Alright, so last week we finished up Hebrews chapter 6, and now we are picking up in Hebrews chapter 7. If you remember Hebrews chapter 6, the last portion of this talks about an encouragement to be imitators and patience will inherit promises. And then we had a nice segue into Abraham, probably the greatest example of faith and patience. We got to verses 19 to 20. Speaking of assurance that that's anchored, those of you that were not here, I sang that song, Christ's Assurance That That's Anchored. I did, I did. I didn't do that to him. But anyway, we know that Christ is our surest efforts anchor for our souls, and he is our great high priest who enters into the inner face, behind the curtain, behind the veil that was torn down when he died. He is our forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, which brings us into chapter seven, speaking more in detail about this Melchizedek. And if you look at chapter seven, we'll read this in a second, it seems to pick up where he left off in Hebrews chapter five, verse 11. If you remember, I'm sorry, verse 10, where he says, Verse 9, and being made perfect, he became a source of eternal salvation to all who obeyed him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. But then he kind of takes a detour with a warning, right? He's kind of frustrated because there's so much to say, but it's hard to explain because you become dull of hearing. And we had this little excursion into the rest of chapter 5 into chapter 6. So, but anyway, we'll pick up in chapter 7 and let's go ahead and read verses 1 through 10. We'll start with Kyle. 1. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him. 2. And to him Abraham appointed a tenth part of everything. He's first, by translation of his name, King of Righteousness, and then he's also King of Salem, that is, King of the Jews. Without father and mother, without father and mother, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of God, without the kingdom of Five, the sons of Levi who received a priestly office have a command according to the law to collect a tenth from the peoples, that is, from their brothers and sisters, though they have also descended to Abraham. Six, the Mephiston who does not have his descent from them receive titles from Abraham and bless him who had the promises. Seven, it is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. Eight, In the one case, tithes are received by mortal men. But in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. Nine. In addition, we might even say that Levi's descendants, the ones who collect the tithe, gave the tithe to Melchizedek through their ancestor Abraham. And because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor. All right. Awesome. Okay, so as we look at Chapter 7, and we talk about the Precinct Order of El Quistet, we kind of want to get into context. Is there a book or passage in the Bible the author assumes that they know? Think about who this is written to, who their original audience is. What would the author assume? Assume they know. They know the Torah, right? They know the story about Melchizedek, which takes us back to Genesis, right? So let's go to Genesis chapter 14. with these kings, right? These kings in the land of Canaan. And in that battle, the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and a couple of other kings are being chased away. Some of them captured, some of them caught in pits. Along with that is Lot. And if you remember, Lot, he moved to the Saba, right? So he gets captured, and one of the people fleeing was able to get over to where Abraham was, or Abram at the time. And we see in verse 13, then one who had escaped came and told Abram, the Hebrew, this is the first time in scripture that Abram is called the Hebrew, Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the Oaks of Mamre, the Amorite, brother of Eschol and Aner, 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. And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them, and pursued them to Hobah, and the women and the people. So they go on this nighttime assault, him and 318 men. He splits them up and goes in, and he is able to get Lot, get the possessions, and chase away the enemy. Now we get into, which is interesting because Lot's pretty old at this time right now, but he's leading these forces to go get Lot. as a kinsman-redeemer. And that brings us to verse 17. After his return from the defeat of Kedur-le-Amor and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shabbat, that is, the king's valley. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God most and said, blessed be Abram by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And Abram gave him a tenth of everything. 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 hands to the Lord God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread I will take nothing but what the young man hath eaten, and the share of the man who went with Lot. Let Anner, Eschol, and Mamre take their share." Okay, so, you know, we got that brief recap. We've got this section of scripture, right? Looking back at Genesis 14, that kind of lets us know what what these people knew about Melchizedek. So, looking at Genesis, what would they have known? What would they have known about Melchizedek? Right. He is a priest of God Most High. and Abram gave him a tenth of everything. What they have known, Hebrews gives us a little hint that Melchizedek means King of Righteousness. Do you think they would have known that? Right, so they would have known by his name he's King of Righteousness. He's King of Salem. to that is Melchizedek, who's the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. What does that foreshadow? What's that? Exactly, right? The Lord set up the Passover, exactly. And he was priest of God Most High. That God Most High means El Elyon. There is no other God higher. Now, Melchizedek, He's the king of Salem. Where is Salem at? Does anybody have any idea where he is? He is praising God most high, right? Blessing him on behalf of God most high, and he's not an Israelite. You wouldn't think they would worship the same God, and people in this area don't worship God. The fact that he gave a tenth of everything. It's the first time you see a tithe, right? In scripture. And what about this King of Sodom, the King of Sodom said to Abram, give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself. What position is he in to say, hey, yeah, let's go ahead and negotiate. You go ahead and you take the good, but give me the persons. Abram's like, no, I don't need anything. I don't know if you knew it already, but Salem is Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of interesting things about the story in Genesis. And then I think Hebrews takes a little bit of a different tact and goes deeper into the personage of not only Abraham, who we know is important in the story, important in the heritage of Christ, the ultimate fulfillment of Abraham's promise to have a son, but also Melchizedek. And I think that there's something else there too, though, because I think that If you think about how they got in the situation in Genesis in the first place, if you go back, if you back the train up, Lot chose the selfish way, right? Remember, they couldn't live on the land, there were too many people, so Abraham, first of all, it says, Abraham told to the Lord, Lot didn't. He just said, that place looks good, and then Abraham said, okay, well, you have that, I'll take the other. Well, it's kind of ironic. that Abraham is the one that had to come to the rescue, and Melchizedek is entered the scene too, because that's exactly what happens with our redemption. We get ourselves into the situation, and it takes Christ to get us out. There's just a lot there. Also reconciling, I don't know if anybody else in here, struggles with starving kids in Africa, or war, or the fact that sometimes it seems like God sits on the sidelines, or even worse, sometimes he condones this, but we see here in Hebrews, Melchizedek has come back from the use of the word slaughter of the kings, and then it calls him the prince of peace, and you're like, wait a minute, how do I reconcile that? And I think that it goes deeper than just In here, in Hebrews, the slaughter of the kings of the world, we're talking the principalities of the heir. So it's interesting, and it's from a learning perspective, too, that the writer of Hebrews has no problem appropriating the Old Testament scripture for this end, to put it into Christ. So we, therefore, shouldn't be afraid of that either, I would submit. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so Melchizedek, the significance of him being a king and a priest of God Most High, that's significant, right? Why is that? People didn't normally hold both offices, they're separated, right? And a foreshadowing of Jesus, who's king and priest, and our high priest. All right. Let's go ahead, if we go back to Hebrews, one more thing about Genesis, I'm sorry, one more thing about Genesis and about Abraham, because Hebrews is gonna talk about how great a man Abraham was, and Abraham was a great man. He could have taken all of this stuff. Solomon said, yeah, you go ahead and take the possessions, but what does Abraham have? He's like, no, I don't wanna give you credit for anything. All credit goes to God. Melchizedek, in his blessing, the God. You know, blessed be you Abraham, however, blessed be God most high. So that's something else for me to look at. A Canaanite king, a priest and king, is giving God all the glory. So now we go back to Hebrews chapter 7, and the writer of Hebrews is kind of breaking down for the original audience, who again, all they know is that brief part of Genesis that talks Testament, Psalm 1104, which is another foreshadowing of Jesus, you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, right? So we know he's talking about Jesus. And he goes back for this Melchizedek, king of Salem, they should know this, priest of the most high God, met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. That word slaughter is kope, meaning carnage or slaughter. So it wasn't just a defeat. This smaller group of men were able to defeat these king's armies and slaughter them. Even at his old age, he's able to lead this battle. And to him, Abraham portioned the 10th part of everything, which later on in between verses 1 and 10, he's going to go into detail about the tithe. He is first by translation by his name, King of Righteousness. As I said before, they probably would have known that. Then he is also King of Salem, that is, King of Peace. And one other detail that is very important that we'll end up having to break down next week, he is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever. Why do you think the writer is putting this detail in there? We know that we don't know much about Melchizedek, but why do you think he's putting this detail in here? Well, I think later on when he goes and he says that the priest, the order of priests through Levi, which came through Abraham, which hadn't been born yet, but was still DNA was in Abraham. As Abraham subjected himself to Mount Kisadek and gave the ties and then Mount Kisadek blessed Abraham in a way that system he's saying is, is inferior to Jesus Christ, who, Melchizedek was a form of Christ. So what he's basically saying is, even in the Old Testament, Christ was there. And Christ was better. The name of the book's been better, better than the angels, better than all this, better than this. Now he's saying, even the system of the law, which the Jews revered so much through Abraham, comes under Christ. Yeah, he's said it all in these 10 verses. We'll go ahead, we'll have to stop there, and we'll pick it up next week. Let's go ahead and go to the Lord's Prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, we just, we thank you for your sovereignty, Lord, that you placed Melchizedek time to be a foreshadow of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Father, I just thank you for your word. Thank you that we have all this information revealed to us. Father, I just pray that you be with us as we study this, as we see each and every detail, and that we see how you are involved in each and every detail of this story and of our lives, Father. And I just pray that you be with us as we continue study your word those of us who are going to the 1045 service father i just pray that you uh that you bless pastor sean and uh help him in his teaching and that your spirit touch each and every one of us uh those of us who are not here i just pray that you be with each and every one of those people who are not here, and Father, just give them all safety and bring us back together next week together. Give us strength through this week, and bless us as we go. And I pray this in your presence, Son of Jesus.