If you have ever done any carpenter work or woodworking or machine work, you know the importance of the proper measuring tool.  If you’re a carpenter, you need a plumb line, level, square, and a tape measure.  A woodworker would use a square and a ruler, and maybe a protractor, and a machinist would use a micrometer and a machinist’s ruler and perhaps calipers.  Without a way to establish constant, precise measurement, your project is doomed to failure before you even start.  

     We also need a means to measure to guide us as we build our lives.  There are so many people among us who have left the measuring tools at home, and have set out to “re-measure” our society.  At first, the errors were not too awfully noticeable, but errors have a way of compounding themselves over time, and pretty soon they become glaring misnakesxxxxxmistakes.
     Allow me to make an illustration; take a blank piece of paper, and near the top of it, measure exactly a 4 9/16 inch long straight line with a ruler. We will round that to 117 mm for those who like metric measurements.  Now take a good look at it, then fold the top of the paper over on it so you can not see the line.  Without the use of a ruler of any kind, draw a straight line to the same length you had measured before.  Straight isn’t all that important, but the length of the line is.  Now, fold that over so you can’t see it, and draw another one freehand to what you think is 4 9/16 inches long (or 117mm), and fold it over so you can’t see it, and keep doing it until you have run out of paper.  Now, go back WITH THE RULER and measure how accurate you were on each line.  If you’re like most people, myself included, my lines without the use of the ruler were NOT 4 9/16 inches long, but something else.  In fact, NONE of them were 4 9/16 inches long.  And I’ll bet none of yours were, either.
     The point I’m trying to make here is that without the ruler, you will get further, and further, and further in error as you go.  If you tried flying an airplane like that, you’d get lost.  Say you were in St. Louis, Missouri, heading for West Virginia. We will say you looked at a compass and decided your heading, and took off flying East, then turned your compass off, saying, I’ll do fine without my compass.  Can you imagine where you might end up? Your guess is as good as mine.
     So how can we expect our lives to remain on course without the guidance of the Holy Bible?  We can’t, period.  People have allowed the removal of the Bible from our schools, our courts, and the very core of our society, and they say we have not erred?  Give me a break!  Even as we cannot pass the simple “draw a line the right length without a ruler” test, we cannot pass the test of the survival of our society without the Bible.  Over the years since the Bible was removed from schools, we now have teenage abortions, which is nothing less than the murder of an innocent baby, no matter what we choose to call it, we now have students and teachers murdered by gunmen in schools.
     All the rules of the Bible are one at a time being removed from us by stealth or by choice, and we say “OK”.  The criminals claim they are the victims, their lawyers say we are wrong and their clients are right, and we say “OK”.  God, and everything that stands for God is being removed from our society, and we say “OK”.  The Ten Commandments are being and have been removed from public places, and we say “OK”.  Our kids are being gunned down by gangs who, by the way, live by their own rules, and not society at large, and we say “OK”.  People are teaching our kids that a perverted lifestyle is not wrong, but just an “alternative lifestyle”, and we say “OK”.
    

     Now, the very fabric of our society is rotting and falling apart, because it is no longer being held together by the Word of God, and now God is saying “OK”.

      Why?  Because God will not force Himself where He is not welcome.  We need look no further than Hosea 4:6-12, which says :
Hos 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
Hos 4:7  As they were increased, so they sinned against me: therefore will I change their glory into shame.
Hos 4:8  They eat up the sin of my people, and they set their heart on their iniquity.
Hos 4:9  And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings.
Hos 4:10  For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the LORD.
Hos 4:11  Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.
Hos 4:12  My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.
 
      How can we possibly think everything will turn out fine when the mass of the people have thrown out the only measuring devise that is Right and Good?  You may be saying, You’re getting overly alarmed, the vast majority of people are serving God.  Really.   Are they?  Show me.  Show me by what they are allowing in their lives.  Let’s get the “ruler” out and take some measurements here.  Even if we only apply “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”, we see we have missed the mark by far.  How far?  I’d say by quite a lot, seeing we have on a national level removed God from most of our public institutions. 

     We have decided as a society that what is right in our own eyes is right.  And we have lawmakers working around the clock in our local and federal government to keep changing the rules as they go, in that if they find a law they don’t like, they just change it until it suits them. We are moving as a society into deep bondage, because we as a society have rejected God, and therefore, His freedom.  Indeed, we have already become a Godless nation, serving only the god of our fleshly desires.  That’s a pretty strong statement, but prove me wrong if you can. 

      Prove to me that God is the one by which we frame our society.  Explain to me, if you can, why it is said our Nation is made up of 86% Christians, yet 14% who don’t love God or His ways are being successful in removing every reference to God from our society.  Explain to me exactly who it is that is trying to remove Christian teachings from radio, TV, our schools, and colleges.  Explain to me how it is the 86% supposedly “Christians” among us are so gutless, so powerless to stand up for God, yet we think we will rule and reign one day with Christ?  What a joke!!!
      This is where I stop saying “OK”.  Why?  Because, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.  If someone else doesn’t want to serve the Lord, that’s their decision, and I have no problem with that. I respect their right to liberty to live as they choose.  But when the decisions THEY make start infringing on MY decision to serve God, then I will exert MY right to say I will not live my life by THEIR rules, but only by the Word of God. 

    The time is coming, and now is, that God knows who are truly His and who are not, and I stand up to be counted as HIS.  While there is yet breath in me, I will declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and tell people they cannot expect to have true success in this life, or the next, without God being the ruler of their life.

     This is the time for you to frame your spiritual house by the Word of God, if you want it to be “plumb, level, and square” and able to stand the test of God, and believe me, you WILL one day stand before Him and be judged.
      If you want your house all out of whack, that’s your choice, and even God himself will not deny you the freedom to make your choice.  But don’t blame God if you reject Him, then find out in the end you made the wrong choice.  He has given you, every one of you, every opportunity to receive forgiveness of your sins, if only you will choose to do so.  The price has already been paid for your salvation, healing, and deliverance from the evil one.
     Now, the choice is yours.  Look at your life.  Does it measure up to the standards God has set forth?  Or are you trying to measure without a ruler? Yes?  No?
      Now, what are you going to do about it?