of our sins and make us completely righteous forever.
And that's like the good news that many people here in the room, we've come to know, and we've heard what Jesus was commanding us to do, repent and believe in the gospel, and we've done that. But you know, throughout the course of our time here at the church, I've talked to far too many people that they're starting to realize that's what I need to do, like I need to repent and believe in the gospel. I need to stop trying to make myself a good person, and I need to transfer my trust to Jesus. And you know what? Like today, we're living in the day of salvation. We're living in the time where people can put their trust in Jesus, that the gospel has the power to save. But do you also know that there's like a limited time where salvation is available? And you know what I've seen people do is they know they need to do that, and they just have this little thought, I'll do it later. Let me go home and think about it.
I think I'm going to wait till I feel something, something in my desires. Friends, you do not want to wait to feel like repenting and believing in the Gospel. If you follow your desires, it will kill you. Your flesh does not want to give up control to the Lord. I've seen people be like, well, let me try to work on some things. Let me try to read more of the Bible. Let me try to make myself a little bit better. And then I'll come to the Lord and I'll put my trust in him. I see people being plunged into ruin and destruction. And people that think I'll do that later, I don't often see them doing it later. Like there might be some of us here in the room that, you know, like I should fear the Lord. I should change my mind, and I should actually start living like God is real, and he is the boss of my life. And I need to turn and come to Jesus and put my trust in him. And you know what you've been doing up until now. You've been delaying, you've been hitting the snooze button on salvation.
If you're hearing that today, don't be foolish. Don't be a sluggard like that anymore. Today is the day of salvation. It says, if today you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as they did in the rebellion. Come to the Lord like he's able to save you today. Why would you snooze on the best thing that could ever happen to you in your life? It's so foolish, but yet so many people do it, and then they come back the next week, and they put it off again and again and again, until you do that enough times the time that it's available will be gone, it's for a limited time. I mean, go with me to Proverbs 22:6. There's a lot of what we've been reading. And you know, we are coming up in the book of Proverbs, we are going to get to sections where it's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, a lot of wisdom sayings. And the one right before this one may not. It's not like they're all sequential or grouped by topic. It's just here's a collection of all these short, memorable wisdom sayings kind of mashed up together. But what we've read so far, it seems like it's often been a father pleading with his child. Look at what it says in Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Now, this isn't meant to be a promise, but it's a principle of like, hey, there's a time as a parent where you have children in your house, where the word child really applies to them. You can see it and that's the time to train them. And if you train them when they're a child, when they're out of your house, when they're older, they could keep going the same way that you train them to go when they were in your house.
But what happens if you don't train them while they're in their house? What should we expect is going to happen to them then? I mean, go with me to Deuteronomy, chapter 6. Deuteronomy, chapter 6 is the people of Israel were going through God's law and his commandments for a second time with a new generation that was about to go into the land of Israel. And God wants to make it very clear what he expects from them and how much good wisdom he has for them, and how much he is for them. And in Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 5, it's like, hey, here's the main point of all of the commands, you shall love the Lord your God, YHWH, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. That seems like the most important commandment of wisdom any of us could pay attention to in our life. And what does he say directly after that? And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart, and you shall teach them in a sluggardly way to your children. You should actually put off teaching them to your children until some point in the future later. No, you shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise like there's another thing that's available for a limited time, and it's talking about the Bible with our kids while they're in our house. It doesn't mean we stop wanting to talk with them about the Bible once they leave the house, but they're not going to be right there doing life with us and being in the same space, maybe like they were before. And you know what? I sadly see too many parents doing, sleeping on parenting their children. I mean, from the perspective of this father, has he only had to his appeal to his son one time so far in the book of Proverbs? Just one chat, one time of instruction? No, it seems like he's appealing to him over and over and over again, kind of like an ant where it's like, I'm just going to go back and forth, and I'm going to go to my kids with the Bible, and then I'm going to come from my kids back to the Bible and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until It's done, until they're out of the house, like, I don't stop. Sometimes trying to appeal to your kids can be frustrating. They don't always want to listen. They sometimes want to be wise in their own eyes, and please don't be the parent who is like, hey, right now, you know what I should do is I should open up book of Proverbs and talk about it with my kids, but you know what I'm going to do. We'll do it later. Maybe later today, we'll do that. Maybe tomorrow we'll do that right. Like you stack up enough tomorrows and your kids are going to grow up and leave you. And that's going to happen like that. I haven't had that happen yet in my life, but it is coming. And I'm like, looking at my oldest child, and I'm like, This guy's like, a dude. He's gotten tall. He's like, as tall as my wife now. And I'm like, when did this happen? Like, he was just like this kid with chubby cheeks, like, not too long ago, and now he's like a young man. And I'm realizing the time is short, it's available. There's a window of time, and what happens if I miss it? Ruin, destruction.
It is so crucial that I'm not snoozing, that you're not snoozing as a parent, where we're not just putting it off. We're saying, hey, each and every day, all throughout the day, I'm going to keep going back and forth to the Bible with my kids, and I'm going to keep doing whether they want to do it or not. I'm not going to give them a vote. I'm not going to give my feelings a vote when I'm tired at the end of the day and I'm like, what would I rather do? Would I rather teach my kids, or would I rather be entertained? I know which one I feel like doing. Which one do I need to do? That's the one I need to do. Right? Parents, are you training up your children in the way that they should go? Proverbs is an epic book to do that in, right? You can just open it up and start having a conversation about the Scripture in your house. There's another place that I found this word wise in the book of Proverbs. Go back to Proverbs with me and go to Proverbs 11:30, where it says, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life. And whoever captures souls is wise.” “Whoever captures souls,” and when I was thinking about the harvest that this ant is like she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in the harvest time, I couldn't help and when I looked up this word wise and how it's used right here in Proverbs, 11:30, I couldn't help think of Matthew 9. Go with me to Matthew 9, verses 35 to the end of the chapter. And we need to see how it describes Jesus here.
Matthew 9:35, to the end of the chapter, it says, “And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’” Wait a minute. Like the wisdom that you and I are supposed to learn from the ant should make us think of another harvest that's actually only available for a limited time, that there's a specific window where it's time to work. It's not time to rest, it's time to work, and it's the harvest of souls. It's the millions of people around us that do not know Jesus Christ, who have not put their trust in Jesus Christ, who have not repented of their sins and they are on their way to destruction, and Jesus is like so many of them could get saved. The gospel has power to save. We could see people that are like living under a bridge in Los Angeles as a drug addict come to a rehab and come to church and get saved. We could see someone who grows up in church, but is the terror of kids ministry, and describes last year we had, last week we had this guy who was like, in the kids ministry, says I was like, throwing scissors at the leaders, and I'm like, why do we have scissors that kids can access? We need to make sure we've long since banished the scissors, right? This child taught us a few things early on in the history of our church, but he's getting saved. Like all different kinds of people. It doesn't matter what flavor of sin that they're in, God can save those people, and Jesus is like, there is such potential. But you know what the real problem is, we don't have enough ants. Harvest is plentiful. But what do we have people doing? We've got people being sluggards at making disciples.
I mean, did you hear the father say that a son who sleeps in the harvest is a son who brings shame. When God thinks about us and he's talking about that this is the harvest time. Is there a time that we're going to get to rest as believers? Is that time coming when we're with the Lord and he's put all of his enemies under his feet and we get to be with him in perfection as it was meant to be, that's going to be the time to rest? Is that time now? Now is the time to work. Now is the time of the harvest, but the problem is that the laborers are few.
And we've seen God do great things in the history of our church, and I'm so thankful this has been one of the great privileges of my life to be a part of this church. But I also think we're at a very dangerous point in the life of our church, because when our church began years and years ago, right, there was a group of laborers. There was a colony of ants that got planted here in Huntington Beach. And you know what they did? They just went back and forth and back and forth. And they went to the people, and they told them about Jesus, and then they went to Jesus, and they prayed to him about the people, and back and forth and back and forth they went. And people started getting saved, and people’s lives were transformed. They're no longer the same people that they used to be. And then they're hanging out with these ants, and they're like, oh, that's the way we should operate. We should just operate just like these people. And so there became people who got trained up in how to do that, but then it's like, God just kept on bringing more and more people here to the church, and more and more and more people started showing up. And it's like we got to make bigger buildings, and we got to do all of these things, and then we got all these people coming from Long Beach. And what do we do with them? Well, we got to actually split up our laborers and send a whole bunch of the best of them to Long Beach to labor in that harvest field, because there's so many souls up in that area, and it's like, have we replaced them? Are you a laborer? Like, it's really dangerous that you could be here at Compass HB, and think, yeah, I don't need to do that. When Jesus is saying, we’ve got to be praying earnestly that God would cause people to do that, that you should want to be the answer to that prayer request and say, well, one of the people that God's going to do that in is me, and I'm going to be the type of person that's just back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, bringing the Gospel, bringing the good news to people that don't know Jesus, and bringing those people up before Jesus in prayer. But the challenge for some of us is we're not saying we won't do that. We're just saying we'll do that later.
I saw this in myself yesterday. This tendency where I'm like, I'm thinking about this, and then I'm going to my daughter's soccer game. She's playing soccer for the first time. It's adorable what's happening on that field out there, right? It's just a whole herd of people just trying to move a ball in one direction. And I'm there, and I, you know, I meet my family there at the field, and we're sitting down, and I'm talking to my kids and like my parents are there. And as I'm thinking about this, it's like the words of Bruce Blakey are ringing in my ears from long ago, like just a little sleep, a little slumber, and I'm like, thinking about that, and all of a sudden I look to my right and I see this dad sitting by himself watching his daughter. And you know what I think to myself? I'm like, that's a soul. But I'm like, oh, but my desire is just to enjoy this time with my family and enjoy watching my daughter's soccer games. You know the thought that comes to my brain, I'll talk to him after the game like the game hasn't started yet. He's sitting there doing nothing, but I'll get to him later, or, yeah, maybe I'll do that next week when I go to the game and I was like, instantly convicted by what I was thinking about from the Word. I said, now is the time. So, I just went up to him immediately and introduced myself, and I met Joe. I started talking to him. I started one half compassion on him and care about him as a soul, to get outside of myself and to think about what's the work that needs to be done at the time that it needs to be done. And it's talking to this soul. I got to start the conversation with Joe. But you know what's happening now is like I went to Joe, and now I'm going back to the Lord, pray for this guy. I'm going to be seeking to talk to him, and it's like, how many games do we have left in this season? I can't wait. I've got a limited window to talk to this soul, to invite him to church, to invite him and his daughter to come and see what Jesus has done right, to understand where he's at with the Lord, and to talk to him about Jesus Christ, and it's not for later, it's for now. I mean, do you have that tendency in yourself? Maybe you see someone that you don't recognize here at church, maybe they're new. Do you think I'll wait till I see them again to talk to them? Or are you thinking time is now?
God wants us to be a church of ants, where it's like he doesn't need to constantly remind us, right? We don't need the pastors or the deacons or the other people of church to constantly remind us about what we know God has told us to do, the mission that he has given us to make disciples. You know what we should do is we should just be going back and forth and back and forth and be diligently doing that work until the work is done. Friends, can I appeal to you? Don't be saying I'll do that a little bit later. Don't be hitting the snooze button. Don't be a gospel sluggard here at the church. We need to be a whole church full of laborers that we're saying, hey, God wants us. God cares about those souls. We love him. We're going to care about those souls, and we're going to do the work, and we're not going to stop doing the work until the work is done. Some people, there are a great many people that are faithful to do that, but they've been doing it for a long time. And I want to tell you, don't stop doing that. Don't give up just because it's hard. Don't give up because you look around here and you're kind of like, who else is doing that?
Be the example that other people could learn wisdom from you. There are some people here at the church. You don't want to act like they act because it's not wise. It's the way of the sluggard. But here in Proverbs, chapter 6, God has given us an example of wisdom. And the question is, are we going to listen to it? Let me pray and ask for God's help with that.
Our Father in heaven, God, we thank you that you give wisdom. And Lord, as so many of us, as we think about how we came to salvation, God, how we came to faith in your Son, Jesus Christ. It was as the result of the labor of other people, God, that there were people that you got a hold of their hearts, and you caused them to care about us. And God, far be it from us, that we would receive such grace and such goodness and not turn around and want to seek to extend that to the next person. God, I pray that, Lord, even just in the practical things of life, God that we would not be living our life as a sluggard does. God, when there are things that need to be done at a certain time that we put them off till later. And God, I just want to be honest with so many of my brothers and sisters that I've got more to learn about that. I need more wisdom than I have right now. And God, as we think about the opportunities that we have to Lord some of us that we're just starting to understand what true wisdom is, and we're at the point where we know we need to fear you. We need to change our mind. God, what I pray if there's someone here today, which I wouldn't be surprised, if there's many people here today who are right there, God, don't let them put it off till tomorrow. Don't let them hit the snooze button. God, for the parents, Lord, I pray that they would be diligent to teach their children, that they would teach them your commands and the right way to live and the good news of the salvation that you've offered in your Son. And God, as you've given us, as your church, a mission to go make disciples, to see people that right now, they're not following you, they're not living their life for you, God. We just want to go to them with the good news, and we want to keep praying for them, and we want to go and labor as long as it takes, God, to see them get saved. God, fire us up by the opportunity. God, what an opportunity we have to labor. What reward there will be for the labor that we put in right now. God, don't let us snooze on that. God, don't let us be the sluggard. We need you to change us, and we ask you to do that for your glory we pray. Amen.