Calvary Chapel of Jonesboro

Get Your Hand Out of the Mashed Potatoes!  Proverbs 26:15

09/25/2012

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The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; he is weary of bringing it to his mouth again. Proverbs 26:15

We again come to our four day trek through the characteristics (and lack of any character at all) of the sluggard. Today we look at how he is given not just to laziness - but also to the sin of gluttony. Let's take a look at him again today and see what we can learn.

The picture we have here is pretty descriptive. We see the sluggard reclining at the table with his hand left sitting in a dish of food before him. He is so lazy and overfed that he either cannot pull his hand from the dish of food - or - doesn't want to. Here is a lethal combination of both gluttony and laziness. The grotesque picture of a grown man who is so sated with food that he cannot even muster the strength to pull his hand out of a dish or bowl of rice or noodles. He just leaves it there soaking in what he was eating just moments ago. Yet this is what gluttony does to a society - it makes it lazy and unmotivated.

I spent a little time reading on the internet about obesity and inactivity. It is both fascinating and alarming to read what is happening in our nation. One study done by the Get America Fit Foundation showed that since 1991 the problem of obesity has grown from about 10% of the population to 20-25% of the population by the year 2003. What is fascinating is that the rates of those in a completely sedentary lifestyle have risen to similar rates. Along with these two numbers rising - the number of very dangerous diseases that are killing larger numbers of people have risen sharply as well. A lifestyle given to gluttony (which we've renamed obesity) and laziness is dangerous for us. It is at epidemic rates throughout our nation. I know it will probably be offensive to many (and I am presently overweight) but we are fast becoming a nation of people who are like this sluggard in the proverbs.

I am not advocating that we all become health and fitness freaks - who spend every moment of our day obsessing over our weight and our looks - but - we need to be wise and grasp the spiritual implications of being a people who are losing the battle as a society to gluttony and laziness. This problem is a spiritual one - not just a disease - or some kind of gene we've inherited from our parents. Wise men and women will realize this and will take the necessary steps to dealing with what is essentially a sin problem. It would be so helpful to our society to once again that words like sluggard and glutton are still applicable and helpful to us becoming a better individual - and a better culture.
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A Really Gross Proverb and Its Purpose - Proverbs 26:11

01/26/2011

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Like a dog that returns to its vomit Is a fool who repeats his folly. Proverbs 26:11

Today's proverb ranks as one of the most vivid, if not gross, proverbs that are in the book.  But, it also ranks as one of the most important in that its vivid, gross picture sticks with us reminding us to turn from sin, rather than turn back to it.

I will try my best not to revel in the grotesqueness of today's proverb.  That being said, we have to grasp what is said here.  I've had a number of dogs - and one of the things that truly grosses me out is the fact that every one of them would vomit - and return and lick up the mess they just regurgitated.  It is something that is very graphic to me - and something I can promise you I do not intend ever to mimic.  Just the thought of doing what a dog does turns my stomach - and honestly - makes me want to vomit.  But isn't that the purpose of the writer - and God.  He is placing before us something so disgusting that we all unanimously chime in that we would never want to do something so sick.  Then the Lord blows our mind with the second part of the proverb.

This dog imagery is there to compare how disgusting it is for a fool to repeat his folly.  This is a proverb about our sin - and the foolishness we engage in when we sin against God.  But even more, it is about when we sin, repent (hopefully) and then return to the same folly a second, third, fourth time.  That picture, when we first encounter it, we don't see as disgusting.  We have terms we would rather use for such a situation.  Let me mention a few for our instruction.

I slipped up.  Here is a common one.  It doesn't really confront the sin and the foolishness at all.  In too many ways it down plays the seriousness of sin.  This was not a "slip-up" - it was a choice to sin and rebel against God's commandments.  No one ever "slips" into sin - they walk into it - or at least are deceived into thinking it is not as heinous as it is. 

I'm struggling with a problem - or with sin.  Here is another common cop-out on sin.  If we were struggling, shouldn't we be fighting against the sin, having yet to do it?  I know that when I say that I'm "struggling with some things," what I honestly should be saying is, "I'm sinning against God - and I'm struggling with surrender and submission to His will."  My struggle - as I put it - is with whether I WANT to obey God - or whether I WANT to do what my flesh says instead.  A more forthright way of phrasing this would be to say, "I'm struggling with whether I want to submit to Jesus as Lord of my life.  I would rather be Lord and do what I want right now."

I'm having a hard time right now.  This one mistakes a hard time due to circumstances that are beyond my control - with circumstances that are absolutely under my control - because whether I choose to sin or not IS something I can do in Christ.  This one is in my arsenal of stupid excuses because it often elicits a merciful response from others.  I would much rather have that merciful response rather than face the truth.  The truth is my sins are what have caused my circumstances 99% of the time - at least the ones with which I am having a hard time.  Scripture tells me the way of the transgressor is HARD!  Sin leads to God's discipline - and God's discipline often leads to HARD or DIFFICULT times as He seeks to get me to stop returning to my own vomit.

Please understand that I know that the things I am writing today are hard to hear.  I say that because it is hard to write them.  That difficulty is because I've heard them from the Lord as He seeks to get me to stop dealing with my sin with kid gloves.  THIS PROVERB IS MEANT TO SHOCK US!  God wants us to look at the fact that we return to folly and sin as something utterly disgusting a gross.  He is hoping that such a shocking picture will make us not just gross out at the dog - but hopefully we gross out at our own foolishness.  The Lord is not doing this to be mean to us.  He does it out of love and a desire to deliver us from sin.  Sometimes that means putting an example before us that shakes things up in our thinking - and hopefully in our hearts. 

Grossed out at the picture of a dog returning to eat his own vomit?  Then use that shock value to also address any return to sin and foolishness in your life.  And . . . may that picture force its way into your mind's eye every time you are about to make a decision that will return you to any former sin of your past.  Do this - and this proverb will have accomplished what God intended for it to do.  He did not intend for it to be a joke as much of our "potty" humor today is.  He meant it to be a picture and a spiritual knee-jerk reaction to keep us from sin.

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