Sunday Night, February 18, 2018 PM

Yes? Another question would be, and I'm sure this is more of a, is then, we do have the

North Pole, South Pole, they are frozen, and at one time, what do they call it, where the whole globe, continental drift theory?

For Ice Age? You're talking about Ice Age Norm? Yeah, when the Ice Age came into being, but the greenhouse effect, that the whole

Earth prior to the Flood was greenhouse. Well, it's a good guess, and we know that everything worked a whole lot better before sin.

Prior to the Flood, it was the greenhouse thing where they didn't have the real...

Yeah, I've heard that theory as well, so I don't know, that is a good question for scientists to work through.

Well, I didn't mean to stir things up, I was just trying to figure out how to answer an eight -year -old. Well, it's something that an eight -year -old is being told one thing, how does it fit with the

Bible, and if you just read the Bible with them, say, what does that say there? So, that would include dinosaurs, right?

Yeah, that would include dinosaurs, and then you can read about Adam, and that Adam had three sons that we know about, and he had other sons and daughters, we don't know their names.

But certainly Cain, look at the way Cain and his descendants acted like lamech, and they weren't so much cavemen as canemen, which means they were prideful and violent, and they still exist today in various forms.

Okay, well, let's talk about Melchizedek. We learn about Melchizedek from Genesis 14, a very curious incident where Abram hears about his nephew

Lot, who has pitched his tent towards Sodom, even now living in Sodom, gets caught up into regional warfare, where the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zebulim refuse to pay any more tribute to Cheder Laramore and the three kings with him.

And so, Cheder Laramore says, well, enough's enough, and he gathers his army, and he sweeps south and around, and raids and pillages and plunders and beats everybody in his way.

And he's on his way back north with all the spoil by the time Abram and his 318 trained men with a couple of allies catch up, splitting his forces into three groups at night, attacks and successfully routes the enemy and gathers back the people that have been taken captive and all the spoils.

And then, just kind of out of the blue, on their way back, Abram says, we're going to stop over here.

And they go to the city of Salem, or in the

Hebrew, Ereshalom, transliterated Jerusalem. And so they show up at Jerusalem, and out comes the king of Salem.

His name is Melchizedek, which means king of righteousness. And he is priest of God most high.

He is priest of El Elyon. And he comes out, and to him,

Abram gives a tithe of all the spoils. And later on, the king of Sodom says, hey, if you'll take all the spoils, that's fine, but let me have all my people back.

And Abram says, I'm not going to take a dime from you. You can just keep them all, keep all the money.

But he made sure to give a tenth to Melchizedek. And I think that is a signal that Abram is saying,

God gave us the victory. We're going to give him the glory. And Abram knew about Melchizedek, a priest of God most high.

And Melchizedek specifically speaks of the God whom he serves as the same God of Abram, that Abram serves.

They have this camaraderie, this brotherhood in their worship of the one true God. We don't know how

Abram came to know who Melchizedek was. How it was that they first had this relation just kind of pops up out of the blue, which, again, reminds me of what

Yishua and Mudaliar talks about, an Old Testament scholar. The Old Testament saints knew more and believed more than what was written down.

Because how did Abram know this? And how did Melchizedek know God? And how is there a priest in Jerusalem a thousand years before David conquers the city?

Just amazing things to think about. Well, as we think about Melchizedek, it's a very surprising thing, and certainly it demonstrates that Abram is casting his lot with God and not with the king of Sodom like his nephew lot did.

He's with God. He's trusting in Elion and not in mankind.

And it just kind of shows that Abram wants all the glory to go to God.

He specifically says to the king of Sodom, I'm not going to take a sandal strap from you lest you say I have made Abram rich.

He wants God to get all the glory. Well, that's a remarkable story in and of itself, but it's not the last time that we hear about Melchizedek.

So for the next time is Psalm 110. Psalm 110 is remarkable for more than one reason.

I suppose the most remarkable thing about this psalm is that we have

David, king in Judah, king of all the land, and he is allowed to eavesdrop, in a sense, on a conversation on a communication between God the

Father and God the Son, an inter -Trinitarian dialogue. Those are fairly rare in scripture.

David says the Lord said to my Lord. Now, let's figure that out.

David is the king. All right, now we don't live in a kingdom, so maybe we need a refresher course.

In a kingdom, who's in charge and who bosses him around?

Nobody. That was pretty funny, though. She said the queen does.

Yes, full points, Erin, excellent. But the king is in charge and nobody is supposed to boss him around, but David, as the king, says the

Lord says to my

Lord. David's just listening in. The Lord, Yahweh, we know who that is, is

God. I am. And the Lord is speaking to somebody who's

David's Lord, who's in charge of David. Well, who's that? So this is why we're saying it's

David listening in to an inter -Trinitarian conversation. The Father says to the Son, or the Lord says to my

Lord, sit at my right hand. That sounds really familiar. Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

A remarkable statement being spoken 1 ,000 years before God the

Son takes on human flesh in the name Jesus. Over 1 ,000 years before Christ dies upon the cross, raises from the dead, ascends to heaven to the right hand.

Before this happens. Now, of course, to the Lord, what is time? To God, what is time? 1 ,000 years is a day, and a day is 1 ,000 years.

What the Godhead speaks is spoken outside of time, revealed to us in time.

So that's very hard to understand. But David hears this by God's intention.

Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Very clearly, David is king in Jerusalem, but there is a greater king than he.

He's a placeholder for the one who is truly to reign in Zion.

There is a greater king than David. The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of your enemies.

Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power, and holy array from the womb of the dawn, your youth are to you as the dew.

In other words, those whom this Lord, those whom this one reigning from Zion, will rule over.

The number of his subjects are more than the droplets of dew given birth by the morning.

So this is a variant on God's promise to Abram, of his descendants being as numerous as the stars of the heavens, and more numerous than the sand on the seashore.

It's another way of saying it. And then we come to verse four.

The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. So the father says to the son, this is more listening in, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

And once again, the name just kind of pops out of nowhere. Didn't expect this one. Interesting thought, something that one of the older commentators noted that I found very interesting.

Who was king in Jerusalem during Abraham's time? Melchizedek. And he worshiped the one true

God. There he was, king in Jerusalem. We don't know anything else about Jerusalem until we get around to the time of David, and it's filled up with Jebusites, arrogant little hotheads saying, yeah, our cripples can hold off the best of David's army.

And David says, watch this. And he goes up and takes the city. Now, David is the very first God -fearing king that we know of in the scripture to sit on Melchizedek's throne in Jerusalem.

What might have David found in Jerusalem that Melchizedek left behind?

We don't know. But Melchizedek was a priest of God most high, and he was king in that city.

He worshiped the Lord. He knew who the Lord was. God had revealed himself to Melchizedek. And there's nothing said in Genesis 14 of the nature of his priesthood prefiguring anything about Jesus Christ, about the seed that was promised in Genesis 3.

But when David sits on Melchizedek's throne there in Jerusalem, what was left behind from Melchizedek's day that impacted

David, that made him say something like this? This is remarkable.

You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Now, there's some interesting things about this.

I think one of the things is that we have this blending of two offices.

So we have priest and we have king.

Now, in Genesis, I believe that chapter 14 is the first time, maybe not, but at least one of the first times we hear about a king in Canaan and we hear about a priest.

And they're put together in the same person. But when we think about the history of Israel, they had priests first of all, didn't they?

With Aaron, Aaron and Moses, both Levites, but there is this ironic priesthood beginning with Aaron and passed down through the sons that survived.

And then we have kings starting in the days of Samuel, much like a protest against God not doing a good enough job.

And, of course, God judges them by giving them Saul and then blesses them by giving them David, who is the first really good king of God's people.

But the king was not a priest, even though he was to be holy and to worship the Lord. And the priest was not a king, although he did have some kind of authority.

These were distinct offices, weren't they? Now, there was no such predilections about a king being a prophet after all,

David was called a prophet. David was called a prophet. And there were priests who were prophets as well in the

Old Testament. But the priest -king combination was not allowed. There is a story in 2

Chronicles 26, Uzziah, was it Uzziah who tried this?

He went in, he was full of pride, and he went in to the temple and he was going to do the incense.

He was going to be a priest, a priest -king. And the priest said, you know, you're out of your league here.

You're not supposed to be in here. You shouldn't do that. And he did it anyway. He broke out in leprosy instantly. And the rest of his days he was in seclusion for breaking this barrier.

But with Melchizedek, this was combined.

And this was a good thing. And this makes him an excellent prefigurement of Jesus Christ, in whose person the offices of priest and king are combined.

So what God revealed to David in Psalm 110 is this picture of a king who reigns at the right hand and is also a priest all at the same time.

A very clear Messianic prophecy of Jesus Christ. Now, when we get to Hebrews 7, of course, most of Hebrews is talking about the superiority of Melchizedek as the high priest who fulfills all of what the priesthood was to do.

And we find that Jesus Christ is most excellently suited to the office of a priest.

The office of the priest embraced three functions. It was the offering of sacrifices, intercession, and giving blessings.

Nobody does that better than Jesus Christ, who offered up his own blood and the true Holy of Holies, who intercedes at the

Father's right hand, no better place for intercession, and all of God's blessings are to us through him.

No better person to fill this role. And Melchizedek is a prefigurement of Christ.

Now, verse 1 of chapter 7 says, For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the

Most High God, who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also

Abraham apportioned a tenth of all the spoils, was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of righteousness, and also the king of Salem, which is king of peace.

Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.

Now, verse 3 is full of questions, but we should read it like Jews. The point that the preacher of the

Hebrews is making is that Melchizedek is a priest of God Most High, but he is so not by any qualifications of his genealogy.

Phineas was a priest because of who Aaron was, but Melchizedek was priest not because of his father or mother.

They're not even listed. He doesn't have a genealogy. That's not what makes him priest.

He's a priest, but without that genealogical prerequisites to be priest. The preacher of the

Hebrews is building up to something. I mean, Jesus Christ was his genealogy. He was born of Mary, but he had no earthly father, and he's not even of the tribe of Levi, so why are we calling him a priest?

Well, hey, Melchizedek didn't have this genealogy, did he? And he was a great priest, far greater than Levi, far greater than those of the

Levites, because Abraham was giving tithes to Melchizedek, and Melchizedek is obviously greater than Abraham.

And in like manner, Melchizedek is prefiguring Christ. He was greatest priest of all, and it says that he is having neither beginning of days nor end of life, meaning

Melchizedek, there's no record of when he began to live or when he died, but that was a big concern about the

Levitical priesthood, because the Levitical priesthood was based on who you succeeded and who succeeded you.

And it was a very, very big concern about, and we'll see this later in Hebrews, that the priests, the

Levitical priests, could not be a priest forever, but one would die, and another one would have to serve, and then they would die, and another one would have to serve, and so on and so forth.

But that's not like what it was with Melchizedek. We don't have any concern about that. And with Christ, he serves as a priest forever.

And it says, but Melchizedek was made like the Son of God. So he was made like the

Son of God in terms of an analogy of a prefigurement as a type, and he remains a priest perpetually or continually.

There is no cessation of the office of the priesthood when it comes to Melchizedek.

I think it's important to note a few things. Now, again, you could read it in one way to say that Melchizedek was just like the

Son of God in that he had no beginning and he has no end, which makes him divine, and that he is in that sense still a priest.

But that is definitely not the point that the writer to the Hebrews is trying to make. He says that as great as Melchizedek was, he was made like unto the

Son of God, Christ. The whole point of Melchizedek was to point to the

Son of God. And certainly the preacher to the Hebrews is not trying to say there's a competing eternal priesthood alongside that of Christ.

He's saying Melchizedek was a type of one who was to come, to borrow a language from Paul.

So that's the best way to read it. I think the writer to the

Hebrews is taking his cue from the way that David, under the inspiration of the

Holy Spirit, treated Melchizedek in Psalm 110, that Melchizedek was to point forward to Christ, where we have the king and priest offices combined in a perpetual superior priesthood to that of the

Levites. That's basically his point. And we have time for about 12 complicated questions before we...

No, I'm serious. If there's something really, really bugging you, we can talk about it. We're about five minutes over. Yes.

Yes, I think as the translators are trying to give us a sense of the flow of the word, so you see in verse 1, the

Lord says to my Lord, and then the quotation marks, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

And you see the same pattern there in verse 4. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. So I think that stands in parallel to explain. All right.

Well, save your questions about Melchizedek for next week. We can talk about it more if you want. It's a hard topic to get in in a brief amount of time.