THE CODE 18 MARCH 2025 www.goodnewsfl.org Good News • South Florida Edition “Thus He showed me: Behold, the Lord stood on a wall made with a plumb line, with a plumb line in His hand. 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’” (Amos 7:7–8 NKJV). The prophet Amos used the vivid imagery of a plumb line to warn the people of the northern kingdom of Israel that God has a righteous standard by which He will judge His people. A plumb line is a string with a weight attached to one end. When the string is held in such a way that the weight dangles freely, it eventually comes to a halt so that an exact vertical line can be accomplished. Carpenters still use plumb lines today to keep their work exactly straight and in line. In essence, the plumb line applies God's exact law of gravity to find right angles. A plumb line never changes or moves with the wishes or whims of the carpenter. It remains true always, and all work must line up with it or risk being crooked and out of line. Jesus, God’s true plumb line, came down from heaven into our very midst. He did not just set a standard by meeting all the righteous demands of God's laws; He is the standard! He is our plumb line. He clothed Himself in human flesh and lived a perfect life uncontaminated by the world's sin. He met all the righteous demands of the law. And the truth is, not one of us measures up. We are all "off center." Unlike Him, we have all sinned and come short (Romans 3:23) of God's demands of righteousness. God holds His plumb line up beside our lives and asks, "How do you measure up?" He cannot and will not ignore our sin. His perfect standard The psalmist asked a probing and penetrating question: "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who may stand in His holy place?" (Psalm 24:3). And no sooner did he ask the question than he provided the answer: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart" (v. 4). This is God's plumb line: our actions ("clean hands") and our attitudes (“pure hearts”). And not a single one of us meets this standard, not on our own. Our hands are dirty with sin, and our hearts are far from pure. In fact, the Bible reminds us that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). The hill described in Psalm 24 is Mount Calvary. Only one person in all of human history met the righteous demands of the law accompanied by the two qualifications—the plumb line—of clean hands and a pure heart: the Lord Jesus Christ. His hands were clean, uncontaminated by sin. His heart was pure. Knowing I was without hope, He descended from heaven to make a way for me to one day ascend to Him there. His clean hands became dirty with my sin and yours. Why? So our dirty hands could become clean. Jesus' pure heart became filled with our sin. Why? So that our sinful hearts could become pure in God's eyes. So, who now shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? You can. I can. If we open the gates of our hearts and let the King of Glory come in. Like Amos's plumb line, the Lord Jesus came down and by His life set the standard of holiness for us. And since none of us can meet that standard, we must run to Jesus, put our trust in Him, and claim Him as our substitute. Christ alone is our plumb line. It is no wonder the Bible says, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Weighted by grace Into our moral failures and short-comings, Christ comes to show us God’s plumb line, not weighted by the law but weighted by grace. He says to us today, “I am the plumb line. I alone measured up to its perfect standard. But by grace, through faith in Me alone, you can stand in My own righteousness so that when God tests you with His plumb line, instead of condemning you, He will receive you faultless before His throne.” God is asking you and me what He asked Amos of old: "What do you see?" Do you see it? The cross of Christ has become God's plumb line by which He will judge the world. We find Jesus here in the middle of Amos's ancient prophecy. He is, and ever will be, our standard of righteousness, our plumb line. Run to Him. Taken from The Bible Code by O.S. Hawkins. Copyright © 2020 by Dr. O.S. Hawkins. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. O. S. Hawkins is the Legacy Pastor of First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale and chancellor of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has served pastorates, including the First Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, for more than 25 years. A native of Fort Worth, Texas, he has a BBA from Texas Christian University and his MDiv and Ph.D. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. For almost a quarter of a century, he served as president of GuideStone Financial Resources, with assets under management of $20 billion, serving 250,000 pastors, church staff members, missionaries, doctors, university professors, and other workers in various Christian organizations with their investment, retirement and benefit service needs. He is the author of more than 40 books and regularly speaks to business groups and churches nationwide. All of the author’s royalties and proceeds from the Code series support Mission:Dignity. You can learn more about Mission:Dignity by visiting MissionDignity.org. - Dr. O.S. Hawkins - Chancellor, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Christ Is Our Plumb Line
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