I'd like us this morning to continue our occasional study in the book of Proverbs, and in God's providence, we come now to chapter eleven of the book of Proverbs. I'd like us to consider in this collection the first verse of Proverbs chapter eleven, where we read, A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. A false balance is an abomination to the Lord. I'll begin by asking you a simple question. When you go to the supermarket to lay in the provisions for the hungry mouths that sit around your table, do you weigh everything that you put in your shopping basket? When you go to the meat counter, for instance, and you see this joint of meat, whether it be beef or chicken or ham or whatever else, it'll have a label. It's all nicely cellophane-wrapped to keep the germs out and all sorts of good stuff. It has a label. And it'll tell you how much it is a pound, it'll tell you how many pounds it is, and then it'll tell you how much that final cost will be. You're all familiar with that. I'm telling you what you already know. But when you get home with that piece of meat or that bag of potatoes is the first thing that you do to go to the kitchen scales to make sure you're not being cheated. Have you ever done that? I have to say, Scottish though I am, I've never done that. I just automatically assume if it's been weighed out by the store that the store's scales are accurate and therefore that they are giving me what they say that they are giving me. If the bag of potatoes in the produce section says 10 pounds, I don't rush to the scales to verify whether in fact they're giving me 10 pounds of potatoes. And I suspect that the vast majority of you would do exactly the same, or at least not do exactly the same. In other words, you don't measure out what it is that you're buying. If it says 10 pounds of potatoes, you assume that you're getting ten pounds of potatoes. Well, would the grocer cheat you? Now, this may seem like a long path to take, but bear with me. Would the grocer cheat you? You say, well, no, he probably wouldn't. Well, what reason would he have for cheating you? Well, you don't have to have a degree in theology to work that one out. After all, he has a vested interest in telling you you're getting £10 a potato is only selling you £5 if he could get away with it because that would increase his profit margin considerably and after all it's a business and a business is there to make profit, it's not a charitable institution so he is a vested interest, why would he want to cheat you? Because he wants to maximise his profits He probably has his own family. He would like to have a bigger home perhaps. He'd like to have a newer car. He'd like to treat his children to all sorts of good things. So there's plenty of reasons why he might be inclined towards cheating you. Well, what stops him then? Well, one of the reasons, no doubt, that stops many bad things from happening is that, just simply put, there's a law against it. he could be fined for cheating you and the penalty would be greater than the potential gain and so it's not ultimately in his interest he may make a few cents on a bag of potatoes but when compared to how much he would be fined if he was caught selling under the weight then it's not worth the risk he might lose his license to trade Is he going to risk his possibility of earning his living from running his store for the sake of a few cents? There are these, as it were, these incentives to being honest, which society puts in place to say, if you do wrong, there is a penalty if you're caught out. Or there may be an enlightened self-interest on the part of the grocer. Again, bear with me, I'll get to the point of Proverbs chapter 11 verse 1, but I need to just lay the groundwork. He might do it from a sense of enlightened self-interest. After all, if you went to a store where you felt on a regular basis you were being cheated, you would be inclined to shop elsewhere. And so for a temporary monetary gain, he may find himself losing his customer base. So it's not that he's particularly honest, as it were, not that he's particularly fearful of being caught out, at least not by the forces of the law. He's fearful that he might lose his source of income. Well, these are all pressures that we would recognize. And if we are in business, we recognize that there are those pressures placed upon us to do the right thing. But of course there is a better reason. They're not just as it were being fearful of being caught out and being fined or fearful of losing the good will of our customers that keeps us honest. For many they would say well I don't do that just simply because it's wrong to do that. It's wrong. There's a moral reason. When we say that, we have, as it were, stepped out of the realm of the law courts where it would say it's wrong to do it because the laws of the land say that it's wrong and therefore you're going to be fined. We stepped away from economic good principles that you want to keep your customer base, satisfy so they'll keep on coming back and keep on spending their money at your store. You've stepped out of the law court, you've stepped out of the economic classroom into the realm of morality. You're saying the reason I don't do it is not because it's against the law of the land, not because it's bad economic practice, but because it's just wrong. It's morally wrong. But here's the question I would pose to anyone who doesn't go and attend upon the means of grace. In other words, doesn't place his moral basis on the basis of It says so in my Bible. You and I will come to it and seek to draw applications from. Here we have the basis. Why should 10 pounds of potatoes weigh 10 pounds? A false balance is an abomination to the Lord. There it is, black and white, right on the pages of scripture. If you are a grocer and you're not giving a fair weight, then God has something to say about it. And it's something very strong. It's an abomination to the Lord. You really shouldn't do that. But after all, it's just 10 pounds of potatoes. That'll cost you just a couple of bucks. I'm showing who does the shopping in our family. I think it's a couple of bucks. I don't have a clue. Right. It's just a small amount. Who cares whether it's a few ounces under? God cares. Now when you're speaking to the grocer, and perhaps you've never had this conversation, I'm not suggesting that you should particularly, but we kind of posit the question, why do you as a grocer not sell weight short? Why can I assume that it is accurate? Well, the law will compel him. The economics would compel him. Perhaps he would even say even though he's an unbeliever, that morally I have to do it. It's being, I'm honest. And it's not, you know, we're sort of looking at the grocer, just as a particular example, but you will know many people in college, people in the place of work that have no profession of faith whatsoever, never give any demonstration of trusting the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation, and yet you know them to be men of integrity. You know that when they say something, they're going to do it. You know that if they were selling you ten pounds of potatoes, then that would be ten pounds of potatoes and not nine and a half. And they would do it on the basis that they believe that that is the morally right thing to do. And the question for them is this. What ultimately is the basis of your morality? What reason have you to be moral? Well, it's just right. Well, why is it right? I can tell you why I think it is right. I think it is right because God tells me and he is the standard to which I am being held accountable. But if you don't believe in God, what is the basis of your morality? The answer is you don't really have one. You as an unbeliever are borrowing Actually, you're stealing from my worldview as a Christian. Because you're saying, I'm going to do it because it's right. Well, why is it right? Because you said it's right. Well, somebody else says it's right, and somebody else says it's wrong. Perhaps somebody else says, I have a greater responsibility to feed my children. And if feeding my children means I have to swindle you, then I'm quite happy to do it. Well, that would be wrong. Well, tell me why it is wrong. Tell me why it is wrong. Well, the law says it is wrong. So you've abandoned the moral aspect and now you're claiming it on the basis because the law said it is wrong. But if the law said it was OK to do that, would that make it OK? And even when you're saying the law says it is wrong, what you're saying is there is a standard outside of myself to which I'll be held accountable. Well, why should other men's opinions of what is right and wrong hold you accountable? They're just men, after all. Just because there's more of them, does that suddenly mean that it's morally right? No. Your worldview is utterly inconsistent. I say that ten pounds of potatoes has to weigh ten pounds of potatoes because there is such a thing as a true balance. And that's what the word of God is saying here. A false balance is an abomination, but a just weight is a delight. God is saying in his word that there is such a thing as a false balance and such a thing as a true balance. And that's not just what one man or even a collection of men says about it. In other words, when we come to the question, why is it wrong? We say, in order to have an understanding that something is right and something is wrong, it has to be with reference to something outside of ourselves. It can't be another man. It has to be the absolute of God himself. So the Christian has an answer. The Christian has an answer. Why is it wrong? Because we say God says it is wrong. And he is the absolute. He's the one who declares what is right and what is false. God is saying in his word, Proverbs chapter 11 verse 1, a false balance is an abomination to him. There is in God's estimation, God says in his estimation, that there is such a thing as a false balance, a giving of a false weight, and there is such a thing as a just weight. I have a reason for saying that something is morally right and morally wrong, and it's not just because I say it is so, but because God says it is so. We have a standard which is outside of ourselves. And when the grocer says, well, it's ten pounds. Well, what's ten pounds? What you're acknowledging is that there is a standard to which you are going to be held accountable. And that standard is not just what other men think. But man does not wish to be held accountable. And so he has to borrow, steal from your worldview and mine if we're Christians. That there is something outside of us to which we'll be held accountable. There is such a thing as a false balance. There is such a thing as a just weight. We recognize that from the Word of God. Whenever that grocer says, I am held accountable, you say, well, where are you being held accountable? You're recognizing that you are not actually the one who holds yourself accountable. But he's borrowing from our world and life view. Man tries to throw that responsibility off. Moral relativism takes over. Something is right because I say it is right. Something is wrong because I say it is wrong. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't accept you as an authority. And I don't see why I should accept any other man's word as the basis of my morality either. Perhaps you're familiar with An old statement, man is the measure of all things. It was in the back of my mind, I looked it up, it comes from Protagoras, lived two and a half millennia ago. Half a millennia before the birth of Christ, man was saying, man is the measure of all things. So if you think that moral relativism is something new, then Perhaps we can go with the word of God that says there is nothing new under the sun. In fact, we can really trace it back to Adam, can't we? Who rejected God's authority in the garden. The response of the Christian is to say that there is a standard to which we are all accountable. And it even regulates what you put in your shopping cart. Quick word to mums, the next time you're going around with your children, you're filling up the shopping cart, you're pulling off that ten pound bag of potatoes, or the meat from the fridge section, it has a label on it. Do you see what it says? It says it's a weight. Do you believe that? Why, yeah you believe that. And here's the question that we pose ourselves, do you trust your grocer more than your God? Do you trust the grocer? You never think about questioning the weight on those potatoes. You never think about questioning the weight on that chunk of meat. Do you trust your grocer more than you do your God? God sets before us his standards. And when we're seeking to live up to those standards, it's not primarily, at least it shouldn't be, that we're frightened that God is going to punish us for breaking his law. or that we're going to miss out on some blessing which would otherwise become ours. The laws of God are set there and they are to be adhered to because they are good laws. Honesty may indeed be its own reward. So God has set before us this standard by which we are to conduct ourselves with our fellow man. And if you are a grocer, then there is this very obvious application from the Word of God that you should be faithful in that. Not because you're frightened of the criminal proceedings that might be brought against you if you have an unjust scale. Not because you're frightened of losing your customer base, but because God is holding your counter bone. He's saying, I want to do this because this is what pleases God. and I belong to him. God is showing me, in this particular verse, showing us all his own character. We come to the Ten Commandments. One of the things, the ways in which we read and understand the Ten Commandments is this. We say, God is showing me his own character in the Ten Commandments. This is how God is. They're not an arbitrary set of regulations. I've, boys and girls, have explained the word arbitrary to you. There are some laws which may be arbitrary to us, but that doesn't make them bad laws in and of themselves. The street in which I live, the speed limit is 20 miles an hour. It could be 25, it could be 15, in that sense it's arbitrary. A law is given that says don't drive any faster than this, but what that speed is is set by men. You don't find it in your Bible. Outside the minister's house, don't drive any faster than 20, don't drive your chariot faster than 20 miles per hour. It doesn't say that in your Bible. It's a law of man. In one sense, it's arbitrary. It could be higher, it could be lower. Is God choosing laws in an arbitrary fashion? He could say this, but he could say something else. No! The reflection of the very character of God himself. He says, do not steal. Because God cannot steal. There are some things God cannot do. So, as we try to make application of it, we've come from, as it were, just thinking about the grocery store. We'll say, I want to make application. If this is a reflection of God's character, his very nature, and surely if we're reading Proverbs chapter 11, verse 1, we see that God, as it were, is emotionally committed. He says that a False balance is an abomination. An abomination. As far as we are able to understand what scripture is saying, it's used in terms that we can understand. It's as if we see something and our blood starts to boil and it just annoys the stuffing out of us. Well, you know, we want to be careful as we talk about these things. We're talking about God who's right body parts and passions. He's given to us an understanding this is something that God views as being greatly wrong. And the other side of the coin is that he takes delight in just weights. And perhaps you haven't thought of it when you're passing through some supermarket and you're going past the deli counter, and there they have the scale up there on the counter, they're putting the slices of meat or whatever, the slices of cheese, whatever you've asked for, and you're trusting that that scale is accurate. You can say, God delights in that. Isn't that what your Bible says? And mums, point that out to your children. Always be looking for those examples of what God says in his word. Look at that scale. Do you see that? That's accurate. God's pleased with that. How do you know God's pleased with it? Because he says so in his word. Just wait is his delight. Well, how are we to make applications? Let me give you three applications. It's not just as it were that we should give a a fair response. In other words, here's the potatoes, and you say, I'm going to sell you these potatoes at so much a pound, and this is ten pounds, and therefore this is how much the cost is going to be. That is just the most basic way in which we can understand that. But we work up from that to say, well, is it possible that I might be quite sure in my own mind that I would be morally correct? Whatever your line of work might be that you would give a fair response You would never be the unjust grocer who would try to cheat your customers by giving them nine and a half pounds. You'd never do that. Why not? Because it is morally wrong. But how do you treat those that are dear to you? A wife, a child, a neighbor, a fellow believer. You're in a relationship with someone. And that relationship means that you have to give a fair response to them. You can't treat somebody who has always been kind to you with indifference and callous offhandness, if there is such a word. No, you are called upon by God to give a proper response. Honor to those who deserve honor. Love to those who deserve love. So I say again, if there is this, as it were, transaction, and I don't want to be too mercantile about it, but if there's this transaction, you see, I would never sell somebody short when it comes to potatoes. Well, would you sell your husband or your wife short? Would you sell your son or your daughter short? And not give to them that affection which is their due. Next, Lord's Day by God's grace. I trust we'll have the installation of our new deacons, whether they're men that are already ordained to the diaconate. But part of the vows of the congregation is to give all that honor to which their office entitles them. I trust that we are thinking about this particular proverb. I want to be faithful and give an accurate a proper response. Now secondly, I want to take it into the more obviously spiritual realm. Thus far we've really been concentrating on the relationship between men and the law of God sets before us how we should conduct ourselves before men, that we should be honest in our dealings with them, that the grocer should give an honest weight and that a dishonest weight would be an abomination to the Lord and a just weight is a delight to the Lord. And that's talking about our interpersonal relationships. We take it out of the grocery store and set it in our home when we talk about the relationship that we have with a husband or a wife or a son or a daughter. And I do most earnestly believe it's legitimate to talk in terms of our human relationship in a broader sphere. But what about our relationships relationship with the Lord our God. How often do we favor the momentary and passing pleasure in preference to desiring holiness? You see how that is imbalanced? There is something that you know to be wrong, but that passing pleasure is given more weight to you than being pleasing to God. You have, as it were, a feather on one side and a bar of gold on the other. But we press it out of the feather because that's what we want to do. Now, do you begin to see how that would be an abomination to God? You may not think of the scales in your delicatessen counter as being, if they're accurate, a delight to God. It's not the first thought that comes into your mind. But surely we're talking about the relationship that we have with God. We say, here is something that is seducing me for the moment. This passing pleasure which we would readily admit this is a pleasure which will be fleeting. This passing pleasure, I will weight more heavily than the eternity of glory which God offers me. Surely that is an abomination more readily seen to us. And when we step aside from that imbalance to say, no, I'm going to go with the eternal weight of glory, Can we not begin to see how the Word of God is made application to our own souls and says, God delights in that. That's just preferring holiness over that which is just a passing pleasure. There's a third and final application that I would make from Proverbs chapter 11 verse 1. There is good news. We sometimes make our way through scripture like a path. And every so often, as it were, we stop and we look at a particular verse, as we are doing this morning, and we lift up that stone that's on the path. And there underneath it, we find the gospel. We had walked that path, goodness knows how many times in the past. But never stop to consider it. This is a particular story we've read through the book of Proverbs. Perhaps you have made it a pattern. If you've been a homeschooler, read through the Proverbs. Train your children in the wisdom of God's word. You've walked along this path many times before and you say, oh yeah, I understand. False balance is an abomination. Just weight is a delight. And then you're on to the next one. But stop with me. Lift up the stone and you will see the gospel. If God is laid upon those who sell potatoes to be honest, boys and girls, do you think for one moment that God will ever prove dishonest to you? Why not? Because God is showing his own character. This is his character. He's not telling men to be honest when he is not himself honest. He can't do that. God will not cheat you is what he is saying. God will not cheat you. It would be utterly contrary to his nature to cheat you. God has promised you in his word And I do not hesitate to bring it to your attention on this, the last Lord's Day of the year, as in the course of this week, if the Lord should spare us and if he should tarry. We will rejoice with family and friends in the dawn of a new year. And what is our confidence as we greet 2014? That our God is faithful. He has promised you, never will I leave you. Never will I forsake you. Do you trust God's promise to you? Do you trust your grocer more than you do your God? You would never weigh the potatoes thinking that he may be swindling you. But you set aside the promises of God and you wonder, is this accurate? Well, brethren, brothers and sisters in Christ, look back upon 2013, and are you not able to say, my God has been faithful to me? He promised me long ago, never would he leave me, never would he forsake me, and he never has. And entering in 2014, I have this confidence that my God cannot swindle me. He cannot make a false representation. He will not give me nine and a half pounds when He promises me ten. Never will He leave you. Never will He forsake you. To do anything else would be an abomination. And God will not, will not and cannot break his word to you. It's not about the groceries. It's about a God who loves you and cares for you and has promised you in his word that in 2014, he will not leave you. He will not forsake you. That's the God we worship and adore. As we sometimes sing, be still, my soul. Your Jesus can repay from His own fullness all He takes away. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and our Heavenly Father, Thou art good and kind beyond measure. We thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou dost regulate in the affairs of men for honesty and for morality, but that that morality is based upon Thy very nature, that Thou art honest, Thou art true, We who would profess the name of Christ would give as our reason for being honest that we are honest because our God is honest. We trust Thee. We would lay hold upon those promises which Thou hast made us. Though at times we would confess that we stumble and fall and find ourselves like the Father reported to us in Thy Word long ago would say, Father, we do believe. Help thou mine unbelief. So, Lord, we pray that this day, even as we would make our way in this world, as in the course of this week, We may, with our own members of our own family, visit some supermarket and see there out for display the scales that we would bless thee. Not only that we have confidence in our grocer, but our confidence is supremely in our God. Bring to our remembrance that thou art faithful, that as we greet the new year we may do so. absolutely convinced that thou wilt prove thyself always in the experience of thy people to be faithful to thy promises, that never wilt thou leave us, never wilt thou forsake us. And to thy name, O most gracious God, be all glory and honor and praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.