Announcer: Some people will always be poor. However, this is only one of the problems brought on by laziness.
Michael Pearl: You know, there are a lot of people who say, "I'm poor. We need to vote in somebody to look out for the poor." Many people in this country, no matter who is in office, no matter what political system rules, they'll always be poor. Always! You could give them a million dollars, and within 10 years they'll be poor again. They'll blow it all, they will not invest it, they will not save it, and what they buy will run down. In 15 years they'll be living in a 20‑year‑old trailer with the bathroom floor rotted through, water coming through the roof. They'll be sitting there saying, "Honey, I think I'm going to mop that roof, stop this rain." She said, "Why don't you do that." He said, "I will. Would you bring me another one of those cookies and change that channel for me?"
Tomorrow, "Honey, would you get up and fix that roof?" "You know what, I think we're just going to move and get us a nice place to live." "You've been saying that 10 years." "I tell you, life is hard. We need a check more than once every two weeks," and government sends them out a check and they just keep lying around, lazy pork bottoms. They're poor for a reason, and that's because they're lazy.
Proverbs 26: 13, "The slothful man saith, there is a lion in the way, a lion is in the streets." He's scared, he's an alarmist, the slothful man's an alarmist. He's an alarmist that the world's going to end, there's going to be this difficulty, that difficulty. The working man's too busy to worry about how the world's going to end, about the sky falling. The slothful man worries about it. "As the door turneth upon his hinges..." Have you ever noticed a door, the wind kind of blows it, it makes that noise? [squeaking] Wind blowing all night long. You can hear that old door. He said, "As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed." You can hear the bedsprings. [squeaks] He turns over again. [squeaks] When you ought not be in bed is when you keep flipping and tossing like that. Time to get up, right?
Slothful man can't think of any reason to get up, so he turns over, gets a little tired, turns over again. Gets a little tired later and turns over again, that's the slothful man. He worries, he worries about what he's not gotten completed, so he's always trying to sleep and never can get a good night's sleep. Nothing like hard work to give you a good night's sleep. He said, "The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it to his mouth." It's so much work.
Ecclesiastes 10: 18 "By which slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through." Bah‑wah‑woop, the roof just falls down around you. Matthew 25:26, "The lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed." See, Jesus rebuked a man for not investing his money and producing a return. It's slothful to have money just lying around, and not invest it to make something out of it. God expects you, if you've got money, to go out and buy a piece of property, and multiply your money and make more money. If you just can't quite get yourself up to do that, he says you're slothful.
You say, "But I'm afraid to invest, I'm afraid I'll lose it." He says, "You're slothful then." In Romans 12:11, "Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord" He said we shouldn't be slothful in our business. I know people who go out and start a job and just never quite get around to getting back to finishing it up, working for somebody. That person will never recommend them for a job. There're people who go to contracting, and once they do four or five jobs, no one wants them to work anymore. Why? Everybody found out they were slothful in the way they worked.
Hebrews 6: 12, this is the last of 17 slothful verses, "That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." He even speaks of Christians as slothful in their Christian experience. There're a lot of slothful Christians, because their parents made them slothful in their work. You see, the hard work attitude, the responsible attitude, the "I can do it, I am going to do it, I'm going to suffer the pain and make it happen," that translates even into the Christian experience. The person is willing to press through and be a winner as a Christian and succeed as a Christian.
I'm speaking today to fathers, who have young sons and daughters, encouraging them to make sure that they impart, to their children, a will to suffer the pain of work, to assume responsibility and duty. I'm also speaking to fathers that never learned that themselves, who need to force themselves to get out and face responsibility, and do their duty.
I'm speaking to young men whose fathers failed to teach them that, failed to teach them responsibility. And you're going to say, "I'm going to blame my father." That's what slothful people do, they blame somebody else. He says, "It's my father's fault. I can't help it." OK, pig, you'll always be a pig. Frankly, no one's going to care. Unless you get married and then your wife will care, but no one else's going to care.
People are going to make their money, they're going to live their life, they're going to buy nice things, they're going to go on living and they're going to let you be a poor bum, and they're not going to care. If anybody's going to care, you're going to have to start caring for yourself. You're going to have to say, "I'm going to quit blaming, I'm going to quit excusing, I'm going to get out and do it. I'm going to be the man, make it happen."
OK, turn on your bed then. Like the door hinge, turn on your bed. Pop your pretzels, drink your cokes, watch your TV, play your computer games and say, "One day, I'll be a man." You'll be sitting there bald‑headed. Your first wife having left you with your computer games, punching the buttons, watching the screen saying, "Life's really been hard for me. I haven't had the breaks other people have had."
Listen, the slothful man has to have a break, a righteous man makes his own breaks. So, have some backbone, get some guts, go out and make yourself the man. Alright, I'll stop there. You girls, you marry a man, don't you marry a wimp.
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I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. 3 John 4
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Excellent message! Too bad it's addressed to men and not to women also, as I know a family of females that exemplify this very concept. While the patriarch of the family continues to get up and go to work every day, I have seen him become bitter, selfish and withdrawn because of his wife and daughters' ability to bring to ruin all they've ever had.