A Warning Against Laziness & Procrastination Series

By two questions the sluggard is urged to get out of bed and start working. Laziness is inactivity because one does not want to work, not because one is incapable of work. He does not lack sufficient power but lacks desire to work. A lazy man does not say he will won’t work, he simply procrastinates or postpones work.

Those last few moments of sleep are delicious - we savor them as we resist beginning another workday. But Proverbs warns against giving in to the temptation of laziness, of sleeping instead of working. This does not mean we should never rest. God gave the Jews the Sabbath, a weekly day of rest and restoration as well as many festive holidays. But we should not rest when we should be working.

Part of the problem in our society and world is laziness. So king Solomon says, "How long will you remain in your sluggish condition?" This applies both to spiritual poverty for lack of devotion and financial poverty for lack effort. The most tiresome thing in the world is to not work because you never get to stop and relax. Work hard. Plan ahead—and then trust that what the Lord sends your way will be what He intends for you. [Courson, Jon: Jon Courson’s Application Commentary: Vol 2. Nashville, TN : Thomas Nelson, 2006, S. 193]

Laziness refuses to carry its own weight let alone help with the loads of the rest of us who plod along supporting our young, our aged, our infirm. We have no surplus energy to carry those who can work and will not. "How long" and "when" are the right questions.

Verse 10 reveals the tendency to deny laziness by saying its only done a little. "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest;"

A lazy person doesn’t have any inspiring motivation to be, or do, anything. He doesn’t make a monumental decision to adopt a life-style of apathy, he simply can’t be bothered to think about a life-style. It is all done "little by little." Just a little more sleep, a little more delay. There’s no hurry or emergency, no sense of the necessary or feeling for the obligatory. Just a little less of this and not quite so much of that. The insidious nature of laziness is marvelously portrayed in these words of Solomon: "As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed." The spell grows stronger as resistance is delayed. Every day wasted makes it more improbable that the slumber will ever awaken at all. The song of the lazy person’s life is: "Mañana, mañana, mañana."

Our text in verse 11 now shows that the final result of idleness is ruin. "And your poverty will come in like a vagabond, and your need like an armed man."

The danger or result of a person continuing to nap when he should be working is poverty. Like a robber (thief) or armed man (soldier) quickly attacks unsuspecting victims and takes all they have so laziness brings ruin.

Procrastination is more than the theft of time, it is the thief of life for time is life. With his time squandered the lazy person cannot rectify his situation and has little money to meet needs much less emergencies. The wasting of opportunity and ability are two of the most shameful things about laziness. Obviously such a person is unwise.