WITHOUT A TAPE MEASURE

Whether you are a carpenter or not, can you imagine building anything, much less a house, without a tape measure? Mull that question while reading this Scripture: "Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it:... (Psa 127:1). Good exposition may conclude the "house" is the Temple or an actual house, but an almost inescapable application is that the house is the family. Building a house then is about relationships between humans. This truth then applies to nation as well as to home. One thing for sure, building a house requires a measure. In the times of this verse, I'm sure builders did not have a Stanley Fatmax, but they had some means of measurement, probably a stick. Let's consider some things: First, building a house with no measure at all: America has said she no longer needs a tape measure--the absolutes as revealed in God's Word. I have never built a whole house but have done cabinet building and lots of remodeling. I cannot imagine doing so without a measure. With a tape measure one can square, level, align, and measure to cut at needed dimensions. Can one even fathom a house built without a tape measure? If you are having trouble imagining such a house, take a look at America. America has jettisoned the tape measure, the Judeo-Christian, Scriptural absolutes. No wonder the house is looking like it's looking. Imagine the actual construction process without a measure: A 36" header is needed. It's time to cut the boards. One carpenter says, "Cut here. That looks like 36" to me." Another, disagrees, "No, I really feel this is 36 inches." Another says, "I don't see it as 36 inches. From where I'm standing, that's not 36 inches." Second, each carpenter brings his different tape measure, personally made and marked off with its own unique unit of measurement. There was a time that could have happened. No uniform standard of measurement had been set. Not everybody's inch, cubit, or furlong was the same. Now, for tape measures there is a set, uniform unit of measure for each. Today's postmodernism teaches folks that each can and should decide for himself what his own personal unit of measurement will be. Each makes his own tape measure. No wonder there is so much disagreement, unrest, vitriol, disunity, and destruction in America. Each has a different measure. Third, what if during the construction of the house, the tape measure kept changing every few days or so? What if the carpenters kept getting a new tape measure with new, differing lengths of its units? This is the very argument of those who would discard the Biblical definition of marriage. Times have changed so the definition has changed. The tape measure has been changed. Each of the hypothetical scenarios above would lead to a mess, worse than the clubhouse built by a bunch of ten-year olds. It would not just be an aesthetic shamble, but a structural one as well. Jesus said, when the storm hits the house not built on a foundation of rock, it will come crashing down. True. But, so will the house that was built without a measure, with different measures, and with an ever-changing measure. And great will be "the fall of it." How's building that house going without a tape measure?

WITHOUT A TAPE MEASURE

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