By Jack Wyman

My parents were building a brick wall.

They carefully placed a string, with a small weigh attached to the end, from the top to the bottom where the wall was going to be.

It was measured and precisely straight.

“What’s that for?” I asked. 

My father explained it was a plumb line. As they laid one brick on top of another, they would line each brick up against the plumb line. This, my dad said, would ensure that the wall would remain perfectly straight. 

Mom and Dad wouldn’t depend on their sight or perception. The plumb line would be the unfailing measurement of straightness. A guide—of accuracy and correctness.

Without it, the wall might lean; it could end up crooked. Nobody starts out building a crooked wall—or a house, or anything else.

The goal is perfect alignment.

To trust our own perception of straightness is not enough. We’re often too close to tell. Without that objective plumb line to show us where we must build next, we’d run the risk of a disappointing result.

Here’s what I discovered from that first observation with my dad:

"A plumb line is a weight suspended from a string used as a vertical reference line to ensure a structure is centered. As they always find the vertical axis pointing to the center of gravity, they ensure everything is right, justified and centered.”  

“A vertical reference line to ensure a structure is centered.” The plumb line is always “pointing to the center of gravity.” By doing this, the plumb line ensures “everything is right, justified and centered.”

In the Old Testament, we read that “the Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in his hand” (Amos 7:7). The Lord spoke to the prophet Amos.

“What do you see, Amos?”

“A plumb line.” God told Amos: “Behold I am about to put a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel. I will spare them no longer” (Amos 7:8).

God would take the moral and spiritual measurement of his people. He would decide whether they were straight or crooked. Through the prophet Isaiah God declares:

“I will make justice the measuring line, and righteousness the level; Then hail will sweep away the refuge of lies. And the waters will overflow the secret place” (Isaiah 28:17). It has always been “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

In the epoch film, The Shawshank Redemption, Red remembers what Andy told him about geology. It was the combination of time and pressure.

Erosion, by its nature, is a slow, imperceptible process. Invisible to all but the most astute and discerning eyes. Like building without a plumb line, the result is noticed only over time—and pressure.

In the midst of his description of the last days, Jesus asks an abrupt and direct question: “When the Son of Man returns will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).

Genuine faith. Faith in him. Faith in his Word. Obedient faith. Trusting faith. Persevering faith. Will that faith—the faith of our fathers—be living still?

Not according to the abundance of polling data taken from the religious views of twenty-first century Americans. The Barna Group has been surveying opinion on morality and religion for decades.

It seems the results have been what one might describe as a kind of geological religious affect. Over time—and under pressure—faith has been eroded.

While America has historically held to—and been united by—a broad Judeo-Christian view of the world, today only 9% of Americans hold to a biblical worldview.

Previous generations of Christians believed that faith in Jesus Christ was the only way to Heaven. Today, only 26% of Gen X Americans—and 16% of millennials—believe that.

Nearly half—43%—of young people don’t know, don’t care, or don’t believe God exists. A high percentage of millennials distrust the Bible and instead embrace horoscopes and Karma as a life force and guide.

The erosion of faith has coincided with a crumbling moral consensus, supplanted by the celebration of narcissistic individualism, ethical relativity, and the rejection of moral absolutes and objective truth.

Sex and violence no longer offend—at any level or in any way. We’ve grown accustomed to their daily expressions. It is virtually impossible to shock us. Technology has created a virtual reality. Which numbs us to reality.

American culture has been morally anesthetized.

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,” wrote Alexander Pope. “As to be hated needs but to be seen; yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

Is this not the danger for our nation? For the Church?

Subtlety is evil’s slithering scheme.

In the midst of this encroaching darkness, there is hope. God loves us. By his grace and in his strength, he has promised to guide us, if we will commit to follow. In our answers to these questions, we may find it possible to courageously live faithful lives in such a time as this.

What is our plumb line?

By what standard do we believe and live; choose and decide? How do we align our lives? What is paramount? What—and who—influences us? Who do we listen to and what difference does it make?

How do we live by a straight line? By what values? What virtues? Pilate’s question is perennially relevant. What is truth? How do we know it? Does it exist? Does it matter?

Has the plumb line moved? Or have we? Will you and I determine to remain true—or gradually lean to stay in step with our times?

Suppose our times are wrong? Suppose there is a God? Suppose he’s right? What if the Bible really is his message to us and what if it’s true?

The plumb line is still there.

It is our vertical guide; our eternal reference point.

It directs us to the center of our spiritual gravity.

It hasn’t moved.

To order Jack Wyman’s book, “Everything Else: Stories of Life, Faith and Our World”, go to amazon.com, Christian Book Distributors or barnesandnoble.com. It is also available on Kindle and eBooks.

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