Bible Study

Well, you know, I was going to talk this evening about the Holy Days and what we're coming into, but Mr. Hanaway, I understand, did a very good job of explaining the night to be much observed and going through the Holy Days last week. So I'm going to go ahead and just continue in the book of Genesis tonight. But if you have any questions about anything pertaining to the upcoming Holy Days, I do encourage you to ask. We will look into the Bible. We will find the truth out, and we will get back to you. So if there's no questions on that, let's begin in Genesis. And we'll hit on some unleavened bread and Passover themes as we go through the section of Scripture in Genesis tonight as well. I think last time we left off in Genesis 12. So if you'll turn over there.

Genesis 12, I think we got through verse 3 if my notes are right. That, of course, is the blessing that God gave Abraham that we know very well. And as you recall, I'm going to call him Abraham, even though the Bible says Abraham. So my mind works in that way to just call him by the name we know him. So if I say Abraham, and it says Abraham here, don't worry about that. It's one of the same person. But we know that Abraham was very faithful to God. And in the day and age that he lived, he just went wherever God told him to. If God asked him to do something, he came to the point that he did what God said. And that's because Abraham trusted in God and he had absolute faith in him. He knew that God would never do him wrong. He knew that God would lead him to where he needed to be. So let's pick it up in verse 4 here in chapter 12. And we find something interesting as we go through here in chapter 12. So Abram departed as the eternal had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And then Abram took Sarah, his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. And so they came to the land of Canaan. So they were in Haran. Now God says, move to Canaan. Abraham dutifully follows where God leads, and that's where he goes. Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the Terabith tree of Morah. And the Canaanites were then in the land. And then the Lord, the eternal, appeared to Abram, and said, To your descendants I will give this land. So here God gives Abraham a promise. To your descendants I will give this land. He brought him to the land of Canaan and said, This is going to be yours. Now we're going to find, even in the few chapters we go through tonight, that God repeats this promise. Over and over he repeats to Abraham the promise that he gave him.

We need to repeat to ourselves the promises that God gave us. They're written in the Bible, because the more we repeat, the more we believe, the more it's in front of us. And so as we go through here, we'll see that not only does God repeat, but each time he repeats, he expands the promise a little more so that Abraham has a clearer and clearer vision of what God is promising him. So here they are in the land of Canaan. God says, I'm going to give all your descendants this land, Abraham.

And there he built an altar to the eternal who had appeared to him. Now many times, as you read through Genesis, and as we read tonight, we're going to see Abraham building an altar. When he built an altar, what he's doing is honoring God.

That's how they honored God back then. So he honored God. God gave him the place to be. God gave him a promise. Abraham stopped, and he built an altar to God to honor him. And then he didn't stay there long. God commanded him to move again in verse 8. And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the west and A.I.

on the east. Remember the little town of A.I., right? From Joshua. We haven't gotten there, but A.I. was the scene where Achan and his family decided they were going to hide some things from God in that battle, and they learned that you don't hide anything from God. But here's the little town of A.I. that we see way back here in Genesis 12, with Bethel on the west and A.I.

on the east, and look what he did. And in that place, he built an altar to the eternal, and he called on his name there. Wherever Abraham went, he honored God's name. He knew that God had put him there, and he built an altar to him to remember that place and to honor him. And so Abraham journeyed, going on still toward the south.

Now there was a famine in the land, and Abraham went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe in the land, and it came to pass when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarah, his wife, indeed I know you're a woman of beautiful countenance. Now here's a famine in the land, and Abraham is going into Egypt. It's just interesting how many of the people of God end up in Egypt along the way, isn't it?

Abraham ended up there, Jacob ended up there, Joseph ended up there, we're symbolically brought out of Egypt. God's people live in Egypt for a while, and God brings them out of it. But here's Abraham going into Egypt, and as he goes there, he's looking at Sarah, she's 65 years old at this time, at least, and he looks at her as he goes into a foreign land.

He says, you know, Sarah, you're a beautiful woman. You're a beautiful woman. And then we find Abraham, father of the faithful, that we've talked about. We have seen nothing but exemplary behavior and actions from him, and he does something here that is very human in the ensuing verses.

He says, therefore, he says it'll happen when the Egyptians see you, they're going to say, this is his wife, and they're going to kill me, but they'll let you live. They're going to look at you, Sarah, they're going to say, you know what, we want her. Just kill him so she can be our wife. And he says, please say you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you. Now, as you read in the Bible reading program, you saw that what Abraham was telling here, what he's asking Sarah to do, is really tell a half-truth, isn't he?

Because over, I think it's in, I know it's in Genesis 20, I think it's verse 12, it tells us that indeed, Sarah was his half-sister. And so, as he goes into Egypt, he says, you know what, let's just tell them when they ask, you're my sister. And that way, they're not going to kill me because they want you, and we'll both live.

Now, here's a man of faith, and this is where we see the human side of Abraham, because absolutely none of us are perfect. All of us are going to be put into situations that we're going to learn from. And we may think we have the strongest faith on earth, but if we're not prepared for situations going ahead, we don't know how we're going to react.

Now, here's Abraham going into Egypt. If God could protect Abraham and bring him, call him out of Damascus, lead him along the places, certainly God can protect Abraham in Egypt. But Abraham does something very human. He's going to try to take matters into his own hand for his protection, rather than just totally relying on God. And here we see, here we say, Abraham doing that. So in verse 14, it says, when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw the woman, and she was very beautiful.

And exactly what Abraham feared would happen does. The princes of Pharaoh saw her and commended her to Pharaoh, and the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house. And Pharaoh treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, he had oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels. So Abraham was obtaining a lot while he was in Egypt, but he wasn't being faithful to God. And he and Sarah were living this lie.

Half lie, they might have said, living a half truth. But it was a lie nonetheless, because a half truth is not the whole truth. And that's what God wants in our inner beings. And for us to live by is by the truth. They were living a lie. And Abraham might have thought, you know what, what a plan I had. We've gone just exactly as I thought. They're happy with Sarah. They're happy with me. The Pharaoh is giving me these things, and life is going very well.

But God doesn't allow us to live in sin forever. You remember we talked earlier today about if we would judge ourselves, God wouldn't have to judge us. Well, Abraham wasn't judging the situation correctly. He was going ahead living this way. And in verse 17, we see God getting involved.

The eternal plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah Abram's wife. And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this you've done to me? Why didn't you tell me that she was your wife? So through this series of events, Pharaoh begins to realize Abraham hasn't been telling him the whole truth. The reason these things are befalling me is because of this lie that I've been told. And so Pharaoh comes back to him and says, Abraham, what have you done? Why didn't you just tell me the truth rather than letting us go through this process the way that we have?

Now, there's a lesson in that for us as well. You know, God sometimes will let us live in sin. We make decisions and we can make wrong decisions and we probably make a lot of them. And one of the things that happens in life is that we can go on living and thinking that we're getting away with something simply because God doesn't come down and smack us right when it happens. So we can tell lies or we can live in a hypocritical fashion. And as long as things go on, you know, the way we think God's okay with it. I've gotten away with it. And as Abraham and Sarah were here in Egypt, that's probably what they thought. But you know, if God, every time we did something wrong, would just reach down, then slap us, or whatever He would do to get our attention, life would be a lot easier, wouldn't it? It would be a lot easier because we would learn real quickly. That hurts. That hurts. That's not the way to go. In fact, if I think it's Isaiah 30, where it talks about in the millennium, and that the teachers will be behind someone, and they'll tap them on the shoulder and say, no, no, no, that isn't the way you do this. This is the way of life you have. That'll be a very big advantage in the kingdom for people to be able to do that and to have that immediate feedback that this isn't the right way. But we don't have that today. God lets us go on because He wants us to learn lessons. He's very patient. He's very merciful with us.

But He also wants us to learn on our own to make decisions that He would have us make.

But He's not going to let it go on forever. So every Passover we come, and God says, if you would just judge yourself, if you would just look at yourself, look at yourself through my eyes, look at yourself through the eyes of the Bible, through the Holy Spirit, I'll reveal to you the problems that you got. Abraham didn't do that. Often we didn't do that. But God says, our sins will find us out. Let's go to...

Well, you know, I didn't write the Scripture down. It's somewhere in Matthew, but God says, maybe Luke, be sure your sins will find you out. And you know, our sins will find us out.

If we don't judge ourselves, God will see that our sins are made known. And we don't want the public revelation of what our sins are, do we? It doesn't sound very fun to me to have someone else find out or the whole church find out. God says, judge yourselves. Be sure your sin will find you out. Okay. Here's from a Bible commentary. Let me read what they have to say this. I think this is Barnes' commentary that it comes from. It says, we don't sin in a vacuum. No man is an island for good or bad. God wants to cover sin, but if no other way will produce repentance, he will bring it out into the full light for all to see. We are living beings, interacting with and having an impact upon other living beings. And so, well, what he goes on to say here among some other things is that we need to be aware of our actions on others. But again, going to the, and I was hoping that verse would be in there, God says, the sin will find us out. Anyway, Abraham's sin did find him out here in this verse. And now he's faced an embarrassing type of situation with Pharaoh, explaining why it is that he lied. And so, let's go back to Genesis 12 here. And I think we're in verse 19. And it says, why did you say, why did you say, she's my sister? I might have taken her as my wife. And he says, now therefore here is your wife, take her and go your way. And so he sent Abraham away with his wife and all that he had. So here we have a very human Abraham who's learned we would think a lesson. But Abraham, like so many of us, just because he learned his lesson once, when he was confronted with the very same thing again, remember he did the very same thing again.

There in chapter 20, this time in front of King Abimelech in the land he was at that time. When the very same situation occurred to him, you'd think that he would have remembered the time from before, but he made the very same mistake. And the very same thing happened. The very same thing happened to him in chapter 20 that happened to him in chapter 12. And then interestingly, as you read about Isaac, when they say the apple, what is it they say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, Isaac makes the very same mistake that Abraham did. So sometimes, and those of us who have children, sometimes we see our children do things and we know it's nothing that they've ever seen us do because it was something from our childhood. And you think, how on earth are they doing the same thing they would have never seen us do? That's because those genes are there sometime. Even though Isaac wasn't even close to being even thought of at this time in chapter 12, he'd made the very same mistake that Abraham did. Well, let's move on to chapter 13.

Chapter 13, we have Abraham leaving Egypt. In verse 2, it says, Abraham was very rich in livestock, in silver and in gold. So God greatly blessed him, and he was a very wealthy man as he came back out of Egypt. And he went on his journey from the south as far as Bethel to the place where his tents had been at the beginning between Bethel and Ai. So he's been down to a number of places that God has led him into Egypt and now back to another place that he was at, the other place that he had built an altar to God. And it says, in fact there in verse 4, to the place which he had made there at first. And there Abram called on the name of the Eternal.

And Lot was with him, with Abram, and he also had flocks and herds and tents. Both of them had become wealthy. Both of them had a lot of flocks and herds at that time, and the land wasn't able to support them, that they might dwell together, for their possessions were so great that they couldn't dwell in the same area. And there arose some conflict between the herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock. So we have a situation. Both men have been richly blessed. Both of them have a lot of flocks. They both need land. They both need pasture. They both need water. And as a lookout, after this vast land, they all want the same thing. And so, as it is in so many times, some squabbling, not between Abram and Lot, but between the herdsmen begins, we were here first, we need this, and blah, blah, blah. You can kind of see or feel what the conflict was that was going on here. It says the Canaanites and the parasites were dwelling in the land at that time. So Abram said the Lot, please let there be no strife between you and me, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we're brothers. We don't want this thing causing division between us. You know what? It's just not worth it. We're supposed to be one with each other, one family. We worship the same God. We're not going to have land and water be the thing that separates us. Isn't the whole land, he says before you, please depart from me. If you take the left, I'll go to the right. If you go to the right, then I'll go to the left. So here we have Abraham being a very good example of being a peacemaker. You know, Abram could have simply taken the situation and said, listen, I'm the one who God called. I'm the one who left Damascus that God brought out here, and you came along with me. I brought you with me. You know what? I'm going to take this land and you have over here. He could have made the decision, and he would have maybe had the right to do so. But he didn't want the conflict. And so what he did was take the way and saying, Lot, you just take what you want and I'll take the other. He wasn't going to put himself first. He was going to put the other person first. And Abraham also believed that whatever he took, God was going to bless him in. There was not going to be any doubt that his animals and his needs were not going to be met. And so we find Abraham taking an example that we can follow and learn from as well. Give preference to one another, it says in the New Testament. Abraham did just that.

He let Lot have the preference. And so, Lot in verse 10, we find him doing that. It says, Lot lifted his eyes. And he saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere.

And it notes that this, of course, was before the time that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So he sat there, surveyed the whole landscape, and he said, this is one good piece of land. This is one good piece of land that we have here. He saw that the whole plain of Jordan was well watered, like the garden of the eternal, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zor. And so as he surveyed the situation, he decided he was going to take what he perceived to be the best for himself. Lot, verse 11, chose for himself all the plain of Jordan. And Lot journeyed east, and they separated from each other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. So now they're in a separate land, or separate places, and Lot chooses to pitch his tent toward Sodom. Abram stayed back in the land of Canaan.

Now maybe as Lot looked at the land, and he saw that it was well watered everywhere, maybe Sodom had some appeal to him. Maybe he looked at that and thought, you know, to be close to a city, that wouldn't be a bad place to be. Maybe he didn't think that at all.

But as he lived close to that city of Sodom, and I think it's in verse 13, the very next verse, it says, the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. Even back in that day, well before God destroyed them, because of their wickedness that we read about in Genesis 19, it was a wicked city. It wasn't wicked enough at that time for God to destroy. God lets the fullness of sin, and when he determines that people isn't coming back, or isn't turning back, then he'll destroy them. That's later on in chapter 15, I think, we see that comment made about the fullness of the sin of the Amorites. But we have a very wicked city that Lot is now living close to. And as Lot lived there, that city began to have some appeal to him.

Let's turn over to chapter 19 for just a second here.

Chapter 19, verse 1, this is the story of when Sodom and Gomorrah is destroyed, and Lot and his family are visited. It says, verse 1, The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.

Well, when he first went there, he was sitting in tents outside of Sodom with his tent pitched toward Sodom, looking at it. Now, in the scope of, I don't know how many years, but in six chapters, he's sitting in the gate of Sodom. When someone was sitting in the gate of Sodom, it means they were an integral part of that city. If you were sitting in the gate of Sodom, you were kind of looked on as a part of that city. Today we have city councils and we have things, and it's like, yeah, if you're sitting on the city council or if you're whatever they call them, precinct committee men, you're looked at as someone who's a key figure in the city.

So Sodom here, the commentaries say, or Lot here, is looked on as a key member of Sodom. He's moved from outside Sodom and he's moved into Sodom. And look what's happened to Lot as he's become part of Sodom. It already told us back in chapter 13 that when we're exceedingly wicked, God already had judged that place. When Lot went there toward Sodom the first time, he was probably appalled at what he had seen. He probably looked at the way the people lived and thought, you know, there's no way we can be there. But little by little he inched closer and closer toward it. Little by little the sins of Sodom didn't seem so bad anymore. Little by little he was able to get into it and become part of it. And thought he put it out of his mind, but somewhere along the line his conscience was fried or seared. As he looked around and things that he might have thought years before were a tremendous sin. All of a sudden it just didn't seem so bad. Everyone was all around doing it. The city was prosperous. It was wealthy. And Lot probably thought, you know what, let people do what they want. I'll just live my life the way we want. Lot had his conscience affected by being too close to that city. And he became part of it. So much so, as you read on in chapter 19, that even though God was telling, well, I mean, you can, as you read through chapter 19, he did things like offer his daughters. How demented is that to the men who were at the door there? And then as God, as the angels told him, what was going to be fall? Sodom. That God had judged the city and he was going to destroy it. And he told Lot and his family, get out.

They didn't want to go. Some of the kids didn't go. In fact, it says that they had to take Lot by the hand and drag him out of that city. Drag him out. And that's how he was delivered from the city, because he got too close to it. He lived in it. It doesn't say that Lot absorbed or began committing any of the sins. If he was committing the sins of the city, God wouldn't have brought him out of it. But he got too close and he didn't really see the effects of it. He didn't understand the gravity of what was going on around him. He had become dull to the sin around him.

You know, the same thing can happen to us if we get too close to the world. God tells us, live in the world, work in the world, succeed in the world, make your living in the world. That's what he wants us to do. And he blesses our efforts in it. But there is a danger, always, of getting too close to it and believing that the sins of the world are just kind of okay. And you know, I listen to the news just like you do. I live in the same country that you do. And you know, I look at the things around us and I think if we just didn't watch it, we would find ourselves thinking, oh, that's not so bad. I guess that's okay. You know, back when I was in high school and college, it was not at all the way it is today. You didn't hear of anyone living together. I mean, I don't know that I ever, through my college years, heard of people living together, or man and woman, before they were living together, before they were married. I don't even, I don't remember that. Maybe it was happening and I was just oblivious to it all.

And if someone was doing it, I would have thought, wow, that's just really, that's just really out there. That's something that's just totally against the norm of culture. But today, it's very commonplace, isn't it? So if I'm walking around and when I worked and people would tell me, you know, they were living with this person, it got to a point that didn't even faze me. Because, you know, everyone was doing it. And my thought process, I knew it was a sin. I would have never condoned it and I would have never advised anyone to do it, but it just didn't have the effect anymore that it did.

I see the same thing happening in other areas of our society today. As we watch our government take roads that are very familiar to what some of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah are or were, you know, we can become very dull to those things and realize, you know, or fail to realize, God is watching and He expects His people to live by His law. And when a land becomes too far away from what God is and when He determines that they will not turn back after He gives them warning after warning, then He does let them fall. Sodom was very wicked in chapter 13, but God didn't destroy them by fire in chapter 13. It wasn't until chapter 19, until a time where He looked down and He said, this people is beyond prepared. They simply will not turn back to Me. And when God makes that determination, things happen. So we find, back in chapter 13, Lot, sitting there close to Sodom, in fact, becoming part of Sodom for a while, to the point that God even had to drag Him out of Sodom to save Him.

We don't want to become so close to the world that when God, at some point in time, may say, flee this land, leave it behind, I don't know at that time that He would take us by the hand and and lead us out. Or if He would just say, if He can't make the choice, live in it. Live in it, because if you can't come out of her, I think as you heard in a message last week, if you can't come out of her, then you can partake of the punishment of her sins with her. Anyway, let's go on to verse 14. And the eternal said to Abram in chapter 13, after Lot had separated from him, lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are, north, south, east, and west.

For all the land which you see I give to you and your descendants forever.

So here's Lot in his area of the divided land, or Abram in his area, and God's repeating the promise to him. At this time, pointing out and expanding it a little bit, look as far as you can see, Abraham, as far as you can see, I'm giving this land to your descendants, and I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants also could be numbered. Quite a promise. As far as you can see, this is your land. And Abraham, who had no children at that point, God is saying, if you could number the stars, if you could number the dust, then you can number your descendants. Abraham didn't question, Abraham didn't doubt, Abraham listened to what God had to say, and he believed it. And so in verse 18 it says, Abram moved his tent, and he went and dwelt by the terribith trees of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to God. He listened. As God repeated the promises, Abram just believed. And of course, it tells us later that that belief was accounted to him for righteousness. And so then we come to chapter 14. Chapter 14 has an interesting event in it as well. We have kings warring against each other. It came to pass in the days of Amraphale, the king of Shinar. Shinar, they say, is where modern-day Iraq is right now.

You read about that back in the times when it's talking about Babylon and Nimrod. And then it gives the other one, two, three kings here that are in this alliance. Chedr-Leomer is one of them, and they made war with the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, Sohob, Daboyim, and Zor. So you got four kings warring against five kings.

Kings like to make war. All these joined together in the Valley of Sinom. That is called the Salt Sea. And for 12 years, 12 years, they served these kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and these other three countries. 12 years they served Chedr-Leomer and the 13th year they rebelled.

So we've got a civil war on hand, people tired of being subservient to someone else, and the 14th year, Chedr-Leomer and the kings that were with him came and attacked the Rethium, the people in this city, and these other cities here that you're reading in verse 5 that I would need a dictionary to pronounce, and in verse 6 those people as well. And then in verse 7 it says, they turned back and they came to Kadesh and attacked all the country of the Malachites and the Amorites who dwelt in Hezzazan Tamar. And the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, and these other kings, went out and they journeyed together and joined together in the battle of Sidom against Chedr-Leomer, king of the king of Elam and these other people. And the valley of Sidom was full of asphalt pits. It says in verse 10, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled.

I don't know what the asphalt pits were, but apparently when the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah looked at them, they thought, you know, we're not, we're getting into that. You kind of use your imagination what these asphalt pits were there. So they fled. Some fell there and the remainder fled to the mountains. And then they took all the goods of Sodom Gomorrah and all their provisions and they went their way. And they also took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and they departed. So what we have here now is Lot living in Sodom.

Kings have warred and now all of a sudden Lot finds himself captive. Sodom has been ransacked. All the goods have been taken away. Lot's been taken captive with him. And word comes to Abraham of what's happened. Sometimes when you live in a city and live in a society, you pay the price for it. This is what Lot has done. Abraham, meanwhile, is out there in his part of the land and Abraham finds out what has happened. Verse 13. One who had escaped came and told Abram to Hebrew, for he dwelt by the terabithries of Mamre, the Amorite, and these people were allies with Abram.

Tells us Abraham was a peacemaker not only in his own family but with the people around him. They were willing to dwell at peace with him. And when Abram heard that his brother, really his nephew, 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, let's read verse 15, he divided his forces against them by night, and he and his servants attacked them and pursued them as far as Hobo, which is north of Damascus. And we find that Abraham was victorious in this battle. Now, we have to stop for a moment and survey the situation. We have Abraham, one man, no sons, 318 servants, and we have him going out to battle with five kings that have already conquered Sodom and Gomorrah, able to take the city and all the spoils of it and take the people of it captive.

Now, I would say the odds are stacked against Abraham, wouldn't you? 318 people versus all these kings who have already had some notorious victories, who already have the spoils bringing along with them. And Abraham is able to march out and do that. Now, it probably reminds you of a similar battle later on in Judges, where 300 people were able to conquer someone who was opposing Israelite. Anyone remember? Gideon, exactly. God doesn't need the numbers to conquer. God is able to use very few numbers to conquer. And here we have 318 going against armies here.

And it may remind you of something that you read just this week. Let's turn back to Leviticus 26.

Leviticus 26.

Leviticus 26, verse 7. Of course, in Leviticus 26, God is recounting the blessings that he will give to a people that obey him. If they'll just obey his statutes and commands, we know from Genesis, I think it's 26, verse 5, Abraham did obey all of God's laws, commands, and statutes. He tells that to his son Isaac specifically. And in Leviticus 26, God recounts the blessings. One of them we find out in verse 7. You will chase your enemies, and they'll fall by the sword before you.

Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight. Your enemy shall fall by the sword before you. So I don't know how many people were in the armies of those other four or five kings that Abraham was challenging or he was going after, but certainly God fulfilled that promise to Abraham as he did that. And it says in verse 9, I will look on you favorably, make you fruitful, multiply you, and confirm my covenant with you. So Abraham goes out.

Abraham, who is obeying God, who is living by the way of God, who everything God commands him to do, he simply does. And when God speaks, he simply believes, and he has faith in God and absolute trust in him. And it says in verse 16 of Genesis 14, so Abraham brought back all the goods, and he brought back his brother Lot and his goods, as well as the women and the people.

He was victorious. I'm sure the kings of the land scratched their heads when they saw what was going on and thought, how did this little army of 318 people defeat us? And Abraham, under the favor of God, and as God fought the battle for him, was able to bring back Lot, was able to bring back all the possessions. And the king of Sodom, it says in verse 17, went out to meet him at the valley of Sheva after his return from the defeat of Cheder Leomer and the kings who were with him. Let's first come down to verse 21.

And the king of Sodom said to Abram, give me the persons and take the goods for yourself.

I'm sure the king of Sodom, he knew, he knew that there was God who was with Abram when this happened, and he said to Abram, just let me have the people, but you know what? You keep everything else for yourself. Notice Abram's response. Abram said to the king of Sodom, I've raised my hand to the eternal, God Most High, the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will take nothing from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you say, I've made Abram rich. And then he says, just pay me for the provisions that we've used in this conquest. Abraham knew that that battle and that victory came from God. He knew it wasn't by his might or his power or his military strategy. He didn't have the answers. Everything that he was that was delivered into his hands, he knew came from God. And he said, I'm not about to take a reward for that, because all the reward he was saying belongs to God. All the glory belongs to God. I don't need anything for it. Now again, there's another person in the Bible that was offered great riches because of God did something through him that someone was willing to pay for.

And that man of God also refused payment. Does that ring a bell at all? Daniel. Daniel did.

Another one I have in mind where someone, a non-Israelite, was having an illness of sorts.

There you go. Neaman. Remember Neaman? And he was suffering from leprosy. I think it was Elisha who told him to go and dip in the Jordan seven times. Neaman, I think that may be, it's either 1 Kings 6 or 2 Kings 6. Anyway, somewhere. And Neaman wouldn't do it. But then when his servants encouraged him to do it, his leprosy was healed. He went back and offered Elisha anything he wanted. All the suits of clothes, all the riches that he would want. And Elisha said, no, I don't take payment for anything that God has done.

But there was someone with Elisha, remember, who was very appealing to him. All those things that Neaman was offering. And so when Elisha was done, he went out to his servant and caught Neaman and said, you know what? My master's changed his mind. I will take. I will take a few of those things just to give to other people. And of course, he suffered the consequences of living the rest of his life with leprosy because of that action. What God does through us, you know, Christ said, what you have received, you freely receive, freely give. And so the people of God do that. We don't look at all to make any kind of profit off of anything God gives us, everything that God gives us as a gift. And we follow the same principle here that the men of God did. But let's go back, because this day, you know, it was not only the king of Sodom who visited Abram, but in verse 18, we find another king that was not visiting Sodom, but visiting Abram. In verse 18, we find another king that's there to visit Abram after he comes back from a from this victory. It says, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God Most High. And Melchizedek blessed Abram and said, blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And then it says that Abram paid Melchizedek a tithe of all. Now, we've talked about this a little bit before, I believe. Here we have an instance of Abram tithing to a king, or a high priest, I think it says here, because Abram realizes that who he is receiving a visit from is just no mere human being.

Now, take a second here to talk about tithing, because Abram did it. We find in a later chapter, as you were reading through, you notice that Isaac tithes as well. So many people will say tithing was something that God instituted just for the nation of Israel when he brought him out of Egypt. Not so. It was in place, and it's not even commanded here. This is something that Abram was already doing. Somewhere along the line, God had already instructed Abram that you honor me with your substance, you honor me with your time, you honor me with the way you live your life. And so, Abram was just giving a tithe when he recognized who he was that he was coming into contact with here. Isaac did the same thing as he came in contact. Let me read something to you from Encyclopedia Britannica, and I got this out of one of the commentaries as well. I think it was Barnes' commentary. It's talking about Abraham tithing, and it's talking about what the culture was back then. It says, the Encyclopedia Britannica says, the custom of tithing was almost universal in antiquity. People just were used to, and they expected to pay homage to their gods. This godly custom, for this godly custom to have been so widespread, it is reasonable, this is Encyclopedia Britannica speaking, to believe that God had earlier given instructions to mankind regarding it, perhaps as far back as Adam and Eve. So even the Encyclopedia Britannica, when they study what was going on in the land, they recognize this is not something that was brand new. In Exodus, or when the people left, this is something that probably God instructed the people right back when he was instructing Adam and Eve back there in the Garden of Eden, as he was teaching them, obviously, about sacrifices and some of the other things that we've seen as we've come along the way, and dietary laws as well. Well, let's talk a little bit about Melchizedek. You know who he is, but here we have Abraham coming across this man who Abraham is willing to bow down to and pay a tithe to. Of course, Melchizedek, king of Salem, means king of peace. We find Melchizedek back in Hebrews 5 as well.

Let's go back to Hebrews. Well, before we go there, let's go to Psalm 110. Psalm 110, because Melchizedek appears in both the Old Testament and the New Testament throughout Scripture. Psalm 110. Now, let's begin in verse 3, just to get the beginning of the thought here. It says, Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your, capital Y, power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning you have the dew of your youth.

The Lord has sworn, and he will not relent. You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. We were told that Melchizedek was a king, the king of Salem. Here in Psalm 110, it says, You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. So, he was a king, and he was a priest.

Now, let's go back to Hebrews 5. Now, if you remember, in the Old Testament, God, as the people of Israel, said they wanted a king ruling over them, God was very clear in the division of responsibilities, even as far back as Moses. Moses would lead the people, but God also set up a priesthood at that time, and Aaron and his descendants would be the priests that would take care of the ecclesiastical duties of the nation. They worked in the temple. And as the kings came on the scene, you had a king who was over the physical government, but you had the priests who were over the spiritual end of things.

King David was not a priest. King David was a king. Saul got himself into trouble.

When he was king, and you remember, he decided he was going to take on, and presumptuously, he decided to take upon himself, offering a sacrifice before Samuel came. And God rejected him from being king. So, he always had this distinction and this division of responsibilities. You had a king, and you had a priest. Nowhere in the Old Testament, except for this man of Melchizedek, do we find someone who was a king and a priest. So, let's go to Hebrews 5. But we're told in the Old Testament, the king of Salem, Melchizedek, came. Psalm 110 tells us he's a priest forever under the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews 5 verse 6. It's repeating Psalm 110 verse 4. It says, he says in another place... Well, we didn't need to turn here. You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Let's go over to Hebrews 7. Sometimes when you write down notes, you just write down scriptures in Hebrews 7 and verse 1.

For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, king and priest, who met Abraham, returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated king of righteousness, quite a title for someone, a human, to be given the title king of righteousness, and then also king of Salem, meaning king of peace.

This king was without father, without mother, without genealogy. Black empty said about any human, can it? Without mother, without father, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.

Telling us who appeared to Abraham that day, only one being that this can be. Without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.

Eternal, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.

Who appeared to Abraham that day? The one who would become Jesus Christ. He was there.

And as Abraham looked at him, and as Abraham spoke with him, Abraham realized in whose presence he was.

And he gave him a tenth part of all to honor him.

Verse 4, now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. And you can read the rest of the chapter yourself on that. But as we see here in Genesis 14, we have Jesus Christ, or the one who became Jesus Christ, appearing to Abraham. Now, let's go back to Genesis 14.

Genesis 14. And we really have finished Genesis 14. But keep in mind who appeared to Abraham here as we begin chapter 15. I don't think we're going to get all through chapter 15 before we begin here, but as we come into chapter 15, we find some things that directly apply to the time of the year that we're in as we're coming up on Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. In chapter 15, verse 1, it says, After these things, the word of the eternal cave to Abram and a vision saying, Don't be afraid, Abram. Well, he had just gone through battle. He had seen God's hand, giving him the victory. Don't be afraid, Abram. Abram, I'm your shield. I'm your exceedingly great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus. I've been waiting all these years, he was saying, giving me these promises. You tell me that you'll provide everything I need. You tell me my descendants will be as the dust of the field. But you know what? Here I am today, and I don't even have an heir to pass on the wealth you've given me. Legally, it's a servant in my house who would be the heir today. And Abram's just asking, is this what you would want? And Abram said, Look, I have no offspring. Indeed, one born in my house is my heir. Verse 4, And behold, the word of the eternal came to him, saying, This one will not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body will be your heir. And then he brought Abram outside, and he said, Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them. And he said to them, So shall your descendants be.

Now, we recall that Abram was an astronomer. At least, that's what the commentaries would say, and Josephus would say he was an astronomer back in Damascus. So he studied the skies, and indeed, it may have been as he studied the skies that God began to call him, and he began to realize there is no group of gods that can hold the universe together. There is only one God that can command this universe and that can keep it together. And Abraham began to fear that God, and Abraham began to respond to that God, and as he was there, he began to have faith in that God because he knew he was a faithful God. If all these years and all the actions of mankind, God must have loved man to keep the earth together the way he did. And so God took Abram outside and said, Look up there, Abraham. Look at the skies. And Abram probably felt a special closeness to God at that time because that was how he was drawn to God in the first place, by studying the heavens and knowing who he was. And he brought to mind probably how he began to understand God.

And you know, we all were called in different ways. At some point in our life, we realized that God was opening our minds to the truth. It may have been in all sorts of different ways.

Maybe for some of you, it was, you know, you heard a message of prophecy and realized that these were words from the Bible, and it made sense. For others of you, maybe it was having a question in your life, and all through your life you wondered, why is it that the Bible says this and yet the religions that are in this world do something different? Maybe it was a family member that you never really understood why they did the things they did, but they seemed so settled and they seemed so happy. They seemed so, like they had so much of a purpose in life. There was something, or maybe it was just sitting and listening to a sermon one day when you were growing up. And for the first time in your life, it made sense.

And not even made sense, but just hit you in a way it never did before. But there was some time in your life that God called you and you remember when it was, how it was that you first began to understand God. And as you think about those things, and as we go back to the beginning sometimes, it gives us kind of an inner warmth to feel those things. And Abraham may have felt this as he was going outside in the evening and God was recalling to him, remember Abraham, have faith in me. You've had faith in me, believe that what I do or what I say I'm going to do, I do. The very next verse there in verse six says, and Abram believed in the eternal and he accounted it to him for righteousness. As God said that, as he looked up at the sky, Abraham believed all the doubts, all the questions, if he had any disappeared. And he simply knew at a level that was very deep inside of him that God was going to do what he said he was going to do.

And he followed God implicitly the rest of the days of his life. Now in verse five, we can take note that this is an evening that we're in. It's an evening time when Abraham goes out and he looks at the stars of the heaven. So we're in the beginning of a day because you know that God begins the day in the evening. So we have a day here in verse five, this beginning, that God is bringing Abraham outside to talk to him. Abraham believes in God, commits to him again in his mind that he believes God. And then God says to Abraham in verse seven, I am the eternal who brought you out of the Chaldeans to give you this land to inherit it.

I brought you out of this land or brought you out of the land of the Chaldeans.

Now as you read through Exodus, you've read those very same words that God said to Israel, right? I am the God who brought you out of Israel or out of Egypt. I'm the God who delivered you.

And God is telling Abraham the very same thing. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of her or the Chaldeans. I brought you out of the world in the society that you lived in. I brought you to the place that I wanted you to be. And I've been with you all this time. I brought you out of here to give you this land to inherit it. I brought you out to show you the land that you're going to receive. And Abraham said, Lord God, how will I know that I will inherit it? So God said to him a very interesting thing. Go and bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And Abraham did as he was told, brought them to God and he cut them in two, down the middle, and placed each piece opposite the other, but he didn't cut the birds in two. And then it says, when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. So here on this day that began the evening before in verse 5, Abraham says, how do I know you're going to give me this land? And God says, I'm going to make a covenant with you. I'm going to make a covenant with you. And the way they made a covenant in Old Testament times was they would take an animal, a calf, a heifer, whatever we have listed here, and they would cut the animal in two. And that the parties to the covenant would pass through that animal, the concept being that if either of us break this covenant as we walk through it, then let happen to us what happened to these animals. If we break this covenant, then let us die as these animals died. And so Abram's going through a process here that he's very well aware of, and you can look it up in the commentaries. Again, this comes from Barms. It says, in Abraham's day, covenants were sometimes agreed to by preparing a sacrifice, cutting it in two pieces and having it, H-A-L-V-I-N-G, it exactly. They would lay the pieces out on the ground, and those making the covenant had to pass between the divided carcass. This symbolized the seriousness of their intentions to keep the covenant because the divided carcass represented what would happen to them if they didn't keep their oaths. Jamison Fawcett Brown repeats the same thing in just about any commentary that you would look into. We'll tell you that was what was happening here. There was a covenant being prepared that the parties were going to walk through, a covenant that they intended to keep in response to Abraham's question, and it happened on one day, the evening of which began in verse 5. And we find at the end of that day, in verse 11, just a kind of an inset verse, when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. And then the day ends in verse 12.

Now, when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. So we've passed from one day into another day. And as the next day occurs, a deep sleep falls on Abram, and behold horror and great darkness fell upon him. He was having a nightmare, if we wanted to put in our current verbiage. But more than just a nightmare, what he saw, no one knows, but it certainly moved him.

And God said to Abram, Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs. And they will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years.

What did Abraham see in that vision? Here he had been waiting faithfully for God to give him a son.

God had said, I'll give you a son. In fact, you're going to have so many descendants, you're not going to be able to even number them. And as he enters into the covenant with God, as God says, the things to Abraham and Abraham knew what he was doing, a deep sleep comes on him, and what he sees is a horrible sight.

Most of the commentaries would say, and there's reason to believe it, that what he saw was his descendants living in Egypt, afflicted by the Egyptians, living a horrible life, in pain, in bondage, in agony, not at all the picture that Abraham had of what his descendants would be like.

Some commentaries suggest that Abraham may have even seen one of his descendants being beaten, being mocked, being jeered, being nailed to a stake, dying in agony.

And what he saw was a horrible thing for him to see. What he saw, we don't know. But we know it was horrible, and we know it was something that affected him. And it happened on the second of two days that God was working with him. Now, if we go back to chapter 14, and we'll end here in just a couple minutes, chapter 14, back in verse 18, you remember we were introduced to Melchizedek. And Melchizedek, king of Salem, it says in verse 18 of chapter 14, brought out bread and wine.

Now, bread and wine are symbols that we use in Passover. Melchizedek brought those out to Abram. And then later on, we have a sunset occurring, a sunset occurring and a day passing by in which God is going to enter into a covenant with his people. In response to Abraham asking, where are the descendants and what will they do? And then as the sun goes down on that day, Abram falls into a great sleep and he sees a horrible, horrible situation befalling probably his descendants. Whether it was all of them or just one, we don't know.

The commentaries are clear. These are two separate days that we're talking about here.

Could well be the day of Passover and the first day of Unleavened Bread. And on that day, perhaps 430 years before God brought Israel out of Egypt, perhaps in another time frame, God was showing Abraham exactly what was going to occur. And he assures Abram in later verses here, well, he tells him exactly what's going to happen in chapter 14. When they leave that land, they will plunder them. But he tells Abraham, you're going to go in peace. This won't happen in your lifetime, Abraham. But this is what's going to befall your people, your descendants.

And so, as we look toward the days of Unleavened Bread, we realize that the people, God's people in the Old Testament, did go through some really hard times. The bondage that they were in and the affliction that they suffered. But God delivered them. And on the day of Passover, Christ went through really, really tough times. But with God's strength, he completed his mission, and he was resurrected. And now sits at the right hand of God in glory. And God makes promises to us too.

He says he will bring us into his promised land. He will deliver us into his kingdom, and it will be a time of great peace. And we can see the vision of what he has in mind as we read through the pages of the Bible. But before that time, it's going to be some tough times.

Christ says there will be. But just like the Israelites, just like Jesus Christ, the way that we move through those times is through faith in God. Never doubting, never wavering, never doubting that he's going to fulfill his promises exactly as he said they would. Or as he said he would. Let's end there, and we may take this up again on another occasion as part of something before Passover. But let's end. We've been going at this for an hour now.

Are there any questions before we end here tonight or any comments?