Amos 7:7-9

Amos chapter 7 verses 7 to 9. Thus he showed me and behold the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plum line with a plum line in his hand. And the Lord said unto me Amos what seeest thou, and I said a plum line. Then said the Lord, behold, I will set a plum line in the midst of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them anymore. and the high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. May God bless to us His sacred and holy word this evening. Imagine a class of children about to receive an art lesson from their teacher and the first step in their lesson was to draw a straight line on the left side of of the paper. But before the teacher got to a chance to explain how they were to draw the line, the principal came along and pulled her out of the classroom for a moment. And so while she was out of the classroom, all the pupils decided they would draw their line on the paper. And so they did. And as they waited for their teacher to return, Johnny said that Tommy, my line is straighter than yours. Tommy says, I don’t think so. Well, they eventually got a group of girls to come by and make an evaluation of the situation. And they thought Tommy’s line was straighter. But Mary said, my line is straighter than either of yours. Tommy says he had his doubts it can’t be. They all took a look at Mary’s paper, and sure enough, it did seem to be straighter than they. theirs. Well, soon the whole class was checking lines and everybody was majoring themselves by one another. When the teacher came back into the room and she realized what had happened, she said, well, I really wanted you to make a line with a ruler. And she went by with a ruler and made a line on the paper of each pupil. The problem was the ruler line was so much straighter than any of the hand-drawn line. even marries, which was the best one, wasn’t good enough and could not compare to the straight line of the ruler. Now this is in effect what Israel is going to experience from God’s hand. He’s going to measure them. And Israel thought, of course, that they were doing well, but against the perfect ruler of God’s standard. and he’s going to use a plumb line to see whether they’re in plum or not. Everything is crooked in comparison. We have three visions in Chapter 7. We looked at the first two visions that are found in the first six verses of the chapter chapter. They all relate to Israel. The first two visions of the devouring grasshoppers, and the deviring fire were very similar. Both threatened the total destruction of Israel. Both times Amos intercedes, and God relents. At least, he gives them a reprieve for a period of time. It’s clear, however, from the third vision here, that Israel is not going to get another reprieve. Now judgment is going to fall. There’s no delay. any longer. We see first here, God’s plum line checking Israel in verse 7, the first part of verse 8. Thus he showed me, and behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plum line with a plum line in his hand, and the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seeest thou, and I said, plum line. God is measuring here the wall. of Israel. When the exiles prayed for God to restore Jerusalem, they asked that its walls be rebuilt. Read the book of Nehemiah, and you’ll see that as the case. For the people, the Middle East, the wall was similar or the same as the city itself. It was like part of it. And God threatened, when he does threaten already, we’ve seen this in the early chapter of Amos, one, when he threatened to destroy a city, he said, I will set fire upon the wall of that city. If you look at chapter 1, verse 7, verse 10, verse 14, Gaza, Tyre, and Rabah, when he’s going to bring judgment on the nations associated with these cities, talks about setting fire on the wall. And so in this idea of a wall, we have to say, see in this vision that he’s thinking about the city, namely a capital city, just like he did in chapter one. In this case, it would be Samaria, and therefore the mountain of Samaria that he has mentioned in chapter 6 in verse 1. The capital city sort of represented the heart of the whole life of the nation. Sort of like we would call it when we talk about Washington, D.C., representing the whole country. Samaria here would be in a similar sense. So the wall is Israel. It represents the northern kingdom. Verse 8 makes this clear when he says here, behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel. It’s not that he’s measuring a physical wall. He’s actually measuring the people. And so that’s what we have to grasp as we look at this text tonight, is a symbolic way of measuring the people of the city and really the nation. So we have the wall here of Israel being measured. Now, we have God’s accurate assessment taking place here. God is going to measure the wall of Israel by his own standard. A plumberer. A plumbus. A plight line is a pretty simple tool. It’s a string with a weight at the end of it. You hold it in the air and gravity pulls it straight down so you get a perpendicular line, a true vertical, a line that runs straight down. In the days when the Bible was written, the inspector would come along of the city or the town. He would look at the walls and the various fortifications in the city. and various buildings in the city and he would see whether they were sagging, if the walls were sagging, or if they needed to be reconstructed or not, if they were going to fall. If there’s any danger of collapse, then the wall would be condemned, then it would be an irrevocable to judge, and we’ve got to take this wall down. When God said, behold, I will set a plum line in the midst of Israel here, he’s making an assessment. of whether he should tear them down or not. Just as the Lord ordered for his people according to his laws, everything, God in his word had told the Israelites how he wanted to be worshipped, the way he was to be approached, the means of acceptance before him, and so forth. Israel is not going to be measured. It’s going to be assessed according to God. law according to God’s standard the scripture could there be anything wrong with the of Israel could there be something wrong with it well if you’ve read this much of Amos you know very well there’s a lot wrong with the wall of the people of Israel he knew very well that Israel’s national life was a hotbed of sinful corruption every aspect of it you can appreciate in a sense amos when he is asked by the Lord Amos what do you see let’s see is thou he doesn’t mention anything here about the wall he doesn’t even mention the Lord standing here there by the wall but he says I see a plum line that’s scary enough he sees the plum line that the Lord is holding and he knew to well that if the Lord is going to check the people then divine judgment is going to come destruction is going to come there’s no there’s no way they’re going to measure up there not plumb the wall is sagging the wall is ready to fall over it’s right for judgment the wall the people that he’s trying to save in the first two visions that he received cannot be saved God says to the prophet and effect here See for yourself. Look at this, Amos. Look at the terrible lean to the wall. Notice the looseness of the stones. See how far these people are out of plumb with my laws and my commandments. Look at the violations of the law. They’re so open and obvious for everybody to see. How could he argue with God? What could he say? How could he deter the Lord this time? There’s nothing he can say. So the plumb line here is checking Israel. The second part here in the latter part of verse 8 and then verse 9 is the tearing down of the wall of Israel’s spoken up. God says then, said the Lord, behold, I will set a plum line in the midst of my people, Israel. I will not again pass by them. anymore. And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword. God is not going to tolerate any more Israel’s sinful ways. God basically says here, I’m not going to wait any longer. I’ve already given you reprieve here. And we saw last week about 30 years of reprieve. judgment’s coming. God promised, you recall in chapter 2 and verse 6 for three transgressions of Israel and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof. He turned it away twice. Third time, no. If there’s others, no. God, by his prophets, are no longer going to strive with Israel to bring them to the repentance. To tell and repentant and avert the judgment. God has now set in motion irrevocable judgment of the nation. There’s no turning back at this point. The wall of Israel is going to be brought down. Not one stone will be left upon another. The Assyrian wrecking ball is on its way. And it will destroy Israel. Because God’s not going to tolerate the evil of Israel. Now two particular areas of Israel’s life here are targeted for judgment, and we see that in verse 9. First, a corrupt national religion. It talks about the high places of Isaac and the sanctuaries, those holy so-called holy sites, of Israel. These were places of idolatry. These were places of false worship. Now, it shouldn’t escape. your attention here that the Lord speaks of the high places of Isaac. It’s a kind of an odd phrase, perhaps, to use. You recall that when Isaac received his name, which his name means laughter, it was based in part on the fact that his mother, Sarah, laughed when she was told that she would bear a child in her advanced age. as we saw earlier, pleaded for the people appealing to the name Jacob. Jacob’s too small. Verse 2. And verse 5. You know, they won’t survive and so forth. And God said it shall not be. But they continued to sin. They didn’t just stop. And so the Septuagint, interestingly enough, renders this the high places of laughter. using the actual translation of the word Isaac that put it to take its meaning. Perhaps they were having these joyous celebrations, but it was ridiculous in the eyes of God. He detested it. It was a joke of a religion, if you would. So Israel’s religion here, even though they like to talk about their foresight, fathers and they liked their family heritage and so forth. They were completely unlike them. Now, if you look at Amos chapter 5 in verse 5, there are three places that are specifically mentioned in this verse of scripture. He says here, but seek not Bethel nor enter into Gilgau and pass not to Beersheba, for Gilgall shall surely go into captivity in Bethel. shall come the not. Beersheba means the well of the oath. Here at this place, the Lord did appear to Isaac. And he built an altar to the Lord at Beersheba. In Genesis chapter 26, verses 23 to 25. So that was indeed one of the places that was indeed one of the places that was a high place of Isaac. It’s particular. Now Bethel means the house of God. Bethel takes us back to Jacob. And the, remember the ladder that he had in the dream going up and down to heaven, the angels going up and down on it and so forth. And he said, well, the Lord is in this place, and I didn’t know it. And he worships the Lord there and promises that he will certainly serve the Lord and give the Lord his tithe. That’s found in Genesis chapter 28. Gilgale is found in the book of Joshua. Gilgall means a rolling. It was the place where all Israel was circumcised. The whole nation, and one day, before they went and conquered the land of Israel. Joshua chapter 5. And God said, I have ruled away the reproach of Egypt from off of you. Now, no doubt, Isaac perhaps dwelt at all these different places, somewhere along the line, and worship God at these places, and thus the high places of Isaac are mentioned here. But all of them have spiritual significance for the nation at large. We look back on their history, they’re all connected with, in particular, Jacob and Isaac. And yet, the spirit of their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was not found in these present-day Israelites. The law of the Lord was cast aside. Obedience to it was ridiculed and abhorred. so they defiled the memories of all these holy places. They made them into places where idolatry was taking place. And the golden paths were set up and things of this nature. So a corrupt national religion. The second thing, ungodly political leadership. We see here the House of Jeroboam is mentioned. Now, the government of Israel will be toppled. In particular, the sinful house of Jeroboam would be destroyed. You’ll recall that the kingdom, or the house of Israel, if you would, was established by Jeroboam the first. Remember when Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, I decided that he was going to treat the people of the nation harshly and and they decided, we don’t want to have any more to do with you. And they made Jeroboam, the northern tribes made Jeroboam their king after Solomon’s death. All this took place. Well, Jeroboam the first was the original king of the northern kingdom. And what did he do? He turned Israel away from Jehovah God by setting up the golden cats. He was afraid that the Israelites in the northern kingdom would go down to Jerusalem in the southern kingdom and worship there at the temple and so forth. And because of that, they would start to pull them, be pulled back into the southern kingdom. And he didn’t want that to happen, so he set up false worship. So he gave the religious direction to the nation and they stayed with it the whole time. He is the one responsible then for turning Israel away from the Lord. He rejected the law of God and he proceeded to corrupt the law. the truth. And thus God here is going to topple the entire nation of Israel. He couldn’t find anything good in it. You read through it sometime. When you read all about the kings of the northern kingdom, there’s no one good king. You never read that he was a good king. That he did good in the eyes of the Lord. You never read that. Every one of them, he did evil in the eyes of the Lord. Will not fail. And thus the king. the nation, the palace, the shrines, the state, the corrupt kingdom itself, the whole system is going to be wiped out by the fire of God. The whole nation be dissolved. Because it was corrupt and evil from the beginning, it has a fitting end. That’s what we see. The tearing down of Israel’s sagging wall. Now this is a pretty straightforward teaching tonight. It’s pretty simple to talk about. We know from history. This is exactly what God did, using the Assyrians to accomplish that purpose. But if I could make a couple of practical thoughts tonight from this text of scripture, let me begin by saying this, what if God’s plum line was measuring your life? What would happen if the Lord visited you and he had a plumb line and he had a plumb line in his hand to measure you and how you stood up to his standard. Before God steps in and measure you, you might think the lines of your wall are pretty good. You may like be like those children in the class, the art class, thinking, well, my line’s pretty straight. You draw your stack by, you draw your lines by stacking your walls, stones. by the decisions you make in your daily life. And when you compare perhaps yourself to those around you who might think, well, my wall’s pretty straight. But God’s going to step in with his plum line because you’re not going to be measured by others. You’re going to be measured by God’s standard. That should be obvious to us. God test you by the content of Scripture, by his commandments. And he uses a searching probe of the whole. Holy Spirit in your conscience to convict you. Ultimately, the great plum line of the day of judgment also will assess us our whole life. But let me ask you tonight, are you living up to your spiritual standard? Your calling. Are you what the Lord has called you to be? Is it possible that disobedience has caused your wall? to sag or to lean in some fashion so that when God puts the plumb line against it, it’s going to be out of sink. It’s going to be tilted. Maybe far worse than you had thought. Now there are times when we learn to silence our conscience our conscience, justify our actions. But when God measures, there’s no leeway. He measures true and rightly. And if it doesn’t match his word, then it’s sin. It’s wrong. Whoa on to us when God comes to inspect our walls and he finds something wrong. So God’s plumb line is going to measure the wall of your life. God’s plumb line is going to measure the wall of the church as well. The Bible indicates the Church of Christ is a spiritual temple. We are a city built on a hill. We are, according to the scripture, the beloved city, the camp of the saints, the New Jerusalem, so to speak. The walls of every church of Jesus Christ are going to be tested. All you have to do is read Revelation 2 and 3, where Jesus Christ says to the various church, is there. I have somewhat against thee. I’ve measured you. There’s some things that are out of line. Some things are maybe in line, maybe good. Some things are out of line and are bad. Therefore, when we look at ourselves as a church, we might say, well, we’re pretty straight. We’re pretty even. Maybe our members manifest signs of spiritual life, and that’s all well and good. And yet a careful examination of the stones or the members may surprise you. I’m reminded of the experience that Ezekiel the prophet had. In one of his visions in chapter 8, he’s told to dig a wall, excuse me, dig a hole in the wall of the temple complex. And look inside. See what’s going on. So he digs a wall. The more he digs a wall, the more he digs and gets further in, the more he finds something wrong. And he finds that where the key members of Israel are seen in the privacy of their own homes, the ones that are supposed to be leading Israel and the worship of Jehovah, they have all these idols and shrines in their homes. What inconsistency that would be. You’re supposed to be leading the people of God and the worship of Jehovah. And here, when I look in your houses, you’re doing something completely different. What if God examines you in the privacy of your home and the way you conduct yourself there? My friends, there are false gods of materialism, sensual pleasure. We sometimes compromise with the world with what we allow with regard to maybe TV, with regard to movies, with regard to books, magazines, the pleasures, the pleasures, we allow. We need to evaluate ourselves in these areas and weigh them carefully. We need to turn our affection from the worldly pursuits so that we are serving the Lord with our life as their main goal of our life. Now, we can’t measure anything with regard to the maturity of the membership of the church unless we use God’s plumb line. May we as a general. church realize that we may think we are spiritually rich we could be like the lay to see in church and yet God may see things completely different when he majors us you may say you’re poor blind and naked and need of all kinds of spiritual aid and grace. May we as the church consider carefully that what we build is actually perpendicular with God’s word so that it’s not out of line. So God’s plumb line will measure the wall of the church. And then lastly, let me say this. God’s plum line will measure the wall of your family. We read about Abraham that God says, for I know him that he will command his children in his house hold after him, that they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment. Now that is a pretty, glowing statement about Abraham and the way he would conduct himself and his family. There are people that might look at our family from the outside and maybe they don’t see how run down and dilapidated the walls are or what’s sagging. But we won’t fool the Lord. He knows the state of our marriage. He knows whether there’s loving leadership in the home. He knows whether there’s loving leadership in the home. He knows where he knows where he knows whether you speak harshly and bitterly toward your wife. He knows whether your wife doesn’t show respect to you or not as the head of the home. What your relationship to your children is. Whether you have family devotions or not, whether you pray before meals or not, he knows all these things. Nothing is hidden from the Lord. Is your family in plumb? Is it being ordered according to the principles? God’s word. Now, we might look at all this and say, well, Pastor, I’m sure I don’t measure up. None of us measure up as fully as we should be, as perfectly as we should be to God’s plum line. All our walls are crooked in some sense. Our only hope of being preserved and not torn down in a sense is Christ, really. He’s the one that can make the crooked straight. He’s the one that can make the crooked straight. He’s the one that can help us and work in us to straighten out our walls. You know, repentance means to recognize you’ve done wrong. And then, of course, with God’s help and grace, our duty is to repair what we find wrong, to straighten the wall, so to speak, by the help of the Lord. But ultimately, the only way we can be looked at is truly vertical, the bee in plumb, is the being Christ. Because every day we fail, every day we sin, and therefore we’re going to be out of line, somewhere along the line. Not that we should ignore what we find wrong and don’t worry about correcting, and we need to correct it. But at the same time, we have to realize that Jesus Christ is really the solution to the problem. Ultimately, otherwise, we would be utterly condemned. He’s the only one that keeps us plumb, so this week. Let us close with a word of prayer.