Destruction in Scripture

1. Destruction in Scripture 7-30-06

2. The Vineyard • I will sing for the one I love a song about his vineyard: • My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up and cleared it of stones and planted it with the choicest vines. • He built a watchtower in it and cut out a winepress as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes, but it yielded only bad fruit. "Now you dwellers in Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it? When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed; I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated, and briers and thorns will grow there. I will command the clouds not to rain on it." The vineyard of the LORD Almighty is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed; for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. (Isaiah 5:1)

3. The Vineyard • The Vineyard in Matthew • Remember the Fig tree? • Jonah wanted to see mayhem • Lot’s wife maybe? • It is not mankind or Satan who will destroy the world, it is God.

4. God’s Motives • Acts 17:24 "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. • And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. • From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. • God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

5. God uses destruction • Psa 46:8 Come and see the works of the LORD, the desolations he has brought on the earth. • Zeph 2:11 The LORD will be awesome to them when he destroys all the gods of the land. The nations on every shore will worship him, every one in its own land. • Deu 32:21 They made me jealous by what is no god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding. For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains. • Jer 17:18 destroy them with double destruction.

6. Man’s Path is Destruction • Ecc 9:18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good. • 2 Pet 3:16 (Paul’s) His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. • Jude 1:10 Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals-- these are the very things that destroy them. • Matt 7:13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

7. The church can be destroyed • Acts 8:3 But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. • NIV 2 Peter 2:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them-- bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.

8. Faith can be Destroyed • Gal 1:23 They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." • 2 Tim 2:17 Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, 18 who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some.

9. Brothers can destroy each other • Rom 14:15 If your brother is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy your brother for whom Christ died… • 20 Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. • Gal 5:15 If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. • 1 Cor 8:10 So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. • Remember the millstone? Causes HER to be an adulteress?

10. God WILL destroy sinners • Matt 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. • James 4:12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. • 1 Thess 1:8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power

11. God will cleanse the world • 2 Peter 3: 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.

12. World’s Excuse “Peace and Safety” • 1 Thess 5:3 While people are saying, "Peace and safety," destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, andthey will not escape. • God’s armies destroyed cities with salt on the fields, rocks piled everywhere, cut down the trees, damaged the wells. How often did he get upset because they would leave the king alive, or keep women, or idols? • Worldly friends and ties WILL destroy you.

13. World’s excuse 2 “God is slow” • Nahum 1: • 3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. • Previous verse: 2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. • God is not slow as man counts slowness.

14. God gives plenty of warning • Deu 8:19 If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. • 20 Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God. • Isa 13:9 See, the day of the LORD is coming--a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger-- to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it. • Isa 34:11 God will stretch out over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation. • Isa 54:16 "See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc; • Eze 5:15 I the LORD have spoken. • 16 When I shoot at you with my deadly and destructive arrows of famine, I will shoot to destroy you. I will bring more and more famine upon you and cut off your supply of food.

15. God changes his mind • Jer 18:7 If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. • David after the census: • 1 Chro 21:15 And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the LORD saw it and was grieved because of the calamity and said to the angel who was destroying the people, "Enough! Withdraw your hand." The angel of the LORD was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. • David looked up and saw the angel of the LORD standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell facedown.

16. Godly Rescued, Sinners Destroyed • 2 Peter 2: Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. • For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; • and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— • if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.