The Battle Belongs to the Lord

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

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This is a message from the series, Beginning with God, Walking Through the Book of Genesis, by Pastor of Teaching and Vision, Don Filsek.

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If you'd like to learn more about Recast or access our sermon archive, please visit us at recastchurch .com.

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Here's Pastor Don. Welcome to Recast Church. Glad that you guys have gathered together to worship our awesome and great

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God this morning. Be sure to fill out the connection card you received when you walked in. You can turn that in in the black box back there, and then any offerings that you would choose to give, you can use the envelope you received, and those go in the black box back there as well.

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Remember that anything that's marked for expansion fund is going to go towards building a building and towards whatever it takes for us to expand out from this current facility when our lease is up in February, so you can take advantage of that.

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If you're not going to use that offering envelope, then please recycle that in the white basket next to it, and then also if it's your first time filling out a connection card here at Recast Church and being willing to share, that is, we call it a connection card because it is the primary way that you can connect with us and communicate with us, and then also if you give us your email address, we do send out a weekly email with all kinds of links and updates and different things that are going on.

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It's a primary way that we communicate is by email, and take one of those free coffee mugs back there if it's your first time with us.

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Just our way of saying thanks and glad that you're here. This morning we're going to observe what appears to be another threat to the promise of God in the book of Genesis.

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We're marching through that. We're going to be in Genesis chapter 14, and we're in a section where we're really talking heavily about the promises of God to a specific man named

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Abram. Remember that God selected a man named Abram out of all the peoples of the earth to make a promise to him, and ultimately that promise had a couple of different points to it.

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He promised to Abram to make him into a great nation, that is, to give him offspring and make his offspring a great nation.

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He promised to give him a great land, and he promised to make his offspring a blessing to all nations.

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So there were kind of three prongs to that promise. Last week we saw Abram and his nephew part ways, showing that ultimately

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Abram is beginning to put his complete, at least at certain points in his life, he's putting his complete trust and weight on the promise of God.

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Lot being one who was kind of plan B to the heir to Abram, and he's actually beginning to trust and believe that he's going to actually have a biological heir and biological offspring.

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But in chapter 14, we find an indirect threat to the promises of God. In all honesty, if you're reading the flow of scripture, chapter 14, what we're going to be talking about this morning, looks a little bit like a side note.

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It's kind of like, okay, and then this event happens, but we're going to see how that ties in. There's going to be a coalition of warrior kings who come out from the east, ransack the promised land, eventually cart off Lot and his family, but God is going to use

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Abram and some of his allies to defeat the invasion force and bring a settled peace back to the land of promise.

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Once again, there might be a level of cultural disconnect between us and the text. We don't tend to have, you know, invasion forces regularly.

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Do you have that happen consistently at your household where there's invasion? Well, maybe around the holidays, it feels like sometimes like there's an invasion force that settles in, but that's not something that we necessarily relate to on a cultural level.

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And I say this, when we're dealing with the Old Testament text, there are times when we need to actually deal with the history, deal with the culture, deal with the geography in order to understand what's going on and what's the meaning of the text.

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Because I don't live in Palestine. I don't live in Canaan. I don't really understand the geography super well.

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Some of you maybe have visited there, so you have some notion of what some of these places look like and things like that.

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But when it comes to a text like we're talking about today, it is valuable and important for us to deal with that from a historical and a cultural context.

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But even though there are cultural differences between us and those times and those places, geographical differences between what we understand and what they understand and what life was like, there are some things that are similar.

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I think we have a tendency in our minds to kind of go back in ancient times. And it depends on what the context is.

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I don't know what you think of when you think of ancient times and the times of Abram.

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I don't know if you're thinking, you know, they're all like cavemen, you know, with clubs or whatever.

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But it's very valuable and important for us to think in terms of real people with real emotions.

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And there are a couple of things that remain true to them that remain true to us that I think are valuable as we move forward through this text.

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And that is, humans were sinful then. Humans are sinful now. God was in control then.

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God is in control now. God was faithful then.

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And God still remains faithful now. And those theological principles are very valuable for us as we go back into the

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Old Testament and think through this text. And so we come to this text this morning, and as the band comes after we read and lead us in praise, please consider the faithfulness of our great

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God, even to those who are in this room right now, those of us who recognize that we are fallen and broken and jacked up people.

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And God still is faithful despite our failures, our shortcomings, and the things that we do on a regular basis.

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So open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 14. That's page 9. If you take the Bible in the seat back in front of you out, you can find the text on page 9.

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I say this often, but if you don't own a copy of the Bible, you can take that one with you. We do want everybody to have a copy of the

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Word of God, but be mindful. A couple of families have returned a stack of about seven of those. They found out that their kids were kind of taking one home every week.

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And so just kind of be mindful of that. And I've said before, you know, don't sell them.

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Don't take one every week and sell it on eBay or something like that. But it is for you. Genesis chapter 14.

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We'll read it in its entirety. This is the Word of God for us this morning recast. In the days of Amraphel.

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By the way, I might butcher a couple of these, but we'll get through these names. In the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Ariat king of Elessar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of Goim.

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These kings made war with Bera king of Sodom, Bersha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Adma, Shemeber king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, that is

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Zoar. And all these joined forces in the valley of Sidim, that is the Salt Sea.

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Twelve years they had served Kedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him came and defeated

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Rephaim in Ashteroth -Carnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shavah -Kiriathim.

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Let's try to say that five times. And the Horites in their hill country of Asir, and as far as El -Paran on the border of the wilderness.

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Then they turned back and came to Enmishpat, that is Kadesh, and defeated all the country of the Amalekites, and also the

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Amorites who were dwelling in Hazaz and Tamar. Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Adma, the king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, that is

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Zoar, went out and they joined battle in the valley of Sidim. With Kedorlaomer, king of Elam, Tidal king of Goim, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Ariat king of Elessar, four kings against five.

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Now the valley of Sidim was full of bitumen pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them, and the rest fled to the hill country.

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So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah, all their provisions, and went their way.

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They also took Lot, the son of Abram's brother, who was dwelling in Sodom, and his possessions, and went their way.

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Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew who was living by the Oaks of Mamre, the Amorite, brother of Eskel and Aner.

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These were allies of Abram. When Abram heard that his kinsmen had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, 318 of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

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And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them, and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.

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Then he brought back all the possessions, also brought back his kinsmen Lot with his possessions, and the people.

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After his return from the defeat of Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shabba, that is, the king's valley.

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And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed him and said,

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Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be

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God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hands. And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

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And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted my hand to the

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Lord God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread, or a sandal strap, or anything that is yours, lest you say,

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I have made Abram rich. I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who were with me.

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Let Aner, Eskel, and Mamre take their share." Let's pray. Father, as we come to a text, we see, again,

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Abram being discussed and talked about, and the way that he worked, and the things that he did. And we recognize that he has held up as an example.

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You're going to share with us some things about yourself and some things about ourselves through using him as an illustration.

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And yet, we know that he's not a perfect man. We've already established that. He has messed up, and there have been times of distrust in your promises.

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And so we know that our hope doesn't rest in Abram. We don't read this text so that we can act more like him, so that you like us more.

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Ultimately, it is about this promise that you are working out, and your protection, and your salvation. And Father, we see in this, both

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Abram making some plans, and you being sovereign and giving victory. And that credit goes to you for the actions of Abram.

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And we think about our lives and ask, Father, that you would help us to recognize your hand and to see you working in our midst.

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Father, as we have an opportunity to sing praises to you, I ask that you would be present here with us in our hearts to ignite our worship with fire.

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Father, that we would be passionate about you and your glory. Father, that we would rejoice that a provision has been made for us.

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That you have made true your promises, and you have fulfilled them through Jesus Christ. And that these promises in the

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Old Testament, they're awesome to read, and they're cool stories, and there's a lot of interesting tidbits in here.

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But when it really comes down to it, it's about you fulfilling the promises that you made to Abraham, and doing so for our benefit.

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And I praise you for Jesus Christ. I thank you for salvation in his name, and I ask that you would help us as we hear your word, as we sing praises to you, to glorify you this morning together as Recast Church.

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Thank you in the name of Jesus Christ, my Lord. Amen. Thou my best thought by day or by night. Did you catch that in there?

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The best thoughts that we can have are thoughts, accurate thoughts of God. Would you guys agree with that?

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So I love that line in that song. I'm really grateful for the band leading us. Go ahead and make sure you have your

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Bibles open to Genesis chapter 14 as we walk through this. So you can kind of just see the flow of the text as I kind of walk us through it, and then draw some applications at the end for what this all implies for us, and what does it have to do with us.

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Remember you can get coffee, juice, donuts, whatever is still left there at any time during the message, and men's bathroom back there, women's up here if you need that.

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I'm going to start off by explaining what we're going to do this morning, because sometimes I think anybody in the room like history, you like history, you like geography, a handful of you, and then there are some of you,

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I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand, but you just flat out don't like it, and so it's like there's, thank you,

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I still saw a couple hands go up anyways, so it's kind of like you just volunteered that, didn't you? So there's a little bit of that going on this morning.

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There's a lot of history, geography in this text, like if you noticed when I was reading it, where there are a couple kings you had never heard of mentioned in the text, a couple locations that you heard as I was reading, and kind of go,

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I don't have a clue where that is, and I'm not quite sure why that matters. Like some of you might just kind of be there, like I don't know what that's got to do with me.

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I mean there's really two types of people in the world. There's people who hate history and geography, and then there's people that I want on my trivia team.

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Okay, so those are the two different types of people in the world, but I honestly, I mean I ask, I think it's a legitimate question to ask, is there value in understanding who these kings are?

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Is there value in understanding where they come from, and why they conquered, or where they conquered? Can't we just get to the main point, and get this done with, and kind of go, okay, well we can maybe even skip over this passage, and get to the meaty stuff of Abram, right?

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We could skip over 14, and just head on to 15 with the covenants, and different things that are going on, and more explanation of that.

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Some of you might be sitting here, and saying to me, Don, I have real issues. I'm struggling with parenting my kids.

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My marriage is on the rocks. I'm lonely, or my faith is holding on just by a thread, and then here

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I'm going to talk to you about kings in ancient times, and what does that have to do with us? So let me encourage you as we dive in, that we're doing more than just a history lesson this morning.

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We are encountering a God who has seen fit to show himself in the lives of real messed up people in history, and in context, and in time, and in geography.

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He's not a God who's removed from us, who wound up the clock, and then left, but he's concerned with geography.

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He's concerned with kings, and with politics, and with those kinds of things. He's actually active in the world.

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Do you get what I'm saying? And so he's seen fit to demonstrate, and to show us, and in all honesty, I think if we're honest, we probably prefer, most of us at least, prefer a story to propositional truth.

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Just give me facts versus tell me a story. How many of you like stories? You prefer stories too, and so the majority of scripture, yes there is propositional truth in here.

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You get into Paul, and he's going to give argumentation, and this, and then this, and then this, but the majority of scripture is found in the context of narrative.

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It's stories that God tells us so that we can understand, and see him, and the way he interacts with history, the way that he does things in real people's lives, and then in turn, the way that people respond to him, and there's value in that.

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So let's dive in, and find out what God wants us to know about himself, and what he wants us to know about ourselves from this account in the life of Abram.

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We start off in verses one through four, with kind of a sweeping perspective on Middle Eastern politics, and I've got a

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PowerPoint presentation here for you, Prezi, and I'm, is that up? Okay, and the clicker may be faithful to me, maybe not.

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We'll see if it rebels this morning. We are going to be talking about rebellion here. There's a little bit of a rebellion in these first four verses, so we'll see if this thing behaves.

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But what we find is a coalition of four kings from the area, and I'll give you the areas here, maybe.

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There's Shinar, which is also equivalent to Babylon in that area there. There's Elessar, which is in eastern

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Turkey, southeastern Turkey. There's Elam, which we're going to find that the king there, his name is Kedorlaomer.

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He factors in as the most powerful king of this era in this time, and so you've probably heard

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Babylon, and you think Babylon, oh super powerful, but that's later. Currently, Elam is the most powerful empire on the face of the planet.

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Goyim, which is the Hittites. You see the title of the king is actually title, T -I -D -A -L, and that is actually like kind of calling

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Pharaoh king of Egypt. It's a title for the Hittite empire, and we find that in inscriptions throughout that area, and so we've actually seen his name engraved on markings over multiple spans of time.

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He's the ruler of the Goyim or the Hittites, and then we see, just to put you in perspective, there is

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Canaan there, and that's the area where Abram is living. We're going to zoom in on that here in just a second, but so that's what's going on is there's these four kings that have aligned themselves together under the leadership of the king over Elam, and they have conquered basically the entire

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Middle East. So these four kings are the head honchos. They are the bullies of the region. They are in charge, and everybody for 12 years running are paying tribute to them.

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Now, you probably don't relate to tribute very often, but in the 13th year, the area of Canaan rebels against these four and begins to refuse to pay tribute.

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Now, you use that word a lot, tribute. How many of you have paid a tribute in your life? Have you ever done that?

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Probably not, but maybe, because I think there's something we can relate a tribute to. A tribute is the ancient equivalent to the lunch money that a bully demands to protect you from his fist.

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Okay, so that's tribute. So maybe some of us have paid a tribute, if we're honest and we kind of think back to our later elementary days or something like that.

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Maybe at some point you paid tribute. Maybe you were that guy who received tribute. I don't know, but you get the point.

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I mean, it's to protect the lunch money that protects everybody from your fist, and these four bullies make good on their promise.

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Okay, so they're receiving tribute, and then in the 13th year, everybody in this area says, you know what? No more of this.

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We're not sending the caravan with the gold or with all of the wood or with all of the things, the grain or whatever you're demanding of us, whatever that tribute looked like for each of these areas that we're going to look at in Canaan.

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They said, we're not sending it anymore, and so in the 14th year, the fist comes out.

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Okay, I promised you that if you don't pay, this isn't going to go well for you. You're not paying.

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Let me demonstrate what that looks like, and so the fist comes out, the war machine begins to roll, and in verses 5 through 12, we see them begin to conquer the area of Canaan once again, and it's implied that at some point they must have rolled through their previous to basically subjugate those people, and now they're going to come through again.

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Now, the specifics of the people that they conquer along the way matter little to the story except to show that this is indeed a very powerful force.

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These four kings aligned together are extremely powerful, and it's highlighted by the people that they conquer, so along the way, you see the group there?

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I put a little skull there to say they're conquered. The Rephaim are mentioned by name. The Emim are mentioned by name, probably really significant names to most of you.

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You're like, oh, the Rephaim, yeah, or the Emim, uh -huh. Probably not so much a people group that you've studied a lot, but they are two of the most notorious tribes in the land during this time.

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The Rephaim were one of the most feared. When Joshua is going to come into the land and conquer, one of the most terrifying group of people in the land, they're scared to death of this group called the

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Rephaim. They're actually referred to as giants. They're taller than the average person. They just come across throughout scripture.

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Whenever you see Rephaim, they strike terror in the hearts of those around them. This coalition of four kings rolls through and rolls right over the

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Rephaim. Do you see how understanding the culture and understanding the tribes and understanding what's going on in politics at this time matters?

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They're just a number. They're just a name in a list of people that these four kings conquer. The name Emim in Hebrew, E -M -I -M, actually means terror.

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That's what the word means, terror, fearful, feared. These are scary people to the

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Hebrews, and yet these four kings... Are you getting what I'm trying to say? The text is going over the top to say this is a fearful, a terrible invasion force that's coming in.

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This is significant what's going on here. The kings then take a southerly tack as they continue to conquer.

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You can see the red line. That's the approximate route. They conquer the Horites. Then they go down to this place called

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El Paran down there on the Gulf of Aqaba, and then it says that they turn back probably because they got to the southernmost extent of civilization.

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Everything south of there is basically desert anyways. They turn back. They conquer, again, a feared group that the

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Hebrews had to conquer when they came in later. By the way, conquer doesn't mean they decimate. Okay, what do these four kings want more than anything?

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Tribute. So what are they doing? They're making an example of these people as they come through. They're coming through with,

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I'm sure, some significant punishments for the rebellion, but they're not trying to totally wipe them out. So that's why we're going to see these people up here down through history.

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So they're not wiped out. They're just subjugated and being brought back into line to get the lunch money back.

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You see the Amorites there. The Amorites get conquered by them. Now we get down to some area that we're actually familiar with from the book of Genesis if you've been going through this.

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We get down to the place where you can see the little bubble there, possible location of Sodom, Gomorrah, Zeboiim, Adma, and then

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Zoar is mentioned there, and these kings are there. The king of Sodom's name is

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Bera. Then we've got the king of Gomorrah, the king of Adma, the king of Zeboiim, the king of Zoar, and they all joined forces.

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I want to highlight that we don't know the exact locations. That's why it says possible locations of Sodom and Gomorrah in those places.

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But notice that Zoar isn't mentioned there because we actually have a fairly good handle archaeologically on the location of Zoar.

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So you actually see that placed on the map because we pretty much know where that is. I haven't done a lot of research to know exactly why archaeologists, but archaeologists are pretty convinced that that's the location of Zoar.

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But then these other places, like how many of you know, you might be able to think of something from your knowledge of the Bible why we might not be able to discover where Sodom and Gomorrah are?

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Is there something there that you kind of go, yeah, that kind of makes sense that we don't know where that is? Some people have speculated it's actually under the

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Dead Sea and there have been all kinds of archaeological expeditions down at the bottom to try to figure out if there is some kind of structures down there that make them curious about whether or not there was an ancient civilization that cities were down there.

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But those places we don't know definitively. We know that they were in the Jordan Valley because that's where Lot settles and these people all align themselves.

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So we have five kings that are going to align themselves against these four kings that come down through the area.

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And it's five, remember, five wicked kings. They were declared to be wicked, Sodom and Gomorrah, declared to be wicked last week.

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And so now we get to this account and they haven't changed. They're still, so now we have five wicked kings against four wicked kings.

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There's not really a team to root for in this. I mean, this is like, I mean, some of you have you watch the final four and it's like,

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I mean, I don't even know what to root for at this point. It's like Notre Dame playing Ohio State for me. I mean, I don't know, what do you do in that situation?

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Hope they both lose. I don't know. Tie? I don't know. Both scoreless at the end of the fourth quarter.

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What do you do? So that, I mean, you don't know who to root for in this situation. It's not necessarily a good thing. But they gather for battle at this place called the

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Valley of Sidim on the south side of the Dead Sea. And this is going to be a battle royale. You look at verse 10 now.

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Okay. Now we get down to the battle and you're geared up and you're like, okay, this is facing off and all this stuff. There's going to be this battle.

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And how many of you guys, how many of you guys kind of enjoy like a little bit of a battle scene? Like you, you enjoy kind of like, maybe you study

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World War II history or something like that. Or you, nobody, nobody else gets, okay, six of us get into that.

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But so you're ready and you're geared up and you're keyed up for a battle. And then you get to verse 10 and it's like, it is pretty unclear from the text whether or not there was ever a battle that takes place here.

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It's unclear whether this actually turns to battle because the next thing that you see, look at verse 10, this is the accounting of the battle.

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Now the Valley of Sidim was full of bitumen pits. Now, wait a minute. What's this got to do with a battle going on?

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Like all of a sudden, it's just given us a little bit of a, a geology lesson about the geography of the area.

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Like what's going on here? I thought we were talking history and geography. Now we're talking geology. There's bitumen pits like this.

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This is the lowest place on the planet. And so things bubble up to the surface cause it's really hot, you know, underground.

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And it's the surface of the magma is not very, not very, it's pretty shallow there and stuff. And so there's bitumen pits and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah to say fled before we even get to the battle.

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I wonder if they didn't line up in the Valley and then they see the enemy approaching and they go, bye, we out.

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Okay. And so they just turn tail and run. And they are on, I mean, immediately, the first thing we see in this battle is they are fleeing.

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Now I think that it's pretty clear, at least from my understanding of verse 11, that I mean, from verse 10, that Sodom and Gomorrah, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, all of those kings, all five of those kings are represented by just mentioning them.

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They all basically blow the trumpet for retreat and they all turn tail and run. The mention of the bitumen pits, some fell into them and the rest fled to the hill.

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There's a little bit of disagreement in the pronoun some enough to basically lead us to believe that it's not the kings that fall in.

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The kings call for the retreat. And then some of the soldiers fall in to the tar pits in the retreat.

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And they basically lose even, even to the geology, they're losing some of their soldiers, even in retreat.

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There are still tar pits there to this day, just in case you're curious, is that geography still the same?

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It actually is. So the enemy easily rolls over Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies, plunders the cities in verses 11 and 12.

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And you'll never guess who's found to be living within the walls of Sodom at this time. Who's all, who shows up living inside the city of Sodom?

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A lot. Well, last, last week we saw him take the choices of the land. He took the fertile valley and he goes down there and we saw some, some foreshadowing in the text that he was going to go down there and live close to these wicked people.

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But at least he was staying in his tent outside the city and kind of hanging out there for the, for the agriculture and stuff.

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And the next thing we see is him living actually in the city. We saw that the people of Sodom sinned greatly against the

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Lord last week and yet Lot has now become one of them. He's numbered among the people of Lot.

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And of course he and his family and his belongings are all carted off just like everybody else in the city. The conquering force has done what conquering forces do.

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They roll into town, they conquer, they take everything without even so much as a thank you. My goodness.

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And we find out that one person escaped to report all of these events to Abram who is still living by the oaks of Mamre that we saw last week.

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That's where we left Abram. Abram musters a coalition of his own using his own personal military force and then his friends, three brothers,

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Mamre, Eskel, and Aner are his allies and they are actually all going to form a, a coalition together where you might read through this at the beginning and think that there's only 318 soldiers going up against this huge military force.

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We don't know the number. We know that Abram supplies 318 but it's quite possible that maybe

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Mamre, Eskel, Aner, all of them like supply soldiers as well and they end up going off to battle.

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The detail of the account shows that it's intended to be historical and even down to the detail of how many soldiers did

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Abram bring to battle? 318, a pretty specific number showing that it's, that it's not just rounding off for us or something like that but it's a very specific number.

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And it once again highlights the wealth of Abram. Okay, this guy isn't fooling around.

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He's not, he's not playing. He's, he's got his own personal military force of 318.

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You guys have, some of you have a couple of, you know, a couple trained soldiers that you have, you just keep, you know, out back just in case or something or, you know, okay.

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Ray, Ray does? I didn't know that about you. I wanted you to raise your hand. I wanted you,

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I wanted to know if you have that, okay. I mean, I'm not going to toilet paper your house but, you know, you know what

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I'm saying. I mean, you got, you got trained military there. That's not going to happen. But he's not fooling around.

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He's got flocks spread far and wide. We know that he's an extremely wealthy person and that the land around Bethel was having a hard time supporting his flocks with lots flocks.

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And so, you got to picture he has spread far and wide and he's got military, a military force that probably accompany his flocks to basically make sure that raiders and all that, that was pretty common during this era and this time.

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You didn't have a police force. You didn't have government, you know, protection. And so, he's basically vigilante, got his own force here.

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Probably trained by Blackwater. I mean, these guys are, these guys are it. But honestly, the terminology that's used here indicates that these are not shepherds given clubs, okay.

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This isn't like he's got his shepherds out there and he supplies them with a gun or something. These are special forces group.

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I mean, the words that are used, it goes over the top to say these are trained military soldiers, 318 men who are trained militarily and that's what they do.

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They're not like, well, we kind of got dual purpose here. These guys are trained specifically. They were raised up in the house of Abram for the purpose of security force.

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And they are now going to pursue in conjunction with Mamre Eskel and Aner, the invading kings up to the northernmost city in Canaan, the city of Dan.

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And here we find that Abram and company employ wise military strategy. So, there's this battle that, maybe battle that goes on there and then we get over here and here's

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Hebron. You can see that that's about halfway up the Dead Sea to the west there and that's where Abram is at this time.

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Somebody escapes, comes and talks with him and then they send this military force all the way up here to Dan, 120 miles away.

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This is a far ranging battle for the time and the day. So, 120 miles up to Dan.

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He employs, like I said, wise military strategy. They divide to surround the enemy at night, lower the night vision goggles and fall on the enemy in the darkness.

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Probably not so much the night vision goggles, but I just added that for dramatic effect. They defeat them.

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They defeat this military force. I mean, this is a pretty significant thing. We don't know how the battle, what the battle looked. We don't get their numbers.

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We don't get a full counting of Abram, but remember that this is a, these are people who conquered the

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Rephaim. These are people who conquered the Emim. They conquered the Amorites. Okay, they are coming through and just rolling and,

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I mean, the five kings didn't want to stand against them. So, there's certainly the implication that this is a very powerful military force at this point.

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I mean, just conquering. Now, some have said, you know, it's quite possible and the text is unclear. Maybe they overextended themselves, which was a common thing.

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If you think about going to battle at this time, you're going a long ways. I mean, they've traveled a long ways from these areas that I showed you in the first map all the way down to Canaan.

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They're conquering along the way. How many of you know that you need to have enough military force to be able to actually continue to conquer the next, the next town?

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At some point, you get to the point where it's like, I think we need to turn back, right? Because if we keep conquering out, how are we going to get back or how many of us are going to survive or whatever?

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So, it's unclear exactly what the battle looked like, but it's very clear that Abram applies military strategy and they go as far as Dan.

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They fall on them at night there and then it says the battle proceeded and they ended up pursuing them. They defeated them and pursued them as far as Hoba, which is, we don't know exactly, but we do know there's the battle and we do know that it ended up, if you can advance that, just north of Damascus here.

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Estimate is about 175 miles from the place that Abram's troops started up to Damascus and that's where this thing ends and they basically get back all of their stuff, including

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Lot. They get the plunder, the people of the Jordan Valley, all of those that had been taken captive and they win them back.

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Again, is it a pretty sketchy detail? Like some of you would like more detail about what happens there.

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How many, how many people, how many, how many of the captives survived? How did all that roll down?

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We don't get a lot of detail, we just get the point that Abram is able to save this entire region through a coalition of his friends and allies.

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On the return trip, they come back with everybody and they're almost home when they get to a place called the

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Valley of Sheba and while there, the king of Sodom comes out to meet them. Now, if you think about this, if you were the king of a conquered people and somebody came and delivered your kingdom back to you, how would you respond?

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What would be your natural inclination? Thanks? Okay, thank you very much for doing that for me.

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It seems to imply that the king of Sodom actually had hidden or had escaped or fled into the hills.

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It actually says he fled into the hills, but he obviously escaped this invading force. Some have actually said that the terminology, back a few verses in verse 10, where it says that some fell in, the word fell in there could actually refer to lower yourself.

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It doesn't mean that you tripped and fell and some have speculated that what that implies is the king of Sodom actually lowered himself into a tar pit to escape being captured or something to that effect because in some places, they would actually excavate and dig down to the tar and so there would be a place like a cave mouth for the tar pits and so it's possible that he did something like that.

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But he comes out to meet them just south of Jerusalem in that area of the Valley of Shavuot and suddenly out of nowhere, a new king shows up on the scene and there's some significance.

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Any of you ever heard the name Melchizedek? Probably from the New Testament at least, but anybody think he's kind of a mysterious figure, a little bit curious about who he is?

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He just shows up on the scene out of nowhere. All of a sudden, there's this other king. No real mention of him anywhere else and kind of like, okay, what's going on here?

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His name means king of righteousness. That's what the name Melchizedek means. There's very clear contrast that's going to be drawn throughout the next several verses between Bera, the king of Sodom, and how he responds in this

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Melchizedek, king of righteousness, who shows up on the scene. The king of Sodom comes out and it says, the king of Sodom comes out to meet him, but the king of Salem brings out to nourish them.

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The verbs that are used between the two are significant. Now, keep in mind that Abram has just saved the people of Sodom and their king offers absolutely nothing to Abram, but this other king brings out wine, brings out bread, brings out a blessing for his war -weary soldiers.

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The king is called the king of the city that's called peace,

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Salem, which is Jerusalem. Not only that, but we find out in the text that this

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Melchizedek is not just a king, but what else is he? He's a priest, and not just a priest, but he's a priest of God most high.

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And is anybody kind of going, what? Like, who is this guy? What's going on here? I mean, apparently

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God is doing more in the world than just this thing with Abram that we've been reading about, right? How many of you get the notion that as you're reading scripture, you're reading the sum total of what

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God is doing in the world at that time? Do you feel that way sometimes? You're like, okay, is it obvious that scripture has been going over the top to explain

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Abram to us? If you don't feel that way yet, you're going to feel that way in three weeks, okay, because we're still going to be on Abram three weeks from now.

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I mean, it's very extensive what Genesis wants to tell us about Abram, so it's very clear, like, I mean, that's what

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God's doing. No. No, this priest of God most high shows up on the scene out of nowhere, and it's like, there are other things that God is doing in the world.

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There are other people that are worshiping God. There are other people who are offering sacrifices to God. There are other people who are into the

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God most high. Other things that are going on, and obviously you can draw some applications to that even as you're thinking and as the

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Holy Spirit is working in your heart, but I'm going to draw some application here at the end, so we'll get there.

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But there are others out in the world that are worshiping the one true God as well, and the first words of Melchizedek are to bless

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Abram, and here we find echoes of the covenant between God and Abram where God actually said to him a few, a couple chapters ago, those who bless you will be blessed, and those who dishonor you will be cursed.

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And Melchizedek is a man of blessing. He comes out and says, blessed be

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Abram. And Melchizedek blesses Abram by the name El Elyon.

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He blesses him by God, the highest God. That's what that phrase means, literally

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God, the highest God. May you be blessed by him. And in case there was any confusion about who we're talking about, who does

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Melchizedek worship? In case there's any question, he identifies his God as the possessor, that is the owner of the heavens and the earth, which is a euphemism, a way of saying everything.

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He's the God over all, and this is who Melchizedek worships. And also we know that that's the same

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God that Abram worships. And then further, Melchizedek identifies the victor.

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It's as if he's there in the ring and the fight's just been won, and he's going to raise somebody's hand to say victor over this battle.

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And whose hand does he raise? Abram's. He said, Abram, you won the day.

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Thanks for your military strategy. You trained 318 crack troops, and they went in and they just conquered at night, and it was great strategy.

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And victor, Abram. Now what does he say? God has given you your enemy.

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God is the victor. Who does he lift up? Who does he exalt? Who does he raise up in this context?

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God, most high, the owner of all things, the possessor of everything, heaven and earth.

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He is the one worthy of extolling in the situation. He has delivered

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Abram's enemies into his hands. The priest out of nowhere is blessing Abram, blessing God, and is all excited about the deliverance of victory for this geographical area.

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The entire land had been ransacked by this invading force, and everyone has cause for rejoicing that Abram has led a force out to battle and delivered them by the hand of God.

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But now Abram does something strange, something that could be confusing. He gives one tenth of all the spoils to Melchizedek, to this priest.

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In essence, what Abram is doing is giving the first fruits of the plunder to the Lord, and it's as if Melchizedek's blessing has reminded

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Abram that God is the one who gave him victory. And so in a sense, this is a thank offering to God through the priest of God, most high, to give 10 % to him.

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But contrast the first words of Melchizedek, which we just saw, to the first words of the king of Sodom.

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First words out of the mouth of Melchizedek, blessed be. The first words out of Barah, king of Sodom, give me.

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It rhymes, and it works. Blessed be, or give me.

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Is that a contrast? Is that something that we can relate to in our spiritual life, in the way that we interact with God?

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How often are the first words out of our mouth in praise or prayer to God, blessed be? And how much of our prayer time is focused on give me?

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Consider that. How much of our interaction with God is about give me, give me, versus praise you.

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You are to be honored above all things, blessed be. And even to, in turn, bless others.

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Think about the way that we are called again to be conduits. God has given us blessings so that we can then, in turn, bless others and encourage them.

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Barah, king of Sodom, has just had his kingdom returned to him by Abram, and all he can do is make demands and act like he's in the driver's seat.

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Some may see generosity at first blush in Barah's words. If you look here in verse 21, and the king of Sodom said to Abram, give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself.

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Can you see some potential for people to misunderstand generosity in that? Like, okay, you can keep all the stuff, you can keep all the gold, give me the people.

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But the fact of the matter is, it's all owned now by Abram. It's all at his disposal.

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He's the one who has led the force forward to go back and get all of the stuff. He is the one that's there.

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This king of Sodom is indeed a wicked man. Abram catches a tone here and is even going to state directly that he wants to owe the king of Sodom nothing.

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The text last week revealed to us that indeed Sodom was a wicked place, and Barah wants to be in charge, and Abram recognizes that this man is somebody he does not want to owe a favor to.

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Have any of you known somebody that you did not want to owe a favor to? You knew that that wasn't going to go so well, you didn't want to turn to them for help because it's like,

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I know that this is going to come back on me, or you didn't want to accept a gift from them because you knew that it had strings attached to it?

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Have you been there? That's kind of what Abram's catching in this interplay. So Abram raises his hand in a pledge before God to keep nothing of the spoils of Sodom, lest the king take credit for the blessings of Abram.

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Who has blessed Abram? Who does he give credit for his wealth to?

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God, and he doesn't want anybody to take credit for that. He wants to give the credit to God, not to Sodom or to Barah, king of Sodom.

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We know that there is only one who is ultimately responsible for the blessing of Abram. So Abram proves himself kind once again, and his only request is that his allies,

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Aner, Eschol, and Mamre, get their own fair share of the spoils. They went out to battle with him. This is where we find that out.

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It might not have been clear earlier on, but it is from this part here. And the soldiers, he wants to make sure that his soldiers, and all the soldiers that went with him, are not charged for the food that they ate along the way.

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So just let us have the food. Don't charge us for the food. Just let us have that free of charge, and then share it with those other kings.

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Things are restored back to normal in this land. The oppressor is cast out. God has delivered Abram's enemies to him in battle, and in the process, he's also saved his kin, his nephew

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Lot. God has ultimately saved Lot through Abram. So even up to this point, we really haven't dealt with much application.

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We've walked through the battle. We've walked through the text. But let me suggest to you four different things that stuck out to me for application.

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There may be more than this. The Spirit of God can obviously do what He wants in your heart and in your life.

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As I walk through this text, it might be just that you want to go hire some troops or something.

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I don't know. I don't know what the application is for you, but the Spirit of God can obviously draw that into your heart. And I'm just joking about that.

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That ought not to be an application from this. But the first is faith in action, and then the opposite side of that same coin, which is the sovereignty of God.

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Have you have you sensed that tension as you've read through Scripture yourself? Maybe you've sensed that tension through interactions with other

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Christians. But is there some potential discrepancy in our understanding between how do we act and what part do we play in it versus then the sovereignty of God and what

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He's actually doing on the scene? Abram finds out his nephew has been captured and that much of his land is under the control of this coalition of wicked kings.

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He saddles up his soldiers, rides off to war. He used good military strategy. He came up with a plan.

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He worked the plan. But we find out on the flip side by the words of Melchizedek that who won the battle?

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God won the battle. God's the one who gave the victory.

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But wait a minute. Wait a minute. Who led this coalition? Who was out there risking life and limb for this battle to win his nephew back?

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Abram. Who trained these soldiers? Abram, or at least he funded the training of these soldiers.

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Who is out pursuing the soldiers? Abram. Who comes up with a strategy to attack at night?

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Abram or one of his people, right? So why does

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God get the credit for this? Why doesn't Abram get the credit for this?

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Do you ever sense that tension in your own life? I mean, if we're honest, does pride ever settle in on you and it's like, look at all of this that I've amassed for myself.

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Have you ever thought that? I mean, even just maybe a little bit, if you're honest. Has that thought ever crept into your thinking, your heart, your mind, rather than giving the credit to God?

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The text is unclear how the battle went. I mentioned this earlier. How lopsided was this battle? How much of a miracle are we looking at here?

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Was it like maybe there were 400 troops against a thousand? Obviously, the text doesn't dictate that.

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It might have been the other way around. We don't even know. We don't know. Maybe Abram fielded 2 ,000 troops and the other side shows up and they've only got 300 left.

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But we don't know. Are you getting what I'm saying? I mean, the text is very unclear about that. But in the end, the right steps of Abram were action.

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It was right for him to step out and do this. It was an appropriate time for an active faith.

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And he stepped out and God blessed him in that. My question for you is what areas of your life need direct action, but instead you're sitting back waiting?

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You're sitting back and you're just waiting for something to happen when what really is the call on your life is act.

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Do something. Share your faith. Do something in this active faith.

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There are lots of places that will tell you that faith always looks like waiting. Have you ever heard that? Like the best faith is sitting still and waiting for God to do something.

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Is that the primary call in our lives is just to sit around? I mean, it's really convenient if you have a remote control in your hand, right?

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That's even better. Yeah, faith is just waiting. I've been sitting here waiting, watching ESPN for a while now when what

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God is asking us to do is to act, to go out and love, and to be lighthouses for this community, and to go out and serve others, and to be there for others, and to live an active faith in our communities, in our workplaces, and out around instead of just sitting back and waiting.

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I will tell you that faith looks like knowing God and living in a way that shows trust in him, and I will suggest to you that sometimes that does look like waiting.

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Sometimes the active thing that you are being called to do by God is wait.

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How many of you know that if you're truly waiting on God then that takes effort? That's a hard thing. It's not like sitting there with a remote control in your hand like watching

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ESPN. It's a wrestling with God and talking with him regularly about direction and guidance, and even in our waiting there is activeness, right?

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But sometimes it's past the time of waiting and it's time for acting, and I would suggest to you that wisdom is found in the balancing act between knowing

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God and relating to him and understanding him and getting to know him in the word and praying to him and giving your plans over to him and recognizing when is it time to act, and when is it time to wait, and I cannot answer that question for you.

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None of the elders here can answer that question for you, but I would suggest to you that you can answer that question when you are in communion with God, and he will open your eyes and he will show you it's time to act.

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It's time to wait. Pursue him. He is there for the pursuit, and I would dare say that many of us sit back and say,

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I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, but we're not pursuing him like we know we ought to, and so it's very easy to complain and say,

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I'm not getting any direction. He hasn't emailed me yet. I haven't got a phone call. I don't know what to do. Get to know

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God. Spend time with him. I'm not saying that's a magical. I'm not talking about a magical revelation.

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I'm not talking about like, okay, I'm gonna force God to show me what to do by spending time in his word or something like that.

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I'm talking about relationship with him, knowing him, spending time in his word, and getting to know him in the way that he interacts and the way he relates.

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So that's number one. Number two is an attitude towards wealth. I see that in the text, and I've seen that as Abram's been revealed to be an extremely wealthy individual, and we see him talk here.

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There's some level of his attitude towards his wealth declared in this text or showed or demonstrated. He gives a tenth that was a sign of his recognition that what he had came from God.

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He's recognizing the battle belongs to God and being willing to part with 10 % of that. We talked last week about how wealthy most of us really are.

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An application from this text is to follow the model of Abram, to recognize where your blessings come from.

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And I'm not just talking about, I'm not talking here about the application is to give a tenth or something like that. I'm talking about the application of gratitude, of thankfulness to God.

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I hope that you, I hope that whatever you do give, that you give out of gratitude and out of thankfulness to God, not out of some kind of compulsion, not out of feeling like you have to, or obligation, or duty, or something like that.

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I hope you give because you are delighted in the way that God has provided for you, and that there's thankfulness involved in that.

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An application from this text is to follow that model of Abram. God is the one who has given you all that you possess.

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God is, in our text, twice called the owner of heaven and earth, the one who possesses all things. It's all his, and we ought to humbly offer thanks that he has made us stewards of some of his resources for 80 -some years that we have here on his planet.

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He is the possessor of all. The third thing, there's an application found in contrast of Melchizedek and Berah.

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Both of them benefited from Abram's victory, but Melchizedek is looking for an opportunity to bless people.

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Could you be accused of being a person who's looking for an opportunity to bless others? I wonder about us.

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Sodom is concerned, Berah, the king of Sodom, is concerned for the result of this reshuffling of the kingdoms in that area.

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He wants to remain in charge of a kingdom, even if it's a poor kingdom. Give me the people. You get this image that he needs to be a king, okay?

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He needs to have a people. Regardless of whether all their wealth goes to Abram, I want to be in charge, and I don't even care if it's an impoverished kingdom as long as I've got people that are under me.

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And how does that relate to us? How quick are we to turn to blessing others?

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Do we use our words to build up others? Is there gratitude in our hearts? If we are in Christ, those things should come naturally, or becoming more natural.

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And if we're walking in the Spirit, and we're relating to God, then the way that we are seeking opportunities to bless others ought to be more and more frequent in our lives.

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But ask yourself, am I a person who is eager to bless others? Or am I quick to complain? Am I quick to draw others down?

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This is an area that God has convicted me of. Lastly, the last application

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I have comes from the New Testament perspective on this account. The New Testament talks quite a bit about Melchizedek, actually.

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Have you seen him in there? The author of Hebrews, the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, spends a lot of time comparing

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Jesus to Melchizedek in chapter 7 of Hebrews. If you're wondering where he's found in the New Testament, that's a primary place,

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Hebrews chapter 7. But the primary thing the author of Hebrews is concerned with in relating

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Melchizedek to Jesus is that Melchizedek is a priest out of nowhere. Don't know where he came from, don't know how he met

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God, don't know who his people were, don't know what tribe he comes from.

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Do we know anything about the history of Melchizedek? Nada. We don't know anything about who he is, and yet he shows up on the scene as a priest of God Most High.

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Suddenly in the middle of Genesis, where we think the only thing God is doing is about Abraham, Melchizedek shows up.

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And now in the New Testament, this is the relation to Jesus. When the only recognized priesthood comes through the line of Levi and works at the temple in Jerusalem and comes through Aaron, Moses's brother, bam, a priest shows up that doesn't even come from the line of Levi.

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He comes from the line of Judah. Priests don't come from Judah. Priests come from Levi. How can

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Jesus Christ be a priest? But the author of Hebrews says that there is a precedent for God to work this way, to raise up a priest on his own.

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And he points us back to Melchizedek as the example for how Jesus can be a priest.

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God is doing things out there in the world that we are not aware of. He is working his plan, and it is not all about recast church.

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It's not all about our way of thinking. It's not all about our race. It's not all about our class. It's not all about our nation.

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It's not all about our political view. It is about what

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God is doing, building his kingdom, and he can raise up even the New Testament, the

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Psalms talk about being able to raise up rocks to praise

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God. He can do what he desires to do, and he is doing it. And I would encourage you, recast, to not have a closed -minded view of what

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God is doing in the world. Some of you are in this room, and you come from a tradition that everybody is guilty, first, until they prove to you that they meet, they jump through certain hoops to be acceptable to your faith, right?

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Any of you raised in a church, in a church setting, in a spiritual setting, where everything, everything was, you were just speculative about everything.

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That's not the right word. You were, I can't think of the word, skeptical.

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Thank you. That's the word I was looking for. Not speculative. Skeptical of everybody and everything in faith.

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And you were raised in a very conservative background, where it was like, we don't do things with those people, because they don't know, they don't worship the

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God that we worship. Now, is there a line to draw there? Is there a time when we're talking about believing and unbelieving, where the core of our faith is what?

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Can anybody give me one word that is the core of our faith, the centerpiece, where we will stand strong and go to death for?

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Does anybody know? The cross. There's all kinds of words we could use. What's that? Okay.

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The gospel. That's the word I was looking for, but a lot of those, a lot of those things work. Jesus.

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The cross. That's the core. And we are, we are looking to partner with other people who believe in the gospel, right?

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That's, that's what we're looking for. But God is doing all that to say, God is doing something bigger, and I want you to have that mindset.

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That's the application point, is to consider, where have I judged others without contemplating and considering their relationship to the gospel?

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Because that's the core. That's the centerpiece. I just want to make that clear. One of the reasons, though, I shy away from time to time for giving specific applications, is that I fear that when

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I list these applications, you might write them down, and I fear that you will think that the Christian faith is primarily about going out and doing stuff.

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So you're sitting there, and you're writing this down, and you walk out, and you could walk out of here thinking, I need to have an active faith.

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Check. I need to thank God for my wealth. Check. I'll do that, you know, I can do that right now.

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Okay, got that one done. I need to speak words of gratitude to others. Check. I need to be gracious to those others out there that God is working with that believe the gospel.

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Check. And then think that you now have everything that God desires of you, and you could have missed everything, and still do those things.

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You get what I'm saying? You can do a lot of nice things, but without a changed heart, none of those things make a difference.

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The healthy order of a good life, a good Christian life, first looks like this. The order of these matter.

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Encounter God. Believe God. Obey God.

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That's the order of a rightly ordered life. Now you miss one of those elements, and you're doing something other than living a good

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Christian life. If you get those things in the wrong order, there's trouble there as well.

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Obeying God without encountering Him, without believing Him, without putting your faith in Him for salvation, is getting the cart before the horse.

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It's encounter God, believe God, and then obey

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God. And so we come to communion this week to remember the greatest priest of all, who did not bring lambs and goats to sacrifice, but brought himself to the altar and laid his own life down for us.

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He was not a priest in the order of Levi and Aaron from the Mosaic law, but he was an out -of -the -blue priest just like Melchizedek, a priest that broke the mold.

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And if you place your trust in the hands of that priest, Jesus Christ, then take the cracker to remember his self -sacrifice for you, his body that was broken for you, and take the juice to remember that he has indeed given his lifeblood as a sacrifice to cover your sins and to heal your broken relationship with God.

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Let's pray. Father, I rejoice that you have given us all that we need in Scripture to come to a true, genuine encounter with you as you are, the one who keeps promises, the one who is faithful.

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In the Old Testament, you make promises, and then we see those fulfilled throughout the New Testament, and it's glorious to live in the time and the era where we live, where we can see fulfilled promises, that we can see your faithfulness in the way that you have worked.

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Father, in our text, we see Abram, and it looks just like a military battle and a conquest, and he goes out and kicks up on these four kings and brings everybody back, and he's the victor, but ultimately, we find out at the end of the text, it's not him, it's you.

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You are the victor. You are the one who can conquer the things that we face in life. You are the one who is there.

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Father, I ask that you would open our eyes to see you as you are, and in gratitude, as we take communion, remember the body of Jesus that was broken for us, the blood of Jesus that was shed for us, the fulfillment of a promise way back then, that you would provide one of the offspring who would be a blessing to all nations, and we sit here in America, in Michigan, in Matawan, far removed geographically, far removed historically from those events of the cross, and yet we benefit from these promises that you made to Abram, fulfilled at the cross 2 ,000 years ago, and making a difference in our lives today, and I pray that we would walk out of here with faith to obey, to do these things that you have called us to do by the

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Holy Spirit alive in us and empowering us, that we would do so out of gratitude for you, in Jesus' name.

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Amen. Father, I thank you so much for making a way for us through your son, Jesus Christ. I ask that you would empower us to go out by the power of your

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Spirit in remembrance of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice made for us, our great and awesome high priest, who did not have to make sacrifices time and time again, but for once and for all entered into that holy place and offered himself for us.