The Builders and The Destroyers

Happy Sabbath, everyone! It's wonderful to be here with you, and to those of you who are watching online, we're glad to have you join us as well. Throughout history, man has invented religion. We're going to look at this a little more in the Bible study that follows. But man has invented religion as a tool of domination over citizens for control and for the obtaining of wealth by aristocracy.

And it's left the citizens hoping in the tenants of whatever religion was created for some relief. But that relief never comes. And so down through time, citizens have rejected the authority and the religion that was associated with it. And there have been revolutions that have taken place down through time. When religion failed to rescue the citizens, they felt failed by their government and by their God, as it were.

If we fast forward to today, citizens we see are now once again rejecting authority, and they're rejecting the religions that are associated with those authorities. And that's why religion, we might say worldwide, or especially in the Western world, is irrelevant to most people. It's not that the powers aren't still there, the authorities, and it's not that the religious leaders and their buildings have gone anywhere. The people have lost confidence in the authorities, in the religion being of some help to them.

And so you and I live at ground zero of a new movement, a movement from the base, from the citizens, to reject authorities to raise the self to a new faith called evolution. We invented ourselves. We created ourselves. We are all equal. We don't believe in any kind of higher authority, nor do we really believe in some religious power or religious system that can save us. And therefore, we will invent a new society. And now we see all around us this new, improved civilization that is being brought in with some conflict and an upsetting of some people who are a little more conservative.

But this is the new push, a push without God to a new, superior way of living. As the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Mike Johnson, stated, he's worried that this country, which is sort of the leader of this and pushing it through not only media and politics and social sources, but also through entertainment, through music, through the arts, through all its avenues, America is pushing this emptiness out there.

And he says the United States is destroying its foundation. He says the wickedness is inviting God's wrath. America needs to recognize that there's so much to repent for. We're violating His commands, which we've always done. We're inventing new ways to do evil. But this is the new society, the improved form of humanism. He says the culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable. He says, remembering God's burning of Sodom for its wickedness, Mr.

Johnson stated, we have to ask ourselves, how long can His mercy and grace be held back? America is in disastrous, calamitous time, hanging by a thread. So you and I are observers of this, observers of Bible prophecy that forecast this. There's nothing you're going to do about it. No politician's going to ride in and save you. Everything is built on something that is unbiblical and not of God.

And we are told to be in the world. Jesus said, I don't want you to take them out of the world. No, I want them to be in the world like He was here in the world. But I don't want you to be of the world, of the world. I ask myself this question all the time. How much of this improved thought process am I letting slip into my life?

Now, there's different ways of looking at this. Some of it can seem, oh, that's a little more fair, or that's a little better, or this is more thoughtful or more loving and caring. They'll push that at you one way. Or something else will come this way, and they'll start saying, no, this is the tradition we've had built on Sunday and Christmas and Easter and Halloween, and we should get back to that.

There's always this stuff. But you and I are called to be of the body of Christ in a starkly contrasting mindset to everything that humanity constructs for itself. What parts of society am I adopting or okaying or tolerating or whatever term you want to use? I'd like to help clarify this a little bit for us today, as I have in my own life. I'll share this with you by defining things in two distinct categories that have no blend in the middle.

They don't touch. Now, sometimes we'll come up here and we'll define it as sin and right or righteousness, good and evil, light and darkness, and other terms like that. Those two also have no correlation. But let's look at scripture and are calling through yet another view that is very contrasting. The title of the sermon today is The Builders and the Destroyers. The builders and the destroyers. It is a similar viewpoint, but just a little different, that maybe gives us a little bit of a unique perspective here when we look at scriptures.

Ultimately, we see on television warfare that is destructive. There's nothing about warfare that is building. Warfare is not intended to build. It is intended to destroy. You see the good guys on TV at war? What do they do? They trash everything. They break apart. They blow apart. America is one of the greatest ones.

We're the missile bomb people and we're the masters at warfare in the explosion category. We just do really well at explosion ever since World War II. And we're noted for that. But what does a bullet do? What can a bullet do? It can only break apart. The only function of a bullet is to break something apart. It can break a body apart. It can break a tank apart. It can break a window apart.

It can break a target apart. But a flying piece of lead can only do one thing, and that is destroy something. Now, you can pack that with some explosives, and now it really destroys something.

You can make it into a bigger projectile that even destroys bigger stuff. You can build it into a bigger, bigger one and stick it on a missile, and that can really destroy some stuff. You'll put it in things called destroyers, and their whole mission is to go destroy.

When you watch the news, you can see destruction taking place, and that's all warfare can do. Now, when we think for a minute about war, there was a book that has evidently been quite a guide for warfare since 5 BC. It was written by a Chinese warrior, and it's called The Art of War, and it's been translated for many years.

Reportedly, it's been on the desks of a lot of people. I'd like to read some. The book, The Art of War from 5 BC, is used by the U.S. Army, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, recommended for all U.S. military intelligence personnel. General Douglas MacArthur, Mao Zedong of China, General Norman Shorzkopf—all are cited as having some relationship with it. Colin Powell said it influences both soldiers and politicians who have picked up that book.

It is applied as a training guide for many types of competitive endeavors in business. This book employs it for office politics and business strategy. Corporate executives gain advice on how to succeed in competition. Lawyers have relied on it for negotiation tactics and trial strategies. Sports application includes by NFL's most-winning Super Bowl coach and Brazil's World Cup coach. You can see here how society is geared up to competition, and competition is often destroying what somebody else is doing or what they are trying to build in order to gain an advantage.

Another form of this we find in James 4. It's all sort of the same thing, but here James brings us right into relevance for us. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Remember, a war is about destruction. It may be about the assassination of someone's character, like they'll do in politics, like we will do person to person, run somebody down, take their whole life's ambitions, goals, successes, and just kill it.

Kill it with some words. So where do these wars and fights come from among you in the church? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members you lust and you do not have you murder and covet, so you're destroying someone else, either literally or verbally? So not having on the destruction side is what the get way of humanity is. It's about control, about stealing, about getting, about taking. There's a different way of life, of course. There's that of builders. Let's go and examine builders for just a moment. God and Jesus Christ are brought to us from the very first chapter of the Bible as builders.

The very first thing we read in Genesis 1 is about builders building a universe and building an earth and building a wonderful area and then building up humanity. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and begin in verse 9 about what they're doing in the church. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 and verse 9. Paul talks about the ministry. He says, For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field. You are God's building. He's building crops that produce fruit. He's creating a temple. You are God's building.

According to the grace of God, which was given me as a wise master builder, he talks about here building on a foundation. So God, the family of God, the church of God, is about building, constructing. He talks here at the end of the verse, Let each one take heed how he builds on it. We're all to be building, for no other foundation can be laid, which is Jesus Christ. Verse 12, If anyone builds on this foundation with gold and silver and precious stones, this is good. This is the mindset of the builder. Verse 16, Do you not know that you are the temple of God?

If the Holy Spirit builds on you? In verse 17, which temple you are? We see in one sense, humanity is about destroying and God is about building. Now, where does destruction and building cross over? Do you have building destruction? Do you have destruction building? That would be stupid. You have building or you have destruction, but you don't have a blend of the two.

Let's go into 1 Peter 2 and verse 4, and we'll see more about this building mindset of God. 1 Peter 2 and verse 4, Coming to him as a living stone. We think of the stone, Jesus Christ, a living stone, the rock, but that rock is about building. It was rejected by men, but chosen by God and precious. Verse 5, You also as living stones, we're to be living stones, are being built up. We're to be about building with the builders, God and Jesus Christ, build up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.

In verse 9, we find this is a growing relationship, growing, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you might proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who are once not a people, but are now built into the household of God as the people of God. If we look in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22, you'll know the fruits of the spirit, probably, but let's look at it from the building aspect, the mindset of a builder.

Galatians chapter 5 and verse 22. But the fruit, the result of having God's spirit, the byproduct, the end result, is agape love and joy and peace and long suffering and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. What these do is build up one another, a loving and serving, a giving, encouraging, your self-control, according to God's laws and way of life, brings a building up of children, of marriages, of community, of church, of nationality. It's building. Of course, we can see here that building is quite different than destroying.

Building the universe, building the creation, building plants and animals and humans, and actually you and me, building up one another takes a lot of expertise, a lot of understanding, a lot of study, a lot of application, skill learning, development. You get better over time as you work up through the trade of being a good builder. Destruction doesn't take anything. Destruction doesn't take any skill whatsoever. How many times do you read of a little child taking a gun and actually finding a gun and pulling the trigger and destroy something?

Sometimes another life. It's very, very tragic. But it really doesn't take much to go destroy something. You know, take a hammer and walk up to a nice vehicle and start pounding and breaking out windows or kids, throwing rocks through windows.

It doesn't take skill. You might become skilled at hitting some far-off target better, but all you did was push a button and something blew up somewhere else. It doesn't really take skill to kill somebody's reputation. Just take a flapping mouth and a little bit of twisted information. You can just wipe them right out.

But you see, the mindset of a builder, that requires a lot of skill, a lot of effort, a lot of work.

A destroyer is... wow. It's just terrible. And yet it can be addictive to go and to destroy, to do the kill count, to watch things explode, to see how many of the opposition, how many companies you can erase, how you can somehow undercut them, discredit them, get their profits to fail, and maybe yours to surge.

General George Patton said, compared to war, destruction, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. See, the mindset of a warrior, once you get that destruction in mind, that is the greatest in the minds of a destroyer. Sometimes you and I can come to think, oh, that is... that's the way to do it. Let's get involved in politics, and let's rant and rave and destroy the reputation of any human being out there that we can get some information. Now, let's join the destroyers. Let's destroy people in the church. Let's destroy the church.

Because you can buy into this, and our tongues, as James says, can become like poison snakes.

Well, that's just part of humanity, and we know where that's going. You can see the biblical description of a destroyer's mindset in verses 19 through 21, and I'm not even going to read that. I just think that is twisted and evil. There's no connection between the end of verse 21 and the beginning of verse 2. You cannot swap any of those words. They don't fit. One is darkness at the beginning, the other is pure light at the end. Right and wrong, good and evil, building and trashing relationships. You just walk through 19 and look at the relationships that are killed off, including murders themselves. It's about destruction. And so we might ask ourselves the question, am I bringing any of the destroyer mindset into my life and maybe justifying it? If I look in Scripture, I don't see the apostles doing that with the environment they were in—political, religious. I don't see Jesus Christ doing that. I don't see that being some mindset that God encourages us to have.

In John chapter 8, verse 44, Jesus said of society, You are of your father, your pater, the Greek word is, the author, the originator. You're of that originator, the devil. And the desires of your originator, your author of that mindset, you want to do, he said.

He was a murderer from the beginning, you know. Destroy, send the bullet, send the word, get people to kill each other, a murderer from the beginning. And there's no truth in him. The point is, the desires of your pater, your originator, the author that you stand for, that's what you want to do. And we should. But who is our pater? Who is our author? Who is the author and finisher of our faith? Is it the God of this world, the destroyer? Or is it the God of the Bible, the kingdom of God, the builder? The builder who, yes, there's problems, but let's get those repented of. Let's get those forgiven. Let's get those out of the way. And let's do some building with any name. Let's take a murderer who's bringing church members and getting them tortured and killed, delightfully, and let's make him an apostle and call him Paul. You know, that's how God works. It's a wonderful thing. In Jeremiah 4 and verse 7, we can see how this destroyer mindset and the God of destruction is going to be unleashed. And we're going to see where this mindset is going to lead here in the future. Jeremiah 4 and verse 7, The lion has come up from his thicket. Now, over in Africa, when we've traveled there and gone out on safaris and all, it's interesting sometimes to see a lion. You don't necessarily see them. They can kind of be camouflaged pretty easily by their surroundings, a thicket in particular. But when one comes out of the thicket, he comes out with a bunch of teeth that are pretty much pointy things, big, round things with a point on them. They have one job. Destroying. Just destroying. And this lion comes out for one reason. He comes from his thicket and the destroyer of nations is on his way. Here comes Satan. Here comes the beast power. And what is he doing for civilization? Enlightening civilization? Better civilization? No. The destroyer of nations is on his way. He has gone forth from his place to make your land desolate. That's what war does. That's what destruction does. Your cities will be laid waste without inhabitant. There's no one left. He destroys the cities. He destroys the people. There's nobody left.

You know, the whole thing about the destructive mindset you can show with Adam and Eve. Satan comes in, a relationship with God, and man is destroyed. Relationship with Adam and Eve gets destroyed. Relationship with their two children gets destroyed. And so on and so forth. By the time you get to Noah, the whole thing is just out of whack. You come on down. You find Nimrod, a warrior. You find, after that, David and Uriah, a couple of warriors. And one wants something he shouldn't have. So he destroys. David destroys a marriage by killing off a husband. He destroys his own marriage with Michael. By taking another woman, he destroys his relationship with God by sinning. I mean, the whole thing just goes south. Destroyers cause suffering and envy and dying and perishing. You know, the statement that is very well known in 2 Corinthians 4 and verse 3 says, But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the God of this age has blinded. He's blinded them so they perish. It's about destruction. There's nothing good about it. Now, let's go to Isaiah chapter 59. I want to just cruise through a little bit of Isaiah here. Chapter 59 and verse 4, and this is where this topic originated during a Bible study. When we look at the world and this improved concept that it has, apart from God, it's rejected religion, which is fine because that religion was man-made and based on a whole bunch of syncretism of foreign gods and built up for control of people. But he says here, No one calls for justice, nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies. They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity. They hatch vipers' eggs. Out of the eggs, they're going to become vipers. And weave the spider's web. Dropping down, verse 7, Their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood. They're violent. They're killing. They're destroying. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, wasting, and destruction are in their paths. The way of peace they have not known. In verse 11, we growl like bears and moan like doves. We find in verse 13, in transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing from our God, seeking oppression and revolt. That's destroying society. This is destroying authorities, relationships, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood, character assassinations. In verse 15, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. You know, this way is certainly a destructive way that we see, and we see it in all elements of our society. We see it destroying family. We see it destroying government. We see it destroying any kind of respect. We see it destroying physical lives. People's lives, literally, their physical life is going down, let alone the quality of life. Jesus said, I have come that they may have life and they may have it more abundantly. Humanity under Satan does not want that. But you and I are to be with the builders, and builders achieve great things. They plan, they scheme, they come up with something they want better.

You know, the child wants to develop skills. The skillful young adult wants to marry and build a family relationship, and then build a home, and then have things that they can build and fix, and then children and grandchildren. So we go to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 12, and we see this mindset is that of the children of God. Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 12. He says in the previous verses, verse 10, he talks about how Christ appointed leaders within the church. He says, verse 12, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of service. Service is different than trashing, you know, blowing things apart. Serving for the edifying. The word edifying means building up, if you check your margin. Building up. So this church and its leadership is not like any other organization. It's no priesthood that, you know, limits and controls somebody, and their future, their eternal life, or whatever, and takes their money. No. It's for the building up of the body of Christ. Verse 15, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in, notice, grow up, building, growing up in all things, and to him who is the head Christ, from whom the whole body is joined and knit together, it's being built by the builder, by what every joint supplies. Everybody's building, according to the effective working by which every part does itself, does its share, causes growth of the body for the building up of itself. And look, we're all builders, you see. Everybody in the body of Christ is building. It's a builder. I go back and ask myself, so where does a little destruction in my mindset get accepted? How do I justify the destructive concept, or the, oh, I wish that could be eliminated, or that person could be eliminated, or this could be eliminated? You know, that's how the human mind works. Those are things we need to repent of.

You know, there's a principle within a partnership, and that it influences both parties.

If I'm in a relationship, let's say I get in a relationship with somebody who is in a symphony orchestra, well, guess what? My life is going to take on. It's going to take off, take on a lot of music. I'm going to learn a lot about musical instruments. Or if I have a life, and I might take on investments, well, I'm going to learn a whole bunch about finances. That's just the way it works. If I have a partnership with Jesus Christ, I'm going to learn a whole lot about agape, building, building up, developing a building, a spiritual building, and being part of a kingdom of heaven now. Being a citizen of a kingdom of heaven that is growing and ultimately will, you know, inhabit eternity and everything. That is wonderful. But if I sort of have a partnership with this world, if I become of this world, I spend a lot of time in this world, I'm going to develop a lot of competitive skills in destroying. I'm going to win by destroying.

That's how it works.

In contrast to destroyers, we can look in just in Genesis. Let's go to Genesis chapter 2 and verse 4 in the second rendition of creation. Genesis chapter 2 beginning in verse 4.

This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. We admire the earth and the heavens. You know, we love to go see the wonders of creation. Verse 7, and the Lord formed man of the dust to the ground and breathed life into his nostrils and man became a living being. Wow, that's quite a building right there. Construction process. And then verse 8, the Lord planted a garden eastward in England, in Eden.

And this garden was just amazing with the things that were made there.

And he put the man in it whom he had formed and out of the ground, God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. And the tree of life was in the middle of the garden.

Verse 10, a river went out of Eden to water the garden. This is good stuff.

Go down to verse 19, out of the ground the Lord formed every beast of the field, every bird of the air. And when we see these things, we're just amazed. We love, you know, bird feeders in the backyard or nature shows or, I don't know, digging in the garden and planting things. Oh, look, it's growing and it's got fruit and flowers and all these things are so great. Verse 22, then the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into his premium creation.

I mean, he saved her for last and he made her into a woman. This is really, really good stuff. If we look into Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20, there's an even greater creation that God will make of human beings. Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20, but it's a continuation of the first. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 21. Now, here comes the next layer of creation of the human body, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body. This is all good stuff and God just continues his creation. Ultimately, all things will be made of spirit matter, eternal, wonderful spirit matter, with instead of physics, which is physical laws, we'll have, I guess, spiritics made of spiritual laws and composition and beautiful, wonderful things that we can't even imagine. So let's look at a few points here for being a builder. Let's be about being a builder.

I have some points. I'll number them x. I have no idea how many will go through, and I didn't number them. So x points for being a builder. Number one, do not destroy an adversary. This is really clear. The common human concept here is if somebody really hates you, get rid of them.

If somebody's your adversary, take him out, or dream that he gets taken out, or pray that he gets taken out, or verbally try to take him out. You know, right now we're seeing this playing out over in Israel. I mean, you've got an enemy. It's a real enemy. It's not a nice enemy. So what are you going to do? You're going to take out Hamas. Right? Go do it. So that just seems so logical.

What's the actual outcome of that attempt to create a nice, peaceful world in the Middle East by taking out Hamas? Is that working out? Now you've infuriated the entire world of nations and the Middle East can't wait to really come back on you. And all those people you've been killing all have 20 relatives each who now hate your guts. You know, human solution destroying the adversary doesn't work. Never has. Never will. What is the problem and what is the solution in the Middle East? Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 15 and see what the solution is.

It's not abandoning God, abandoning the Bible, and somehow determining and declaring what's right and wrong from humanism. Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 15.

But it shall come to pass if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes which I command you today and he's speaking to the tribe of Judah along with Benjamin and the other 10 tribes.

All these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

Verse 25. The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies.

That's happened for 2,000 years. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. You shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. Let me reread this. You shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. What's the solution? Verse 1.

Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments which I command you today that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. Verse 7. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

The missing component is God. God doing the defending. God doing the leading. So for us, in God's church, who are not part of this world, we should learn this lesson. Don't destroy your adversary. Rather, bless him. Matthew 5, verse 44.

Jesus said, I say unto you, love your enemies. You're not going to see this in the destroy your mindset. It doesn't exist there. There is no crossover between building and destroying.

Love your enemies. Bless those who curse you. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Verse 45. That you may be sons of your pater, your author, your originator in heaven. He's the father of builders.

If you want to be a builder, build relationships this way. Builders do good to all people and leave everything with God.

That includes not destroying people with words, as we see throughout the third chapter of James.

It's never a time for a builder to go in and have a destroyer application of words.

Build up good things about others. A builder builds up. It's not a static person who doesn't sit back and say, well, I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to sit here and be impassive and impartial. Builders actually build. In Philippians chapter 4 and verse 8 begins with thinking about what you want. God can look at humanity and say, I don't see anything I want there, but he can see potential in every human being, including your life and mine, before he called you. He can develop that. What is it you want?

What is it you want to build? Well, build those things up in other people. You have to overlook the things you don't want. So Philippians 4.8 says, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, think on these things, is what he's going to say. Think about the things that are true.

What's true about any and everybody, in the church and outside?

What things are noble? You know there are noble things? For instance, they never tell you this, but over in Iran, they have rallies of Iranians love America and they will march in the streets with both of our flags. You don't ever hear that. A few years ago, Rick Steves, who is a travel author, decided to go to Iran and visit. Found it was one of the most enjoyable countries and the people on the street love American. What can you find that are noble? Okay, whatever things are just.

It's not that you can't find bad things in me or anyone. God looks as a builder at what is there that can be built upon. Whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are a good report. Now you take your enemy and you start thinking of him this way and pretty soon you're thinking pretty positively about this person who's got some defects. Sure, and his only real defect is, you know, like you. But if you took that little equation out of your view, that little point of the equation out of your view, it's actually a pretty decent person.

If there's virtue, praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Now you're a builder. Now you're a builder. That can be in your marriage. How you choose to look at someone? Your child? Somebody else's child? Somebody else's pet? That's a tough one. Somebody else's country? Somebody else's whatever.

Meditate on these things about that individual. Help others build better lives. In Romans chapter 15 and verse 2, it says, let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to building up. We need to educate, edification. Please your neighbor for his good and that will build a relationship.

That neighbor might be in your house, across the fence, might be in the church.

Build up and please your neighbor for his good, not your good, not to get something out of it.

Build that up and you will end up edifying, whether it's the body of Christ or the neighborhood or your business or your school or whatever. That's what leads to edification, to building up.

We need to reject anything to do with the destroyer. This is kind of tough because everybody sort of feels, well, I'm in this country and this is my country and I've got to defend it and this is what's right and this is what's wrong and this is good and I've got to get in there and somehow mentally I carry this stuff around. I fight the battles in my head and all this stuff. Hogwash. You're a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. Get rid of this materialistic culture that we've sort of been indoctrinated in and we want to defend being at ground zero of a country that has never obeyed God, never kept his Sabbath, never kept his Holy Days, never eaten the right meats, always does what God says not to do. In verse 4 of Revelation 20, let's just notice where this destroyer mindset and this ultimate control that will once again have religion as one of its controlling, monetizing elements. Revelation 20 verse 4, and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God and they had not worshiped the beast or its image, had not received its mark on their foreheads or in their hands. Very clear distinction. One is a destroyer beheaded and there's worship of a religion that is constructed for control with an associated mark in foreheads and hands. Probably not a literal one, but the mindset. You know, you go back to when the Jews were taken captive into Babylon, they drove over there to Babylon, Daniel was with him, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and all the Jews were over there in Babylon. And then what do you have? You have the power of the government and you have the religion and everyone was required to bow to the God image.

Three, at least, ended up in a fiery furnace because they were being executed for not submitting to the authority of the government and to its religion. Daniel later was thrown in a lion's den. My question is, why were there only four out of all the Jews that ended up being killed but not saved by God? What about the rest? You know, we have to be able to stand up against these things and not have the working on the Sabbath, not having the deeds of destruction, not having the mindset of breaking God's law, no relationship with the destroyer whatsoever. And we've got to set our minds to this. All of this is about destruction. Or it's about being a builder. You can't be both. As we go on in verse 4, you have this destroyer now going on.

They came to life and reigned with Christ. See, here's the builder. He's now built them into a spirit being and glorified them like himself. And they reigned with Christ a thousand years.

In verse 6, blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection into the kingdom of God.

They will be priests of God and Christ and reign with him a thousand years in the building program.

So in conclusion, I hope we can see that there is a stark contrast. And you can start reading the Bible through this lens. A stark contrast between a mindset of building and a mindset of destroying.

It's Jesus Christ's rule as the head of the church and his reign as our Lord, our supreme authority and master versus Satan's, who is the God of this world. They both say, do like me. You know, Jesus is like me. Follow me. And Satan is like, follow me. The desires of your father you want to do. So which father do we want to have? Satan, we are witnessing, is destroying everything. Destroying ecosystems on this planet at a high rate. Destroying so many types of animals and plants permanently. If you look it up, some of them are just astonishing at how quickly things are destroying or dying off. Satan is ruining people's lives. Go find anything in society right now that is building the lives of individuals, of families, of cities, of societies.

We don't see anything. We see ruin.

And we also see death. Highest rates of death in suicides, drug addiction. It's just crazy murders. Jesus Christ will return, and one of the first things he does is restore ecosystems. He builds life. He builds life back to Garden of Eden type levels and embellishes animal and plant life with new natures that are even better than what we know. He builds people with a better life in Christ, as the Bible says. A better life in Christ, plus a new spirit with eternal life.

I'd like to conclude by reading a couple of scriptures. First is in John chapter 10 and verse 8. Jesus makes this point about builders and destroyers. John chapter 10 and beginning in verse 8 through 10. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers. Now, what's a thief do?

He comes and he breaks apart. He destroys your possessions by theft or destruction of them.

Okay? And robbers, they take away, they destroy your net worth. They may come in on the internet and steal your identity. They're a thief and a robber. They destroy what you have and they take from you. But the sheep did not hear them. We, right here from Jesus Christ, are those who do not hear that mindset. The thieves and the robbers, we don't hear. Verse 10, the thief, Satan, comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Notice there is nothing good about Satan in that mindset.

He comes, Jesus says, only to steal. Steal away your environment, steal away your health, steal away your happiness, steal away your relationships, and then kill and destroy only. So what part of that do I want to be part of? In the entertainment I choose, in the thoughts I have, in how I look at society or choose to become knowledgeable of what's going on in this world. Monte Knudsen taught me years ago on a trip to Africa, turn the news off on the Sabbath.

I would, but, but, whoa, something might happen. I turn the news off. Like, wow, I'm not part of this world on the Sabbath. In fact, I'm not so sure I want to turn it back on on Sunday.

Because it's just, well, it's what God said it'll be, but I'm not part of that. So how much do I really want to get involved in that? Let's finish up in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 1. We know that we make ourselves a target when we think like Jesus Christ, just as He became a target and ultimately was killed. But Paul says here in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 1, For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed. Remember, that's all that Satan wants to do is destroy and steal and kill. If your human body is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens with the builders. So, brethren, if you want to have life, have it more abundantly and have it forever, grow the mindset of our builder, Father, and our builder, Lord and Master Jesus Christ. Reject the destroyer and support the kingdom of heaven and be a builder with God.