PROFITING FROM PROVERBS

“A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight” (Proverbs 11:1 KJV).

There’s another way of looking at this thing of a false balance, and that, of course, is that a person’s life ought to be balanced. “A false balance is abomination to the LORD.” It is very hard to balance the Christian life. There are three parts to a Christian’s life. He has a physical part, he has a soulish part, and he has a spiritual part. Normally, we talk about mainly two—the flesh and the spirit—but there is a soul in there and there are things that feed the soul rather than the spirit or the flesh.

Culture, very good art, very, very good music—the best that man can produce—you have to go back before the Romanticist, you have to go back into the Classical composers where, when you listen to their music, it’s very dull to listen to—from the physical standpoint—because it doesn’t do anything for your flesh, it doesn’t make your feet stomp or your body sway, but it was produced as an art.

Beethoven’s early symphonies were highly classical, Bach was a classicist—he wrote music just to glorify God—even though it wasn’t what you’d call really ‘spiritual’ music. Some of Bach’s music was. You listen to his organ music or his chamber music, there really wasn’t a whole lot to that, it doesn’t meet the needs of the physical, but it meets the needs of the man, or the being inside. It does something for the inner man.

Here we are talking about character—things that build character, from a human standpoint. Strong character, loyalty, goodness, virtue—the king of things that are right. Things that give an individual balance and harmony, and the things that appeal to the nature of a man.

Now, the body likes body music. You know what that is. You can turn on any kind of music anywhere, on any radio station—you get body music. There is really no such thing as “soul music,” what they call soul music is really body music.

Now there is also music that appeals to the spirit. And, of course, that is strictly biblical music, hymns, that are written to praise the Lord and to encourage you to live in order to praise God—by your righteousness, by your obedience, by your love for Him, and by your worship of Him. Things that will encourage you to pray, things that will encourage you to read your Bible, things that will encourage you to want to go and win others to Christ. That is spiritual music, that which feeds the spiritual nature of the individual.

“A false balance is abomination to the LORD,” and when a man spends all his time feeding one part of his nature, he is not going to have the proper balance. I understand you have to sleep, you have to eat, there are physical things—you have to go grocery shopping, you have to patch the leak in the roof, and things like that—there is the physical side of life. . . but don’t let that be the main part of life.

“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24 KJV).

Jesus Christ states here in chapter 6 of Matthew that there are other priorities that are more important than just being concerned about the physical aspects of life. Where most people get into trouble is their whole motive for living is the physical side of life. And I’ll say this, according to Proverbs, if that is where your life is geared, and those are your delights, and those are your hopes, you’ll never attain them. It’ll be a willow’s whist, it will be something that will allude you throughout the rest of your life, you’ll never find it, because you cannot satisfy this flesh.

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