Pastor John,
The Excerpt below is a warning against being lazy. The last sentence reads: “Idleness produces hunger.”
When I read that, I realized it was God’s judgment against slothfulness. It is meant to teach us when we are young, or even punish us when we are old.
The world gets in the way of God’s lesson. Whether it is a government that supports the able-bodied when they will not work or a parent that habitually supports their grown children when they fall in and out of employment, it teaches folk that there are no consequences for their actions.
It is a simple lesson: If you don’t work you don’t eat, but it is God’s wisdom. It teaches us early that we reap what we sow – if someone doesn’t get in the way of that precious lesson.
It is a lot easier to believe that God will judge us for our sins in the end if there are consequences felt now for our foolish choices.
Jerry
