You Builders! #5

Saturday, August 30, 2025

“This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner” (Acts 4:11 KJV).

Who are these “builders?” What have they done—and not done?

“But he [Jesus Christ] answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). God as Creator wants to fill humans with His life. He gives those people His Word, that they might believe it. Yet, as Adam and Eve did not fill their soul with His Word in Genesis chapter 3, neither did the ancient nation Israel.

Nearing the end of his earthly life, Moses counseled Israel in Deuteronomy chapter 4, verses 1 and 2: “Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” To wit, “Do not abandon or alter the LORD’S words to you! Believe and obey them as they are!”

Influenced by corrupt religious leaders (“builders”) for many centuries thereafter, Israel slowly but surely drifted from the pure Word of God. These spiritual leaders were nothing but “blind leaders of the blind” (Matthew 15:14). They “built” garbage doctrine into God’s nation, worthless teaching, manmade religious traditions substituting the living words of the living God. Basically, there was no edification (building up) of sound Bible doctrine, just a 1,500-year-long accumulation of spiritual trash (false information).

Accordingly, when it came time for Israel to function as God’s kingdom of priests to the Gentiles, there was no unadulterated Word of God in their national soul or individual souls. Thus, in rank unbelief, they rejected Messiah-King Jesus who corresponded to the sound Bible doctrine they had refused, thereby rendering them unable to be His kingdom of priests. This was the basic theme of those early Acts sermons, including today’s Scripture.

We summarize and conclude this devotionals arc….