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This slothful man seems to cherish that one dread of his about the lions as if it were his favourite aversion and he felt it to be too much trouble to invent another excuse. Perhaps he hugs it to his soul all the more because it is home-born fear, conjured up by his own imagination. At any rate, it serves him as a passable excuse for laziness, and that is what he wants. When a man is slothful as a servant he is unjust to his employers; and when he is in business on his own account, idleness is usually a wrong to his wife and family. When a man is thoroughly eaten up with the dry-rot of laziness he generally finds some kind of excuse, though his crime is really inexcusable. We have many spiritual sluggards, and it is to them that I speak. They are not sceptics, or confirmed infidels, or opposers of the gospel: perhaps their sluggish nature saves them from anything like energetic opposition to goodness.

1. The sluggard's tongue is not slothful. The man who is lazy all over is generally busy with his tongue. There are no people that have so much to say as those that have little to do.

2. His imagination also is not idle. There were no lions in the streets. Laziness is a great lion-maker. He who does little dreams much. His imagination could create a whole menagerie of wild beasts.

3. He takes great pains to escape from pains. This slothful man had to use his inventive ability to get himself excused from doing his duty. It is an old proverb that lazy people generally take the most trouble, and so they do and when men are unwilling to come to Christ, it is very wonderful what trouble they will take to keep away from Him.

I. A LION. The man means that there is a great difficulty — a terrible difficulty, quite too much of a difficulty for him to overcome. He has not the strength to attack this dreadful enemy; the terrible difficulty which he foresees is more than he can face. The real lion after all is sluggishness itself, aversion to the things of God.

II. TWO LIONS. In the second text there are two lions instead of one (chap. Proverbs 26:13). He has waited because of that one lion, and now he fancies that there are two. He has made a bad bargain of his delay. It was inconvenient then because there was a lion. Is it more convenient now? Procrastination never profits; difficulties are doubled, dangers thicken.

III. NO LION AT ALL. If there be a man who would have Christ, there is no lion in the way to prevent his having Christ. "There are a thousand difficulties," says one. If thou desirest Christ truly, there is no effectual difficulty that can really block thee from coming to Him. There are no lions except in your own imagination.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

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KJV: The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets.

WEB: The sluggard says, "There is a lion outside! I will be killed in the streets!"