Read Proverbs 20:4  This is the fifth time that we have talked about a verse on the sluggard.  God must think that it is pretty important if He has this many verses on it.  I like to go bare foot outside.  When I walk around my back yard, I am careful not to step on a pine cone.  Those really hurt!  But at night, I can't see them.  But one thing worse than stepping on a pine cone in the dark is stepping on a slug when it is out at night.  Ooooh!  Slugs have to be the nastiest creatures that there are!  I despise slugs!  And slugs are the root word for sluggard.  I bet God despises a sluggard as much as I despise a slug.  In our verse, King Solomon says that when it is time to go our and prepare the farmland to plant the new crops, the sluggard doesn't want to go our because he thinks it is too cold.  But if he doesn't plow the ground and plant the seeds on time, the seeds can't begin to grow.  When the weather gets nice and warm, it is too late to go our and plant.  Now it is time for the little plants to be up and growing well.  So when other farmers are out harvesting their crops, the sluggard's plants are just beginning to grow up.  He put them out too late because he was too lazy and didn't want to go our and plow in the cool weather.  When the sluggard's plants get ready to produce their harvest, the cold frost of the fall kills them and the sluggard has no harvest.  You may remember that this is called Cause and Effect.  it is a chain of events like this:  The sluggard's crops don't produce because the fall frost killed the plants - because the plants were too late in maturing - because the seeds were put into the ground too late - because the sluggard didn't want to go out into the cool air to plow the ground.  The sluggard has no crops and no food for the year because way back in the early spring, he didn't want to get out of his warm house and do his work!  My, my!  One lazy day can have such a terrible result!  So what is our lesson here?  Talk about it and then I'll give you some of mine.

Don't be lazy.  Don't be afraid of the cold.  Don't put off the work that you must do.  Don't be a sluggard.  Do your work on time.