Whose Glory Are We After - Genesis Part 23

You know, today we come to one of the most interesting chapters in all the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 14, in which we're going to meet some amazingly interesting people.

For example, Keterlaomer, and Beersha, and Birah, and Melchizedek, and many others. But this chapter is not only full of interesting people, it's also chock full of people. Of spiritual truth that is applicable for our lives today. And so, we're going to spend the next several weeks in and around Genesis chapter 14 trying to milk all of the spiritual truth out of it that's in there for you and me. And today, what we're going to talk about is whose glory are we after. And I think when we're done today, you'll understand why I entitled the message as I did. So, are you ready? Okay, here we go.

Just a little bit of review before we dig in. Remember that Lot, Abraham's nephew, has separated from Abraham and gone down to live in the southern Jordan Valley around the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham has moved a little to the north and is now living in Hebron. So, that's where we pick up the story. Chapter 14 verse 1. The Bible says, And it came about in the days of Amraphel of Shinar, and Arioch the king of Elisar, and Keterlaomer the king of Elam, and Tiddal the king of Goyim, that they made war against Beirah the king of Sodom, and Beersha the king of Gomorrah at El. These verses tell us that these four kings from the east invaded the southern Jordan Valley while Lot was living there. And verse 4 of this chapter tells us why they invaded. It says, For twelve years the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah had been subject to Keterlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled.

And so, Keterlaomer led this invasion force into the southern Jordan Valley to reestablish his control. Verse 8, Then the king of Sodom, Beirah, and the king of Gomorrah, Beersha, that we know from verse 1, and their allies, marched out in a raid for battle in the valley of Sedim. Now the valley of Sedim was full of tar pits, and when the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they obviously got beat, some of the men fell into these pits, while the rest ran away into the hill country. Then Keterlaomer and his allies seized all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and departed. They also carried off Abraham's nephew Lot and his possessions, for he was living in Sodom.

Now before we go on with the chapter, we need to stop and ask an important question. And that question is, did this event, did this invasion really happen the way the Bible says it did? And the reason we need to ask this is because critics of the Bible have challenged the historical accuracy of Genesis 14 more than almost any other event in the book of Genesis. Ah, but archaeology over the last hundred years has really helped us. In fact, Nelson Gleick, Jewish rabbi, famed archaeologist, the resident expert, really, on the archaeology of the southern Jordan Valley around Sodom and Gomorrah, he said this, and I quote, he said, archaeology has discovered much, which has buttressed the accuracy of the biblical account of the existence and destruction of these cities by the kings of the east, end of quote. Now I'm not going to give you everything archaeology has discovered, but I just like to hit three of the very most important things that Nelson Gleick here is talking about.

Number one, we have found letters from the ancient city of Mari, northern Mesopotamia. And these letters tell us that in 2100 BC, right at the time the Bible says Abraham and Lot lived, that indeed there was a powerful alliance between the four nations that Genesis 14 mentions. Moreover, archaeology tells us that this alliance fell apart not long after the time of Abraham. The point is that the Bible's account of this alliance in Genesis 14 is accurate to a fault during the time of Abraham and Lot, not a long time before Abraham and Lot's time and not a long time after, but right during that period accurate to a fault. The second point from archaeology is that the archaeology also tells us why these kings of the east wanted to control the southern Jordan Valley during this time. In his excavations of the southern Jordan Valley, our friend Nelson Gleick found that at the time of Abraham, there were extensive mining operations going on around Sodom and Gomorrah and that this area was producing large amounts of copper, manganese, asphalt, tar, and many other raw materials that were of great value throughout the ancient Near East. In other words, at the time of Abraham and Lot, the area around Sodom was a raw materials bonanza for whoever controlled it, but, and this is very interesting, Gleick also found that after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is going to happen in just a few years from Genesis 14, this mining ceased forever.

The point, and don't miss this, is that the only time the area around Sodom and Gomorrah was worth fighting over was during the time that Lot was living there precisely like the Bible says. Number three, and finally, archaeology has shown us that the route that these invading kings took to invade the southern Jordan Valley, and you can find that route explained to you in verses five, six, and seven of this chapter, we have found that that route follows a major highway that existed at the time of Abraham. Jack Finnegan in his book Light from the Ancient Past said, and I quote, a main highway ran from north to south through the land at this time, which is clearly traceable, the highway is, from the ruins of sites dated from the 23rd to the 20th centuries BC, the time of Abraham. Now watch, this was the exact line along which the eastern kings of Genesis 14 moved.

The point is that the Bible's account here in Genesis 14 of the invasion route that these kings took lays out squares perfectly with the transportation patterns that we now know existed at the time of Abraham. The result of all this archaeological discovery is that Genesis 14 is now regarded with a high degree of historical respect, whereas once it was dismissed as a historical piece of nonsense. Edward Yamauchi in his book The Stones and the Scriptures said this, and I quote, he said the unmistakable shift towards a conservative view of Genesis 14 may be illustrated by comparing the opinion expressed about Genesis 14 by Dr. William Albright in 1918 versus 1961. Now remember, Dr. William F. Albright is probably the greatest archaeologist America has ever produced. He taught at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and he published an article in 1918 about Genesis 14.

He published another one in 1961. This is what Yamauchi is talking about. Now listen, back to his quote. In 1918, the article then Yamauchi says, Dr. Albright regarded this chapter, Genesis 14, as quote, without historical foundation, end of quote. Some 40 years later, Yamauchi says, Dr. Albright asserted that his studies had, quote, established the absolute antiquity of the contents of this chapter, end of quote. You know what, those people took an awful lot of words to say what we say here in one sentence, and you know what our one sentence is, don't you? Say it with me.

Come on now, nice and loud. The more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right. And that's exactly what's happened here in Genesis chapter 14. So archaeology confirms that the way to approach Genesis 14, and folks, the way that we are going to approach Genesis 14 is to assume, number one, that there really was an invasion of Sodom and Gomorrah by these kings while Lot was living there. To assume, number two, that Lot really was taken captive by this invasion force. And number three, to assume that Abraham really did do what Genesis 14 says he did next.

What was that? Well, let's read it. Verse 13. Then someone who had escaped from Sodom and Gomorrah came and told Abraham the Hebrew what had happened. Now at this time, Abraham was living in Hebron, remember, by the oaks of Mamre the Amorite, the brother of Eschol and Anner, all three of whom were allied, these were people, with Abraham. And when Abraham heard that his relative Lot had been taken captive, he mustered his 318 trained men who had been born in his household and set out in pursuit. Now we don't see it here, but we learn later in verse 24 that Abraham just didn't have 318 men with him.

Actually, also, Anner went with him and Eschol went with him and Mamre went with him, his three buddies, and they took their troops too. Verse 15. And so Abraham divided his forces against them, that is the invading force, by night to attack them and Abraham routed them and kept attacking them as far north as Damascus and Abraham recovered all the goods that had been taken, as well as his relative Lot and all Lot's possessions along with the women and all the people. Good for Abraham. Now, he heads home with his army and Lot and all the people from Sodom and Gomorrah and all the material wealth that he's recaptured and on the way home he meets two kings on the way.

Let me show you who they are. King number one was a fellow named Melchizedek. Verse 18. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine for Abraham's troops and he, Melchizedek, was a priest of the Most High God and he blessed Abraham. Then Abraham gave him, Melchizedek, a tenth or a tithe of everything. This Melchizedek is one of the most intriguing characters in the entire Bible. Verse 18 of this chapter tells us he appears from nowhere. He's a priest of the Most High God.

He blesses Abraham and Abraham gives him 10% a tithe of all the material wealth that he has gotten from the battle as a worship offering, as a thanksgiving offering for God giving him the victory. You say, well, Lon, who is this guy Melchizedek? And where did he come from?

Well, you know what? He reappears in the Bible. He plays a very important role in the book of Hebrews and I'm going to explain all of that to you, but not today.

We're going to get to it, I promise, in the next couple of weeks, just not today. Now, Abraham met a second king on his way back, the king of Sodom. Verse 17. And after Abraham returned from defeating Kedorlaomer, the king of Sodom came out to meet him and the king of Sodom said to Abraham, give the people to me and keep all the goods for yourself. Now, we need to understand that in the ancient Near East, this was standard operating procedure. When an army and the leader of an army captured a people or captured another army, all of the material wealth they captured, they kept for themselves.

It was called booty or spoil. It's where we get our expression today, the spoils of war. And godly kings did this to King Asa, godly king of Judah, and the his Hebrew army defeated their enemies in Second Chronicles 14. And verse 13 says, and they, Asa and his army, carried away much spoil. So it was expected that Abraham would keep all the material wealth. That wasn't unusual.

In fact, that's kind of what was normal procedure. But look, verse 22. But Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I have sworn by the Lord God Most High, creator of heaven and earth, that I will accept nothing belonging to you, the king of Sodom, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal so that you, the king of Sodom, will never be able to say, I made Abraham rich. But remember, Abraham had some allies along, Anor and Eschol and Mamre. They hadn't made this oath. They hadn't made this promise to God. And so Abraham says, verse 24, but I will take the share that belongs to the men that went with me to Anor and Eschol and Mamre. They shall have their share. And so Abraham now returns to Hebron.

Lot now returns to Sodom and so ends this momentous chapter. But it doesn't end for us because we're left getting ready to ask our most important question of the morning. Yeah. Yeah. And so all of our friends, all you guys at Loudon and all you guys at Prince William, everybody at Bethesda, all you folks down in the Edge community, everybody on our Internet campus, are you ready? I know you're ready. I'm asking if they're ready.

I heard that. Okay. All right.

And you're ready. Yes. Okay. So, you know, this works better if you take a deep breath. Everybody, let's take a deep breath. Ready? Here we go.

One, two, three. Yeah. You say, Lon, so what? Say, you know what? I'm really glad about all that archaeology. That's really wonderful.

I'm glad those kings took the right route and got the road right and all this other stuff. What difference does any of this make for me? I don't see any packed chock full bunch of spiritual truth in here for me.

Well, let's see if we can help with that. You know, I did say this is chock full of spiritual truth, this chapter, and it is. But today we're only going to focus on one of those truths, and that is we're going to focus on Abraham's comment to the king of Sodom.

Let me remind you what he said. Verse 22. But Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I have sworn to the Lord God Most High that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the thong of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, I made Abraham rich.

Now, what exactly, friends, is the issue here? Well, the issue is God's glory versus Abraham's glory. Abraham wanted to be sure that God got 100% of the glory, 100% of the credit, 100% of the spotlight, 100% of the praise for all the blessings that he had showered on Abraham, and that Abraham got 0% of it, and that the king of Sodom got 0% of it. And you know the reason why Abraham felt like this?

Folks, it's because he realized that he deserved 0% of the credit. He reminds me of King David. King David in 1 Chronicles 29 makes an offering for the building of the temple in Jerusalem, but this offering comes out of his own personal funds. It comes out of his own private fortune. And you know, the Bible tells us exactly how much David gave. The Bible says David gave 7,000 talents of silver.

Now, I did some ciphering this week, you know, ounces into pounds times what the paper says silver's worth and all that. And you know how much money this is? I'll tell you, 7,000 talents of silver is roughly $238 million in today's money. But David also gave 3,000 talents of gold. You know how much this is in today's money?

This is $5.7 billion out of his private funds. But you've got to love David's attitude. Right after he did it, here's what he prayed. 1 Chronicles 29, 14, he said, But who am I, Lord, that I should be able to give to You as generously as this?

Look, for everything comes from You. And I have only given to You what came to me from Your hand. The point is that David was acutely aware that none of the credit for his success, none of the credit for his wealth, none of the credit for his victories, none of the credit for his achievements, none of the credit for the blessings in his life belong to him. God had given all of them to him. And Abraham was acutely aware of this too, which is why he said what he did to the king of Sodom. Abraham wanted to make absolutely certain that all the glory for everything in his life went to Almighty God, that Abraham got 0% of that glory, and that the king of Sodom got 0% of that glory. Now, do you see a message here for the Church of Jesus Christ in America today?

Because I do. It is my opinion that in the Church of Jesus Christ in America today, and I'm not talking about the liberal church, I'm talking about the Bible-believing, gospel-preaching, true Church of Christ in America today, it is my opinion that when it comes to this issue of self-glorification and self-promotion and self-exaltation, that we do not have a problem in the Church in America today, we have an epidemic. All you have to do, just watch Christian television, or listen to Christian radio, just read a lot of what's out there in Christian literature.

Self-promotion, self-glory, self-exaltation. You know, a few years ago, one of the pastors on our staff went to a pastors' conference, and one of the pastors there came up to our guy and said, so tell me, at McLean Bible Church, he said, are you an assistant pastor or are you an associate pastor? And our guy said, I don't know.

I don't know. And this other pastor said, you know, it just burns me up when somebody calls me an assistant pastor, when really I'm an associate pastor. Folks, what's wrong with us in the Church of America today? Do you really think Peter walked around worrying whether he was an assistant apostle or an associate apostle?

Do you think he even cared about stuff like that? I mean, you know, have we all become like theotrophies in 3 John 9, whom the Apostle John said loves the preeminence? In the Church of America today, and we as followers of Christ in America today, we need to mortify this love of self-promotion, this love of self-glory, this love of self-exaltation that not only lives inside of us, but that we see so many of our Christian leaders demonstrating. We need to stop thinking about our lives in terms of our prestige, our position, our titles, our power, our notoriety, our reputation among the saints, and we must make God the center of our lives and make His glory the paramount issue in our lives, not ours. And listen, if God decides to exalt somebody else over us, if God decides to use somebody else instead of us, if God decides to give the credit to somebody else instead of us, hey, as long as God gets the glory, how dare we resent that? How dare we resist that? How dare we object to that and chafe unto that?

What's wrong with us? I mean, whatever happened to the words of John the Baptist? John 3, verse 30, when he said, He, the Lord Jesus, must increase, but I must what?

Decrease. Whatever happened to Christians like the Apostle Paul and Barnabas, who when they returned from the first missionary journey, Acts 14, 27, the Bible says, and they gathered the church together and reported what God had done through them. They didn't report what we have done. They reported what God had done. Whatever happened to Christian leaders like Jim Elliot, the famous missionary who died in 1956 trying to reach the Auca Indians in South America? Jim Elliot said, We're just a bunch of nobodies trying to exalt the great somebody. And I love the words of Dwight L. Moody commenting on Moses.

He said, and I quote, Moses spent 40 years in Pharaoh's court thinking he was a somebody, 40 years in the desert learning he was a nobody, and 40 years showing what God can do with a somebody who realizes he's a nobody. You followed that, yeah? Amen. You know, I have a challenge I'd like to issue to myself.

You can get in on it if you want. I love what John MacArthur said. He said, People don't get it. I preach to me and they just get to come listen.

And there's a lot of truth to that. So this challenge is for me above everybody here, but it's for you too. I want to challenge us, every true follower of Christ here, to say that our goal is to follow the example of Abraham, to follow the example of Barnabas and the Apostle Paul and Jim Elliot, to make it our heartfelt goal in life that the Lord Jesus Christ get every ounce of credit, every ounce of glory from our lives, from every good thing in our lives, from every success in our lives, from every victory in our lives, and that we not only give him the credit in our hearts, but we give him the credit with our mouths. You see what I mean by that? Well, friends, what I mean is so often as followers of Christ, and we don't mean to do this, but so often we rob God of his glory because we fail to give him the verbal credit he deserves. People see all the blessings that God has given us in our life. They see the spiritual joy, the spiritual peace, the spiritual strength, the spiritual wisdom. They see the physical health and the physical stamina and the material provision God's given us.

They see the stability in our lives and in our family's lives that comes from walking with Christ. And in our mind, we may be giving all the credit to God and saying, Lord, we know this is all from you, but folks, unless we open our mouths and tell other people that this is where it came from, they're going to get it wrong, and they're going to give the credit to us. We've got to open our mouths and make sure that people know where the credit belongs. It's not good enough just to know it in our heart. We've got to tell people. You know, I remember my father, many years ago when he was still living, came to me.

I'd been a believer about five years. And he came to me and he said, and you know, I've got to tell you, I was the worst son known to man. I can't even, I don't, horrible doesn't even come close to describing how bad a son I was.

Disgusting, stomach turning, I don't know a word. I was horrible. I had no respect for my parents, no esteem for my parents. I mean, I was just horrible.

I was terrible. I was a horrible son. And when I first came to Christ, the Lord convicted me of this, of how sinful and how awful this was. And I really began asking God to change my heart and make me, you know, the kind of son I should be.

And I worked hard on that. And the Lord really did a work in my life. And my dad came to me about five years in to my Christian walk and he said to me, just out of the blue, he said, you know what? He said, you really have become a wonderful son. And I said, no, dad, you're wrong.

I said, I am the same awful, rotten, terrible son I have always been. What you are seeing is the transforming power of Jesus Christ in my life. I said, don't give the credit to me. You've given it to the wrong place. You need to give the credit to the living Christ who's changing my life.

He's where the credit belongs. And my dad said, whatever, walked out of the room. All right. But, but I believe it had an effect on my dad because you know why? Two years later, my father gave his life to Jesus Christ, friends. Praise the Lord for that. Now, listen, as followers of Christ, it's critical that we give God outward verbal credit for all that he does. We don't have to be obnoxious about it and we don't have to be sappy about it.

We can do it with class and we can do it with respect. But everywhere we go, my friends, everyone we meet should know that our explanation for what's going on in our life is the very same explanation the apostle Paul had for what was going on in his life. He said, 1 Corinthians 15, 10, it's by the grace of God that I am what I am.

Now you say, but Lon, this is wonderful. But you know, when I look in my heart, I see some really ugly stuff in there. I see self-promotion. I see self-exaltation. I see resentment when other people get ahead of me. I see resentment when other people get the spotlight.

I see self-promotion. Yeah, you know what? It's in all of us. That's part of the warp and the woof of our flesh, folks.

Nobody, nobody is 100% pure on this. I've got it in my heart too. You say, why? So what do we do about it? It's great to stand up here and tell us we need to give God all. But how do we fix this? Well, the Bible tells us we need to do two things. Number one, we have to come to God and admit we've got the problem. We've got to come to God and get on our knees and say, Lord Jesus, I've seen what's in my heart and it's not pretty. And this stuff, as much as I hate it, lives in me.

You know, the love for the spotlight, the love for self-promotion, Lord, this is there. The love to rob you of your glory. And then the second thing we've got to do is ask God to change our heart. Verse 51, verse 10, create in me a pure heart, O God.

It needs to be our prayer. Friends, you can't change your heart. I can't change my heart. Only the Holy Spirit can change our hearts.

But He can change our hearts and He will change our hearts if we want Him to, if we ask Him to. You say, Lon, how does He do it? I don't know. I don't care. What difference does it make?

He does it. So we need to be people who come and say, Lord Jesus, change my heart. I don't like what lives there. Expunge it from my heart. And more and more and more give me a pure heart that just wants to see you get the credit.

I don't want the credit. And make that not just something I say because I know I'm supposed to say it. Make that reality in my heart, Lord. God will do it if you'll ask Him to. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us today from the Word of God about a real-life problem we all struggle with.

It's not just the preachers on television. Lord, it's all of us who as just part of our flesh have this love for the spotlight, this love for self-glory, self-exaltation. And so, Father, I pray that you would really speak to our hearts deeply and that you would drive us to our knees before you and drive us to the foot of the cross begging you, Lord, to change our hearts, to mortify this inside of us and bring us to the place where when we say we really want God to get the glory and we don't want any of it, that that's just not nice words but it's reality for our heart. Lord, help us learn from the example of Abraham and help us walk in his footsteps. Change the very way we live because we were here today and we sat under the teaching of the eternal Word of God. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. What did God's people say? Amen. Amen.