Tuesday after the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on September 24, 2019 by under
Scripture: Amos 7:7-17 (NKJV)
7:7 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.”
10 Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, “Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Israel. The land is not able to bear all his words. 11 For thus Amos has said:
‘Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive from their own land.’”
12 Then Amaziah said to Amos:
“Go, you seer! Flee to the land of Judah. There eat bread, and there prophesy.
13 “But never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is the royal residence.”
14 Then Amos answered, and said to Amaziah:
“I was no prophet, nor was I a son of a prophet, but I was a sheepbreeder and a tender of sycamore fruit.
15 “Then the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said to me,
‘Go, prophesy to My people Israel.’
16 “Now therefore, hear the word of the Lord:
“You say, ‘Do not prophesy against Israel, and do not spout against the house of Isaac.’
17 “Therefore thus says the Lord:
‘Your wife shall be a harlot in the city; Your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword; Your land shall be divided by survey line; You shall die in a defiled land; And Israel shall surely be led away captive from his own land.’”
Devotion
A plumb line is a weight on a string. Because of gravity, no matter how you hold it, the weight always points straight down in a perfect line. It is a builder’s tool to test that all walls are perfectly straight.
Amos received a vision of the Lord on a wall with a plumb line. The wall is the nation of Israel, the plumb line is the Law of God, and God is the builder. God tests the people of Israel against His Law to see if they are perfectly straight. Anyone not walking according to His Law He disciplines that the whole wall may be straight—just as a builder replaces, cuts, or pounds a brick back into place. God does this by sending His servants to preach the Law, in the hope of repentance. God’s Israel will be made straight; those who repent He fits back into place. Those who refuse to repent, He removes and replaces with others. Thus, Amos was sent to preach against King Jeroboam in the hope that Jeroboam would repent and return to the straight line of God’s Law.
The pastors of the Church are called to preach the Law so that those in error may be made straight again, which in turn makes the whole wall straight. We cannot follow the Law of God perfectly, but those are truly straight and upright before God who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who fulfilled the Law of God for us.
We pray: Keep, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy Church with Thy perpetual mercy; and because the frailty of man without Thee cannot but fall, keep us ever by Thy help from all things hurtful and lead us to all things profitable to our salvation; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
