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The sermon presents God’s law as an exact standard that finds every person wanting, exposing the insufficiency of morality, reputation, and outward religious practice. Genuine faith is tested by conscience, Scripture, adversity, prosperity, and temptation, and must demonstrate dependence on divine grace rather than self-confidence. Spurgeon strongly emphasizes the reality of death, final judgment, hell, and eternal punishment. Yet the warning is intended to drive hearers to repentance and to plead for forgiveness, renewal, and acceptance through Jesus Christ.
Theological center: God’s holy law exposes universal human guilt, while salvation and assurance must rest on divine mercy in Christ rather than religious profession or personal merit.
Applications: Judge yourself before God · Test your religion by conscience · Weigh yourself by Scripture · Reject religious self-deception
Primary texts: Daniel 5:27 · 1 Corinthians 11:31 · Romans 7:24
“TEKEL; You are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting.” Daniel 5:27. THERE is a weighing time for kings and emperors and all the monarchs of earth, albeit some of them have exalted themselves to a position in which they appear to be irresponsible to man. Though they escape the scales on earth, they must surely be tried at the bar of God. For nations there is a weighing time. National sins demand national punishments. The whole history of God’s dealings with mankind proves that though a nation may go on in wickedness; it may multiply its oppressions; it may abound in bloodshed, tyranny and war—but an hour of retribution draws near—when it shall have filled up its measure of iniquity! Then shall the angel of vengeance execute its doom. There cannot be an eternal damnation for nations as nations—the destruction of men at last will be that of individuals, and at the bar of God each man must be tried for himself. The punishment, therefore, of nations, is national. The guilt they incur must receive its awful recompense in this present time state! It was so with the great nation of the Chaldeans. They had been guilty of blood. The monuments which still remain and which we have lately explored prove them to have been a cruel and ferocious race. They were a people of a strange language, and stranger than their language were their deeds. God allowed that nation for a certain period to grow and thrive till it became God’s hammer, breaking in pieces many nations. It was the axe of the Almighty—His battle-ax and His weapon of war! By it He smote the loins of kings, yes, and slew mighty kings. But its time came at last. She sat alone as a queen and said, “I shall see no sorrow,” nevertheless, the Lord brought her low and made her grind in the dust of captivity and gave her riches to the spoiler and her pomp to the destroyer! Even so must it be with every nation of the earth that is guilty of oppression. Humbling itself before God, when His wrath is kindled but a little, it may, for a while, arrest its fate. But, if it still continues in its bold unrighteousness, it shall certainly reap the harvest of its own sowing. So likewise shall it be with the nations that now abide on the face of the earth. There is no God in heaven if the iniquity of slavery goes unpunished! There is no God existing in heaven above if the cry of the Negro does not bring down a red hail of blood upon the nation that still holds the black man in slavery! Nor is there a God anywhere if the nations of Europe that still oppress each other and are oppressed by tyrants do not find out to the…