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How do you weigh before God? – Part 2

By Pastor W. F. Kumuyi
17 May 2020   |   4:06 am
Belshazzar had no thought or consciousness of the existence of the true God. He sinned freely without thinking of God’s law or God’s judgment.

Belshazzar had no thought or consciousness of the existence of the true God. He sinned freely without thinking of God’s law or God’s judgment. Yet that did not hinder God from weighing or evaluating his acts of infidelity, immorality and profanity. Those who claim to be atheists, deny the existence of God, and live without any thought of divine judgment, when they are weighed in God’s divine balance, they will be found not only wanting but worthless. Belshazzar was a sensual man, addicted to fleshly pleasures. Wine, women and wealth were all he cared for. While the flesh was nourished and satiated, the soul was famished and defiled.

He was a king, but in heaven’s evaluation, the influence of his kingdom was worthless. Graceless, worldly sinners live for the flesh without making any positive impact on the world. “Let us eat and drink,” is their whole purpose of living. Their lives will soon be weighed in the balance and they will be found not only wanting, but also worthless.

Belshazzar was selfish and self-centered. He was forgetful of God’s judgment on proud Nebuchadnezzar. As he was forgetful of the past, he was negligent of present duties and nonchalant about the future. His heart was deadened, his mind was darkened, his senses were dulled, his understanding was dimmed and when he was weighed in the balances, he was not only found wanting, but also worthless. The dishonest man, the intemperate man, the fraudulent man, the corrupt man, the self-deluded man, the gambler, the swindler, the drunkard and the worldling will soon be weighed in the divine balance of righteousness and truth. They will all be found, not only wanting, but also worthless.

The man or woman who lives as if there is no God in heaven to inspect his or her conduct, as if there is no judgment bar at which we must one day appear, says, ‘give me riches, honour, pleasure, fashion, health, friends and long-life. That is all I care for.’ Like Belshazzar, each one of such people will soon be weighed in the balances and be found wanting and worthless. What a day that would be.

Belshazzar was not merely an individual sinner, he was a royal sinner, an influential sinner, a seductive, enticing sinner. He led “a thousand of his lords”, “his princes, his wives and his concubines” into the sin of idolatry, sacrilege, profanity, infidelity, irreverence, blasphemy and perversion. Apostates and seducers are not content or satisfied to sin and dishonour God all alone by themselves, they must also drag others into sin with them. To sin against God is bad and terrible enough to earn us eternal punishment, but to lead others to sin against God is worse and its damnation is greater and more terrifying. Those who, like Jeroboam, the renegade king of the breakaway kingdom of Israel, and who cause others to sin are known to God, and when weighed in the balance, will be found worse than wanting. The damnation of Jeroboam was irreversible because he not only sinned against God but “he made Israel to sin” (1 Kings 14:16; 15:26,34; 16:13,26; 21:22; 22:52; 2 Kings 10:29,31; 13:2; 14:24; 15:9,18,24,28; 23:15). When sinners are weighed in God’s balance of righteous commandments, they are found wanting and condemned. When seducers, tempters and temptresses, who lead others to sin, are weighed in God’s balance, they will be found worse and worthy of “greater condemnation”.

There are those who do not merely sin, “they do evil with both hands earnestly” (Micah 7:3). There are those who “sit in Moses’ seat”, who “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, who neither go in, neither suffer (permit) them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:2,13). These are worse than ordinary sinners and they “shall receive the greater damnation” (Matthew 23:14). These influential apostates make those they influence “two-fold more the child of hell than” themselves, and “how can they escape the damnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:15, 33). All those who “deny the faith” and then labour to destroy the faith of others (2 Timothy 2:17,18) will be weighed on the final day of judgment and found worse than infidels, and “it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for” them (Matthew 10:15; 11:24; Jude7).

What shall be the final verdict on each of us on the final day? When the secrets of men are brought before God and weighed in His just and righteous balance, shall we be found wanting, worthless or worse than worthless? We can come to Christ today and trust Him to atone for all our moral deficiencies and be clothed in His righteousness. Only then shall we be weighed and found weighty and worthy of life eternal in glory with Christ.

Further Reading (King James Version): Daniel 5:27; Daniel 5:27,22,23; Job 31:6,4-7,13-24,39; Jeremiah 13:7-10; Matthew 22:8-13; 25:24-30; Mark 8:36-38; Luke 12:15-21; Acts 13:27,44-46; Matthew 5:13; 1 Corinthians 13:1-3; Matthew 10:37,38;Hebrews 10:37-39; Daniel 5:27, 18-24; Psalm 62:9; 1 Kings 16:25,26; 2 Chronicles 33:9-11; 2 Kings 21:9-18; Jeremiah7:26-28; 16:10-12; 2 Timothy 3:13; Luke 11:15-26; Hebrews 10:26-31; 2 Peter 2:20-22; Revelation 2:20-23.

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