America: Weighed in the Balance, Part 1

Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to The Sound of Faith.

I'm Sharon Ottz thanking you for joining us today, because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And today's message is timely and right on point. America weighed in the balance. In Bible days, a corrupt kingdom was placed on the scales of God's righteous standards and won. God was found lacking.

Their failure to heed God's warning brought the hand of judgment to literally right upon the wall of the king's palace. You are weighed in the balance and found wanting. Today, America is being weighed in the balance of God's Word.

And his character is unimpeachable. That is my God. And you know, sometimes you look around you and if you're not careful, you'll get a little shook up because you think, what's going on? You know, the world is the world. It's becoming more corrupt, filthy and ungodly. Jesus said in the book of Revelation, he said, let the filthy be filthy.

Let the ungodly be ungodly, the unrighteous be unrighteous, but let the righteous be righteous. Amen. The world is only going to get worse. But we cannot allow that overall feeling of apathy to come in and think, oh, well, there's nothing we can do about it. It's just the way it is.

It is what it is. No, we've got to be steadfast and unmovable. Amen. And today we're going to minister a word that it shows you that God is God and he changes not. So turn with me in Proverbs 16 and two, and you'll recognize this verse.

It's used a lot by many. All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirits. The Lord weighs the spirits. What does it mean? He weighs the spirits.

We need to find out what that means. Drop down to verse 11, a just weight and balance are the Lord's. All the weights of the bag are his work. OK, so we're talking about weighing here and now we're getting a little better idea what he's talking about.

A just weight and balance. So we're talking about being weighed in the balances and we're finding out that the weights are in a bag and the bag belongs to the Lord and the weights belong to the Lord. Let's flip to the left and go to Proverbs 11 and look at verse one. A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. So now we're introduced to the fact that there are just right weights and we find out there are also false ones and they are an abomination to God.

Let's flip to chapter 20, Proverbs 20 and looking at verse 10. Diverse weights and diverse measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord. So diverse weights and diverse measures are an abomination to the Lord.

Drop down to verse 23. Diverse weights are an abomination unto the Lord and a false balance is not good. So we're learning here that God weighs the hearts, the ways of man, and he weighs them on a balance. The balance is a scale. And I know that we have modern ideas of what a scale is. But if you go to the grocery store and you want to go in the produce department and you want to purchase some oranges or whatever and you want to buy them by the pound, then they have a scale and the scale is freestanding.

So when you put your produce in there, that hand on the produce scale goes around and stops at the correct weight of the merchandise you put in there. So if you're going to pay two dollars a pound for apples and it stops at one and a half pounds, how much are you going to pay? Three dollars. And you know that.

Amen. And it might even be broken down less than that. It could be ounces in between. But that scale is going to say how much it weighs and then you can decide, okay, do I have enough money to pay for that?

Do I want to put some more in or do I want to take some out? And then when you get up to the cashier, she's going to have a scale right there built into her cash register where she puts it or he puts it there and it'll calculate it to the ounce of what you purchased. That's our idea of a scale and it has to be calibrated to the correct amount. You know, if they got two scales, an ounce has got to be an ounce on both of them alike and a pound has got to be how many ounces? Sixteen ounces. I don't care if you go to every grocery store in Baltimore City, a pound is 16 ounces.

Amen. Anywhere you go in the state of Maryland, a pound is a 16 ounces. Anywhere you go in the United States of America, you're going to find out that a pound is 16 ounces.

It's always that. So it's calibrated. That's the right amount that a pound is and therefore you will pay accordingly so much a pound is that they're going to charge you. So it's always a good idea if you happen to look at a scale before you put your produce on it and instead of that arrow being up here at zero, it's already over here at five ounces. It's not calibrated right and guess what? You're going to get cheated. Amen. You're going to get five ounces less in your pound.

You're going to be cheated. How many understand that concept? You know how many know if you got on those old fashioned mechanical scales, you always had to make sure that it was in the one zero. And every once in a while it gets off, you know, from getting on and getting off and getting on. And one day you get on there, you say praise God, I just lost five pounds. Hallelujah. And you get off and look and saw it wasn't on zero. It had crept up on you. Amen. So what the Bible is saying is you've got to have a just or correct scale.

No problem with this changing things. But now we have to understand what their scales look like in private times. You know, when I was a little girl, my mother had this on her dining room table. It was one of those scales that had the bar going across, chains hanging down with a little like cup plate type thing.

And she had all kinds of fruit on there. It did not work. It was not a working scale.

It was for decor, but it represented what a genuine scale would have looked like in Bible days. However, theirs would have worked. And so what they would have done is you would have put your merchandise on one plate. That would make it go down. And the other one's up here.

It's empty. So what they would do is reach into their bag. They carried a bag that had different weight sizes, little pieces of metal. And one would weigh, you know, so many ounces and one would weigh half a pound or whatever. Now they didn't use pounds and ounces, but I'm going to say that to make it for us to understand. And so the seller would put the weights on there. And once he had enough weight so that now it's balanced, it's even, it's perfectly balanced. So depending on what weights he put on there tells him how much this weighs. And now you know, you cannot know the value of something unless you know how much it weighs. The weight determines the value. And so he would put his little weights on there until they were even and balanced. So that's what it means to be weighed in the balances.

You're put on this. You're here and your merchandise is here and the weights are put on here. And that is how business was done in Bible times. And always the size or the weight of an item determined its cost and its value. Now, as we said a moment ago, in America, a pound is always 16 ounces.

And they too had their measurements that were the standard. 16 ounces to a pound is a standard. It's unchangeable. It's unalterable. You cannot just go through changing what a pound weighs.

You can't do it. It's a standard that we all go by in this nation. Amen? But back in Bible times, because they had to reach into the bag and pull out the various weights that were different weights, but they were standard. They knew which one was.

They were marked. This weighs this much. This weighs this much. But they had two sets of weights. They had one that was the real genuine weight and they had others that were heavier or lighter than the actual ounce or whatever measurement they were using. So they had two sets of weights. That's what we read. Diverse weights are an abomination. Diverse means more than one.

Several. And that's what they did. They had more than one set of weights that they carried around.

And we read it's a false weight. No wonder it was an abomination to God because they were ripping the people off. They were cheating them. And God said that's an abomination to do that. It's one of the commandments. Thou shall not steal and thou shall not lie.

And they both were acting there. Amen? And so if they had a weight and they said, OK, this weight is one ounce. I'm pulling this out of my one ounce. But really it weighed three ounces. But they said this is my one ounce weight. And they put those ones that really weighed three ounces on here, which meant that very quickly it's going to be even.

But guess what? You're going to be paying more than what your item really weighed because they put a false weight on there and they're going to cheat you. And this is what God was saying.

He was angry. He said you have a false balance and false weights. And that's an abomination to me.

And saints, it is out of this concept, this biblical concept that comes this figure of speech that we say they have a double standard. Because the weights were the standard. They were supposed to be the standard size every time. But they had a false set. They had a second set. They had double sets and they used them to their advantage. So when they were trying to sell something to someone, they put a heavier weight on there, making the person pay more money for less. Amen? And they would flip it on the other way when they wanted to buy something from someone, they would put a lighter weight on there. So you see how they were cheating and God said this is an abomination.

Here's another interesting fact. We're talking about pretty much consumerism. You know, we're looking at the consumer world, the business world where we go, merchants buy and sell, we buy and sell. Amen?

And so we're kind of looking at that. You know, in your kitchen, if it said the recipe calls for a pound of hamburger, you had a scale in your house. And you put the hamburger on there and you put your weights on there until you got your pound of hamburger. So you would know you've got the right amount for your recipe.

How many understand? So whether you were going out in the marketplace or whether it was in your home, you had a scale. And God said that these ones in the marketplace were cheating people because there was also what was called the temple standard, aka the sanctuary standard.

Think about this for a minute. In God's house, in the temple, bring it up to date, in the church, they had a set of scales and a set of weights. And they were calibrated perfectly and properly to their just and right amounts. I'm not exactly sure what all they used them for, but suffice to say that in the house of God, they had a scale and a bag of weights. And they were the right and correct amounts.

How many are following me? And so they were called the temple standard and the sanctuary standard. And all weights and all balances out there in the consumer world or in people's private homes, they all had to conform to the temple, to the sanctuary set of weights and balances.

Anybody getting a message out of that? They all had to conform to the one that was in the temple. So you want to open up Sharon's produce shop. You've got to make sure that your scale, Sharon, is conformed to the one that was in the temple. You've got to make sure that your weights are calibrated and they match the ones that are in the temple. It was God's standard in the temple that the people followed in the business world and followed in their own homes. Amen. Because we just read it here in Proverbs 16 and 11. God said a just weight, a correct weight, the right weight is the Lord's and all the weights in the bag are his. He's not a cheater.

He's not a liar. And he doesn't have two sets of weights. God doesn't have a double standard.

Amen. He doesn't have one standard that you go by when you're in church and another one you go by when you're out in the world. He doesn't have one standard that we live by in the church house. And then when we get out there on our job, in our neighborhood, in our family, in our businesses, even in our political scene in the world today, another standard. No, there is one sanctuary standard.

God said that it is his. And when a standard is changed, there is no way to assign something's correct value. It changes the values.

If you change the standard, then the value of something is changed. How many follow that? You know, they found the temple. They found one of the temple type sanctuary standards. Archaeologists found them in Israel. One way that they knew for sure that they had found the house of Caiaphas, the high priest, is the one that Jesus went to when they took him before Caiaphas.

How many remember the story? And they were pretty sure they had found his house, the high priest, but they knew exactly that they had found it because they found the temple balances and weights there. And they knew they had the right place. So God was very serious about this situation. Turn to Leviticus 19 and reading verse 35. You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measure of length, in weight, or in measure.

Just balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hen shall you have. I am the Lord your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe all my statutes, all my judgments, and do them because I am the Lord.

So what is he talking about here? He said you shall have no unrighteousness in your judgment. And when you are measuring things, whatever you're using, when you're using something to measure length, you're using it to measure width.

Amen. You shall have no unjust measurements in your business. So now here's the curious thing I find here. The word judgment here actually is the judicial word. It means to judge something like going to court and deciding a case in a suit where there's litigation. You're going before judges, a decision has to be made, a sentence has to be passed, and execution has to be carried out.

God said when these things occur, you are to do it right. One standard for everybody. Not two standards letting the guilty off and condemning the innocent for reward or kickback or bribery. One standard for everybody.

Amen. And then he goes on and speaks about practical things. It says the meat yard. What is a meat yard? A meat yard was a measurement of size, a portion of stature, weight.

Again, we've talked about it. How heavy is something? Measure.

And really the Hebrew word is mezruah. We've translated it right into the English measure. It's a designated portion that has to be consistent, unalterable, unchangeable.

It's always the same once the standard is set. And then he talks about the balances. I described that to you. It's the scales. That's the balances. And then he talks about the ephah. An ephah was an Egyptian measure of dry goods.

And then he talks about the hen. That was a measure of liquid goods and usually was about five courts. Here's the point. You shall be righteous in how you decide legal matters and you shall be honest in how you conduct business. No double standard.

Turn to Deuteronomy 25 and look at verse 13. Thou shall not have in thy bag divers weights a great and a small. We talked about that.

You know what that means. Thou shall not have in thine house divers measures a great and a small. Again, can have two sets of weights. But thou shall have a perfect and just weight. A perfect and just measure shalt thou have that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the Lord thy God gives thee. For all that do such things and all that do unrighteously are an abomination unto the Lord your God. So again, God was saying no double standard. You know, when we got to the time of the prophets, the minor prophets, by then Israel and Judah were both so corrupt, and they had really gone back on all God's commandments.

And we can hear the voice of the prophets. Amos said in Amos 8 5, you make the ephah small of the shekel and the shekel great to falsify the balance by deceit. God said through Hosea in Hosea 12 7, he says the balances of deceit are in your hand. And in Micah 6 11, shall I count them pure with the wicked balances and with the bag of deceitful weights? So God was condemning them and saying, you want me to say that you're pure when you've got wicked balances and deceitful weights?

Amen. God said, no, that is an abomination unto me. But you shall have a perfect and a just measure. And the word perfect means complete and whole.

And we know it means to be consistent, the same measure every time for everyone, for everything you measure. He said, don't even have an unjust measure in your house. Now, in your house, you're probably not buying and selling.

I don't know. But he said, don't even have it in your house. Because if you had an unjust scale and unjust measures in your house, you may be tempted to use them sometime. You may have a situation that arises where you've got to make a decision.

And let's take this in the spirit now. It may be a decision of morality. And you've got to decide what you're going to do. And if you've got two sets of standards and you've got that one that's wrong, you may be tempted to use that wrong one.

Now, this just popped in my head so I'm going to say it. Let's say that you're a parent, your parents, and you have a child or a grandchild who is not married and living with their lover. You love your child. You have fellowship with your child. You have dinner with your child. They come over. You eat. You go out. But let's say that they want to come now and stay at your house with their lover.

So which standard you're going to use? You're going to have a standard because, well, it's my child and I'm going to keep my good eye on them, but they're sleeping in the same bedroom. But, you know, it's my child and I don't want to alienate them and I don't want them to be mad at me because then they probably won't come to church or they won't do this or they won't do that. And your child knows better.

We're talking about someone who knows better. Amen? And even if they didn't know better, now that you're a Christian and live a godly life before them and you explain them into the scripture why I can't do that. You're my kid and I love you and I'm not throwing you under the bus. Amen? But I can't countenance what you're doing by letting you stay in my home.

How many understand? I can't have a double standard. You know, as long as it wasn't your kid. Look at them, they're letting their kids stay in that house and they ain't married.

But when it's their kid, all of a sudden it's a different story. Okay, I'm going to move right along. Because that wasn't even in my notes. You got that for free. Amen. So here's the point God is saying.

Don't have an unjust scale and weight in your house because you might get tempted to use them. Amen? God says that these are an abomination to him.

So let's move along. What is the bag? God said the bag is his. And the weights in the bag are his. So what is the bag?

Anybody want to take a guess? Hold up your Bible. That's the bag. And the commandments in there and the teachings of Jesus. And the teachings of the epistles of Paul and the other apostles. They are the weights. Amen?

They are the weights but today people have one standard in the church and another standard outside of the church. And what has that done? That has devalued the authenticity of the word of God.

Now let's get this straight. It doesn't change the word of God. It doesn't alter the word of God.

But in their sight and in the sight of all those around them it devalues it. Amen? And so they begin to alter the word of God to the world's standards. And God said you are to conform your standard to my sanctuary standard. Amen?

And that's exactly what has happened. The world, America, has rejected the Ten Commandments, has stripped them out of the public square. Some of them have been there for decades and some even longer. Amen? But they're removing them from society.

And I mean literally removing the granite that they're etched in. Amen? The standard of prayer and Bible reading stripped from America.

And now it's not only in the schools, now it's in the military. How can you be a chaplain in the military and you can't read the Bible and pray for people? Amen? There are places that if you wear a cross to work they'll tell you to take it off.

And let's face it, for some people it's just a piece of jewelry. They are no more thinking about Jesus dying on that cross for their sins and the man in the moon. Amen? But let a true Christian, let a real Christian come and wear a cross and all of a sudden HR is calling for them to come down.

Tell them you need to take that cross off. Amen? And all the while we're importing the gods of all the people coming to America. We're importing their gods with them.

Amen? They're bringing their gods with them. Now, if they bring their gods with them then what our job is to do is to bring them to Christ. To bring them to the Lord and show them, like Paul did when he went to Athens, you are serving an idol. Can that idol talk to you?

That's a stone idol made with somebody's hands. And you're going to call that your God? But instead of us being able to do that because now Christianity is being persecuted, ridiculed and prosecuted, we're no longer able to share our faith openly and publicly. So now we got the double whammy of importing idol gods into America and Americans now getting our hands tied and getting duct taped put over our mouths so we can't share the gospel with them. Amen? You know it's true.

So we have changed our standards, listen to this, to accommodate our preferences. The standard of biblical truth is mocked because now truth is relative. Truth is relative. Whatever you decide is truth for you is okay. And whatever you decide for truth for you is okay.

And so on and so on. And it's okay for you even if it doesn't fit with the societal norm. Even if your truth doesn't fit what 98% of the society believes about marriage and other things like that, it's okay. Your truth is your truth. Even if it doesn't fit with societal norm and much, much less if it fits with the biblical standards that God said. We each can create our own standard of truth. Everybody gets to create their own standard.

Now, just let me throw this out to you. If we all changed how many ounces are in a pound, what would we have in this country? We would have chaos. You wouldn't know how much to pay for what. And people would start arguing and fighting and shooting because you overcharged them.

Because your pound weighs so much and their pound weighs so much. And it's the same way that we're talking about now when everybody creates their own standard of truth. You have chaos. You have confusion.

Amen. When an eye-opening word of the Lord, America, weighed in the balance, God said it was an abomination for His people to corrupt the temple standards of measures by having two sets of weights in the bag, one honest and the other deceptive, so as to cheat people into getting less product for their money. Every scale and set of weights in Israel was to conform to the set of weights in the house of God. But dishonest sellers had two sets of weights in their bags, using the heavier set when they sold their merchandise. This is where the term double standard comes from. And when you change the standard, the weight of something, you change its value. God said in Proverbs 16, 11, the bag and the weights in the bag are His.

The bag is the Bible and its laws are the weights, the standard of right and wrong. And America was founded on these Judeo-Christian standards. Today there is a double standard in America and in the church. People have created their own set of corrupt weights, devaluing the truth of God's word. We've come to the place, as Isaiah prophesied, when they call evil good and good evil. And when a society changes its standards, it then must change its laws to facilitate the new standards.

This necessitates redefining words to conform to the new laws. Sin is a weakness, a disease. It's an alternate lifestyle. What was once a personal preference, such as homosexuality, is now the new standard for which the law was changed to legalize same-sex marriage in America. And God's standard for marriage was struck down. It has opened the door to prosecute Christian vendors who will not participate in same-sex weddings.

Men can change standards, laws, and dictionaries, but it won't change the reality. God holds the scales and the weights in His bag. America Weight in the Balance is a fresh word in due season, and it's available today on CD for your love gift for the Radio of Ministry of $10 or more. Request SK201, mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203, or shop online at soundoffaith.org, where you can order on MP3s. But to order by mail, send a minimum love gift of $10, request SK201 to P.O.

Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Saints, I hope you will order the CD and even shop our e-store for other timely messages by myself and my dad, Brother Hardy. But if not, I urge you to send your best donation to help us with the cost of airtime on this station. If you are inspired, informed, blessed, and refreshed by our program, we want to hear from you, and your support can help us stay on this station. Until next time, this is Sharon Notzain, Maranatha.