.  Living Hope Fellowship Church....Sermons by the Pastor 

SLUGS

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

            A slug is a snail without a home.  Their eyes are out on the end of sticks, and if you barely touch them, they can draw them in where they can’t see anything.  Some people are like that.  Slugs are not speedy, they leave a slimy trail, and they will eat out of the dog pan!  Some are tiny and some are at least six inches long.

God has no great interest in sluggards!  Sluggards are people who are like the slug - lazy, slow to act, and impossible to motivate.  Try to get one to race!

Proverbs 26:16 says, “The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.”  He has a reason for the way he is.  Look at Verse 12:  “Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him.”

God spoke to the man who laid up treasures for himself and cared not for the kingdom of God.  He called him a fool and told him that night his soul would be required of him.  God says He has no pleasure in fools.  A fool has more hope of God getting a hold of him than a sluggard does!

Jesus said in Luke 11:23, “He that is not with me is against me. . . .”  There is no such thing as neutral in the kingdom of God.  Jesus calls neutral lukewarm and He will spit you OUT.  We are created in the image of God.  We are not created as slugs.

God wants to give us revival, but the sluggard says, Not today!  I have to take a nap.  Those who will go on with God will say, Now is the time.  We are past due.  Let’s go!  1 Peter 4:17 says, “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God. . . .”  So it is that revival must begin at the house of God.

Understand that it is in our hands to begin the work with prayer, fasting, seeking God and believing God.  Revelation 22:17 says, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

If you provoke a slug hard enough, it will roll up in a ball.  You can’t get to him anymore.  He won’t look at you or listen to you.  Don’t be like that.

Proverbs 10:26 says, “As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him.”  When God sends us on an assignment for the completion of a vision He has placed in our hearts, and we act as the sluggard, we irritate Him.

So is a person who is told by God to do something, and they are NOT doing it.  God has given you a vision and something to do in that vision.  When you get down to pray, without obeying Him, God says, Ughhh.  God wants to bring revival, and He has given us assignments, visions, and the understanding of it, but we won’t go.

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish. . . .”  Not only the people who should be working in the vision will perish, but the people who would come in because of our obedience to God, will perish.

There is more hope for a fool than there is for people who know to do right and won’t do it (the sluggard).  James 4:17 says, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

Without a vision we perish, but if we don’t act on the vision, it is the same thing.  We can’t stand around and wait on someone else to get fired up so we can join them.  Being quenched is a grievous thing to God.  His Spirit comes and dwells in us.  God places Jesus in your heart in hopes that you will yield to Him and let Him work.

Matthew 25:30 says, “And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”  There was no return on God’s investment.  He was a servant, but he was unprofitable, and Jesus would not give him a heavenly reward along with the profitable servants.  He went to hell.

Much of our area population is children.  I want the children to grow up with godly people who will rebuke them when they are wrong, pray for them when they are hurting, and praise them when they seek the Lord.  There is nothing more important than living for the Lord and passing it on to our children.

If you are doing something strictly because you know God has told you to do it, by the grace of God it will not fall.  We must leave lethargy and deadness behind and go forward like the first church.  God has called us to quickness, to His presence, to His goodness and mercy, and to where all things are possible.  Sometimes it is hard to get attention, let alone enthusiasm, but if we are not acting on the vision, we die as we sit here.

Let’s come in one accord in one place and tell the Lord we are not going to restrict Him or stop Him.  Let us not be sluggards.  Let’s believe God.  Let the fire, the zeal, and the anointing of the Holy Ghost be in our lives.  What He tells us to do, let’s do.