"How is your Plumb Line"


BIBLE READING:  Amos 6-9
               Do you know what a plumb line is?  It’s a weighted string that hangs.  The weight on the end of the string allows the pull of gravity to stretch a string straight down.  It is considered to be a perfect vertical standard.  If you’re setting up a wall of a house or fence posts for a fence, a plumb line can be crucial to make sure the wall, or the fence, stands completely and perfectly vertical and won’t fall over.  In Amos 7:7-9, one of Amos’s five visions about Israel is about a plumb line that the Lord held next to a wall.  The Lord told Amos that he was setting it in the midst of Israel, in a sense, to see if they measured up to His standards.  If they came up crooked, He would discard them.  God expects every (spiritual) wall that we build to be built by His plumb line.  All of us are building a “wall of character”… bit by bit… day by day… decision by decision.  We may choose to build it by the rule of pleasure, or by the rule of popular opinion, by the rule of certain prejudices, or by many other standards, but the only one that will be true is that which is built according to God’s standards.  We must not forget that God judges by an exact standard (Isaiah 28:17).  If your wall isn’t straight according to God’s standards, we must fix it.  One doesn’t wait until the wall is done to test it against the plumb line, but during the course of building the wall, one measures it repeatedly against the plumb line to insure that it is straight.
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