Genesis #15 - The Gospel According to Abraham #5 - "Faith Wars" (Genesis 14)

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Please be seated. I have tagged our message this afternoon, faith wars, faith wars.
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If there's a little bit of ambiguity in how you're supposed to read that, that is by design. You can read wars there as a plural noun, the wars of faith.
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You can read that as a verb, faith wars, both of which would be true as we come to this message.
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Some of you maybe know this about me because I've mentioned it, but if you don't, I have a thing for collecting hymnals and psalters.
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I want about 11 of them, soon to be 12. I love collecting hymnals and psalters.
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I love our new music. I love there's so much of it that's really good and rich, but I have to be honest, if you ascribe to the idea of a heart language, the language of my own heart tends to be in older hymns.
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That's where my heart naturally goes first, and a few years ago I got curious.
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I was doing a study of Ephesians chapter 6. Some of you have heard the message that resulted from that. I've preached that here before, and I was doing a kind of a research project into Ephesians chapter 6 and the whole concept of spiritual warfare in the
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Christian life, and I got curious. I decided to do a bit of a project.
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I said I was going to look at, since the year 2000, thinking about our sorts of theological circle and the kinds of people who write songs in our circles,
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I was going to look at from the year 2000, all the songs that were written that dealt in some way, shape, or form with the warfare of the
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Christian life, and I would compare that in the multiple hymnals that I owned at that point, and see just how many songs have been written in the past, and how many are being written presently on the subject of the warfare of the
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Christian life, and what was fascinating to me was that there was a very interesting, concerning, for me
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I honestly thought was a little frightening, a little bit of a contrast that I noticed. So when I looked at our modern music, sure there were lots of allusions to it, lots of lines referring to it.
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I have to give a shout out to the Gettys here. They have that very excellent song of theirs, O Church Arise. O Church Arise and put your armor on, hear the call of Christ our captain.
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Yeah, really great, really great song. But by and large, there were some not so great, what I like to call 7 -11 songs, you know, seven -word song 11 times, not a big fan of those.
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There were a few of those, but by and large, the moderns were kind of lacking when it came to this subject.
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But when I began to look at our older music, it was actually overwhelming just how many songs.
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In fact, some hymnals had a whole section devoted to the Christian life as warfare, and some of these songs you probably know if you've grown up in traditions where they sang hymns.
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So Luther's rendition of Psalm 46, we all know as a mighty fortress is our God. If you think back to the first verse of that, a mighty fortress is our
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God, a bulwark never failing, our helper he amidst a flood of mortal ills prevailing, for still our ancient foe, oh there's a language of warfare, a foe that we have, does seek to work as well.
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His strength and power are great, but armed with cruel hate, go on.
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Some of you maybe grew up like I did, singing the song Onward Christian Soldiers, Onward Christian Soldiers.
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We call these songs cheesy, I don't really like calling them cheesy, that's a conversation for another time, but sometimes we call these songs cheesy,
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I call them accurate. Philip Bliss, some of you have sung some of his hymns before, he had a song
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Hold the Fort, is when I grew up singing, might not be familiar to you, but the first verse says, hold my conrades, see the signal waving in the sky, reinforcements now appearing, victory is nigh, hold the fort for I'm coming,
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Jesus signals still, wave the answer back to heaven, by thy grace we will. Some of you maybe heard the song
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Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus, ye soldiers of the cross, lift high his royal banner, it must not suffer loss, from victory unto victory his army shall he lead, till every foe is vanquished, and Christ is
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Lord indeed. That doesn't even, that's some of the more popular ones, that doesn't even touch some of the lesser known hymns
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I found, doesn't even get to the realm of psalms that were put to music that dealt with this theme.
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And by the time I got done, I began to ask myself the question I always ask, what is it about that generation of Christians that they were so in tune with the reality of the
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Christian life as warfare that they would write song after song after song, and they would put scripture to music that talked about that theme?
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And that led to another question, what was it about them that was so different that we are not writing more songs like that?
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I don't claim to be a armchair quarterback, and I definitely don't claim to be an armchair psychologist, so I can't deeply diagnose why that is,
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I'll leave that for some brighter minds than me. But I do think that something is missing when we don't have a category for the
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Christian life as warfare, that we don't recognize, when, excuse me,
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I should say we don't recognize that as the people of God, we are people who live in entrenched conflict.
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Jesus has something to say about that. If you take your notes, John chapter 16, Jesus is giving final instructions to his disciples before he will leave them, what's called the upper room discourse.
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John chapter 16 verse 33, Jesus said, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.
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You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous, I have conquered the world.
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Some of your translations will say, I have overcome the world. It was a crucial part of the apostolic message.
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So you read Ephesians chapter 6, you read 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verses 3 through 5, you read 2
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Thessalonians, I believe it's in chapter, the first Thessalonians in chapter 1, he talks about the armor of light that we are to put on as God's people.
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Over and over and over again, you see this language of the Christian life described as warfare.
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And now let's be clear, I'm not trying to be a killjoy, I'm not trying to say that the Christian life is only warfare and it's only difficulty and it's only hard because that's not true.
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But I do think we need to talk about that in our culture when we have a natural inbuilt impulse.
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Think about this, you have it and so do I. We have a built -in impulse in our culture to run from hard realities rather than to lean into those realities.
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Well as we come to Genesis chapter 14, Abram is about to enter into some war. So far
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Abram's faith walk, if you will, his walk with God hasn't been a stroll on easy street.
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He's had a few fits and starts, it's been kind of difficult and I wish
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I could tell you that it's about to get easier as you come to Genesis chapter 14, but it's not.
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You see Abram's possession of God's promises didn't exempt him from conflict.
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The fact that he was God's child with God's covenant promise didn't mean that life was going to be automatically easy and that's comforting for you and I because rest assured life in Christ is not going to exempt you from conflict either.
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Which means you need to be tooled up, you need to be armed, you need to be equipped for dealing with the conflicts that we face in the
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Christian life. And I think that this text in Genesis chapter 14 is going to give us some valuable insight into Abram and more importantly some valuable insight into how he fought the fight of faith and more importantly how we can too.
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How exactly does the warfare of the life of faith work? What does it look like for the
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Christian to be at war? Well here's my big idea for this message this afternoon.
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Walking with God involves warfare. Resting in, responding to, and receiving the promises of God.
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That might sound paradoxical. Didn't you just say it's conflict? What are you talking about rest? Ah we'll see this as we go. Walking with God involves warfare.
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Resting in, responding to, and receiving the promises of God. Just because we have received
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God's great and precious promise and yes we enjoy resting in Christ, that doesn't mean that we will not face conflict and challenges in our walk with Jesus.
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We will. And so I would not be a faithful shepherd and I would not be a faithful teacher of God's word if I didn't do my best to try and equip you for when those times come.
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And so for the rest of our time this afternoon I want to consider two principles for the fight of faith that we learned from Abram in Genesis chapter 14.
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Each of these principles is loaded with lessons for warring sakes. Two principles that I don't want to be before you long.
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Consider would be first of all the reality that believers will war with the world.
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Believers will war with the world. Verses 1 through 16 of our chapter.
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Chapter 14 verses 1 through 16 covers a lot of detail. I'm going to summarize a bunch just so we can get to the more salient parts.
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So look with me at verses 1 and 2. Genesis chapter 14 verses 1 and 2. Text says, In those days,
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King Amraphel of Shinar, King Ariok of Elessar, King Cedloamor of Elam, and King Tidal of Goim waged war against King Berah of Sodom, King Bershah of Gomorrah, King Shinam of Admar, and King Shemember of Zeboim, as well as the king of Bela, that is
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Zohar. Now you think, oh that's a lot of kings. Well we have to remember how the ancient world worked. The ancient world was basically made up of these little mini kingdoms and occasionally you had one empire that kind of conquered.
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But by and large you had these sorts of small mini kingdoms as it were. Well a war breaks out between four of these kingdoms and a coalition of five others.
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Now we don't know where all these locations are and it's not really germane to our texts to know exactly where they all are.
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What we do know is two kings are mentioned here. The king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah.
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They're going to factor into our story in a big way in just a moment. You come to verse three and four and we finally get the reason for this war.
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So verse three, all of these came as allies to the Sidim valley, that is the Dead Sea. They were subject to Cedloamor for 12 years but in the 13th year they rebelled.
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So you kind of had these sort of subservient kings who were paying tribute to Cedloamor, king of Elam, and then they decided after 12 years we've had enough of this and we're going to rebel.
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So that's what they do. They rebel and a war breaks out. There seems to be a year where they enjoy some relative freedom from Cedloamor and then he comes back.
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Now verses five through ten, which I won't read, basically give you a summary of what happened in this war. Pick it up with me in verse 11.
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So these four kings are victorious. The four kings took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food and went on.
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They also took Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions for he was living in Sodom and they went on.
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Once again, Lot has found himself in a tricky situation.
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Last week the situation was the land is too small. Well 14 years, actually 15 years at this point have passed and now 15 years on from this split we see he's moved closer to Sodom and that decision that he made to move closer to Sodom clearly hasn't paid off.
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It's almost as though, just a little bit, seems like actions and decisions have real consequences.
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You made a decision to move closer to Sodom, see where that got you. And for Lot, these consequences have gone above and beyond bad.
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Oh by the way, did you catch in verse 12? I can write it kind of quickly. Let me slow down and read it again. Do you catch it in verse 12?
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They also took Abram's nephew Lot and his possessions for he was living in Sodom and they went on.
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The text tells us that he was living in Sodom. What's wrong with that picture? If you're not sure, think back to verse 12 of the previous chapter.
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Let me read it to you. Genesis 13 12. Abram lived in the land of Canaan but Lot lived in the cities on the plain and set up his tent near Sodom.
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In the intervening period from his split with Abraham, he's gone from living kind of on the outskirts of Sodom, living near the place.
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Now he's living in it. And him living in it, spoiler alert, is not going to go well.
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I can pause for a moment. It's just a reality of life. The unwise decisions rarely happen in isolation.
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It's rare that you make just one bad decision and manage to make a bunch of good ones if you're not careful. And one unwise decision leads to another one, which leads to another one, which leads to another one.
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It's kind of a freebie. That's not really germane to our message. Let's come back to our message though.
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Because once again, Lot's problems, now he's been captured and he's basically a prisoner of war,
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Lot's problems have now become Abram's problems. Verse 13. One of the survivors came and told
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Abram the Hebrew who lived near the oaks belonging to Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and the brother of Aneh.
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They were bound by a treaty with Abram. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken prisoner, he assembled his 318 trained men born in his household and they went in pursuit as far as Dan.
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To give you some context, Dan is way up north. Abram now is more or less dragged into a skirmish with these kings.
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But it's not like Abram is not prepared for this. You see at the end of verse 18 that language of trained men is an interesting word.
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This was a word that was used for military trained men who were basically kept on retainer.
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If you will, Abraham has, and it's interesting, it says that these are trained men who were born in his household.
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Can I pause? I mean, I love history and I love military history. The military historian in me is fascinated by this.
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Can I say, not to sound flippant, but bear with me. You know you're a bad man when you have your own in -house militia.
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318 shooters that, in modern parlance, we'd say they're a phone call away. They're not even a phone call away. They live with you.
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Why does the text tell you that? It didn't really need to. It could have just said,
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Abram, you know, got some men and then they went to go rescue his cousin, nephew, excuse me. No problem. The text tells you that because Abraham is already beginning to develop into a leader and a force to be reckoned with.
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God promised Abram that, listen, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make your name great.
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That's already starting to happen. In a small microcosm of a way, as it were, Abram is already beginning to develop into this man who is a leader of men.
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But you see, Moses, who writes this, isn't writing this, as it were, to kind of flex for his ancestor Abram, as it were.
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No, I put it to you that that little detail ties into God's promise.
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Okay, Kofi, where did you see that? Let me spell it out. This story revolves around this hostile action of these four kings.
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Four kings who decide to go on this attack on the land and basically start invading.
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By the way, I don't think it's by accident that one of these kings, did you catch it in verse one, is referred to as tidal king of Goyim?
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That might not mean anything to you, but the Hebrew word Goyim is the word for nations.
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If you grew up in church, you know this word. We use the word Gentiles for it. That's what this word means.
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So you've got these four kings, one of whom is referred to as the king of nations. Abram, however, though he's not a king, he's the one who has the divine title to this land.
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In Genesis chapter 12, God told him, go to the land that I will show you. He reaffirmed that at the end of chapter 12, chapter 13, excuse me, that this is the land that I am giving you.
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Technically speaking, these kings were freeloaders and threats to the promise.
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And if they could get to Lot, the theory is they could get to Abram too.
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So Abram can't just sit idly by and not do anything about this. Yes, this was not Abram's problem, but it has become
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Abram's problem. Because if they could touch one of his, they could touch him.
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And so in a very real sense, Abram is actually at war with the world. He is actually at war, when we say the world, not the planet.
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We're referring to the world system that is in opposition to God. A manifestation of that happens as these kings now take his nephew and Abram picks up weapons, calls those who are closest to him, and they attack.
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Faith family, here's the tie -in with us as God's people. Abram in this moment is at war with the world.
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And if you're a believer, so are you. Flip over to John 15.
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I want to show you something. I think it will help us in tying in with this passage. John chapter 15.
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We alluded to chapter 16 just a few moments ago. Chapter 15, again in this upper room discourse, this final set of instructions that Jesus will give before going to the cross.
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John chapter 15, I want to draw your attention to verse 18. John chapter 15 and verse 18.
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Listen to what Jesus said. If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.
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If you are of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.
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Remember the word I spoke to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
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If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name because they don't know the one who sent me.
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Jesus was perfectly clear in his own mind and he wanted his disciples to be equally as clear.
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If you follow me, you are inheriting, if I can use a modern expression, you are inheriting my beef with this world.
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This world didn't like me. And guess what? If they didn't like me, they're definitely not going to like you.
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If I could make a point of application, it might be a painful one, but bear with me. Over the last couple of years, it's been interesting to me to watch so many
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Christians who are stunned by the fact that the world actually hates us.
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It's a complete and utter shock. Like, why are they treating us like this? And it's like, you mean they're treating you exactly how they're supposed to treat you?
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And can I put it to you that it's okay. The sooner that you accept that reality, the sooner that you can develop the spiritual resources to deal with that reality.
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Some of you who were here a couple of years ago, remember I preached a message from 1 John chapter 2. I'm actually planning on preaching it again sometime soon, talking about the kind of love that God hates dealing with our relationship with the world.
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You see, we may not be like Abram in a multinational skirmish with a coalition of kings, but as long as we live in this world, it will hate us and we don't exactly vibe with this world.
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Abram recognizes this in his own context and in his own way. And what's interesting is
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Abram could have said, you know what? They've got my nephew. Clearly they're making their way down.
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This is not looking good. Abram could have essentially just rolled over and said, well, not much
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I can do about that. And can I put it to you that as Christians, at times the temptation can be for us to say, well, the world hates us.
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There's not much you can really do about it. It is what it is, but there is something you can do.
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I think we get a hint from this in verses 15 and 16 of Genesis 14. So if you're not back there, Genesis 14, verse 15.
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And he, Abram and his servants deployed against them by night, defeated them and pursued them as far as Hobart to the north of Damascus.
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So this has just kept going north, north, north. He brought back all the goods and his relative lot and his goods as well as the women and the other people.
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So Abram goes to war and he's successful. It's one thing for Abram to have his own in -house militia, as it were.
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It's another thing to go to war with not just one King, but five. It's a whole other situation to go warring with five
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Kings and win. Humanly speaking, that level of conflict is impossible, but it makes sense if you look at it with a spiritual eye.
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If you look at it as a believer, formidable as the world is, Abram isn't waging war on the world by himself, is he?
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I hope you can see the tie -in already, but if not, let me make it explicit. You, Christian, when you wage war on this world, even as much as this world wages war on us, when that happens, we are not doing so by ourselves.
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Because much like Abraham, we are people who are in covenant with God, and as those who are in covenant with God through Jesus Christ, we wage war against this world and its attempts to woo us, its attempts to take over us, as it were.
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We wage war not with carnal weapons, but with the promises of God behind us.
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We wage war in faith in the promise maker, that he who gave us the promise will be good to make good on it.
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And if you're here as a Christian, you should rejoice in that reality. The fact that, yes, just like Abram, we are going to face moments of conflict with this world, but we do not war on our own.
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And so I have to ask, do you know how it is that you overcome the world? Do you know how it is that you conquer the world?
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Good verse to have in your back pocket, 1 John chapter 5 and verse 4. This is the victory that has conquered the world.
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Our faith. I love how the King James puts it. Adds a word. Even our faith.
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We don't overcome the world by being aggressive. We don't overcome the world by carnal weapons and worldly methods.
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No, we don't even overcome the world by running from it and becoming hermits. We overcome the world, brother and sister, by believing what
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God has said, that through Christ's death, we are dead to this world, and this world is dead to us.
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We overcome the world by believing that this world system that is opposed to God, this world system that fights us, is temporary, and that God's kingdom is eternal.
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That's how we fight, and beloved, that's how we win. But before I move on,
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I don't want this to just kind of turn into a pep rally. There's more to this story than meets the eye, because yes,
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I believe there's more war with the world, but let me boil down this story, because it might help you to see that this story kind of repeats itself over and over and over again with God's people.
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When you boil this down, you have a covenant man waging war against the world for the liberation of unworthy people.
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He's not a good guy, as the story goes. It's debatable. At best, we can say he's unwise and makes some bad decisions.
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Can we all agree that much? Okay, but you see this story play itself out over and over and over again.
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A man who has a covenant with God, who is a mediator of God's covenant, fighting against the world for the liberation of God's people.
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Can I show you how this plays itself out in the Bible over and over again? So actually, the author of what we're reading here in Genesis, Moses will go to Egypt with the promise of deliverance.
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God tells him, you're going to bring these people out, but you don't know the story. You've seen Prince of Egypt. When Moses goes to Egypt, he goes up to Pharaoh and says, let my people go.
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Does Pharaoh just say, yeah, that's great. Go right ahead. No, Pharaoh makes some work for it.
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So it's interesting. There's a phrase in the Exodus narrative. I think people read it and don't really pay attention to it. God says that he will basically show his power.
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He will extend his strength against the gods of Egypt. If you read the
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Exodus rightly, the Exodus is really an act of war on the part of God against the pagan powers of Egypt.
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And guess what? Abraham goes with the promise of deliverance. And what happens? God wins.
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Fast forward a little bit in their story. The story of the Bible, I should say, the children of Israel will seek to conquer the land of promise.
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And God tells them explicitly, listen, you're going up against nations that are bigger than you and stronger than you. You are not all that.
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But what do they have that the nations don't have? Promise of God. We all love the story of David and Goliath, don't we?
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Don't miss the fact that in the story of David, the David and Goliath incident happens after David is anointed as king.
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He has a promise of kingship. And what's the first thing we see David do? Goes to war.
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And he goes to war against Goliath who had defied Israel's God. And with the promise of God backing him up, he wins.
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Oh, did I forget to mention that Christ will go to the cross. The Bible tells us, Colossians chapter 2, that in the cross he was waging war against the powers of darkness.
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And he goes with the eternal promise of redemption that the Father had given him from before the foundation of the world. And the
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Bible tells us that as he goes to the cross, he, Colossians chapter 2, makes a triumph over them in the cross.
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Beloved, believers war, war with the world. That's a reality you can't escape from. But can I also orient you to a greater and a higher reality for just a moment?
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Before you ever got drafted to this war, and let's be clear, you are drafted to this war with the world.
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Before you ever got drafted to this war, Jesus did all the hard work.
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Before a star hung in the sky, before a speck of dirt existed on this earth, the
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Son had already agreed with the Father that he would enter into the world and be the one to redeem a people for his own glory.
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Jesus enters into the world. He obeys the Father perfectly, submitting to the Father in thought, word, and deed, in obedience to his law, every time with perfect, exact, entire, and perpetual obedience.
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Jesus goes to the cross, and he takes on himself the penalty that our sins rightly merit, enduring
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God's wrath for his people. He goes to war with death, and he conquers death.
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That's the language the Bible uses. Rising from the grave to eternal life.
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He ascended to the Father's right hand, where he intercedes for us, and he rules and reigns over the hearts of his people, awaiting the day when he will come, and he will establish his kingdom on the earth.
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Christian, can I give you some good news? Yes, we war with the world, but for the Christian, the warfare of the
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Christian life is not a warfare for the victory. We're not warring like it's contingent on us.
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Can I put it to you that actually we war not for the victory, but from it. We wage war like it's confirmed that we're going to win.
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Again, remember the first audience who are reading this, the children of Israel who are on the verge of the land of promise.
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Remember these words would have given them immense comfort, because God's already told them they're going to go to war. They've had some wars already, but the fact that, okay, with the promise of God, we can go to war with this world, and we will conquer.
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Can you imagine just how comforting it would have been for them? If you can, you're on the right track to realize just how comforting this is for you as a
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Christian. Now, if this is where our chapter ended, this would be a pretty feel -good episode in the
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Abraham epic. This scene would have gone pretty well, but you see,
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Abram's not only at war with the world, is he? You see, Abram's about to face, in the second half of this chapter, a whole other front of warfare, and this one is a little more subtle, but it's no less real,
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Christian. You see, believers will war with the world, but secondly, believers will also war with temptation.
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Believers will war with temptation, verses 17 to 24. Now, I know some of you are probably thinking, where did you get temptation in this passage?
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I'm glad you asked. Look back at the beginning of verse 16 for a moment. So, verse 16 says that Abram brought back all the goods, and also his relative
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Lot and his goods, as well as the women and other people. Kings typically, in the ancient world, when they went to war, they took enough provisions to kind of keep them going.
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Well, if you conquered them, all that stuff is now my stuff. Abram is faced, in this moment, with the temptation to enrich himself because of this war.
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So, the victor goes to spoils, he's the victim in this instance. If he takes it, it's perfectly legitimate, but remember who
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Abram is. This is a man who's supposed to look to God for his provision. He's already made that mistake once in this narrative, and, spoiler alert, he will make that mistake again.
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But in this particular moment, while this temptation is unique to Abram, it's also not unique because Abram is faced with the question that we are all faced with when temptation comes to us.
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Is Abram going to place his trust in the temporary or the eternal?
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Is Abram going to place his trust in stuff and in goods, or is
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Abram going to place his trust in the sovereign God?
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That's the question that comes to you. Are you going to place your trust in your stuff, your goods, your wisdom, your achievement, or will you, in the moment of temptation, place your trust in the sovereign
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God? I believe that this text gives us some cause for hope in relation to that because what we're going to see here is that Abram basically demonstrates two postures when it comes to warring with this temptation with which he's now faced.
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And if you're going to overcome temptation from the perspective of faith in God's promise, you're going to need these two postures too.
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Well, for one thing, it starts with humble submission to God's kingdom. Humble submission to God's kingdom, verses 14 through to 17.
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So, verse 17, after Abram returned from defeating Cedalomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the
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Shavah Valley. We'll come back to him in just a moment. Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine.
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He was a priest to God most high. Now, when
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I was reading verses 17 to 24, if you are expecting a deep dive into who Melchizedek is, what he does, and why he matters,
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I hate to disappoint you. You have to come back next week for that. I'm not going to get into all of the questions surrounding him just yet.
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He needs a message all by himself. For now, I want you to just notice a couple of things.
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So, verse 17 and 18, two kings come before Abram, king of Sodom and this king
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Melchizedek of Salem. And I put it to you that these two kings, this is not an allegory, but I do think that they're meant to picture something at least.
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One of these is representative of the kingdom of man, and one of these is representative of the kingdom of God.
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Two different kings with two different approaches which lead to two different responses from Abram.
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Melchizedek comes to Abram not in his own name, but he comes as the priest of God most high.
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Those of you who were here last Christmas, remember we did a series on Christ as prophet, priest, and king. Talked a little bit about what a priest does.
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The main function of a priest is that a priest represents men before God. And so here is this priest,
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Melchizedek. By the way, this is the first mention we have of a priest in the whole Bible. Interesting.
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And so this priest comes in the name of God, and as he comes in the name of God, he brings with him, the text tells us, bread and wine.
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Some people have tried to make this a thing, well this is kind of prefiguring communion. I don't think that's the case. I think bread and wine were just natural provisions of the day.
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But more important than that, he comes with the blessing of God. So verse 19 says,
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He, Melchizedek, blessed him and said, Abram is blessed by God most high, creator of heaven and earth, and blessed be
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God most high, who has handed over your enemies to you. Now please pay attention to this.
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Notice that Melchizedek doesn't say, Abram be blessed by God most high.
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Did you catch it? Verse 19, he says, Abram is blessed by God most high, creator of heaven and earth.
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Melchizedek comes and he reaffirms what Abram has already been told.
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Abram knew this already. Genesis chapter 12, verse 3, he was told that he would bless those, that God, excuse me, would bless those who blessed
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Abram, and that anyone who treated Abram with contempt, who cursed him, excuse me, he would treat with contempt.
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Melchizedek acknowledges the fact that the blessing of God is with Abraham. Why? These four kings didn't know it, but the minute they touched
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Lot and his family, they had painted a target on their backs. Why?
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Because Lot was, even tangentially at this point, connected to a man who was blessed.
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In response to the blessing of God, Abram responds back by giving a tenth. Now, I will touch this real briefly.
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Some people will use this and say, well, this is where the Bible teaches a 10 % tithe that you must give. You'll say, not under compulsion, but basically ends up being under compulsion.
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Allow me to simply say, first of all, this is a description, not a prescription.
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You appreciate the difference between those two? A prescription, what you're supposed to do. A description, this is what happened.
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This is a description. This is not a prescription. It's telling you what happened.
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This was actually a common practice in the ancient world. You may think, okay,
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Kofi, but what does this have to do with giving? Does it have anything to do with giving? Well, wait till next year. I plan on doing some messages on the subject of biblical giving.
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But for now, I don't think this passage is teaching every Christian must give 10 % of everything they have, like Abram did.
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That's not really the point. Abram's response here is one of gratefulness, not to Melchizedek, but to the
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God that Melchizedek represents. This is Abram recognizing that God is his help, that God is his sufficiency, excuse me, that God is his ultimate provision.
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Abraham's gift of a tenth, and this is why I don't think it teaches tithing the way we often teach it. Abraham's gift of this tenth doesn't merit
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God's blessing. It simply recognized where the blessing came from. It's a response of humble submission to this man who was a king, who was a priest of God.
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It's humble submission to God's kingdom, and in this case, it's representative. But he doesn't just respond in humble submission.
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He also responds in settled commitment in God's provision, in settled commitment in God's provision.
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So I told you there are two kings that we're going to meet. Well, the second king is King Bera. You read about him. He's the king of Sodom.
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So pick it up in verse 21. Then the king of Sodom said to Abram, give me the people, but take the possessions for yourself.
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I love how Ian Duguid, the commentator, puts it in his little book, The Gospel According to Abram. He says, quote, the king of Sodom came with words that were gruff and grudging.
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He offered no thanks to Abram for being rescued and did not acknowledge God's role in the victory.
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He simply approached Abram with a business offer. Let's make a deal. I'll keep the people. You get the goods.
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He regarded it as a simple human victory with the normal human consequences.
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One king comes in the name of God and comes with a reaffirmation of the blessing. Here is this other king who comes in his own name and basically says, let's cut a deal.
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You get all the stuff. Give me the people. I mean, from a human perspective, it seems fair.
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I mean, what's Abram going to do with a few hundred people, I imagine, at this point? Yeah, okay, fine.
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I'll keep the stuff. You can have your people back. After all, a king can't be a king if he doesn't have people to rule over. Okay. From a human perspective, this seems to make sense.
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It seems like a solid deal, but what have we learned about decisions that on a human level make sense so far?
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Sure, they make sense on a human level. They don't make much spiritual sense. Just like the decision to go into Egypt and just like Lot's decision to move closer to Sodom, are you starting to get the picture here?
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Are you starting to see the clear choice that Abram faces once again? Do you see the two perspectives that Abram has to look at this with or could look at this with?
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There is a fleshly and a human way to look at this, and there is a spiritual and faith -fueled way to view things.
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Which will Abram choose? Thankfully, we get his answer in verse 22.
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But the king of Sodom, but excuse me, Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have raised my hand in an oath to Yahweh, God most high, creator of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that belongs to you, so you can never say
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I made Abram rich. Abram responds to this with clear and settled conviction in the fact that God is his source.
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God is his provider. That's why he uses that language in the angel world.
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That's how people made oaths. They would raise their right hand to the heavens, symbolizing that they are in total submission to the one they're making an oath to.
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Abram looks the king of Sodom square in his eyes and says, God provides for me. I'm not even going to give you an opportunity to take even a little bit of the credit.
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Just as he did with Lot, Abram knows that he has something better and that there was no way on earth he was going to give up the permanent and the spiritual for the temporary and the carnal.
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Beloved, that's settled conviction. That's the kind of conviction you can't develop by trying harder and doing better and just willing yourself into it.
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Now, can I put it to you that that's the kind of conviction that only comes when you've heard from God? Okay, Kovi, how do
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I hear from God? I'm glad you asked. Romans chapter 10 verse 17, so then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the message about Christ.
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Beloved, the kind of conviction we're talking about is birthed by the Word of God. It's birthed by being reminded of the promises of God in the gospel.
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It's birthed by the good news, and we transition from Abram to our own life here. It's birthed by the good news of sins forgiven, of conscience cleansed, and of glory assured.
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If you're going to war against temptation successfully, beloved, it can't be a matter of willpower.
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It has to be a matter of God's Word. Faith family,
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I'll leave you with this. Start where we began. Faith wars. Faith will fight, but here's the wonderful truth.
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Ultimately, faith wars with the good news of the gospel itself.
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for that good news. Like Paul, we thank you that that is the message in which we stand, the message by which we are indeed not just saved, but are being saved.
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Father, we readily acknowledge that as we find ourselves in this world, but not of it.
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We find ourselves in conflict with this world, and we find ourselves even in conflict with ourselves and the desires of our remaining indwelling sin that would seek to draw us away from you.
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Father, we acknowledge our need of your provision given to us in your word. We acknowledge our need for the promises that you give us in the gospel.
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Father, may the gospel never become ho -hum to us. May it never become a message that is just routine, that I've heard that before can we move on.
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Father, may we realize that the way in which we came into the Christian life is the way in which we proceed in the
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Christian life, by faith in you and in your promises.