Proverbs 12:27
A lazy man does not roast his game, but a diligent man prizes his possession.
Sermons
IndolenceT. De Witt Talmage.Proverbs 12:27
Labour as Enhancing the Relative Value of a Man's PossessionHomilistProverbs 12:27
Laxity and IndustryE. Johnson Proverbs 12:27
The Castle of IndolenceProverbs 12:27
The Slothful ManD. C. Gilmore.Proverbs 12:27














I. LAXITY GOES EMPTY HANDED. The proverb seems to call up the image of a hunter who is too lazy to pursue the game.

II. INDUSTRY IS ITSELF A CAPITAL. Toil is as good as treasure; such seems to the force of the proverb. And we may be reminded of the parable of the farmer who indicated to his sons the treasure in the field; their persevering toil in digging led to their enrichment. - J.

The slothful man roasteth not that which he took in hunting.
Most hunters have the game they shot or entrapped cooked the same evening or the next day, but not so with this laggard of the text. Too lazy to rip off the hide; too lazy to kindle the fire, and put the gridiron on the coals. What are the causes of laziness, and what are its evil results?

1. Indolence often arises from the natural temperament. I do not know but that there is a constitutional tendency to this vice in every man. Some are very powerfully handicapped by this constitutional tendency.

2. Indolence is often a result of easy circumstances. Rough experience in earlier life seems to be necessary in order to make a man active and enterprising.

3. Another cause of indolence is severe discouragement. There are those around us who started life with the most sanguine expectation; but some sudden and overwhelming misfortune met them, and henceforth they have been inactive. Trouble, instead of making them more determined, has overthrown them. They have lost all self-reliance. They imagine that all men and all occurrences are against them! You cannot rouse them to action. Every great financial panic produces a large crop of such men.

4. Reverie is a cause of indolence. There are multitudes of men who expect to achieve great success in life, who are entirely unwilling to put forth any physical, moral, or intellectual effort. They have a great many eloquent theories of life. They pass their life in dreaming. Let no young man begin life with reverie. There is nothing accomplished without hard work. Do not in idleness expect something to turn up. It will turn down. Indolence and wickedness always make bad luck.

5. Bad habits are a fruitful source of indolence. Sinful indulgences shut a man's shop, and dull his tools, and steal his profits. Dissoluteness is generally the end of industry. What are the results of indolence? A marked consequence of this vice is physical disease. The healthiness of the whole natural world depends upon activity. And indolence endangers the soul. Satan makes his chief conquests over men who either have nothing to do, or, if they have, refuse to do it. Idleness not only leads a man into associations which harm his morals, but often thrusts upon him the worst kind of scepticism. Loafers are almost always infidels, or fast getting to be such. I never knew a man given up to thorough idleness that was converted. Let me tell the idler that there is no hope for him either in this world or in the world that is to come.

(T. De Witt Talmage.)

Homilist.
This applies to many things.

I.TO MATERIAL WEALTH.

II.TO SOCIAL POSITION.

III.TO CIVIL LIBERTY.

IV.TO RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES.

(Homilist.)

Thomson wrote a poem by this title. He locates the castle in a dreamy land, where every sense is steeped in the most luxurious though enervating delights. The lord of the castle was a powerful enchanter, who, by his arts, enticed thoughtless travellers within the gate, that he might destroy their strength and ruin their hopes by a ceaseless round of voluptuous pleasures.

1. The lazy man goes hunting. Some are full of the most bustling activity. An old mathematical professor was wont to define work as "steadily overcoming resistance occurring along a fixed line." An intermittent, changing activity manifestly fails to answer the requirements of this definition.

2. The slothful man catches game when he does go hunting. Not only does he act, but he does things. But his slothfulness is made manifest in this: though he be effective, he is not efficient; for —

3. He is too lazy to cook what he does catch. The excitement of the chase is over, he is weary with dragging home his game, so the gun goes into one corner and the game into another, while the man proceeds — with a celerity which would be praiseworthy were it rightly applied — to forget all about it. He waits for the next excitement. His activity has procured no benefits to himself or any one else. There are many people who lose their labour through a disinclination to put the finishing touch to their work. Under excitement they secure certain results, which, if gathered up and made permanent, would be of immense value. But then they get weary, indifferent. They let things slide — to use an expression of the populace. All they have done gradually undoes itself. For lack of but one stone — the keystone — the arch falls. This is the application: When you commence a thing, cease not until you have gathered up the results of your labour in some form of practical and present benefit to your fellow-men.

(D. C. Gilmore.)

People
Solomon
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Catch, Diligence, Diligent, Doesn't, Game, Gets, Hunt, Hunting, Lazy, Man's, Possession, Possessions, Precious, Prey, Prized, Prizes, Ready, Roast, Roasteth, Search, Slothful, Slow, Substance, Wealth, Worker
Outline
1. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Proverbs 12:27

     5268   cooking
     5539   sluggard
     5810   complacency
     5833   diligence
     5967   thrift

Library
The Many-Sided Contrast of Wisdom and Folly
'Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish. 2. A good man obtaineth favour of the Lord: but a man of wicked devices will he condemn. 3. A man shall not be established by wickedness; but the root of the righteous shall not be moved. 4. A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones. 5. The thoughts of the righteous are right: but the counsels of the wicked are deceit. 6. The words of the wicked are to lie
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

April the Twenty-Second Speech as a Symptom of Health
"The tongue of the wise is health." --PROVERBS xii. 13-22. Our doctors often test our physical condition by the state of our tongue. With another and deeper significance the tongue is also the register of our condition. Our words are a perfect index of our moral and spiritual health. If our words are unclean and untrue, our souls are assuredly sickly and diseased. A perverse tongue is never allied with a sanctified heart. And, therefore, everyone may apply a clinical test to his own life: "What
John Henry Jowett—My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year

To Pastors and Teachers
To Pastors and Teachers If all who laboured for the conversion of others were to introduce them immediately into Prayer and the Interior Life, and make it their main design to gain and win over the heart, numberless as well as permanent conversions would certainly ensue. On the contrary, few and transient fruits must attend that labour which is confined to outward matters; such as burdening the disciple with a thousand precepts for external exercises, instead of leaving the soul to Christ by the
Madame Guyon—A Short and Easy Method of Prayer

Of Having Confidence in God when Evil Words are Cast at Us
"My Son, stand fast and believe in Me. For what are words but words? They fly through the air, but they bruise no stone. If thou are guilty, think how thou wouldst gladly amend thyself; if thou knowest nothing against thyself, consider that thou wilt gladly bear this for God's sake. It is little enough that thou sometimes hast to bear hard words, for thou art not yet able to bear hard blows. And wherefore do such trivial matters go to thine heart, except that thou art yet carnal, and regardest
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

The Ninth Commandment
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' Exod 20: 16. THE tongue which at first was made to be an organ of God's praise, is now become an instrument of unrighteousness. This commandment binds the tongue to its good behaviour. God has set two natural fences to keep in the tongue, the teeth and lips; and this commandment is a third fence set about it, that it should not break forth into evil. It has a prohibitory and a mandatory part: the first is set down in plain words, the other
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

The Authority and Utility of the Scriptures
2 Tim. iii. 16.--"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." We told you that there was nothing more necessary to know than what our end is, and what the way is that leads to that end. We see the most part of men walking at random,--running an uncertain race,--because they do not propose unto themselves a certain scope to aim at, and whither to direct their whole course. According to men's particular
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God, and his Righteousness, and all These Things Shall be Added unto You. "
Matth. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." The perfection even of the most upright creature, speaks always some imperfection in comparison of God, who is most perfect. The heavens, the sun and moon, in respect of lower things here, how glorious do they appear, and without spot! But behold, they are not clean in God's sight! How far are the angels above us who dwell in clay! They appear to be a pure mass of light and
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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