Please open your Bible this evening to Genesis chapter 14. Genesis chapter 14. Last week in our series in Genesis, we considered the event where Abram and his nephew Lot parted company. If you think about it, they had traveled together many, many miles, all the way from Haran But the land where they were was too crowded for them and for all of their flocks and herds. And so they came to that point where there was tension among the herdsmen and Abram graciously gave Lot the first choice. He said, you choose. You decide which land you want to settle in and I'll go in the opposite direction. And so Lot did choose and Lot chose poorly. He pitched his tent toward Sodom. And we're going to see some of the consequences of that decision even tonight. It was a fateful choice, and it took Lot in a very dangerous direction. And we're going to see tonight the first signs of trouble, the first signs that Lot was associating with the wrong people. So follow along now as I read Genesis chapter 14. I'll read the first 12 verses. And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Ariok, king of Elessar, Kedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of nations. that these made war with Bera, king of Sodom, and with Bersha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Adma, Shem-Eber, king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, which is Zohar. All these were joined together in the Vale of Siddam, which is the Salt Sea. Twelve years they served Ketolaomer, And in the 13th year, they rebelled. And in the 14th year, came Kedoleomer and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaim and Ashtaroth-Carnaim, and the Zuzim and Ham, and the Amim and Shavah-Curyathan, and the Horites in their Mount Seir, unto El-Paran, which is by the wilderness. And they returned and came to En Mishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and all the Amorites that dwelt in Hazazon Tamar. And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Adma, and the king of Zeboim, and the king of Bila, the same as Zoar. And they joined battle with them in the Vale of Sidom. with Keddo Laomer, the king of Elam, and with Tidal, king of nations, and Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Ariok, king of Elessar, four kings with five. And the vale of Siddam was full of slime pits, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eschel, and brother of Aner. And these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, 318, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot and his goods, and the women also, and the people." Let's pray together. Our Father, we do ask for your help tonight as we study this somewhat complex passage, passage full of a lot of historical references, a lot of facts, and a lot of details. And I pray in the midst of all this that we would be able to come away with a very clear picture of the message that you would have for us from this passage. And I pray that it would be edifying to us in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, this is a chapter full of drama and intrigue, but also chock full of all kinds of facts and lots of information. And so we need to sort this out a little bit. The passage itself begins with a historical background to explain kind of what took place that led up to this conflict where Lot was taken captive. And so what I'd like to do tonight, I don't always do this, but I'm actually going to kind of teach the passage first. And so you're now going to be in a classroom, and I'm the teacher, and I'm going to teach you. Now, teachers these days will use the technology that they have available, so I'm going to use some technology here, and we're going to put a map on the wall. And I think you're going to find this helpful because, you know, a picture is worth a thousand words. And so I'm going to try to show you where some of these places are to the best of our ability to determine them, and help you to get a picture, kind of get the big picture of what's going on here. Well, as you can see at the beginning of the passage, there's these two groups of kings. There are these four kings against five kings. And for sake of clarity, what I'd like to do is refer to the four kings as the Eastern Alliance. And you'll see why I refer to them in that way. And then the five kings that are mentioned in verse two as the Southern Alliance. Now I'm making this up. This is not a biblical term, but I think by referring to them in this way will help to give us some clarity as we go along. That way I don't have to rattle off all those names, you understand. All right. Well, we don't know too terribly much about the kings themselves. In fact, the IVP Bible background commentary says this, quote, the kings of the East have remained stubbornly obscure despite numerous attempts to link them to historically known figures, end quote. And so we don't want to get involved in a lot of speculation, and I'm not going to try to identify which historical figure we think each of these kings maps to, but a couple of them are pretty clear, and I will mention that as we go along. But we can make an effort to locate the domains of these kings and I think we'll find that's helpful to get a little geography lesson here and to get an understanding of kind of where they're coming from and where this battle is taking place. So let me orient you on this map here a little bit. And I think I have a pointer here. Okay. And so you can see this is kind of the big picture. We've zoomed out. This is the Mediterranean Sea. That's a huge sea. But it looks pretty small on the map here. Way over here you have the Persian Gulf. We're familiar with that region of the world. And this is the Red Sea down here. And there's a couple fingers of the Red Sea that come up. One of them comes up into basically the land of Israel. And we're going to be talking about this region right here. This is the southernmost part of the Holy Land. But we have this whole region, this is called the Fertile Crescent. This whole region, this is desert here. But all along this region, look at all of the rivers there. You have the Euphrates River. You've got some major river systems that feed this whole area here. And so there's a lot of places that things can grow and people can live. And so all along here, you've got people inhabiting this land, all the way over here to the Holy Land. The Holy Land of Israel is right here. All right, so let's kind of walk now through these first four kings that are in the Eastern Alliance. And we'll start with the first king that's listed there. I'll just kind of go in the order, Amraphel, king of Shinar. Shinar is located in southern Mesopotamia, and that would be this region here. And the old name was Sumer. And the new name is Babylonia. Okay, so you kind of get a sense of that part of the world. What nation is existing in that part of the world today? Iraq. Okay, I heard it. Iraq. Okay, so that's Iraq in this general region here. And so the first king is located approximately right here. We can't really pinpoint it to exactly. And then we have the second king of this Eastern Confederation, and that's Arioch king of Elisar. And here is one where we have some likelihood of identifying this person in history. It is Rim Sin, king of Larsa. And Larsa is a known location located right here. And so I put the star next to Larsa there so you can get a sense that these two kings were roughly in this southern Mesopotamia region. And then there's the third king that's listed there, Ketolaomer. Sometimes you'll hear that pronounced in different ways because none of us know exactly how to pronounce it. Ketolaomer, for example, is another common pronunciation, but Ketolaomer would be the preferred pronunciation. His name means handful of sheaves. I get a sense here, here's somebody who's grasping onto something. He's grasping onto power and he's grasping onto possessions and material things. And he is from Elam. And Elam was the region farthest to the east. And so I put his star right there. And so you can see this is way far to the east. This would actually be pushing more into Iran, modern day Iran. But he is apparently a very powerful king in this confederacy. He's kind of the dominant king that is mentioned in this passage. Of these kings, he is mentioned the most times. He's mentioned again in verse 4 and verse 5 and verse 9 and in verse 17. So he is one we want to pay attention to as we go through this story. And then the fourth king, and I'm going to just admit here that I'm not sure where to put his little locating star. The best we can tell, Tidal, King of Nations. Tidal is a common name for Hittite kings. There were several known Hittite kings in history that had that name. And so we're going to assume that he is Hittite. But it's interesting here the way it reads in our Bible, Tidal, King of Nations. Nations is a translation of the Hebrew word goyim. And if you have another modern translation of the English Bible, very often the modern translations will actually stick with the original Hebrew. They'll just transliterate it, goyim, because we're not quite sure, the translators aren't quite sure, we're not quite sure what to make of that term, whether that's supposed to be a place or a people or if it should be translated and understood, nations. probably the most reasonable assumption is that he was king over a ethnically diverse group of people. And so he was referred to as the king of nations. That may very well be what's intended here. And if he was Hittite, then his domain would be way up there where I have this star in Anatolia, which is the eastern part of modern-day Turkey. In fact, when I went on the Journeys of Paul tour a few years ago, and we toured through Turkey and looked at some of the sites that are mentioned in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, we actually were in this region of Turkey and we saw in some museums some Hittite things, Hittite artifacts. And so it's very, very possible that he was located in this region. So he's farthest to the west over here. And so you have these four kings forming the Eastern Alliance. And the one king, Ketolaomer, seems to be the dominant one of the four. Well, let's go on and talk now about the kings of the Southern Alliance. The kings of the Southern Alliance were kings of five cities that were all located pretty close together in what's called the Vale of Siddam or the Valley of Siddam. which as our text tells us is the Salt Sea. So that's, I'm going to show you where they are located. Right here on the very southern end of the Dead Sea. Somewhere in that area we think this valley was actually the valley that forms the southern basin of the Dead Sea. So where you have the salt sea mentioned in the text here, that's a reference, of course, to the Dead Sea. So we have these five kings. We don't know much about them. Bera, king of Sodom. His name in the Hebrew means evil. So that's what a Hebrew would think of when they heard his name being pronounced. Bersha, king of Gomorrah. In the Hebrew tongue, the name means wicked. Shinab, king of Admah. The Hebrew for his name means the god Shin is father. And so there seems to be perhaps a reference to pagan idolatry here even in this person's name. And then there's Shem Eber, king of Zeboim, and his name may mean lofty flight. Not sure what to make of that exactly. And the king of Bela, which this was the old name, the newer name, which by the time this was written by Moses was renamed Zohar. This unnamed king is king over the fifth city then in this valley of Sidon. And what's interesting, if you know your Bible history, you know that all five of these cities were slated for destruction by the judgment of God. but one of them was spared. Do you remember which one? Which one of the five cities was spared at Lot's request? Zohar, okay? Zohar. But God was intending to destroy all five. And that's an important thing to keep in mind. Of course, we don't see that until we get to chapter 19 of Genesis, so we'll have to come back to that at some later time. Well, as we look at these five cities, the fact is that no definitive archaeological remains have been found of any of these five cities, probably because of the devastation that came about as a result of God raining down fire and brimstone and judging these cities. But even so, we don't really have any remains of that city as well. Many think some or all of these cities are now submerged under the southern basin of the Dead Sea. It's possible, even if you look at your text here in verse 3, it seems to equate the valley itself with the Salt Sea. So perhaps that is the case, but we just have to be kind of tentative on that conclusion. Based on the biblical data, what we do know is that these cities were located somewhere around the southern basin of the Dead Sea. And so we at least have a geographical reference to the location of those cities. So here's what happened. You've got these five kings in the Southern Alliance who were serving as vassal kings to Ketole Omer. They were basically paying an annual tribute to this great king. And they were doing this dutifully for 12 years. But in the 13th year, they rebelled. They stopped paying their tribute money. Now, Ketole Omer was not going to take that sitting down. He was not going to allow that to stand for long. And so what he decided to do is he rallied then the kings of the Eastern Alliance and they went on the war path and they just started conquering and slaying people. It was really a sweeping military campaign, the likes of which we seldom see even in biblical history. And so here's what happened. I've got a zoom in map here that shows you what the Holy Land is. And so remember, the Holy Land is right here. So we've zoomed in on that region. This is where Ketole Omer is going to bring his armies to do battle. All right. So we've zoomed in here and let me orient you again. This is the Mediterranean Sea on the map here. It's called the Great Sea. And then we have the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea. So again, these five cities are located down here at the bottom of this inset map. And that's where he's going to go. And so what I have shown here is basically a path that he's going to take. And the sense that we get here is Keteleomer which is located way over here in Elam. He takes his armies from his place and he starts journeying along and as he goes he picks up the next part of the army and the next part of the army and the next king's army and so by the time you get over here he's got a very huge army, a very capable army, four kings worth of army. Four great armies joined together. The battle force swelled to the point that it must have been just an intimidating force to see it coming. And so what they did then is they approached from the north. So they're making this great big arc, and then they're coming down. And on the inset map here, they're coming down on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, Dead Sea. They're going to sweep down this side. They're going to knock off a few cities on their way, and then they're going to sweep around like this, make a big arc, a big circle, and then they're going to, after they've kind of made this big circle here, it's kind of like tying a big rope around these five cities and tightening that rope, and then they're going to go in and attack those five cities. So does it help you to see that on the map? You can see what's going to happen here. So let me walk you through this. We're going to go to an even tighter, zoomed-in map. We're now looking at the northern part of the Holy Land. So again, to orient you, we've got the Sea of Galilee, just the upper Jordan, or the middle Jordan River, and then the top part of the Dead Sea. That's what you're seeing in this map. So Ketiliomer marched his army from Elam. He picked up these other fighting forces along the way. They started to go southward then, traveling along the King's Highway. This is a very major trade route that's been around for millennia. Even to this day, if you travel over there, you can actually travel on the King's Highway. And it's obvious that was the highway because that was the place to put the road. That was a good location for that road. And so they're traveling along the King's Highway and as they go southward, following the ridge line east of the Jordan River in a region that's commonly called the Transjordan, they first struck a city that is called Ashteroth Qurnayn. And this city is about 20 miles east of the Sea of Galilee. So I put kind of a, this is supposed to be, they call this an explosion in PowerPoint. Okay, so I put an explosion right there. We're pretty sure that that's about where that first attack was, the first city that they conquered. Here they are traveling along. Hey, let's conquer this city. And they conquer it. And then they went on south of there and went to Ham, south of Ashtoreth, and they conquered that city. And then they continued southward to Shavah-Qurathim, which is a city that means plain of the double city. And this would be about seven miles to the east of the Dead Sea. And so you can kind of see the path they've taken now. They've gone north to south along the King's Highway, and they wiped out three cities as they've been going along. All right, now I'm going to take you to the next map here. And I'm showing now the southern part of the Holy Land. And so now we see the Jordan River dumping into the Dead Sea, the Salt Sea. And this map is showing it as one continuous Salt Sea. There's some question about whether that's accurate or not. Even to this day, the Salt Sea is pretty much divided into two basins now. And this southern basin of the Salt Sea is very shallow. And so it could very well be that those five cities are somewhere submerged right there in that southern basin, or maybe around the coastline of the southern basin of the Dead Sea. All right, so I'm showing now Shavah Kirithim, the one attack there, and then we go on to the next place that they attacked. And here they swung an arc, and they're going around the Valley of Siddam, and they struck the Horites in the mountains of Seir. And this is a region south of the Dead Sea toward the Gulf of Aqaba. Now you may recognize that location, Mount Seir. Who settled in that region, do you know? Esau ended up settling in that region. And so the descendants of Esau, the Edomites, also are located down in this region, somewhere down here. Actually, let me just say, my map kind of cuts off here at the bottom. And if I could, I'd probably put that explosion a little bit lower than I have it here. All right, and then they went on and they struck El Paran. And our best guess at where this is, is this is the place that is now called Eilat. near the port of Aqaba in the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba. And so actually my explosion should be kind of a couple feet below the map. I kind of ran out of space here on the map. But it's pretty far south, pretty far south that they went. Okay, again, another city, conquer that city, wipe it out, devastate it, weaken it so that it has no military power. I want you to start thinking about their tactics that they're using here and why they're doing all this. Why are they conquering all these cities when really they're going after the five cities that are there in the Valley of Siddam? Let's think about that. Alright, at this point now they're going to circle toward the west. In our text we're kind of given a clue here in verse 7, and they returned, it says. The newer translations may say they turned. They made a turn. They had been going south all this time. They're now going to make a turn and go toward the northeast. And they're going to go over to En Mishpat, which is in Kadesh. And so that's somewhere in that region. That's a pretty big region. We don't know where to put that explosion. But somewhere they're conquering a city over in that direction. And then they complete their circuit and they go northward and they end up at Hazazan Tamar. And that town means grave dump with palms. How would you like to live in a town with that title? Grave dump with palms. But we're told in another passage in 2 Chronicles 20, verse 2, that this was an old name for En Gedi. And of course, En-Gedi is the place, it was basically an oasis west of the Dead Sea where David went when he sought refuge from King Saul. It's a beautiful place to go to. If you ever go to the Holy Land, try to get over to En-Gedi. I haven't actually been there. When we went to the Holy Land, we weren't, for some reason it was closed or something like that when we went there and so we weren't able to go. Makes me wanna go back to see En-Gedi. And so here we have them circling around the five kings in the Valley of Siddam. So this huge Confederate army of the four kings of the Eastern Alliance left this tremendous ring of carnage surrounding the five cities in the Valley of Siddam. Do you get a sense of what's going on here? What they are doing, here's their strategy. They're going to make sure that no one can come and help these five kings. No one. They're going to make sure that these five kings cannot take and flee their cities and go to anyone and seek refuge. They can't go anywhere. And what they've done is they've encircled these five kings and now they're going to zoom in on them and they're going to directly attack those five kings in their five cities. And so the battle is engaged here in the Valley of Siddam. It was four kings, the four kings of the east versus the five kings of the south, and the five kings lost. They were annihilated. They were devastated. The four kings of the east just totally conquered them. And verse 10 indicates that the king of Sodom and the king of Gomorrah fell into the slime pits. Now, we've actually dealt with that word before. That's not the best translation of the Hebrew word. The Hebrew word is sometimes translated asphalt. Sometimes it's translated tar or bitumen. We saw this same word in the context of the Tower of Babel. Do you remember that? We were talking about how the people at the Tower of Babel were using this material as mortar. And so they were using it to build things with. And our best understanding, if we understand the geology of this region of the world, this region is full of these tar sands. or sometimes they're called oil sands. And this would be naturally occurring oil that's right near the surface there. And so that's kind of what we're dealing with here. It's probably better to think of these as tar pits, tar pits that they fell into. Now, as you read that, you might naturally assume that they fell and died there. Does the text say that? No. In fact, it's important to realize that later on the king of Sodom is going to reappear toward the end of the chapter. We're going to get to that next time. And so he doesn't die in this tar pit. Apparently, and as we understand the Hebrew word, the Hebrew word that's translated fell allows for the possibility that they intentionally jump down into these tar pits in order to hide. And it probably would have been a good hiding place for them. And I think that would be the way we would understand it since the King of Sodom does reappear at the end of the chapter. Well, the point of verse 10 here in this passage is that the five rebel kings of the Southern Alliance, they were routed, they lost. And the conquerors plundered their five cities and they took everything that they could, everything of value was taken, everything. And Lot, who had pitched his tent towards Sodom in the previous chapter, is now found living in, residing in the city of Sodom with his wife and his daughters. He had taken up residence in the wicked city itself. And now Lot was experiencing the first terrible consequences of that choice that he made to pitch his tent toward Sodom. Lot was taken captive along with his wife and family and apparently along with all of his choice possessions and all the other residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. So it's a pretty devastating situation at this point. If this is where the story ended, it would be tragic, would it not? But the story doesn't end here. News of Lot's capture reaches the ears of Abram. We see in verse 13 that Abram is described as Abram the Hebrew. Now, this is the first occurrence in our Bibles of the word Hebrew. So I just want to point that out to you and take note that that refers to the race of people who descended from Abram. But the name itself derives from somebody much earlier when we were looking at those genealogies early in Genesis. In Genesis chapter 10, we came across the name Eber. And it's from his name that the name Hebrew derives. And so Abram is a descendant of Eber. But really when we talk about the Hebrews, we're talking about the descendants of Abraham. And so Abram was living, we're told, in the plain that belonged to Mamre the Amorite. And we're told that Mamre had two brothers, Aner and Eshcol. Now we wonder where this is. Where are they talking about? Where are they living? Well, it turns out that all three of these brothers have places named after them. It's kind of interesting, isn't it? You kind of get that privilege. If you're the first one to move somewhere, you can name that place after you. You know, I wish there were a Hockeyville somewhere, but there isn't. But there's a Walker, is it Walkerville? There's a Walkerville, Arkansas. And so there you go. You can have a place named after you. If you can't get a whole city, try to get a street named after you, something like that. OK, but all three of these brothers had places named after them. And so we can locate Mamre in Genesis chapter 23, verse 19. It is equated with the location of the town of Hebron. And so now I can kind of put that on the map here. There's where Abram is somewhere right over here to the northwest. somewhere west of the Dead Sea and northwest of those five cities that are being attacked by the Eastern Alliance. Alright, so the word got to Abram and he is going to do something. Abram is going to act. He's going to act decisively, but he's not going to act alone. We're told in verse 13 that Abram had formed a confederacy with these three brothers. They were confederate with Abram, it says. And it's interesting to note here that the Hebrew word that's translated confederate is the word berith. Now, I don't usually pronounce the original language words, but sometimes I do. I have done this before. Does that trigger a bell? Does that sound a bell in your mind? Berith, what does that mean? Do you remember? All right, it's the word that means covenant. It's the word that means covenant. And we first saw it in Genesis when God made a covenant with Noah. And now we're seeing it again, and this is the first time that we're seeing it used in terms of man-to-man, human-to-human, a covenant between people. And so it is that Abram had entered into a covenant with these three brothers, an alliance. I think it's pretty obvious when you step back and look at this passage as a whole, you begin to see that this idea of alliance is pretty clear in this passage. It's a dominating theme in this passage. There are several alliances here. We have the Eastern Alliance of the four Mesopotamian kings. You have the Southern Alliance of the five rebel kings. You have now Abram's alliance with these three brothers. And there is yet one more that's implied. And that is Lot's unwise alliance with the people of Sodom. I think there's a lesson here. I want to pause to make some application as we think about those alliances. You really need to be careful with whom you form an alliance. In other words, you need to choose your friends carefully because those friends can take you in one direction or another. If you associate with the wrong people like Lot did, you can be carried away with them. You can be taken captive with them. I wonder how many sad stories can be told of Christian teenagers who found themselves in tremendous trouble, perhaps even in jail, because they were hanging with the wrong crowd. associating with the wrong people who influenced them. They made the choices. They're still culpable for their choices. But they ended up in big trouble because they chose poorly. And so I really want to exhort all of us, but especially teenagers and especially college students, young people, you have your whole life ahead of you. Don't make such a poor choice in terms of your friends and associations and alliances. Be careful that you choose wisely. And I'm not talking, I need to clarify this because they may be thinking, well, I'm thinking maybe about their Facebook friends. No, I'm talking about your real life friends, the people you hang with and you spend time with. Choose those friends wisely. You can have 1,000 Facebook friends if you want. But the friends that you spend time with are going to influence you. And the truth is, folks, young people, you probably, you may very well need to unfriend some of those friends that you have, some of those people that you're hanging with. And so this is a warning for us to carefully evaluate our alliances. 1 Corinthians 15.33 gives us the New Testament principle, do not be deceived, bad company corrupts good morals. You hang with bad people, they're going to pull you down, you're not going to pull them up. And so let us take heed to the warning. Lot's association with Sodom resulted in him being taken captive. It was a terrible situation that he was in. He was helpless. You know, it was beyond his power to be able to get away. But thankfully, his uncle Abram came to his aid. His uncle Abram was determined to secure his release and Abram did act and he act instinctively, decisively and bravely when you think about the odds that he was up against. One thing that's interesting about this passage is this is the only incident in which we see Abram involved in some kind of military activity. And this particular military activity has all the hallmarks of a special ops mission. I don't know if you are into this kind of stuff and you study how the military trains people and they specialize. They're called special ops, special operations. Highly trained, a small group of soldiers that can be dropped in deep in enemy lines and accomplish a precision mission. And this has all the hallmarks of a modern day special ops mission. Take note, Abram arms a small group of 318 trained men, specifically indicates that they were trained. And this nimble group overtook the enemy in Dan. Now I want to stop here because Dan is an interesting name to think about. Very often most commentators assume that this is Dan Laish in the northern end of Israel. This is the Dan that we would think of today. This was the land where the tribe of Dan was. But I want you to think for a moment, had Dan come along yet at this point in time? No. And in fact, that region of Israel was renamed after Dan in honor of the patriarch. And so I think H.C. Leupold is correct in identifying a different Dan, Dan Ya'an, which is mentioned in 2 Samuel 24 6 to be the Dan that is in view here. And that Dan Ya'an is located east of the Dead Sea. And so what's happening here is that Abram is gathering up his small band and he's pursuing after the enemy. And the enemy has routed here, they've looted here, and now they're heading back north, I think, along the eastern side, basically retracing their steps, going back through the King's Highway. And they come along to Dan Yon. on the east side of the Dead Sea. That's where Abram and his small band catches up with the enemy. Now remember, this is a special ops mission, and so Abram uses special ops tactics. This would include a nighttime ambush. Picture this in your mind's eye. Now, they didn't have night vision goggles back then, but under the light of the moon, they were operating in darkness. It's a nighttime ambush and it was a sudden attack from multiple directions. Abram wisely divided his small band into groups and they attacked from multiple directions. This causes confusion with the enemy, especially when it's a surprise attack. The enemy doesn't even know what's going on. And all of a sudden, they're under attack from multiple directions. Normally, you think of yourself being under attack, you say, from which direction? Where is the enemy? But in this case, it's coming from multiple directions. It creates tremendous confusion. The enemy army was probably caught completely off guard. After all, they were overconfident. They had conquered all of these cities, seven cities before they got to those five southern cities. So 12 cities that they had conquered. Just one city after another fell, fell, fell. They were just a mighty army and nobody could, I mean, they had conquered everyone in the whole region. There weren't any enemies left, they thought. So they were not expecting an attack. And here comes Abram. And Abram defeated the enemy. And we're told that he pursued them to Hobah beyond Damascus, on the left of Damascus. That would be to the north even of Damascus. And Abram liberated all the prisoners and recovered all the spoils of war. Abram, the victor. Abram, the hero. But here's the real shocker. It wasn't his doing. You say, wait a minute, pastor, we're in this passage, Abram's the guy, he is the hero. No. I want you to drop down to verse 20. And we'll get to this passage next week and look at it in more detail. But later on, when Melchizedek encounters Abram, I want you to notice what Melchizedek says in verse 20, and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thine hand. That's the shocker. It's not Abram, it's God. God is the hero. God saved the day through Abram. Abram was his servant. Abram was the means that he used, but it was God who did it. It was God. God had given the victory. God is the true hero of the story. And so I want to focus on God now as we turn from the teaching time to the preaching time. I want us to consider this theme. We are never beyond the reach of God's mercy. We are never beyond the reach of God's mercy. God was tremendously merciful toward Lot. Think about what Lot had done. He pitched his tent towards Sodom. He went down and lived in Sodom. He got taken captive by the enemies of Sodom. God could have just written him off, but he didn't. And what we really see here is that even Lot was not beyond the reach of God's mercy. Isn't that a beautiful thought? So I'd like us to just quickly take note of four demonstrations of God's mercy in this passage. Number one, God preserves life. God preserves life. I want you to really reflect on this. Lot could have been killed. His wife could have been killed. His two daughters could have been killed. They all could have been killed. There were many, many people killed in this military crusade, but they were not killed. Their life was spared. And what's remarkable is not only was Lot taken alive and his wife and his daughters, but even it seems all of their livestock was also taken alive. The enemy had plans for that. They were going to have a big barbecue, but they didn't get to that point. You see, this was all the mercy of God. Tragedy does strike. Perhaps you've gone through a personal tragedy in your life. There's certainly been tragedies recently in the news over there in Paris. And whenever tragedy strikes, it really drives home the value of human life. whether it's a warfare or conflict or terrorism or some natural disaster, it just highlights the value of human life. You think about what happens when a person's, when a family's house burns down, and they lose everything in that fire, all of their precious possessions, not only the things of value, but the things of sentimental value, all lost. What do you hear such a person say? Well, at least we all made it out alive. It's the value of human life that's highlighted in tragedy. Well, let's remember, who is it that preserves life? It's God. God is the author of life and he is the sustainer of life. He numbers our days. He preserves us alive every day that we live. And so it is that God preserved Lot's life and the lives of his family members. God is in control. God is the one who determines whether somebody lives or they die. And we see that highlighted in the story of Job. Remember that when Satan was looking for opportunities to cause trouble and to show that Job wasn't going to be loyal to God? What did God say to Job? He told Satan, in effect, you can trouble him, but you can't touch his life. God is the one who preserves life. And I think it's pretty evident to all of us here that Lot did not deserve such mercy from God. Really, he had made some poor choices, not just one, but a series of poor choices. And there he was living right there in Sodom, and we're told in Genesis 13, but the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. Somewhere along the way Lot came to understand that, but he still chose to live there. And what's really tragic as we come to the end of this story and he's rescued and he's brought back alive, where does he go back to? Sodom. He really should have learned his lesson here. He really should have seen the warning signs that he was in the wrong place and hanging with the wrong people. But he went right back. God preserves life. We're never beyond the reach of God's mercy. Lot was taken alive. And even in our day, we see that God preserves life. This is a demonstration of God's mercy. The second demonstration of God's mercy in this passage is that God alerts his servant. Of course, I'm referring to Abram. God alerts his servant. God was orchestrating the whole thing. He was in control. He was sovereign. By God's mercy, one person escaped who could be the messenger to bring the news to Abram. One person escaped. Perhaps only one escaped. But that's all it took to accomplish God's purposes. God used this one to bring the news to Abram and God alerted his servant Abram, who, of course, God used. And we can trust God to do this whenever we find ourselves in need or in great distress And we can trust that God is going to inform His servant or servants of our needs. And we can cry out confidently in prayer unto God and we can say, Lord, help me. And we can be sure that He will send help. Very often, this is communicated. God alerts His servants in the context of the church. And so it is that we ought to know one another and fellowship with one another and be aware of one another's needs and the needs that we have here in the body. And this is a great blessing that I see as a pastor time and time again. Members of our assembly springing to the aid of those who have some need or who are in danger or who are hurting. So praise God for what he does through the body of Christ. God alerts his servant. This certainly we see this time and time again in the scriptures. Think of another major time when God heard the cries of his people who were in bondage in Egypt. And what did he do? He alerted his servant. He chose Moses to lead those people out of bondage. We are never beyond the reach of God's mercy. Never. Can I hear an amen to that? We are never beyond the reach of God's mercy. He preserves human life. He alerts his servant. Thirdly, God gives his servant courage. You know, what Abram did was remarkably courageous. He didn't have many, only 318 armed men. He was going up against an army that had wiped out city after city after city. No one could oppose this army. They seemed unstoppable. Who was Abram? Who were Mamre and Eshcol and Aner? Who were these guys to go up against such a fierce fighting machine? Does this not remind you of another situation in the Bible? where somebody was significantly outnumbered and God gave them victory. Who am I thinking of? Who? Okay, Jonathan, you know, I didn't actually think of that one. Okay. Who else can you think of? Gideon. Okay. That's who I thought of. But brother, you're right. You're right. Jonathan is also true. I think of Gideon. God had chosen Gideon to lead the battle against the Midianites. Remember that? Now, was Gideon some great, brave soldier? No. He seemed kind of timid, not real sure of things. But God gave him faith and God gave him courage. Remember the interchange between God and Gideon? Basically, I'm going to paraphrase here. God says to Gideon, you have too many. Why don't you thin the ranks? And so Gideon thinned the ranks. And then God says again to Gideon, you still have too many, thin the ranks some more. So he's thin the ranks some more. There are only 300 left. And in Judges 7, 7, it says, And the Lord said unto Gideon, by the 300 men that lapped, will I save you and deliver the Midianites into thine hand. And so, folks, God can use a small fighting force to accomplish his purposes. I think of that very truth-packed saying that's around, little is much when God is in it. Little is much when God is in it. Gideon had not been known as a man of courage and yet God gave him the courage to lead this small band up against the Midianites and gave them victory. And so it is that Abram went forward in faith with this small group and he was strong and courageous. God had told Joshua later on in the conquest of the Holy Land, God had told Joshua, be strong and courageous. And God tells all of us, his servants, to be strong and courageous because he's the one that will give the victory. The sweet psalmist of Israel, David, wrote this in Psalm 27, I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord, he says. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord." That is to look to the Lord. Look to Him for your strength. Look to Him for your courage. He will give the victory. Oh, that we would have the courage of Abram to go into battle against our spiritual enemies, believing that God would give the deliverance. Oh, that we would have the courage of Moses to face the powers that be and say, thus saith the Lord. Oh, that we would have the courage of David to defend the honor of the Lord, even in the face of giants. Oh, that we would have the courage of Daniel to do what is right, even if it meant being thrown to the lions. Oh, may we pray that God would give us such courage as these great men of faith had. And we can have courage like this, because courage like this is not mustered up within us. Courage like this is a gift from God. He gives us that courage. It comes from confidence in the Lord. And so we see we're never beyond the reach of God's mercy. God preserves human life. He alerts His servant. He gives His servant courage. And fourthly and finally, God grants deliverance. He grants deliverance. Abram and a small band of 318 men defeated the enemy. They set them to flight. They chased them down for miles and miles and miles all the way to the north. They set the captive free and they recovered the spoils of war. It really was a convincing victory for Abram and his small fighting band. It was a complete deliverance. Lot and his wife and his daughters were all safe. They were all set free, all rescued. And as Melchizedek points out, verse 20, it was a God-given deliverance. How many times has God delivered his people from the hand of the enemy? How many times has the Lord given deliverance from the very clutches of death? What's the answer? Many, many times. Because God is faithful. God is powerful. God grants deliverance. May we therefore have the confidence of the psalmist David who writes once again in Psalm 18, the Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust, my buckler and the horn of my salvation and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised. So shall I be saved from mine enemy. Let us have that kind of faith. We can't have that kind of faith because we are never beyond the reach of God's mercy. That's what we've seen in this passage. Lot found himself in great trouble. He put his whole family in great danger. But he was not beyond the reach of God's mercy. God preserved his life. God alerted his servant, Abram. God gave his servant courage. God granted Lot deliverance. So let us never think that we are beyond the reach of God's mercy. Our Father, we thank you for this precious truth. We thank you that as we look in this passage, though you are not mentioned by name in the narrative itself, it is made abundantly clear to us through the words of Melchizedek that this was all your doing. This was your mercy on display for us to see even today. to realize that Lot had got himself in great trouble, but You gave the deliverance. O Lord, may we have the faith of these men who have courage to go up against fierce enemies, significantly outnumbered, outgunned, and yet with You there can be deliverance. May we have that kind of faith, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.