Welcome again to your favourite column. I believe that God has been speaking to you through this series I began some weeks ago. The last danger sign I discussed last week which I didn’t finish was: When someone spends his youth in lust and so-called enjoyment, and rather than engage in hard work, lives off his parents, relatives and friends.
I want to continue from where I stopped. Even if the parents of indolent children bequeath great wealth to them, they will still squander everything and live in penury till they die. “Then I hated all my labour in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labour in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity” (Eccl 2:18-19 NKJV).
Unless they repent, those who depend on the wealth of their parents, relatives and friends rather than apply themselves to diligent labour, have no bright future. There’s no amount of money they’re given that will change their fortune for the better. They’ll always live in want and may die in misery. There are so many examples of children of wealthy people who have wasted the wealth bequeathed to them by their fathers; they deluded themselves that the wealth they were not investing would keep increasing while they were squandering it.
1 John 2:17 says, “And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever (NKJV). 2 Tim 2:22 warns us to flee youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Prov 5 talks about the immoral woman and in verses18-20 counsels: “Let your wife be a fountain of blessing for you. Rejoice in the wife of your youth. She is a loving doe, a graceful deer. Let her breasts satisfy you always. May you always be captivated by her love. Why be captivated, my son, with an immoral woman, or embrace the breasts of an adulterous woman?” (NLT) Those who follow the path of an adulterous woman and live in youthful lusts cruising around in deceitful enjoyment reap a sorrowful future. Their future is replete with regrets.
God is a worker. He created man to work. He put Adam in the garden to dress it. Anyone who will not work in his youth but will choose to live in pleasure and lust, in indolence and recklessness will end in poverty no matter the generational wealth he may be swimming in now. Generational poverty will commence in his home.
Read God’s advice to such persons: “Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler, provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep — so shall your poverty come on you like a prowler, and your need like an armed man” (Pro 6:6-11 NKJV). Did you see that? The Bible says, “The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.” (Prov 13:4NKJV). Prov 14:23 says, “In all labour there is profit; but the talk of the lips (tendeth) only to penury” (ASV). Laziness will create a future of penury for the indolent! It is waste of destiny. I love what French writer, Jules Renard (1864 – 1910) said: “Failure is not our only punishment for laziness: there is also the success of others.” Work! Indolence will make you age faster!
Next week, I will share another danger sign with you. I believe you have been blessed and you will not sow seeds of a sorrowful future for yourself. Please join me again.
