A False Balance Prov. 11:1 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight.
The just weight on a scale requires the right counter-weight to balance. Typically, men would use a scant weight or a short measure to “cut” the amount sold and thereby profit. Men used to accuse the butcher of putting his thumb on the scale to sell less meat than he was charging for. Dad used to rebalance the cattle scales when we were selling cattle in order to keep them “just.”
A Just weight is the righteous standard.
Jesus (when measuring righteousness) – the Lord puts Jesus on one side of the scale and you on other side – on your own, you come up “short” – you and I have to have Jesus’ righteousness for the scale to balance on both sides – if you put self-righteousness on the other side of the scale rather than Jesus you get a false balance – yet this is what most people do, they put themselves on one side and their own righteousness on the other – you can see how God finds this abominable.
King James Version (when measuring the words of God “Thus saith the Lord”) – anything on the other side of this scale is not the word of God and so it comes up off balance – in Gen 3, when the devil tempted Eve, you can see where the words were not balanced with what God said – the way the devil and Eve changed the words, they were either too heavy or too light – put a modern bible on the other side of the scale and you end up with a false balance – tens of thousands of words are missing in the NIV and 18 full and partial verses have been removed – you can’t get a just balance with that.
Sometimes, too, the balance is not only against a standard but against other things of equal importance – like a man balancing his family life, his work, his personal hygiene and health, his recreation, and so forth – if these things get out of balance, he’s going to suffer for it – take the man who works a lot, then comes home and plants himself on the sofa in front of the TV all night, goes to bed and then back to work the next day – you can see what’s out of balance – he has no family time and he gets no exercise – he’s going to pay dearly for that when the kids are teens and his body gets over 50 years old.
Now the balancing act for Christians is balancing not only the things above but also the spiritual things and the carnal things – when a Christian gets too spiritual, he gets into the devil’s realm – the devil wanted to be like God, Is 14:14 – you are still lodged in this carnal flesh, Rom 7:18 – when you get out of balance, you’ll interpret the “feelings” and impressions of the flesh for the Holy Spirit and get way out of balance, Jas 3:14-16 – there is the pretense of spirituality when people get off into tongues/signs/miracles.
When you get too carnal, then you miss the holiness that God intends for you, 1 Pet 1:16 – carnal Christians basically have two flaws – one, everything has to go their way, they are selfish, 1 Cor 3:1-4 – two, they put the temporal above the eternal Heb 12:16-17 – now you cannot escape the fact that you are carnal, Rom 7:14 – but you simply have to keep the carnal and the spiritual in balance like 1 Cor 7:33-34 – a lot of Christianity is very practical and as long as you keep Jesus and others ahead of you and you last, you’ll be in pretty good shape – keep these things in proper balance.