Proverbs 26:14-15
More on the Sluggard
1. Verses 13-16 all deal with the sluggard.
2. Some of these proverbs were intended to be comical. They paint a funny mental picture of the sluggard.
3. This was a form of humor long before comics became popular.
4. In verse 13, the picture is that of a sluggard who invents a ridiculous excuse for why he can’t go to work: there’s a lion in the street!
5. Two more pictures of the sluggard’s laziness are seen in verses 14-15.
6. These are not jokes with a punch line that makes you laugh. They are statements which are designed to make you think… designed to cause us to make connections between the sluggard and the illustration. After a little thought, we should be able to see the humor in what is being said.
7. Of course there is really nothing funny about being slothful. But there is some humor in observing the folly of laziness. It is not unlike slapstick comedy – in which a man tries to carry nine bags of groceries and he ends up falling and the groceries spill all over the place. It was foolish to attempt it, and you knew what was going to happen—but it’s still funny when you see it.
8. In a similar vein, Solomon speaks about the folly of laziness.
1. Here the slothful man is compared to a door.
2. The sluggard turns on his bed like a door swings on its hinges… it swings back and forth… back and forth… and back and forth again.
3. The sluggard is like that door on its hinges.
a. First of all, as the hinge anchors the door to the doorjamb, so too the sluggard seems anchored to his bed.
• Prov. 15:19 – The sluggard feels “all hedged in.”
• Prov. 19:15 – Slothfulness casts men into a deep sleep. It needs to be shaken off… but the sluggard refuses to do so. He is anchored to his bed.
• Prov. 20:13 – “Love not sleep.” That is his problem. The book of Proverbs gives a multitude of reasons why you should NOT love sleep.
• Remember that love is a choice. It is choosing to put sleep before other things. It is a matter of priorities.
• In verse 13 we saw that the sluggard fears work (there’s a lion!); here we see that he loves his bed.
• The sluggard loves sleep; he won’t listen to reason; and he is anchored to his bed… like a door on its hinges.
• He will go back and forth on his bed, but he won’t get up.
b. Secondly, the door swings back and forth, but it never gets anywhere. There is a lot of motion but makes no progress.
• Like a door on a hinge, the sluggard follows the same old pattern… back and forth… and never gets anywhere.
• His laziness has him in a perpetual rut…
• Lazy people do a lot of talking about things that need to get done, but they don’t actually DO the work.
• Prov. 14:23 – labor profits; talk does not.
• Nothing gets done. He has a long “to do list” but he never makes any progress on it.
c. Thirdly, the door swings on its hinges and squeaks and groans; so does the lazy man.
• He makes excuses why he can’t get up and go to work. He groans about this ache and that pain.
• He groans and grumbles about all the things that he doesn’t have—because he doesn’t work.
• Prov. 21:25-26 – He has desires like everyone else, but because he refuses to work, his desire remains unsatisfied.
• He sees what others have and he wants all the things others enjoy… but cannot obtain them.
• He is never happy. His life is a life of greedily coveting and never obtaining. He is unfulfilled and unhappy.
• Thus, he complains about his situation as if he were a poor victim of circumstances. He is a victim of his own slothfulness.
d. Fourthly, the door turns back and forth constantly. That is a picture of the lazy man on his bed.
• That does not speak of a restful sleep.
• The lazy man has a guilty conscience because he is lazy and does not go to work like everyone else. Thus, he cannot get a good night’s rest.
• He is awake, tossing and turning all night long… like a door on its hinges swinging back and forth.
• Ecc. 5:12 – The sleep of a laboring man is sweet. The lazy man does not enjoy the blessing of a restful night’s sleep. He stays awake kicking himself for all the things he knows that he should have done but didn’t.
• Ecc. 10:18 – His house is falling apart; he knows he should do something about it; but he’s too lazy. He puts it off… knowing that it is being eaten by termites… and he is tormented.
• Prov. 3:24 – The man who walks in the ways of wisdom (following the advice in the book of Proverbs) shall lie down and his sleep shall be sweet.
• Psalm 127:2 – The Lord “giveth” His beloved sleep.
1. This is another comical mental picture.
a. The scene is a man at the kitchen table and the man starves because he is too lazy to raise up his hand to bring the food up to his mouth!
b. That’s pretty lazy!
c. We have a similar form of humor.
• We often hear jokes like “it’s so cold in Minnesota that your teeth chatter—when they are still in the glass!”
• Or “it’s so hot in Texas that the birds are using potholders to pull up the worms.”
• In Oregon they used to sell a series of cards designed to keep the tourists away. “It rains so much in Oregon that people don’t tan, they rust” or “It rains so much in Oregon that last year 390 people fell off their bikes—and drowned.”
d. Solomon’s point is that some men are so lazy, they starved to death—because they wouldn’t lift their hand up to feed themselves!
2. Solomon’s sluggard holds his hand in his bosom –
a. Presumably this is done to keep it warm. (He likes his warm bed; he likes warm hands too.)
b. Perhaps he is pretending to be lame (like some of the people you see on the streets begging money pretend to be lame).
c. It is certainly not all blistered up from work!
d. Some translations read that he buries his hand in his dish – indicating that he put out his hand to get the food, but is too lazy to bring it up to his mouth. Perhaps the picture is of a man who puts his hand into the dish to get some food and falls asleep with his hand still buried in the dish.
3. It grieves him (wearies; wears out; etc.)
a. For him, raising up his hand is too much like work. It’s too hard. He’s too tired.
b. Even the simplest tasks are too much for him.
4. The point:
a. Most people make the connection between labor and the fruits of one’s labor.
b. Most people, while they would prefer to sit under a tree and sip lemonade, realize that there are many benefits to work and that the positive benefits outweigh the negative aspect to the work.
c. Most people realize that “if I work, I get to eat well; if I don’t work, then I starve.”
d. Reason wins out and they go to work.
e. The sluggard does not reason like this. He wants the fruit of labors, but he refuses to do the necessary work to accomplish it.
f. The sluggard reasons that the fruits of one’s labor are not worth it… he loves his sleep, his bed, and his ease too much.
g. In this comical picture, the lazy man loves inaction so much that he won’t even lift his arm to feed himself… and thus starves.
h. He is addicted to laziness.
i. The sluggard lacks incentive and motivation.
• One would think that hunger would motivate him to lift his hand, but in this case it doesn’t.
• Hunger OUGHT to be a motivator to cause a hungry man to work.
• Hunger hurts. The gnawing pain of hunger should be all the incentive he needs to get out of bed and go to work.
• The uncomfortable pain of hunger should outweigh the uncomfortable toil of work… but it does not for the sluggard.
• But this man has no drive, no ambition, no self-discipline.
• On the surface, it seems rather foolish and comical—but it really isn’t funny. There are many people just like the sluggard Solomon describes.
• What a foolish pity when believers are so slothful in spiritual things that they will not lift their hand to feed their own souls the bread of life!