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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. We'll be in an air-conditioned tour bus, but we'll be able to cover a lot of ground and look north, and look south, and look west, and look east, and see what God promised Abraham and his descendants. And we'll see the fulfillment of the promise.
It will absolutely blow your mind. So that's my pitch for take the tour. Come with us. So they separated. For a lot, a bad thing. For Abraham, a good thing.
A good thing. You and I in the New Testament are called to be separated from those who are not walking with the Lord. And probably one of the keynote scriptures along those lines is 2 Corinthians chapter 6, where Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah and says to God's people, Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, and I will receive you.
And I will be a father to you, and you will be my children. It's that call to separation. For, you see, sometimes if we have the wrong company, and they don't share a spiritual value system, and they don't hunger after the Lord, they hunger after Sodom, and they hunger after the well-watered plain of the Jordan, it could drag you down. It's hard to be around the company of people who are dragging you down spiritually. And so the Bible encourages us to get around those who will build you up spiritually.
And to use discernment and discretion and to separate. Let me read something to you. I found it while I was studying. You don't have to turn to it.
I'll just tell you where it's at. It's in 2 Timothy chapter 2, but it's a beautiful scripture that says, Flee also youthful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, notice this, with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Be with people like-minded who love Jesus, who love the Lord, who pursue Him, and your own faith will be built up.
If you're only around people who are dragging the other direction, they'll drag you in that direction. And so, he dwelt, chapter 13 verse 18, that beautiful green spot of Mamre in Hebron, and there he also built an altar to the Lord. And it came to pass, in the days of Amraphel, the king of Shinar, Arioch, the king of Elisar, Kedorlaomer, the king of Elam, and Tidal, the king of the nations, that they made war with Berah, the king of Sodom, Bersha, the king of Gomorrah, Shinab, the king of Admah, Shemiber, the king of Zeboim, and the king of Belah, that is, Zoar, and all of these joined together in the valley of Sedim, that is, the salt sea or the dead sea, 12 years they served Kedorlaomer, and in the 13th year they rebelled.
Chapter 14 brings to us the first international crisis, the first war, if you will, mentioned in the Bible. It is against four kings and five kings, or four kings are against five kings. There are Shemite kings or Semitic kings, five of those, and four Hamite kings from the eastern part of the province around Babylon.
Here's the deal. For 12 years, a group of cities down by the Dead Sea, and again, if you come to Israel, we'll be driving down by the Dead Sea and you'll see some of the remnants. For 12 years, the cities that were down in the plain, the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley, paid tribute, paid money, paid taxes, to a guy mentioned here, Kedorlaomer.
In the 13th year, those cities got tired of it and they said, forget it, we're done, we're not paying you a dime, they rebelled. That brought a coalition army against them from Babylon toward Israel. It's not the first time.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is talking about doing that again today and rooting out Israel and destroying Israel. So way back in the beginning, this stuff was happening and it will happen time and time again throughout the scripture. So they come. Now, here's the deal. The story is told because Lot is a part of the equation. Lot happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now Abram must come and rescue him and he does that by night.
But let's go through the story. And by the way, it says the Valley of Sedim, that is the salt sea, notice that in verse 3. It's called the salt sea because the Dead Sea is 32% saline solution. That's about 10 times more than any ocean in the world. You can float on the Dead Sea. If you don't swim at all, you could still effectively swim from Israel to the country of Jordan just by floating on your back.
It'll keep you buoyant. Twelve years they served Kedorlaomer and the 13th year they rebelled. In the 14th year, Kedorlaomer and the kings that were with him came and attacked the Rephaim in Asheroth-Kernaim, the Zuzim in Ham, the Amim in Shave-Kiriathaim, and the Horites in their mountains of Seir as far as El-Paran, which is by the wilderness. Then they turned back and came to En-Mishvat, that is Kadesh, just in case you were wondering, 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 Admah, the king of Zeboim, the king of Beilah, that is Zoar, went out and joined together in the battle of the Valley of Sidim against Kedorlaomer, the king of Elam, Tidal, the king of the nations, Amravel, the king of Shinar, Ariach, king of Elazar, four kings against five. Now the Valley of Sidim was full of asphalt pits and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some fell there and the remainder fled to the mountains. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and their provisions and went their way. They also took Lot, uh-oh, thanks a lot, Abram's brother's son who dwelt in Sodom, notice now he's living there, and his goods and he departed.
Now have you noticed the steps as we read? Number one, Lot saw Sodom. Second, he separated from Abraham. Third, he pitched his tent toward Sodom. He probably thought this will give me good advantage for my family. There's a lot going on there and a lot of good infrastructure there.
I need this for my family. He made a choice for himself, probably family included. Now, number four, he's living there, he's dwelling there, he moved in, and it's a wicked city and they're against God, but he's living in it. It gets worse in chapter 19, he's sitting at the gate, he's a politician of Sodom.
Nothing wrong with going into politics, but to be the mayor of Sodom is a problem. He's one of the elders at the gate, he's one of the lawmakers, the political bigwigs of Sodom in chapter 19, verse 1. So Lot takes several steps downward and now he's in trouble. He gets captured. Then one who had escaped came and told Abram, the Hebrew, notice that designation, first time we see that, for he dwelt by the terebinth trees of Mamre, the Amorite brother of Eshkol, brother of Aner, they were allies with Abram. Now when Abram heard that, his brother was taken captive. He armed his 318 trained servants who were born in his own house and he went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he divided forces against them by night, he and his servants attacked them and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus. So Abram goes on pursuit, 150 miles north he travels with 318 trained servants, they're trained for battle. And he has a strategy, he's going to attack them at night and ambush them and he will win the battle because of his strategy. Okay, he's got 318 trained militiamen, which is a large staff but a small army, against the armies of four kings, four nations. So it is like the odds when Gideon with his 300 men and Judges 7, do you remember, against the 135,000 Midianites, completely outnumbered, but God gave them the victory.
That's what it's like. Interesting thing about Abram, so far I read that Abram is a peacemaker, not a troublemaker. He wants to make peace with Lot, he wants to make peace with people around him, he forms alliances with people in Canaan, but here, though he's a peacemaker, he goes to war. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, the question of God's existence has serious implications, from his presence and participation in our lives, to the reality of life after death, to the basis for human morality. And in his book, Is God Real?, Lee Strobel, former atheist and legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, weaves together the latest evidence from a range of brilliant scientific and philosophical minds to answer the most consequential question of all time. This resource will equip you to address your own doubts and respond to others' questions about God with confidence. We'll send you a copy of Is God Real?, along with two messages Strobel preached on this topic at Calvary Church, as thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. I believe it would be accurate to say that Abram loved peace enough to fight for it. And sometimes peacemakers need to fight to bring peace. Now, the easiest solution whenever there's a conflict is to be a pacifist.
That's the easy way out. Oh, I don't believe in fighting at all. I don't believe in raising a weapon in any direction for any purpose. Oh, it sounds so noble.
But it's not. Abram loved peace enough to fight for peace. And sometimes you've got to do that to be a peacemaker and to maintain the peace in a broken, fallen world. Francis Schaeffer wrote a lot on this subject, and he said something profound. He said, I am not a pacifist for this reason.
For me to be a pacifist in a fallen, broken, evil world would mean that I would desert those people who needed my help the most. Okay, so let's put it in real life. You're downtown. Seemingly nobody's around as you walk out of a theater or a market, but you see a big, burly guy bullying a little girl, pushing her around, hitting her. What do you do? Mr. Pacifist? Well, I negotiate.
Okay, so what do you do? You walk up and you say, sir, please, don't beat that little girl. That's just not nice. Come to your senses. You know better than that.
Shame on you. And you wait for a response. The response is unfavorable. He says, get out of my way or I'm going to kill you first, then I'm going to get her. You keep persuading, you keep trying. At some point, if he is bent on her destruction, if you show, if you have any kind of love at all in your heart for that little girl, you must do everything in your power to stop him. That's where pacifism breaks down.
That's where activism must be engaged, that you love peace, in this case, enough to stop evil. And that was Abraham's whole position here. He has 318 trained servants. They're members of his own household. They were his servants. They were his staff.
But just in case we get into a problem, I want you to be trained for war. And now he deploys them to the battlefield. In the work, verse 16, 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. Now, this has got to be the most unusual story so far in the book of Genesis, what we're about to read. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the valley of Shaveh, that is the king's valley, after his return from the defeat of Kedorlaomer and the kings who were with him. Then Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, in Hebrew, El Elyon. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth. And he blessed God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he gave him a tithe of all. This guy named Melchizedek has never been mentioned before.
He just sort of comes from out of nowhere. His name, Melchizedek, comes from two words, Melech and Tzedek, king of righteousness, that's his name, it means king of righteousness. And he is the king of Salem, which will become Jerusalem. The word Salem means peace, so he is the king of righteousness, he's the king of peace, he brings out bread and wine, he worships God Most High, El Elyon, he's monotheistic. And Abraham pays tithes to him. Amazing.
Who is this guy? We have a problem because number one, you have a Canaanite king who's monotheistic like Abraham. Up to this point we would think only Abraham is that way because God spoke to him in Ur of the Chaldees and revealed himself to him. Could it be that God revealed himself in the same manner to this Canaanite king named Melchizedek?
Don't know, but that's the problem we face. You have a monotheistic king and a polytheistic Canaanite culture. Problem number two, he's a priest. Kings and priests were never the same. Later on when the kingdom is developed, it will be Judah that will be the kingly line and Levi, a whole other tribe that will be the priestly line and never the twain shall meet. They're to be separated. So are we now to infer that there was some sort of priesthood going on in Jerusalem at the time of Abraham before he met him? Don't know.
You see, it's just a wild story. To complicate it even more, we come to Psalm 110 and we have to because the writer of Hebrews does in the New Testament. It's a messianic psalm. It says, The Lord said to my lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool, for I have made you a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. And the writer of Hebrews, Hebrews chapter 7, chases it down on your own, verses 1 through 10, shows that Melchizedek is of a higher order than the priesthood of Levi and Aaron because Abraham paid tithes to him. Paying tithes is a symbol of worship.
It's a symbol of submission. And so here's Abraham and the writer of Hebrews says that Levi, Aaron, those guys who will form the priesthood, aren't even born yet. They're only in the loins, so to speak, of Abraham and they paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham signifying that this priesthood is of a higher order, a superseded order than that of Aaron and the tribe of Levi. So who is Melchizedek? Three guesses. Number one, some people say it's Shem, the son of Noah. Some people say it's a Canaanite king who is monotheistic by some supernatural revelation. Number three, some people say it's Jesus Christ. This is appearing in the flesh, a pre-incarnate form of Christ called a theophany or a Christophany, appearing in the Old Testament because he's called king of righteousness, brings out bread and wine, which you'll find in communion, and he is the king of peace. Without father or mother, without genealogy, without length of days, that's what Hebrews says. So three interesting interpretations.
Don't have the time to develop it further and tell you what I lean toward because it's just, well, look, we have one minute left. But it says he gave him a tenth of all. Now the king of Sodom said to Abraham, or Abram, give me the persons and take the goods for yourself.
So Abram has taken all the spoils and given them back to the cities that were robbed by Kedorlaomer. The king of Sodom, oh, I already read that. Verse 22, Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have raised my hand to the Lord. Yahweh is the word, Yahweh, the covenant name of God that will be given to Moses.
I have lifted or raised my hand to Yahweh, God Most High, or El Elyon. So here is Abram equating Yahweh with the God of Melchizedek, El Elyon, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I would 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. It seems that he had taken an oath before this battle, something like this. Lord, I'm about to go fight these kings.
I know I'm outnumbered. But if you would give me the victory, I promise to give you all of the glory. And if he were to take money for this from these kings, then people would have said, oh, that's why he did it. He did it for the remuneration, for the financial reward. He said, I never want that said, except only what the young men have eaten and the portion of the men who went with me, Anar, Eshkol, and Mamre, let them take their portion. You see, Abram is remembering Egypt. He remembered taking the spoils from Egypt because the Pharaoh had given him all this money and all this stuff because he said that his wife was his sister.
And he's thinking, don't want to repeat that. I think at this point, George Beverly Shay's famous song would be very appropriate for Abraham to sing or Abram to sing, I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold. I'd rather have Jesus than riches untold.
I don't want anybody to say, anyone made me rich. And then he just says, just give me the spoils that are needed for those who are with me. And that's it. Okay, conclude with this. Here's the warning for us. Number one, be careful with your vision. Be careful with your vision. Lot saw what the world had to offer. God showed him what he could offer him. You might say that Lot looked down before he looked up while Abram looked up before he looked down. Be careful with your vision, what you set your eyes on.
Number two, be careful with your values. What you value were a man's treasure, as the Bible says, there will his heart be also. Lot had a tent and no altar. Abram had a tent and an altar, but the altar was more important than the tent.
The worship was more important. Watch your vision. Be careful with your vision. Be careful with your values. And number three, be careful with the choices that you make.
Be careful with the choices that you make. Lot made a decision for himself, maybe for his family. I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt and say he made a choice based upon what would be best for his family.
Here's the ironic thing. He loses his family. Later on, he will lose his family. He's gonna go to Sodom and he's gonna have to flee Sodom, but his wife is gonna turn back and he will lose his family. So if he made the choice for his family, he lost his family. Abram made a choice based on God's promise and he got a family bigger than he could count.
More in number than the dust, more in number than the stars, and he was unable to have a child, but God did it. Now, could it be that some of you tonight need to return to Bethel, come back to the Lord, rededicate your heart to him? You've left, you've gone to Egypt, you've looked at the well-watered plains of the Jordan and you're trying to get fed and nurtured from a worldly source to come up empty. Maybe tonight would be the night where the Lord would bring you back into alignment with himself.
We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Lee Strobel's book, Is God Real?, and two of his sermons on the same topic preached at Calvary Church to help you answer life's most consequential questions about God's existence. To request your copy of these resources, call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to check out the many resources available at connectwithskip.com slash store. Come back next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on his word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth for changing times.
