Destruction in Scripture

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Destruction in Scripture

• 7-30-06

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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 51)

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The Vineyard

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

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Gods Motives

• Acts 1724 "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.

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God uses destruction

• Psa 468 Come and see the works of the LORD, the
  desolations he has brought on the earth.
• Zeph 211 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 3221 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 1718 destroy them with double destruction.

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Mans Path is Destruction

• Ecc 918 Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
  but one sinner destroys much good.
• 2 Pet 316 (Pauls) 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 110 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 713 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.

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The church can be destroyed

• Acts 83 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 21 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.

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Faith can be Destroyed

• Gal 123 They only heard the report "The man who
  formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith
  he once tried to destroy."
• 2 Tim 217 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.

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Brothers can destroy each other

• Rom 1415 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 515 If you keep on biting and devouring each
  other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each
  other.
• 1 Cor 810 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?

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God WILL destroy sinners

• Matt 1028 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 412 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge,
  the one who is able to save and destroy.
• 1 Thess 18 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

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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.

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Worlds Excuse Peace and Safety

• 1 Thess 53 While people are saying, "Peace and
  safety," destruction will come on them suddenly,
  as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will
  not escape.
• Gods 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.

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Worlds 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.

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God gives plenty of warning

• Deu 819 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 139 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 3411 God will stretch out over Edom the
  measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of
  desolation.
• Isa 5416 "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 515 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.

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God changes his mind

• Jer 187 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 2115 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.

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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.

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