6-8 Take a lesson from the ants, you lazybones. Learn from their ways and become wise. Though they have no prince or governor or ruler to make them work, they labour hard all summer, gathering food for the winter. 9-11 But you, lazybones, how long will you sleep? When will you wake up?  A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest - then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber. Proverbs 6:6-11 New Living Translation.

The New Living Translation's paraphrase uses a word we all know well. Lazybones! Other translations use the words 'sluggard', 'slacker', or 'slothful one'. I guess we get the picture! The writer, who'd been giving advice to his son, now gives some general advice for all his readers, and these verses clearly warn of the danger of laziness. What do verses 9-11 tell us about laziness that people may not notice at first?

I think it's that the results of laziness are not always immediately obvious. That's why people take that 'little more slumber', and put things off 'a little longer'. Yeah, we'll get around to it sometime! But life doesn't wait – it speeds on – and one day the lazy person discovers that they didn't make adequate provision for the hard times that come. Enter the humble ant! (vs 6-8) The lesson we learn from ants is a good one. No one has to tell them what to do or when to do it, they just get on with what needs to be done. And what was the purpose of their diligent labour?

They worked while it was warm and light - in order to be ready for when it was cold and dark.

In the same way, Christians are also called to be a hard working people. In 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 Paul says: “This is what we commanded you: 'If anyone isn’t willing to work, he should not eat.' For we hear that there are some among you who are idle. They are not busy but busybodies. Now we command and exhort such people by the Lord Jesus Christ to work quietly and provide for themselves.”

Now if this is true of the common things of life and the welfare of our body, how much more true will it be for eternal things and the welfare of our soul? In Romans 13 Paul writes: “Time is running out – WAKE UP - for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. Put off your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armour of right living. Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties and drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Charles Spurgeon, a man who regularly preached to a large congregation in London in the late 1800's, wrote the following challenging words to fellows preachers. He said: "Two of my hearers perished by a fire in their own house. They were not consumed by the flames, but they were suffocated by the smoke. No blaze was ever visible, nor could any remarkable sign of fire be seen from the street, yet they died as readily as if they had been burned to ashes by raging flames. In this way, sin also is deadly! Comparatively few of our hearers are destroyed by outrageous and flaming vices, such as blasphemy, theft, drunkenness or uncleanness; but crowds of them are perishing by that deadly smoke of indifference which casts its stifling clouds of carelessness around them, and sends them asleep into everlasting destruction. O that they could be saved from the smoke as well as from the flame.”

May we indeed take a lesson from the ants and diligently prepare for the day when we must stand before our Creator and give account for our lives, and of how we used the abilities He entrusted us with.