Amos 07: The Fruit Line

Pastor Brandon unpacks the metaphor of the plumb line from Amos 7, showing how God's Word serves as our objective standard for measuring spiritual truth and righteous living.

• The origin of the episode title "The Fruit Line" comes from a humorous story about a master carpenter forgetting the term "plumb line"
• God showed Amos a series of visions including locusts, fire, and finally a plumb line to test Israel
• A plumb line represents an objective standard – in Christianity, God's Word is that standard
• We don't interpret Scripture according to our preferences; we measure our lives against its truth
• God doesn't use the elite but the obedient – "there are no second-class citizens in the kingdom of God"
• Every believer has the right to share God's Word when they know what it says
• Spiritual maturity requires both learning and application
• Our freedom comes from aligning our lives with God's standards

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Chapters

• 0:48 The Fruit Line Story
• 2:21 The Bible Breakdown Introduction
• 4:00 Amos Chapter 7 and Visions
• 6:56 The Plumb Line Vision Explained
• 9:50 Amos Versus Amaziah Confrontation
• 12:49 God's Word as Our Standard

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today. Amos, chapter 7, today's title is the Fruit Line. The Fruit Line the reason why I'm saying that I'm going to go ahead and tell you this story. So the idea is actually called a plumb line, and what a plumb line is is it is a line that you use. That is kind of your baseline for what is level, what is straight. It's supposed to be like the most level thing ever. And then you judge everything else based on this plum line plum being flush straight, all that right.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Well, I was working with a guy one time and I am by no means a carpenter. You can ask any of my friends, they will tell you. No, that is not an adjective I would use, but I'm the guy who has like a strong back and will help as much as I can. Right, and I knew what a plumb line was. I had been told and I was with this master carpenter and he'd been teasing me a little bit, just friendly ribbing back and forth, and he's like hey, brandon, if you can bring me the hammer, by the way, it's the one that's got the claw on one side. You know, just teasing because he knew I'm just clueless, right? Well, he had been going back and forth and really giving me a hard time and, once again, all in good fun. But it was brutal and it came time and we needed to run a plumb line, a chalk line, plumb line, to make sure that we were doing everything right.

Speaker 1: 1:43

And this masterenter, who has forgotten a hundred times over again anything that I've ever learned he knows everything. He couldn't remember for the life of him the word plumb line or the phrase plumb line. And so he's like we need to make a fruit line. And can I tell you, just imagine the scene. There's like 10 of us around and all nine of them have been laughing. And, you know, teasing and laughing at me, the guy who doesn't know anything. And I'm laughing too because I don't know anything. Right, all of them, all of us, look at him, mr Master Carpenter, and go excuse me, a fruit line. And he starts laughing at himself. He's like all right, brandon, what is it? And thankfully, I knew it was called a plumb line. And so, of course, I just straighten my back, pop out my chest and say, well, now it is a fruit line, even though it is a plumb line and we had some fun with that. So from now on, if you are a carpenter, it's a fruit line, right? We're going to talk about fruit lines, plumb lines in here today. We're going to have some fun.

Speaker 1: 2:46

So, if you have your Bibles, I want to open up with me to Amos, chapter 7. While you're doing that as always, if you're new around here make sure you take just a second to like, share and subscribe to the YouTube channel and the podcast. Make sure you leave us a five-star review on the podcast it really does help and make sure you can get all the links to all the things at thebiblebreakdowncom Real quick. We've had a lot of people contact us recently and say Pastor Brandon, I don't do the Facebook thing very much. I don't get on social media all that much, and a lot of times it's because people do social media they just don't do Facebook that often. Twitter or X, now Instagram, tiktoks, all those things they don't really lean you kind of lend themselves to longer form stuff like that. So there's not going to be much of a chance of us doing a lot of that kind of stuff on those platforms. So the way we're trying to fix that is by very slowly, eventually moving everything over to thebiblebreakdowncom. Now, here's the good thing you don't have to have a Facebook account to access the devotions. So if you want to, you can go to thebiblebreakdowncom, find the link that says discussion. When you click that, if it's working properly, it will send you to the discussion, which is public, and you can do that. Now, if you want to comment, which we'd love for you to do, you have to have a Facebook account for that, but you can still comment in that way, okay, all right.

Speaker 1: 4:13

Well, if you've been with us over the past several days, we've been walking through the book of Amos, and if you remember the book of Amos, the overall idea is let justice roll, as the great Garth Brooks says. And, and Amos is one of the oldest prophets in the Old Testament and he is writing to Israel. Now, as we've been talking about, he is not from Israel, he's from Judah, and then you have the northern and the southern kingdoms, and so, yes, at one point these were both together, and so it can be difficult sometimes to remember that there is now a dividing line and these, these two guys, are they are at war as much as they are friends, right, but he is writing to the Israelites because he is telling them hey, listen, listen, I know that you guys are so blessed right now and economically they were very blessed but he is saying that there is an empire called the Assyrians and they're going to come take over you guys if you don't repent. And so we've been talking about these ideas, about how, with access comes responsibility. He talked to him about how this is your wake-up call. He talked about the idea of coming on back to God, and then yesterday he was saying that they are walking on thin ice. Well, today he's going to talk about this, this plum line, this fruit line, as it is the idea of really having an objective standard in our life to help us know what's good and what's not. And he's going to do this through these different visions. Now, one way to look at a vision is the idea of, if you've been with us for a while now, we've been reading through the Bible, one chapter at a time for a while, and we will read one book in the Old Testament, one book in the New Testament, and so at this point, we have read through the Gospels, and the Gospels, jesus did this amazing thing called teaching through parables, and what a parable is. A parable is a spiritual principle, a deep spiritual principle wrapped in a story so that you can see the different aspects of it right. Well, that's a lot of what a vision is in the Old Testament. It is a way for God to make a point in a visual way for people to understand. So if you're ready, let's dive into this today and let's see what God's word will teach us.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Chapter 7, verse 1 says this the sovereign Lord showed me a vision. I saw him preparing to send a vast swarm of locusts over the land. This is after the king's share had been harvested from the fields as the main crop was coming up. In my vision, the locust ate every green plant in sight. Then I said O, sovereign Lord, please forgive us or we will not survive, for Israel is so small. So the Lord relented from his plan and said I will not do it. Then the sovereign Lord showed me yet another vision. I saw him preparing to punish his people with a great fire, the fire that burned up the depths of the sea and was devouring the entire land. Then I said O sovereign Lord, please stop, or we will not survive, for Israel is so small. Then the Lord relented from this plan too. I will not do that either, said the sovereign Lord. Then he showed me yet another vision.

Speaker 1: 7:21

I saw the Lord standing beside the wall that had been built using a plumb line Remember a fruit line? And he was using the plumb line to see if it was still straight. Then the Lord said to me Amos, what do you see? And I answered a plumb line. And the Lord replied I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore their sins. The pagan shrines of your ancestors will. And the Lord replied to Jeroboam, king of Israel, amos is hatching a plot against you, right here on your very doorstep. What he is saying is intolerable. He is saying Jeroboam will soon be killed and the people of Israel will be sent away into exile.

Speaker 1: 8:11

Then Amaziah sent orders to Amos get out of here, you prophet. Go on back to the land of Judah and earn your living by prophesying there. Don't bother us with your prophecies here in Bethel. This is the king's sanctuary and the national place of worship. But Amos replied I am not a professional prophet. I was never trained to be one and I am just a shepherd and I take care of sycamore fig trees. But the Lord called me away from my flock and told me go and prophesy to my people in Israel. Now listen, this is the message from the Lord. You say don't prophesy against Israel, stop preaching against my people. But this is what the Lord says your wife will become a prostitute in the city. Man, you want to talk about a clap back? Let me say that again. Okay, pause, okay, the next no, no, no, no, no. I'm not even going to say this, but imagine somebody tells you to get out of here. This is your clapback. This is what the Lord says. Here we go, verse 17. Your wife will become a prostitute in the city and your sons and daughters will be killed. That's rough. Your land will be divided up and you yourself will die in a foreign land, and the people of Israel will certainly become captives in exile, far from their homeland. That's his way of saying don't mess with me, fool, and I wouldn't.

Speaker 1: 9:36

But what's the big idea we can take from this? The plumb line was I'm going to look at the objective standard and then I'm going to judge accordingly. Well, what is the objective standard in Christianity? God's Word? God has revealed to us His Word. That's why we're reading it, one chapter at a time. We don't look at God's Word and then decide what it means. We learn what God's Word means and then we measure our lives according to it. Now, salvation comes by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone. Our level of freedom comes from how closely we do what God's word says. And the thing is is, god's word tells us to do so many good things, but we tend to focus on the things that we can't do, and then that human nature. That's fine, but that's why we do this.

Speaker 1: 10:25

But then the other thing I love is that God tells Amos not a professional prophet, someone who loved God and was just crazy enough to obey him, to go and do what he needed to do, and then, when he was accused of whatever he's like, no, no, no. An older translation of this says I am not a prophet, nor a son of a prophet. In other words, I am a nobody from nowhere. I'm just trying to do what God told me to do, and you know what that does. That reminds us God does not use the elite, because there is no such thing in the kingdom of God. But if there were, god does not use the elite to do his work. He does the obedient to do his work, can I tell you there are no second class citizens in the kingdom of God. If you're looking at the YouTube video, I want to look straight at you and say that one more time there are no second class citizens in the kingdom of God.

Speaker 1: 11:18

You have every bit as much of a right to obey God as anybody else. Now there's a caveat, there's a nuance to that, and that is there are levels of maturity in the kingdom of God, which means that if you're a brand new baby Christian, sit down and learn. Okay, your pampers will fall off. You know what I mean. It's okay to sit down and learn, but at the same time, if you've been in God's word, you're studying God's word and you know what God's word says. Never be afraid to share God's word with other people. You have every right, and if someone says to you, what are you doing? Telling me God's word, who do you think you are? You can tell them hey, listen, I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet. I'm nobody from nowhere. But my Jesus is somebody from somewhere and I'm just here to tell you what his word says. Everybody is gifted to do everything that God has called them to do, and you know what God's called us to do To know him and to make him known. So go out and know God more and make him known.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Today let's pray together, god, thank you so much for today, thank you for your word, thank you that it is powerful and it is true, and it is the plumb line. It is the line at which we make the objective standard of who we are, and your word wants us to be free. It's one of the things I love about you, god, that you didn't have to be good, you didn't have to be gracious, you didn't have to be kind, but you are all those things and your word leads us into that freedom. Help us to lean into that more and to never listen to the devil, who tries to tell us that we can't lean into your word, but rather lean into it more and more every day. We love you, we celebrate you In Jesus' name. We pray Amen, amen. What Jesus' name? We pray Amen, amen.

Speaker 1: 12:59

Well, god's word says in Amos, chapter five, verse 24,. He says instead I want to see a mighty flood of justice and an endless river of righteous living. Let that be our story today. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow. We're almost done with Amos, chapter eight.