Work Hard For Profit, Talk To Get Poor

I. EXORDIUM:

Are you a hard worker? Do you want profit or gain? Or do you want blessing of the LORD that will make you rich?

II. AUDIENCE PROFILE:

Believers

III. OBJECTIVES:

To show that blessing of the LORD that will make you rich is still preferable rather than just profit or gain.

IV. TEXT:

Proverbs 14:23 (Amplified Bible)

14:23 In all labor there is profit, but idle talk leads only to poverty.

V. THESIS:

Praise, worship and thank You very much, LORD JESUS for we focus our eyes on You the Author and Finisher of our faith and You will work for us to prosper us in every area of our lives.

VI. TITLE:

Work hard for profit, talk to get poor

VII. EXPLICATION:

A. Authors: Credited generally to King Solomon before his character downfall/decline.

B. Date written: from 931 to 686 B.C.

C. Purpose: To give moral instruction

D. Main Theme: Fear of the LORD

VIII. MAIN BODY:

A. Work hard for profit

"In all labor there is profit,"

We no longer work hard for working hard and labor is part of the curse.

Genesis 3:19 (Amplified Bible)

3:19 In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return.

What we do, is rely on the blessing of the LORD remembering the LORD who has given us the power to get wealth.

Proverbs 10:22 (Amplified Bible)

10:22 The blessing of the Lord—it makes [truly] rich, and He adds no sorrow with it [neither does toiling increase it].

Deuteronomy 8:18 (Amplified Bible)

8:18 But you shall [earnestly] remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

2 Corinthians 8:9 (Amplified Bible)

8:9 For you are becoming progressively acquainted with and recognizing more strongly and clearly the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (His kindness, His gracious generosity, His undeserved favor and spiritual blessing), [in] that though He was [so very] rich, yet for your sakes He became [so very] poor, in order that by His poverty you might become enriched (abundantly supplied).

2 Corinthians 9:8 (Amplified Bible)

9:8 And God is able to make all grace (every favor and earthly blessing) come to you in abundance, so that you may always and under all circumstances and whatever the need be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation].

John 1:16 (Amplified Bible)

1:16 For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received [all had a share and we were all supplied with] one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift [heaped] upon gift.

Labor or "etseb" in the Hebrew means:

1. earthen vessel

2. toil

3. pang (of body or mind)

4. grievous, idol, labor, sorrow

The word "etseb" is the same Hebrew word used in Proverbs 10:22, meaning the LORD will give us His blessings and we don't have to work, toil, sorrow, be grievous about it, and the blessing of the LORD will require no catch at all, that is "sorrow". When people labor, they prove that they only mind the things of the earth.

Earthly wisdom:

1 Corinthians 1:21 (Amplified Bible)

1:21 For when the world with all its earthly wisdom failed to perceive and recognize and know God by means of its own philosophy, God in His wisdom was pleased through the foolishness of preaching [salvation, procured by Christ and to be had through Him], to save those who believed (who clung to and trusted in and relied on Him).

Earthly affairs:

1 Corinthians 7:34 (Amplified Bible)

7:34 And he is drawn in diverging directions [his interests are divided and he is distracted from his devotion to God]. And the unmarried woman or girl is concerned and anxious about the matters of the Lord, how to be wholly separated and set apart in body and spirit; but the married woman has her cares [centered] in earthly affairs—how she may please her husband.

Earthly bodies:

1 Corinthians 15:34 (Amplified Bible)

15:34 Awake [from your drunken stupor and return] to sober sense and your right minds, and sin no more. For some of you have not the knowledge of God [you are utterly and willfully and disgracefully ignorant, and continue to be so, lacking the sense of God’s presence and all true knowledge of Him]. I say this to your shame.

2 Corinthians 5:1 (Amplified Bible)

5:1 FOR WE know that if the tent which is our earthly home is destroyed (dissolved), we have from God a building, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.