II. A sluggard is an unrighteous man. This is both implied and expressed in the proverb. He is placed in contrast with the righteous man as one of an opposite character, and he is declared to be an habitual breaker of the tenth commandment. Covetousness is a sin nearly allied to envy, and both are in themselves transgressions of the moral law, and often lead to more heinous crimes. Let no man, then, say that his refusal to take his part in the work of the world is a matter which concerns himself alone, for even if a man were not responsible for a negative existence, such a course is certain to lead to positive sin.
III. He is a self-destroyer. This is a phase of sloth which has not been placed before us in former proverbs on the subject. The sluggard not only makes wretched the existence which it his great aim to pamper, but he shortens it. His covetous and unsatisfied state of mind is a canker-worm at the root of all that he does possess, and, deprived of the healthful influence of labour, he becomes an easy prey to disease and death. It is probable that nothing undermines the bodily constitution more surely than unsatisfied desire. Men who have been great workers, but who have not seen the desire of their hearts fulfilled, have often died in consequence. How much more likely will the slothful man be to die under such a disappointment! If the rust eats into the sword which is in constant use, how much more certainly will it destroy that which is never drawn from the scabbard!
IV. The righteous man is a worker and a giver. He is in all respects the exact opposite of the sluggard. He works not so much because of the gain of labour as because he loves to work, and because it is wrong to be idle. This he shows by the use he makes of much that he gains—he gives with an unsparing hand. In both he is an imitator of the righteous God, who is the Greatest Worker and the Greatest Giver in the universe. The righteousness of God prompts Him to bountiful acts towards needy creatures, and the righteousness of His righteous servants prompts them to do like deeds, according to their ability. On this subject see also Homiletics on chap. [xiii. 4], page 296.
outlines and suggestive comments.
The desire kills him. Why? Because he will not gratify it. The way to gratify it is to get it accomplished. . . . Say not, It is the refusal that kills and not the desire. That is not altogether the case. The spark that is too weak to grow puts itself out by its attempts. The desire that is too dull to act has treasured in it the last remainders of the heart, and in its languid throbs makes itself the instrument of its own growing dissolution.—Miller.
In the Paris French translation the words stand thus—“All the day long he does nothing but wish.” How very expressive at once of the unconquerable indolence and the fretful, envious, pining unhappiness of the sluggard! And in his wishing, he may at times, by the power of a sanguine imagination, work himself into hope; and then, disappointment only embitters the cup of his own mingling,—aggravates the misery, which he is painfully conscious is self-inflicted.—Further: he appears before us a stranger to all the positive and exquisite pleasures of charity and beneficence; but “the righteous giveth and spareth not.” It is not said, you will observe—“the diligent giveth and spareth not;” because there are not a few who are sufficiently exemplary in diligence, to whom the Bible would not give the designation of “the righteous,” and who are far from being distinguished for benevolence. But the antithesis, as it stands here, implies these three things: First, that diligence is one of the features in the character of the righteous:—Secondly, that the natural tendency, and ordinary result of this is, through the Divine blessing, abundance to spare:—Thirdly, that another distinguishing feature of the character of the righteous man, is readiness to part with what his industry acquires—“giving, and not sparing;” that is, giving cheerfully, and giving liberally; not assenting merely to the truth of the maxim, as being the word of the Lord, but feeling the truth of their own heart’s experience—“It is more blessed to give than to receive.”—Wardlaw.
It is not said by Paul, “If any man do not work, neither let him eat,” for some would work and cannot get it, others would work and are not able, but “If any man will not work,” if any have work to do, and will not, let him not eat. In the same manner the wise man speaketh; he doth not say, his hands do not labour, but his hands refuse to labour. . . . But he sheweth that though a sluggard be idle himself, yet his desire be so hard a labourer, that it is a daily labourer, and such a daily labourer painfully worketh all the day long. So that although he have no hands to work, his desire hath hands to beg and crave of him; which being not satisfied, is a just punishment of his careless sluggishness. But the righteous man, being as earnest in his labour as the other in his desire, getteth enough, not only to satisfy his own desire, but to supply the wants of others.—Jermin.
main homiletics of verse 27.
The Sacrifice of the Wicked.
I. A Divine institution may become an abomination to the Divine Being. The right use of the gifts of God makes them blessings to men, but the abuse of them turns them into curses. So with the ordinances of worship, both under the Old Testament dispensation and in the New—that which is designed to bless men may by misuse add to their guilt before God, and that which, done in a right spirit, is most acceptable to Him, will, when joined to a sinful motive, be most abhorrent to His holy nature. The sacrifice of the Levitical dispensation was an ordinance of Divine appointment, but even those who lived before the days of the prophets were not left to suppose that the merely ceremonial act was of any value in the sight of God if a correspondent state of heart was wanting, The offering of Cain was unacceptable, because he lacked the faith of his brother Abel (Heb. xi. 4). Samuel taught the truth that “to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Sam. xv. 22), and the father of our preacher was deeply conscious that “sacrifice and burnt offering” would not be acceptable to God unless they were the outcome of a “broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart” (Psalm li. 16, 17). The doctrine that “God is a spirit, and they who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John iv. 24), is taught in the Old Testament as well as in the New. It is the teaching of this proverb.