The Scales of Judgment Part 1

by John Lowe
(Laurens SC, USA)

The Scales of Judgment

Text: "… Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting."—Daniel 5:27.

There is a time of judgment for kings, and dictators, and presidents, even though some of them believe that they don’t have to answer to anyone on earth and that they are above God’s judgment.
But even if they escape judgment on earth, they will be tried before the throne of Jesus Christ.
There is also a weighing time for nations.
National sins demand national punishments.
The whole history of God’s dealings with mankind proves that even if a nation is continually wicked; and even if it appears to prosper, despite acts of bloodshed, tyranny, and war, there will come a day of reckoning.
When it has done all the evil it can do, the angel of vengeance will execute its ruin.

There can’t be an eternal damnation for nations, as nations; but men will be destroyed as individuals, and they will stand alone before God to be tried.
However, nations will be punished on a national scale.
The guilt, which they bring upon themselves, must receive its awful punishment in this world.
And that’s what happened to the nation of the Chaldeans; the empire of Babylon, which was situated in present day Iraq.
They were guilty of spilling innocent blood.
The excavations in Iraq that have been explored prove that they were cruel and ferocious.
God allowed that nation to grow and prosper; then it became God’s hammer for breaking apart many other nations.
It was the ax of Jehovah; His battle ax, and His weapon of war.

Through them, He destroyed kingdoms and slaughtered their mighty kings.
But their time came at last.
They believed they were safe, but the Lord brought them down and gave them to their conquerors, who took all their riches and made them slaves.
And it will be the same for every nation on earth that is guilty of oppression.
If a nation will humble itself before God when it receives a little of His anger, it may delay its punishment for awhile, but if it still continues its tyranny, it will reap what it has sown.
Every nation on earth will be judged.
There is no God in heaven, if the atrocities committed by Iraq go unpunished.

There is no God existing in heaven if those countries that have legalized abortion and prostitution go unpunished.
There’s no God anywhere, if those countries that hurt, imprison and kill Christians go unpunished.
Our Lord God will avenge everyone who is oppressed.
As I write this sermon, we are at war against Iraq; and I think that is a wonderful proof that God takes vengeance on governments that are cruel toward their own people and other nations.
There was a time when Christians were hunted like animals, and the ground was red with their blood.
But we can rest assured, that God will avenge his anointed.
And we can be sure that God will bring down those nations, who hurt the children of God.

And all those individuals who reject His Son, and hurt His children will be cast into the Lake of Fire.
There has never been an act of persecution, and there has never been a drop of martyr’s bloodshed, that will not be avenged.
And every country that’s guilty of it, will feel the wrath of God.
There are religions that exist today, which are teaching man-made theology, and they don’t permit their congregations to hear the Gospel of Christ.
They are religions of works, and ritual and they give mere men the credit that only belongs to God.
The countries where these religions are prominent are already feeling God’s wrath in the form of poverty, natural disasters, sickness, and hunger.
Men and women will not get away with sin, and neither will the nations.

Our duty today is to become aware of the sins of our nation and to purge them from this great country.
God has given us more of the light of the Gospel than other nations and He has blessed us with wealth and prosperity, but still, sin is everywhere.
Along with light, comes responsibility, so let’s work to purify our land, and let’s pray for the politicians, judges and the police.
Now, I want to go from talking about nations to talking about how our text relates to each one of us.
I hope that when we leave this room today, that we will all be able to say, “I thank God for the assurance that when the time comes that I am weighed in the scales, I won’t be found wanting.”

The first thing to notice is that God will weigh us in this world by setting up tests so that we will be able to discover what will be the result of our final weighing. After that, I want to speak about the last tremendous weighing on the judgment day.
First, LET US JUDGE OURSELVES, SO THAT WE WILL NOT BE JUDGED.
It is a good idea for us to put ourselves through various tests, so we can discover, whether we are, at this present time, underweight, or not.
The first test I would like to mention is the test of human opinion.
I believe that the opinion of men is worthless when it’s based on false ideas because it will draw the wrong conclusions.

I would not trust the world to judge the children of God.
It’s great to know that the world will not judge the church; instead, the saints will judge the world.
I am talking about judging ourselves, but I don’t believe that we should rule out our neighbor’s opinion of us.
The opinion of honest men and women is to be respected, since it may be the first hint of what the judgment of God will be.
Do those who know you, avoid you?
Do good moral people turn away from you; do they refuse to associate with you?
Have you discovered that respectable people believe you have poor character?
Well, I believe that if you can’t stand the trial of honest men and women, whose judgment is imperfect, then you will never pass the rigid scale of God’s justice.
When anyone is so bad that his fellow beings can see his vices, he should be afraid.

If you can’t pass the test of human opinion, you have good reason to be afraid, because you have been put in the balances and found wanting.
Next, I would like for everyone to put themselves into the scales of the divine law.
We should do it at least once in our lives.
The law of God, those Ten Commandments which God wrote with His finger on stone tablets is a weight which can’t be balanced.
Let me put just one of those commands into the scale.
It is this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.”
I invite anyone, who would flatter themselves by thinking they don’t need the blood of Jesus Christ or His forgiveness or His salvation, to put themselves on the scales to see if they have the weight.

If we would try ourselves by the First Commandment, we would have to admit we are guilty.
If we were to put all ten in there, there’s not a person on earth who wouldn’t fall short of the mark.
We will always fall short of the standard, which the Law of God requires.
Mr. “Goody-two-shoes” may say that he has been kind to the poor, and gone to church often, has taken communion, so if he doesn’t enter heaven, nobody will.
But I’m sorry for him because he’s as light as a feather.
If he goes into the scales to be weighed against the tremendous weight of the Ten Commandments of the law, he will hear the Lord say, “Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting.”

There may be someone here who is very respectable, who has always imagined that he kept God’s law, and none of his family and friends can deny that he has.
And you may believe that when you arrive at the pearly gate, you will receive a reward for your righteousness.
My friend, if you would just take the time to sit down and weigh yourself in the scales against just one of God’s laws, you would know that you are guilty.
Every one of us should do this, and we would all have to say, “I am weighed in the balances and found wanting.”
But the true believer can say with certainty, “I have been weighed in a different balance; I am what I say I am.
I am not found wanting because I can bring with me the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.

All of the law may be placed on one side of the scale, but on my side, I will have the full weight of the blood of Jesus and the righteousness of Jesus, the Son of God.
I can be weighed against the law because I know that now and forever, I am equal to the law because Jesus is mine.
There’s another scale; the scale of conscience.
Many people say they are religious, but this is a time of pretense.
There were never so many liars in the world as there are now.
The Father of Lies has never had so many obedient children as he has now.
Today, there is a lot of vein showmanship in religion.