We have abandoned our national plumb line.

Who used chemical weapons in Syria? Who was responsible for the latest atrocity that killed civilians and children? Who can we believe – Russia? Assad? Iran? Turkey? Where can we obtain independent and reliable news reports? These are just some of the questions that people throughout the Western world are asking.

The USA has answered decisively that Assad is to blame so they have destroyed (allegedly?) the airfield from which the attack was (allegedly?) launched.

The pictures we have seen on TV news reports and in our newspapers, show horrific scenes of children suffering breathing problems from chemical weapons and wounds from bombing, but will we ever know who was responsible for these atrocities? Will we ever know the truth?

No Yardstick for Truth

If we have to judge between ISIS and Assad as to who is telling the truth, we really do have a problem. They are both Muslims and the Islamic religion sanctions the telling of lies if doing so promotes their religion. This makes it extremely difficult in any social relationships in mixed communities. You can never be quite sure which standard of truth is being applied.

Of course, we know that truth has been under attack for centuries – evidenced by Pilate’s famous cynical question at the fake trial of Jesus, “what is truth?” But something extraordinary seems to be happening in our lifetime, and in our nation: it is the deliberate distortion of truth. We hear so many reports of ‘fake news’, or ‘alternative facts’ and it is increasingly difficult to separate out fact from fiction, especially amidst a bombardment of tweets, news flashes, adverts and coded messages.

Something extraordinary seems to be happening in our lifetime, and in our nation: the deliberate distortion of truth.

Communication of the truth becomes increasingly complex, even in ordinary everyday things of life. When we listen to news reports on the radio we can never be sure of the veracity of what is being reported. The basic problem is the lack of agreed standards of truth. Without a yardstick, we cannot measure anything. There was even a report last week saying that the marathon that has been run in different places has been inaccurately measured, thus calling into question the times achieved by different athletes.

Amos Faced the Same Battle

The Prophet Amos faced the same battle for truth in the nation of Israel. People were all making up their own standards and the teaching given by Moses was being ignored. Everyone did as they pleased. The poor came off worst. They were cheated in the market by merchants who used dishonest scales or who brushed a lot of chaff and dust into the bag when they were selling corn to the housewife (Amos 8:5-6).

If a poor housewife went to court trying to get justice against a rich merchant, it would be the rich man who won because the judge was corrupt and accepted a bribe before he gave his decision, so the poor were deprived of justice in the courts (Amos 5:12).

Amos was outraged by this and many other things he saw in the nation such as selling the poor into slavery, a father and a son abusing a girl and drunken behaviour (Amos 2:6-8). He took this to God in prayer and got some very straight answers about judgment coming upon the nation.

Checking the City Walls

Amos was not only a righteous man but he was also compassionate and he pleaded with God to have mercy on the people. He had several revelations of what God was going to do and each time he pleaded that this would not happen. Eventually God showed him a picture of a man standing by a wall with a plumb line in his hand and God asked him “What do you see Amos?” “A plumb line,” he replied. Then the Lord said “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people Israel; I will spare them no longer” (Amos 7:8).

Amos knew that there was no further point in arguing. He had seen the city engineer regularly checking the city walls with a plumb line. They were looking for the wall becoming out of line – out of exact perpendicular. In particular, the engineer had to look for bulges.

Our problem is our lack of agreed standards of truth. Without a yardstick, we cannot measure anything.

The city walls were built with an outer and an inner wall of stone with a gap between. The gap was usually filled with rubble which often also contained household rubbish. It was this rubbish that presented a danger because it could sometimes generate heat which could put pressure upon the outer and inner walls causing them to bulge. The bulge meant that the wall could crack and suddenly fall, leaving the city open to the invasion of enemies.

The engineer had to check for the bulges which indicated that there was corruption inside the wall. When Amos saw this, he got the message that God was communicating to him.

There would come a point when the corruption in the nation would become so strong that family life and harmonious community relationships would all be affected by the lies and injustice of corrupt officials and lawless individuals. If the nation went on ignoring the warning signs of corruption and the cracks in the justice system, in family life and in community relations – the outcome would be disastrous. It would happen without further warning, in an instant when nobody was expecting it.

Message to Britain

The Prophet Isaiah had a similar message:

Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of the cistern. (Isa 30:12-14) [emphasis added]

This is a message to Britain today. There have been many warning signs over a number of years of corruption among officials in our nation - in the banking industry, among our politicians, in local government and business as well as in family life and community relationships. The savage beating of a young asylum seeker in Croydon has shocked the nation – that there can be such barbaric cruelty and violence among young people in Britain is horrifying.

If our nation goes on ignoring the warning signs of corruption – the outcome will be sudden and disastrous.

But this is simply evidence of corruption in the nation: the breakdown of family life and the abandonment of teaching truth in our schools. When we ceased to teach the Bible in state schools we abandoned the plumb line of truth. Now we are reaping the inevitable rewards of a lawless generation. But it’s no good blaming the young people – we are all to blame!

The only hope for the future is repentance and turning to the word of God for his truth to be enshrined at the heart of the nation. Jesus promised, “When he, the Spirit of Truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). This should surely be the focal point of prayer among Christians for our leaders, both Church and State!