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_Riverside Park hethndist Church, Sunday, Cotober 10, 1965
Ang§_z: 1:9 "He showed me: behold, the Lord was standin: beside a wall
Fun with a nlumb line, with a nlunt lino in his hand. And the Lord
said to me, "Amos, what do you see? And I said, "A plumb line." Then
the LOrd said, "Pehold, I on setting a olumb line in the midst or my
pecole Israel; I will neVer again pass by them;..."
gfut b: 1-0: New this is the commandment, the statutes and ordinances
which te ford your .06 comrsnfed me to teach you, that you msv do
ties in the land to wtich you are going over. to possess it; that you
ms" fear the lord your God. you end your son and your son's ~on, by
keepinr all his etstutrs and his comzandmcnts, which I command you,
sit 1hr days of your life; and thet you days may 1s prolonged. Hear.
thrrerore. C lens), and be careful to do them; that it may ro well
vith you. and that you rsy multiply rrestly. as the Lord. the God of
your fathers. has nocmized you, in a land flowing with milk and
honey. "Hear. C Israel: The Lord vonr God is one Lord, and you shall
love th~ Lord vour God vill all your heart, and with all "our so 1,
and '2th all your night.....
Christian wrone are gathered in their churches today, in this com-
munity and across vcur land, serking a more satisfying understending
of od, wantinr to hBVe the Bible made to release to them its meaninf
and strength.
We contzmrlate the challenges to our faith--wo watch the decline
in unday School sttendsncs--we sense that the Church to which ye
come 'or guidance is Fsing euonlanted in its role of moral leadership
by SCUIBP rarses-wand We seem not to know what to do.
Cur newsnsoerr heallne our nrohlems. The catslo; or our crimes
is too horrillc to wontemplcte. Cur "entnl hospitals are oVer-flowing
vith (ch16 "o Fennot face life as they see it. Moral decadence
scem: to snrcad like rsngrene over the social order.
Cur naticnal nose. sass the rest of the world. Cur individual
and collectiva zualth is beyond thc \ildest dreams or a score or years
arr. Cur sols-title competence has no sopsrent limits. And our spiritual
llf hithers rev.
3 this is only to restate the obvious. Yet the leadership of
this nation, in small tosns and {rest capitals. does not orw-out for
a return to God and the Bible. There seems not be a an And} to notht.
out Cod's olumb line, nor yet 3 Moses to teach us the statutes and.
commandments o~ the Lord our God.
Instead we listen to those who placetheir faith in material things.
In this age of great wealth we reason that if only wehad more, sin
. would be banished from the earth. There is no crime so revolting
that we cannot attribute it to poverty. There is no alcoholic so
drunk that we cannot trace his stupor to physical or mental disease.
We olacidly watch missionaries murdered or driven from the lands
they have labored to help and explain it as a reasonable by-product
of national development.
Nowhere in our rationalization is ther a place for the thought
that our troukles compound because we ignorelthe Bible, because
we worship at the feet of golden calves-yet surely each one of us
must know that we shall pay the price for our conduct as surely as
eVer Israel did.
Amos saw God holding a plumb line. He still holds it! And
this crooked world we are building, using as a level whateVer cleVer
. social or political device is popular at the moment, will fall unless
we rebuild it according to the plumbline all of us can ace--the Bible.
Nations coma and go--Idsss sweep across the intellectual com-
munity and seep dawn to people at all levels, and then are gone-
but there are certain things that never change:
THE TEN CCMNANDKEKTSI
THE SERNCN CN THE MOUNT!
THE LORDS PRAYER!
Moaea.ucrds_fromthe~5eripeeretodayi_21nn_shall_lovetheLord
your~Godaxith allycur heart, and_uith alllxnun_soulywendwittral1
ininiehtv.aiaae-accmmand.as_xalid_noa_as_uhanthey~ere~utterode
There is a treat deal in the Bible that is difficult to under-
stand. The most learned theologians can argue its meaning-and so can~
. the least learned laymen-but for evsry man there are enough simple 0
-2-
-3- -3-
truths in the Bible to provide plumb lines for us all. Yet by some
atranre twist of thinking we have contrived that a government which
recognized first or all the divine origin of the rights or men has
made it illegal to teach their children from whence these rights
spring.
he Americans pride ourselves unon being 8 Just people. Justice
is a nreposition imclicit in our national history and existence--
it is instinct in our naticnsl character. I could conceive of
America without the -tete of Florida: I could not conceiva of America
without Justice a5 a nurnoee and real.
Not "Justice~ so a product of power. If power alone nor: the
fountainhead of Justice the strong would always rule, and the weak
be crushed; the laborer would still boon his knees: the slave would
still war his chains.
But "Justice" as Moses understood it--the product growing out of
the ccmmittrent or a people to the statutes and ordinances of God.
Justice ea Amos understood it: "Lct Justice roll down like waters,
and rivhteouanese as a mighty stream."
America has taken its stand as a nation governed not by men--
men who for the moment weild newer--but by laws: lava vhich are the
embodiment of our concept of Justice. They protect the week from
the strong, not because the weak command. but because it is right--
and Just-~80 to do: because it is God's will so to do.
For what 35 Justice if it is not the naked assertion of power.
Either there is some immutable, unchanging standard toward which we
grope-some standard which exists not because of us but in spite of
u:-scme rule bin inf not Just upon the helpless by upon every in-
dividual, and upon the stateitFEf-or there is no Justice.
Either there is a standard above us, after which we try to pattern
our rave, or there is only power: in the army, in a police force, tn
a ruerilla band, in a mob--to make WhateVer laws, whatever standards
-q- -5.
councils of nations...
The keystone in the great arch of our liberties which has dic-
tinguished this ration from all others is the concept of Justice
. uwcr God, rot-canoe Jurticr without God would be like freedor without
choicc. or muscle without mind.
//
'ch-thic 9 the commandment," said Mceca..."that you any fear
5 the Lewd your God, you and your son and your son's son. by keeping
yallkis statutes and commandments...o4%the days of your life.
The rules that govc'n our lives, inividually and as parts of
society, are either expressions of rover, or expressions of wrin-
ciIC. If they are expressions of crinciple, as we Arericans claim
that they are, they rust he cithsr the product of contrmrorsry
learning, chsnring with each at discovery, or the hroduct of
eternal and unchanging truths. God told Amos that he held a wlumb
line by which crawls could 11?9, and Amos, reported that thr neohle
. \muot either live by that club line or rcrish.
We Christians have a vest responsibility. Against all the secular
forces of the vorld--aga1nct all the claims for scientific method--
against all the attractions of great wealth--wo have to point out
God's nlumb line, and lead necnle by our examole and witness
back to devotion to Hie statutes and comnandments as set forth
in His Holy Word.
"Behold" acid Noses, "I set tefore you this day a blessing and
a curse;
A blessinr if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your God...
And a curse if ye will not obey the commandments of the Lord
your God..."
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