Genesis chapter 14 will read the entire chapter here, now the word of God beginning at verse one. And it came to pass in the days of Amrathel, king of Shinar, Ariok, king of Elassar, Kedolaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of nations, that they made war with Bera, king of Sodom, Bersha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Adma, Shemember, king of Zeboim, and king of Bela, that is, Zoar. All these joined together in the Valley of Sidim, that is, the Salt Sea. Twelve years they served Kedur-Laomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled. In the fourteenth year, Kedur-Laomer and the kings that were with him came and attacked the Rephaim and Ashtoroth's Karnaim, the Zuzim and Ham, The Amim in Shavit Kiryatayim 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 Mishpat, that is, Kedesh, and attacked all the country of the Amalekites and also the Amorites who dwelt in Hazazon Tamar. And the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Atma, the king of Zeboim, and the king of Bela, that is Zoar, went out and joined together in the battle in the valley of Siddim against Kedarlaomer, king of Elam, Tidal, king of nations, Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Ariok, king of Elassar, 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 lots. 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 Eshkol and brother of Aner, and they were allies with Abram. Now, when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen 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 Hobah, 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 at the Valley of Shaveh, that is, the Kings Valley, after his return from the defeat of Kedur Laomer 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. Now, 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, that 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. Except only what the young men have eaten and the portion of the men who went with me on there, Eshkol and Mamre, let them take their portion. And here ends the reading of the word of God and God, we look to you to grant us light, to grant us help, to grant us instruction from your word, to the praise of Christ. Amen. Let me begin by making a few observations about the structure and the setting and the language of this chapter. You might remember that as Chapter 13 ends, we find Abram worshiping the Lord at Hebron and Lot is down in the valley. And now Abram is ready for the fourth test. In order to rescue Lot, Abram had to risk a hard fight with eastern kings. And he had to do this fully trusting God, one man against all these kings. And the chapter begins in Genesis 14, telling us about the days of Amrothel, king of Shinar. And this particular the beginning of the account certainly took place before Abram and Lot had arrived here. These are four kings who come from the Babylonian territory. In the Old Testament, the territorial name of Shinar refers generally to the whole of Mesopotamia, Iraq in modern terms. And the Tower of Babel was built there. And indeed, Shinar is first mentioned in chapter 10 of Genesis at verse 10, where we find that the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel, Erech, Akkad and Kalneh in the land of Shinar. So this king, Amraphel, whom we meet right at the beginning of chapter 14, is reigning on a throne that was first established by Nimrod. in what is today the area of Iraq. And the kings are listed here in a Hebrew alphabetical order. But the leader of all these kings is Keter Laumer. Now, the chapter has essentially a structure of two parts. The first part begins with verse one and runs to the end of a verse 16. And then the second part begins at verse 17 and runs to the end of the chapter. And in the first part, if you look at it, you'll see that there's an alternating structure. First, we're told that the Dead Sea Kings rebel against these eastern kings from Shinar. And then we find the eastern kings coming and they take over the whole area on the other side of the Jordan and sweep south and then come in and attack the kings. And then the Dead Sea Kings are plundered by these eastern kings. And then the last part, Abram goes with his allies and he in turn conquers these eastern kings and rescues Lot and all the goods that they had taken. In the second part that begins at verse 17, we find the king of Sodom who goes out to meet Abram with empty hands. We find Melchizedek who goes out to meet Abram with food and wine. In the middle of the chapter, Melchizedek blesses Abram and Abram tithes to Melchizedek. And then we have the king of Sodom now with his empty hands demanding the people of Abram. And then at the end, we find Abram, who repeats his oath and refuses to take anything from the king of Sodom and allows him to have it all. If you notice, as we read it, there are a number of different place names that are translated. So take verse two, for example, Bela, we're told, is Zaur. And verse three, the Valley of Sidin, we're told, is the Salt Sea. And you can see this in verse seven with Kadesh, verse eight with Zohar, and verse 17 with the King's Valley. And what this suggests is that there was a very ancient document here that was incorporated into the Abrahamic narrative so that these names originally had these Canaanite names that meant nothing to the Hebrews who were then living when Moses wrote the account. And so the names are translated into Hebrew so that the people could understand where these places were. So this is a very ancient account that we have here in the scripture. And the key word in this account is King. The word King occurs 27 times in this chapter in the Hebrew, and you can see military vocabulary as well in the passage, and the passage essentially has a sort of a geo strategic perspective. We travel over a vast distance in this narrative, and it's probably something that took several weeks to take place. You'll also notice that, contrary to a lot of the Hebrew narrative that we've seen so far, the characters don't really engage in dialogue at all in this story until the very end, where you have this ceremonial exchange between Melchizedek and Abram and then the king of Sodom. Who's the main personage here? Well, the main personage is God himself, and he's not acknowledged until the very end of the account. And among the kings, we have Abram, who is the great victor here. And Abram isn't even called the king. And he isn't the king. And yet he's victorious over all these kings, because Abram is the servant of the king of kings who owns all of the land. So let's take a look at the battle, the first part of the chapter here, you find these are kings of the Salt Sea. We would call the Salt Sea today the Dead Sea. And we find these kings of Canaanites, city-states. When we're told about these various kings, they ruled over a city-state. And they were in the valley of Sidim. And if you have a map in the back of your Bibles and you look at the Salt Sea or the Dead Sea, if it's a map of the Old Testament, it's usually labeled the Salt Sea. At the very bottom of the sea, you'll see a peninsula on the right side and below that another extension of the sea. And that extension is where this valley is. The valley is now about 20 feet below the surface of the Dead Sea. But at the time of this narrative, the water didn't cover the land there. And the other cities that are mentioned, along with Sodom and Gomorrah, were probably on that peninsula that you see sticking out into the Salt Sea. So this gives you an idea of the geography. When the kings come down on the side of the Jordan, they swing down south of the Dead Sea and then swing back up. Now, what's important about this city in this valley is, you'll remember, it's where Lot chose to live. He looked down from the heights and he saw, oh, it's beautiful, well-watered land. And it looked like the Garden of Eden, Satan's little deceits. And so he chose to live down there. And now in this chapter, we find that Lot loses absolutely everything and he's on his way to being sold as a slave in Shinar. when Abram comes and rescues him from that miserable state. The battle starts after the salt sea kings decide to revolt against the king from Shinar, as we're told in verse 4. And so these kings then come in this sweeping attack. They come down on the east side of the Jordan River, down through the hills, down through what's called the Transjordan. And the various people that are mentioned here, that they take in verses 5 and 6 here, are the people that inhabited Canaan and the Transjordan, the east side of the Jordan, before the Israelites moved in. The Rephaim and the Septuagint in the Greek Old Testament translation are called simply giants. They inhabited Bashan in the northern Transjordan. The Zuzim are in the same hill country and they'll be called a name similar to that by the Hebrews later on. The Emites inhabited Moab and we're told that later that they're strong and numerous and they too were huge men. Say, here is the hill country that's southeast of the Dead Sea. Later on in Deuteronomy, chapter two, Moses has this commentary that he gives to the Israelites. He explains these people. He says, The Amim formerly lived there, a people great and many and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim, they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Amim. The Refaim seemed to be the people that were there originally before even the Canaanites moved in. Moses goes on, the Horites also lived in Seir formerly, but the people of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and settled in their place as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the Lord gave to them. So, what we have here is a description of what was going on before even Esau, of course. Esau wasn't yet around and the original Canaanite inhabitants. But what these kings did is they swept down all those hills as far as Seir, which is to the southeast of the of the Valley of the Salt Sea of the Sodomites. Then they turned north and west, came up over the Negev, the southern part of what would become Judah later on, attacked the Amalekites, and then they dropped down into the Valley of Sedim, that is, into the Salt Sea Valley to get Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies. As you can imagine, this must have taken several weeks and an awful lot of fighting. And then the allies of the sodomite king comes together in verses eight and nine and come out in their own valley to fight. They had no choice. They had to defend their cities. And they suffered a complete rout. Verse 10 tells us about how this happened. The Hebrew is a little bit ambiguous here, and it's difficult to know exactly who did what. But it seems like the tar pits got some of the soldiers as they attempted to run out of the battle. And the kings fled to the mountains because the king of Sodom shows up just a little bit later in the account. and that they suffered a complete conquest. Verse 11 describes how the kings from the east looted the cities, took everything from the cities, and in these days when they fought a war, if you lost, you lost your entire population as well as all the goods. Usually they would kill the men. unless they thought they could use them somehow. They would take all the women and children, make them slaves. They would rob everything from the cities and usually destroy the cities unless they found some good reason to keep them there, in which case they would move other people into the cities. But this is exactly what happened to them. They took all of 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. And that's the hinge fact that brings Abram into this story, because Abram was at a safe distance from this war. He was up on the hills and and safe over at Hebron. And the war was happening to the south of him and then down in the valley. But then Abram hears about what happened to Lot when a fugitive, somebody that escaped from the from the battle, came to him to tell him what went on. And Abram here for the first time is described as a Hebrew. In verse 13, he's a descendant of Eber, you might remember back in Genesis 10, 21, which is where the term Hebrew probably comes from. There's some dispute about its etymology. But if you look at the way the word Hebrew is used as an adjective, you'll find that it's used in contexts where Abraham and his descendants stand in relationship to other national groups. Now, we learn about Abram, that he has allies. He's got allies of Mamre, Eshkol and Aner. They're partners with him of a covenant. They're three brothers. So we learn that Abram is in good terms with the local people, with the Canaanites among whom he dwells. We've already seen in the chapter preceding how Abram is a peacemaker and how Abram is blessed by God. And we also learn to our surprise that Abram has trained soldiers in his house. But it shouldn't surprise us. He was a wealthy man with huge flocks. And undoubtedly, they the shepherds had to deal not only with wolves, they had to deal with thieves. So he would have armed men trained to defend his goods. So he takes these men And it's a remarkable change that you can see here. If you remember back in Chapter 12, the second part of Chapter 12, how Abram was a cowardly husband. He leads his wife to Egypt and she is taken into Pharaoh's palace. And he thought that the way to protect himself was to have his wife lie. And here was this cowardly husband tested by the Lord and humbled, who now suddenly appears as a great warrior and a brilliant military strategist. And the man who was the man of peace with lot now becomes a warrior who goes after and defeats the very ones who would plunder his Hebrew brother lot. So he takes off in pursuit with his allies. And he pursues these retreating kings. They've come down the Transjordan and now they're going back the typical route heading north up through the land of Canaan over to Damascus. And then they'll follow the route of the road around the Fertile Crescent back to Shinar back to Mesopotamia. So he pursues them. That's why we're told that he goes up toward Dan. That's the northern extent of the Canaanite territory and then crosses over toward Damascus and gets to them as their camp to the north of Damascus. What a brilliant idea he had. Imagine these soldiers who have marched all the way from Mesopotamia, fought their way all the way down to Transjordan, down to the south of the Salt Sea, up, fought the Amalekites, then fought Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies, and now have marched on their way home, all the way back to Damascus, battle-weary, tired, and now they think they're far enough away from the war that they can just relax and sleep at night. And that's when Abram decides to come down on them. And we find that this nonconventional warfare succeeds. And he's given a complete victory, 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 people there is undoubtedly the people that belong to Lot's household and the people that lived in those cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And so with this victory, Abram shows himself to be a type of Christ. He is a great king. He shows that he will not allow his people to be trapped by the wicked, that he will pursue and will deliver his people. And so, we come to the second part and the blessing. And as we get to the second part, Abram and his people have now returned back home. And in verses 17 and 18, we learn about two different kings that come out to meet him. And the first is the king of Sodom, who goes out with empty hands. He was a defeated man. He had nothing. He had nothing but his crown and his title. Nothing left. He had an empty city that was probably looted and wrecked as well. And he needs Abram. And what we're told here is later called the King's Valley on undoubtedly on account of this incident. This is where the kings came out to meet Abram. Excuse me. And so these events, along with Melchizedek's coming out, point to the vicinity near Jerusalem, and there is indeed a valley there called the King's Valley. It's where later on Absalom erected a monument for himself. You can find this in 2 Samuel 18.18. Now the king of Salem, Melchizedek, came out to meet Abram too, but he brought bread and wine. Undoubtedly, the term bread here refers to food, which often it does in Hebrew. Undoubtedly, he came out with a full banquet, food and wine to refresh Abram and his soldiers. And of course, coming out with food and wine, he wouldn't have traveled very far. So again, this is an indication that this all took place somewhere around his city, which later was to be called Jerusalem. And Melchizedek, as you all know, is a very mysterious figure. We only know about him what God has chosen to tell us about him. He's only mentioned in three three places in the Bible here in chapter 14 of Genesis, where we first meet him. He's mentioned in one line in Psalm 110, and then he's mentioned again in the book of Hebrews chapters five, six and seven. Chapter five of Hebrews simply repeats the line from Psalm 110 and applies it to Christ. where the psalm says you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 6 again reaffirms this about Jesus, that he is that priest in the order of Melchizedek. And we have to go to Hebrews 7 to learn a little bit more about Melchizedek. And there in Hebrews seven, the Holy Spirit interprets this chapter of Genesis, or at least the second part of this chapter, the appearing of Melchizedek and his blessing of Abram and Abram's tithing. We learned Hebrews seven three about Melchizedek, that 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. That is, some people read that to mean that he was eternal. But probably what the what the writer of Hebrews is telling us simply is that the Bible doesn't tell us about his origins, doesn't tell us about his death. He appears suddenly and disappears just as suddenly. And he resembles the son of God. He resembles the son of God in appearing and then disappearing. And in the seemingly eternal priesthood that goes on, he is a type of Christ. He's not Christ himself, but a type of Christ. He he is an image, a representation of what Christ is to be. And in the book of Hebrews, it's the priesthood of Melchizedek that is of great interest to the apostle. But in Genesis 14, we find that his kingship is also of interest. Psalm 110 highlights the royal priesthood of Melchizedek and the royal priesthood of the Christ. Now, Melchizedek is greater than any earthly king because Melchizedek is able to mediate the blessing of God to Abram, who is God's mediator of blessing to all the nations. You might remember when God called Abram, he said to him, Genesis 12 3. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you. And here is Melchizedek who comes and mediates the blessing of God upon Abram and he calls God God most high here. He takes a Canaanite title for God, which is the general Semitic word for God. And he attributes to it the adjective most high that identifies the one true God, the most high God. And he calls him the possessor, which implies also the one who creates the heaven and the earth. And as you know, this is a very common title of God in the Psalms. Psalm 115, for example, says, May you be blessed by the Lord who made heaven and earth. And then Melchizedek blesses God and blessed be God most high. who has delivered your enemies into your hands. You see how Melchizedek attributes the victory of Abram to God Most High. And Abram confirms that by tithing to Melchizedek of all of the tribute that the Lord has put into his hands. And in this, Abram acknowledges that this king was a priest of the Lord Most High, and he submits to the royal priesthood and his blessing. And so, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us in Hebrews seven, this very interaction between Melchizedek and Abram points to a priesthood that is greater and higher than the Levitical priesthood that would come from the seed of Abraham in several generations. And then the final dialogue is the dialogue of the king of Sodom and Abram and the king of Sodom demanded people. and told Abram to keep the goods. Melchizedek, on the other hand, who is a type of Christ, brings gifts to Abram and blesses him and asks nothing in return. And Abram gives him a tithe of everything. The king of Sodom, who is, of course, in the line of the serpent, begins his dialogue with Abram with an imperative. Give me We hear this a lot. Give me, give me, give me, give me. This is how he starts. He wants his population back, but he realizes that Abram has a right to everything that he has now conquered. It's all his. He won the victory, his people, his goods. He can do whatever he wants with it. And he recognizes this. And then we have Abram repeating his oath and refusing to take anything from the king of Sodom. Abram did not go to war to get rich, as the kings of the earth do and still do. Abram went to war to save his brother. God is the possessor of heaven and earth, and Abram will not take anything from the sodomites. The source of Abram's wealth will be the Lord and not man. And indeed, God has given Abram the land. And Abram also understands the psychology of the wicked. He says, I'm not going to give you anything less, you should say, I have made Abram rich. The king of Sodom could then boast. See how powerful I am. And Abram is my debtor. The seat of the serpent boasting over the seat of the woman. Abram will have no part in that. So he says, pay the soldiers their wages. That's what verse 24 means. Abram serves a righteous God. He maintains just and fair relations with the people of the land, and Abram's not a king. He's not a general in the same mold as all those kings that he defeated in this chapter. He's governed by the same God that blesses Melchizedek as his priest. So what do we do with this chapter in our generation? Well, where of the seed of Abraham? So we are tested in Abram and a chapter like this as the chapter before and the chapter before that as well. The last couple of tests that Abram went through bring us to ask, do I trust the promises of God? You remember how Abram doubted at his second test when he went to Egypt, but now he's had two more tests that he's passed. He trusted the Lord for the land when offering lot his choice. And here he trusted the Lord to save his brother lot from powerful kings. Remember how Abram came back up from Egypt as a wealthy man, and God reaffirmed his gift to Abram of the land. Then at the end of Chapter 14, Abram holds not only his own wealth, but all of the plundered wealth of the kingdoms of the Transjordan all the way down to the Dead Sea, including lots wealth. It's all Abrams. It's amazing. Do you trust the promises of God in the way that Abram did? Do you trust the promises of God that he will give you the inheritance of the righteous? Do you trust that you will indeed inherit the earth with Jesus, that the Lord will never fail you? Do you trust him enough also to fight the wicked when your brother is in peril with the weapons of righteousness, as Abram did? with prayer and with justice and faithfulness and with all the spiritual weapons that our great king has given to us. You trust him enough to have confidence that in that last day of yours. He will certainly save you from death itself and bring you to his glorious banquet, provide you with bread and wine and pronounce his eternal blessing on you. We're tested in the same way that Abram The man of faith was tested. We're also assured in Abram. In order to rescue lots, Abram had to risk a very hard fight with these eastern kings. The Hebrew is interesting because it says that the Lord delivered him. That's in Melchizedek's blessing at verse 20. And the word in Hebrew for the Lord delivered you is Migen, the Lord Migen you. And he assured him then in chapter 15, in the very first word, very first verse, I am your shield. And that's again in Hebrew. And there's a tie between the deliverance and the Lord being his shield. The Lord went on to affirm his promises once again to what I mean to Abram. So beware, as we learn from Abram here, beware of the promises of the worldly. who offer you a deal you can't pass up. Give me the people you keep the goods and then turn around and use it against your boasting. I have made Abram rich. Now, Abram is my lapdog. The debtor is a slave to the lender. Hebrews 13, five, keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? And the blessing of Melchizedek is yours to brothers and sisters, and it's yours by faith, as it was Abrams by faith. Hebrews reminds us of our hope in Jesus, who is that priest in the order of Melchizedek and that Jesus priesthood was confirmed by God's own oath in Psalm 110. When he said the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. And Hebrews 619 goes on to tell us that we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. That blessing of Melchizedek is yours by faith, as it was Abrams by faith. And finally, we see here the first glimmer of your royal priesthood. We see Melchizedek here, the royal priest, and the royal priesthood disappears from the Bible again until we get to Psalm 110, where it's affirmed of Christ. And then when we get the Hebrews, where it's again confirmed of Christ. And then we need it one more place, we need it in first Peter to nine, where Peter says to you, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And this is how God is fulfilling the promises to Abram. I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Blessed be the Lord, our God, who is so generous with his people. Let us pray. Father, we thank you for the great care that you show us in this chapter for your chosen people. We thank you, God, as you show us how we have the wealth of the nations given to us as the seat of Abram, how we have a great leader who is different from all the kings of the earth, but will one day vanquish all of them, catch them when they are sleeping. when they think they have the victory in their own hands and will utterly destroy them and take away all that they think they have as theirs and distribute it to his people. Father, we thank you for your great generosity and your great care and for your deliverance. Help us, O Lord, to be people who live by faith, who trust your promises as Abram learned to trust your promises. and to not make deals with the Canaanites, but to look to you for all good things and for every blessing. In the name of Jesus, our great priest. Amen.