The Plumb Line

Michael Green, in his book Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, shares a good lesson which I think is appropriate for beginning our message this evening. He states,

All of us frequently compare ourselves favorably with someone else. We all think of someone whom we consider to be less mature, less competent, or less able than we are. That person is a great comfort to us because he or she enables us to keep our self-image intact by saying, “Well, at least I’m not like so-and-so.” The only problem with determining our self-worth by comparing ourselves with others is that we are using the wrong measuring stick.

A little boy came up to his mother one day and said to her, “Mother, guess what! I’m eight feet, four inches tall!” His mother, greatly surprised, inquired into the matter and found he was using a six-inch ruler to measure a “foot.” The boy was actually only a few inches over four feet. This is [similar to] what we do. We measure ourselves by one another, an imperfect prototype, rather than by the standard of the Word of God.(1)

This evening I am asking us to think about our standard of holiness. As individuals, do we compare ourselves with those whom we consider to be less righteous or good than we are? As a church, do we compare our ministry with that of another congregation down the road? If we are making such mistaken comparisons in our Christian walk, then hopefully this evening we will discover the true standard by which the Lord compares us.

Vision of the Plumb Line (Amos 7:7-9)

7 Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. 8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said: “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel; I will not pass by them anymore. 9 The high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste. I will rise with the sword against the house of Jeroboam.”

Amos saw the Lord standing on a wall. One commentary says, “The wall is not identified, but it was probably a city wall. It could have been the wall of a building or a fence made of stones, but the [Hebrew] word ‘homah’ is used most often for a city wall.”(2) Another commentary adds, “The wall is not identified, but it can be only one wall – the wall of Israel’s capital city, Samaria.”(3) The wall of Samaria symbolized Israel as a nation. Amos tells us that this wall had been “made with a plumb line” (v. 7); or rather, it had been built true to plumb, meaning that the wall had been originally built straight and did not lean or sag in any direction.(4)

Symbolically, this meant that Israel had been rightly and properly established as a nation. The Lord had given His people the purest ordinances, statues, and regulations for church, state, and society. Everything had been established in a God-ordained state of operation; and everything was directed to its proper goal, which was the glory of God. What God did for Israel in the Old Testament, He also does for the church in the New Testament time period. He has built the church squarely and solidly on the foundation of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and resurrected.

The Purpose of a Plumb Line

In the vision, Amos saw the Lord at the wall, and He had a plumb line in His hand. What exactly is a plumb line? Roy Honeycutt tells us, “The plumb line was simply a string with a weight fastened to one end. When the string was held up to a wall, the weight caused it to hang in an absolutely vertical position. One could tell by this method whether or not a wall was leaning, whether it was safe or dangerous.”(5) Page Kelley provides us the reason why the walls were measured with a plumb line: “Stone walls, built with little or no mortar, would slowly shift and settle until they were badly out of line.”(6)

Every year near Memorial Day I travel with my family to a few cemeteries, in order to place flowers on the graves of deceased relatives. Many of these cemeteries are located on hillsides. I’ve noticed that some of the monuments are leaning downhill. They were, of course, not originally set in the ground crooked. Even some of the newer tombstones, having a concrete footer poured beneath them, are beginning to lean. In noticing this occurrence, the Lord reminded me of this passage in Amos concerning the plumb line.

Years ago, my wife and I volunteered at a Christian camp where many of the cabins were built on a hillside. In a couple of them, the support poles were leaning downhill. The Camp Director called this occurrence “the Bald Knob creep.” It’s where the soil slides down the hillside over time, and pushes over anything not firmly planted in the bedrock. One day when no campers were present, one of the cabins with severely leaning poles actually toppled over and rolled a couple of times downhill. It was later picked up with a crane and re-set on a permanent concrete foundation dug into the bedrock.