15. Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger.
All experience and observation attest the fact, that slothful habits destroy mental energy, and idleness is the road to want. What could we expect from a sluggard lying in his bed all the day? As little from the slothful, who goes about his work, as if he was cast into a deep sleep. (Chapter 6:9-11.) And even where the slumber is not a deep sleep, its partial influence is the dead palsy upon active perseverance. He has not the thorough use of his wakeful faculties. And if he has (as who has not?) made a false step, there is no energy of effort to repair it.† And if there be any reward of perseverance, sloth will never find it; the idle soul will suffer hunger.
Thoughtless sinner! Think how this applies to the work of God. You persuade yourself that all is well, because you will not trouble yourself to open your eyes to the truth; and you are content to let things run their course. You do not rebel against the Gospel. But has not our Divine Master said — “He that is not with me is against me”? (Matthew 12:30.) You conceive that you have done no harm. But is it no harm to have hitherto wasted every opportunity for eternity? to have wandered about in vanity from your cradle, instead of living to God? You are determined to sleep at any rate. And though the two grand treasures — the favor of God, and your own soul — are in imminent peril; yet still you “say to your soul — Soul, take thine ease.” (Luke 12:19.) Instead of weeping love, wrestling prayer, and working diligence — you are cast into a deep sleep. “Awake, thou that sleepest” (Ephesians 5:14); else wilt thou sleep the sleep of eternal death.
Often do we find men active and laborious, all eyes, all ears, all heart in worldly matters, hating sloth, yet themselves devoured by it. They know that something must be done. But in the vital exercises of denying self, crucifying the flesh, coming to Christ, loving the Lord, and devotedness to his service — here it is a deep sleep. Is then the grace of God to work as a charm, without, or independent of, means? This were a deadly delusion, casting into the deep sleep of presumption. Such an idle soul shall suffer hunger! (Chapter 10:4, 5; 20:4.) The enduring meat is the gift of God; but, like every other blessing of the Gospel, it is given only to labour.† The idle mouth — full only of heartless complaints, perhaps sending up a dull prayer for the present quiet of conscience — shall suffer hunger. The soul can never flourish, if it be not in earnest with God. It may be roused for a while; but only to be cast into a deeper sleep than ever. For godliness can never thrive with this deadly malady. If the slothful may be sincerely religious; so far as he is slothful, he deducts from the privilege and sincerity of his religion. And undoubtedly a slothful habit is utterly inconsistent with the vitality of true godliness. Soon nothing will remain, but the dead form of religion, the bare walls of the house, instead of the temple filled with his glory.
And now let us look at the child of God awakened out of a deep sleep. He has set out in good earnest for the kingdom; he has begun to fight — yea — to conquer. But sleep has followed; and, instead of improving the advantage, a sudden assault of the enemy has laid him low.† Mind thy work and thy conflict more than thine ease and comfort; else wilt thou be, not a conqueror, but a captive. In time of ease, how naturally, as Bunyan's pilgrim found it, does the air of the plain tend to make us drowsy! And then the soul, instead of being “satisfied as with marrow and fatness” (Psalm 63:5), suffers hunger, and becomes faint for want of its proper nourishment. The heartless externals of godliness will abide. But the spirit that breathed life into them is gone. Nothing but the unceasing prayer and exercise of a mortified spirit can shake off this “evil disease that cleaveth to us.” Be thou, Lord, our Helper, our Strength, our Physician!
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