going to continue doing so. The title tonight, or the name of God that we're considering is God Most High. The Most High God. The point that we should arrive at tonight is this, because I serve the Most High God, I have no reason to fear any other power. Because you serve the Most High God, you have no reason to fear any other power. Let's look at Genesis chapter 14, and let's read verse 17 through 24. Genesis 14, verse 17 says, And the king of Sodom went out to meet him, that's Abraham. Now, let me give you some background here. Abraham had just completed a battle, and won. What had happened was there were five nations, five small-type nations that had banded together as a confederacy. They were joined together, and they were located around the Dead Sea area. farther to the west or east and the north in the Mesopotamia area were four nations. One of those nations appears to be a conglomerate of more nomadic barbaric type nations. And nonetheless, the four major nations, they joined together and they raided the five nations by the Dead Sea. Now, Abraham had no reason to be concerned about that. He wasn't involved in all of that. He was out apart from all of that. But who did he know that was involved in all of that? His nephew Lot. His nephew Lot was involved in that, and he was living in the city of Sodom. Because of that, he and his family were taken captives, prisoners of war, out of the city of Sodom. and they were taken captive. Abraham found out about that, and he took a bunch of his servants, and they took off, and they chased after the five nations that took Lot captive. He rescued his relatives, and then he came back to where he was coming from. On his way back to where he was coming from, two kings met him. And we're gonna look at this meeting that happened. One king meets him, and then another king interrupts that meeting with the first king. Verse 17, the king of Sodom went out to meet him, Abraham, after his return from the slaughter of Chedolamer and the kings that were with him at the Valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. So the king of Sodom met him. Then the king Melchizedek, king of Salem, met him. And it says he was the priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him and said, blessed be Abraham of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand, and he gave him tithes of all. And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, give me the persons and take the goods to thyself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord and the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoe latchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou should it say, I have made Abram rich. Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Einar, Eshkol, Mamre, let them take their portion. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this topic tonight. And please open our eyes to this truth that you are the most high, the most high God over everything. And may we find our refuge and our confidence in that. In Jesus name. Amen. About 50 times in the Bible you find God referred to as the most high God. About 50 times. It sounds sometimes like this, God Most High, other times the Most High God, or perhaps the Lord Most High. All these different representations are the same thing, God Most High. The first time that this title, this name, is mentioned is in Genesis, chapter 14, verses 18 through 22. And I've given you the background on this passage. And in the meeting on Abraham's return from this battle, you find these two kings talking to him. The first is the King of Sodom. Does the King of Sodom have anything publicly to do with God Most High? No. What do we know about Sodom, the city of Sodom? It was a city given to many, many wrong practices and had even reached the point of becoming very proficient in the matter of homosexuality. That was a thing that marked them. Apparently, just about everyone in the city was marked by that kind of behavior, from what we can tell. It reached that point. By the way, Did you know that God is not going to judge America because of our homosexuality? You say, what in the world? He is not, because homosexuality is his judgment on us. Read Romans chapter 1. Nothing has changed in the last few weeks, except for we have agreed to being more serious about taking the judgment of God foolishly. That's all that has happened. But that was something that really did characterize the city of Sodom. Well, Lot lived in that city. Abraham went and he delivered his relatives from that captivity and probably delivered other people from the city of Sodom also in the process. And so the king of Sodom came to him. And he said, you take your relatives to yourself. I'll give you all of these spoils that you got in war. I'll give you all of these riches." And Abraham said, no, I won't do that. Only the God most high is the God that I answer to. I don't answer to you. You're a guy who's in charge of a city over here. My relatives live in that city, but that city has nothing to do with me. I don't answer to you. But then, in the middle of this meeting that he's having with the king of Sodom, another king comes up, the king called Melchizedek, from another place that seems to be where Jerusalem would eventually be located. And that would be a very important detail for the nation of Israel. The man, Melchizedek, is kind of a mysterious character, but the one thing that we have to understand is that he identified himself with the God Most High. Now, we also need to understand some more background. This title, the God Most High, is not exclusively used for the true God that we serve, the God of the Bible. The name El Elyon That name is actually also used of the most high god in the Canaanite group of gods. There are many gods. There are pantheon. There are polytheistic gods that they worship that the top god was also called El Elyon. But if you notice here in this passage, how does Melchizedek refer to the God Most High? He refers to the God Most High as the God Most High possessor of heaven and earth. He qualifies and clarifies not just your God, but the actual real God Most High, the one that made everything. That is not a detail that the God in the Canaanite pantheon could claim. So he's not just using this title alone, he's using it in clarifying it. And then Abraham actually does even one better than that and makes a stronger recognition. He says in verse 22, I have lift up mine hand unto the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. That possessor means the creator, the one who brought it into existence. And he associates the word Yahweh or Jehovah with this title. So Melchizedek puts the creator of all things after it. Abraham puts Jehovah in front of it. And that shows us what Abraham and Melchizedek believed and who they answered to. They answered to the true God Most High, the one who made everything, the one who is self-sufficient, the God of the Bible. Now, it's interesting where this title comes up. This title is introduced to us here in chapter 14 in the context of the struggle between nations, the struggle between politics, the struggle between cities, the struggle that occurs between different nations. And that's where this title is introduced to us. Do you ever read the news and feel like you are caught in the middle of this battle that you have nothing to do with? You're caught in a struggle between nations. You're caught in a struggle between people groups and cities and all kinds of these political maneuverings. You're kind of caught in the middle of these things. And it's important for us to be able to look past all of these power struggles on earth and say, ultimately, I answer to the God most high. I recognize that there is power, and I recognize that there is provision possible through the powers of this world, especially the political powers of this world, but I don't look to those things to meet my needs. I look to the God most high. That's who I look to. And so here you have Abraham. He's not really concerned about this whole scenario between these cities, but when his relatives are brought into it, He calmly rustles his forces together. He goes in. He wins the victory. He comes out. He was apparently very much outnumbered, but he pulled off a surprise. He comes out with the people he intended to rescue, and he continues to calmly recognize his allegiance to the God Most High. We do not, as people of God, need to be overly consumed with what's happening in the power struggles of this world. At the same time, when it is and where it is appropriate to step in, where it is our responsibility to step in, we do so without being distracted. And without it taking us away from our true focus. And that is the God Most High. That balance, that rest that we can have in the middle of the struggle. There's another passage that I want you to look at, and that's Daniel chapter four. Daniel chapter 4 is a significant mention of this title. Now, we've looked at the first mention of it. Now we're looking at perhaps one of the most key mentions of it. Daniel chapter 4. Here we have another interesting story. We have a king this time, another king. A king, Nebuchadnezzar, he is a king, another Mesopotamian king, much later along, now in the Babylonian Empire, many years after what we saw in Genesis 14. Many, many hundreds of years later, there's this pagan king who worships other false gods. He does not recognize the one true God. He has in his cabinet, his group of advisors and employees, he has a few Hebrews. One of them is Daniel. Daniel serves the one true God. He also serves his pagan king, and he seems to be totally able to do that. And Daniel is serving him. Daniel is following orders, unless it prohibits him from worshiping the one true God. Daniel is very aware of all the inner workings of the government there. He's at the top level. He knows all the background things. By the way, Do we learn from Daniel that Daniel snooped around and divulged all the dirty secrets of his government? Was Daniel going around sending out secret tapes of all the back story? Publishing all the things that are going on for all the world to know so you could really get the real story? Do we read Daniel to find out all the inner workings of the dirty details of the Babylonian Assyrian Empire? Is that what we find out? No. We should assume all of that is going on and not be concerned about it. Daniel found himself in the middle of the top power levels of this world working at the very top and Totally able to maintain his conscience Because he was committed to serving the one true God and we're gonna see something His king was not seeing it that way His king got to a place where he had developed this large nation. He had powerful armies at his disposal. He had amazing public works projects that were being done. He had incredible wealth. He had an incredible economy. Everyone worshipped him. And one day he was out walking in his gardens and he said, look at all these things that I have done with my hands. Look what I, King Nebuchadnezzar, have done. And at that moment, God came and fulfilled the prophecy. And he ended up with some sort of a mental illness of some kind and was banished to the pasture lands where the wild animals went. And he had some kind of feathers and all kinds of things. He couldn't talk humanly. And he ended up eating grass like an animal for seven years. Is God in charge of the kings of the earth? Yes. Are the kings of the earth out of control? Have they run away so far that God can't watch them? He is totally in control. And this is what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar and seven years later what do you find this man, this king saying? Daniel chapter 4 verse 34. At the end of the days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes unto heaven. Remember Abraham in Genesis 14? He said, I lift my hand up to the God most high, the Lord God most high. Lifting his hand, acknowledging that is the true God. That's the same thing Nebuchadnezzar is doing. He lifted up his eyes unto the heaven. He says, and my understanding returned unto me, and I blessed the most high. And I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to generation. All of the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven. And among the inhabitants of the earth, none can stay his hand or say unto him, what doest thou? He is the God who is the King through all generations. Does that include today's generation? It does. He is still the Most High God. Think about this. This was all written by Daniel. Daniel was serving a pagan king. Daniel was, with a clear conscience, serving this man. He was focused on his responsibility, and he also trusted in God through the whole thing. Remember, this was a man who had every reason to have serious issues with the kings of the earth. He had every reason to be targeting and to going after doing whatever he could to undermine his kings. Why? Because to begin with, this was a young man that in his young boy teen years was taken away from his family, was taken away from his home, was taken away from his country to another pagan place and was placed into a boarding school of sorts. This is a young man who was totally ripped away from all that he could call home and all that he could call his own. He was challenged. He even had his name changed by a foreign government. I want you to think about this. He was entrained in their schools. Now, there was one moment that he said he didn't fight the captivity, right? He went into captivity. He didn't fight his name change. He accepted his name change. The one thing he did stand up for with a very wonderful, discreet, gracious spirit was he said, I'm not going to eat the king's meat. Because I have a law. I don't have a law about name changes. I don't have a law that tells me I can't be taken captive. I don't have a law like that. But I do have a law that tells me I can't eat meat offered to idols as an Old Testament Hebrew. I can't do that. He stuck his neck out on the line for that. He had a tremendous spirit. Let me just fast forward quickly again to remember when Paul was thrown into prison. Do you find Paul writing any letters in the New Testament begging and pleading for a lawyer? Begging and pleading for financial help? Begging and pleading for the laws of justice to be enforced because he's an innocent man? Do you find that? No, instead you find Paul writing letters, thanking the Lord, getting deep into theology, probably enjoying having peace and quiet for once. where he could focus on those things. You know, I think about this. What if your pastor is thrown into prison someday? How should I handle that? Should I get up in arms? Should I rustle up the world's best lawyers and start trying to get my case onto CNN and Fox News and all these kind of things? Or should I say, thank you, Lord. This is not comfortable. Let's see what you're going to do with this. And keep a very great spirit about it. I'd love to have a church behind me that keeps a very great spirit about it and doesn't turn it into some major headline that becomes a big media show. That's a challenge, right? Because when these kind of things happen to us, we like to cite our rights, we like to do all of these things, but at the end of the day, that's not what Daniel did. Daniel served the Most High God and realized he was in charge. He accepted his situation. He went in, he served, he stuck his neck on the line on the word of God, not comforts, not political rights, but where there was a word of God, he stuck his neck out for that. And God delivered him on that, didn't he? He changed the king's heart and said, I'll let you get away with that one. And God worked a miracle. And God actually, he did things that to me appear, I don't know all the dietary details, but they appear to be counterintuitive. The kind of things he ate produced certain physical qualities the things he ate don't generally produce. but God gave him the body that he needed to be healthy on the kind of diet that he was eating. So God honored that, but then did things just go really nice for him? No, what about the time that he was thrown into a pit with lions for having his quiet time three times a day? He was not doing anything that was against He was serving his king, but when the laws of the land actually caused him to have to stop worshiping God, did he pick it? Did he put on a big show? Did he go rallying? No. He just said, OK, that's a nice law. A little uncomfortable. And he went back to his house, and he just kept doing what he did, quietly, without making a lot of noise. And he got thrown into a pit of lions. Sound enjoyable? How would you be handling all this as a good old American? He just got himself thrown into a pit of lions, and what did he do? He prayed. Hey, lions. I don't know, did he talk to the lions? Hey, kitty, let me give you some names here, you know, for my lion-taming skills. I didn't learn any of those back in Israel. He just prayed, and what did God do? Previously, he ate a very lean diet and God helped him to gain weight off of that. And now he's cast into a den of lions and God stops the lion's mouths when he acts according to the word of God. When his comforts are impinged and when his personal rights are infringed, you don't find him putting up a stink about that. He accepts those details. I'm reminded of Proverbs 21, 1. Here you have a man who is quietly serving the Lord in a very difficult place. He's not into conspiracies. He's serving at the highest of levels. He's just serving the Lord. He takes a stand by faith on the word of God. He's serving a king that doesn't recognize God. And at the end of one of these king's lifetimes, God intervenes in the king's life and causes him to recognize who God is. Did Daniel make that happen? He simply provided the backdrop. Do you think King Nebuchadnezzar would have had this experience if Daniel had not been walking with the Lord? If Daniel had been going around airing all the king's dirty laundry? If he'd been going around publishing all the background facts of the Assyrian Empire? Do you think that would have ever happened? No. But because he took a stand only on the Word of God, let the other things go by the wayside, focused on the Lord, It put him in a position to make an impact. Daniel outlived a number of kings. Daniel actually served in multiple empires. It's an amazing thing. Proverbs 21 and verse 1 reminds us that even though the kings and the political rulers of this world wield great power, they are not in charge. The Most High God is above them. The hierarchy in any government system always has one more higher level, and that is God. Whether it's a monarchy, whether it's a pretend democracy, whether it's a kind of actual democracy, whether it's any kind of parliamentary government, whether it's just some renegade government running around ransacking villages, whatever the government is, there's always one more level up Name any organization, any country, any time in history, there's always one more level up. And you know who it is? God. It's always that way. And let me remind you, it's that way right now in the 21st century, just like it was then. Don't try to take matters into your own hands to set the record straight. Don't get afraid. Don't get discouraged. Don't get worried or anxious. You serve the Most High God and he continues to happen to be the Most High God. Everything is under control. It says that the heart of a king is in the Lord's hands. As rivers of water, he turns it wherever he wants. That's my paraphrase there. That doesn't mean that everything a king decides is good. It doesn't mean that everything a king or a ruler decides is wonderful and according to God's laws. Kings make decisions, but God uses their decisions as tools. He uses them to accomplish what he knows needs to happen next. And when kings make decisions, whether you like them or not, whether a godly, wonderful ruler or not, God is going to use those decisions. He could have altered those decisions. He let them happen, and he's going to use the decisions that were made to accomplish his purposes. Think about the miracles that happened in Daniel's ministry. He put up with certain things, he took a stand on the law of God, and he put himself in a position for some amazing things to happen that never would have happened otherwise. And I think God is doing that for us as well. I think in months and weeks here previous, I think some of us have gotten woken up a little bit. God can use a very bad decision to wake us up a little bit, can't he? Is that a good thing? That's a very good thing. But if we step across the line to become discouraged and frustrated and angry and mean, we've missed the point. We serve the Most High God and he's working things out. I also like Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 13. Let's turn there. Ephesians 6 and verse 13. God is in charge of every power that exists. We focus tonight on this title, The Most High God, with reference, as it is emphasized in the Bible, with reference to political aspects, governmental powers and so forth, the power struggle in the kingdoms of this world, and yet being able to look through that, knowing that God's using all of that, and to see through it to the Most High God above all of those things. But I want you to see another layer of powers that go on. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 12 says, For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. This verse is showing us that we see people. We see people in this world. Perhaps Paul has in mind here the Christians in Ephesus have in mind. Caesar, maybe that's who they have in mind. Maybe they have some different people in their government in mind here. Maybe they have the Jews in mind who are trying to kill them for becoming Christians. Maybe they have, who knows who they have in mind, what people they're struggling with. And Paul reminds them, when you encounter struggle with people of any kind of power in this world, understand one thing, you're not fighting people. Stop fighting people. which is why we have to be very careful in the way we engage ourselves in our society that we don't find ourselves struggling with people. You better hope that your pastor never gets into a heated argument with someone he disagrees with politically. That is not my business. My business is to preach the word of God and not to fight with people. I have to remember this in ministry as a pastor just within our church. If a person ever causes a problem, I just have to remember I'm not fighting with this person. I have no time for that. That is not my job. That is not my business. And they can try to fight with me. I am not going to fight with them. I don't fight people. Because I serve the Most High God and He takes care of the people. And if something gets out of hand, I'm just going to trust him with that, that he knows what he's doing and letting happen. He's going to use it. What I need to really understand is there's another layer of power struggle that goes on. That's what we need to pray against and fight against. And those are the spiritual powers that are there. It really helps me in praying for my president. It really helps me in praying for my mayor. It really helps me in praying for other political officials in my life. When I realize they're not my enemy, they're just a lost person who needs God, making some very bad decisions. They're not my enemy. Nero needs to get saved. Nebuchadnezzar. If Daniel had fought with Nebuchadnezzar, would Nebuchadnezzar ever had this experience? Who's the enemy? We have spiritual enemies that we need to deal with through prayer and through walking in the spirit and through being the kind of Christians that know how to navigate our life spiritually, not getting distracted by the people. These titles here are titles of spiritual beings, beings that are not in this world physically, they're spiritual. Of course, you could always turn back to Colossians. I'm going to close with this verse, Colossians chapter 1. Verse 10, think like Daniel, but put yourself in today's context in the church. Paul is praying that you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, which is what we're doing tonight, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, unto all patience, just enduring, long-suffering, with joyfulness, If your patience, your long-suffering, your joyfulness has been robbed in the last weeks, you're off. You're not serving the Most High God. You're not focused on Him. giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, Whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him. And he is the head of all things. He's the head of the body, the church, and so on and so forth. We need wisdom to be long-suffering, to be patient, to do the good works God has called us to do, and to not wrestle with people. We need to be like Daniel. We need to be like Abraham, who sees powers in this physical world and the spiritual world for what they are, and then with rest, joy, and peace looks past all of that and says, I serve the Most High God. Do you have that awareness tonight? If you feel like things have gotten out of control, if you feel like you're losing, if you feel like things are not turning out very well in the world, step back and think again. You serve the Most High God. He is just as in control as he was of Sodom. He is just as in control as he was over Babylon and Assyria, and as he was in the early New Testament. The world is going to be what the world is. We serve the Most High God.