Fiddling the Books
Proverbs 20:10 Diverse weights and measures are both an abomination to the Lord.
Okay, an awkward question: have you ever lied on your tax return or fiddled the books … even just a little bit? Perhaps overcharged a client, or filched something from work to use at home. Or maybe the store attendant gave you too much change and after a split second of indecision, you wrapped your hand around the cash and walked briskly out of the store.
They’re the kind of questions that many of us don’t much want to think about. There are plenty of people filling the pews of churches today, who, just in the last twelve months have swindled someone out of something that was rightly theirs.
The opportunities for this sort of thing abound in modern life. Consultants and lawyers overcharging their clients. People receiving benefits from the government, not declaring a change in their circumstances which would reduce those benefits.
It’s a funny thing. Most of us wouldn’t steal something out of a shop, but how many people are prepared to download a song or video from the internet without paying for it?
If that’s got you squirming in your seat, good thing. God has a message for you today:
Diverse weights and measures are both an abomination to the Lord. (Proverbs 20:10)
Maybe the taxman, the client, the boss and the store attendant didn’t notice. Maybe the system hasn’t caught up with you yet. But there’s someone who has noticed. And there’s someone who will catch up with you in the end.
The picture there in that verse from the book of proverbs isn’t about shop-lifting or stealing. It’s a picture of white-collar crime. A trader who has some weights that he uses to balance the scales in order to measure out whatever he’s buying or selling.
I’m old enough to remember when those sorts of scales were commonplace. A balancing beam on a pivot, with little baskets or dishes hanging off either end of the beam. On one dish you would place the thing that you were weighing. On the other dish, some standard weights – pounds and ounces. And by putting enough of those standard weights on the other side to make the beam level, and tallying them up, you could measure the weight of the thing that you were weighing.
And here, God’s talking about using false standard weights. Lighter ones if what you were weighing was something that you were buying. And heavier ones, if it was something you were selling. Not too offensive right?
But wait. Listen again to God’s judgement of this sort of behaviour:
Diverse weights and measures are both an abomination to the Lord.
Wake up.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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