Well, it's good to see everybody
this morning. I want you to take your Bibles,
if you would, and turn with me to the Book of Amos, Book of
Amos. If you go to the Book of Ezekiel,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and count four books toward the New Testament,
the Book of Amos is between the Book of Obadiah and the Book
of Joel. I'll give you a minute to find
it. We're gonna look at chapter seven. Amos chapter seven. Won't you excuse me because I have some still residual cost
from that COVID Sometimes when I start talking, I start coughing.
Lord, I hope that doesn't happen, but we'll do the best we can.
Amos chapter seven. Scripture says in verse one,
thus hath the Lord God showed unto me and behold, he formed
grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter
growth. And lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings.
And it came to pass that when they had made an end of eating
the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech
thee. By whom shall Jacob arise? For
he is small. The Lord repented for this. It
shall not be, saith the Lord. I'm not going to repent, is what
he's saying. Thus hath the Lord God showed unto me, and behold,
the Lord God called to contend by fire, and it devoured the
great deep and did eat up a part. Then said I, O Lord God, seize
I beseech thee, by whom shall Jacob arise? For he is small. The Lord repented for this. This
also shall not be, saith the Lord. Thus he showed me, and
behold, the Lord stood upon a wall, made by a plumb line, with a
plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said unto me, Amos,
what seest thou? And I said, a plumb line. Then
said the Lord, behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst
of my people Israel. I will not again pass by them
any more. Here Amos was making intercession
for Israel But God says grace has temporarily ceased. Judgment has come. I've titled
this message this morning, The Plumb Line of God's Word. Now everyone knows what a plumb
line is, a plumb bob. We've all used it. You hold a
string up with a weight on it, any kind of weight, and that
string is gonna hang, once it settles, perpendicular. perfectly
perpendicular. Now men have created things that
they use machines and so forth, but this, this plumb line is
of old and it's not made of man, it's made of God. God created
the plumb line. We might provide the string,
we might provide the weight, but that plumb line hanging perfect. And what we call today gravity,
it hangs perfect, it's straight. So what he's saying is when we
build, when we build a wall, any building, outside wall, whatever,
we must build it with accuracy. We must use that plumb line,
make sure that it's totally accurate. And so it is with God's word. And that's what he's talking
about here in this passage. Building on his word must be
done in truth. Psalms 138 too says this, I will
worship toward thy holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving
kindness and for thy truth. Listen to this, for thou hast
magnified thy word above all thy name. He magnified his word. Now this is just the opposite
of man. Man likes to magnify his name. We see this on television
all the time. These men get on there, we know
their names, but as far as their character goes, you listen to
them on television, especially these politicians, you listen
to them, you know they're lying. Their word means nothing, not
so with God. His word is the final. Now God's word, this book right
here, this book is a book of instruction. It's meant to tell
us the exact way to a certain end. And that's the way with
all books of instruction. It tells you how to do something.
If you go to the store and you buy some piece of equipment or
something that has to be put together, you're gonna get a
book of instruction. That book's not gonna, you're
not gonna open it up and it's not gonna say, well, just put
it together. No, it's gonna give you specific
ways that that object must be assembled. Just put it together. No, that's not the way it is.
And so in today, in what we term Christian religion, which is
not really Christian at all, we know that, we have all these
denominational differences. Now listen, everybody can't be
right. The word of God is truth. Everybody
can't be right. This denomination over here believes
this, this denomination over here believes this. Recently
I was watching TV and I heard the Pope, he was attending, the
Pope of the Catholic Church, he was attending a meeting of
world religions, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhism, all these religions
together, and he made this statement along these lines, he said, We're
all here, we have different ways, but we're all seeking to come
to the one God. Well, that's a lie. That's a
big lie. That's a big lie. This word,
this word is the instruction book. Absolutely. It's no gray
areas in it. That's something we need to understand.
Well, you're talking about a gray area. Well, it's how you interpret
it. No, God intended. When a man writes a book of instruction,
or writes a book, he's intending to convey a point. He's wanting
to give some information. It's not up to our interpretation
of what he wants to say, it's what he says, and that's what
this book is. This is God's word to us. and it's not of any private interpretation. And we know that it comes from
the Holy Spirit. We know that all these denominations are wrong
if they don't follow this word simply because the Holy Spirit
is not in them. The salvation wall of God is
built according to the plumb line of his word and that word
only. If we want to know how to get
to God, we're going to have to Read it right here. We're going
to have to find it in the word. That's it. No other way. It's
not according to my opinion. We all have opinions. Well, I
don't think this is wrong. I don't think that's wrong. I
think that's okay. I think this is okay. Well, what's
the word say? Read the word. The plumb line
of that word will tell us if the wall was straight or not.
What we're building, our religion, We are building a religion. We
are building our beliefs. We are building our faith on
something. And if it's not built on this
word, then it's false. The plumb line will tell us if
the wall is straight or not. If not straight, believe me,
God is gonna tear it down. It is gonna fall down. It will. Just as the plumb line is used
for testing the straightness of a wall, the plumb line of
God's word is used for testing ourselves, and this is important.
This is real important. Let me ask you a question. Is there, is there in us the
wall of self-righteousness? Listen to what Proverbs 16, two
says. All the ways of a man are clean
in his own eyes. Doesn't make any differentiation
there between men. We're all that way. But the Lord
weigheth the spirits. God looks on the heart. Sadly,
there's a remnant of the old man in us. And that old man is
the old man of self-righteousness. You can't get away from it. And
we can talk about we're not self-righteous, we don't believe in it, but how
many times have you thought somebody did something, one of your brothers
or sisters did something and you think, I wouldn't do that,
or why did I? Well, there's some self-righteousness
that comes out in the old man. We'll never get away from it.
And certainly we ought to be considerate, we ought to think
about it. We ought to think about the things we say, we ought to
think about the things we do, simply because the word is going
to judge us, and I'll get to that here in a minute. Secondly,
is there the wall of worldliness in our lives? Are we building
on a wall of worldliness? Titus 2.11 says, for the grace
of God that bring us salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching
us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live
soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Again,
sadly, the old nature loves this world. We all like our stuff,
don't we? We want this and we want that.
That's worldliness. We won't admit to it. Well, this
is not gonna hurt anything. But that's the worldliness of
this old man. He's creeping in all the time.
It's a struggle. Marvin talked about it the other
night about this struggle within. It's a battle. You know, we can, We can deal somewhat with the
world. Satan is a little stronger, we have a problem there, but
boy, when you come right here within, here's where the battle
is in this art, this old nature that dwells within us. There's
a battle there that never ends, and it won't end until we're
in that casket in the grave. Now thirdly, is there the wall
in our lives of careless living? careless living. Listen what
Matthew 24, 38 says. For as in the days that were
before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving
in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark. Luke
17, 27 says they did eat, they drank, they married wives. They
were given in marriage until the day that Noah entered into
the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. When I read
this, there's something that stood out to me in this verse.
He doesn't say they're wicked. He doesn't say anything about
them being wicked. What were they accused of? They were eating.
We all do that. They were drinking. We all do
that. We know that possibly this goes
a little deeper. Maybe alcoholism and so forth,
we know that's a drag on society. but they were marrying and giving
him marriage, all these things. This careless, this life goes
on, not preparing. So there can be very easily,
brothers and sisters, and I speak to myself about this, a life
of careless living, careless living. This, Sandy and I were
talking last night and I said, you know, this is serious. Eternity
is serious. God is gonna put people in hell
for eternity. You think about our lives here
right now. The goodness of God. We're experiencing this very
moment the goodness of God because we're alive. We're living. We got up this morning, we ate
breakfast, we got our cars, had gas, we could drive to church.
We're gonna go this afternoon, That's the goodness of God, but
you take an eternity of hell, the goodness of God is totally,
totally, totally removed. It's all gone. Nothing but suffering. And so I say, this is serious
stuff. I mean, this is, it's time for thought. It's time for
reflection on ourselves on these things. Am I living carelessly? Something to think about. Building on the wall of truth
and righteousness, however, must, and I emphasize the word must,
start with a sure foundation. A wall built on a corrupt foundation
is corrupt in itself. It's gonna fall. It's gonna crack. Another place in scripture it
talks about, and I'd have to look it up, but it talks about
building a wall with untempered mortar. Same thing. We build a wall and the mixture
of cement and sand is not at the right proportion. Maybe there's
too much sand and it crumbles. These things are corrupt. This wall is corrupt. If there's
no foundation, I don't care how good the wall looks and I don't
care how long, how correct that plumb bob holding out there,
Looks like it's straight. Eventually, it's not gonna be
straight. And when we build, we build on
this word, we've gotta build our lives according to what God
says. Not what I think, not my opinions.
My opinions are worthless. First Corinthians 3, 11 through
13 says this. For other foundation can no man
lay than that is laid, which is Christ Jesus. Now if any man
build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay, stubble, every man's work shall be made manifest. Every
man, not just the wicked, every man's work, those who profess
to be Christians, every man's work shall be made manifest,
for the day shall declare it. "'cause it shall be revealed
by fire, "'and the fire shall try every man's work "'of what
sort it is.'" That's the fire of God's word. The absolute exactness
of that word is what we're gonna be tried by. No deviations, none. It says, And I did mark down
the text, I forgot to do that, but it says, for we must all
appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Now listen carefully
to this because this is something that when I read, I must confess
that I don't understand it. I'm gonna tell you right up front,
I do not understand this at all. For we must all, A-L-L-L, that's
us, Paul writing to the church, we must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ, every one of us, that everyone may
receive the things done in his body according to that he hath
done, whether it be good or bad. And when I read that, I compared
the scripture that says, there is now no condemnation to them
who be in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh. I can't reconcile those two scriptures.
No condemnation, yet we're going to appear before the judgment
seat. I can't put those together. I
don't understand it. I will one day. But nonetheless,
that's what scripture says. We must all appear before the
judgment seat of Christ. So, I'm keeping this short. I'm
gonna wind this down. Hebrews 4.12 says this, for the
word of God, here's the word, the word, the word, This word
right here, as it's written, is quick and powerful and sharper
than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and I underline
this, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. We look on the outside, God looks
on the heart. He's looking on our heart in
everything we do. In other words, the word's gonna
discover our very motives in everything we do and say. It's gonna find us out, absolutely. And we do well, brothers and
sisters, we do well to meditate on our ways, on our doings. Everything we do, we do well
to meditate. Is it to the honor and glory of God, or is it to
these other things, these other walls of falsehood that we may
build on? The salvation of the Lord is
only in and by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and
the plumb line of scripture is our guide and instruction for
obtaining his righteousness, not our righteousness, The scripture
is for us obtaining his righteousness. The one who gave himself on the
cross for sinners. Oh, what a blessing that is.
Think about that. I'm a sinner. I need help. You need help. We all need help.
And the only remedy is gonna be the blood of Jesus Christ.
That's the only way to God. The scripture says, God, This
triune God dwells in the light that no man can approach to.
Well, how can we approach to him? We're gonna come there,
how can we approach to him? Well, we've gotta do it in and
by the Lord Jesus. We must have faith in his work
and what he did in our behalf. And I'll leave you with this
last verse and then I'll close. The last verse says in 1 Corinthians
3.10, This is what Paul says, and this is an admonition to
all of us. This is for me especially. He says, according to the grace
of God, which is given unto me as a wise master builder, I have
laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every
man take heed how he buildeth thereon. That's a warning to
all of us. Take heed, take heed, pay attention. So with that, I'll close. I pray
the Lord would bless those short words. I know it's short, but
that's what I felt the Lord wanted me to say. Let's go ahead and
write.