Thread by @harrydaniyan

THE SCRIPTURE SCALE
(Daniel 5:1-28)

The Hand appeared suddenly.
The hall went quiet.
The King’s goblet fell off his hand, spilling his drink on his royal robes.
The queen fainted.
The National Security Adviser pissed in his pants.
The Service Chiefs tried to look brave…

The Hand moved to the wall and wrote:
“MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN” and disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.

Suddenly, a loud scream rented the air.
Pandemonium everywhere...!

People rushed to the door to escape, trampling over each other, high heels piercing into the flesh of the fallen.
All the bottles of Jack Daniels, Bailey’s, Hennessy, Dom Perignon and Moet and Chandon crashed on the floor, spilling exotic and expensive drinks everywhere...

Any onlooker would think there was a bomb scare, Nobody had any idea what was going on.

Until Daniel was called in.

He entered the Royal Hall and walked to the king, careful not to step on the broken bottles or slip on the spilled wine.
He saw the writing on the wall.

He closed his eyes for a moment.
Inspiration came.
He started interpreting.
He got to the word TEKEL:
“You have been weighed in a scale and found wanting”, he said.

King Belshazzar was weighed, he fell below standard.
What was the standard he was weighed on? What scale was used?

Is that standard still applicable today?
I don’t know.

But what I know is, I have a scale I use to weigh myself:
The SCRIPTURE SCALE.

That is MY standard: “What saith the scriptures?”

I am a Christian.
The Bible is MY scale.
I weigh everything on it.
EVERYTHING.

Driving home, I stop at a red light.
A car stops next to me.
“Hey!”
I turn to see who it is.
“You’re very stupid!” the driver says.
I want to react.
In that moment, I weigh my proposed reaction on the Scripture Scale:

“But no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness...

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.”- James 3:8-10.
I smile and wave at him and drive off as the light turns green…

I’m in a site meeting.
The client, engineers and surveyors are in attendance.
The client cracks a dirty joke.
Everybody laughs.
I want to laugh like everyone else.
I want to add to the joke.
I weigh the joke on the Scripture Scale:

“Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving”- Ephesians 5:4.
"Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt...'- Colossians 4:6.
I keep quiet.

A client asks me to buy a property.
I find one that meets his criteria: N 60m.
I want to tell the client it’s N 70m.
I weigh the thought on the Scripture Scale:

“The Lord detests dishonest scales,
but accurate weights find favor with him”- Proverbs 11:1.
I kill the thought.

I’m with friends, discussing politics.
One says, “This government is useless! The president is clueless, hopeless and incompetent!
I want to express my unpalatable thoughts on the government also.
I weigh them on the Scripture Scale:

“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness...

This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth”- 1st Timothy 2: 1-4.

“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established...

The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves”- Romans 13:1-2.
I don’t join in.

An organisation asks me to supply some goods.
I buy them and ask the shop owner for a receipt.
He asks me, “Oga, wetin make I write?”
I want to double the amount and make extra money.

But I weigh it on the Scripture Scale:
"Lying lips are abomination to the LORD"- Proverbs 12:22

Now, I am a voracious reader of the Bible.
I read at least 10 chapters daily, Genesis to Revelations every 4 months.
I’ve been doing so since 1990.

But I realized there’s a problem: The APPLICATION of what I read in my life!

I've come to understand that the APPLICATION of Scripture is the challenge of the average Christian:
Where the rubber meets the road.
I realize we're mostly readers, not doers.
No- we HARDLY even take time to read scriptures ourselves!
We're mostly "Pastor said" Christians...

But that changed for me when I set up a Scripture Scale, when I decided to start weighing ALL aspects of my life with Scripture.

So, if that Hand appears at my party and writes on the wall, I won’t spill my drink and I can guarantee you I won’t be worried it will write “TEKEL”…

I encourage you all to adopt same scale in your lives, if indeed you want to be a Christian in word and in deed.
You don't follow human philosophy: you follow SCRIPTURE.

“…If it is not according to SCRIPTURE, there is no light in it.”- Isaiah 8:20

Shalom.
Haruna Daniels
😇