Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2904
“Thus He showed me: and, behold, the Lordstood upon a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. And the LORD said unto me, Amos, what do you see? 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 anymore.” Amos 7:7, 8.
GOD usually speaks by men according to their natural capacity. Amos was a herdsman. He was not a man of noble and priestly rank, like Ezekiel, nor a man of gigantic intellect and mighty eloquence, like Isaiah. He was a simple herdsman and, therefore, God did not cause him to see the visions of Isaiah, or dazzle his mind with the wondrous revelations that were given to Ezekiel. God’s rule is, “Every man in his own order” and if we depart from that, we get out of place and we are apt to try to make others do that which they are not fit to do and then blame them when they fail to accomplish what they should never have attempted! God always uses His servants in the best possible way and as they ought to be used. And so, when the herdsman Amos had a vision, he simply saw a piece of string with a plumb of lead at the bottom of it—a plumb line—a thing which he could easily understand.
There was a mystery about the vision, but the vision itself was not mysterious. It was a very simple emblem, indeed, exactly suited to the mind of Amos, just as the visions of Ezekiel and Isaiah were adapted to the more poetic minds of men of another class. You and I, dear Brothers and Sisters, may be very thankful if God should use us as he did Amos and, if He does, we must not be envying the Isaiahs and Ezekiels. If we see a plumb line, let us preach about a plumb line! And if God should ever enable us to understand the visions of Zechariah or Ezekiel, then let us preach about them. Let every preacher or teacher testify according to the measure of the Light of God and Grace that God has given him—then we shall do well. Amos can see a plumb line and he sees it well—and when he has seen it, he tells what he has seen—and leaves God to set His seal upon his testimony.
Now, on this occasion we have nothing before us but this plumb line, but there is a great deal to be learned from it. The first thing is this—the plumb line is used in construction. Secondly, the plumb line is used for testing what is built And, thirdly, it appears from the text that the plumb line is used in the work of destruction, for the casting down of that which is found not to be straight.
I. First, THE PLUMB LINE IS USED IN CONSTRUCTION. We are told in the text that “the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumb line,” that is to say, a wall which had been constructed with the help of a plumb line and, therefore, He tested it with that which was supposed to have been used in its construction—which was a fair and proper thing to do. If the wall only professed to be run up without a plumb line, then it might be hard to try it with the plumb line. But as it was a wall which professed to have been constructed according to the rules of the builder’s art, it was fair and reasonable that it should be tested by the plumb line.
First, then, dear Friends, a plumb line is used in building when it is done as it ought to be. And I remind you that God always uses it in His building. Everything that God builds is built plumb, straight, square and fair. You see that rule at work in Nature—there is nothing out of proportion there. Those who understand these things and look deeply into them will tell you that the very form and size of the earth have a connection with the blooming of a flower, or the hanging of a dew-drop upon a blade of grass and that if the sun were larger or smaller than it is, or if the material of
which the earth is formed were more dense, or different in any degree from what it is, then everything—the most magnificent and the most minute—would be thrown out of gear! Someone of old used to say that God is the great Arithmetician—the great Master of geometry—and so He is. He never makes any mistakes in His calculations. There is not anything in the world that He has made in a careless manner. The mixing of the component parts of the air we breathe is managed with consummate skill and if you could resolve a drop of water into its original elements, you would be struck by the wisdom with which God has adapted the proportions of each particle so as to make a liquid which man can drink! Everything is done by order and rule, as in the changes of the various seasons, the movements of the heavenly bodies and the arrangements of Divine Providence. God always has the plumb line in His hand. He never begins to build, as a careless workman would, that which might turn out to be right, or might turn out to be wrong—He makes sure work of all that He does.
In spiritual matters it is very manifest that whenever God is dealing with souls, He always uses the plumb line. In beginning with us, He finds that the very foundation of our nature is out of the perpendicular and, therefore, He does not attempt to build upon it, but commences His operations by digging it out. The first work of Divine Grace in the soul is to pull down all that Nature has built up. God says, “I cannot use these stones in My building. This man has been behaving himself admirably in some respects and he thinks that he is building up a temple to My honor and glory with his own natural virtues, his own good works and other things of a like character. But all this must be dug out.” The man has taken a great deal of pains in putting it together but it must all come out and there must be a great hole left—the man must feel himself emptied, abased and humbled in the sight of God, for if God is to be everything to the man, then He must be nothing! And if Christ is to be his Savior, He must be a complete Savior from beginning to end. So the foundation of human merit must be cleared right out and flung away, for God could not build squarely upon it. With such a foundation as that, the plumb line would never mark a perpendicular wall.