Tonight, we're going to be in
the book of Proverbs, if you'd like to turn. Proverbs chapter six. Tonight's text is a threefold
message, meaning it could be seen three different ways, and
we're going to examine all three of them, Lord willing, the physical
way, the spiritual way, and both. And I pray the Lord allow us
to do just that, to see it that way. Let's read this, Proverbs
6, verse 6 through 11. I'm not even there yet. Proverbs
6, verse 6 through 11 says, go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider
her ways and be wise, which having no guide over seer or ruler,
provided her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the
harvest. How long without sleep O sluggard? When wilt thou arise
out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little
slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep. So shall
that poverty come as one that travaileth in thy want as an
armed man. Now we usually have in Proverbs
and have seen the physical and the spiritual of each of the
passages that Solomon's writing. Solomon being the wisest man
in the world, besides Christ of course, wrote it in that way
so that it would be hidden hidden from the eyes of men. A man can
read it and it would mean consider the ant for the physical. And
we're gonna mention the physical because it is speaking of physical
things as well. But what men can't see is what
the Lord has to reveal. It's the spiritual. He has to
reveal it. We can't see the spiritual unless
he reveals it. Now Solomon's having us consider
the ant. And as I was reading this I thought,
how depraved. Are we as creatures that we can
learn from an ant? How depraved are we as creatures
where the Lord says, go to the ant? That's what I've titled
this message, consider the ant. Consider the ant. Lord said,
consider the ant, go to the ant. It works, nobody tells it to
work, it just works. It does what it's supposed to
do. You and I, we never do what we're supposed to do, do we?
I mean, we're sinful. Wretched or vile and this I understand
that that ants cursed with the same sin that we have but He's
just be bopping along don't think anything of it not worried about
his food. He's gonna go get it. He's doing everything I mean,
think about the ant and what, and, but the Lord says, I want
you to go to him. I want you to look at him, consider
him. You want me to consider an ant. Okay. Thank you. It, it, it,
Lord's humbling us is what he's doing. He's saying, no, you're
going to consider the smallest, of creatures, and you're gonna
learn from it. You're gonna see me in the ant. I'm gonna show you something
that's about the gospel with the ant. That's what the Lord
wants us to see if he chooses to reveal it. The Lord uses the inferior creatures
of God's creation. We cannot fully grasp the grace
that saved us, the magnitude, the depth of it, the width of
it, the height of it. He says, go to the ant, go to
the ant. First, let's look at the physical.
May the Lord be our teacher this and every hour. That's my prayer.
I, I, um, I was quite concerned this afternoon not having this
completely prepared. I was getting quite nervous thinking,
I don't know, maybe I need to start studying something else.
This isn't happening. And the Lord blessed it at the
last hour. So I was very thankful. So we'll see if he'll be our
teacher tonight. I hope he will. The physical
is this. He's saying don't be lazy. This
is the physical portion. Don't be lazy. Don't be a slugger.
Don't sleep and not work. And there are those that don't
like to work physically. There are. There's people that
just don't like to work. But this. is in correlation from
becoming surety. If you remember last week, we
talked about becoming a surety. Well, this is a new paragraph.
Yes, but this is a continuation. He's saying, if you're surety,
don't be a slugger. Consider the end, do the work
that's necessary in order to make your fellow sure. That's
what he's saying. This is all the physical aspect
of it. He's saying a slothful slugger
is a liar because he does not honor the covenant that he made.
He doesn't honor the covenant of, uh, becoming surety. That's what he's implying here.
So he says, consider the ant. He gathers his harvest. He puts
up the food in the summertime for whenever it becomes winter.
So it has food in the wintertime. It makes sure to prepare everything
that it needs to prepare to have what it needs to have throughout
the seasons. The Lord gave him that instinct. He's saying, consider
the ant. No one taught him this. God just created him this way.
He works all day and all night. That's a good lesson for you
and I physically. And I'm not going to spend a
lot of time on the physical. But it's a good lesson for you
and I physically, because the Lord does say this. He says in Ecclesiastes
9, verse 10, whatsoever thy hand find to do, whatsoever thy hand
find to do, do it with all your might. The Lord said that to
his people. Why? Because it's a reflection
of what the Lord's done in the heart. We are to do the best
we can with what the Lord's given us to do, whatever task we do.
If there was two angels, that came down to earth. And one where
it was to sweep the street and the other one was to preach the
gospel. One angel wouldn't care what job it had over the other
angel. Neither of them would care. I'll sweep for the Lord
or I'll preach for the Lord. And that's the heart that the
Lord gives to his people. When we go, we work, we do it
unto the Lord as to the best of our ability. God's people
are working Working for our families, aren't we? Working for our families.
Pay the bills, that's what you have to do. Man shall eat bread
by the sweat of his face. That's what the scripture says,
and this is our curse. This is our curse. But the encouragement
here is work like the ant. He's not looking for a compliment.
He's working as his maker made him do so. He's working. God's
people work the same way. The same way they live. We work
the same way that we live, looking to Christ. That's how we work.
That's how we work. We do it unto him, which brings
me to the second point. And can you imagine attending
a place that that would have been the whole message, that
would have been the entirety of it? That would have been so
empty. There was no, I haven't started
preaching the gospel to you yet. I see that, I know that, but
that's the physical that Solomon was telling us. Now we're gonna
move on to the spiritual. We're trying to cover everything
that he's telling us here. I think it's important. Paul
said, I didn't hold back any portion of scripture to you.
I revealed all of it. Brings us to our second point,
both the physical and the spiritual. We work unto the Lord and his
people like the ant in the church. Now, ant works in a colony. You and I work together in the
gospel. This is our church. This is our
colony. And we work unto the Lord. We
don't work for gain. We don't work for glory. We work
because it is finished. We don't work as part of our
salvation, but we work because we have been saved. We don't
work to obtain a righteousness, we work because we've been made
the righteousness of God in Christ. That's why we work. We work because
we love him because he first loved us. I love the fact that the aunt
serves the queen, doesn't he? The aunt serves the queen. Well,
who's the queen? God's the queen. He's the king. That's who we
serve. That's who we serve. I love the fact that the ant
doesn't take thought of where it'll find food, it knows the
Lord will just, it'll just be there. He just goes and finds
it, whatever it takes. You don't have to worry about
that manna, do you? You don't have to worry about
it. You know the Lord's gonna provide that manna for you. He's
going to say, let it rain down from heaven. And oh, we take
advantage of that, I think, sometimes. I know I do. Instead of praying
more diligently, Lord, send the manna to us this time. Cause
us to be able to feed upon you. We need to pray that more often,
don't we? Lord tells His chosen people in Luke chapter 12, are
not two sparrows sold for two farthings, I'm sorry, are not
five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten
before God. But even the very hairs of your head are numbered.
Fear not, therefore, ye are more value than many sparrows. You're more valuable than many
sparrows. He's numbered the hairs on your head. You have the exact
number of hairs on your head that He purposed from the foundation
of the earth. Take no thought if it'll rain, you can't control
the rain. The message here for the physical is, is we prepare
for rain and look to Christ. That's what we do. We prepare
for rain. Al, it wouldn't do you much good to not plow if
you're going to plant, right? You got to plow it up. Got to
get it. I need to plow mine. If I just threw seed down, it
ain't going to do me any good. It's not going to take root. You got
to plow it. You got to take care of it. So what do we do? Well,
we come to, I remember, I think it was Spurgeon that said this,
said, no message is sweeter than that which was well seasoned
with the prayers of the saints. Pray for me. That's how we prepare
for rain. We pray one for another. Lord,
when we gather together, allow us to see your face in your spirit.
We pray unto him. So we prepare for the rain, look
to Christ to order and provide. Last thing I want to talk about
the physical and spiritual both is he's selfless. We're servants
one to another. I mentioned this on Sunday, and
I don't know why the Lord has us looking at this again and
again, but we're selfless one to another in the gospel. We are. We put one another first,
and that's how the Lord told us to be, told us to do. We're
selfless unto our Lord. I pray this is how we work unto
our God and to each other. It's not a labor to gain for
self. It's not a labor to obtain something
spiritually. It's a labor of love unto him. Why do you have a labor of love?
Well, number one, it's in no way or cause for us to be saved.
It's because we are saved. That's a joy. and a privilege
to serve one another. Do you love serving your spouse?
That would be a good way to put it. Some people may say no. I
hope nobody here would say no. I find joy in working for my
wife, taking care of my children. Yes, it's what a man's supposed
to do. And there's joy that comes with that, happiness, I guess,
or contentment. So we work one for another, work
one for another out of love. Now we don't ever look to this
work as evidence of our salvation. If you find yourself, and this
is important, if you find yourself serving each other, if you find
yourself working unto the Lord, looking unto him, following after
him, he's the doer of that. He's the doer of that. That's
not something we just muster up and decide that we're gonna
do. We have to be enabled to seek after the Lord. David said,
I would not have sought the Lord's face unless he said, seek ye
my face. Then my heart said, thy face, O Lord, will I seek. God's the doer of it. We labor
because he saved his people from their sins, not to be saved.
We labor because the blood put away the sin of all God's people. We're not looking to try to put
away our sin. He did that for us. We labor because he finished
the work. We labor one for another in this
gospel. This is our work for the Lord, unto the Lord. And
the Lord has to bless it. If he doesn't bless it, we're
wasting our time. We're just wasting our time.
We don't labor out of obligation, we labor out of privilege. And
I'm saying labor, what does the scripture say? Labor therefore
to enter into rest, is rest. Labor to enter into his rest.
What does he talk about? How do you work to rest? What
does he mean? Work really hard to rest. That
doesn't make any sense. Yes, it does. If you're a believer,
it sure does. Because my body don't like resting
in Christ. My body would like to go and
try to muster up something else. Start maybe going back to the
law. That's what it wants to do all the time. Mixing law and
grace. That's what it loves to do. But
the Lord says, no, no, work to not do that. Labor to enter into
his rest. That means don't move. That's
what that means. Oh, it is certainly finished,
brethren. The work's finished. Christ is seated as a successful
savior of his people. He satisfied the father being
our covenant surety. Satisfied the father being our
substitute. Satisfied the father as our priest and king. He redeemed
everyone he died for. We don't do anything to add to
or take away from that ever. It is finished. It is truly finished. I've already quoted this but
I'll read it to you again. Hebrews 4, there remaineth therefore
a rest to the people of God for he that has entered into his
rest he also has ceased from his own works as God did from
his. Let us labor therefore to enter
into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.
We work resting, looking, trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ as all
our acceptance before God, as all of our righteousness before
God, as all of our justification before God. So many times preachers
I think are afraid to talk about working. We don't work as part
of our salvation. This is not complicated. If you
find yourself serving one another, and that's the thing too, is
most of the time we don't see that we're serving. You're on
the cleanup schedule. Every one of us just about is
on the cleanup schedule. That's serving unto the Lord. That's
what that is. That's what we're doing. Whenever we meet together,
whenever we break bread together, we bring food together, we're
fellowshipping, we're serving one another. That's what we're
doing. This is beautiful. It's beautiful. It's a good thing.
It's honoring unto the Lord when we serve one another as he is
our example. Only the Lord's people understand
that we work resting. That means anything our hands
are doing are not for the purpose of salvation, but it's because
we believe he really finished the work. That's the only reason
that we would do anything. I love this thought. The Lord talks about our good
works being ordained. Your good works are ordained.
Well, what is the good work? Well, it's Christ in you. The
works come out because Christ is in you. The fruit that comes
out is the Lord Jesus Christ coming out. That's exactly what
it is. We don't get any glory in this. The Lord gets all the
glory for this. But all of our good works, they're
not our own. They're not our own. They are worked in us by
divine grace. They're worked in us by divine
grace. The Lord has to be the one that gives Anything good
that comes out of us gotta be Him. You know that's right. Anything
good that comes out of us. Every bit of fruit of God's people
that we yield was determined before time, ordained of God. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. That's the good news. Which brings
us to the last point, the one I wanted to get to the quickest,
the spiritual application, the spiritual application. Let's
read our text again. Proverbs chapter six, verse six
through 16. Go to the aunt thou sluggard,
consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide over her
or no overseer or ruler provided her meat in the summer and gathereth
her food in the harvest. How long will thou sleep, O sluggard?
When thou arise, wilt thou arise out of thou sleep? Get a little
sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep,
so shall thy poverty come as one that travaileth in thy want
as an armed man. There is no greater poverty than
this. than to find yourself without
the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no greater poverty than
to find yourself without the Lord Jesus Christ. No amount
of works can get us to him and no amount of works can prevent
him from saving us. I love that. It means I can't
constrain him and I can't restrain him. If I find myself in poverty,
if this is my case, the case of this poor soul that he's talking
about, there is no greater poverty than not having the Lord Jesus
Christ, being found wanting of the Son of God. These are those
that work, think that they're adding to the reward or making
themselves more likable towards God. I heard somebody say recently
that whenever they go meet God, I said, what are you counting
on to get you into heaven? I don't remember how exactly
I said it, but it was, the person answered me and said, well, I'm
a nice person, and I'll just talk to him. And I thought, no
you won't. Read Revelation chapter one.
John fell on his feet like a dead man. That's what he, when you
see Jesus Christ through the eyes of faith, And when you see
him in judgment, it's not, it's not the same. In judgment, there
is no mercy. Lord's given us the ability to
see that we are not in poverty, that we are not slumbering. He's
the only one that can wake us out of this slumber. He's the
only one that can cause us to, you know, Ezekiel said, can these
bones live? And Lord said, or Lord said,
can these bones live? Ezekiel said, Lord, thou knowest,
thou knowest. And what happened? Well, the
bones lived. Why? God did it. God did it. No, we can't make ourself more
likable to God. It's just not true. Salvation's
by God's choice. Salvation's by God's choice,
determined by His determinate counsel before the world ever
began, accomplished by Christ on Calvary's cross. Now, I wanna
go to that parable in Luke we looked at for the call to worship. Luke chapter 12. He's an individual that had it
wrong, and that's got a physical and a spiritual application as
well. Luke chapter 12, verse 16, and
we're not gonna read the entirety of this again, but we'll just
read this first parable. And the Lord spake a parable
unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought
forth plentiful. And he thought within himself,
saying, What shall I do, because I have no more room where to
bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do.
I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there will
I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul,
Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine
ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God, now that's something
very important to notice. Whenever you read that, that's
either God is interjecting for salvation or he's interjecting
for damnation. And this time it's damnation.
What does he say? But God said unto him, thou fool, this night
thy soul shall be required of thee. Then who shall those things
be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure
for himself and is not rich toward God. Now that could be taken
two ways. Number one, you have the physical
where the man really has barns and he's thinking, okay, I don't
have to worry about death. I'm just going to live it up.
Everything's fine. And the Lord said, you're a fool tonight.
Your soul is required of thee. And you're going to, everything
that you've done is going to be passed on to somebody else. But
the key to all this is the very last verse where he says, so
is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward
God. How am I rich toward God? I need
to know that. How can I be rich toward God?
If you have Christ, you're rich toward God. If you have Christ,
if you don't have Christ, you're not rich toward God. And those
who don't need Christ that has their own self-righteousness,
they are the ones that are laying up treasure for themselves. They
think God is going to bless me for my efforts. God is going
to notice me for my works. God's going to notice me for
what I do. And that's the ones that are not rich toward God,
but the Lord's people are made to be rich toward Him, needing
Christ, needing Christ as all. This poor soul was working for
self, looking at the physical, never paying attention to his
soul, never paying attention to what thus saith the Lord.
So many are like that, aren't there? The Lord tells them in
this same part, where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also. Where your treasure is, there
your heart will be also. This man had barns full of good works,
didn't he? Didn't mean nothing to God. He said, you're gonna
be given to somebody else. It's just a picture of what we
can accomplish. What Cain brought, the works
of his hands. It doesn't mean anything. We have to have the
blood or we're going to be destitute. We're gonna be in despair. We're
gonna be in poverty. Just like the man that was slumbering in
our text. So what about our friend, the
ant? Well, let's go back to our text. The Lord gives us some opposites
here. I want to notice that. Let's
read it again. Proverbs six, verse six. Go to the ant, thou
sluggard, consider her ways and be wise, which having no guide,
overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer and gathereth
her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard,
when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, and
a little slumber, and a little folding of the hands to sleep.
So shall thy poverty come as one that travaileth, and thy
want as an armed man. Now you notice the opposite of
seeking the Lord. The opposite of seeking the Lord
here is the sleeping. It's the sleeping, it's the slumber.
And it ends in poverty. It ends in being, not having
anything. It ends in being naked. It ends
in being destitute. That's what it ends in. It's
true, and this is so important, it's true that you and I cannot
awake ourself by our choice, but Paul said this, let us labor
therefore to enter into that rest. The Lord said, ask and
you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall
be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth,
and he that seeketh findeth, and him that knocketh it shall
be opened. What am I saying? I'm saying we are not excused
from seeking the Lord. We are not excused from crying
out for mercy. The Lord only saves mercy beggars. And here's the best part about
it is if you find yourself seeking the Lord, you find yourself crying
out, God's the doer of that. If you're asking the Lord to
save you, Lord, save me. That's because he already has.
Only the Lord's people cry out, Lord, save me. Through the eyes
of faith, through the heart of faith that the Lord gives, only
the Lord's people do that. Everyone else are the ones that
are asleep still. Do you see the difference? This ant's working. What is he working toward? He's
working towards his king. We work with these hands, sure,
but this is talking about seeking the Lord's face. And how do we
do that? Through prayer? Do we not pray? Is that not sacrifice? Is that not effort? How long
can you pray for? I'm just being real with you.
Sometimes I'll start praying and then all of a sudden I drift
off. I'll be reading scripture the
same thing. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. Lord, I want
to be able to focus whenever I'm crying out to you. I tell you, whenever we're in
desperation, we don't drift off too quick, do we? When we're
in desperation, We're really pouring our heart out. I'm talking
about this daily prayer when we pray, we, I, I say we, maybe
you're all not like me. I cannot focus sometimes, and
oh, I, this wretched man that I am, oh, I wanna talk to the
Lord more. I want to be able to enter into
the prayer and fellowship with him more, and it's, I believe
that's what he's saying here. We, that's, that's the work,
and it's not for salvation. It's because the Lord saved you.
God, the Lord gave you the desire to cry out, the Lord gave you
the desire to pray. The Lord said, come unto me. The
Lord didn't say, wait and I'll be there. He said, come unto
me. Come unto me. If you're laboring,
heavy laden, I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. You shall
find rest to your soul. So how do I find rest to my soul?
I gotta come to Christ. Well, how do I come to Him? Well,
first of all, He has to give me life. Second of all, He has
to give me faith. And lastly, He has to say, come.
So if I come to Christ, it's because He did it all, and I
get no glory in it. That's the point with this. Any
part of this, I've tried to iterate this throughout the whole thing,
is everything that's done here is done through the eyes of faith.
It's done unto the Lord, and we get no glory for it whatsoever.
No glory for it whatsoever. The slugger would say, well,
it's in God's hands. I'm excused from begging. I'm
just going to sleep. Whatever happens is going to
happen. You ever heard anybody talk like that? That's fatalist. That's what
that is. We're not fatalists. No, we desire to come to Christ. We desire to see his face. God
only saves mercy begging sinners. Take him at his word and diligently
seek his face. There's no excuse not to. We're
without excuse. There's no excuse not to come
to Christ. That shows us working doesn't save us, but if we are
indeed laboring to enter into his rest, we're like the ant.
We're like the ant. We're constantly working unto
our King. God is the doer of it. Listen
to this. You've heard me quote this verse
many times, but Isaiah 55 verse one, ho everyone that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters and he that hath no money, come ye buy
and eat. come by with wine and milk without money and without
price. But in the same chapter, it says this in verse six and
seven, seek you the Lord while he may be found, call upon him
while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous
man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will
have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon.
Scripture says the lot falls in the lap, but the whole disposing
is the Lord. No man is going to be able to
stand before the Lord and say, I never had an opportunity to
cry out. You never gave me an opportunity to cry out. If they're
breathing, they have opportunity. They don't want to. The Lord
has to give them the grace and the faith and the life to cry
out unto him. Nobody will cry out unless he
does that. Nobody will cry out. They'll stay asleep. They'll
stay asleep. If you find yourself thirsting
after righteousness, you know what that means? God's the doer
of it. God's the doer of it. If you find yourself seeking,
searching, longing for, hoping in nothing but the shed blood
of Jesus Christ, God's the doer of that. God's the doer of that. You desire to be saved by grace
alone, to be washed by His blood. If you see the blood's the only
remedy for your sin, God is the doer of that. We get no glory
in this. He gets all the glory. That's
what He did for His chosen people. He gives a desire for us to seek
Him, to come to Him, to worship Him. And you're not in poverty. If
that's the case, you're beyond your rich beyond measure, not
in poverty, you're not sleeping anymore. Your barns are full,
but they ain't on this earth. They're in glory. That's where
they're full. It's called the barns of grace,
the barns of mercy, and he just showers it upon us day after
day and endless supply, endless supply. In closing, I'll tell us this, the
ant teaches us to work. The ant teaches us to work physically,
but we get no glory in providing for our family. Did you know
that? You get no glory in providing for your family. God gave you
the air to breathe. God gave you the hands to work with. He
gave you the brain to think. He gave you the feet to walk
on. He gave you the blood in your veins, didn't he? He gave
you life. We get no glory in providing
for our family. He gets all the glory for that. We get no glory for serving our
brethren and our Lord, do we? No, he gets all the glory for
they gave us the desire. He gave us the love. He said
our hearts are knit together in love. What love? His love. He gave us the love. We don't
get any glory in resting, entering into his rest. He's the one that
causes us to enter into his rest. This is what this ant is teaching
us. This is what the ant's teaching us. We get no glory in this.
He gets all the glory. God gave us the strength physically. He gave us life spiritually.
He gets all the glory. Boy, if there be any good thing
that comes out of us, it is true that it has to be of him. Because
in me and in you and in our flesh dwelleth no good thing. No good
thing. We are made to know by grace,
it is the Lord. And you know what we cry when we hear it's
the Lord that gets all the glory? It doesn't make us say, the believer
never will say, well, I want some of the glory for myself.
No, the believer says not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but
unto thine name be all glory and all honor and all praise
forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we
ask that you would take this, cause us to understand it for
your glory in Christ's name. Amen.