A poor example?

(continued notes of things that grabbed me from Doug Wilson's excellent little book, 'Future Men')

A boy who learns to settle into his laziness is being prepared by his parents for a life of frustration.

The sluggard craves and gets nothing,
but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied
Proverbs 13:4

God does not just promise poverty to this young man; He promises that it will come upon him like a thug with a gun. In the good providence of God, the lazy man is not going to be treated with tenderness. Parents who allow this pattern to develop while their son is under their oversight are asking the providential hand of God to work him over with a baseball bat.

Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.
How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest
-- and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.
Proverbs 6:6-11

As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is a sluggard to those who send him. Proverbs 10:26

Parents who rob their sons of a work ethic also have taken from him one of this life’s most precious gifts – sabbath rest.

I went past the field of the sluggard,
past the vineyard of the
man who lacks judgment;
thorns had come up everywhere,
the ground was covered with weeds,
and the stone wall was in ruins.
I applied my heart to what I observed and learned a lesson from what I saw:
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest--
and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.
Proverbs 24:30-34

The results of laziness are obvious for all to see and they should be pointed out.

Diligent parents use lazy boys in the community as a negative object lesson, and they labor to keep their own sons from being used by other parents the same way.

So much of this runs contrary to the way the carnal mind thinks we might come to believe it is impossible. And it is impossible, apart from the gospel of Christ. This is why the discipline of work should be imparted to a boy along with careful teaching on the meaning of the cross of Jesus Christ. This is because the foundation of a biblical work ethic is a biblical grace ethic.