Now will you notice, verse 18, And even
Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and
wine, and he was the priest of the
Most High God.
And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be
Abram of the Most High God, possessor of
heaven and earth, and blessed be the Most
High God, which hath delivered thine enemies into
thy hand, and he gave him tithes of
all.
And I have several questions here, and I'm
sure that you do.
To begin with, my point is, where in
the world did this man, Melchizedek, come from?
He just walks out on the page of
Scripture with bread and wine, and he blesses
Abram, and he walks off of the page
of Scripture, and that's it.
And I wonder where he came from, and
I wonder where he's going, and I wonder
what his business is.
And I find out he's king of Salem,
but he's also priest of the Most High
God.
Now, I have another question.
How did he find out about the Most
High God?
Well, he found out somewhere, El Elyon, the
Most High God, the creator of heaven and
earth.
In other words, the living God, the God
of Genesis 1, the God of Noah, the
God of Enoch.
This is the one, not a local deity.
And Leupold, in his book on Genesis, says
this is strictly a monotheistic conception.
And Dr. Zwema, in his Origin of Religion,
says this reveals there was monotheism before polytheism.
In other words, all man had a knowledge
of the living and true God.
And Paul said, when they knew God, they
glorified Him not as God.
And what did they do?
They became vain, and down they went, and
began to worship the creature more than the
creator.
But here is a man who is high
priest, and he's high priest for the world
of that day.
Now, he had a knowledge of the living
and true God.
He was a priest of the living and
true God.
And he comes out, and he brings bread
and wine to Abram, and those are the
elements of the Lord's supper.
And I wonder what he had in mind.
How much did Melchizedek know?
Well, Melchizedek is mentioned three times in Scripture.
We have him mentioned in the 110th Psalm.
That's prophetic.
Thou art a priest forever after the order
of Melchizedek.
Now, when we get to Hebrews, and he's
mentioned several times in Hebrews, and when we
were in our two-and-a-half-year
program, I dwelt on Melchizedek a great deal,
which means we'll dwell on him more when
we get to Hebrews again.
But let me just say this, that now
I know why that nothing is said about
his origin.
Nothing is said about his papa and his
mama.
And that's strange, because the book of Genesis
is the book of families.
It tells about the beginnings of these families.
And every time you have a man mentioned
that's important here in the line, as this
man Melchizedek is, his papa and mama is
mentioned.
He's the son of so-and-so, or
these are the generations of so-and-so.
And we don't have the generations of Melchizedek.
Why don't we?
Well, the writer to the Hebrews makes that
very clear.
The reason is that he had no father
or mother, beginning or ending of days, because
later on the priesthood of Christ, in its
inception, is after the order of Melchizedek.
But after the order of service, it follows
the order of Aaron in what our Lord
did in the service, like the sacrifice of
himself and entering the Holy of Holies, which
is heaven today.
But in his person, our Lord had no
beginning or end of days.
You see, as king, he's son of Abraham.
He's son of David.
That's important.
Matthew tells us that.
But as the great high priest, and that
is something important to see in the Gospel
of John, in the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God.
But he has no beginning or ending of
days as far as creation is concerned.
He is the eternal God who came out
of heaven's glory, and the Word was made
flesh, and we beheld his glory, John says.
So what you have here is a marvelous
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he
brings forth bread and wine.
I know now why he does it.
Because our Lord says, as often as ye
eat this bread and drink this cup, ye
shall forth the Lord's death, till he comes.
And Melchizedek is remembering the death of Christ
here.
And on that basis, he blesses Abraham.
Blessed be Abraham of the Most High God,
El Elohim, the Creator.
And this man is the high priest in
that day of the world, and the Lord
Jesus is the great high priest for the
world today.
And the Lord Jesus is after the order
of Melchizedek, not Aaron here.
But Aaron was just for Israel and for
just a tabernacle, and he gives us a
marvelous picture.
But in his person, he is after the
order of Melchizedek.
Now, that is important to see.
And we are told here, verse 20, And
blessed be the Most High God, which delivered
thine enemies into thy hands, and he gave
them tithes of all.
And Abraham paid tithes to him here at
the very beginning.
And why did he know about paying tithes?
All right, we move on.
And the king of Sodom said unto Abraham,
Give me the persons, and take the goods
to thyself.
This is the temptation.
According to the code of Hammurabi of that
day, this man Abraham had a perfect right
to the booty and even the persons.
But the king of Sodom is clever.
He says, Give us the persons, you take
the booty, it's yours.
And that was a temptation to Abraham.
And forever after, the king of Sodom, when
anybody would say, My, that man Abraham is
certainly a wealthy man.
God has blessed him.
And I think that the king of Sodom
would say, Bless him your foot.
God didn't bless him.
I gave it to him.
I'm the one who made him rich.
Abraham knew that.
And listen to Abraham now.
Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I
have lift up mine hand unto the Lord,
the Most High God, the Possessor of heaven
and earth.
You see, he's still under the influence and
the blessing of Melchizedek.
And it's a good thing he met Melchizedek.
You know, God always prepares us for any
temptation that comes to us.
And he says he'll never let any come
to us that we're not able to bear.
And so he prepared Abraham for this.
Listen to Abraham now.
That I will not take from a thread,
even to a shoelatch, at a shoestring.
And that I'll not take anything that's thine,
lest thou should say I've made Abraham rich.
You see, Abraham, when he started out, he
made a covenant with God.
He said, Oh God, I'm not entering this
war in order to get booty.
I'm not after possessions.
I want to restore and recover my nephew
Lot and permit me to do that.
And God permitted him.
And now Abraham tells the king of Sodom,
this is a witness to the king.
He said, I worship the living and true
God.
And I've taken an oath.
I wouldn't take anything and you can't make
me rich.
I won't even let you give me a
shoestring or piece of thread.
Because even if you did that, you'd run
around and say you made me rich.
But you didn't.
If I get rich, God will have to
do it, of course.
Now, will you notice verse 24, save only
that which the young man have eaten and
the portion of man which went with me,
Aner, Eschol, and Mamre, let them take their
portion.
Now, these others, they have a right to
it.
They can have it.
But I'm not taking anything.
The young man that were with me, what
they ate, they're not to restore that to
you.
Because actually, that is their pay.
Their pay for serving you and for delivering
you.
But for me, you won't give me a
thing.