The Sin of Enabling

The Bible Bashed Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Warning, the following message may be offensive to some audiences. These audiences may include, but are not limited to, professing Christians who never read their

00:05

Bible, sissies, sodomites, men with man buns, those who approve of men with man buns, man bun enablers, white knights for men with man buns, homemakers who have finished

00:10

Netflix but don't know how to meal plan, and people who refer to their pets as fur babies. Viewer discretion is advised. People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio.

00:25

The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject

00:31

Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

00:38

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of almighty

00:43

God is hanging over our heads. They will hear

00:49

His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

00:58

God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the

01:11

Father, where He sits now to make intercession for us. Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear

01:17

His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

01:28

If you do have a Bible, turn to 2 Thessalonians 3, and we're going to be reading 2

01:34

Thessalonians 3, 6 -12. So whenever you get to 2 Thessalonians 3, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's word.

01:59

2 Thessalonians 3, 6. Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our

02:04

Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you've received from us.

02:13

For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it.

02:22

But with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate.

02:33

For even when we were with you, we would give this command, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.

02:39

For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the name of the

02:48

Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. It's the word of the

02:53

Lord. Let's pray. Lord, we do thank you for the words that you've given to us, which are life to us.

03:01

We pray that you help us today to hear great things from your scriptures, help convict us of our sin, help us to personally seek to apply by the

03:10

Spirit all the ways in which we may be violating your commands without knowing it, and give us hope that you stand ready to forgive us when we ask.

03:19

We thank you for all you do. In your Son's name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Now when we think about ways in which we may tempt other people to sin or put a stumbling block in their path of sin, most naturally we think of ways in which we as sinful human beings with malicious motives are actively seeking to do them harm and encourage their harm.

03:51

But as you read through the scriptures, one of the things that you're going to find is that there are many instances in which we as Christians are tempted to do other people harm by seeking their good and doing good and kind and generous things for them.

04:08

And with respect to the nature of the destruction that this kind of sin can bring, it's very difficult to compare the two because you can destroy a person's life through kindness just as well as you can destroy their life through active evil.

04:28

And we ought to do well to pay attention to these things. Now when you read 2 Thessalonians 3, one of the things you realize is that you're dealing with a situation where Christians are tempted to entice other people to sin through acts of kindness, through acts of charity.

04:46

And so this is a topic that we would do well to think about. Today we're going to be talking about the sin of enabling.

04:55

And this is a sin that Christians are quick to fall prey to partly because we as Christians, we're a generous people and we're taught by God and Christ to do good to those who persecute us and despitefully use us.

05:11

We're taught to be generous to people who don't deserve the kindness that we show to them.

05:19

But as I said, this is a sin that Christians are very prone to commit and it's a sin that we're going to talk about today.

05:24

When we think about the passage here, 2 Thessalonians comes to us in a particular context. So the context of 2

05:31

Thessalonians is that these books are written, these are very early books that are written and there was an expectation that you're going to find as you read through these books that Christ's return would be very soon.

05:45

So many people in the early church, they knew and understood that and thought that Christ would be coming soon. And because they thought

05:51

Christ was going to be coming so quickly because of a lot of the words that Jesus said, they have a temptation towards idleness.

05:57

Because after all, if Jesus is going to return and arrive at any moment, then why not just sit there and do nothing and wait for him to come, right?

06:06

And so this is a very natural temptation that many people have. This is a temptation that the early church had.

06:12

It's a temptation that's surrounding the formation of the early church in general. So one of the things that happen when you think about the formation of the early church, you find in the book of Acts that there is a remarkable change from the

06:26

Old Covenant into the New Covenant. It is a huge deal that Jesus Christ has come to be the fulfillment of the law.

06:36

This is a huge deal in the lives of the Jewish believers. If you understand the nature of their lives beforehand, they've been given a portion of land and inheritance in the promised land that was going to be their eternal possession.

06:50

The nature of their mission, like the mission of the Old Testament, in part is to hold on to that land which is an inheritance that's given to them by their fathers, that's passed along through families and tribes.

07:03

One of the things you'll find is in the story of Ahab trying to steal

07:08

Naboth's vineyard, Naboth looks at Ahab and says, it would be wrong, it would be evil for me to sell you the birthright of my fathers.

07:19

When you think about the nature of the Jewish relationship to the land, their lives were tied very particularly to a very specific portion of land.

07:32

When Jesus came, that changed the nature of the mission. No longer were they commanded to stay in the promised land forever and make that their eternal inheritance.

07:42

They were told to take the good news and spread it to Jerusalem first, then Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

07:49

They were given a missionary calling that they were supposed to take this good news and sell it and spread it everywhere.

07:56

What you'll find in the book of Acts is after the day of Pentecost, 3 ,000 people were added to the church. Those 3 ,000 people that were added to the church sold their houses and lands and properties and they gave those funds, they laid those at the foot of the apostles because they knew that their life was going to be remarkably different.

08:17

If you look at the picture of the early church, one of the things that Christians who have a socialist kind of bent are apt to point out is that in the early church, they had all things in common.

08:28

What they think that meant is they shared one purse, it was socialism. Really what's happening is you're living in a time where Jews have realized that Jesus was

08:37

Messiah. This is going to radically change the nature of their life. They're selling their houses, their lands, and their property.

08:43

They're devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, which is happening daily at the temple.

08:49

They're in a unique time where they're being told all the expectations about what Jesus coming to earth, taking on flesh, dwelling among us, becoming the once and for all sacrifice of sin means to them.

09:02

But very quickly, they can't just stay there forever devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching every single day.

09:10

They have to get back to work. These are dynamics that are happening behind the scenes when you get to the book of 2

09:18

Thessalonians. One of the things you realize is that many people in the Thessalonian church, they thought that Christ would be coming quickly, and so they were prone to idleness.

09:28

This was a sin that they were actively committing, and this is a sin that the apostles are warning against.

09:34

Jesus Christ will return. Amen. He's going to return quickly. Amen. But we need to continue to get to work, and there's a lot of work to be done until that time when he does return.

09:46

The book of 2 Thessalonians, in our passage, it starts with 2 Thessalonians 3, 6.

09:53

It says this, We command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness, and not accord with the tradition that you've received from us.

10:06

What we see is that this passage starts with an apostolic command to reject the idol.

10:14

When you think about the nature of the apostles' commands, it's important to realize that the apostles' commands come from Christ.

10:21

They're not just speaking of their own authority. They're speaking the authority of Christ. So the revelation of Christ, it comes in two different phases.

10:30

So Jesus, before he was taken up, this is what Luke tells us in the opening chapters of Luke, before Jesus was taken up, he had given commands to the apostles.

10:40

Luke says in Luke 1, As much as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account to you, most excellent

11:00

Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you've been taught. So the revelation of Christ, as I said, it comes in two different phases.

11:09

It came through Jesus' earthly ministry while he was here on earth to the apostles, which the

11:15

Gospels are a record of. If you think about the nature of what the Gospels are doing, they're a record of Jesus' teaching.

11:21

They're a record of the things that Jesus did and taught. Now they're not an absolute record in terms of, they don't set out to tell you everything that Jesus did and taught.

11:30

John tells us that if everything that Jesus did and taught were written, I suppose the world itself couldn't contain the books that would be written of that.

11:37

But it is a sufficient record of what Jesus did and taught to know God's will and his expectations for us.

11:43

But, if you remember, before Jesus left, he looked at his apostles and he says,

11:49

I have more things to teach you. And the helper whom I'm going to send, the Holy Spirit, he's going to guide you into all truth.

11:54

He's going to give you those additional things that you're not able to bear at this point after my departure.

12:01

And the apostles were instructed to wait for power to come from on high in order to give these additional commands that God had to give to them.

12:09

So Acts 1 .1, Luke tells us this. He says, in the first book, O Theophilus, I've dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up.

12:19

And then after that he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

12:25

So when the apostles here are saying, now we command you, brothers, in the name of the

12:30

Lord Jesus Christ, they're not appealing to their own authority, they're appealing to the authority of Christ. They're making a claim to revelation.

12:37

These are those additional commands that the Lord Jesus Christ has for you that were given to us by the

12:42

Holy Spirit and established on the basis of signs and wonders and miraculous gifts and everything else.

12:47

So the apostles' commands come from Christ and this command that we look at today is not something that we can just say, hey, that was the apostles.

12:56

They just decided to talk about these things. These are commands that are coming from Christ and the command that is given in this passage is the command to reject the idol.

13:08

And we talk about the nature of what that means when you talk about what does it mean to reject the idol.

13:15

What does it mean to keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness? You're talking about the category of church discipline.

13:23

There's a few things that's more uncomfortable to the life of believers in general than the topic of church discipline.

13:30

If you look at the church in large measure, one of the things you're going to find is in particular the

13:38

American church, the Reformed church, whatever church you're talking about, church in general in our time, in our location in history, we are not often guilty of the sin of disciplining too much.

13:52

If there's any indictment that could be made upon us in our own particular time and place in history is that we discipline too little.

14:01

In fact, most of us probably don't have the stomach to practice church discipline and unfortunately church discipline is something that almost never happens in most churches.

14:15

It's a very rare thing that a church would practice church discipline. I'm not saying, hey look, let's overcompensate and find ways to correct the imbalance.

14:25

I'm just trying to say that we ought to be aware brothers and sisters that our most natural impulses at this point are not to discipline too much.

14:34

Our natural impulses are basically to discipline too little, if at all. Those are our temptations.

14:41

Our temptation is to not listen to what Paul says. I'm not saying that these temptations are particularly unique to us in this time and place in history, although I do think that we are very much characterized by the sin of a neglect of discipline over against a sin of over discipline.

15:00

When you think about the nature of what's happening here, the apostles are putting idleness in the category of church discipline.

15:10

When you read this passage, you should understand that the apostles are putting that sin of idleness in the category of church discipline.

15:18

They're not giving a lot of caveats for it, are they? It may not be intuitively obvious why it should be put in that category as well.

15:28

I think as a church, we often have a very underdeveloped theology of work. Because we have an underdeveloped theology of work, it may not be intuitively obvious why this is such a significant deal, why this is something that you would discipline over.

15:44

It may seem like they're blowing this way out of proportion. The less familiar we are with Scripture, the less intuitively obvious this all becomes.

15:57

Yet, this isn't just an instruction that's given related to one passage. 1

16:03

Timothy 5 says, if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for members of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

16:16

This is the uniform teaching of Scripture that idleness is something that should be treated in the most serious terms possible.

16:26

The only way you understand why that's happening is if you understand that God made man. He put him in a garden and gave him a purpose to work and to keep it.

16:35

Work is central to humanity's mission in the here and now, and when you take work away from people, you are robbing them of their dignity.

16:45

In the language of this passage, if you enable people to not work and be productive, you are treating them in a subhuman way.

16:55

There are even animals who know this lesson like the ants that we should at times look to learn it from.

17:03

Work is God's gift given to man, and the preacher in Ecclesiastes tells us this over and over again.

17:08

Work is central to man's purpose in the here and now, and when you take it away, you do rob people of their dignity.

17:19

This is a much more serious thing than what you might imagine. One of the things the

17:25

Nazis would do in World War II would be they would make the Jews engage in labor projects, and then they would immediately destroy them afterwards because they understood something about the nature of the work that God created man to work.

17:42

When you destroy a man's work, you are destroying his dignity. I learned this lesson when

17:49

I was delivering appliances. When we were learning how to,

17:55

I did a job for a while where I was delivering appliances, and in order to learn how to carry refrigerators on dollies, they made us take all of the refrigerators and washers and dryers from one side of the warehouse to the other.

18:08

We thought that we were doing that for a purpose. We brought them over there to one side of the warehouse.

18:16

When we got done, they told us to take them from that point all the way back to where they started. I felt like I was being treated like a

18:22

Nazi at that point. I thought I was working towards some objective that made sense, but really it was just a learning exercise to teach me how to work.

18:30

I'm just here to say that God has given us work, and when we refuse to work, it actually is a much bigger deal than what we realize.

18:37

The apostolic command here is to reject the idol because they have an understanding. Here's the point.

18:43

They have an understanding of the primacy of work that we often are tempted to tone down.

18:51

We command you brothers in the name of Lord Jesus Christ, you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition you received from us.

19:00

Four, verse seven, you yourself know how you ought to imitate us because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you.

19:14

It's not because we do not have the right, but to give you in ourselves an example to emulate.

19:21

So first we see in the passage the apostolic command to reject the idol. Second, we see the apostolic example of work to imitate.

19:31

Now the apostles encouraged the Thessalonians to follow their example, but note the apostles are also following the example of Christ and the apostles are also following the example of God.

19:45

Notice Jesus, John 5, 17, Jesus answers them, my Father is working until now and I am working.

19:51

John 9, 4, we must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, night is coming when no one is work.

19:58

Jesus came to earth to do the work that the Father had prepared for him to do before the foundation of the world.

20:05

Jesus came to earth to accomplish that work and he accomplished that work in a way that we will never accomplish any work, right?

20:13

He accomplished that work perfectly and completely directly in obedience to the

20:20

Father in everything. So Jesus came to earth to work. When we say we're not saved by works, that's somewhat inaccurate in the sense that we're not saved by our works, we're saved by Christ's work, aren't we?

20:36

So we are saved by work, it's not by our work, it's by Christ's work on the cross. So Christ came to accomplish a great work.

20:46

So not only did Christ come to accomplish a great work of salvation for us, God worked and we've been thinking about that over the last few weeks, haven't we?

20:55

In the opening chapters of Genesis where God created the world out of nothing, ex nihilo,

21:01

God created the world out of nothing in six days and saw that it was very good.

21:07

The apostles, they're putting themselves forward as examples of work to emulate, so they're telling you to reject the idol, they're putting themselves forward as examples to emulate, but then they are also emulating

21:20

Christ and God in their working to provide a tangible example to the

21:27

Thessalonians of faithfulness. Third, we see the apostolic command to not enable the idols at 2

21:37

Thessalonians 3 10. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command if anyone is not willing to work let him not eat.

21:50

Now I've described this over the course of the sermon today and the language of enabling and enabling is obviously not a word that's found in the

21:59

Bible, it's a word that's frequently used in counseling context and because it's a word that's frequently used in counseling context, it is a word that could be prone to misunderstanding and it may not be the most helpful word to use at all, but it is a word that I believe is a summary of a certain kind of sin that we can commit against other people, which is a very destructive kind of sin.

22:24

So let's deal with some simple definitions of this word and talk about how they apply to this definition in scripture in general.

22:33

So enabler is a person or thing that enables something or makes it possible. It's a fairly neutral definition, isn't it?

22:40

A person or thing that enables something or makes it possible. That could be a good thing, that could be a bad thing. So you think about an enabler, you can enable something good, you can enable something bad.

22:51

When using the counseling context, enabling generally refers to actions or lack of actions that allow, support or facilitate another person's harmful behavior to continue, whether knowingly or unknowingly.

23:05

Enabling involves making it easier for someone to persist in destructive behavior often by removing the natural consequences they would otherwise face.

23:15

So enabling can involve excusing or justifying bad behavior rather than addressing it directly, failing to hold someone accountable, allowing them to avoid responsibility, protecting someone from the consequences of their actions or providing resources or support that facilitate harmful behavior.

23:32

So when you think about enabling, as I said, that's not a word in the Bible, but then there is many different concepts in the

23:39

Bible that would be necessarily violated through this enact of enabling.

23:45

So as I said, enabling is not a biblical word, but it's a useful summary of a variety of sins which can be committed out of a misguided understanding of compassion.

23:56

With enabling, charity essentially becomes an enticement to sin. So to put this in biblical language, we're talking about charity as an enticement to sin or charity as the facilitation of sin.

24:12

So one of the ways you can enable someone in the language of this passage is you can enable them to be idle by continuing to give them monetary support.

24:20

What are you doing when you're doing that? You're enticing them to sin. You're facilitating their sin.

24:27

You're subsidizing their sin. Your charity and your generosity is functioning as a biblical stumbling block in the way of obedience for them.

24:38

Do you understand? So imagine someone telling you they want to create an idol to worship and serve instead of the living

24:46

God. Imagine someone telling you that and you say, hey, you know what, I have some metal and I have an engraving tool.

24:55

Here you go, right? That would be an example of the sin of enabling. And I think most of you, like you would think, if someone were to come to you with that intention and say, hey,

25:06

I want to create an idol, your Christian impulses would kick in and you would say, well, don't ask me to help, right?

25:13

I'm not going to buy you the stuff so you can make your idol. I'm not going to give you techniques on how to engrave this thing and carve it because I can't really control you.

25:22

I can't really help what you're doing. So if you put the matter that starkly, most of us would recoil and think there's something wrong there, right?

25:34

There's something wrong with me giving you everything that you need in order to carry out your sinful plan.

25:40

And I think in the extremes we can often identify this sin in the extremes. So for example, if someone were to come to you and say, hey,

25:47

I want to kill myself and you're a doctor, can you give me a shot in order to make that happen?

25:55

Most of us as Christians would think it would be morally reprehensible to give them their euthanasia shot in order to help them, assist them in taking their lives.

26:09

We understand this in some areas, but then I think we have a great temptation that we may not be aware of to do this very thing as it relates to our loved ones in general.

26:22

So there's plenty of common examples of enabling that we fall prey to without even realizing it.

26:30

So as an example, parents enabling children. There's a growing trend among young adults today and whatever young adult is,

26:41

I think we just keep on making up new categories. And so you have preteens and teens and young adults.

26:48

Apparently young adult includes right now the category of 18 to 34 year olds. So that's a pretty broad category.

26:56

But there's a growing trend of young adults now that a third of young adults from 18 to 34 are still living with their parents.

27:04

So the trend there is the trend of failure to launch. And what may be surprising is that 36 % of those are men and 30 % are women when you would naturally expect it to be the opposite way.

27:19

Like you would expect it to be more reasonable that because a man's job is to go and prepare a place for a wife so that where he is, she might be also.

27:28

There's a natural kind of impulse to say that it would be wise for him to start making some progress on that so that he can bring a wife into a situation whereas a woman being the weaker vessel opens herself up to many, many temptations and has no form of protection if she's just launched out on her own by herself with no form of protection or care.

27:52

But the trend here is just to say that 36 % of men aged 18 to 34 and 30 % of young women seem to be failing to launch.

28:03

So parents enabling children is a significant problem. There's children who enable parents.

28:11

So there's plenty of situations where children are out of a sense of compassion and care for their parents in an attempt to try to honor them or providing total financial provision for them very early on in their lives.

28:29

Not in their later years where they're physically unable to work but providing total financial provision for them and providing for them to be idle basically.

28:40

To have nothing productive to do because often they're being manipulated and guilted into doing this.

28:46

So parents enabling children there's examples of parents enabling children to be idle children enabling parents to be idle we can think about.

28:54

Husbands can enable wives I mean I gave statistics about dual income families right now there's plenty of husbands who are enabling wives to basically reject all of their responsibilities to be homemakers, to be domestic, to be workers at home in order to ask

29:15

I know situation after situation after situation where young men are demanding that their wife take on the role of being a provider for them enabling them to not fulfill their responsibilities and work the work that they're called to do the exact opposite is true too.

29:33

There's wives who enable husbands in that same way to not take on their responsibility to be a provider by jumping in and taking over that role for them.

29:45

I mean I think that's an area where a wife should look at her husband and say you can't ask me to obey you right?

29:54

Over and against God I need to obey God rather than men. There are times where if a husband is asking you to take over his job for him you look at him and say

30:02

I have a higher authority that tells me what my job is than you. And so there are times where wives should not submit to their husbands and one of those clear times is when a husband is asking his wife to enable him to reject

30:18

God's commands by taking over his job for him. As I said you're talking about this apostolic command to not enable the idol.

30:28

This is a common problem that pastors and church members face where pastors and church members enable their fellow church members to walk in sin with no consequence.

30:40

This is not obviously a new temptation for us. This is a temptation that's always existed. Paul in 1

30:46

Corinthians 5 -6 says your boasting is not good. Your glorying is not good. You think that you're being generous towards this brother who has his mother -in -law as wife.

31:00

You think that you're being generous towards him. Your glorying is not good.

31:06

This isn't an example of generosity. This is an example of kindness. You are harming this individual by not dealing with it in the right kind of way.

31:15

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens a whole lump? Therefore remove the leaven so that you may be a pure lump.

31:22

Titus 3 -10 says as for a person who stirs up division after warning him once and then twice have nothing more to do with him knowing such a person is warped and sinful he is self condemned.

31:34

There's plenty of examples that I could give of parents enabling children, children enabling parents, husbands enabling wives, wives enabling husbands, pastors church members who enable their fellow church members.

31:47

The Bible is replete with these kind of things. As you think about the main example it's important to realize what they're talking about here goes against our basic notions of charity in certain ways, doesn't it?

32:04

So 2 Thessalonians 3 -10 says for even when we are with you we would give this command if anyone is not willing to work let him not eat.

32:16

Again, this command is given because we have a natural temptation when you see a person who appears to be in need as a

32:26

Christian you feel this impulse rising up within yourself to meet that need but part of the problem is that not all needs are needs, are they?

32:37

Not all needs are legitimate. If you've worked with people who are in low income areas to any degree and we certainly did at my last church we had many people coming to our church asking for money, asking for provision and I can tell you story after story after story after story of situations where we as a church wanted to help people and we would give them opportunities to work and earn provision.

33:09

So they're asking for food, you say hey we have a job to do, if you do this job we'll go get you some food and I'll tell you in case after case after case after case they would look at us and they would be unwilling to work in order to, they expected you to give them material provision but they weren't willing to work for it, they weren't willing to earn it and if you think that like here's the issue, if you think that you should just give anyone something that asks them what you're going to find is they're going to come to you every single day and expect you to be their provider for them that's the way things actually work out and there's more consequences to these things than what you might imagine.

33:49

So the apostolic command is to not enable the idol because verse 11 there are consequences to enabling idleness.

33:59

So verse 11 we hear that some among you are walking in idleness, not busy at work but busy bodies.

34:07

So there's consequences, here's the thing brothers and sisters, there's consequences to enabling idleness. This passage mentions one mentions one consequence of idleness and you can see these consequences bear themselves out in different ways throughout both testimonies but one consequence of enabling idleness is that people have a lot more time to meddle in the affairs of other people.

34:31

So if you don't have something productive to do what you're often going to be tempted to do is to mess things up.

34:39

So one of the ways you mess things up is to be a busy body, you have time to go from house to house meddling in affairs that don't belong to you stirring up conflict, stirring up divisions one of the temptations of young men is to get into trouble when they don't have productive things to do.

35:02

So you see this in the book of Proverbs you see the temptations that come from idleness some of those temptations are temptations to join a gang, to go around and mess things up what do young men do when they have too much time on their hands and nothing productive to do some of the young men are shaking their heads right now because you imagine some of the things you're tempted to do hey

35:27

I got a great idea why don't we drive by in our car with a baseball bat and see if we can play baseball with the mailboxes these are the kind of things that guys are tempted to do when they have too much time on their hands but this is not just like a cultural phenomenon the bible has a category that's called worthless fellows fellows of the baser sort and typically worthless fellows are those young unemployed men who have way too much time on their hands and they find themselves getting into trouble

35:55

David when he was on the run from Saul he found a bunch of these worthless fellows and he formed an army because that's what you generally do throughout history if you're going to form an army you find a bunch of young angry men with a bunch of time on their hands you give them something productive to do and a lot of the things they're given to do historically is form an army and put that to good use so when the

36:23

COVID lockdowns happen when the COVID lockdowns happen I looked at my brother and said when's the rioting going to start

36:33

I'm not a prophet or the son of a prophet but the rioting is going to come because you have a bunch of people who are prevented from working what's the natural consequence of this going to be there's going to be rioting what did we see happen like the summer of love that happened shortly after that we saw example after example after example of that and that's not because I'm a prophet it's just because I understand what the

36:55

Bible says that there are sins that come from idleness there's many many sins that young men fall into when they have way too much time on their hands a lot of it's destruction when men have way too much time on their hands they give themselves over to lust

37:16

Paul talks about with women like the younger widows they encourage them to marry because they're going to become gossips and busy bodies if they have way too much time on their hands with nothing to do you can look at internet conversations and realize that a lot of the internet conversations and spats and arguments where people are meddling in affairs that don't belong to them are the result of people who have way too much time on their hands and no godly work to do whereas people who are way more busy than all that they don't have time to meddle in a bunch of controversies that don't belong to them the problem here is just to say that there's a lot of consequences to these and I haven't even talked about all the consequences

37:55

I've talked about some of the consequences but there are many consequences, you understand?

38:00

like when you take away someone's work you're taking away their dignity, that's what you're doing

38:07

Ecclesiastes says this, Ecclesiastes 2 .24 there's nothing better for a person than he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil this

38:14

I saw is from the hand of God when you have nothing to do like why do you think that older people when they retire and they have nothing to do they start going down really quickly and I've seen this happen numerous times where you have an old man who has something to do he retires, he doesn't have anything left to do and all of a sudden he loses his motivation for being here because he has nothing to do, he doesn't know why he's here anymore it's almost as if they deteriorate rapidly when they have nothing productive to do because that's what

38:47

Ecclesiastes says we're not here just to sit around and relax and enjoy ourselves we're here to work this is

38:54

Ecclesiastes 3 .12 I perceive there's nothing better for them than to be joyful do good as long as they lived

39:00

Ecclesiastes 3 .22 I saw there's nothing better than for a man to rejoice in his work for that is his lot who can bring him to see what will be after him

39:10

Ecclesiastes 8 .15 I commend joy for a man has nothing better under the sun but to eat and drink and be joyful for this will go with him in his toil through the days of life

39:21

God has given man work as a gift that he should be rejoicing in you should be rejoicing in work as a gift not just find a job you love rejoice in the work that you've been given there's great satisfaction to be found in learning to rejoice in your work and when you take that from people the natural result is depression when you see a person who is depressed and worried we put all these labels psychological labels on people that give them excuses to avoid their work and what they end up doing is laying around with nothing productive to do being weighed down by guilt, shame, condemnation feelings of worthlessness and you look at him and say who could have thought that that's what you would experience when you reject work who would have thought that that would happen when you know that you're made for work and you have nothing productive to do with your life you will give yourself over to iniquity to a level that you never thought you would and you'll be weighed down by guilt and shame and condemnation because you don't know why you're here because you have nothing to do nothing to do, you don't know why you're here if you enable, here's the point when you enable people to do this when you provide the means necessary for a person to avoid work when you do that you are a means of introducing in their life guilt, shame and condemnation, that's what you're doing you think you're helping them but you are poisoning them examples of people

41:13

I know right now who have been enabled by their family members to live worthless lives to sit there for years and years and years and years and play video games all day long

41:30

I know of young men who have spent their life from early childhood to their forties devoting themselves to playing video games because they have parents and grandparents who are enabling them to do that because they say, hey

41:49

I'm too scared to go talk to people I have social anxiety disorder do you understand that you just destroyed their life you destroyed their life you bear responsibility for destroying their life and their legacy and their heritage they are so far behind the curve at that point and it's your fault, it's your fault because you subsidized it because you thought you were being nice to them that's what you thought so the consequences of enabling idleness are severe these are not small matters finally we see the apostolic command and encouragement for the idle to work verse 12, now such person we command and encourage in the

42:34

Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living you see right here commands and encouragement are not set in opposition to each other as if they are enemies, are they?

42:51

there is a command here that is an encouragement do you know what the word encouragement means?

42:59

the word encouragement means to give courage encouragement does not mean flatter does it?

43:06

we think when we try to encourage people what we should be doing is flattering them let me encourage you, you are so wonderful that's what we think, we think encouragement means flattering what does encouragement actually mean?

43:19

giving courage to people that often involves taking away excuses for people, doesn't it?

43:29

what would it look like in this context to give courage to the idle what are the apostles not doing here?

43:41

they are not saying, hey you are a great guy and you have a lot of good qualities and people like you that's not what they are doing, is it?

43:52

they are saying if you are not willing to work you are not going to eat if you are not willing to work you have abandoned the faith and you are worse than an unbeliever

44:03

God has made you to work we love you so much we are just going to allow you to not work for the rest of your life they are looking at them the way they are encouraging them is to say

44:15

God made you for work you are destroying your life by giving yourself over to idleness not only are you destroying your life you are destroying everyone's lives around you who are depending on you you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you you can face your social anxiety disorder fears with God's help and you can go and do something productive you don't have to lay in your bed all day long suffering from depression you can get up and do something that God has called you to do and get your eyes focused on all the things that you don't have and all the things that you want and all the things that you wish

44:58

God would have done and hasn't what does it mean to encourage someone in this context?

45:03

it means to give them courage and that's not going to be a message of flattery, is it? it's not a message of flattery that helps people who are idle to change we are told to admonish the idle encourage the faint hearted help the weak, be patient with all we are told to admonish, that's a strong rebuke, the idle because this is a soul destroying sin brothers and sisters that has remarkable consequences now if I could give you a famous example of enabling in the scriptures

45:40

I would point you to the example of the prodigal son I don't know if we often think about this in the context of enabling but it's certainly something we should be thinking about so notice, the son despises his father, demands his inheritance functionally by doing that he's looking at his dad and saying

46:01

I wish you were dead right now I wish you were dead right now, the father gives it to him he's not ready to care for it, is he?

46:10

that inheritance, he just wants to be done he wants to be out on his own, do his own thing father gives him inheritance, what happens?

46:17

he spends it all on prostitutes riotous living he uses it to make the temporary kind of friends that come from having a lot of money and not a lot of sense the kind of friends that they're there for you when you're going to financially subsidize their sin but once the money runs out they're not friends with you anymore he goes and he wastes all of the money what happens?

46:48

Luke 15, 15 when he hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country he kind of gets to this low place, he's run out of money so he hires himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into the field to feed the pigs and it says he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything he didn't come to the end of himself until he ran out of resources did he?

47:20

notice what it says, it says when he came to himself verse 17, when he came to himself he said how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread but here

47:29

I am perishing with hunger brothers and sisters, do you think that the way to help people is to endlessly help them and supply their rebellion for years and years and years just give them money as long as you can that would be like in this situation, the father just saying oh

47:45

I've run out of money to waste on prostitutes can you send me some more? yeah sure son, here's some more money to waste on prostitutes do you think that's helping him?

47:53

because there's a need he has, he's hungry, he's run out of money do you think the way to help him is just to give him more money but the problem is that when you do that what you're doing is you're keeping him from coming to himself you're trying to take away those natural consequences for his actions because you think you're better than God you think that you're more generous than God you think that the way to help someone is to take away all the pain and all the difficult circumstances and make everything easy on them but part of the problem is that he didn't come to repentance until he saw how hard the world was

48:35

God gave you a stomach that's going to rumble tomorrow if you don't eat until then didn't he?

48:42

he gave you a stomach that's going to tell you it needs to be fed he's given you a means of feeding that stomach and that means of feeding that stomach is the means of productive work so God has designed natural consequences in the world to rejecting his plan when we enable people what we are doing is we're trying to take away all of those consequences and in doing so you're robbing them of the necessary conviction that's supposed to happen when they see that they've made a mess of their life and we've done this in so many different ways as a church if someone just claims to have any psychological label you're going to give them drugs that tranquilize them and remove their conscience and dull their thoughts and you think you're trying to help them because you're trying to make the pain go away but they need to sit in that pain, brothers and sisters because that pain is going to lead to conviction and we think the way to help people is just to take away all the bad feelings give them endless supply of wealth not encourage them to face any responsibility because we can't bear the thought of them going through pain but you know what, pain is a good teacher pain is a good teacher, brothers and sisters and the prodigal son needed to learn the lessons of pain in order to be brought to repentance and that's the way that God's designed the world if you love people, here's the point if you love people, you won't subsidize their sin if you love people, you're not going to hand them the ability and the means to continue in their rebellion against God if you love people, there are times where you need to withhold good things from them that they are going to turn into means of continuing their rebellion against the

50:44

Lord and this is a passage which talks about that very thing for even when we were with you, we would give this command if anyone is not willing to work let him not eat

50:58

Amen? Lord we do thank you for the scriptures that you've given to us, which are life to us we know that your way is right and you are good and you will be justified,

51:20

Lord and you know what's best for us please help us to not be a people who are thinking that we are more generous than you and more charitable than you and in our attempts to try to help the people we end up destroying their souls help that not to be a sin that's named among us your son's name may pray for you we thank you for all your support and ask you to continue to like and subscribe to Bible Bashed and share our podcast with your friends and on social media please reach out to us with your questions, pushback and potential topics for us to discuss in future episodes at BibleBashedPodcast at gmail .com