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What a Sloth Can Learn from an Ant (Proverbs 6:6-11)
15 Plays11 days ago
What does a Garden Snail, a Banana Slug and a Three-Toed Sloth have in common? They all three either prefer to remain completely still, or when they move, it is always very, very slowly.
Now, what about if you compared a slug or a sloth with an ant? Are they similar or different? Let’s go to the Scriptures to answer this question. Proverbs 6:6-11 contrasts an idle sluggard with an industrious ant. In our text for today, we will see that there is a lot that a sluggard can learn from an ant.
Proverbs often exposes the dangers of a listless, motionless lifestyle by referring to this kind of person as a “sluggard” 14x (6:6-11; 10:26; 12:24, 27; 13:4; 15:9; 18:9; 19:15, 24; 20:4; 21:5, 25; 22:13; 24:33-34; 26:13-16).
Let’s enroll in a class in myrmecology for a few minutes and see what a sluggard can learn from an ant.
Cure of the Sluggard, v. 6a
Consideration of the Ant, v. 6b
Catalyst for Work, 6:7
Constancy of Effort, 6:8
Confrontation of Laziness, 6:9
Coasting toward a Habit, 6:10
Conclusion in Poverty, 6:11
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Growing in Grace Devotions and Inspirations
Hosted by Pastor Victor Morrison
First Baptist Church
1700 Milam Street
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
http://fbccolumbustx.org/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Invocation
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to Growing in Grace with Pastor Victor Morrison. This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas. We are praying that God will bless you as you listen to this message.
00:00:22
Speaker
If you would like additional information on worship times and ministries at FBC Columbus, you can find out more at our website, fbccolumbustx.org.
Question: What do a garden snail, banana slug, and three-toed sloth have in common?
00:00:32
Speaker
And now, take your copy of God's timeless Word as Pastor Victor gives today's message.
00:00:44
Speaker
Welcome to Growing in Grace. I have a question for you. What does a garden snail, a banana slug, and a three-toed sloth have in common?
Scripture Introduction: Proverbs 6
00:00:57
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They all three either prefer to remain completely still or when they move, these guys always move very, very slowly.
00:01:08
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Now, what about if you were to compare, let's say a slug or a sloth with an ant? Are they similar or are they different? Let's go to the scriptures to answer this question.
The Industrious Ant vs. The Idle Sluggard
00:01:22
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Proverbs 6, verses 6 through 11, contrasts an idle sluggard with an industrious ant.
00:01:31
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In our text for today, we'll see that there's a lot that a sluggard can learn from an ant. Proverbs often exposes the dangers of a listless, motionless lifestyle by referring to this kind of person as a sluggard.
00:01:51
Speaker
14 times throughout the book of Proverbs, it talks about the sluggard. And it's pretty rough stuff if you've never read it. But what I want us to do today is let's enroll in a class in Miramecology.
Lessons from Ants: Organization and Self-Motivation
00:02:06
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It's the study of ants for a few minutes. And let's just see what a sluggard could possibly learn from an ant. Here's what it says in Proverbs 6, verses 6 through 11.
00:02:19
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Go to the aunt, 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.
00:02:35
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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.
00:02:56
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an armed man. What an interesting passage of scripture. Oh Lord, please open our minds to what you would want to say to us today through this passage. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
00:03:10
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Let me share with you a few of the observations that I have on this interesting passage from Proverbs. You know, i believe that God's word equips us for life.
00:03:21
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I mean, everything involved in life. And I believe that if we'll allow it It can equip us with our character. It can equip us with our conduct, with our conversations, all these different things that are a part of life. But it also could equip us
Applying Ant Behavior to Personal Life
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for a career.
00:03:39
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So let's look at this passage together. First, we have... someone who's struggling in life. And this passage calls them out as a sluggard. And what it says is, it says, this is the cure for you, O sluggard.
00:03:56
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Go to the ant, O sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. And so I thought about how if someone is going to go and study the ants, you know what they have to do?
00:04:10
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i mean, it may be sort of like so obvious, but they have to get down on their knees to observe an ant. They're going to have to humble themselves because most times you're going to have to get way down low if you're going to go to the ant.
00:04:28
Speaker
Look closely. Look closely at that ant. Magnify the way he does things. Be attentive to what he's doing. But I find it interesting that the very first word that is spoken to the sluggard here in this passage in Proverbs 6 is,
00:04:46
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Go. Move. Don't just sit there in idleness. Move in order to observe an ant. In other words, you've got to get up.
00:04:58
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You got to go out. You got to move forward. So I think that's the first step for someone who's struggling with idleness or listlessness. Let's say they're lethargic or apathetic. Then they need to say, Lord, I'm looking for a cure.
00:05:15
Speaker
What can help me on the inside? And so here we are told in God's word, one thing you can do is go to the ant. When you go to the ant, the second thing we can do is to consider her ways and be wise.
00:05:32
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The last part of verse six says this word consider. That word actually means to di diligently observe, to contemplate.
00:05:43
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It's a call beyond just passive observation. It's a call to active learning.
Discussion on Ant Colony Dynamics
00:05:51
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I think in teaching circles, they would most likely refer to this as application.
00:05:57
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So in other words, just don't study, but also consider how can I apply what I'm observing with the ants in my life?
00:06:08
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I like the way it actually says two different things about the purpose of this course of study. The first one is learn the ways of an ant.
00:06:20
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Learn the ways of an ant. I think we're going to see a little later in this same passage, what are some things that we could learn concerning the ways of an ant? Well, I think the ant prepares. The ant produces, the ant provides.
00:06:37
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So we're going to learn the ways of an ant, but we're also going to learn wisdom from the ant. And so this ant, this small little creature, is going to help us to learn.
00:06:49
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i mean, have you ever considered the sloth? I mean, a sloth is like the slowest mammal, I think, known to man. I did a little bit of research and I found out that they travel at the blazing speed of 0.15 miles per hour.
00:07:08
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So they're not gonna move very fast. And it's not just their feet that move slowly, also their metabolism. Do you realize that for a sloth, he can eat one leaf and you know what? It takes his digestive system about 30 days to take care of that one leaf.
00:07:27
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but you flip that with the ant up. The ant is totally different. So that's why I think he's pointing to the ants in verse seven and saying, learn from their speed, learn from their initiative.
00:07:43
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What kind of initiative does an ant have? Well, I want to call this third observation a catalyst for work. You see, The ant does have a queen, but guess what?
00:07:57
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The queen in the ant colony, the queen is not directing. The queen is not guiding. The queen is not overseeing the colony, as one might assume.
00:08:10
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i like what one man said, Keller
Ants' Global Presence and Adaptability
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and Gordon. They said, there's neither a central authority at work here nor any hierarchy among the workers. Work arrangements depend entirely on individual initiatives within a system of self-organization.
00:08:31
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Do you know what the queen is really there for? The queen is vital not for her authoritative approach to everything, but rather for her vital contribution to the survival of the colony.
00:08:46
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she lays eggs. That's her whole thing. The queen lays no less than 8,000 eggs. No wonder there are 10 quadrillion ants on the face of the earth because the queen knows my job is to simply bear young.
00:09:05
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And so I thought, wow, I've seen ants everywhere I've lived. There are different kinds of ants, like here in Texas, we have fire ants, but I've seen ants everywhere. Sometimes, certain times of the year, even in our house here in Texas, we have sugar ants that'll suddenly pop up in our kitchen.
00:09:23
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And so there's all kinds of ants, but what I'm thinking is, how did they get everywhere? You know that ants are known to be on every continent on the face of the earth except one.
00:09:37
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There's only one place where the ants have not invaded. You know what it is? It's kind of ironic. Antarctica. Isn't that strange? That the one place that has their name in it, they're not there.
00:09:50
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But anyway, the the queen is the progenitor, not the leader. Without her motherhood, the colony would cease to exist. See, the queen in an ant colony is a mother, not a magistrate.
00:10:06
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And so the word of God plainly states there are three offices the ant hill does not require. and It's not necessary to have a chief.
00:10:17
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It's not necessary to have an officer. It's not necessary to have a ruler.
Human Leadership vs. Ant Self-Management
00:10:22
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So I got to thinking, is there any difference between those words? And of of course, there's some overlap in those three terms, but there's a little bit of difference. For example, a chief, from from what I could tell,
00:10:35
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When I looked up the Hebrew word there, it means a magistrate or a military leader, a commander. You could say the decider who gives others assignments.
00:10:46
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That is not what the queen of the ant colony does. Remember, she's just bearing young. The officer is the one who oversees the work of others, persons to whom others are accountable,
00:11:01
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There's also the ruler. A ruler is someone who has dominion over everybody, a person with great authority. But look at what it's trying to tell us as we go into verse seven and into verse eight and so forth. What it's trying to tell us is that ants, they're self-motivated.
00:11:21
Speaker
They're so diligent. These guys are industrious. No one has to be there, you know, looking at them and checking up on them. no. they It's in their DNA that they want to be on the job. They want to accomplish things in their life. Is that the way you are in your life?
00:11:41
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Well, if not, why don't you go to this catalyst and say,
Diligence and Preparation Parallels
00:11:45
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I need this catalyst to help me to be able to go to work and to be excited about it. But notice, even if you do start, sometimes people start jobs, but they don't last very long.
00:11:58
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Why? Because basically, they don't like working, and so they don't like their job. But I want you to see a fourth quality that is in this study of ants, and that is the constancy of effort.
00:12:12
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The constancy. You know, Solomon refers to the constant effort displayed by the ant with a reference to two seasons of each year, summer and harvest.
00:12:26
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The underlying lesson is diligence throughout the changing seasons of life. There's no place for slothfulness because initiative and industriousness are essential for survival of the ant colony.
00:12:44
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As I looked at verse 8 closely, I observed three avenues for their self-effort throughout the changing seasons of life. have you ever heard someone say, make hay while the sun shines? Well, we have to realize we're only going to be young for so long. We're only going to be energetic and strong and sharp on top of our game for so long.
00:13:09
Speaker
There will come a day when we will begin to slow down, when we'll begin to struggle and so forth. So we have to make hay while the sun shines. We have to say, Lord, help me to have constant effort while I have this opportunity that is before me right now.
00:13:27
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So the three avenues that I noticed in verse eight are these. First, it says, she prepares bread in summer. She prepares bread in summer.
00:13:38
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So there's a constant effort first toward preparation, a constant effort toward preparation. The word prepares is used right here in the text.
00:13:49
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Have you ever heard anyone say to fail to plan? to fail to plan is to plan to fail. You know, what the ant is modeling for us here is advanced planning, foresight, proactive thought, and proactive action. Sometimes you got to do something in order to make a big difference. You can't just show up there and expect it to all fall in place.
00:14:16
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But we have to recognize a need for acceptance of personal responsibility in the present moment. in anticipation of future need or possible future seasons of lack or difficulty.
Warning Against Laziness in Proverbs
00:14:33
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So all of that tells me we have to have a constant effort toward preparation. So in every season, I'm gonna say, Lord, help me to be preparing for that next season.
00:14:45
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But let's go beyond just the constant effort toward preparation. How about when it says food in harvest? There should be constant effort toward production, constant effort toward production.
00:15:01
Speaker
You know, someone has said that there's really five things we need to really make sure that we're producing in our lives. One, we should say, God, I want to obey you. The second one is we should say, God, I want to pay you first.
00:15:14
Speaker
The third thing we should say is I'm going to pay myself second. I'm going to save some. I'm not going to spend beyond my my ah my resources. So I'm going to live within my means. and I'm going to make sure that I put aside 10% whatever.
00:15:29
Speaker
But then a fourth thing is you got to work hard. And the fifth thing is you need to work smart. Well, I've heard that all my life, but I got to thinking, look at the ant.
00:15:40
Speaker
The ant is just this little bitty creature, but he's doing four of those things. The only thing the ant doesn't do, I guess you could say, he doesn't tithe.
00:15:51
Speaker
He doesn't pay God first. That's something we should do but he doesn't have to do. But while we have health and energy, While we have income, we must produce. We can't loaf during these important, crucial years.
00:16:07
Speaker
But there's a third avenue. There's the constant effort toward preparation and the constant effort toward production. But there's also, I think, a constant effort toward provision, right?
00:16:19
Speaker
and gathers her food. You know, i believe that that aunt is preparing and providing and producing food for herself that she's gonna need in order to survive, but also she's probably providing for her family, providing for her future.
00:16:38
Speaker
You know, we need to do the same thing. Ephesians 4.28 says that we should work. And the reason we should work is, according to Ephesians 4.28, so that we might have something to share with anyone in need.
00:16:54
Speaker
So the reason we have a constancy of effort is because I may be called upon to to share this with my children, share this with my spouse, share this with others beyond my family who might be in need, share this with my church so that God's work keeps moving on. But we should say, Lord, help me be constant in my effort.
00:17:18
Speaker
But when you get into verse nine, there's something new that comes on the on the radar screen here in verse nine. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?
00:17:31
Speaker
You know what I would call that? Confrontation. Confrontation of what? Is it confrontation just because someone's in a bad mood? No, no way. No, it's confrontation of laziness.
00:17:44
Speaker
So in other words, he observes something, and so he's going to talk about it. You know, ah someone has pointed out that it's very likely that Solomon was writing all of these Proverbs toward his sons. You know, and so if you've ever noticed, there's a lot of references to my son, my son, you know, over and over, even in chapter five and chapter six, in chapter four, it yeah it all the way back to chapter one.
00:18:13
Speaker
But it's a direct rhetorical confrontation. to a son that was becoming, let's say, too lethargic in the palace. In other words, he likes living in the palace. He likes having everything provided for. And so that's why between chapters one to seven, he calls out his son or sons, plural, 15 times, 15 times. You should look at it. Maybe you've never noticed that before.
00:18:41
Speaker
But Proverbs 9 and verse 8 tells us that most people, they avoid confrontation. They don't want to be someone who confronts someone else.
00:18:52
Speaker
But there are times when, get this, real love happens. looks like sincere correction. There's another verse in Proverbs 27, five that I learned when I was in college, but it was this.
00:19:08
Speaker
It said, better is open rebuke than hidden love. Yeah, it's it's easy to say we love somebody until we see them struggling with something that we need to say something about.
00:19:21
Speaker
And if we really care about them, then we're gonna say something. Notice in verse 9, the confrontation wasn't over lying down. No, there's nothing wrong with legitimate rest. In order to remain healthy and strong, we're going to need a certain amount of rest.
00:19:39
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The double question that is repeated in verse 9 was about the time to get up. See, the issue is not taking a healthy rest.
00:19:51
Speaker
The issue is you're going to develop a habit of laziness. And that's why he felt he needed to say something. You know, God made man to need sleep.
Historical and Modern Consequences of Laziness
00:20:02
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Someone has figured out that we spend one third of our life sleeping. So if you live to be, let's say, 80 years of age, do you know that you've already spent on average 26 years of your life just sleeping?
00:20:18
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Someone has said that, well, if that's true, 26 years of my life have been spent sleeping. What about the time I've struggled with falling asleep? Someone said that would add seven more years.
00:20:31
Speaker
So you've spent 33 years of your life either getting rest or trying to get to sleep. So that's 33 years. But I think you get the point.
00:20:42
Speaker
He's asking him, how long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? In other words, have you set the clock? Have you set a goal for yourself of when you're gonna move from this situation into another situation?
00:20:58
Speaker
There's a time and there's a place if we really care about people when we must say something that would confront them with something we see that's gonna be a lifelong struggle for them.
00:21:10
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You see, verse 10 alerts us to the possibility of coasting toward a habit, a bad habit of being idle.
00:21:21
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Here's what it says in verse 10. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, And then look at verse 11.
00:21:32
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It's gonna come at us big time, but I'm gonna save that for the last observation. For now, what I want you to notice is the repetition of this word little.
00:21:44
Speaker
Three times, a little nap could become a large habit if you drift in that direction too far. It's not referring once again to healthy leisure,
00:21:58
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But what it is referring to is a lifestyle, a deadly lifestyle, an unhealthy lifestyle of of just becoming lazy in life.
00:22:09
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Proverbs is intolerant of lazy people. It's considered in the book of Proverbs, laziness is considered a category of foolishness.
00:22:22
Speaker
It's not wise and it's not diligent. As a matter of fact, diligent is diligence is held up, but not laziness. You know, the quantity of Proverbs related to either laziness or hard work, it's surprising.
00:22:38
Speaker
Do you know that the sluggard is called out 13, 14 times in the Old Testament? And all 13 or 14 times, they're right here. In this one book of Proverbs, I'm telling you, I think I could be mistaken, but I think King Solomon, who wrote these, I think he saw something that was not healthy in his son's lives.
Conclusion and Prayer for Diligence
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in his son's lives So he said, you know what?
00:23:04
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I'm going to tell him. And so he wrote it down so that other generations, other sons could also learn the same thing. Well, let me close where the passage closes.
00:23:15
Speaker
We've been studying what we can learn from the ant and learning about their hard work, their industriousness, their diligence, and so forth. But what if somebody says, you know what? I don't have to do what the Bible says.
00:23:29
Speaker
I can just do things the way I want to do them. If I want to be lazy, if I want to be idle, I can be. That's true. That is true. God gives you that choice. If that's the choice you make, then you will be accountable though, because look at verse 11, 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.
00:23:57
Speaker
You see, 14 Proverbs relate to idleness and they always connect it to poverty. Slothfulness leads to the theft of resources.
00:24:11
Speaker
Learn to view idleness as a criminal. And this criminal of idleness is wanting to steal from you and your family. Solomon uses two similes to give his son a visual image of laziness.
00:24:29
Speaker
He said, it's almost like you've got two men who are wearing masks and the mask is like taking it easy. Oh, the mask is, I'm so tired. I don't feel like going to work today. And so they both have these costumes, but when you take the mask off, you won't believe the two men that are standing before you in your life.
00:24:53
Speaker
One man is called a robber. He's a thief. The second man could be called an enforcer. He's armed and he's dangerous. You see, the slacker is only thinking of his short-term delight, not of his long-term destination. And what Solomon is trying to warn his sons about is, let me tell you, down the road, poverty will come.
00:25:20
Speaker
Want will come. Get up and learn from the ants of what you need to do. You see, a biblical example of a king's son who lost it all due to laziness in his luxury could be found in Daniel chapter five.
00:25:36
Speaker
His name was Belshazzar. Man, he lived a party lifestyle, a playboy lifestyle, until one morning he wakes up and there's Darius the Mede standing there looking at him saying, I'll take over your palace and I'll take over your kingdom.
00:25:53
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And so that is when the Babylonian kingdom fell to the Medes and the Persians. You don't want to be that way. And you maybe you'd say, hey, I got a lot. My family's got a lot.
00:26:06
Speaker
We'll never run out of money. Oh, really? Let me give you a modern day example of someone who was robbed of his resources through idleness and over expenditure.
00:26:18
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Have you ever heard of an actor named Nicolas Cage? Nicolas Cage depleted a massive fortune that he had amassed through hard work as an actor.
00:26:30
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He had amassed $150 million. dollars But guess what? He almost slipped into bankruptcy because he coasted from 1996 2011.
00:26:43
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He says in his own words in an interview with 60 Minutes, the only thing that pulled him out was that he had learned early in life you gotta work hard, you gotta work hard.
00:26:55
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And so he began taking roles in movies that he wasn't he wasn't fascinated, he wasn't impressed with the role, but he thought, you know what, even if I don't like this movie, even if I don't like this role, I'm gonna be in this movie because I don't have a choice anymore.
00:27:13
Speaker
I'm gonna go broke, I'm gonna be bankrupt if I don't go to work. That's what we're being told in Proverbs 6, verses 6 through 11.
00:27:24
Speaker
Go to the ant, O sluckard. Don't be a sluckard. I'm not saying that you are, but there may be someone you know that's struggling with this, and you may need to show them this passage and give them these principles so that they will not destroy their lives.
00:27:45
Speaker
Well, why don't we go to the Lord in prayer? And let's pray together. Lord, I thank you so much for passages like this because your word equips us for life, real life, not make-believe life, it's real life.
00:28:01
Speaker
You tell us about things like diligence and hard work, being industrious like the ant, rather than being lazy like a sluggard or a sloth. Help us, oh Lord, to realize that when you tell us things in your word,
00:28:17
Speaker
You're telling us the truth. You're not trying to hurt us. You're trying to help us. And so Lord, help us. Lord, I pray for any that are here who are gonna help others with this. I pray you would give them the equipment that they need, the truths that they need so that they could help others. Maybe there's someone that needs to implement this right here in their lives. They don't need to just hear me talking about this and study the ant.
00:28:45
Speaker
They need to apply what they're learning from the ant. And so please rescue them from the apathy. Rescue them from the lethargy that's taking them down. Lord, you made them for a purpose. So please help our young generations to learn what that purpose is and to do it with all their might and to do it as unto you.
00:29:10
Speaker
We love you. Thank you so much for going to the cross for us. You worked hard. You gave your all just so that we could be saved and enter into your family and be with you in heaven someday. Thank you, Jesus, for salvation that you provided. It's in his name we pray.
00:29:28
Speaker
Amen. Hey, listen, friend, you have a great day. Hope you'll go to work with a new sense of enthusiasm, just like the ant.
00:29:52
Speaker
This is a ministry of First Baptist Church located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.