Go get 'em, Abe!

Good morning. Just a reminder, we had a supplement we made available last week. Last check, there were more copies still out there. It's a map of the Middle East on one side, and then on the other page, Israel and the surrounding nations. The idea there is to show the modern nations that are in those areas with some of the places that we've been looking at here in our study of the book of Genesis. So feel free to avail yourself of that. Now, as we move into this chapter here today, here we are in Genesis, the first book. You know, that's one thing. As you open your Bibles, real easy to find this one. It's the first one. Hard to miss.

Let's step through here kind of the eight words that we use to memorize the book of Genesis. So we've got creation, fall, flood, nations, all right? And so actually we've done with the chapters that have to do with that. We're starting this next four here with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph okay, so as we said if you got those eight words you got Genesis memorized, okay, all right now I want to get you up to speed here and So in order to do that We'll spell out here Abram has been told by the Lord that he is blessed and a number of things that were spelled out in in Genesis chapter 12 verse 3 verses and But one of the things he said there is, the land that I will show you.

Well, by the time we've read through chapter 12 and chapter 13, now in chapter 14 this morning, we've seen that the Lord has twice said, you're standing in the land that I had promised to you. This is it. This is the place. It's the land that I will show you. I'm showing it to you.

And so Abram was there. He had kind of a brief detour down in Egypt. and then was back there in the land that the Lord had promised, there in Canaan. And so then it came to a point that we saw just last week. Here is Abram, later called Abraham. presenting to his nephew Lot, because the available pasturage that they had, and perhaps even the water supply, had challenged the capacity of the land and the herdsmen that each of them had were getting in conflict with each other. So Abraham presents to Lot, Lot, you pick a place here, I'll pick some other place, but we shouldn't be squabbling like this. And so Lot picks down deep down in the valley, down where it is now the Dead Sea area, and he picks Sodom.

And here's a lush part of the Jordan River Valley. This is below sea level. As a matter of fact, as we mentioned previously, from the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan River south of there all the way down to the Dead Sea is all below sea level. And all of it is lower than the lowest place in the Western Hemisphere, which is in Death Valley there.

And one other thing, just to make clear, so nobody's confused, we will refer to Abram as Abraham, even though in the text that we'll have this morning, it will refer to him still as Abram. And one reason for doing so is that by the time we get to chapter 17, his name will have been changed to Abraham, and that's the way we'll see him referred to, not only through the rest of Genesis from that point on, but even on into the New Testament.

Okay, ready to go? Here we are. In the first verse there, in verse 14, you begin to have presented these names of kings in the land known as Mesopotamia. This is a portion of the Middle East that's right smack dab in the middle of where we've got our troops located right now. Can I give you a perspective? Here are the four nations that are represented by those kings there in the very first verse. Canaan, we've got outlined there in the red circle, so we keep oriented. And so here are the kings. You have it on the first slide there, I believe, in your handout. And each of these kings, let's step our way through.

Here's Amraphel, king of Shinar. Shinar, as you may recall, is the place where the Tower of Babel was built. And so that's the first one. Ariok, king of Elessar. Elessar is the name of the nation around Haran, where basically the rest of Abraham's family was located. And so that's one. The next one is Keterloomer, king of Elam. Elam is the farthest east of the four nations. Keterloomer, however, appears to be the leader of this group. And then finally we have Tadal, king of Goyim.

Now, you may hear that sound, goyim, and say, well, wait a minute, that sounds a little familiar. Perhaps because that's the name that the Jews called the Gentiles. Now, goyim. If you're a Gentile, they would say you're a goy. The i-m ending is plural.

So these are the four kings and they would come down into this land of Canaan and make an attack. Together, what they would do is join their forces together and demand regular tribute, regular payoff from the people in that area that we'll be talking about.

Basically, in the whole area around Israel and the surrounding area. And specifically, our story centers on the five cities of the plain at the south end of what is known as the Dead Sea. We'll see it referred to in the passage as the Valley of Sidim. Later on, it's referred to, and we have kind of a little parentheses in here, called the Salt Sea. Okay, now if we look at this part of the map here, we're going to zoom in. Here is the area around the Dead Sea.

And it's at the south end of that, and primarily starting on the east side and coming up to the southern end where these cities were located. Now, something not mentioned in the account, but I think is a valuable insight. Why would these four kings come down to this place and demand this tribute? Why would that be so valuable to them? Well, a very likely answer is copper. This was at a time before iron was produced and copper and tin together make bronze, right? So this is the Bronze Age primary military metal, okay?

In order to maintain military power in those days, you had to have copper and the kings in that particular area where they came from did not have any copper deposits or not much. Here's a copper nugget, but a lot of it was actually coming from an ore that has more of a greenish and bluish hue to it. Here's some ancient bronze knives and swords where they would be made from the copper and typically lesser amounts of tin. Here are copper items in archaeological excavation because once it oxidizes, it typically turns a greenish or bluish color.

That's what the archaeologists typically would find. One of the things to look at, the three patriarchs, we're going to find this all the way through the end of Genesis, the three patriarchs live in what's called the middle bronze era. Iron was not something that had been developed even towards the end of this to any great degree.

So this is a likely motivation for them to have an interest in maintaining continuous payment. They probably got copper ingots is really what they're looking at. This red line that you see from the south end of the Dead Sea there down to the Gulf. and then on to the east side of the Gulf. And by the way, it continues on farther off what we have here on the screen.

That's a whole string of copper deposits, okay? And so this was at the closest end of that line of copper deposits to these kings. All right. So with that as an insight, these kings were very likely strongly motivated to keep an iron grip on the copper deposits in this area. And rather than just getting various kinds of payments from these people, very likely what they're looking for is give us all your copper or lots of it. Staying in power meant keeping a good copper supply. They would need that.

Now, these were the kings from the Valley of Sidim or as we've seen the Valley at the south end of the Dead Sea, the Salt Sea. Bera, the King of Sodom, is one of those names. Bersha, the King of Gomorrah, and we'll get some insights into the meanings of those names shortly. The King of Adma, and the King of Zeboim, and the King of Bela that is otherwise known as Zoar. And notice that the names of the last three kings are not given, but the first two are. And I think there's some reason why. We'll look at it in just a minute.

Dr. Bryant Wood, who spoke actually in this room in the year 2002, has done quite a bit of study and writing on this subject. He published it in Bible and Spade 1999, again, just last year. He spoke on that topic here when he spoke in this room in 2002. We'll get more into a lot of the details of that because it's interesting. He has pictures and good record of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And so we'll take a look at some photographs on that when we get to there on the third Sunday in July. So more on that topic later.

So here are the kings that rebelled. These five put themselves against the four kings of Mesopotamia. So you think, okay, five against four. Well, that number by itself didn't seem to pull it off. But so how'd they do? Not so good. Not so very good at all.

As a matter of fact, what I'll do is I'll have a backdrop. This is a nighttime scene at a tar pit. I figure that's a good backdrop for this. Now, the Valley of Sidium was full of tar pits and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and they fell into them. That's not so good.

But those who survived fled to the hill country. Then they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food supply and departed. They also took Lot, Abram's nephew, and his possessions and departed, for he was living in Sodom. Remember last time we visited that topic, Lot had gone down there to Sodom, and he had initially gone down in tents. But now he was living in Sodom, so he was living in a permanent dwelling there. So some time at least had passed by the time this took place. And by the way, the Arab's name for the Dead Sea is the Sea of Lot. So they have that understanding and that connection there.

Well whether they fell in at nighttime or daytime, probably daytime, this doesn't look so good to fall into. Basically a tar pit is a seep of crude oil coming up as a generalization. Crude oil coming up and just sitting there at the surface. Falling into that is just a mess. That can't have been a good thing.

I want to take a look at the names. We need to first issue a caution. We have to be cautious about the supposed meanings of many of the Old Testament names. A lot of times those names are compounded. The names are frequently put together and they can be kind of lengthy. I think when we were going through Isaiah, we gave a name that we cautioned you that you didn't need to name any of your kids after. And one of those names was Meher Shalal Hashbaz. So the names can be lengthy, compounded, they can also be contracted, that is shortened with a bunch of kind of nicknames jammed together.

And they're given without any spaces between the words, so sometimes it can be difficult to tell what exactly is meant. There may be, from what you can tell, several possible meanings in some cases, or in other cases, it's quite clear. For example, here, to give it an English instance, this N-O-W-H-E-R-E, does that mean nowhere or now here? From the contraction, it can be hard to tell.

It's just an example of need to be cautious about it. But we have a few cases where God's word clearly spells out what a name means and it has significance. And Peleg was one that we saw just a few chapters back. In a few cases here it spells it out and Peleg is a good example.

Here's Genesis 10.25. Two sons were born to Eber. The name of one was Peleg, whose name means to divide or split. For in his days the earth was divided. So it's a pretty good match. You can tell pretty well what's meant by the name. We have some level of certainty that the name Bera, who was the king of Sodom, means in evil. And the name Bersha means in wickedness. Now that's a great pair, isn't it?

Okay. So anyway, these guys were the dynamic duo from down under. Here we go. Now, here's the everybody's doing it slide here. Not hula hoops, especially not 100 at once. What we want to point out with this, while we cannot make a certain identification with these kings, here's the names in the Bible, here's the specific record that we have in the archaeological record.

But on the other hand, the general kinds of coalitions like we see recorded here, That was real common for that era, so that's very well attested and supported. It fits with what we know of the culture of the time. That's the way the kings operated. Secondly, the names of the kings, while not directly connected to specific kings from the record, are names that show up in various places in the literature of the day. And by the way, in order for people to be well Versed in the literature that day, I think with clay tablets you have to be pretty strong. But nonetheless, the names show up repeatedly. So there is a good match in the culture in terms of the general cultural background with what we see recorded in Scripture here.

Now, let's think about rescuing Lot. Here's Abraham, and he's got a situation thrust upon him. Here's his nephew Lot. He's chosen to live there down in Sodom, and now These guys have come through. Abraham, they probably didn't bother with him because here's this nomadic guy and he doesn't have any particular city or any place that he's nailed down to. So they're not concerned about Abraham. They probably just ran right past him and didn't concern themselves. But Abraham was very concerned because here's his nephew Lot that had been captured by these four kings from Mesopotamia. So you can imagine Abraham was kind of quickly measuring in his mind, why should I do this? Why shouldn't I do it? Why or why not? By the way, that's a why not. Okay? All right. Okay. You going to live through that one? All right.

Abraham would be motivated to rescue Lot because, okay, here's the whys. Lot was a close relative. He was family. Abraham had referred to him previously as a brother, okay? And certainly as a relative. So here's family. That's got a tug at his heart. He says, here's my close relative and he's got nobody else to help him. What's going to happen here? So that was one thing.

Lot was at that time the only, and I'll put the word potential, the only potential heir that Abraham had. We're not sure how much that weighed on his mind, but that may have been a factor in his considerations here. Here's a guy whose family is the only one whose family in this area, and as a matter of fact, he's the only one who's a potential heir at this point in time.

Abraham might have been fearful to rescue Lot, for the fact that he was seriously outnumbered. He had a few hundred people to put to this task of rescuing. They most certainly had many thousands. So he was seriously outnumbered. But Abraham learned that he could trust God. That was one lesson that he had seen. And we've seen spelled out for us there in chapters 12 and 13. Abraham had learned that he could trust God. Am I greatly outnumbered? Yeah. But God's on my side. And he could trust the Lord's promise there.

Secondly, there was and is a tradition of revenge. This is something we're going to see, and I'm going to bring it out here for two primary reasons. One, we're going to see it again and again In the book of Genesis, as we proceed through our study, there's a tradition of revenge.

What I've got here is the family tree of Mohammed the Prophet. Mohammed the Prophet came along 2,600 years after the time of Abraham. And you know, the big sectarian conflict within Islam is because of a family feud among Mohammed the Prophet's relatives. Abraham learned that he could trust God.

And as we look at, well, let me switch to a slightly bigger picture. The lighter green areas are the areas that are what are known as Sunni Islam. And what is it? It is that Middle Eastern culture, that tradition of revenge. that is continuing today. We go into an area and we're from a culture where we've been taught for centuries to forgive. That's not the culture of the Middle East. That's not the tradition that had already become well entrenched by Abraham's time and that we're going to see again and again as we study the book of Genesis.

What's interesting is that the three primary countries where the sectarian conflict goes on, and it goes on to the degree of let's kill each other over it, is Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. And which three Middle Eastern countries are we all tied into right now?

Okay? Yeah. Amazing. So that's something to be looking at. It is likely at least some of the things that Abraham had to be considering is, if I get snarled up in this thing, there's this risk of revenge. But, he learned that he could trust the Lord in spite of that well-known and widespread tradition of revenge. Now, in one way, This whole fighting and rebellion thing wouldn't have mattered much.

But, in fact, Lot had taken up residence there in Sodom, and that was one of the key places that was attacked there. The four kings of Mesopotamia, they didn't just grab some of Lot's stuff and run off. They grabbed Lot, everybody in the household, all of his stuff, and all the food supply. I mean, lock, stock, and barrel, it all went with them.

Every last little bit. And then, the four kings were headed north. And I'm sure by this time they're thinking, hey, we've done all our conquering. Nobody's going to touch us now. All these people are hurting and stinging and licking their wounds. And we're just heading north.

They had not the slightest idea that there was this guy Abraham come nipping at their tails and going to sting them good. But the farther they got, the tougher it was going to be for Abraham. He had to decide and act fast and run fast. So now the chase is on. He's made this decision.

The four kings didn't know they were being pursued. They had no idea. They were probably figuring nobody's going to touch us now. We've gotten all these people clobbered pretty good. And they're just trying to get their stuff together. So they had no idea.

Verse 14 uses a particular word that doesn't say this is just a ragtag bunch of people. What's interesting is it uses a word that says these were trained troops. So very, very interesting point. And that is these people that Abraham had, he had already had them trained up. So it wasn't a last minute, let's grab some people and here you know how to use a sword. It was a matter of these people all having training and equipping for what they were doing.

We would also point out, as verse 13 makes note of, Abraham had other allies so that the surprise night attack here on the troop of the four kings would be Abraham's troops, 318, plus whatever number, and we don't know what the number was, but it may well have been substantial, whatever the other number of troops might have been from his other military allies. So now here's what's happening. Here's Abraham chasing him basically to at least 120 miles to the north of where he was. Abraham didn't need to go and wipe out these thousands of troops.

All he had to do is say, where's my nephew Lot? Where's his stuff? I want it back. I want him back, okay? And grab those and run, okay? So he could make a quick hit, get what he wanted and who he wanted out of there, and then pull away. That's all he had to do, and he had to make a quick nighttime raid. So he didn't need to wipe them out. He just wanted to get the stuff back and a lot and everybody else related with him there. So now he accomplished that. Now here's Abraham and he's on his way home. I don't know how fast a retreat he made. He may have thought, well, they might come after me the way I came after them. But it's possible that he was somewhat more relaxed, but maybe not.

While on his way here, Abram came across two leaders of a very different character. The leaders are Melchizedek and here's Barah, remember whose name means in evil, the king of Sodom. And what's interesting here is Melchizedek, king of Salem, and Barah, king of Sodom. He meets those two. And as we see in the passage here, this is about verse 17 through verse 24, We see a description of Abram's interactions with these two. And the character of his interactions with these two people is radically different.

And just so it's clear, Salem, which is later named Jerusalem. Salem is how we pronounce it in English. The Hebrew is more in the nature of Shalom, meaning peace. So Jerusalem, habitation of peace. And then we have Sodom there at the south end and on the east side of the Dead Sea area.

So with Bera, king of Sodom, Abraham was cautious not to be compromised. Now it's clear that Bera was in some sense a military ally. That is, you know, Here he was trying to get Lot back, Lot back with his stuff, back to Sodom, and in some sense to restore things for Lot. So there was a way in which bringing Lot back and stinging this enemy would be something that would put him in alliance with Barah, the king of Sodom.

But it's clear as we read the passage, Abraham didn't want to do anything that would compromise his stance morally or spiritually. There may have been something else, and that's something we see in our own culture today. You owe me. If Bera gave him too much, Bera might say, hey, I gave you a bunch of stuff and you owe me now. And so Abraham said, no, I don't want to get into that. He says, I'll pass on the opportunity. No thanks. We'll let things stand as they are. We've got some New Testament passages that reflect some of the concerns that Abraham may well have had. This is one that is frequently referred to in a marriage context, but I think it has even wider implications.

It says, Do not be bound together with unbelievers, for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? That bound together is, I think, translated in the King James, unequally yoked. And frequently refers to a mismatch yoke or connection there. Verse 15, or what harmony has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

Be careful of making those connections that get you obligated. Be careful to make those connections that get you tied up into something that down the road is either likely or guaranteed to draw the believer into compromise. Later on in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verses 21 and 22, but examine everything carefully, hold fast to that which is good, abstain from every form, or the footnote in the New American Standard has appearance of evil. Watch out what you get yourself tied into. Be careful even what this looks like. Now, with Melchizedek, here's the contrast. With Melchizedek, Abraham interacted in a very different way.

He accepted the offer of bread and wine, plus there was additional things there. Abraham received him as a priest of the Most High God. Melchizedek comes across as priest and king there, and accepted Melchizedek's blessing upon God and himself. And he welcomed and received that openly. A great contrast with the response and the interaction between Abraham and Bera, king of Sodom.

Though Melchizedek was not a military ally from anything that we have record of, in other words, he didn't participate in Abraham's nighttime raid. Nonetheless, he was a spiritual ally. So isn't that interesting? Here's a military ally. He says, no, I'm not getting tied up with you. But now when it comes to being a spiritual ally, he says, yes, I will accept blessing. And we'll see even more here shortly.

Psalm 110 verses 1 through 4. And by the way, that first verse is one that's quoted repeatedly in the New Testament several different times. But verse 4 here says, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. So the scripture itself makes reference to this order of Melchizedek. In Hebrews, starting with chapter 5, verse 6, and then 7, 17, that verse 4 is quoted both times. And it's kind of like bookends to a section that talks about Melchizedek, mostly in the portion of chapter 7, right before where 7, 17 quotes Psalm 110, 4. Something else to point out to you I found real interesting. It says there in Genesis 14, 20, and blessed be God. in the Greek Old Testament, it says, and blessed be thee, God.

Definite article. And one of the other things I would point out here, because this is a place where it says that Abram gave a tenth of all. You say, well, wait a minute. Is he starting to fall under the law? I thought he was under grace. But one of the things you have to recall is that giving a tent was a standard figure throughout the Middle East for many centuries, including Abraham's time. It was a standard figure for what you would give either to a king in tax or to a priest in contribution.

Now, in Ephesians 1.3, interestingly, the exact same words are used. in Ephesians 1.3 in the Greek, as are used in the Greek Old Testament. And the only difference is, and this is something that at first might strike us as, well, that's a little bit strange.

In Ephesians 1.3, of the five words, blessed is pulled up to the front. And the reason is, where in our language we would underline something or bold it or put it in italics to emphasize it, If I was speaking up here, I would speak with a loud voice, which I'd better not because I'll wake up the kids if there's any. But the way of emphasizing in the Greek is to pull a word first.

So he's saying, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So those same words are drawn upon when we in the church are told about our blessings in Christ. We have indeed unfathomable riches. We've been blessed unfathomably. The Lord makes it clear.

Now, there are a few lessons to be learned from this passage here. We will certainly have dealings of various kinds with all sorts of different people. And that's to be expected. But one of the things, I think it's a valuable thing for us to see in this passage, Abraham was careful about who he got tied into, especially where it made a long-term obligation. Can you get that word obligation? He said, I want to be careful who I get tied in with. Believers are well to think carefully about what their actions approve morally or spiritually or obligate them to.

We have insights, of course, made available to us in God's Word in terms of what those considerations ought to be, as well as the ministries of the Holy Spirit. Here's the issue. What is at stake is our own walk with the Lord and our testimony to others. Our own walk with the Lord and our testimony to others when we look at and consider especially these long-term commitments. And it's one of the reasons why this very issue is brought up in the consideration of a marriage partner.

Believer with unbeliever is not a mix that Scripture encourages. We have a basis for boldness and a cause for caution. As believers, think of the reasons for our boldness as a result of who God is, of who we've been made to be in Him, and because He has made promises and is the promise keeper. We can be bold by counting on all those things. We can depend for every step of this life and on into eternity for the things that the Lord has made come about and promised and told us is true. One of the other corollaries that goes along with that is our cause for caution in earthly relationships. The exact same thing that we see with Abram here, particularly because of this.

We're sojourners here. This ultimately is not our heart's home. This ultimately is not the place where we have our citizenship. Our citizenship is heavenly. Our heart's home is heavenly. That's the place where we really belong. That's the place where God calls us to be comfortable. Seated there in the heavenlies. With Christ. With Him. Let's pray.

Lord, as we look at this passage here, as we look at what you've laid out in the life of Abraham, great challenges, even some rather quick and momentous decisions to be made. And yet, in it all, you've laid out some principles for us and that we can count upon you. We can count upon all of who you've made us to be in you because we put our trust in you. And we trust in you to shield us spiritually. We thank you that we can stand upon who you've made us to be in you. We ask that you would draw our focus to be upon the very person of Jesus Christ, our Lord, our Savior, the one with whom we're co-seated. In Jesus' name, amen.