Now if you'll turn to Genesis chapter 14, it's like it's been forever since we've been in the book of Genesis together. I'm looking forward to being back in it with you this evening. I'm going to read the entirety of the chapter, beginning with verse 1. It came to pass in the days of Amphiphel, king of Shinar, Ariok, king of Eleazar, Chedorlamer, king of Elam, entitled king of nations, that they made war with Bera, king of Sodom, Bersha, king of Gomorrah, Shainab, king of Adma, Shemavir, king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, that is, Zoar. All these joined together in the Valley of Sidin, that is, the Salt Sea. Twelve years they served Chedorlamer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year, Chedorlamer and the kings that were with him came and attacked the Rephiam in Ashtoreth-Carnam, the Zuzim in Ham, the Enim in Shavah, and the Horites in their mountain of Seir, as far as El-Paran, which is by the wilderness. Then they turned back and came to En-Meshpat, that is, Kadesh, and attacked all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, who dwell in the Hazazon Tamar. And the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Adma, the king of Zebulim, and the king of Bila, that is, Zoar, went out and joined together in battle in the valley of Siddim, against Shaddam, king of Elam, Tidal king of Nations, Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Ariok, king of Eleazar, four kings against five. Now the valley of Siddim was full of asphalt pits, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled. Some fell there, and the remainder fled to the mountains. Then they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their provisions, and went their way. They also took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eschol, and brother of Anar, and they were allies with Abram. Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, He armed his 318 trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan. He divided his forces against them by night, and he and his servants attacked them, and pursued them as far as Hoba, which is north of Damascus. So he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the valley of Shaba, that is the king's valley, after his return from the defeat of Shaddam and the kings who were with him. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tithe of all. And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons and take the goods for yourself. But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have raised my hand to the Lord, God most high, the possessor of heaven and earth. And I will take nothing from a thread to a sandal strap and that I will take. I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say I have made Abram rich, except only what the young men have eaten. And the portion of the men who went with me, Aner, Eskel and Mamre, let them take their portion. When we last left the book of Genesis and we studied together Chapter 13, What we saw was Abram the peacemaker. Because if you remember, what had happened is God had blessed both Abram and Lot with plenteous material possessions, particularly in terms of livestock. And the land had gotten to where it could not support both men at one time. And so there was contention and strife that arose between the herdsmen. The strife was, well, am I sheep, am I cattle, am I oxen going to get the best of the pasturage or yours? And so there was this conflict that began to happen. Well, Abram took the initiative to be a peacemaker, and as we noted, it is entirely right that Abram could have said, I'm the older man. I am the one whom God called out of the other land and told me I was going to inherit this land. I'm going to pick the spot I want and you go somewhere else. But instead, he did just the opposite. He humbled himself and he says, you pick wherever you want to go a lot and I will go. If you go to the right, I'll go to the left. You go to the left, I'll go to the right. You see, because if we're going to be peacemakers, we have to, first of all, die to ourselves. We've got to humble ourselves. We've got to give up our rights. And here was Abram, the greater man, the older man. And yet he's humbling himself and giving Lot the first dibs. Well, unfortunately, Lot very foolishly took advantage of this offer. And as he made his decision, he made carnal decisions. He did not make his decision on where he was going to move based on spiritual priorities. Because he found the area, the well-watered land around Sodom and Gomorrah and said, that's where I want to go. The Bible says he lifted up his eyes and looked. And it reminds us of the language of Eve looking up at the forbidden fruit and seeing that was pleasant to the eye. He saw something where he could gain more materially and financially. And he says, that's where I'm going to go. But he never stopped to think, what will the cost be spiritually to my wife? and to my children. And as we're going to see, God willing, coming weeks and months, it cost them everything. It cost them their souls, it cost him all his material possessions, everything he would lose because he made a very foolish decision. But in contrast to Lot lifting up his eyes after the narrative tells us of him settling the Song of Gomorrah, it tells us that God himself said to Abram, now lift up your eyes. In other words, here was a man who lifted up his own eyes. But now I'm telling you, lift up your eyes, look on the land in every direction, turn around every all four points of the compass as far as your eye can see. That is what I'm giving to you and to your descendants. So here was this man who had humbled himself. And yet, as he humbles himself, God has now highly exalted him. So Chapter 13, we see Abram, the peacemaker. But when we come to Chapter 14, we see Abram, the man of war. We see him waging war, and it's not a contradiction from what we've seen in chapter 13. But what I was set forth before you is this. The scriptures do not give us two dimensional views of God's people. They give us multifaceted views of who these men were. And we see here a man who was a peacemaker, but who, when it was time to fight, he was ready to fight. And so I want to talk to you about these verses under three basic, simple headings, because in all of them, what we see is Abram's response. First of all, we see Abram's response to Lot's captivity. Secondly, we see Abram's response to the king of Salem, namely Melchizedek. And third, we see Abram's response to the king of Sodom. And so these are the things that we see in this verse or in these verses. The first thing is Abram's response to Lot's captivity. And I trust you will humor me and understand if I do not try to read to you the names of all these kings again, because it's very difficult to read. But let me give you a summation of what happens in verses one through twelve. What happened was there were five kings and kingdoms situated south of the Dead Sea. That's where Solomon Gomorrah, many scholars believe, was. But here were these five nations in confederation with one another. And here, from your perspective, to the east, over what is now modern-day Iraq, the land of Shinar, which is where Babel and Babylon are, about 600 miles to the east, this group of four kings, decides that they want to come and attack these men who are at the base of the Dead Sea, and take them captive. So they do so. They subdue them, and basically what they wanted from them then was an annual payment of tribute. And so, for 12 years, they pay the tribute. But in the 13th year, they decide, we're sick and tired of paying the tribute to these kings in the East, we're not going to pay it this year. So it passes by, the 14th year comes up, and the men in the East say, enough is enough. They're not going to be paying us our tribute that they're supposed to pay us. We're going to go and we're going to invade them and we're going to take it by force. So what do they do? They travel, they mount up apparently a huge force of men to come over to the south of the Dead Sea. And while they're there, they not only attack those five kings, the Bible indicates they went even farther south and attacked some of the other places in the place. So they became a major thorn in the side to all the inhabitants of Canaan. They come up, they start fighting with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and the rest. Those men are in confederation and the emphasis is there. You have four kings, an inferior number going against five kings. But despite that, they were obviously mighty men of valor because they send these men to flight. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, they start running away. There were many asphalt pits in that place. Some men fell in the asphalt pits. The implication seems to be they did so fatally. They fell into these pits and died. The others escaped. They get up into the mountain ranges and hide away from it. But here you have either your entire armed force is either in an asphalt pit or they're cowering up hiding in the mountains. That leaves all their cities open and unprotected. So the kings from the east take their armies, they march through Sam Gamora, they march through all the cities, they take everything of any worth or value from all the possessions they take from the land. And they even take the people who are still living in the land who had not gone out to war, all the civilians, including Lot and his wife and his children. They take him into captivity and then they travel due north about 100 or so miles up north from where the battle had taken place. And that's when we find Abram coming into the picture. Because now that all that's going on has had nothing to do with Abram, but now they've messed with his family. Now they've messed with his nephew Lot and his family, and he feels the obligation as the nearest of kin to defend his family and to rescue his nephew Lot. So we read in verse 13. Then one who had escaped, one who had not fallen in an asphalt pit, apparently wasn't up in the mountains, one who escaped from the battle came and told Abram the Hebrew. first time in our Bibles that we encounter the word Hebrew. It means literally son of Eber or descendant of Eber. Eber is the man spoken of back in the Table of Nations in Genesis chapter 10. But now we find he's a descendant of Eber, but it seems to be that there's a very proper reason for calling him Abram the Hebrew. Back in Genesis 12, what did God say? Get out of your father's land to a place I'll show you and I will make of you a great nation and we know that Abram is the father of the Hebrews. So, the entire point is to say God's promises are true. This man has a distinctive title. Among all the nations, this man is Abram the Hebrew, the father of the Hebrews. So, he makes that very clear and it has to do with God's promises. For he dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eskel and brother of Anar and they were allies with Abram. So these surrounding clans and nations had made alliances with Abram. God had promised, those who bless you, I will bless. And it seems these men discerned that and realized, hey, God blesses those who are blessing to Abram. So we're going to ally ourselves together. We're surrounded by lawless nations. We're going to be allies together and protect one another in case we are ever invaded or anyone encroaches upon our territory. And so that's what happened. So it says verse 14. Now, when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his 318 trained servants who were born in his house and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And there's something very interesting here that I find as I studied this. He had God had promised Abram, I will protect you. I'll be your shield and I'm going to protect you. But that did not keep Abram from taking precautions. When this conflict came up, he already had 318 male servants inside of his own house whom he had already trained in the art of warfare. He had trained them to fight. And he had an armory of swords and spears ready for them to use if ever the need should arise. So he made at least three preparations. First of all, he was in confederacy with some other nations. Secondly, he had trained 318 of his men to be ready in case a fight came, and he had an armory of weapons ready to arm those men in case it ever became necessary. I just got through reading not long ago a fascinating account of our President James Garfield. James Garfield I knew nothing about until I read this book. He was of our four presidents who had been assassinated. He was the second to be assassinated after Abraham Lincoln. But he made this statement during his policy. He was known in his politics for not being a combative kind of man. But he made the comment, he says, I don't go looking for a fight, but if a fight comes to my door, the person bringing the fight will find me at home. In other words, I'm prepared to defend myself if necessary, but I'm not going to go looking for a fight. Well, that's exactly what we see in Abram. He's not looking for a fight, but the fight has come to his doorstep because his nephew and his family have been captured and taken away. Verse 15, when I read verse 15, I'm something of a Civil War buff, and I can't help but think of Robert E. Lee when I read about this, because it's the kind of tactics Robert E. Lee would have used. He divided his forces against them by night. Now, bear in mind, this is a group of kings, four kings who have just ousted five kings. They're obviously military. As far as their military is concerned, they're mighty. And they've taken the spoils, they've gone up north. But Abramson takes 318 servants, plus his confederates, his fellow men who had confederated with him, and he goes up with an inferior force and then divides that force in front of greater numbers. Well, several advantages come from that. For one thing, He could outflank them on different sides. He could give the illusion that they had far greater numbers than they did. Robert E. Lee did this constantly throughout the Civil War. He would divide his forces in the face of greater numbers, and the enemy would think that there were far greater numbers coming against them than there really were. He also came by night, which meant he came by stealth. In other words, he was able to sneak up on them and surprise them. And this time, when he brings the battle, It's not the other people running is the four kings who are running as fast as they can go, leaving behind all the goods that they've stolen from the various cities, leaving behind all the people that they've stolen, including Lot and his family. So verse 16, he brought back all the goods and also brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people. And the king of Sodom will not meet him at the valley of Shavuot as the king's valley after his return from the defeat of Shadrach, Lamar and the kings who were with him." Now stop here and think about this. This is perhaps one of the first ever recorded battles in history. Now there were battles before this, we're pretty confident, but this is the first time we have one recorded for us in scripture. Here was a man who had just almost single-handedly delivered the Canaanites from a major problem, a major thorn in their side. What do you think the response of the citizens of Canaan was going to be to Abram when he came back? Popularity? Fame? Riches? All that? But that is not why Abram fought. Abram fought for one simple reason. to win back his nephew, Lot. And that was it. And that is what he did. That's what he accomplished, which speaks highly of him. Because think about it. Abram could have said, you know what? I gave Lot the choice of the land. And what did he do? He goes off, has a worldly ambition. He's made his own bed. He can just sleep in it. But instead, he literally was willing to risk life and limb to pursue this army. Hunt down with superior numbers so that he could rescue his brother's son and his family. And that's what he did. So there is a righteous motive behind what he did. It wasn't, let me get fame, let me get riches. It was the motive of, I need to protect my extended family. That was what motivated him. So we see then his response to Lot's captivity. Let's move on to their second point, which is his response, Abram's response to the king of Salem. Verses 18 through 20 are extraordinary, because this man Melchizedek just comes out of nowhere. We've never heard of him before. As a matter of fact, he comes in for these three verses. We get to hear him say a thing or two, do a couple of things, and then he disappears into the mists of time again. And you'll never hear of him again for a thousand years when the Holy Spirit of God will move David to write Psalm 110. And as he writes Psalm 110, he suddenly says, you are preached forever according to the order of Melchizedek. What disappears again? And it's not as a thousand more years before you ever hear him again. And finally, the spirit of God moves the writer to Hebrews to write about him for free for three chapters. And he takes this account in the book of Genesis. He takes what God moved David to write in Psalm 110, combines them together, explains who is this and what's the significance of it. So there's a fascinating thing going on here. And yet this man just he comes out of nowhere and then disappears right into the midst of time. Very strange man, but extraordinary man, as we will see. But let's see what happens. First of all, who was he? Lydon El-Kissedek, king of Salem. So he's the king of a city called Salem. Salem was not far from Bethel, where Abram lived. Less than 20 miles, actually. But Salem would later be renamed. It would have a prefix put in front of it called Jerusalem. Jerusalem. This is where Jesus would later inaugurate the Lord's Supper. And this is the place where he would die. So it's the king of Jerusalem, Melchizedek is. He's the king of Salem, brought out what? Bread and wine. Isn't that strange? Where have we heard bread and wine before? We had bread in a cup this morning from the Lord's Supper. He brings out to him the elements of the Lord's Supper from Jerusalem. That's interesting. Next thing is interesting is he was the priest of the Most High God. So in this one verse, we found out he's a king. He brings out the sign of the new covenant to Abram and he's a priest. Now, when the book of Genesis was originally written, the people of Israel were where? They're in the wilderness. They're waiting to go into Israel. But it was while they're in the wilderness that God established the priesthood, the priesthood under Aaron. the Levitical priesthood, and God is very clear in his law and the people of God would have understood this by this time that a priest, there's only one person who can serve as a priest and that's the Levites. Moses was a Levite, Aaron was a Levite, but you were forbidden, if you were not of the tribe of Levi, you could not be a priest at all. As a matter of fact, later history, we know some things that happened in Israel's history. He's waiting, he's about to go into battle, he's waiting to go into battle, he's waiting for Samuel to come, who was a Levite, a priest, to come and offer the sacrifice to God, but he gets anxious because Samuel's coming's been delayed, so what's he do? This Benjamite presumes to offer the sacrifice himself, and no sooner has he gotten through burning it, finally Samuel shows up, and what's he do? He rebukes him. And he says, if you had obeyed the Lord, The kingdom of your kingdom would have been established, but you have taken a prerogative that is illegal for you to take. It is contrary to God's law for you to offer such a sacrifice. As a matter of fact, there was another king later, Uzziah. He would rush in. He was from the tribe of Judah. He would rush into the temple, presume that he was going to offer the sacrifice. The priest said, no, you're not allowed to. But he presumed to do so anyway. And immediately leprosy struck his forehead and he was made a leper. He was isolated and cut off from the people of Israel and stayed a leper till the day of his death. Because if you're going to be a priest, you have to be a Levite. The kings were not permitted to be priests. And yet here's this mysterious man, Melchizedek. who is both a king and a priest. And yet he's not a descendant of Aaron. As a matter of fact, he's not even a descendant of Abram. As a matter of fact, we don't know who he's a descendant of. He just comes out of nowhere. He's the king of Jerusalem, but he's a king and he's a priest. And he has with him the elements of the Lord's Supper. Interesting. Well then, verse 19, it says, And he blessed him. That is, Melchizedek blessed Abram. And the writer to the Hebrews wants us to understand, without question, the greater Blesses the lesser. Implication being this, this man Melchizedek, whom Moses gives all three verses to, is greater than Abram. Isn't that something? And he blessed him and he said, Blessed be Abram of God most high, possessor of heaven and earth. That is, God possesses heaven and earth. He owns all things in the spiritual realm. He owns all things in the earthly realm. Now, does that remind you of something? What did Jesus say in Matthew 28? All authority has been given to me where heaven and on earth spiritual realm in the temple realm, the material realm. And here is Melchizedek speaking of God, the father, being the possessor, the owner of all things in heaven and on earth and blessed be God most high. Now he blesses Abrams God. Who has delivered your enemies into your hand? Very important point here. Abram is the one who prepared in the contingency of if there was ever going to be battle. He trained his servants. He armed them, had weapons nearby. He's the one who had gone the hundreds of miles northward to rescue Lot and labored all night and fought in this mighty battle. And yet what Melchizedek is saying is he has no right to take credit for the victory because it was God himself who gave the victory gave the enemies into the hand of Abram, which tells us something again about the motives that got himself sanctioned Abrams movements because God wouldn't have blessed him if he didn't, if he was living in sin against him. And then a strange thing. And he gave him a tide of all that is Abram gave Melchizedek 10% off the top of all the spoils of war that he had brought back from, from the captivity from the battle. Now, you give tithes to a greater than yourself, don't you? Again, he's acknowledging that this man, this mysterious king and priest, is greater than he is. Now, I have a lot more to say about Melchizedek, but I'm going to save it for the end. But this was his response. He receives the bread and the wine from Melchizedek. He acknowledges by his giving of the tithe that Melchizedek is greater than he. And the very fact that Melchizedek blessed Abram means that Melchizedek was greater than Abram was. We're going to come back to that in a moment. We've seen Abram's response to Lot's captivity. Secondly, Abram's response to the king of Salem. And finally, Abram's response to the king of Sodom. His response to the king of Sodom, a man named Barah, is very, very different from his response to Melchizedek. Melchizedek, he gladly receives from his hand the bread and the wine. He gives him a tenth of all he has, but he's going to respond very differently to the King of Sodom. And verse 17 seems to indicate the King of Sodom had been standing here watching all this happen. He's heard Melchizedek say what he's saying, and perhaps not to be outdone by Melchizedek, he now starts talking to Abram. Verse 21 says, Now the King of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons and take the goods for yourself. It's understood in ancient times. If you're the conqueror, military conqueror, you get to keep the loot. You get to keep it for yourself. He says, return my citizens to me, but you keep all of our wealth, all the things that were plundered and stolen from Solomon Gamora. You keep it for yourself. You get riches. Now, you could imagine the temptation for Abram to say, hey, God's already given me the land of Canaan, and now he's going to give me all these spoils and all these things to make me rich, richer than I already am. That was not Abram's response. Verse 22, But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have raised my hand to the Lord and God most high, the possessor of heaven and earth. He's the same language of Akizek is used. I will take nothing from a thread to a sandal strap and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich. Now, what's interesting is, first of all, Abram saying he had already thought about this long before the king of Sodom said anything. I have raised my hand. I have sworn an oath. I have made a covenant before my God. I will take nothing of yours, lest you could ever say to anybody, hey, I made him rich. Now, why? Back in chapter 13 and verse 13, the Bible says the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. Probably given what we know about song or more this man himself was a homosexual. This man was a sodomite. This was a very evil wicked man. And the reason Abram was a blessed man was because he was connected to God most high. He bore the name of God upon him and he was saying in essence while I am not ashamed to be identified with the king of Salem of Kisadek I will not be associated with you. And I will not have you saying you made me rich with anything. In other words, he's saying, I will not have your name, my name associated with yours. This is a very strong rejection that he's giving this man and saying, I'm not affiliated with you. I fought for the sake of my nephew here. I fought for the Lord, but I'm not fighting for you. And you can take all your possessions back because you're not going to say you made me rich. Two exceptions only to that is verse 24, except only with the young men of Eden. Here are my mighty men of valor who have worked hard, labored hard. They've received some food and water from you. That's due to them. That's their payment. You haven't made them rich, you've just given them what you owe them. And then he says this, but also Aner and Askel and Mamre, let them take their portion. In other words, here's the men who've confederated with me to fight. I am not going to be made rich by you, but they have a right to the plunder and I'm not going to put my conscience and their consciences with it. I'm going to let them have the freedom. to take it, but I have chosen to set aside my right so that I'm not affiliated with you in any way, shape, or form. So we see his response to King Sodom was a very different thing to his response to the King of Salem at whose hand he gladly received the bread and the wine and also to whom he gave a tenth of all the spoils. Let's make some applications of the things that we have seen tonight. First application is this. It is perfectly lawful for Christians to defend their families, their homes, and their nations from those who would do them harm. Abram had prepared for the possibility that the lawlessness around him would eventually make its way to his doorstep. He had made an alliance with some others around him so they would mutually protect one another. He had trained his male servants so they knew how to fight, and he had laid up arms to prepare to arm them. And Melchizedek acknowledged that it was God himself who gave his enemies into Abram's hand. The point is simply this. There are times when we as Christians may be called upon to defend our families and our homes. And we are exactly right to do it. We don't have to set aside our faith. in order to defend our homes and our families. Perhaps some of you have seen in the news that on New Year's Eve, there was an 18-year-old woman who had just literally buried her husband. He had died of cancer. It's strange because an 18-year-old woman burying a young husband that long, just the Thursday before she had buried him, I believe it was. Christmas Eve, excuse me, New Year's Eve, she was alone with her baby son, and two men came to her door. And they knock on the door, and she opened it partway, and they tried to force their way in. She saw something glint in one of their hands. It turned out later it was a 12-inch hunting knife. They burst into the home. She grabbed her son, ran into her bedroom, locked the door, barricaded as best she could, got out her two dead husband's shotguns, I guess it was, or guns, set them on the couch in front of her. Her baby, gave the baby a bottle so that he wouldn't cry. And they were starting to try to break into the home. And it's very obvious they were going to do her bodily harm. She called 9-1-1, and she said, am I authorized to shoot these people if they come in my room? And the dispatcher said, ma'am, I cannot counsel you with that. I can't tell you what to do. But you've got to do what you've got to do to defend your son and yourself. Well, the first man burst into the room, and she shot him, killed him. The other man ran away, but he was caught soon thereafter. And she was asked the question if she regretted killing this man. And she said, no, it was either going to be my baby son or it's going to be him. And it wasn't going to be my baby son. She did exactly what was right in defending her home. And if I put it this way, I go down the Silver Comet Trail all the time on my bike to get my exercise. That's how I get my exercise. There is a criminal element that sometimes surfaces on the Silver Common Trail. There's a woman two years back who was murdered there. If I, as a man, came around a corner and there was a group of men attacking someone else, beating them, trying to do them bodily harm, would I have to set aside my faith in order to defend that person who is suffering? As a matter of fact, I would say not only would I not be setting aside my Christian faith, I believe I would sin if I did not rush to their defense. Now granted, I would call 9-1-1 on my cell phone and call the police, but if something had to be stopped right there, as a man, I would feel like less than a man and less than a Christian if I did not arise to defend the innocent if they're being pummeled. It is my job to defend. Now, I hope I never put in that scenario. I don't want to be put in that situation, and I don't want to ever have to take anyone's life. But I believe there is precedent here, and we find Abram doing that very thing. In order to defend his family, he arose and took up arms and even used violent force in order to deliver his family from evil and wicked intentioned kings. So the point here is there is a place for self-defense as believers in Christ. But of course, this is not the main point I want to make. The second thing I want to set before you is this. Who was this King Melchizedek? Who is this extraordinary man? Well, as I told you, comes in here for three verses and he's gone again. Don't see him again for a thousand years until we come to Psalm 110. Turn there with me, if you will. Did you know that Psalm 110 is the most frequently quoted Old Testament text of scripture anywhere in the New Testament? It is quoted more times than any other Old Testament scripture. You may remember that Jesus quoted it in Matthew 22. The Pharisees had tried to corner him with a question, and he got his way out of it by asking them a question. The Sadducees tried to trap him. They couldn't do it. Now, the scribes came and tried to trap him. Well, finally, Jesus himself asked them a question, and the question came from Psalm 110, verse 1. It's a psalm of David. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. And it was understood by the Jewish rabbis at the time, the scribes, that this was speaking of the Messiah, David's son. And Jesus asked the question, how is it that David, writing by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, calls his son the Lord? How can the one man who is David's son also be David's Lord? And of course, they couldn't answer. They didn't know how to answer that. And so they were perplexed. And after that, they dare not question him anymore. And of course, what he was getting at was this. The Messiah is David's son. He is Jesus Christ. But this one who is David's son is also David's Lord and David's creator. He is both God and man at the same time. That was the point. But what we're saying in this verse is this. The Lord said to my Lord, that is one person that God has said to another person, God had the father said to the son, the father said to the Messiah, sit at my right hand. I'll make your enemies your footstool. Where is Jesus right now? He's at the right hand of God. His enemies are being made his footstool right now. The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion rule in the midst of your enemies. Now, again, the language of ruling. That's the office of a. King, isn't it? So this one at the right hand of God, this one who is himself God, this one who is the Messiah, he is a king and he's supposed to rule in the midst of his enemies. Verse three, your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power and the beauties of holiness from the womb of mourning. You have the due of your youth. Verse four, the Lord has sworn that is God the Father has sworn. He's sworn an oath to you. He has made a covenant with his son. The Lord has sworn and he will not relent. You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. OK, if you're reading this in the Old Testament, he didn't have your New Testament. You're going, I have not know who McKissack is. That's that strange guy over in Genesis who just came up out of nowhere. King of Salem, Abram gave the tithes to gave the bread and the wine to Abram and all that. And he's the king of Jerusalem. But OK, what does it mean to be a priest according to the order of a kiss a day? What in the world does that mean? Well, this is the only mission. And again, it disappears into the mists of time. Never hear of him again until a thousand years later. And a thousand years later, we do find out about him again in Hebrews chapter 7. Turn to Hebrews 7 with me. In verse 1. We don't have the time to expound everything that the book of Hebrews has to say about Mechizedek. Suffice to say that the writer of Hebrews must have been called to preach because he can take three chapters and talk about four verses in the Old Testament and preach on them. Chapter 7, verse 1, For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, meaning king of peace, without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, But made like the son of God remains a priest continually. Now, consider how great this man was to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave us 10th of the spoils. Strange language, indeed, it just gets more mysterious all the time. A man that doesn't have a father or mother. No past, no future. He always exists. He's always a priest. Who was this Melchizedek? Well, unquestionably, he was a type of Christ. For my money, I tend to lean towards the belief that it was Christ himself, that this was an appearance, what we call a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. There's difference of opinion on that. I can't say just thus says the Lord, but the language is too strange. He has no beginning and no end. He remains forever a priest. Well, he goes on to explain what it means that Jesus is a priest, according to the order of Melchizedek. And I'm not going to go into all of it here, but I'm just going to give you a summation, OK? The Old Testament priesthood, the Levitical priesthood, was an inferior priesthood. Why was it inferior? Several reasons. Number one, the priest himself was a sinner. Before he came to God to offer sacrifices for anybody else, he had to first offer a sacrifice for himself, because he had to have an atonement for himself as much as for the other people. So he had to be accepted before God first, and then he could come and offer for the people. Now, what's a priest? I told you before, a prophet is a man who turns his back to God, Turns his face towards God's people. He speaks God's word to the people. He represents God to the people, doesn't he? The priest is just the opposite. He has his back to the people, his face towards God. He represents the people to God. So they really are complementary offices, but they represent him. They come and say, here's a sacrifice to atone for the people's sins. And I am interceding, pleading for you, God, to have mercy upon them because they are sinners. So the Old Testament priesthood was inferior for number one priest himself was a sinner. Secondly, the priest offered sacrifices that were never satisfactory. In other words, it wasn't just one sacrifice. Well, I've offered a bull for you. You're good for the rest of your life. No, they continually, perpetually, year after year, continued offering sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice. And it had to go not just for those years, it had to go on for generation after generation after generation. And the problem was the priest could live that long. The priest would eventually die because he was just a man. And when he died, someone else would have to replace him and be the new priest who had to make atonement for his sin and the sins of the people and all those things. But you had to be a Levitical descendant of Levi in order to serve as a Levitical priest. But Jesus. He's our prophet, our priest, and our king. The problem is, he's from the tribe of Judah. He's not from the tribe of Levi. Judah was a race of kings because God had promised to David, he made a covenant with him, there will never fail to be a son of yours upon the throne. So Jesus is this descendant of Judah, he's a king. But how can he offer sacrifices because he's not a Levitical priest? Well, because he is a priest, but he's according to a different order. It's not the order of Levi, it's the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek who had no beginning and no end. Melchizedek who ever lives and never dies. And so here's the point. Christ, in the order of Melchizedek, is a far greater priest than ever the Levitical priesthood was. Why? Because first of all, he's sinless. He doesn't have to offer a sacrifice for himself. He can come in his own righteousness because he's perfectly righteous. Secondly, because he's offered one sacrifice and that sacrifice is himself and that sacrifice is once for all. When you and I have been brought to faith in Christ, we don't have to offer a new sacrifice before God in order for us to be forgiven and pardoned for our sins we commit as born again Christians. No, we go back to the one sacrifice Jesus made once for all. He died once. He was buried. He was raised. He'll never die again. He'll never be sacrificed again. That one sacrifice was enough. to cover us for all time and eternity. And we'll never need another answer. We'll never have to ask for a single other sacrifice. Even in the Lord's Supper, it's interesting, the Lord's Supper is a memorial, not a sacrifice. It's a memorial to the one sacrifice, isn't it? And furthermore, Jesus never dies. He died once, but he lives forever to intercede for us. He's a priest who can stand for us for all eternity and stand before God and say, God have mercy upon them, because I have shed my blood for them. And so he is a far superior priest. But he didn't come according to the order of Levi. He came according to the superior order of Melchizedek. Now isn't it something that God would take all these threads, a thousand years ago, a thousand years past, another thousand years past, and tie it all together to show us what he was intending the entire time. That Jesus was going to be sent as our great high priest. And that leads me to our third and final point. The human authors of Holy Scripture were moved to write what they wrote by one divine author, who in his wildest imagination could imagine 40 different men, writing over a course of literally thousands of years, living in different places at different times, different personalities, and yet they're all working together to write about the same person. And we find this strange Melchizedek mentioned by Moses, then mentioned a thousand years later by David, then a thousand years later by the Hebrew writer, whoever he was, and all of it tying together perfectly in a perfect harmony. And suddenly we see that the entire time God was pointing us to Christ. All the way back from Genesis, well back from Genesis chapter three, but really from Genesis chapter one. But the reality is we find Christ on every page of scripture being pointed to throughout all the scripture. It's all about him. Spirit of God. We talked about this last week. He said, Jesus said of him, he'll take of mine. And he will glorify me. He'll exalt me. Well, who was the agent who inspired the scriptures of the persons, the Godhead, who was the most particularly involved in the in the giving of the scriptures? It was the Holy Spirit. And so it was the same Holy Spirit in the Old Testament as in the new. So what would you expect him to do? You'd expect him to point to Christ. Well, that's exactly what he does, both old And you testaments, the longer I live, the longer I preach this book, the more I am in awe. of how God wove it together in ways that no man could have ever imagined are done. There's nothing like it. It is truly the book of books. I've said it to you many, many times. There is no greater material possession you own on earth than your Bible. It's a blessing. There's so many people who don't have it. So many people who don't have it in their language. Gina, about a year ago, sent out a link to a YouTube thing. It was people called the Kimmel people who live in Indonesia. Receiving the Word of God for the first time ever. I can't watch that thing without just weeping. Because you see them watching the plane come down that has their copies of the New Testament. They've never had it in their language. They have bits and pieces and portions. And they stop. The captain gets out of the plane. He hands this big box full of New Testaments into the leader of the Kimmel people's hands. And they stop and praise the Lord and say, Lord, you, throughout all of time, you remembered your Kimmel people and you ordained that we should have your word in our own language. I sat there thinking, oh Lord, I need to have the same attitude about my English Bible because God could have passed over me and never given me my Bible in my own language. And yet I have multiple copies on my shelf and I have copies I can read every single day in my own tongue, in my own language. I'd rather never take it for granted. the great resources and blessings we've been given by God that he has revealed his son to us through his holy written word. What a blessing it is to have the word of God in our own language. Let's pray. Our Lord, we do thank you for this reality that you have given us a spirit filled book, a Christ centered book and a God honoring book that feeds our souls, that shows us Christ, that has brought us from sin and darkness into salvation. Lord, help us never ever to take this prize for granted. Lord, help us always to exalt you and exalt your son. We thank you, Lord Jesus. You are our prophet and our priest and our king. And you have come to us from the great and far superior priesthood of Melchizedek. And we bless you for this, Lord, that you are our priest forever and never will you need to be replaced. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for interceding for us in Jesus' name. Amen.