Proverbs 24:30-34

I went by the field of the slothful.

The moral sluggard

Take these words as a pointed reproof of the negligent and immoral head of a family. The cause of prevailing irreligion is the deplorable negligence of masters and heads of families, in cultivating that field which is more immediately placed under their inspection and care.

1. The fatal consequences of irreligious sloth and negligence in those whom Providence hath raised up to be the heads of families. Families are the nurseries of the Church and state: it is from them that every department of life is filled up. Who is the slothful man? It is the moral sluggard whom the inspired writer has in view--the man who shows his children and servants, by all his pursuits, that this world is all for which they need to care. He neglects the important seasons and opportunities for moral culture. He does not teach them the duties which they owe to one another and to society. He may permit them to be instructed by others, but he does not support the instruction by his own influence and example. See the consequences of this negligence illustrated in the sluggard’s garden. Being destitute of rule, management, or control, his children absorb every wrong sentiment with their earliest sense, and are more and more corrupted with every breath they draw. There is no order, calmness, moderation, or self-command among the members of his family.

2. The futility of such apologies as are usually made for this negligence. They have not time; they have not capacity; or they do not feel under obligation in this direction. (James Somerville.)

The sluggard’s farm

On one occasion Solomon looked over the broken wall of a little estate which belonged to a farmer of his country. It consisted of a piece of ploughed land and a vineyard: One glance showed him that it was owned by a sluggard, who neglected it; for the weeds had grown right plentifully, and covered all the face of the ground. From this Solomon gathered instruction. Men generally learn wisdom if they have wisdom. Some look only at the surface, while others see not only the outside shell but the living kernel of truth which is hidden in all outward things. We may find instruction everywhere. We may gather rare lessons from things that we do not like.

I. The description of a slothful man. Solomon was right when he called him “a man void of understanding.” Not only does he not understand anything, but he has no understanding to understand with. He is empty-headed if he is a sluggard. As a rule we may measure a man’s understanding by his useful activities. Certain persons call themselves “cultured,” and yet they cultivate nothing. If knowledge, culture, education do not lead to practical service of God, we cannot have learned what Solomon calls wisdom. True wisdom is practical; boastful culture vapours and theorises. Wisdom ploughs its field, hoes its vineyard, looks to its crops, tries to make the best of everything; and he who does not do so, whatever may be his knowledge of this, of that, of the other, is “a man void of understanding.”

1. Because he has opportunities which he does not use.

2. Because being bound to the performance of certain duties he did not fulfil them.

3. Because he has capacities which he does not employ.

4. Because he trifles with matters which demand his most earnest heed. The Christian who is slothful in his Master’s service has no idea what he is losing.

II. Look at the sluggard’s land.

1. Land will produce something; some kind of fruit, good or bad. If you are idle in God’s work you are active in the devil’s work.

2. If the soul be not farmed for God, it will yield its natural produce. What is the natural produce of land when left to itself?

3. If we are slothful, the natural produce of our heart and of our sphere will be most inconvenient and unpleasant to ourselves.

4. In many instances there will be a great deal of this evil produce.

III. There must be some lesson in all this.

1. Unaided nature will always produce thorns and nettles, and nothing else.

2. See the little value of natural good intentions. This man, who left his field and his vineyard to be overgrown, always meant to work hard one of these fine days. Probably the worst people in the world are those who have the best intentions but never carry them out. Take heed of little delays and short puttings-off. You have wasted time enough already; come to the point at once before the clock strikes again. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The broken fence

The slothful man did no hurt to his fellow-men. He was not grossly vicious; he had not energy enough to care for that. He always let well alone, and for the matter of that, he let ill alone. Yet he always meant to be right.

I. Look at this broken fence. In the beginning it was a good fence, a stone wall. Mention some of the stone walls that men permit to be broken down when they backslide.

1. Sound principles instilled in youth.

2. Solid doctrines which have been learned.

3. Good habits once formed.

4. Week-night services are a stone wall.

5. So is Bible-reading.

6. So is a public profession of faith.

7. So is firmness of character.

II. The consequences of a broken-down fence.

1. The boundary has gone. He does not know which is his Lord’s property, and which remains an open common.

2. The protection is gone. When a man’s heart has its wall broken all his thoughts will go astray, and wander upon the mountains of vanity. Nor is this all, for as good things go out, so bad things come in.

3. The land itself will go away. In many parts of Palestine the land is all ups and downs on the sides of the hills, and every bit of ground is terraced, and kept up by walls. When the walls fall the soil slips over terrace upon terrace, and the vines and trees go down with it; then the rain comes and washes the soil away, and nothing is left but barren crag which would starve a lark. Then I charge you, be sternly true to yourselves and God. Stand to your principles in this evil and wicked day. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The sluggard’s field

The royal philosopher has his attention drawn to a field and a vineyard in ruins.

1. Each man has a field and a vineyard entrusted to his care--the immortal soul.

2. He is provided with various implements of husbandry, with good seed, sure directions, and animating promises.

3. See the soul, the vineyard of such a labourer. The effects will generally be commensurate with the means used. As we sow we reap.

4. Observe the deplorable condition of the soul described in the text. Here is a desolate and neglected soul which once was cultivated--the backslider. Whence the cause of this sad change? What is the miserable end to be dreaded? (F. Close, M.A.)

The field of the sluggard

The passage is an exquisite picture. The moral of it might have been set boldly in unimaginative prose. Many persons have eyes to see things, but they do not think about what they see. If a really good man sets his heart within him to search through those things that his eyes show him, he is bound to see God. The man who saw this neglected vineyard with his inner eyes saw all that physical ruin and loss and mischief sprang from moral causes. Suffering in our physical and eternal life generally does spring from something wrong in our moral character. This vineyard had gone to ruin because its master was not man enough; he was a sluggard, an indolent fellow. It is a bad thing for a man to be too much his own master. That ruined vineyard had the roots of its ruin in that man’s character. He began to be too fond of ease, indulgence, and bodily comfort; he began to lose the pluck and spirit and enterprise that make a man take his pleasure out of his work. If you have not eyes to see what lies in your drudgery and toil, you will not come to much in this world. The progress of becoming a sluggard was a gradual one, and the progress of damage was slow but sure. The man might have taken warning, but there was a process of dilapidation going on in his character. That was the mischief. You cannot scamp your outside work without ruining your character. And it was little bit by little bit. Learn it is a very difficult thing rightly and wisely to see your neighbour’s faults; but it is a much more difficult thing, though a much more necessary thing, to see your own. (W. E. Elmslie, D.D.)

Character

These words illustrate that field which every man has to cultivate--the field of character. We do not start life with characters ready made. What we have at the outset are but germs and possibilities. Until we have developed these germs for ourselves, their full value is not obtained. God has given life, powers, opportunities; out of these character is formed. This is a man’s own property, whether it is good or bad. Character is the true gauge of a man’s worth. Character is the only property we can take with us when we leave this world. Some men’s fields” are partly neglected.

1. There is no fence.

2. There is no fruit.

How comes this waste of precious ground? Traced to one source--self-indulgence. This reveals itself in various ways. In procrastination. In an easy assent to the popular misrepresentations of Christianity. In taking up doubts at second-hand, and parading them as though proof of their superior wisdom. But self-indulgence in every form will bring ruin. And the ruin of self-indulgence is fast approaching. “Thy poverty shall come as one that travelleth.” There may be seeming delay about its arrival; but there is also certainty. It is even now upon the road. (J. Jackson Goadby.)

The sluggard’s garden

The owner of this miserable garden was a sluggard. He would not work. So the deterioration went on unchecked, until what was once a beautiful, productive, cleanly-kept garden became a place of the rankest weeds. Here, in this text, is an important principle. People are always complaining that they possess few opportunities for their improvement. Wise men can go to school anywhere. We may learn by other men’s mistakes. There are many sluggards.

1. The home sluggard. Usually a woman. Neglected homes lie at the root of much of the misery, sin, and unhappiness of the world to-day.

2. The sluggard in the battle of life. A good-for-nothing--a waster of time, money, and precious opportunities. God has not given us life to idle away. Maybe that something of this sluggish disposition lies within us all, and must be continually struggled with. The men who have done most in life, achieved the greatest fame, and gained its best prizes, have all been steady workers, diligent plodders.

3. The sluggard in the field of conscience. Weeds always grow quickly, though imperceptibly. There is a law of degeneration. It may be stated in this way: “Let a thing alone, and it is certain to deteriorate.” It is thus in the realm of conscience. There is nothing more dangerous than procrastination in the affairs of the soul and conscience. Many a man is aware of evil habits, and intends to give them up by and by. They never are given up in that way. Let your life alone, and you will awaken some day in awful astonishment at the depths to which you have sunk. Give up indolence and procrastination, then. (Wm. Hay, B.D.)

Idleness

I. It is foolish. Solomon characterises this indolent man as one “void of understanding.” therein do you see this man’s folly? In the flagrant neglect of his own interests. You may cultivate your field by proxy, but you can only cultivate your soul yourself.

II. It is procrastinating.

III. It is ruinous.

1. Consider the wretched condition to which his estate was reduced. “Lo, it was all grown over with thorns,” etc. It might have waved in golden grain.

Two things suggested by the words.

1. That the ruin is gradual in its approach. It does not burst on you at once, like a thunder-storm.

2. The ruin is terrible in its consummation. “As an armed man.” It will seize you as with the grasp of an indignant warrior. (D. Thomas, D.D.)

The sluggard’s vineyard

I. Survey this waste vineyard.

1. We can see nothing but weeds. The outgrowths of the depraved heart yield no real revenue to man. Covetousness, malice, vain thoughts, evil desires, unbelief.

2. How luxuriantly they grow! Our evil propensities must, if unchecked by grace, increase.

3. There are various kinds of growth. Thorns and nettles. There may be a man of one book, business, virtue--but not of one evil propensity.

4. They are all harmful. “Thorns” to lacerate; “nettles” to sting.

5. The wall is broken. Anybody might sow there, or water the unprofitable crop--except the good sower, and he must enter by the door. God saves us from our sluggishness, not in it.

II. Why it remains in this deplorable condition. Ignorance that will not learn, and slothfulness that will not work.

III. Expostulate with the sluggard.

1. The vineyard is not your own.

2. Think what this vineyard might produce. Grapes for the cup of the King--fruit for days of sickness--refreshment for old age.

3. In its present state it is harmful to your neighbours. The thistle-down will float far and wide.

IV. In conclusion, some words of earnest counsel.

1. Come forth from your couch of indifference and resolutely inspect this desolate scene.

2. Do not seek to satisfy conscience by pulling a weed here and there. It must be thoroughly delved; ploughed up. “Ye must be born again.”

3. Do not be content with showing a few wild grapes. (R. A. Griffin.)

The vineyard of the sluggard

Some preachers teach morality without showing its vital connection with the gospel. Some fall into the opposite error, and fail to exhibit the ethical side of the gospel.

I. The field of the sluggard teaches that it is wrong to abuse what we regard as our own. The sluggard might contend that the garden was his own. The assumption is unfounded, and even blasphemous.

1. It is a sigh of gross disloyalty to God, who prefers an absolute claim to our life and service.

2. It involves a serious loss to our fellow-creatures, because the wind carries the seeds of our neglect into our neighbour’s garden. Apply to moral influence.

II. The possession of advantages, so far from absolving us from the necessity of labour and self-culture, renders them more necessary. The area of our responsibility coincides with the area of our possessions.

1. The cultivation of the body is a sacred obligation.

2. The mind is a vineyard that ought to be cultivated.

3. There is, too, the vineyard of the heart.

III. Neglect, as well as wilful wickedness, move in the direction of destruction. Observe that not only was the soil covered with noxious growths, but the means of protection were destroyed.

IV. Good men will learn from the follies and miseries of wicked men. Such instruction is gathered by observation and reflection. The two principal methods of acquiring wisdom. Observation collects facts, reflection arranges and applies them, converting them into solid nutriment for mind and heart. (Preacher’s Magazine.)

The slothful pastor

1. To every minister of God there is entrusted a field and a vineyard.

2. God supplies his labourer with various implements of husbandry, with good seed and providential opportunities.

3. God makes special promises to every devoted husbandman.

4. What a blessed sight is the field and vineyard of such a labourer!

5. But consider the different picture drawn in the text. What is so affecting as the contemplation of a neglected parish? How is this to be accounted for? “This is the field of the slothful, and the vineyard of the man void of understanding.”

What is the people’s duty, in the consideration of such a subject as this?

1. Let us all be anxious to avail ourselves of the religious privileges which we possess.

2. If it is our misfortune to have a slothful husbandman, let us not desert the Church, but unite in prayer for him and wait on God in meek submission to His will. (F. Close, M.A.)

The fool’s vineyard

In every age the sluggard and the fool have had their place, as well as the labourer and the wise man.

I. The scene shows us that if we will not have flowers and fruits we shall certainly have thorns and nettles. We cannot set aside the laws of nature. There is a law of growth in the very ground. It is the same with the character of man. We cannot simply do nothing. Life has its laws. We may pay them no heed, but they will assert themselves notwithstanding.

1. A man may resolve not to cultivate his mind. What then? The weeds of false notions, the thorns and nettles of prejudice, will prove his intellectual indolence.

2. A man may neglect to cultivate his moral nature. He will have nothing to do with religion. What then? Look at his false ideas, his superstition, his narrowness, his want of veneration, his superficial judgments, the weeds that have grown up.

II. The sluggard and the fool cannot hide the results of their neglect.

1. We cannot confine the results of a wasted life within our own bounds.

2. This being the case, we have not a right to do with what we call our own as we please. There is nothing which we can strictly call our own. Society will not allow us to do what we please with our own.

III. It is possible to be right in some particulars and to be grievously wrong in others. The legal right of the slothful man to the possession of the field might be undisputed. The vineyard might have fallen into the hands of the fool by strict lawful descent. So far so good. The case is on this side perfectly sound. Yet possession was not followed by cultivation. It is not enough to possess; we must increase. You ought not to allow even a house to fall into decay. There is no right of abuse. You have not a right to be dirty, to be ignorant, to be careless of life; on that line no rights have ever been established.

IV. The scene shows that even the worst abuses may be turned to good account. The good man is an example; the bad man is a warning.

1. You will see that the finest possessions may be wasted; property, talent, influence, opportunity.

2. You will see that wickedness always moves in the direction of destruction. It must do so. All indolence must go down. All sin forces itself in the direction of perdition. How did the wise man know that the man was void of understanding? By the state of his vineyard. Know a man by his surroundings, know him by his habits; there is character in everything. (J. Parker, D.D.)

Mental cultivation essential to the soul’s salvation

The immortal soul, although one and indivisible as its Author, yet, like a large estate, is divided into various sections, as the understanding, the memory, and the affections.

1. The intellectual faculty is the understanding. If not cultivated, it will produce an attendant crop of evil thoughts and vain imaginations, which, like thorns and nettles, will injuriously affect the soul.

2. Another property of the soul to be cultivated is the memory, and unless that is attended to, all the other would be like casting seed by the wayside.

3. Another section of the soul is that of the affections which are ever disposed to run wild, and want continual pruning and training, to guide them in a right direction. The heart is liable to alight upon objects that may pierce it with many sorrows, to prevent which the most efficient remedy is to have the mind occupied as much as possible in contemplation of eternal blessings. If the mind were to dwell on the attributes of the Deity, especially as the God of love, it would expand with delight as the blossom to the sun. (William Neville, M.A.)

Practical views of human life

How much have we profited, in the character of servants of God, by what we have seen of men? How much more wise in the best sense, conscientious, apt, effectually warned? The world should be regarded as an extensive outer department of the great school of religion. The things which the servant of God is taught in the inner school he is to observe illustrated, exemplified, proved, and enforced in this wide, outer department. When the learner in God’s peculiar school goes out to observe mankind he will think of the manner and cautions and rules for turning what he sees to the most beneficial account, and the most instructive points to fix his attention upon. An obvious one is, let not his observing be merely of the nature of speculation, not simply a seeing and judging what men are. Our knowledge of men must be diligently applied to a salutary use, especially for ourselves. Another point of admonition is--against prejudice and arrogance in observing and judging. Men often have some prepossession, and everything is forced into conformity to that. Or they have a set of judgments, estimates, shaped ready in their minds, and upon the slightest circumstance they will instantly fix one of them on a fellow-mortal. Some men assume to have an infallible insight, and perfect comprehension on all occasions; and pronounce as if there could be no appeal. Another warning is, beware of taking pleasure in perceiving and ascertaining what is wrong in man. Another rule is, take care that observations on other men are not suffered to go to the effect of our being better pleased with ourselves. There is a strange tendency to a gratified pride in our own supposed virtues; and to a most indulgent judgment of the things which even the grossest self-love cannot wholly approve. Our whole system and practice in the observation of the world should be resolutely formed on this principle, that our own correction is the grand object to be faithfully and constantly kept in view. Some more special observations may be given. Think of the probable difference between our judgments of the persons we look upon and their own judgments of themselves. In observing mankind we perceive, to a great extent, a sad deficiency or depravation of conscience; what a trifle they can make of many most important discriminations between good and evil. From this sight should not a solemn admonition come to us? One of the most conspicuous things to be noticed in looking on mankind is--how temptation operates and prevails. From this there should be an instructed vigilance for ourselves and appropriate prayers. A mournful thing to notice will be the great errors, the lapses, of good men. Reflect how unsafe any man, every man, is, but as God preserves him. Observe, too, the effect of situation and circumstance. How much they form men’s notions, consciences, and habits as to good and evil. Observe errors of judgment--opinions; how they arise, become fixed, or are perverted. Take note of all worthier things, exemplary virtues, graces, wisdom. It is delightful to turn for instruction to these. (John Foster.)

The sluggard’s garden

The scene is familiar in Syria, where the intense heat and frequent rains so stimulate all wild and natural growths that a few months of neglect suffice to convert even the most carefully tilled plot and the most carefully tended vineyard into a scene of desolation. Under the pressure of an Eastern climate noxious weeds and brambles suck the soil’s fertility from wholesome plants and flowers with an astonishing and alarming rapidity. Not that similar catastrophes are unknown even in England; but, with us, it takes longer to produce them. Most of us must have seen plots where once a fair garden grew, which, in the course of a few years’ neglect, were all overrun with coltsfoot, dock, nettles, groundsel, and other foul weeds. It is not simply, as a careful observer has pointed out, that land once under the plough or the spade loses, when it is left untended, the special and wholesome growth with which it has been planted. The deterioration goes farther than that. For “the flora which follows the plough,” or the spade, “is much more varied and delicate and beautiful” than that of the unbroken land. And when tilled land is suffered to fall back into the hands of Nature, all these more delicate and beautiful wild flowers are supplanted by gorse and bramble, nettle and dock, and, above all, by the close, wiry grass which usurps and covers so many of our commons. Even where the plants in a neglected garden are not altogether supplanted and dispossessed, an ominous process of degeneration sets in. The flowers, once tended with so much care and grown to such perfection, revert to an earlier and inferior type; they lose form, colour, perfume; the large “voluptuous garden roses,” with their infinite variety and infinite wealth of hue, sink back into the primitive dog-rose of our hedges, and the whole race of choice, cultivated geraniums into the cranesbill of the copse and the wayside. This, then, is the parable. Neglect a garden, and it soon loses all its value, all its distinction. It is either overrun with wilder and less worthy growths, or the plants which once either gave it beauty or ministered to the wants of man degenerate into a baser type, and no longer yield fruit that he cares to eat or flowers that he cares to pluck. And the moral is as simple and direct as it well can be (Proverbs 24:33). It is a warning to the man void of understanding and energy, that an utter destitution, a shameful misery, is the proper and inevitable result of his folly and sloth. We need not go far to find facts which prove the truth of this warning, and the need for it. If we go into the nearest workhouse ward, it is not too much to say that half the miserable paupers we meet there ought not to be there; they have sunk into pauperism not by sheer misfortune, not by the pressure of accidents they were unable to resist, but by a creeping indolence, by self-neglect, by vice, by the failure of speculations to which they were driven by their impatience of honest labour with its slow rewards, by a love of pleasure or self-indulgence which held them back from that whole-hearted industry and devotion to daily toil by which alone men can thrive. If we go to any dock or labour yard in which men earn a miserable pittance by unskilled and precarious labour, again we are well within the mark if we reckon that half the men we find there ought never to have been there, and would not have been there had they diligently availed themselves of the opportunities of the several positions from which they have fallen. If we go into any family, shall we not find in it a lad who has no decided leaning to any vocation, who “doesn’t much care what he does,” and who in his heart of hearts would rather do nothing at all, whether for himself or for the world, if only he could live by it? If we go into any school or college, shall we not be still more fortunate if, for one boy or man bent on study, bent on learning and acquiring as much as he may, and so cultivating all the good growths and habits of the soul, we find no more than one who is content to scramble through his work anyhow, who will not learn a jot more than he can help, who throws away opportunity after opportunity, and is throwing away, with his opportunities, his chances of service and distinction? No thoughtful observer of human life will for a moment admit that laziness is a defunct sin, or that the sluggard is rapidly becoming extinct. He is everywhere; and, wherever he is, the process of degeneration has set in and needs to be checked. And how shall it be checked, how shall the man “void of understanding” be recovered to a useful and diligent life, if not by the warning that, by the very course and constitution of his nature, indolence breeds its own punishment? The moral, then, is by no means tame or impertinent to the present conditions of men. But we need not confine ourselves to the Hebrew poet’s point of view. As we stand by his side, and look with him over the wall of the once fair garden, now all overgrown with nettles that sting and thorns that tear, we may raise the law of which he speaks to its highest plane, and view it in its more directly spiritual aspect. “Emphatic as is the direct teaching” of this proverb, says Dr. Plumptre, “it may be taken as a parable of something yet deeper. The field and the vineyard are more than the man’s earthly possessions. His neglect brings barrenness or desolation in the garden of the soul.” Nor is it in the least difficult to trace the working of this law in “the garden of the soul.” It is not enough that we once believed and obeyed. It is not enough that we once waged open war against evil, and ardently pursued that which is good. If we have settled down into a quiet and easy enjoyment of our very religion; if we are not watchful and diligent, “resolute and untiring”; if we cannot work in all weathers; if we shrink from every call to do something for God and man, or begin to calculate how little we can do, instead of how much; if we make no sacrifice for the sake of truth and righteousness, or mourn and complain over every sacrifice we are compelled to make; if we cease to strive vigorously, with clear and firm determination, against the evil forces and inclinations by which we are constantly beset; if we no longer care to learn any new truth that may break forth from God’s holy Word or from the patient researches of men; if, instead of recognising and rejoicing in any new aspect of duty, any new form of service, we are growing lax and indifferent even in the discharge of duties we once loved--sluggardliness is beginning to eat into our heart, our faith, our life; the good growths of the soul are beginning to deteriorate and decay, and its evil growths to wax bold and masterful. If nothing less will rouse and arrest us, let us remember that, by the very course and constitution of nature, by a law which admits of no exception, mere indolence, mere neglect, merely being quiet and at ease, mere failure to grow and make increase to ourselves in good thoughts, good feeling, good deeds, is to sink toward the evils we most dread, from which we have been redeemed, and which ought not therefore any longer to have power over us. It is to revert to our original and inferior type; and to revert to that will only too surely be the first step toward sinking to a type still lower and more hopeless. A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to rest when they ought to be lifted up for the labour which is prayer, and our poverty may come on us apace, and our want--the lack and destitution natural and inevitable to our sinking and neglected condition--may spring upon us like an armed man. (S. Cox, D.D.).