Love Your Neighbor By Letting the Lazy Starve

AD Robles

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All right, let's see what we got going on here. All right, well,

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I just wanted to try out this live stream thing again. I don't know if I'll be doing too many live streams in the future, but I just figured

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I'd try this. I had an idea and rather than record a video, I thought it'd be a good idea for a live stream.

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And, you know, we've been talking a lot about loving your neighbor as yourself. And I've said in a variety of different contexts that oftentimes what people say is an example of loving your neighbor is not in the law of God.

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And so we've got to be very careful to make sure that if we're saying something as a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself, that it's something that Christ actually commands.

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And I was thinking today about all of these COVID benefits where it's like, you know, you get paid to stay home, right?

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And you could go to work, you know, there's jobs out there. My real job is talent acquisition, consulting and recruiting.

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And so I know, listen, there's a lot of jobs out there and you don't even need to be in the field to know this. All you gotta do is drive down the street and everyone has a

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Help Wanted sign out. So there are people out there that could work that's just simply aren't.

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And, you know, I would bet that a good amount of people would say, well, you know, it's a dangerous pandemic and therefore, you know, we should allow them to just sit at home and be safe and all of this kind of stuff.

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And still, you know, they have to eat, they have expenses and stuff like that. So it's loving to sort of provide for them in that way.

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And that's actually not loving. Like people that are unwilling to work, if you want to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to let those people starve.

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And that's not me speaking, that's the word of God. So let me read the passage that I want to, let me see, how do

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I do this? Do I do that? So share a screen, hold on.

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I'm new to this live streaming thing. So I'm gonna see if I can share my screen and yeah.

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I don't know if that's gonna do it, but maybe my screen is sharing,

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I'm not really sure, but I'm gonna read the passage anyway, one way or the other. This is 2 Thessalonians 3.

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This is what the word of God says. We command you brethren in the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us.

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For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us for we were not disorderly among you, nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but we worked with labor and toil night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.

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For even when we were with you, we commanded you this, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.

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For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busy bodies.

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Now, those who are such, we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.

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So here's the thing. So that should be enough for any Christian, right? If someone's not willing to work, he should not eat.

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In other words, he should starve. If you don't eat, you die. So Paul's saying, if you're not willing to work, you should die.

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Like, let's not hear that in a way that sort of takes away all the oomph and the power from it.

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Like, that's what he's saying. He's saying, if you're lazy, you're a busy body, you don't work, you don't produce anything, you should be allowed to starve.

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That is loving your neighbor as yourself. For a Christian, that's enough. God says it, it's a command from the scripture, so we ought to follow it, right?

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That's enough for most, well, it should be enough for Christians. But the thing about God's law is that God's not ridiculous, right?

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Like, he understands how the world works. He understands the laws of economics.

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He understands science and everything that we think makes us so, so smart.

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God knows perfectly, right? And so you shouldn't need the explanation as to why this makes sense as a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself.

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Let me say it again. If you want to love your neighbor as yourself, you should say that anyone who is not willing to work should starve.

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Okay, let's explain it a little bit. So here's what happens when people aren't working, but they're allowed to eat, right?

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So think about in Paul's day, right? Most people worked with their hands. A lot of people were kind of farmers.

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They ate what they grew and were able to raise, you know, animals, stuff like that. And so think about those that aren't working, right?

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They're not doing any of that. They're not growing food. They're not pulling weeds. They're not, you know, raising animals, taking care of the chickens, whatever it is.

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So they're actually not producing any food, any goods, any services, nothing at all, but they're still eating, right?

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So they're not producing any food, but they're still eating. And so if enough people take that mentality where they're just gonna sit on their butts and not do anything, eventually there's not gonna be enough food for anybody because they're not adding anything to the pile, but they are taking away from the pile.

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So therefore, if you want to love your, you think through it economically, if you wanna love your neighbor as yourself, not just your lazy, gluttonous, worthless neighbor, but also the hardworking neighbors with families and stuff like that, if you want to make sure there's enough for everyone, then you must say, look, if you're not gonna add to the pile, you're not gonna get jack, right?

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It's a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself. It's not hateful to say to your lazy, gluttonous, you know, worthless neighbor who won't work, you need to starve.

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You're not getting anything here. Or get to work is really what you should say. Get to work.

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That's what Paul says. He says they should starve, but really what they should do is get to work. So it's not that you're hating that person.

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It's that you're loving all your neighbors, right? Because they're not adding any value. And think about what's going on in our economy right now.

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We've got tons of people that were told to stay home. And so when they were staying home, they weren't producing any goods.

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They weren't producing any services. So they were not adding to the pile, so to speak, because nowadays a lot of people don't work with their hands.

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They, you know, they do other things. They have goods and services and stuff like that. They're not farmers, most people. So they're sitting at home and the government paid them to do that.

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So they have money, so they can still eat. They can still buy goods and services, even as they're not producing to the pile, so to say, of goods and services.

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And in some cases, the government gave them even more money than they would have made if they were working, right?

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So a lot of people, we've heard this again and again, they were making more money staying home, not adding any value than they were when they were adding value.

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So what do you think is gonna happen to our pile of stuff if we have thousands upon thousands of people that aren't willing to work because they're scared of getting, you know, the sniffles, but they are consuming, right?

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They have money, so they're able to eat, but they're not willing to work. And it's like, what do you think is gonna happen?

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Well, what's gonna happen is the prices of those goods and services, because now there's less of them, right?

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Because before, when they were adding value, they were producing goods, they were producing services. Now they're not doing that anymore.

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So now there's less goods and services than there used to be, but there's actually more money chasing those same or less goods and services.

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Well, of course, the prices are gonna go up, right? The prices are gonna start to go through the roof, and that's what inflation is.

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Inflation is happening right now. You go to the grocery store, chances are you're paying a lot more for the same stuff than you used to pay.

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And eventually what happens is that there are shortages now because everyone's getting all the stuff that they can, the prices go through the roof, and of course, there's gonna be massive shortages as well.

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So all of these compassionate, progressive liberals who say, oh yeah, you know, the coronavirus is so scary, let's pay people to stay home, so let's pay people, let's incentivize people so they're not willing to work, they're actually screwing over everybody because there's less stuff to go around.

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And who they're screwing over the most, by the way, is actually the poor people who are willing to work.

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See, that's the thing that's so perverse about this. That's the thing that's so hateful about our economic welfare programs and our

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COVID relief programs and stuff like that. What's so evil and wicked about it is that the people that get hurt the most by it are the poor people, the working class, that are willing to work.

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You see, this is the perverse nature of it. They're willing to work, they're going to their jobs, maybe their service jobs, maybe their manufacturing jobs, whatever it is, and they can no longer afford to, you know, the cost of living because of all those people that the government paid to be not willing to work and stay home and add good.

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See, but the thing is, for a Christian though, we don't need to know the economics of how it works. I mean, that is how it works.

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I mean, God knows how the system works and so he makes commands that make sense, you know, for people to thrive, right?

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When God says those who are not willing to work should starve or get to work, in other words, he's not saying that to be a big meanie.

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He's not saying that to be a jerk. He's saying that because that's how we thrive, right? He's showing us how to live and how to thrive and all of that kind of thing.

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And so our job as Christians, even if we don't understand the economics of the situation and how supply and demand drives prices up and how inflation causes shortages and how it screws over the poor people in the working class, like even if we didn't know any of that stuff, it should be enough for us to trust

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God enough to follow his law, knowing that he's good, right? Because God has been good since the beginning, right?

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God was good in the Old Testament times when he gave the law to Israel. He was good in the

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New Testament times when Paul's writing letters to the Thessalonians and he's good right now.

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And so we need to trust him and obey his law, even if to us it seems, well, that's kind of harsh.

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I mean, why should they starve? I mean, you know, it's dangerous coronavirus after all. Like we need to trust

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God's word more than our feelings, I guess I should say. And so anyone who wants to love their neighbor as themselves, they better have a direct chapter and verse application or some kind of natural law thing that we can confirm in the scriptures.

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Otherwise, there's a very good chance that it's actually the opposite. It's actually hating your neighbor as yourself.

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When you pay your neighbor to stay home and let him eat while he's not working, that's hating your neighbor, not loving your neighbor.