I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding;
And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.
Then I saw, and considered it well; I looked upon it, and received instruction.
Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep;
So shall your poverty come as one that travels; and your want as an armed man.
Wisdom starts with the revelation of God’s wisdom found in His Word. But another component of wisdom is obtained by observation. The wise father doesn’t drive past a home set in brambles and overgrown weeds and ignore the meaning of it. Rather, he considers carefully the world around him and interprets the data that he obtains by observation. When surveying the world around us, it is easy to miss the lessons it contains, but all of the scenes before us shout messages that, interpreted properly, yield good wisdom. It is for us to listen carefully for the messages, study the scenes, and interpret them in light of the Word of God.
Solomon here identifies the slothful man by his surroundings. To build a house takes a great deal of work, but to maintain a house takes less effort. However, over the years, this man lets things go and fails to keep up his investments There are those who receive a property by inheritance (or by debt), yet they fail to take care of it. Year after year, people driving by the home notice the peeling paint, the rotting fence posts, and the dying shrubbery and grass. This kind of deterioration doesn’t happen overnight. And it takes even longer for a stone wall to disintegrate. But given enough time, as the winds blow and the storms beat on the improvements, they begin to disintegrate. Sloth grows over a man as ivy grows over fences. After ten or twenty years, his neighbors cannot help but conclude, “Now there lives a lazy man!”
Just as most people never know when the thief will break in to rob their home—he almost never sends a note ahead to announce his intentions—slothful people almost never see poverty coming. Quietly, slowly, and unexpectedly, it creeps up on them. It takes a while to use up the capital of previous generations and then spend your way into debt (which has happened in the present era of easy access to credit). Now slothfulness is almost a universal problem for our young men, 70% of whom are not “grown up” and ready to lead a household by 30 years of age (up from 30% in 1970). Since Proverbs deals with this temptation repeatedly throughout the book, it is safe to assume the temptation has always been real and present for young men in our sinful world. Therefore, it would be prudent to go after every instance of slothfulness. The problem with a little slothfulness is that it will morph into more slothfulness. A little extra sleep on Saturday turns into a little extra sleep on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. An occasional binge will, over time, turn into a habit, and habits will determine the character of a man. Once the character trait of slothfulness is ingrained in the man, it is extremely difficult to root it out of him.
1. What does a slothful home look like? What does our home look like?
2. What are the first signs of slothfulness? Why is it important to address these first signs?