The Lazy Man

By John A. Wilson

"The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat."

Proverbs 13:4

 

"The way of the lazy is as a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway."

Proverbs 15:19

 

Much has been said about the lazy man, but when most people speak of laziness, they are speaking of laziness in the physical sense. I would like to talk you about some other ways that laziness can manifest itself. While I will speak briefly about laziness in the physical sense, I would also like to take a look at men who are morally lazy and spiritually lazy.

The physically lazy man is one that we are all familiar with, so I won’t dwell on the topic for too long. We all recognize a lazy man when we see him. Both his property and his person are sloppily kept. His home has a look of disrepair, but that doesn’t mean that he is spiritually and morally lazy. It is possible that a man that avoids work whenever possible can still be of good moral character and be at peace with himself and the Lord. So, even though physical laziness is the most obvious and possibly the most common type of laziness, I would like to submit to you that it is not necessarily the worst.

The spiritually lazy man neglects his relationship with God. As a result, he sacrifices his own happiness. Those of us here today know the joy of being one with God, but the spiritually lazy man simply will not take the time to pray. Sure, if you ask him, he will tell you that he knows God, but his demeanor tells you that something is not right in his life. He always seems angry or sad and upset. The spiritually lazy man worries a lot. And he has a great deal to worry about. The reason that a spiritually lazy man has a lot to worry about is that he will not turn his life over to God. When things get so bad that you begin to feel overwhelmed, all you need to do is bow your head and turn all of your problems over to God. When you do this simple spiritual exercise, you can feel the weight of all of your problems just lift from your shoulders. Your spirit will soar and you will know that all is right with the world. When you turn all of your problems over to God, you will find a new level of happiness. When you have faith that God will take your troubles from you and work them out for you, you will be blessed to see God’s hand at work. Everything will suddenly begin to fall into place, as through God’s hand, all of your troubles will seem to resolve themselves.

The third type of laziness that I want to talk to you about today is moral laziness. Moral laziness today is growing like a cancer on our society. Everywhere you go, you see morally lazy men. You can tell them by the indecent way that they dress. Young men actually walk around with their pant literally pulled down to their thighs. If they bend over or a good gust of wind comes along…well, you know what you will see. Moral laziness has become so rampant that today it is considered acceptable behavior for a man to have children by two or more mothers and never marry either of them. Men in our society have become so morally lazy that it is now the exception rather than the rule when a man gets married.

Late at night, here on the streets of our town, morally lazy men stand on street corners and sell drugs to anyone willing to buy. These morally lazy men sell their drugs without any thought about the lives that the drugs they sell are destroying. All these morally lazy men care about is the quick, easy money that the sale of illegal narcotics will bring to them.

My brother, the worst of all of these lazy men is one that I have not yet mentioned. I really don’t have a name for this type of lazy man. He isn’t physically lazy, he has a job and he keeps his property neat. He isn’t morally lazy, he tries to always do the right thing. He isn’t spiritually lazy, he attends church regularly and goes often to God in prayer. Still this hardworking, God fearing, upright man is the laziest of all. This man is simply too lazy to speak out against physical, spiritual and moral laziness. My brothers, how many of you here today are willing to let the moral and spiritual fiber of our community continue to degrade? By our silence we send a message to those among us who are shamelessly destroying our communities. It is time that we all stood up and made our voices heard. Together we can take back the streets that have been overrun by the morally and spiritually lazy.