Wise Words About Work

PROVERBS 6:6-11; 18:9; 24: 30-32; ECCLESIASTES 5:12

GOLDEN TEXT: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”—Ecclesiastes 9:10

THE privilege and necessity of work is unquestionably a great boon to humanity. The Creator in his infinite wisdom has arranged that all of his creatures should have something to do. In fact, the Creator himself works. Jesus mentioned that, saying, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” During the seventh-day period of creation-lasting from the creation of Adam to the close of the thousand-year reign of Christ—God has rested from his creative work as it pertains to this earth, leaving the completion of this great undertaking in the hands of his beloved Son. We may assume that otherwise God has continued to be active.

The angels also work. Their name means messenger or servant, and the Scriptures indicate that they enjoy many privileges of service in connection with the Creator’s purposes. And creatures on the earthly plane of life lower than the human also have to work—they must all keep busy a great deal of the time in order to live. So it is with man. He is no exception; so the rule is that he who will not work cannot live. This would have been true even if man had not sinned, but accompanying the death penalty upon the human race came the necessity of hard labor—“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground.”—Gen. 3:19

Solomon uses the industrious characteristics of an ant as an object lesson in the value of properly directed work. The lesson is that we should anticipate our reasonable needs for the future and endeavor to make provision for them. Christian parents have a responsibility in this respect toward their children and others dependent upon them. But this, nevertheless, does not give us license to hoard up wealth only to be squandered later by unconsecrated children. Reasonable needs for minors and the aged and infirm of our immediate families seem to be all that the Scriptures enjoin. It should be assumed that barring untoward circumstances, children reaching adult age are no longer a responsibility to their parents, and ordinarily would not come under the injunction that we should provide for our own.

Jesus gives us another side of this picture in his instructions to his disciples when he sent them out into the ministry. His advice was, “Take no thought for the morrow.” Obviously what Jesus meant was that we should take no worrying or anxious thought for the morrow, but realize that as long as we are walking in the narrow way, sacrificing every possible earthly interest in the service of the Lord, he will take care of our actual material needs. And it is essential that we permit the Lord to determine what our actual needs may be. We may think we need things which the Lord, in his wisdom, sees we would be better off without.

Proverbs 18:9 states that one who is “slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.” The Apostle Paul writes that we should be “not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.” (Rom. 12:11) A Christian should not be slothful along any line, but should be alert and diligent in all that he does, doing all as unto the Lord. Our chief “business” is the direct service of the Lord, and certainly we should be zealous in this, not slothful. Faithfulness in doing the Lord’s will, zealously carrying out the terms of our covenant of sacrifice, will not result in a large bank account for old age, but we can thereby lay up treasures in heaven.

Old age pensions, social security, unemployment insurance, and other provisions of a society which is gradually becoming socialized, change the economic outlook in some respects, but these provisions should not serve as an excuse for indifference or laziness. A few years hence, if present trends continue, bank accounts will not seem nearly so important as they once did. As Christians, however, we should be setting our affections more and more on things above, laying up our treasures there, where moth and rust do not corrupt, and where they can’t be wiped out by inflation, inheritance taxes, etc.

We should see to it, then, that as Christians we are diligently working out our salvation and thus making provision for our eternal home. We have a spiritual vineyard to cultivate, and from which we need to keep the weeds of error and worldiness removed. Let us not be slothful in caring for this vineyard, but diligent in our business of serving the Lord.

Our Golden Text contains good advice. We should do with our might—with energy—what we have the opportunity of doing in the service of the Lord. The remainder of the verse of which the Golden Text is a part, reminds us that there is no knowledge nor wisdom nor device in the grave (Hebrew, sheol) “whither thou goest.” Sheol is the only Hebrew word in the Old Testament translated hell. It is interesting to note that there is no knowledge in the Bible hell.

The truth concerning hell has long been obscured by a lack of uniformity in the translation of the Hebrew word sheol, which appears in the Old Testament sixty-five times. Thirty-one times it is translated hell, thirty-one times grave, and three times pit.

QUESTIONS:

Is work injurious to the human race?

To what extent should Christians lay up material treasures for the future?

How may we lay up treasures in heaven?

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