We were looking at Genesis 13, the first
few verses.
We saw that one of the results of
Abraham going to Egypt was that he became
rich, and what the world would consider a
blessing became a cause of a problem in
the family between Abraham and Lot, and this
is why it's dangerous to have more than
what we need, particularly if we are so
foolish to think that when we get more
than what we need, that it is a
blessing of God, and it is a sad
thing indeed.
And we read here that Lot, verse five,
went with Abraham, and he also had flocks
and herds and tents.
He also made money in Egypt, like his
uncle, and the land could not sustain them.
In the beginning, before they went to Egypt,
it was all right, they could live together,
but now that they had become rich, they
could not live together.
And when we think of the reason why
Lot and Abraham were separated, it's so sad
to see that it was due to money,
that it was due to material wealth, that
they had to part their ways and could
no longer be together.
And also we read their possessions, verse six,
were so great that they were not able
to remain together.
Sad, and that's been repeated many times.
Many people who have had lifelong bitterness against
one another because of money and property, Abraham
and Lot, their possessions were so great.
Think what a blessing it would have been
if they didn't have so many possessions.
Don't think that the abundance of possessions is
necessarily a blessing.
It wasn't here.
And there was strife between the herdsmen of
Abraham's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's livestock.
There's always strife when there is abundance of
money.
And it's very significant that it says there,
now the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling
in the land, while these two people who
claimed to have received revelation from God, their
servants were fighting because of material things.
The Canaanites and Perizzites apparently were living peacefully
there, but those who claimed to have revelation
from God, their servants were fighting.
And there again we find that history is
repeated even today.
But there we see the greatness of a
true man of God.
Abraham didn't get into a fight.
He was detached from those riches.
They didn't mean anything to him.
But for Lot, it meant a lot.
And when we think of Abraham and Lot,
we must remember what the Bible says in
2 Peter 2.
It says there in verse 7 that Lot
was a righteous man.
It says in 2 Peter 2.7 that
the Lord rescued righteous Lot oppressed by the
sensual conduct of unprincipled men in Sodom, for
by what he saw and heard, that righteous
man, while living among them, felt his righteous
soul tormented day after day with their lawless
deeds.
Three times the word righteous is used in
reference to Lot in these verses.
So Lot is not a picture of an
unbeliever.
He's a picture of a believer who just
didn't make it to be a part of
the bride of Christ, whose interests and affections
were on this earth.
His doctrines may all have been right, but
his heart was set on earthly things.
And so when we see the contrast between
Abraham and Lot, we must not assume, oh
well, we are of course like Abraham, because
we are not unbelievers like Lot.
No, Lot is not described as an unbeliever.
The Holy Spirit calls him a righteous man,
and yet a righteous man who was an
absolute compromiser, a righteous man who sought his
own, a righteous man who went after money
and tried to make it good for his
family here on earth, and thus brought his
family to ruin.
But Abraham, he had a different attitude.
He says in verse eight, Please let there
be no strife between you and me, nor
between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we
are brothers.
Notice the word he uses.
He says, we are brothers.
He doesn't say, I'm your uncle.
He was his uncle.
But he doesn't take that position, and I
believe that's the mark of a man of
God.
He has no desire for any status or
position, and it's very difficult to find people
like that.
We, we, there's a tremendous lust for titles
in our flesh.
We like people calling us uncle or elder
brother, particularly in our Indian vernacular languages.
There are special titles for elder brothers and
various grades of uncles, big and small, and
they can be pretty offended if you don't
put them at the right level.
If they are on level one and you
put them at level two in the title
you give.
Now, that's all right.
It's when such people call themselves believers that
they are just fooling themselves when they think
they are disciples.
They are far from being disciples.
Or a sister who likes to be called
as an elder sister or some special name.
Garbage!
You want to be a disciple of Jesus?
Follow Abraham.
Say we are brothers.
You don't want any of these respected titles.
He made himself of no reputation, and it
is his disciples that we have become.
And the test is when somebody doesn't give
me that respect I think I deserve, what
is my inward reaction?
Even if I have controlled my tongue, if
I find that inwardly I'm a bit hurt
by that, that is God speaking to me
that I have to die there.
I have to die because I did get
a little disturbed that somebody didn't give me
the title and put me in the status
that I deserve.
I've still got a little bit of garbage
in my heart that I need to throw
out.
So Abraham says we are brothers, and then
look at his graciousness and his generosity.
Always the mark of a man of God.
Graciousness and generosity.
When it comes to earthly things, no grabbing,
no fighting.
Take it brother.
You take the first choice.
I'll take what you don't want.
It's one thing to do that for the
sake of honor.
It's quite another thing to have a heart
like that which does not want the best
for myself.
The others are welcome to have it.
Is not the whole land before you?
Please separate from me.
If you go to the left, I'll go
to the right.
If you go to the right, I'll go
to the left.
Think of all the things that Abraham could
have told his nephew Lot.
He could have said, listen, I'm your uncle,
and so I'll choose, and then you can
take what's left over.
He could have also said, listen, I was
the one whom God called.
God didn't speak to you.
You just tagged along.
So this land God's supposed to have given
to me.
It's amazing how people fight in the name
of religion and use God's name also in
order to fight for their property.
They say, this is my God-given right.
Abraham could have said that.
Didn't God tell him, I'm going to give
you this land?
He could have said, listen, God's told me
this is mine.
He's brought me here, and I'm going to
fight in the name of God.
When our heart is set on covetousness, the
devil will even give us scriptural foundation for
our covetousness and for our strife and for
our fighting.
We have to beware in such situations.
No, he doesn't say any of that thing.
He doesn't stand on his right.
One of the marks of the men of
God we see in scripture is this, that
they never fight for their rights.
They let God give it to them.
Think of David.
He never killed Saul, even though Samuel had
anointed him to be king.
He never grabbed it, even though all his
followers said, kill him now, when he was
sleeping in front of him.
He said, no, I won't do it.
He says, if God wants me to have
this position, He will give it to me.
That was Abraham's attitude.
I will not grab.
I will let God give it to me.
And when it says that if we seek
the kingdom of God first, all these other
material things will be added to us, it
should therefore imply that all the material things
that we have were things added to us,
not things we pursued after, and after great
struggle and sweating and perspiring, we managed to
get it.
That's all right out in the world.
But for a believer, it must be that
he's spent his life seeking God's kingdom, and
God just added these things to him.
That should be our testimony, that God has
added all these things.
I never sought any of them.
I'm not interested in any of them, but
God added them.
Not by grabbing, not by pursuing, not by
running after, not by scheming, manipulating.
These are all the ways of the world.
Lot had that mind.
And remember, Lot's a believer.
Lot's a picture of a believer who's got
this scheming, manipulating mind in relation to other
believers, who think, what can I get for
myself?
Where can I grab?
It can be in matter of marriage.
Some brother's got his eye on some sister,
and he's going to grab her before anybody
else gets there, or vice versa.
Some sister's got her eye on some brother
and waiting for a chance to grab him
before somebody else grabs him.
That is all Lot.
I'm not talking about unbelievers.
I'm talking about believers who've got this grabbing
attitude, who cannot, do not have faith that
what God wants them to have, they'll get.
They don't have to grab.
The same thing with all material things.
So it's a prostable study to see the
contrast between Abraham and Lot.
And Lot, it says in verse 10, lifted
up his eyes.
He didn't have to pray.
He didn't have to see God.
When we are getting a gift, when somebody
gives us first choice, it's amazing.
We don't have to pray.
We can just lift up our eyes, look
around and choose the best for ourselves.
That's Lot, the righteous Lot, who lifted up
his eyes and grabbed the best for himself.
He saw all the valley of Jordan, that
it was well watered everywhere.
What should Lot have done?
Lot should have said, Abraham, you are the
one whom God called.
You choose.
That would have been real righteousness.
He was a bit unrighteous there when he
was grabbing what God never called him for.
But he didn't do that.
He said, ah, now is my chance to
grab.
And this chap said, I'm not fighting with
him.
He's offered it to me.
Something, sometimes even when something is offered to
you, it can be a test from God
to see whether you'll grab it or whether
you'll seek God about it.
Think of that, that when something can be
offered to you which you want so much,
you may not see it as a test.
You may say, I didn't go.
But in your heart there is this grabbing
attitude, you're so happy that you got the
chance to get this, and quickly put your
hands on it before somebody else gets it.
That's Lot, believer, righteous Lot.
And it says this was before the Lord
destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
Like the garden of the Lord, it looked
so beautiful to the eyes.
And notice this phrase, Lot chose for himself.
He didn't let God choose for him.
And that is the characteristic of all worldly
believers.
They choose for themselves.
In all areas, they choose for themselves.
And Lot journeyed eastward, and thus they separated
from each other, and Abram settled in the
land of Canaan, while Lot settled in the
cities of the valley and moved his tents
as far as Sodom.
But God, when He looked at Sodom, He
didn't look at the lush, green valleys and
the beautiful cities and the tremendous opportunities to
make money there and to become a big
man in the world.
God didn't see all that.
What God saw is destroyed in verse 13.
This is God's view.
The men of Sodom were wicked and sinners,
exceedingly wicked and sinners, exceedingly great sinners against
the Lord.
You see, God doesn't see as man sees.
Man sees the opportunities to make money, the
opportunities to live a comfortable life, the opportunities
to advance in the world, and the opportunities
to really make it good for me and
my family here on this earth, and at
the same time be a righteous lot who
will go to heaven when I die also.
But God's view of Sodom was quite different.
And there we can say Lot did not
look at Sodom the way God looked at
it.
He looked at it from the human standpoint,
and that is the mark of many believers
who are following the footsteps of Lot.
But the thing that's come to me is,
see how Lot had been affected so quickly.
He had been to Egypt, and he saw
all the wonderful things in Egypt, and it
got a place in his heart, and he
was waiting for an opportunity in Canaan to
really make it comfortable and easy for him.
The spirit of Egypt had gotten to him,
and he couldn't be free.
And we see here that he chose for
himself.
Just think, we know the subsequent story of
Lot.
He went to Sodom, and he lost his
sons-in-law.
They died in Sodom.
He lost his wife on the way out
of Sodom.
His daughters became immoral.
He lost his whole family.
And when you think that the whole thing
centered around one decision that he made, to
make more money.
Just think of that.
How much depended on that one decision that
the father made.
It affected his whole family.
We don't realize sometimes how much one decision
that we make in a particular direction can
affect our whole family.
We know that the rich young ruler who
came to Jesus took one decision when Jesus
confronted him.
That affected his whole future.
You know that Esau, when he saw that
bowl of porridge, he took one decision that
affected his whole future.
And we don't realize how much in all
of the future can sometimes depend on one
decision that we take.
And that's why it's important, brothers and sisters,
whenever we take decisions that are major.
I don't mean decisions like whether you should
travel in the train tomorrow or day after
tomorrow when you're going home for a holiday.
I don't mean things like that.
I mean major decisions like when you're considering
marriage or when you're considering moving to some
place or some decision concerning your work or
profession or further studies.
So many things.
One decision can ruin the rest of your
life.
If that decision is based on this principle,
he chose for himself.
That's the point.
Lot didn't choose Sodom because he was not
earning enough in Canaan to support his family.
There are some people who have to go
to some place to earn a little more
because they're sort of struggling to support their
family.
I'm not talking about those who are never
content with what they have, who are always
thinking, coveting, coveting, coveting, and affects their decisions
and ruins not only themselves but their whole
family.
We read verse 14, and the Lord said
to Abraham after Lot had separated from him,
notice this, God waits until we are fully
separated from all our relatives.
God had to separate him first from his
father by death, but still there was this
other compromising relative hanging on, and God had
to separate him from him also.
And sometimes God's purposes in our lives are
delayed because we don't allow ourselves to be
separated from compromising relatives.
Compromising relatives can be a hindrance to the
fulfillment of God's purpose in our life.
After Lot had separated from him, now God
said, now I can lead you further.
And God waits for that separation.
Come out from among them and be separate,
says the Lord, and then I will receive
you.
2 Corinthians 6.17. And then we can
say here, after that, the Lord said, now
you lift up your eyes.
Lot lifted up his eyes on his own.
He looked on his own, but Abraham lifted
up his eyes only when God told him
to do so.
And he said, look from the place where
you are, north, south, east, west, for all
the land which you see, I'll give it
to you and to your descendants forever.
Who's going to give it to him?
Verse 15, I, I, the Lord God Almighty,
will give it to you.
You contrast that phrase with what we read
in verse 11, Lot chose for himself, and
God chose for Abraham, and God said to
Abraham, I will give it to you.
And if I decide to give it to
you, do you think a man can grab
it out from your hands?
Not only will I give it to you,
and to your descendants forever.
No, there are many people through the years
who have tried to grab that land out
of the hands of the Jews, the descendants
of Abraham.
And when you read the history of the
last 3,500 years of the Jews, we
find that many times the Jews have been
thrown out of that land.
Others have grabbed it, the Romans, the Greeks,
various people have grabbed that land which God
said, I will give to the descendants of
Abraham.
For many years, the Muslims grabbed it, the
Arabs ruled it for many years, the British
for a period, but the descendants of Abraham
have got it today.
You see, when we think of the nation
of Israel living in the land of Palestine,
that's the world in the newspapers, they read,
you read that that's unrighteous and that the
Jews have occupied territory which doesn't belong to
them.
But it says here that God gave it
to them more than 4,000 years ago,
before any Jew was born.
He gave it to their father Abraham.
This is that for you.
So God has given it to them, and
though various people have tried to grab it,
Lot tried to grab it at that time,
he couldn't get it.
Where are Lot's descendants today?
Lot's descendants are not in Canaan.
Lot's descendants from Moabites and the Ammonites, they
are all in other countries.
But the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, they are the ones who are
in Canaan.
God keeps His word, and whatever God has
intended for me, no human being can grab
it.
He may grab it, but it'll come back
to me finally.
He can't keep it forever.
He'll grab it, but it'll come back to
me.
If only we had faith in this, we
would be at rest.
Think of so many believers who are bothered
about promotions, and whether they'll be able to
get that house, or the other one, or
this thing, or the other thing.
Think if they could believe that when God
says this phrase, I, verse 15, I will
give it to you.
What more do you want?
According to your faith, be it unto you.
Is it better to choose for yourself, or
is it better to let God choose for
you?
Well, Lot finally ended up losing everything that
he got.
Sodom and Gomorrah, he lost all the money
and property that he had earned in a
moment.
You know, the danger when we choose something
for ourselves is that we don't know what
lies ahead.
When you are confronted with a decision, shall
I do this, or shall I do that?
Who knows what lies ahead along this pathway,
and who knows what lies ahead along that
pathway?
You don't know.
No human being can guide you there.
There is one person who knows everything that
lies ahead in this pathway, and everything that
lies ahead along that pathway, and that's God.
And therefore it's always best to let God
choose for us.
Because God looked at what lay ahead for
Sodom and Gomorrah, and He knew that's going
to be fire and brimstone.
So He kept Abraham away from that.
He said, Abraham, I won't give you that
now.
I'll give that to your descendants some hundreds
of years later.
But right now I'll give you something else.
I don't want you to get fire and
brimstone.
And if Lot had only sought God, God
would have said, Don't go to Sodom.
Fire and brimstone is ahead there.
If we seek God and not our own,
if we don't choose for ourselves, there are
calamities, pitfalls, dangers along the way that He
can protect us from, that He can say,
Don't go that way.
That's not good.
There's something I see which you don't see
right now.
Right now as you look along that pathway,
it all looks so rosy and so nice
and so beautiful, but you don't really see
what is over the horizon on the other
side, that there's something along that pathway which
is not good.
I see it.
So don't go that way.
It's better to let God choose for us.
Always, in everything in life, small things, big
things, in everything.
And the Lord said to Abraham, verse 16,
I will make your descendants as the dust
of the earth, so that if anyone can
number the dust of the earth, then your
descendants can also be numbered.
In other words, there'll be so many.
And He made that promise to Abraham at
a time when he didn't have any children.
That was a tremendous promise.
God said, You're going to have descendants when
He didn't have any.
He didn't have any at least for another
15 years or more.
Not the promised seed anyway.
But He said, I'll make your descendants as
the dust of the earth, so that if
anyone can number the dust of the earth,
your descendants will be numbered.
Now He said, Arise, walk about the land
through its length and breadth, for again this
phrase, I will give it to you twice.
This is a very beautiful phrase in James
chapter 1, which we must always bear in
mind.
James 1.17, it says, in the exercise
of the will of God...
God.
I'm sorry, James 1, 17.
Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift
is from above, coming down from the Father
of life.
That teaches us that a gift, if it
is to be good and perfect, it must
come to us from God.
If it does not come to us from
God, yes, it may be good, but it
won't be perfect.
It just cannot be perfect.
If you want something good and perfect, you've
got to get it from God.
Every good and perfect thing comes from above.
Only the Father can give us that which
is good and perfect.
There's a song we sing in Christian songs.
One verse of it says, Ill that he
blesses is our good, and unblessed good is
ill.
That means a lot of evil things, if
God blesses it to us, it becomes good
to us.
All things work together for good.
The evil that the brothers of Joseph did
to him worked out for good.
If God blesses it, that evil becomes good.
But a good thing without God's blessing can
turn out to be evil.
Ill that he blesses is our good, and
unblessed good is ill.
Never forget that.
It is not the thing itself that determines
whether it's good or not.
The thing is, has God given it to
me, or have I grabbed it for myself?
That is what determines whether it's good and
perfect or not.
We read in 1 Timothy, 6.17, that
God...
The last part of verse 17.
God richly supplies us with all things to
enjoy.
There are a lot of people who think
God is a sort of spoil sport, who
wants to spoil all our fun in life,
and He's determined to make our life miserable.
But it's not true.
This verse says...
Paul is writing that after many years of
being a Christian.
He says, God richly supplies us with all
things to enjoy.
Do you believe that God gives us things
to enjoy?
I believe it, because I believe the word
of God.
He richly supplies me with all things to
enjoy.
If we seek His kingdom first, we'll find
He takes care of what we need.
And there are certain things which may harm
us at one stage in life, which He
won't give it to us then.
He'll give it to us five years later,
when it won't harm us.
Think of the wisdom of God.
I remember just about a year after I
became a Christian, year and a half after
I became a Christian, I wasn't much interested
in the study of the Bible, and I
wanted to buy an accordion to learn some
music.
And though there was one available, and though
I had the money to buy it, I
asked God for a sign, whether it was
His will, and the sign was not fulfilled.
And so I decided not to buy it,
because the sign was not fulfilled.
That was about twenty-five years ago.
And so I didn't buy it.
It sort of virtually dropped into my lap.
But now when I look back, I see
it would have harmed me.
That same instrument would have harmed me one
and a half years after my conversion, because
I would have become so taken up with
music that I wouldn't have had time to
study the Scriptures.
So God didn't allow me to have it,
and then gave it to me six years
later, when it could not master me.
That's just an illustration.
There are certain things which are good for
you, but not yet.
If you get it now, it may harm
you.
You need to probably wait four or five
years.
Leave that to God.
Let Him give it to you.
If you grab, you may get it, of
course.
I could have gone to that shop.
I had the money.
I could have bought it.
But I'd asked God for a sign.
It was not fulfilled.
So I knew it was not God's will.
I could have got it.
Jonah had enough money to buy a ticket
to go to Tarshish.
Some people think that if I have enough
money to buy a ticket, that means it
is God's will that I travel there.
Jonah had enough money to buy a ticket
to go to Tarshish.
It was not God's will.
No, it's best that God gives us all
things in life.
That's the best attitude to have towards all
material things, brothers and sisters.
And so God told Abraham, Arise, walk through
the land of length and breadth, and I'll
give it to you.
And God didn't give it all to Abraham
in his time.
He gave it much later, at the right
time, to his descendants.
Abraham, we know, did not occupy Canaan.
In fact, Canaan was not occupied for another
five hundred years nearly.
There was a right time, and it's best
to leave it to God to give it
to us at His time.
Whatever you desire, delight yourselves in the Lord,
and He will give you the desires of
your heart at the right time, so that
you don't get ruined by it spiritually.
Then we read further.
Then Abraham moved his tent, verse 18, and
came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre,
which are in Hebron.
And there he built an altar to the
Lord.
There again we find worship and sacrifice.
The altar speaks of worship and sacrifice.
And we find that frequently characterizing Abraham's life.
Worship and sacrifice, two things that should characterize
our life also.
Then we come to chapter fourteen, and here
we read about an attack that certain kings
made against Sodom.
And this was the beginning of Lot's troubles
in Sodom.
It came about in the days of Amraphael,
king of Shinar, Ariok, king of Elastar, and
the other kings mentioned there.
They made war with Bera, king of Sodom,
and the king of Gomorrah.
And then all these came as allies, verse
three, to the valley of Sidin, the salt
sea.
In twelve years they served Kedarleomer.
In the thirteenth year they rebelled.
And in the fourteenth year Kedarleomer and the
kings that were with him came and defeated
all these other people.
And then they turned back, verse seven, and
conquered all the country of the Amalekites.
In verse eight, and the king of Sodom
and the king of Gomorrah and the other
kings came out and they raced for battle.
And Kedarleomer, four against five kings, the valley
of Sidin was full of tar pits, and
the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, verse ten,
fled.
And they fell into them, but those who
survived fled to their country.
Then these other kings captured all the goods
of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food
supply and departed.
And they also took Lot, Abraham's nephew, and
his possessions and departed, for he was living
in Sodom.
Did God see that danger over the horizon?
He did.
Did Lot see it when he chose for
himself?
That's why it's wiser to let God choose
for us in all situations.
We don't see what is going to happen
next year in that place we have chosen
for ourselves.
So he got into trouble there, the beginning
of his trouble.
Like it says in 1 Timothy 6.9,
those who seek to become rich pierce themselves
through with many sorrows.
They have many problems.
When somebody who is rich, not satisfied with
what he has, is trying to make more
money...
I came across someone like that the other
day.
Having problems, and they come asking for prayer,
Brother, please pray that these problems will be
solved.
So what do you say to such people?
Well, all I could say is, Brother, God
says, if you seek the kingdom of God
first, these other things will be added to
us.
And what we need to learn is to
seek God's kingdom first.
Godliness with contentment is great gain.
But those who want to become rich pierce
themselves through with many sorrows.
And there are enough false prophets roaming around
this country who are ready to pray for
you, that your fields will prosper and that
you will make more money and that you
will get still more money.
There are plenty of false prophets like that.
Let them go to them.
No, those who go Lord's way will suffer
the problems Lord faced also.
Verse 13, Then a fugitive came and told
Abram the Hebrew.
Now he was living by the oaks of
Mamre the Amorite, brother of Ishkal, the brother
of Manan.
These were allies with Abram.
And when Abram heard that his relative had
been taken captive, he could have said, serves
him right.
Now he must learn that you reap what
you sow.
You see the greatness of this man Abram,
that he didn't go to find lots to
tell him, I told you this would happen
to you.
That's not what he went to tell him.
He went to help him.
It's amazing, this man who lived even before
the old covenant, leave alone new covenant, he
didn't even have the old covenant, that he
could have such an attitude to a fallen
brother that he had no lust.
If he had a lust to go and
tell him, like because he had our flesh,
Abram didn't have some other flesh.
And you know what a lust there is
in our flesh when we have seen that
somebody has taken advantage of us in some
financial transaction?
He took advantage of our goodness, took advantage
of our generosity like Lot, grabbed for himself,
took the breast and walked off with it.
And then he suffers the loss of all
that.
All that he walked off with he has
lost.
And what a lust there is in our
flesh to say, serves him right for grabbing
from me.
You think Abram had the same flesh?
Of course he did.
How is it he didn't go and tell
Lot that?
He overcame that.
So that's not the way for me to
act towards my brother.
This is the thing, my brothers and sisters,
that when I read the Old Testament, it
really puts me to shame when I see
what these people accomplished, even without an old
covenant.
And then it becomes so clear to me
that a clear understanding of doctrine means nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
These chaps had a life.
If you had gone to Abram and asked
him to explain about how Christ is going
to come in the flesh and the old
man in the flesh, he wouldn't have had
a clue.
There are selfish Lots today who know the
answer to that better than Abram of old.
No, it's not the form of godliness.
It is that inner power.
And there we can learn from Abram that
he didn't say, serves him right.
He didn't say, he's reaping what he sowed.
He didn't say, God is chastening him.
We got to leave him alone.
We mustn't trouble these prodigal sons.
They are, they must learn, get some discipline
now.
He didn't say any of these things.
Because when we say these things, we are
actually revealing the selfishness of our own heart.
No, neither did he find some convenient excuse
to stay where he was.
You know, when we have, when we hear
that there's some calamity with someone whom we
are not particularly too happy with, there's always
a convenient excuse.
Maybe I've got a headache, or I'm not
feeling too well, or I've got some urgent
things to do right now.
There's always a convenient excuse to avoid going
out to help that person, because I'm not
too keen on helping him.
That's the real reason.
But Abram did not find any of those
convenient excuses.
He just dropped everything.
It says, as soon as Abram heard, verse
14, that his, and I want you to
notice something here, in the margin it says,
his brother.
That's really amazing.
These translators of even the New American Standard
Bible, they didn't have the guts to put
brother, because Lot was not his brother.
They thought the Holy Spirit made a mistake
there.
So they put it in the margin.
Literally, it means brother, but we, the translators,
say relative.
Garbage.
It means brother, because Lot was his brother.
That's how he looked at him.
Even in this state, he looked at him
as a fallen brother, had been taken captive.
He heard that his Sometimes you may hear
that your brother has been taken captive in
some situation.
He dropped everything, headache or no headache.
He led out his trained men, born in
his house, 318, and went in pursuit as
far as Dan, and he divided his forces
against him by night.
Think of what he did.
He risked his life.
Think of this love, to risk your life
to help a brother who duped you a
few weeks ago.
Can you beat that with all our new
covenant doctrine?
I tell you, if we reach that far,
it will be tremendous.
You see how doctrine doesn't help?
Abraham had that life without all this doctrine.
The doctrine should lead us even higher.
That's a warning and a challenge.
He risked his life against these powerful kings.
That would have been a convenient excuse for
Abraham.
I've got only 318.
I'm not a soldier.
I've never battled.
None of my people know how to fight.
How can I go against all these trained
armies of these great kings who have finished
off so many experienced armies of Sodom and
Gomorrah?
No.
He had a heart like gold, full of
love for Lot, who had duped him and
cheated him a few weeks ago.
It didn't make a difference to him that
he duped him and cheated him.
You know, when we have a bitterness against
somebody who has cheated us and duped us,
it doesn't tell us something about that person.
It does tell us something about our own
heart, that we loved those material things which
that fellow cheated us of.
Otherwise, why should we be so disturbed about
it?
We may say, I have forgiven.
We may say, it doesn't matter to me.
But the fact is, I am disturbed that
he duped me.
It proves that I love those material things.
And here is the proof that Abraham did
not love those material things, that when Lot
took it, he said, fine, take it.
It doesn't mean anything to me.
And the proof is that when Lot suffered,
he was ready to go and risk his
life to save him.
Tremendous.
And he defeated them, these powerful kings, with
God on Abraham's side.
God is always on the side of such
an unselfish man like Abraham.
Always, with God before us, who can be
against us?
Abraham had a right to save us.
We can't save when we are steeped in
selfishness.
No.
But if we are unselfish like him, we
can certainly save God before me, who can
be against me, because I am going to
help my brother who has duped me.
And he brought back all the goods, and
also brought back his relatives, Lot, with his
possessions, and also the women and the people.
And one would think that at least now,
Lot should have left Sodom, and, and, oh,
well, I've learned a lesson now.
This choosing for myself has landed me into
trouble.
Let me now go back to Abraham and
seek fellowship with him and seek his advice,
a godly uncle, a godly older brother, as
to what I should do.
Don't you think Lot should have done that?
God warned him through that calamity where he
lost everything, and Abraham had to go and
bring it all back, and he still would
not hear.
Covetousness can make a man so deaf, so
deaf that he imagines that he hears God's
voice telling him all types of things.
It's all imagination.
He imagines that God is leading him and
he's going in the same self-chosen direction
that he always wanted to go in, like
Balaam.
And Lot, he wouldn't get a, take a
warning from God.
He went in that direction.
If he had taken that warning from God,
he would not have lost his family.
Sometimes we go in a particular direction.
It's not a good one.
We've sought our own, and some calamity comes,
and God gives us a warning through that,
but we don't listen.
Covetousness has made us deaf.
At least then, if Lot had turned, he
could have saved his family.
Even though the first decision was a mistake,
at least he got a second chance there
to leave Sodom.
He didn't.
Think of that, brothers and sisters, that God
may speak to us sometime after we have
gone the wrong way, after we have taken
the wrong decision.
In his mercy, in his goodness, in his
love, he warns us.
What a calamity is when we still don't
listen.
And then God leaves us there.
He's not going to grab us and pull
us out.
He says, go.
You want to go back to Sodom after
all that?
Go.
And it's the mercy that he did pull
him out finally, but only he got saved.
He lost his whole family and all his
property, all that he lived for.
The Bible says there are going to be
believers.
1 Corinthians 3 tells us that very clearly,
verses 10 to 14, that there are going
to be believers in the final day of
judgment, when all their works are tested by
fire.
Everything is going to be burnt up, but
they themselves will be saved.
What sort of a life is that, where
a man's been a believer, and he's been
a believer for fifty years, and in the
day of judgment, it's fifty years of absolute
blank videotapes.
Nothing.
Everything burnt up.
That's lost.
The end of his life.
Yeah.
That's a warning to all of us.
Verse 17, And after his return from the
defeat of Tereliomer, the kings who were with
him, the king of Sodom, went out to
meet Abram at the valley of Shaveh, the
king's valley.
But God arranged it that before the king
of Sodom could meet Abram, the king of
Jerusalem came and met Abram.
Now, this is a very significant passage.
This is the first time that Jerusalem is
mentioned in the Bible.
We've seen in Genesis chapter 10 about Nimrod,
the king of Babylon, and here we see
Melchizedek, the king of Jerusalem.
Jerusalem means Jerusalem.
It's the same place.
The first king of Jerusalem was Melchizedek.
The first king of Babylon was Nimrod.
Nimrod, a picture of the Antichrist.
Melchizedek, a picture of Christ.
And he's the only person in the Old
Testament who was a king and a priest.
And he's the only significant person in the
Old Testament whose genealogy we cannot trace.
All the other people's genealogy means the connection
all the way up to Adam.
You can trace the connection of all the
great men of God in the Old Testament,
but not Melchizedek.
It's a picture of Christ.
He's a king and a priest.
In Israel, the king could not be a
priest, the priest could not be a king.
But Melchizedek was a king and a priest.
He was the first priest of God mentioned
in the Bible, not the tribe of Levi,
but Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread
and wine.
Now he was a priest of God Most
High.
And I want you to turn to the
book of Hebrews chapter 7 and see what
it says there about Melchizedek.
Because the old prevalent priesthood was through the
tribe of Levi, and in Hebrews chapter 7
we are told the new prevalent priesthood is
through the lineage of Melchizedek.
Hebrews chapter 6 verse 20, and this is
where we are interested.
Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us.
And this is speaking about the new and
living way, in the last part of verse
19, inside the way he has entered.
And he has become a high priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek, not according
to the old covenant order of Levi.
For, chapter 7 verse 1 of Hebrews, Melchizedek,
king of Salem, priest of the Most High
God, who met Abraham as he was returning
from the slaughter of a king, and blessed
him.
Now, I just want you to notice that
phrase, he blessed Abraham.
This is part of being of the priesthood
of Melchizedek, that we bless others.
That people get a blessing through us, or
an encouragement through us.
Not a scolding, and a criticism, and a
curse through us.
The priesthood of Melchizedek blesses others.
And to whom also Abraham apportioned a tenth
part of all the spoils.
It says Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizedek.
And it says here, the translation of Melchizedek's
name is king of righteousness.
So this teaches us that the Holy Spirit
believes in the significance of some of these
Old Testament names.
The meanings of some of these Old Testament
names are significant, because the Holy Spirit says
that here.
That Melchizedek means king of righteousness.
And then he's also king of Salem.
Salem meaning peace.
He's also king of peace.
So he's king of righteousness and peace.
This is a verse in the Psalms which
says righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
God is righteous, and that's why he could
not be at peace with man who was
a sinner.
But in Jesus Christ, the mediator, righteousness and
peace have kissed each other.
And Melchizedek is a picture in his name
as king of righteousness first.
Notice it says there, first, verse two.
Not first peace.
First, righteousness.
Then peace.
James says that in James 3.17. The
wisdom that is from above is not first
peaceable.
It is first pure.
Then peaceable.
Which is more important in your home, peace
or purity?
It's an important question.
Because you may get into conflict with your
wife over something concerning purity, and then you
may say, let's have peace.
Then you have not got the wisdom from
above.
It is better to have no peace in
the home and have purity than to have
peace and no purity.
It is better to have righteousness and no
peace in the home rather than to have
peace and no righteousness.
That is a false peace.
There is a false peace.
It is without righteousness.
There is a false wisdom which is peaceable.
It is without purity.
But Melchizedek, the priesthood of Melchizedek, are those
who are first of all righteous.
And then, notice the order, says it there,
first of all and then.
That is an order that we must bear
in mind.
What are we interested in the church?
Righteousness first, then peace.
And sometimes, in order to retain our peace
in Christ, we may have to get into
conflict with relatives and people in the home.
It doesn't disturb us what to do.
That is why there is one command in
the Bible, in the New Testament, which is
prefaced by this statement, as far as possible.
You know there is a command like that?
As far as possible for you.
You know that you can't have a command
like that in relation to lusting after women.
It doesn't say, as far as possible, don't
try to lust after women.
You know that there can't be a command
like that.
As far as possible, don't love money.
Or as far as possible, don't lose your
temper.
No, these are all clear customs.
But in one command, that is in Romans
12, we read, as far as possible for
you, Romans 12, verse 18, if possible,
so far as it depends on you, be
at peace with all men.
Why does he say, if possible?
Because peace depends on the other person too.
And he may not be interested in peace.
So don't be afraid if there is conflict,
or a loss of peace in some situation.
If it is for the sake of righteousness
and purity, it is better to lose that
peace than preserve righteousness and purity.
Melchizedek was first king of righteousness, and then
king of peace.
Further, Hebrews 7.3, without father, without mother,
without genealogy, that means, it doesn't mean he
didn't have a father or mother, what it
means is there's no record of who his
father is or who his mother is, no
record of his genealogy, that means his line,
family tree.
Having neither beginning of days nor end of
life, that means there's no record in Genesis
as to when he was born or when
he died.
And that's very significant, because all the other
men of God in the Bible, it's recorded.
They were born when their father was so
and so years, so many years old, so
and so was born.
And then he died at this age.
That's recorded of everybody almost, all the men
of God anyway.
But one man stands out in the middle
of Genesis, no record of when he was
born, who are his parents, and when did
he die, he just comes on the scene
and disappears.
He says, there he's a picture of the
Son of God, a perpetual priest.
Now consider, verse 4, Hebrews 7, how great
this man was, to whom Abraham the patriarch
gave a tenth of the choicest spoil.
And he says, in that sense, verse 9,
so to speak, Abraham, through Abraham, even Levi,
who received dice, paid dice to Melchizedek, because
Levi was within Abraham's body, in a sense,
when Melchizedek met Abraham.
And this is the argument used by the
Holy Spirit here in Hebrews 7 to say
that the priesthood of Melchizedek is greater than
the priesthood of Levi's, and it goes on
in chapter 8 to say that the new
covenant is therefore better than the old covenant.
So important and interesting to see about Melchizedek,
and later on we read in Hebrews 7,
17, a quotation from Psalm 110, where God
tells his son, thou art a priest forever
according to the order of Melchizedek.
In the Old Testament, Aaron was the high
priest, and the priests were all according to
the tribe of Levi.
In the New Testament, Jesus is the high
priest, and the priesthood is according to the
order of Melchizedek.
In the Old Testament, if you were an
Israelite and you didn't happen to be in
the tribe of Levi, it was just bad
luck.
You couldn't be a priest.
But in the New Testament, it doesn't matter
which family you're born in.
You can be a priest according to the
order of Melchizedek, and that's why it's interesting
and important for us to see something about
Melchizedek so that we can see what it
means in relation to our life.
First of all, righteousness.
Then peace.
Then you can be a priest after the
order of Melchizedek in your home.
Let's turn back to Genesis 14 and see
something more about this man.
Genesis 14, verse 19, verse 18, Melchizedek brought
out bread and wine.
How did he come out like this?
He was a priest of God who was
in touch with God.
And I believe there must have been some
prompting by God saying, go and refresh this
servant of mine who is tired from the
battle.
And Melchizedek dropped everything and went to bless
this brother.
That's part of the priesthood of Melchizedek, that
we are open to hear when God says
to us, go and bless this brother now.
Go and refresh this brother.
Or tell one of your sisters to go
and refresh some other sister.
Melchizedek didn't come to Abraham with a pile
of exhortation.
No.
He just came to bless him.
He brought some food.
He didn't bring him sermons.
He brought him food.
He brought him something which he needed.
Bread and wine.
Here's something, brother, to bless us.
Think of being a blessing like us in
a very down-to-earth, practical way.
Of course, we can put spiritual meanings to
the bread and the wine.
It's true there's spiritual meaning too.
It's a picture of Jesus Christ and the
Last Supper.
The bread and the wine speak of his
death.
But at this particular point, there was no
spiritual, nothing spiritual about that bread and wine.
It was just food for his body.
Think of blessing someone with food.
Very, very down-to-earth and practical.
He must have known the man's hungry.
He doesn't have his wife with him.
Nobody to cook for him.
He took him some food and blessed him.
And said, blessed be Abraham.
Something like, praise the Lord, brother, how good
it is to see you.
Warm.
This is the priesthood of Melchizedek.
Blessing people.
Blessed be Abraham who belongs to God most
high.
To encourage a person saying, God really helped
you there in that battle.
He's the possessor of heaven and earth.
You see, Abraham was coming with this pile
of things that he had got from the
kings.
You know, all the things which were in
Sodom.
And Sodom is a very wealthy, it's something
like the New York and London these days.
All the wealth of Sodom he was bringing
back, now with him.
And this brother just came and blessed him
and said, remember, God possesses, is the owner
of the whole earth.
Just in case Abraham would have a little
attachment to any of these things.
It was a quick detachment.
Not with a big sermon.
No, Abraham, let me give you an exhortation.
Don't covet after all these things which you
brought.
Nothing like that.
You need wisdom in how to bless people.
Wisdom.
Blessed be Abraham of God who owns the
heaven and the earth.
And that worked in Abraham.
He began to think about it.
God's the owner of the earth.
Why is it my bother to bother all
this?