Jesus is our only hope

The Lord’s Plumb Line

7 This is what he showed me:behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. Amos 7:7 

In John Bunyan’s classic The Pilgrim’s Progress, the characters’ names usually define their character. For instance there is Ignorance. He refuses to believe Christian and Hopeful when they tell him that unless he goes through the narrow gate to begin his pilgrimage, he will not be allowed into the gate of the Celestial City. Then there is Talkative who equates making a fuss about one’s sin with actual repentance. Early in Christian’s pilgrimage, he comes across two other pilgrims named Formalist and Hypocrisy who come from a country called Vain-Glory. They tell Christian that the shortcut that they took to the path, bypassing the narrow gate, was necessary because it was too far to travel from Vain-Glory to it. All were revealed to be counterfeit Pilgrims and none of them made it into the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ save Christian, Hopeful and Faithful.

These characters had one thing in common. They were all pilgrims on the path to the Celestial City, but they entered it on their own terms. They walked according to their own rules. Man is fallen. He is incapable of knowing God or His ways without the grace of God regenerating the heart. However, even though the gate to salvation is narrow and hard to find, His standards are still higher than any Man can attain outside of His grace. He does not lower His standards nor put away His plumb line.

The prophet Amos uses some powerful metaphors, such as God’s sieve in Amos 9:9. In chapter 7 verse 7 we read of God holding a plumb line in His hand. What is a plumb line? It is used in building. To build solid, straight structures, we must use one to be as precise as possible. Spiritually, God tells us that in all that we build up, we must act by the sure rule of righteousness.

God builds this way.                                                                                                                         He removes the old walls when tested by the plumb line, and thereby found faulty.                         Truth requires the removal of falsehood. Unlike Men,                                                                         God builds in truth, reality, holiness, and purity. Those who know God and are known by Him should build the same way. Good solid structures are never built hastily, but are built according the highest standards. Spiritually and practically, truth should be our object. This standard is higher than man’s.  

Our building by faith should never be according to the eye of man because then we become man-pleasers. Instead, we build by the Word, in God’s sight, after Christ’s example, by the Spirit, unto holiness.

As we obey God in His building of the Church, we should build just so. We should flee any temptation to be man-pleasers and thereby corrupt our work.  

We do it right when we teach the Scriptures only in all things. We preach nothing but the Gospel. We begin by laying sinners low by the Law, and exalting the grace of God. We lead men to holiness and peace by the doctrines of truth. We exercise discipline that our churches may be pure.

Decades ago, in the late 1980’s, our Pastor called a business meeting right after services one Sunday morning. Then several men went up on the platform. The Chairman of the Deacons presented the case of one of our members  to be disciplined for not repenting of leaving his family for another woman. One of the men on the platform had gone to the man to counsel him, but he refused to repent. Then two of them went together, but he still refused to repent.         After much prayer and several attempts to get the man to return to his family, they brought the matter to the church. We voted the man out of our membership and committed to care for his family.

When I shared this with some of my coworkers, they were shocked that we would do such a thing. I was told more than a few times after that that we were a bunch of hypocrites and all we were doing there was driving people away from Church.                                                                    I tried to show them that this is what we do when we are obedient, but it fell on deaf ears.

God’s plumb line is used for testing. We should always use it on the wall of self-righteousness, conceit, boasting, careless living, and trust in ceremonials or religiosity.         God most certainly uses it in our lives. If we are really His then we will find ourselves continually being offered opportunities to obey Him or not.                                                       When we do finally stand before Him our works will be judged with it. Those who do not know Him will stand before the Great White Throne and God will judge them with it.

31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 1 Corinthians 11:31 

We must use God’s plumb line on ourselves. To not do so leads to the blindness of self-deception. We should examine ourselves most Persistently  leaving no stone un-turned in our hearts.

God’s plumb line will be used for destroying.                                                                                 All genuine Christians will be saved justly through our Lord Jesus Christ, and in their case every sin will be destroyed, and every trace of evil will be removed before they enter the Celestial City, which is, of course, Heaven. This is our Glorification.                                         Those who  reject Christ Jesus as the way the Truth and the Life, will find their doom intolerable, because they, themselves, will be unable to deny its justice (Luke 19:27).                                     They will know that their misery is deserved. God’s sentence based upon His plumb line will be infallible. There will be no revision.                                                                                                        His judgments are impartial and just, therefore, each verdict will stand forever. (Matthew 25:46)

“Nothing will induce me to form an impure church. ‘Fifty added to the church’ sounds well at home, but if only five of these are genuine, what will it profit in the Great Day?” – David Livingstone – Missionary to Africa.

Oh that our Christian leaders would grasp this truth! Sadly, just a few ‘get it.’                               The focus on ‘doing church’ is not to build a pure church setup according to God’s plumb line, but to build one with wood, hay, and stubble as building materials.                                             They do this by going for numbers alone.                                                                                       They accomplish this by bringing the world and its ways into their churches then create something that is not a real church at all.

God is holding His plumb line.                                                                                                          I fear that what passes for Christianity in our time is failing the test.                                                   May God have mercy on us.

Mike Ratliff Soli Deo Gloria!