Proverbs 16:2, God’s Balances Are Exact!
October 13, Proverbs 16:2
2 Cor. 10:10-18; Luke 16:14-15; 18:9-11 “Don’t argue with God’s balances. Claim only His mercy.”
God’s Balances Are Exact!
Jeremiah, in dealing with the sins of Judah, asks, How canst thou say I am not polluted? For though thou wash thee with nitre, and make thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord God. (2:22-23). Outward cleansing cannot remove the stains of the heart. Many in Judah, when confronted with the evidence of their sins denied the charges. So it is with us today, but our scales are not the same as God’s!
1. The Scales Of God: The Omniscient God is the God with whom we have to do. He weighs the spirits, and the motives, not just the actions. The spirit represents the essence of man. In the reign of Charles I, the goldsmiths of London had a custom of weighing precious metals before the Privy Council. On this occasion they used scales poised with such exactness that the beam would turn, the Master of the Company affirmed, at the two hundredth part of a grain. Admiral Nay, the famous Attorney General replied, “I shall be loath, then, to have all my actions weighed in these scales.” “With whom I heartily concur,” said the godly Hervey, “in relation to myself; and since the balances of the sanctuary, the balances in God’s hand, are infinitely exact, oh! what need have we of the merit and righteousness of Christ, to make us acceptable in His sight!” Without that Mediator, we, like Belshazzar, will be weighed in the balances and found wanting (Dan. 5:27). Self-righteous king Saul declared, I have performed the commandment of the Lord. To which Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears? If self-righteous Pharisee, Saul, was weighed in those balances and found wanting (Phil. 3:7-9), where would we stand? God sees if it is but a grain too light, and pronounces sentence. Have you confessed this is your case, and have you cast yourself on God’s mercy? If not, do it now!
2. The Standard of God: The word weigh has also the meaning of measure. It is only when measured against God’s Yardstick that we see what spiritual and moral pygmies we are. Alexander Maclaren titled a sermon on this verse, “What I Think of Myself and What God Thinks Of Me.” When someone says: “My conscience acquits me.” The next question must be, “What kind of a conscience have you got?” How false is the judgment of men in respect to their true condition before God! A little boy came to his mother, saying, “Mummy, I am as tall as Goliath! I’m nine feet tall!” “Why do you say that?” asked the surprised mother. “Well,” said the boy, “I made a little ruler of my own and measured myself with it and I am just nine feet tall.” Some older people often play the same game. If they don’t measure up according to God’s standards, they make their own rulers, and set their own standards. Recall what the Apostle Paul wrote to Corinth, “Not he that commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.” “God looks most where man looks least – at the heart (1 Sam. 16:7).”
Thought: “The law demands what it cannot give; grace gives all it demands” (Pascal).
Prayer: “O to grace, how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.”