DUST ON THE SCALES

Our men meet for Bible study on Friday mornings at 6:30.  This morning I was talking with our patriarch and he was telling me about his grandfather who came to the United States from Holland as a very young man.  He was unchurched and an unbeliever.  By God’s providence there was a connection made with a family in South Dakota and he went to live with and work for them on their farm.  This family was a Christian family and by God’s grace the young Hollander came to faith through their testimony.

In our conversation this morning my friend told me that his grandfather always included in his prayers the phrase, “for we are but dust.”  We decided to look up the passage in Isaiah 40:15-17.

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

And are accounted as the dust on the scales;

Behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.

Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,

Nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

All the nations are as nothing before him,

They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

We noticed something.  The text does not say that we are like dust on the scales; it says the nations are like dust!  We began to wonder in awe at the immensity and supremacy of our God!  Entire nations, scores of nations, are like dust on the scales!  What is the significance of the dust on the scales?  We thought back to the days when shopkeepers would have a scales on their counter.  They would weigh their products on one side of the scales and the gold or coins used in payment on the other.  The buyer would want to make certain that the shopkeeper’s side of the scales was completely clean so he would get his full weight in product while the seller wanted to make sure the other side of the scales was tidy so he would receive his full payment.  The scales would be wiped clean.  Perhaps only specks of insignificant dust would remain on the balance.  Insignificant dust.  Dust that meant nothing to either the buyer or the seller.  Entire nations are no more than that insignificant dust which is of no concern to anybody!  In God’s eyes the nations are “less than nothing and emptiness” (v. 17).

Nevertheless, “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men…” (Philippians 2:6, 7).  Can we even begin to imagine the immensity of the step the Son of God took to become a human being residing in one tiny nation, one tiny speck of his own creation?   Why?

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:9, 10, 19).  Stunning!  Completely and absolutely stunning!  That he should love one who is a single individual, less than a speck of dust!