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This strong utterance suggests -

I. THE PREVALENCE OF DESTITUTION. How much of human life is needlessly low! how many men live low down in the scale who might just as well be living high up it! how sadly do men bereave themselves of good! This applies to:

1. Their circumstances: their daily surroundings; the homes in which they live, their food and raiment, the occupations in which they are engaged; their companionships, etc.

2. Their intelligence: their intellectual activity, their knowledge, their acquaintance with their own complex nature and with the world in which they live, their familiarity with (or their ignorance of) men and things.

3. Their moral and spiritual condition: their capacity or incapacity to control their temper, to govern their spirit, to regulate their life, to form honourable and elevating habits, to worship God, to set their lives in accordance with the will and after the example of Christ.

II. THE TWO MAIN SOURCES OF IT. These are those which are indicated in the text.

1. The absence of energy in action; being "slothful [or, 'slack,' Revised Version] in work." Men who fail in their department, of whatever kind it may be, are usually those who do not throw any heart, any earnestness, any continuous vigour, into their work. They do what is before them perfunctorily, carelessly, or spasmodically. Hence they make no profits, they earn low wages, they have poor crops, they gain few customers or patients, they win no success; hence they read few instructive books, they make no elevating and informing friendships, they acquire no new ideas, they store up no new facts, they make no mental progress; hence they do not cultivate their moral and spiritual nature, they do not "build themselves up" on the foundation of truth; they are adding no stones to the living temple; they do not grow in wisdom, or in worth, or in grace. The other source is:

2. The presence of prodigality. He that is slothful in work is "brother to him that is a great waster." What sad wastefulness is on every hand! what dissipation of gathered treasure! what expenditure of means and of strength on that which does not profit! For these are the two forms of waste.

(1) Allowing to depart that which it would be wise to hold in hand - money, goods, friends, supporters, resources.

(2) Expending power on that which does not profit; letting our time, our strength, our mental forces, our moral energies, be employed upon those things which yield no return, or no adequate and proportionate return. Were men to spend their money on profitable and fruit bearing labour, their brains on enlightening and enlarging study, their spiritual energies on intelligent worship or redeeming work, instead of wasting them as now they do, how would the desert become a fruitful field, in every sphere! But we must not overlook the fact that there is -

III. A SOLID REMAINDER, NOT THUS ACCOUNTED FOR. Although sloth and waste together explain a very large part indeed of the destitution on the earth, they leave much still to be accounted for. And of this remainder part is due to simple and pure misfortune or incapacity, and part to the guilt of others who are not the sufferers. All this destitution is the proper field for Christian effort. It is the proper object of our genuine compassion, and of our strenuous endeavour toward removal. But to those who are culpably destitute we have to go and say - Your way upward is before you; you must exert yourselves if you would rise. No one can really enrich a human soul but himself.

1. Bring a sustained energy to bear on the work in which you are engaged.

2. Guard with a wise watchfulness what you have won.

3. Put out your powers upon that which is worthy of them and that which will repay them. - C.

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KJV: He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.

WEB: One who is slack in his work is brother to him who is a master of destruction.