Melchizedek

If you have your Bibles with you today, please turn with me if you would to Hebrews chapter 7. We'll be looking today at verses 1 through 10.

That is, King of Peace. Though these also are descended from Abraham, but this man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. In the one case, tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case by one of whom it is testified that he lives.

One might even say that Levi himself, who receives tithes, paid tithes through Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him. Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, we have many that are sick and infirm today. We pray for them. We pray for Yvonne McClellan and Jim Palmer, for Bernie Lohse, for Nicole Lohse, for Jeremy Karriker and Jim Belk, for Brenda Torrance and Kim Moody. We pray a prayer of thanksgiving for the success of Lisa Penzel's surgery. We ask for healing for the horrible headaches that she's now suffering since the surgery.

We pray for Betty West, who has broken two bones in her wrist and fractured the lower part of her spine. Lord, we pray for Israel, that you would protect them and bring this war to a close. Heavenly Father, today we go back 4,000 years in time. We take a serious look at the Melchizedek priesthood. This man is barely mentioned in Scripture, and yet his life and his ministry teach us unbelievable truth about the heart and present ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is an amazing thing to watch Abraham bow before this kingly priest and then pay tithes to him. Lord, help us to understand Jesus more clearly through the ministry of Melchizedek.

Please keep my lips from error. Help me to feed this congregation to exalt the name of Jesus, for it is in the precious name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

You may be seated. Kent Hughes shared an illustration in his commentary on the book of Hebrews that really rang my bell. He shared the story of the famous event that took place on June 27th, 1976. We have a name for that event.

We call it Operation Thunderbolt. What happened was this. Muslim terrorists had gone to and intercepted a flight, an air flight, Air France. It was a jetliner. And on that ship, that plane, there were 12 crew members and there were 91 Jewish passengers. They rerouted the plane and they took it to Entebbe, Uganda.

There they had permission by the president then, Idi Amin, to land the plane there. Didn't take Israel long. They sent three planes filled with Jewish commandos. They came into that very same airport, landed in the airstrip, and within 60 minutes, those commandos had rushed into the terminal. They shot down all the hijackers and they rescued all but three of the people that were on that plane, rescued, I think it was 110 out of the 113.

An amazing, amazing thing. Israel's resolve to liberate her people is still very much admired today. But, you know, we can go back in history and we can see that a lot of different places, even going back to the very first of their history with Father Abraham.

And you might remember that situation. The kidnappers in Abraham's day was a coalition of four Canaanite kings that were led by King Chatelemer. And he had gone into Sodom and the areas around that and just wreaked havoc there and took a whole plethora of hostages. Among those hostages was Abraham's nephew, whose name was Lot, and his whole family, and they were taken hostage. Abraham wasted no time, but he gathered together 318 trained men and they went on hot pursuit after them. They traveled 170 miles and they went all the way to what we know today as Damascus, Syria. And there they brought about a surprise attack at night on Chatelemer and all these four kings.

And it was an absolute surprise and when they got there, there were arrows flying and the swords were swinging and those kings very quickly scattered and ran like scared rabbits. Abraham rescued Lot and his family. And he brought back all of his family and all of their possessions.

Men, women, boys and girls and everything that they possessed, they brought back with them. Now I want you just to think for just a minute about what that must have looked like. Here's Abraham leading all these people back 170 miles all the way back to their home. And he's excited. I can just picture him. He's got dirt on his clothes.

He's got a smile on his face. He's got blood on his hands, but they're headed back. And Lot and his family had thought that they were going to be in bondage for the rest of their life. They thought that they were going to be nothing but slaves and their heart had just sunk. And now they are headed back with Abraham, filled with joy. And they're not slaves and every one of them are there and everything they possess is with them.

They were overjoyed. We get pumped up over Israel's rescuing of the hostages there in Entebbe, Uganda back in 1976. But folks, we should be even more excited about what God did through Abraham in rescuing his family and bringing them back home. As Abraham is coming back home from rescuing Lot and his family, as they're coming back home, a man comes riding up to meet them.

He's a very unusual person. His name is Melchizedek. Now we saw a little bit about him in the fifth chapter of the book of Hebrews.

We saw a little bit about him there, but today we're going to see a whole lot more. And the scripture tells us back in the fifth chapter, it's giving us a picture of Jesus. And he's telling that Jesus is of a higher priestly order, that he's of the order of Melchizedek. Now Jesus was the Messiah. And we are told through the scripture that the Messiah would have different functions. One of the functions of the Messiah is that he would be a king. The kingly tribe was the tribe of Judah. And the king would have to come not only through the tribe of Judah, but also through the bloodline of David. Jesus was from the tribe of Judah. He was also in the bloodline of David. So he met that obligation for being the Messiah. He was the king.

King of kings and Lord of lords. But he was also to be a priest. And the priestly tribe was the tribe of Levi. He was not of the tribe of Levi. He was the tribe of Judah.

So how could he be a priest? Hebrews chapter 5 tells us that Jesus was not a Levitical priest, but he came from a higher order of priesthood, the priesthood of Melchizedek. So the writer of Hebrews says, let me fill you in with more information about Melchizedek. A few weeks ago, I shared with you that there's been much speculation about who this Melchizedek was. There's some who believe that Melchizedek was Shem, who is the son of Noah, one of the sons of Noah. There are others who believe that Melchizedek was actually an angel, an angel that came down and represented God. And then there are many who believe that Melchizedek was a Christophany. A Christophany is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. We see several of those in the Old Testament. We see it in Genesis chapter 32, where the angel of the Lord had wrestled with Jacob all night long.

And finally, as day was approaching, the angel of the Lord hit the hip of Jacob and knocked it out of joint. And in doing so, he changed some things. He changed Jacob's heart from a heart of independence, dependence on self, to a heart of dependence on the Lord. He even changed his name. The name Jacob means trickster or deceiver or schemer. He changed it to Israel. That means prince of God. And what did Jacob do?

He renamed that place. He says, I'm going to name it Peniel, for I've seen the Lord face to face. That's a Theophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Another time we see a Theophany is in the fifth chapter of the book of Joshua. Joshua was getting ready to go in and do battle against Jericho. And all of a sudden, a great mighty warrior appears before Joshua.

Joshua asked, Who are you? And he says, I am the captain of the host of the Lord, a captain of the armies of the Lord. And Joshua immediately fell down on his face and worshipped this great commander. And the great commander received his worship and took it a step further. And he said, You are Joshua and you need to take off your shoes right now because you are standing on holy ground.

That was a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace, King Nebuchadnezzar finally went over to check it out to see the ashes of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. But when he looked in, there were not ashes.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were walking. They were much alive. They had not been burned.

They were perfectly healthy and well. But not only did he see those three, he saw a fourth man in the fire. And that was, they said, one that looked like the Son of God. I believe he looked like the Son of God because he was the Son of God. I believe that that was a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. So it has happened in the past.

But the question that we are asking today is this. Was Melchizedek Jesus? Was Melchizedek a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ?

I have gone back and forth with this over the last 50 years. There are many reasons to believe that he was. But my conclusion is that Melchizedek was not actually a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. But that he was a type, a picture, a symbol of Jesus to come.

That's very important. Verse 3 is the verse that solidified this in my mind. It says that Melchizedek resembled the Son of God. He resembled him. Not that Jesus was Melchizedek, but that Melchizedek resembled Jesus. A.W. Pink, Richard Phillips, Kent Hughes, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, John MacArthur, and Martin Luther believed that Melchizedek was a type, a picture, a symbol of Jesus, but not Jesus himself. Folks, I hate to be in opposition to Spurgeon on anything, so I have believed that according to what these guys have to say, according to what I believe the Scripture teaches, that he's not actually a Christophany, but that he is a type or a picture of Christ.

A.W. Pink said this is one of those Deuteronomy 29, 29 things, the secret things belong to the Lord. And Pink said that arguing and bickering over it tends to irreverence, so don't bicker over it, and I guess that's probably best. Let's look at Melchizedek, and I've got three points that I want to share with you. Point one, who is Melchizedek?

Look at verses one through three. 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's also king of Salem, that is king of peace.

He is without father or mother or genealogy, having neither beginning of days or end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he continues a priest forever. He's only mentioned twice in the Old Testament, in Genesis 14, and then again in Psalm 110. In Genesis 14, when Abraham is coming back home, bringing with him light and his family and the other hostages, bringing that back home, all of a sudden this man rides out and meets him on the way.

And I want to read you from Genesis 14, 18 through 20, what happened. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was priest of the God most high, and he blessed him and said, blessed be Abraham by God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.

And Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. He is called king of Salem. Salem is part of the name of Jerusalem. That word is the Hebrew word shalom, and it means peace. In other words, Melchizedek was the king of peace. Then we look at his name.

You break his name down. In the Hebrew, two Hebrew words, Melchi, meaning king, and zadok, meaning righteousness. So he was the king of peace and the king of righteousness, but he was also called the priest of the most high God. So pick up on what the writer of Hebrews is doing here.

He is showing the superiority of the Melchizedek priesthood over the Levitical priesthood. When Melchizedek met Abraham, there was no Levitical priesthood. Levi had not been born yet. Abraham died long before Levi was even born. Levi was a great-grandson of Abraham.

So let's think for a minute about this heritage. Heritage was of utmost importance to the Levitical priest. To be a Levitical priest, you had to be born in the tribe of Levi.

It was so important. If you were born outside of that tribe, then you were disqualified. You could not be a Levitical priest. You go through 1 Chronicles, and you'll see a list of all the priests, and they all go right back to that one name, and that is Levi. But in the Melchizedek priesthood, genealogy doesn't matter.

His father and mother are not named. Why not? Doesn't matter. There is no genealogy here at all.

Why not? It doesn't matter. Melchizedek priesthood had nothing to do with heritage. It was a priesthood that was ordained by God, and it was a higher order than the Levitical priesthood. Notice also verse 3 says, neither beginning of days nor end of life, that means we don't know when he was born, we don't know how old he was, and we don't know when he died.

This is what the Scripture says. But made like the Son of God remains a priest continually. Birthday and ages were tremendously important to the Levitical priest. The Levitical priest started kind of some service as servants to the other priests when they were 25. They weren't real priests yet. That went on for about five years. Then when they reached age 30, they went through a ceremonial ordination. They became priests, and they were priests for 20 years.

And then they had to resign when they reached age 50. And so it was very, very, very important. Melchizedek had no such restrictions. He remains a priest continually. So Genesis 14 tells us that Melchizedek rode out to meet Abraham. And he met him there, and what did he do? He brought out the bread and the wine, and he made a supper for him. Folks, this was not a surprise to Abraham.

It was not a shock to him. He knew exactly what Melchizedek was doing. This was a very important covenant meal. It was a meal that sealed the covenant. What covenant? The Abrahamic covenant. Folks, when Jesus Christ, on the very night before his crucifixion, gathered his disciples together, he gathered them together, they ate the Passover meal together, and then Jesus did what Melchizedek did with Abraham. He was sealing a covenant. He instituted the Lord's Supper, and that was the sealing of a covenant.

It was tremendously important. He took the bread in his hands, and he broke it and said, This is my body that is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. He took the cup, and he held it up to his disciples and said, This is the blood of the new covenant that was shed for many.

Do this in remembrance of me. It was the sealing of the new covenant. Abraham has been experiencing something glorious here. Melchizedek, the scripture says, blessed Abraham, and he blessed Abraham by putting assurance in his heart by sealing the Abrahamic covenant. Now, the really amazing thing is that Melchizedek was a priest in the land of the Canaanites. The Canaanites were absolutely godless. They were idol worshippers.

Listen to what John Calvin had to say about this. He said that amid the corruptions of this world, Melchizedek and Melchizedek alone was an upright and sincere guardian of the true faith. This godly man powerfully blessed Abraham. God had promised Abraham that he was going to have descendants that would be as many as the stars of the sky, that he would be the father of many nations. That's what God had promised him. Abraham's getting to be an old man.

He doesn't have children yet, and I believe that he had become terribly discouraged. But Melchizedek's covenant meal with Abraham was assurance that no matter what things looked like, God was going to keep his promise. God was going to give him children. God was going to give him a plethora of descendants.

Think of it. Just out of the blue, Abraham's coming back, bringing back the hostages with him, and all of a sudden, the most godly man on the face of the earth rides up to him and rides up to him and blesses his socks off. Man, he blesses him. He blesses him with a covenant meal to assure him that everything that God had promised was coming to pass. All right, point two, paying tithes. Look at verse four through six. See how great this man was, to whom Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the spoils, and those descendants of Levi who received the priestly office have a commandment in the law to take tithes from the people, that is, from their brothers, though these also are descended from Abraham. But the man who does not have his descent from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. Now, verse four says, consider how great this man was.

If you've got an ESV, I don't think it uses the word consider, but it ought to. If you go through the book of Hebrews, five times he uses that word consider. Who's he talking to? He's talking to Jews here. They know the Scripture. They know the history.

They know their traditions. And he is saying, listen to what I'm saying and think about this thing and consider it. This Melchizedek is greater than Abraham because Abraham paid tithes to him. Abraham took a tenth of all that he had and he gave it to Melchizedek. This is the first mention of the tithe that we have in Scripture. In Leviticus chapter 27, the Scripture says the tithe is the Lord's. What is a tithe? A tithe is the first 10% of your gross income.

That's what it is. Should we pay tithes? Does it matter today?

I believe that it does matter and I believe it matters greatly. You say, well, God doesn't need our money. He created the universe. He's the one that Scripture says he owns the cattle on a thousand hills and owns the hills under the cattle as well. God doesn't need our money. No, doesn't need our money. And we don't have to give it to him because he needs it. But we give it to him out of an act of worship.

And we give it to him because this helps build our trust and our dependence on God. In Malachi chapter 3, the Scripture tells us that if we don't tithe, that we are robbing God. I'm amazed at how many preachers preach that passage. And when they preach that passage, they have people walking out of the church and say, well, I guess that I'm just going to have to rob God, but that's okay. God won't care.

No, no, God does care. The tithe belongs to the Lord. We're also told in Malachi 3 that we are to test God or prove God with the tithe and that we are to do this because God promises to take care of our needs. I have talked to so many children of elderly Christian parents through the years, and they have said to me, Doug, my parents are paying their tithe. The church doesn't need their money. They need their money much more than the church needs their money. Would you tell my mom and dad to quit tithing? And I will say to them, no, no, I can't do that because if I tell them that and they quit tithing, I move them out of the supernatural realm and I put them into the natural realm.

So your parents can do more with nine tents in God than they can with ten tents without him. About three decades ago, a man in this church came under deep conviction about tithing. He came up to me and said, Doug, I sat down and tried to work out a budget. I know that I'm supposed to tithe.

I feel convicted about this. But he said, as I work it out, and he said, I'm not spending money frivolously at all, he said, I just can't make it work out. I just don't know how I can pay the tithe. I said, well, the Scripture says that we're to test God with the tithe. I said, would you be willing to test God with the tithe? And he said, yes, I would.

For the next four weeks, he did tithe. After the fourth week, he came back to me and said, Doug, something amazing has happened. He said, my boss came up to me this week. He put a hundred dollar bill in my pocket. And he said, I want you to know that you've done great work here and I'm giving you a hundred dollar a week raise from this point out.

He said, his boss had never done anything like that before. And he said, the new money that he had coming in was over what he needed to pay his tithe. Folks, that's amazing to me. And we really need to understand that the tithe is the Lord's. When we give the tithe, we give to him.

It's an act of worship and obedience, and it's a show of trust. And that's what Abraham was doing for Melchizedek. He was blessing Melchizedek with the tithe. All right, point three, the inferior is blessed by the superior. Look at verses seven through 10.

It is beyond dispute that the inferior is blessed by the superior. In the one case, tithes are received by mortal men, but in the other case, by one of whom it is testified that he lives. One might even say that Levi himself, who received tithes, paid tithes to Abraham, for he was still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him.

Now, think about it. Abraham's a pretty big name in the Old Testament, isn't he? We see a lot about Abraham in the Scripture. He's a friend of God. He was one who was the father of the Jews. He's the father of many nations.

He's the father of the faithful. And a covenant is even named after Abraham, the Abrahamic Covenant. All this recognition in the Scripture says that Melchizedek was superior to Abraham because Melchizedek was given tithes to Abraham. Abraham paid tithes to him because somehow there was a witness down at Abraham's heart that this man, Melchizedek, was a true picture of the Messiah to come.

Now, is that true? John chapter 8, the religious leaders were giving Jesus a fit. And they were saying to Jesus, do you think you're greater than our father Abraham? And Jesus said to them, before Abraham was, I am.

That's the Hebrew word Yahweh. He was proclaiming deity. He was saying, I want you to know I am the great I am. I am Yahweh.

I am God. And then he also said this. He said, Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. When did Abraham see Jesus' day? I think primarily he saw Jesus' day when he took Isaac up to the top of Mount Moriah, being obedient to the Lord to do this, took him up to the altar, placed him on the altar, tied him down, got ready to plunge his knife into his heart and take his life.

As he was getting ready to do that, the Lord stopped him, pointed him to a bush and there was a ram that was caught in that bush and he was to take the ram and offer the ram instead of his son. I believe that it was during that time that Abraham saw Jesus' day and rejoiced. He saw that God the Father was going to have to take the life of God the Son in order that his people might be saved for all of eternity. I think that's the primary time that Abraham saw Jesus' day. But I think there was another time when Abraham saw Jesus' day and I believe that was a time when Melchizedek stood before Abraham and he looked at Melchizedek and he saw something very special about him. He saw that this was a type, this was a picture of that one who had come, the Messiah, and he paid tithes to him. The superior, Melchizedek, blessed Abraham the inferior.

Now I want to close with the words of Richard Phillips today. His words brought tears to my eyes and I just want you to listen very carefully to what he had to say. We saw the meaning of Melchizedek's name and titles, King of Righteousness and King of Peace, how well these apply to our Lord Jesus and how important it is for us to note the order in which they come. It is only as Jesus achieved righteousness by his life and secured that righteousness for us by his death on the cross that peace with God is available to sinners. He offers us peace because he first achieved the righteousness that we lack in need. It is because Jesus came to set up a reign of righteousness that he was such a disappointment to those who sought military might or national pride, but not righteousness.

Underestimating their sin and forgetting God's perfect holiness, they thought of their need as political or military, not spiritual. That is why the crowd shouted for Barabbas, the violent insurgent, and then cried, crucify Jesus, when it came to Jesus. Because he came to establish righteousness first and then peace. Christ ascended not an earthly throne, not a war horse, but the cross.

There they nailed the sign saying King of the Jews, but they might well have written Melchizedek, King of Righteousness, to reign over the city of peace. Spurgeon comments, he knew that he could not be King of Peace to us till, first of all, he had woven a perfect righteousness in the loom of his life and died it in his own heart's blood in his death. Finally, Melchizedek shows us that when Christ was raised from the dead and ascended on high, he took up an eternal priesthood, becoming a priest for our salvation forever. Because he lives forever, there will never be a time when this great priest cannot show forth his blood that was shed for you, when his prayers will not pour forth effectual blessing upon your life.

When you die and are presented before God's throne, he will be there pointing to the wounds he earned upon the cross, charging your debt to the account he has already paid. His priesthood is eternal, never-ending, securing eternal life to give to you. Folks, that explains why the priesthood of Christ is so important and why so absolutely glorious and necessary for every true believer. We need to see it, we need to stand on that promise, and we need to see that this is a picture of who Jesus is, one who would go to the cross and then die for us, that he might be our substitutionary atonement, that he might take our sin, give us his righteousness, and that he might take our hell and give us his heaven. That's what this priest did. He is our high priest, and he is our high priest continually. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we have seen Jesus today in the ministry of Melchizedek, who had a priesthood that was superior to the Levitical priesthood. We thank you for speaking to us through your word. As we get ready to partake of the Lord's Supper, we ask that you speak to us through the sacrament, for it is in the precious name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.