The Hungry Mouth
As a farmer, you could harvest your land, but you could not continue to harvest until everything was gone. You had to leave some of your crops in the field, or on the trees so the poor could glean.
There are so many nuggets in Proverbs 16, like verse 3, “Commit your works to the Lord, And your thoughts will be established,” and in verse 7, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
But for today, I focused on verse 26 for two reasons. Let’s look at them below.
“The person who labors, labors for himself,
For his hungry mouth drives him on.”
(Proverbs 16:26, NKJV)
The first is obvious. If you are hungry and want to provide for yourself, then you will have to go to work and be diligent in doing so.
In ancient societies, there were few security nets for those who were poor.
In fact, if a person was lazy, there weren’t any social programs to feed them. In the Old Testament, gleaning was allowed so the poor could provide for themselves.
“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field when you reap, nor shall you gather any gleaning from your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger: I am the Lord your God.’ ” (Leviticus 23:22, NKJV)
As a farmer, you could harvest your land, but you could not continue to harvest until everything was gone. You had to leave some of your crops in the field, or on the tree so that those who were poor could go on to your property to work and harvest whatever they could carry to provide for themselves and their families. This may seem a little unfair because farmers should be allowed to do whatever they want with their property. But we also have to remember that the land they were living in was God’s and they were just sojourners who worked the land. He allowed them to “inherit” it, but the property was owned by heaven and therefore, must be governed by heaven’s law. There was no reason at all that someone should go without provision in God’s blessed country.
A lazy person could never be satisfied with food because they are too lazy to work for it. They couldn’t just stay home and expect someone else to send them food or money. Paul wrote to the Thessalonian Christians:
“For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” (2 Thessalonians 3:10, NKJV)
They had to work. If they were hungry enough, the proverb says, they would eventually go into the field and work for their food.
But there is a second reason. This has to do with a spiritual field. God has provided an abundant harvest in His word. But like any field, in order to reap the fruit of the harvest, you have to do the work.
People who call themselves Christians and do not read their Bibles are like those who call themselves farmers but never go out and harvest what is rightly theirs.
But this kind of work, this kind of diligence, will only present itself when someone is starving, spiritually. A lazy believer will never reap the full benefits of the word of God because they won’t work; they won’t read. “If you don’t work, neither shall you eat” is a good principle in the Christian life as well. Are you hungry? A wonderful meal is waiting for you on the pages of God’s word, the Bible. Open it up today. Put in the work, study it, know it, for within its pages you’ll find the richness of the will of God and have a full spiritual belly.
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