“Tekel; Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.”—Daniel 5:27.
There is a weighing time for kings and emperors, and all the monarchs of earth, albeit some of them have exalted themselves to a position in which they appear to be irresponsible to man. Though they escape the scales on earth, they must surely be tried at the bar of God. For nations there is a weighing time. National sins demand national punishments. The whole history of God’s dealings with mankind proves that though a nation may go on in wickedness it may multiply its oppressions; it may abound in bloodshed, tyranny, and war, but an hour of retribution draweth nigh. When it shall have filled up its measure of iniquity, then shall the angel of vengeance execute its doom. There cannot be an eternal damnation for nations as nations; the destruction of men at last will be that of individuals, and at the bar of God each man must be tried for himself. The punishment, therefore, of nations, is national. The guilt they incur must receive its awful recompense in this present time state. It was so with the great nation of the Chadleans. They had been guilty of blood. The monuments which still remain, and which we have lately explored, prove them to have been a cruel and ferocious race. A people of a strange language they were, and stranger than their language were their deeds. God allowed that nation for a certain period to grow and thrive, till it became God’s hammer, breaking in pieces many nations. It was the axe of the Almighty—his battle axe, and his weapon of war. By it he smote the loins of kings, yea, and slew mighty kings. But its time came at last. She sat alone as a queen, and said, “I shall see no sorrow,” nevertheless, the Lord brought her low, and made her grind in the dust of captivity, and gave her riches to the spoiler, and her pomp to the destroyer. Even so must it be with every nation of the earth that is guilty of oppression. Humbling itself before God, when his wrath is kindled but a little, it may for awhile arrest its fate; but if it still continue in its bold unrighteousness, it shall certainly reap the harvest of its own sowing. So likewise shall it be with the nations that now abide on the face of the earth. There is no God in heaven if the iniquity of slavery go unpunished. There is no God existing in heaven above if the cry of the negro do not bring down a red hail of blood upon the nation that still holds the black man in slavery. Nor is there a God anywhere if the nations of Europe that still oppress each other and are oppressed by tyrants do not find out to their dismay that he executes vengeance. The Lord God is the avenger of every one that is oppressed, and the executor of every one that oppresseth. I see, this very moment, glancing at the page of the world’s present history, a marvellous proof that God will take vengeance. Piedmont, the land which is at this time sodden with blood, is only at this hour suffering the vengeance that has long been hanging over it. The snows of its mountains were once red with the blood of martyrs. It is not yet forgotten how there the children of God were hunted like partridges on the mountains; and so has God directed it, that the nations that performed that frightful act upon his children, shall there meet. rend, and devour each other in the slaughter, and both sides shall be almost equal, and nothing shall be seen but that God will punish those who lift their hands against his anointed.
There has never been a deed of persecution—there has never been a drop of martyr’s blood shed yet, but shall be avenged, and every land guilty of it shall yet drink the cup of the wine of the wrath of God. And especially certain is there gathering an awful storm over the head of the empire of Rome—that spiritual despotism of the firstborn of hell. All the clouds of God’s vengeance are gathering into one—the firmament is big with thunder, God’s right arm is lifted up even now, and ere long the nations of the earth shall eat her flesh and burn her with fire. They that have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication, shall soon also have to drink with her of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath; and they shall reel to and fro, their loins shall be loose, their knees shall smite together, when God fulfils the old handwriting on the rock of Patmos.
Our duty at this time is to take heed to ourselves as a nation that we purge ourselves of our great sins Although God has given so much light, and kindly favored us with the dew of his Spirit, yet England is a hoary sinner. Favourably with mercy does God regard her, so much the rather then let each Christian try to shake off the sins of his nation from his own skirt, and let each one to the utmost of his ability labor and strive to purify this land of blood and oppression, and of everything evil that still clingeth to her. So may God preserve this land; and may its monarchy endure till he shall come, before whom both kings and princes shall lose their power right cheerfully even as the stars fade when the king of light—the sun—lifteth up his golden head.
With this brief preface, I will leave nations and kings all to themselves, and consider the text principally as it has relation to each one of us; and may God grant that when we go out of this hall most of us may be able to say, “I thank God I have a good hope that when weighed in the scales at last I shall not be found wanting.” Or, if that is too much to expect, may I yet trust some will go away convinced of sin, crying in their own spirits, “I am wanting now, but if God in his mercy meet with me, I shall not be wanting long.”
I shall notice, first, that there are certain preliminary weighings which God would have us put ourselves to in this world, and which indeed he has set up as kind, of tests whereby we may be able to discover what shall be the result of the last decisive weighing. After I have mentioned these, I shall then come to speak of the last tremendous weighing of the judgment day.
I. LET US JUDGE OURSELVES THAT WE THAT WE MAY NOT BE JUDGED. It is for us now to put ourselves through the various tests by which we may be able to discover, whether we are, at this present time, short weight or not.
The first test I would suggest is that of human opinion. Now understand me. I do believe that the opinion of man is utterly valueless when that opinion is based upon false premises, and, therefore, draws wrong conclusions. I would not trust the world to judge God’s servants, and it is a mercy to know that the world shall not have the judging of the church, but rather, the saints shall judge the world. There is a sense in which I would say with the apostle, “With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea. I judge not myself.” Human opinion is not to be put in competition with divine revelation. But I speak now of judging ourselves, and I do not think it safe, when weighing our own character, to prefer our own and exclude our neighbour’s judgment. The esteem or contempt of honest men, which is instinctively shown without reference to party or prejudice, is not by any means to be despised. When a man knows that he is right he may snap his fingers in the face of all men but when a man’s conscience tells him that he is wrong—if at the judgment bar of men he is found guilty, he must not despise it, he must rather look on the judgment of men as being the first intimation of what shall be the judgment of God. Are you, my hearer, at this time in the estimation of all your fellow-creatures condemned as one who should be avoided? Do you clearly perceive that the righteous shun you, because your example would contaminate them? Have you discovered that your character is not held to be estimable amongst honest and respectable men? Let me assure you, that you have good reason to be afraid for if you cannot stand the trial of an honest fellow-creature—if the law of your country condemn you—if the very laws of society exclude you—if the imperfect judgments of earth pronounce you too vile for its association, how fearful must be your condemnation when you are put into the far more rigid scale of God’s justice, and terrible must be your fate when the perfect community of the first-born in heaven shall rise as one man, and demand that you shall never behold their society? When a man is so bad that his fellow-creatures themselves, imperfect though they be, are able to see in him, not the mere seeds, but the very flower, the full bloom of iniquity, he should tremble. If you cannot pass that test, if human opinion condemn—if your own conscience declare that opinion to be just, you have good need to tremble indeed, for you are put into the balances and are found wanting.
I have thought it right to mention this balance. There may be some present to whom it may he pertinent, but at the same time, there are far better tests for men, tests which are not so easily to be misunderstood. And I would go through some of these. One of the scales into which I would have every man put himself, at least once in his life—I say at least once, because, if not, heaven is to him a place, the gates of which are shut for ever—I would have every man put himself into the scales of the divine law. There stands the law of God. This law is a balance which will turn, even were there but a grain of sand in it. It is true to a hair. It moves upon the diamond of God’s eternal immutable truth. I put but one weight 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,” and I invite any man who thinks himself to be of the right stamp, and flatters himself that he has no need of mercy no need of washing in the blood of Jesus Christ, no need of any atonement—I invite him to put himself into the scales, and see whether he be full weight, when there be but so much as this one commandment in the other scale. Oh, my friends, if we did but try ourselves by the very first commandment of the law, we must acknowledge that we are guilty. But when we drop in weight after weight, till the whole sacred ten are there, there is not a man under the cope of heaven who has one grain of wit left, but must confess that he is short of the mark,—that he falls below the standard which the law of God requires. Mrs. Too-good has often declared that she herself has done all her duty, and perhaps a little more; that she has been even more kind to the poor than there was any occasion for; that she has gone to church more frequently than even her religion requireth; that she has been more attentive to the sacraments then the best of her neighbors, and if she does not enter heaven she does not know who will. “If I have not a portion amongst the saints, who can possibly hope to see God’s face in light?” Nay, madam, but I am sorry for thee; thou art light as a feather when thou goest into the scales. In these wooden balances of thine own ceremonies thou mayest, perhaps, be found right enough, but in those eternal scales, with those tremendous weights—the ten commandments of the law—the declaration is suspended over thy poor foolish head. “Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting,”
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
