Open your Bibles if you would tonight to Genesis chapter 14. Genesis 14, sometimes we go through life and if you haven't noticed, life is very uncertain. Have you noticed that? You're banking on something, boom, falls apart. You have, I think about my own self and the people I love the most and how much I want to love them and serve those around me, and yet I let them down. And people cannot ultimately depend on me or ultimately depend on you. You have a job that you go to, most of us, and you don't know, tomorrow it may not be there. There are many things that take us by surprise, and sometimes it's not a good surprise. But I want to comfort you as my brothers and sisters, as saints of God tonight, that God always keeps his promises. You can depend on him. He will never let you down. He will never tell you a lie. He'll never be late. He won't necessarily be early. He will perfectly be faithful to every single one of his promises to you. Is that encouraging? Now God made a promise to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. Do you remember what it was? Let's just go there kind of as a background. Because in Genesis chapter 14, everything goes haywire, just like it did in Genesis 13, and just like it will over and over and over again throughout the book of Genesis. But the promise of God stays certain. Look at the promise in chapter 12. Just look at verse number three. I will bless those who bless you. He's speaking to Abraham. I will bless those who bless you. And him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Before that, he said, I'll make you a great name. I'll give you a great nation. I will bless you. And anyone who tries to harm you, I will curse them. Now we come to Genesis chapter 14, and we find that a great war ensues. A war between the great kings of the lands. And involved in all of this is Abraham's nephew, Lot. He's living in Sodom. And there are actually five lesser kings named in Genesis chapter 14, five kind of like warlords, warlords of city states, like as if Chicago were without a federal or a state government, then you'd have Mayor Daley, he'd be kind of like the warlord and whoever we have over in Minneapolis, or maybe now it's Rahm Emanuel, who knows? Thank God for civilized things that have occurred in history, but it's still like this over in this land today in Iraq. It is still like this, and it's also like this in Afghanistan, and we've tried to help them come out of this, but this is kind of how it was. So there are five lesser kings named in this chapter, and there's four great kings, and specifically there's two very great kings who are kind of the precursors to Babylon and Assyria in this chapter. And they're warring with each other, and Lot gets involved in all of this, and it seems like God's plan and God's program is gonna come to an end. Remember, after God gave the promise to Abraham, in chapter 13, the previous chapter, Abraham gets to the promised land, and what is there? There is a famine. And where does he have to go? He's gotta go to Egypt. And he's scared. He comes back out of Egypt, back to the promised land, and now there's not a famine, there's a war. Can I encourage you saints tonight that God is always going to be allowing things into your life that radically shake you up and test your faith so that you know that when everything else is shaken, you can hold on to Jesus Christ. and he will never let you down. He's always there for you. That's what we're gonna see in this chapter. Do you know who rises from this chapter? I'm giving you the end of the story before we even begin. Melchizedek. Melchizedek comes after the battle's over, after Abram gets the victory over these kings, radically amazing victory. And Melchizedek comes, blesses Abraham, and Abraham tithes to Melchizedek, who is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the secret to all of our victories. So now you kind of see the outlay of the chapter, and I want you to see how God fulfills his promises to his people. even in impossible circumstances. Impossible circumstances seem to thwart God's promises in our lives. And we see God's promise on the page of Holy Scripture, but in our life, we see something very different. We see impossible circumstances. Now I say impossible because they're impossible for who? for you and for me. But are they impossible for God? Is anything impossible for God? Absolutely not. God's promises do not depend on our strength, on our power, on our creativity, on our brilliance, on our ability to design plans for our lives. What we must do, what we must come to is surrendering to the God who is faithful, who is good, who loves us, and who has a plan that is far greater than anything we can come up with. And I want you to see in this chapter that God always protects those who trust in his promises. In verses one through 12, we see a guy by the name of, and forgive me if I just mess up this guy's name, but his name is Cheddar Lomer, Cheddar Lomer. And he's the greatest among the four kings. And he seems unstoppable. And yet we're going to see that this guy is nothing in the plan of Almighty God. Now, I want you to see that even the greatest pagan world powers cannot thwart God's promise to save his people. You know, we look at these details in our lives that discourage us. It could be relationship problems. It could be life is just really hard, something at work, something has come out of life, something, it could be a health problem. There are so many different ways that God brings us to the end of ourselves so that we trust in him. Somebody once asked one of the great sculptors, I can't remember who it was, I think it might have been Michelangelo, there was a great piece of marble and they asked him, how do you make an elephant from that great piece of marble? And he said, you just take everything away that's not an elephant. And that's exactly what God does in our lives. He brings things that shake us to our core to chisel away everything that doesn't look like Jesus Christ in our life. And though The pressure might come from all different directions, and people even might come into your life to try to do you evil, and they certainly will. I mean, the prince of the power of the air is very active, isn't he? And they may come to do you harm, but they mean it for evil, and God means it for what? Good, you are bullet resistant in God's plan, except for those bullets he allows to shave off those parts of you that don't look like Jesus. But other than that, you're bullet resistant. You're gonna be glorified. He loves you. And we're gonna see that in this chapter. And we see these great world powers, we're gonna go through this in just a minute, but I want you to think about how God rules over all the nations and even uses wars to fulfill his promises to save his people. Think about Alexander the Great before the time of Christ. He came and he wreaked havoc on the world. But though Alexander the Great put himself forward and his lust for power and his lust for money and riches and wealth, God meant it for good, for the gospel. After Alexander the Great, there was a universal language put in place, the Greek language. There was a unification of the monetary system, and there were roads that traversed all of the ancient world because of Alexander the Great, so that when Christ was born and lived and died and rose again and ascended, that message could go forth to all the world. So wars, God can use wars to accelerate the gospel. Think about the Roman Empire and later on the barbarians fought with Rome and some of the barbarians got saved and they brought the gospel to Germany and to Norway and to those parts of the earth. You think about the Vikings. Did you know that some of the Vikings came to know Jesus Christ and through all their travels, after they came to know Christ, they went back and they preached the gospel around the world. You think about the British Empire, there was a time when it was said that the sun never set on the British Empire. But think about the missionaries that were sent out of the British Empire and went to places like India and to Africa and right into China, all from the British Empire. You think about World War I and World War II and Vietnam. And these soldiers in their small towns were told to go to places that they couldn't even pronounce. The South Pacific, some of the islands that some of the heroes of our country have been to. And Vietnam. And I think of one of my mentors, Ron Brooks, who was a hero in Vietnam. And after he got out of the service, he went back to Vietnam and he preached the gospel to those he once fought against. God can use war, the tragedy of war, to accelerate the gospel. And that's what he's doing here in Genesis chapter 14. I mean, God rules the nations, doesn't he? If God controls sparrows and not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the will of God, how much more? Does he control the rising and the falling of every nation? And how much more does he care about you? Well, we come to verse one, and we read about these powerful kings. Verse one of chapter 14. In the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, remember where Shinar is? It's where the Tower of Babel was, and it became Babylon. So think of Babylon here. Amraphel, king of Shinar, Eriah, king of Elasar, Keterlamer, king of Elam, and of course, you may not know this, but this is right near Ur of the Chaldees, which would become Assyria, the Assyrian nation. And Tidal, king of Goim. So we have these two great kings among the four. You have Keter Lamer, and you have this other king, Amraphel, basically the precursors to Babylon and Assyria. So these were the biggest fish in the pond at that time. These were the great kings of the promised land. And then in verses two and three, You have four other kings, you have these four kings that are just named in verse one, that made war with these other kings. There's five of them, Bera king of Sodom, Bersha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, that is Zoar. and all these joined forces in the valley of Siddam that is the salt sea and it says in verse 12 why this war was going on 12 years they that is the five lesser kings these warlords Sodom and Gomorrah and three other people had served cheddar Lamer But in the 13th year, they rebelled. So obviously they were serving Cheddar Lamer, they were giving him whatever, taxes, perhaps it was part of their flocks, perhaps it was their children in service to him. However they paid their taxes in service to Cheddar Lamer, they had had enough of it. And so the 13th year, they got tired of paying taxes and tired of being under him, and they decided to have a rebellion. So they thought, you know, five lesser kings, we can take Cheddar Lamer, but Cheddar Lamer had these allies. And verses five through nine tell us that Cheddar Lamer doesn't take this lying down. He gathers his allies and he starts conquering everyone on his way to destroy the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and their allies. And Cheddar Lamer cleans house. He's a world power. He's powerful, he's successful. In fact, he has an undefeated record according to verses five through nine. And he goes and he conquers. And he conquers the place where one of God's people lives. Lot is there. Now, all is fair in love and war, right? until you start touching one of God's people. Once you start messing with God's people, God gets involved. God loves you. He loves you. And not even world powers can touch you if you are in the hand of Jesus Christ. No one and nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. No one will pluck you out of the Father's hand. And that was true even for Lot. Look at verse five. In the 14th year, Chedorlamer and the kings who were with him came and defeated Rephaim and Ashtaroth Carname, the Zuzum and Ham, this is their pathway down the king's highway to get to Sodom and Gomorrah, which is on the south side of the Dead Sea. And he speaks of the Emam in Sheveh Kuriathim. and the Horites in their hill country of Seir as far as El Paran on the border of the wilderness. Then they turned back and came to En Mishpat, that is Kadesh, and defeated all the country of the Amalekites and also the Amorites who were dwelling in Hazaz and Tamar then the king of Sodom the king of Gomorrah the king of Adma the king of Zeboim and the king of Bala that is Zohar Went out. So these are those five lesser kings and they joined the battle in the Valley of Siddam So now you really have these it comes down after all these other lands have been defeated it comes down to these five lesser kings against the four great kings and Verse 9, "...with Chedorlamer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goin, Amraphel king of Shinar, and Ariah king of Alasar, four kings against five." We find out in verse 10. that the victory is so great, that the five lesser kings flee, and some of their army fall into, by tumen pits, it says slime pits in the King James, it basically is a tar-like asphalt substance. And this is what was used on Noah's Ark, this is what was used on baby Moses' little ark. and it's a very helpful substance in that area. And it's very much abundant in the south area of the Dead Sea where Sodom and Gomorrah would have been. And so we read in verse 10, now the Valley of Sidon was full of bitumen pits. And as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell into them and the rest fled to the hill country. So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions and went their way. Well, I guess God's plan is just thwarted. I guess God just doesn't love Abraham and Lot enough. He just can't handle world powers. He just can't handle impossible situations. They just cleaned house. What should we do? What should Abram do? He's no match for these kings. There's no way. Well, if you're thinking that, then you just don't understand the omnipotent hand of God, his power and his love for his own. God is powerful and he will be very jealous over each one of his saints. He loves you, he will hold on to you. You say, well, yeah, I understand. God's gonna keep his promise to Abram, because Abram was faithful. But what about Lot? I mean, he's not gonna keep his promise to Lot, because Lot, look at the terrible, faithless decisions Lot made. Lot pitched his tent towards Sodom, and now he's in Sodom. And now he's been taken captive because he's messed with sin. And aren't there brothers and sisters in Christ that have done this? They've messed with sin, and they're reaping some of the consequences of sin, And we just throw up our hands in the air and we say, well, I guess God just doesn't love them. Do you know that God is not only greater than impossible situations and greater than world powers? He's greater than our own wayward will. Isn't that wonderful? He loves us. And sometimes we make wrong decisions and he's greater than our will. God even keeps his promises to his wayward children. Look at verse 12. They also took Lot, the son of Abram's brother, who was dwelling in Sodom and his possessions. and went their way. But we find that God loves Lot. We're gonna find out that he raises up Abram and Abram's men and gives Abram a great victory. Because Hebrews 12, 6 tells us that the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. If you are God's child, I can promise you some things. Number one, God will make you like Jesus. Number two, if you don't cooperate, he's going to send you discipline. And if you're truly his child, and you get too far, he will kill you. He will kill you. I want you to see this very briefly in, well, before we go there, let me just show you in 2 Peter 2, verses seven through nine. Lot was a born-again man. Lot was a born-again man. We know that because we have an inspired New Testament commentary. I mentioned it last week. And I want to mention it again this week, because we cannot forget that we have the heart of Lot uncovered in these verses. We would not have known this had it not been for the New Testament. But we have in 2 Peter 2, verses 7 through 9, a promise. And he says, if God rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, For as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials. Now, Lot made some very, very bad decisions. But Lot was tormented by those decisions. Think about David. David made some very stupid and ungodly decisions. But you read the Psalms and you find day and night his body was wracked. with spiritual pain and sometimes physical pain. And Lot went through the same thing. If you are God's child, you will live in torment through bad decisions. If you make sinful decisions in your life, it will torment you. You put yourself in situations on a regular basis like Lot did, you're gonna live a very tormented life. And if you keep straying, God may kill you. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 29. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 29. We have really the only instance that I can see, perhaps in the book of 1 John, may reference this, but a clear instance as to how God may kill one of his children and why he does it. Verse 29 of First Corinthians 11. Speaking of the Lord's table, those who are profaning his table. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. And if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. God says you can go this far, but you're not gonna live a life like those in the world. You start doing that, I'm gonna take you before that's even possible so that you won't be condemned along with the world. And I pray that prayer regularly for myself. God, if I'm gonna compromise your name, just kill me. And I hope that that'll be your your sentiment. Now understand now in verses 13 through 16 we're going to see Lot is wayward but Abram feels the responsibility for his wayward nephew and his brother in the Lord. And we see something very clearly that we are all responsible for one another in God's family. I want you to see this in verse 13 and they call Abram the Hebrew. This guy's a foreigner. It's kind of like taking one of us going down to McDonald's in the deep south and you walk in and you tell them what you want and they look at you sideways and they say, you're not from around here, are you? And this was Abram, he was the Hebrew, he's a foreigner. And so we read in verse 13 about Abram, this pilgrim, this stranger on the earth. Then one who had escaped came, so this is one from one of the lesser kings, someone from one of his army. They came and told Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol and of Einar. 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, north of Damascus. Then he brought back all the possessions, and also brought back his kinsmen lot with his possessions, the women and the people. Now, before you just quickly read over that and say, what a nice detail in the book of Genesis, understand again that these, for all intents and purposes, were the world powers of the very, very, very ancient world. They're not like us with our military machines, anything like that. But these were the great warlords of that time. And Abram, with a very small force of trained men, 318 men, was able to conquer what five kings could not conquer. He was able to conquer. And let me repeat what we've just said. God will fulfill his promises to his children, no matter how impossible it seems. And God can fulfill his promises even when The greatest pagan world powers oppose God. And God even keeps his promises to his wayward children, because guess who gets delivered from all this? Lot. Did Lot deserve to get delivered from this? No, but did Abraham deserve to be given all these promises? We learn from the New Testament that Abram was a pagan. Abram, Lot, all of us, we're all unworthy of all of God's promises and all of his benefits. So let's not compare ourselves to one another. We are all deserving of condemnation. We're all worthy of God's punishment and we don't get it. And why do we get God's promises instead of God's wrath and justice? Why do we get the gospel instead of condemnation? What makes us to differ? Wanna know what the difference is? We find him in verse 17 through 24. Melchizedek is the difference. the prefigure of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the difference. Melchizedek figures the one who makes all of the difference. In the Old Testament, you have prophecies, types, and shadows that point to the Lord Jesus Christ. Prophecies are very simple to find. There are over 300 of them in the Old Testament. The Messiah will be born of a virgin. He'll be born in Bethlehem. He'll die on a cross. He'll die for his people, etc., etc., etc. These are very simple to find. They're very much Taken at their face value, but there are also types and shadows We come through the Pentateuch and you find that there is a sacrificial system enacted and through the law of Moses and it's actually taking place from the time of Adam and Eve and And every time an animal is sacrificed, its blood is poured out for people. It depicts the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, this Messiah who would come through the seed of Abraham and take the wrath of God for his people. All of this is possible because of Jesus. All of our victories, the promises are certain to us. no matter what, because of our trust in Jesus Christ. So we see these types in shadows. Animal sacrifices, we see Christ in the tabernacle, in the temple, we meet him in the mercy seat, the veil is torn open, and we're able to go into the Holy of Holies because Jesus Christ was torn and allows us access to the father, and we see him as a shadow of here in the person of Melchizedek, the king of Salem or Shalom, the king of peace, the prince of peace. And we have various commentaries in the Psalms and in the book of Hebrews. You see, the secret to victory in all of our battles is to draw near to our Melchizedek. to our priest, to our king, the priest of the Most High God, Jesus Christ. Look at verses 17 through 20 in Genesis 14. After his return from the defeat of Chedorlamer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the valley of Sheveh. That is the king's valley. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God Most High. And he blessed him, he blessed Abraham, 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. What was the secret? to Abram's victory. He emerges from the shadows of war, and he basically says, I'm the secret, the priest and the king. And to show his gratitude to Melchizedek, he gives him a tenth of all that he had, of the spoils. And isn't that what we do? What is the tithe all about? The tithe is all about pointing to the one who gives us everything. It's symbolic that God owns everything. It's all his. This really isn't mine. I'm giving a tenth symbolically because it's God's in the first place. And in the same way, Melchizedek is given a tenth. Now, Psalm 110, if you want to turn there, is a messianic psalm very much quoted in the New Testament. It speaks of the divinity of Jesus Christ in verses one through three. And then in verse four, it speaks of his priesthood. The Lord Yahweh has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now, why does that sound familiar? Where do we read that in the New Testament? Who quotes that? What book of the Bible in the New Testament speaks of this Psalm. Can you remember? The book of Hebrews, chapters five through seven, speaks of Jesus as eternal priesthood. How could Jesus be a priest if he was from the tribe of Judah, not from Levi? How is he our priest? Well, he's from a priesthood that's greater than that of Levi, as we see in Hebrews chapter six, verse 19. Just very briefly, look at a few of these verses here. It says 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. Verse one of chapter seven. For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. And to him, Abraham apportioned a tenth part of everything. He is first, by translation of his name, king of righteousness, and then he is also king of Salem, that is, king of peace. He is without father or without mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever. See how great this man was to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils." What are we to say to all this? Draw near to Jesus. draw near to him. You say, but I have impossible circumstances. Well, you don't have world powers after you. You say, well, I've, I've, I've failed, I've been wayward. Well, God still encourages you to draw near to him. The secret to your victory is Jesus Christ. And it is our responsibility, if we see wayward brothers and sisters, to go after them with all the power of God. Now, I don't have 318 men, and regardless, it's not flesh and blood that we're to wrestle against. It's a spiritual warfare that we must do every day. We must become a house of prayer, Tabernacle Baptist Church. must be a house of prayer. Why do we get taken by surprise, even by our own wayward hearts or by this circumstance or that circumstance? Because we're not drawing near to Jesus Christ. He is our priest. He is our king. As it says in Hebrews, he's the anchor of our soul. He is our Melchizedek. And so we need to draw near to Christ, and we need to give glory to God. You know, it's not our great brilliance that is going to give us success. It is drawing near to the Lord. And God, as I've said many times before, can do in five seconds what it takes men lifetimes to do. Look at verses 21, back in Genesis chapter 14, verses 21 through 24. The latter part of verse 20, it says, Abram gave Melchizedek, gave him a tithe of everything. Can I ask you a question? Do you tithe? Is it a practice in your life to tithe? You say, ah, I can't tithe. I don't have enough money. I think you don't have enough money because you don't tithe. And if you don't tithe, you are really putting out a message that it's your own brilliance that gets you your money. It's your own hard work. And yes, should we work hard and should we apply ourselves? Absolutely. But even our brilliance and even our ability to work, where does it come from? From the Lord. So why don't you tithe? as a testimony that it is God who gave you everything that you have. That's what Abram did to Melchizedek. Now look at verses 21 through 24. 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 hand to the Lord, God most high possessor of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap of anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich. I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me, let Einar, Eshkol, and Mamre take their share. You know, the king of Sodom wanted to steal the glory from the Lord, and we can make alliances that we really don't need in the Christian life. We can try to make friendships with the world to try to get more people. into the quote-unquote church. We can make alliances, but how dare we do that? Let us depend only on the Lord Jesus Christ who can save us. And in this day, there are so many temptations to compromise with the world, to try to become like the world, And you know what that always ends in? Sorrow. Look at Lot. Look at Lot. In Genesis 19, you can read it later. That's the last record we have of him, and his daughters go wayward, he is drunk, and he raises up a seed that does not follow God. That's the last record we have of Lot, and he lived his days not with the riches of Sodom, but with the ashes of Sodom and Gomorrah. And I don't wanna live that way. And I don't wanna test the waters to say, hey, this person is not living right, but they're saved, they're okay. I don't wanna be that person on the day of judgment. I can't judge anyone's soul to tell whether they are truly born again. But I do know this, if you're truly born again, you will be vexed by sin. You will hate sin. And by God's grace, let us all not be like Lot. Let's be like Abram. Let's be one who rescues our brothers and sisters. Let's be one who draws near to the priest and king of our soul. Let's be one who sees God as faithful. Trust God. Impossible situations come. World powers may destroy even us today. There may be war. We don't know what's going to happen. Regardless, nothing will stop God from fulfilling his promises, not even our wayward hearts. He will begin. He who began a good work in us will complete it till the day of Jesus Christ.