January 20, 2024 

 God’s Plumb Line for our Lives

Min. Angel Williams 

Amos 7:7-15-7 This is what he showed me: The Lord was standing by a wall that had been built true to plumb,[a] with a plumb line[b] in his hand. 8 And the Lord asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” “A plumb line,” I replied.

Then the Lord said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.9 “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.”10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent a message to Jeroboam king of Israel: “Amos is raising a conspiracy against you in the very heart of Israel. The land cannot bear all his words. 11 For this is what Amos is saying:“‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely go into exile,away from their native land.’”

12 Then Amaziah said to Amos, “Get out, you seer! Go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there and do your prophesying there. 13 Don’t prophesy anymore at Bethel, because this is the king’s sanctuary and the temple of the kingdom.”14 Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. 15 But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’

A plumb line is a construction tool, a heavy block on the end of a line, that dates back as far as 2500 BC Egyptian architecture. Similar to how a level tests the straight horizontal line, this bob is used to determine the verticality of an upright structure, like a wall regardless of the state or stability of its foundation.  Although it has its purpose in scripture passages in the physicality of building structures, including the rebuilding of the temple, God used the idea metaphorically through his prophets to warn of his soon coming judgment of Israel. Just as the physical plumb line can be used to judge the uprightness of a wall, God was going to use HIS plumb line to judge the uprightness of man. 

As I recall my childhood, I fully understood the warning delivered by Amos. Just because you are not struck down for every disobedient, unruly, displeasing thing you did as a child it never meant your parents didn’t know or see. 

God is all knowing and all seeing; the lack of his wrath does not show forth his lack of strength, knowledge, sight, or wisdom but his loving kindness and long suffering. He gave the Law as a plumb line of how to live holy, righteous, consecrated lives before Him and as examples to other nations. Instead, Israel was disobedient, falling into idolatry, illegitimate worship, exploitation of the poor, desecration of the Temple of God and social inequality and injustice. Sound familiar?

Amos warned them of God’s imminent wrath, the death of their king and the exile of their entire nation. Did they heed the warnings? No. Did they thank Amos for giving them a way out? Absolutely not! They tried to run him out of town declaring the land given to them by a gracious God belonged to Jeroboam II not Yahweh. They called Amos a prophet, but he rebutted and admitted not only was he not a prophet of the traditional sense of his lineage, but he was a sheep herder and landscaper that cared for sycamore trees. He was working and minding his business when God called him and gave him visions. God has no problem using ordinary people to do the extraordinary. 

As heralds in the mess this country and world are coming to, we must be willing and ready to sound the alarm. The Lord is coming! The kingdom of God is at hand! God still has a plum line but today it’s not the Law but a man from Galilee. 

Jesus is coming to judge the quick and the dead. All of the accusations of the Old Testament prophet are still true today. We may not be erecting statues of idols but anything we place before the almighty God is idolatry. We worship in insincere deeds and repetition from hearts of stone not truly submitted the Christian commission. Evangelical preachers and others prostitute the sacred desk for vain glory and wealth. And I don’t even want to begin to mention all of the racist social injustices of the poor, the weak, the black and brown people of this nation. The unjust judgments, political leaders looking the other way as police brutality on video is excused as their rightful duty. 

Early church father St. Augustine said, “an unjust law is no law at all.” In a letter from jail Dr King wrote of the injustices of over fifty years ago that remain today. His words are still relevant. Utilizing the plumb line imagery of Amos 7, he challenged the church to make a choice between being a thermometer or a thermostat. Think about it. What’s the difference? On my dining room wall there is a thermometer and a thermostat. The thermometer reports and tells the facts: it’s 74 degrees in here. Period. It’s job is done. The thermometer says these are the wrong things in our society, workplaces and even churches but the buck stops there. But the thermostat not only reports the temperature of the room but has the ability and authority to make a change. You push the right buttons, make the right adjustments, pushing the down arrow until the 7 becomes a 6 and matches the year I was born (68). Thermostats see what’s wrong, puts its money where its mouth is and makes the necessary adjustments and corrections. 

What wrongs can we make right? How can we make change begin to go in the right direction? 

Let’s seek the plumb line of God, Jesus Christ to hear and be used as his eyes, ears, hands and feet to help make our world better for us and the generations to come. More importantly let’s live a life carrying out the Commission and Commandment of Christ. Let’s be thermostats for the Kingdom in 2024 and beyond.