God Weighs all Things

In the bible, the book of Daniel 5:25-31 describes what happened to King Belshazzar:

“Once when King Belshazzar was banqueting with his lords and drinking wine from the golden vessels of the Temple of Yhwh, a man’s hand was seen writing on the wall certain mysterious words. Frightened by the apparition, the king ordered his astrologers to explain the inscription; but they were unable to read it. Daniel was then summoned to the royal palace; and the king promised him costly presents if he would decipher the inscription.

Daniel read it “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin” and explained it to mean that God had “numbered” the kingdom of Belshazzar and brought it to an end; that the king had been weighed and found wanting; and that his kingdom was divided and given to the Medes and Persians” – jewishencylopedia.com
Dictionary.com translates the Aramaic phrase as “numbered, numbered, weighed, divided”

No telling of the story of David is complete without including his sin concerning his faithful captain Uriah. King David had Uriah murdered because he wouldn’t co-operate when the king tried to hide and cover up his appalling behaviour. David had slept with Uriah’s wife and got her pregnant, even while Uriah was fighting on his behalf in a war.
Indeed, this single sin overshadowed his entire rulership of Israel, led to a schism in the kingdom, rebellion, the loss of his sons and more. It almost cost him everything – including his family and his kingdom.

Yet David is often referred to as a man after God’s heart. I’m sure I’m not the only one who finds this rather perplexing.

When the prophet Nathan deliberately asked David to make a judgement about an imagined similar situation, David was furious and quick to judge that the offender was deserving of death.
The prophet Nathan soon after confronted David about this murder, by first telling him a parable of a rich man and a poor man: The rich man had many sheep, while the poor man had only one little ewe, whom he cared for greatly. A traveller approached the rich man for food, whereby the man took the poor man’s ewe and dressed it to give to the traveller.
Hearing this story, David grew angry and replied: “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity.”

Nathan replied, “You are the man! This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah.
“And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in His eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.
“You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised Me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.'” 2 Samuel 12: 1-10 NIV

Despite this God showed mercy to David, and in many places AFTERWARDS refers to him as to as a man after God’s heart. So, although his life was blotted by his sin, he was NOT cast out, removed from Gods affections, estranged or banished.
What made the difference when compared to other Kings of Israel?
In almost all instances David sought after Gods will, not his own.

His life is actually a message to us – he wasn’t perfect. He sinned greatly but was restored. God weighed the good he did, the attitudes he had, the way he lived his life. His recognition of his sinfulness, his relationship, his adherence to Gods principles, his righteous judgements – and on balance he was to be loved, accepted, forgiven – despite his undeniable major sin.
Look at what the Bible says in 1 Kings 15:3-5 while speaking of King Abijam, a direct descendant of David’s:

3 He committed all the sins his father had done before him; his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his forefather had been.
4 Nevertheless, for David’s sake the LORD his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by raising up a son to succeed him and by making Jerusalem strong.
5 For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.

So, what does this mean for us? In the bible, Jesus is recorded as stating:

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” John 6:37.

Many times, we know we have sinned, and feel we do not deserve mercy. Sometimes we stay away from God because we are too ashamed of our sins to face him. But there is no need to. We need to understand that God knew we would sin before we even committed it. God is always seeking to protect us from sin, but even when we fall, he’s always looking to restore us.
God doesn’t expect us to be perfect, but he does expect us to seek him and desire righteousness, above all. To seek restoration, and be repentant, and not try to justify our evil-doing – as Saul did in 1 Samuel 15:20-21 – leading to the loss of his kingdom and the eventual death of most of his sons.
Let’s not follow our own will, our own desires, but his.