I don't know what happened to Lynn, our singer. She practiced with us. But anyway, Linda has replaced Lynn. You don't do alpha. Okay, well, that's good because we needed a soprano. We practiced with no soprano and so we needed you. Madison's our soprano, and she'll be joining us here. Are you going to join us for this one or the second one? The second one. Okay, we are going to sing here we go. Number 229? Are you washed in the blood? And let's just sing all four verses now. I want you to warm up on the first because we're going to do something that works great when you're in a great big congregation. But when you're in a medium sized congregation like ours, it's sometimes a little bit of a stretch. Verse two is going to be the ladies. Verse three no, verse two is going to be the men. Right? Yeah. Verse two is going to be the men. Men first, men take the lead. And verse three is going to be the lady. And everybody's going to sing together on the chorus there. Are you washed? Okay. And if you are from Georgia, you can go with Are you worshed? There we go. Or Tennessee. Yeah, we got some Tennessee up here, so you might hear a little worst. We gonna stand together and let's sing hymn number 229. And we will sing all four verses with the men on the second, the ladies on the third, and everybody together on the first and the last. Oops, sorry, I I messed this up. Here we go. Jesus for the Christine power. Are you washed in the blood on the Lamb? Are you holy? Crashing in his graces out are you washed in the blood of a Lamb? Are they white as snow? Are you washed in the blood of the land? In all the seconds are you walking, baby, by the Savior sight? Are you washed in the water? Yeah you rest each morning a cruising fight are you before the mansion? Right and he washed in the blood of the lamp in the blood in the soul cleansing blood on the lamp fire garments where are they washed in the blood? On the land on the land everybody lay aside the garments that are stained with it and be washed in the blood of the Lamb there's a fountain blowing for the soul and cling all we washed in the blood of the Lamb are you washed in the blood? That is a pretty good question, isn't it, to ask yourself today? Let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We're grateful that we have heard this wonderful gospel, this saving gospel, and that we come this morning able to rest in it in a gift of God that is given that any man, woman, boy or girl can receive this gift by grace through faith, not of ourselves that their Heavenly Father is the most unbelievable of gifts and for this we are very grateful. We ask this in Jesus name, amen. And you may be seated. Singers, you may be seated as well. Glad to welcome each one of you here to our congregation this morning. Thanks for being with us. And you have a bulletin there. It has some announcements on the back, most of them pretty selfexplanatory. But don't miss Wednesday night. We got pork tenderloin on the menu. That's always a good one even with a little raspberry chipotle sauce over the top. Like a fine dining establishment that we are. You're going to enjoy the pork tenderloin Wednesday 05:00. You can bring something to go along with that. And let's see are the Pains still going to be here Wednesday? Or are you all good but you're not here next Sunday? Yeah, I'm a sir, but this is the pains last Sunday for a while, so they come back. It's been nice having you singing with us and helping us out in fellowshipping. But thanks for being here. We'll see you Wednesday night and then see you in spirit. How's that? So Wednesday night the book of hosea. We're in chapter two now on our third session of the Book of Hosea. I hope you'll join us, if you can, for that after supper and the kids activities, other things that are going on there. Be sure and mark Sunday the 13 November because that's Potluck Sunday and we will be having our turkey dinner then, so come join us. We're also having the Lord's Supper then so that'll be a special Thanksgiving service. Look forward to all of that. Other things going on there. Let's see. We're always delighted to have guests here. You know, Madison, this week I've got to restock the pulpit. I'm low on guests. But we love to welcome our guests here who are worshipping with us. And we have a pen right here that goes in our guest math back there and gives us such encouragement to see who's come from where. I suspect just watching this for a little while I suspect that the map back there gets more attention than anything else in this room. People always congregate to the map and look and say oh, that looks like a nice place and look, somebody was here from Katy, Texas. That sounds like an interesting place and all those kind of wonderful things. So we'll give a pen to stick in the mat and my little booklet, Why, I'm a Fundamentalist and you should be too. That'll scare you off, won't it? But I'm a fundamentalist and you should be too. And I'll convince you in the booklet. But to get it, we love to embarrass our guests. Don't worry, because we already know who you are because we're a tiny little church and we can see who the guests are real quick. So we just as well introduce you and get to know you. As a matter of fact, we'd love for you to introduce yourself starting right here from Katy, Texas. And of course, that's where I came from before I moved here. But stand, Jeff. Right then, introduce yourself. Hi. Jeff Jones. This is my wife, Andy. We're from Katy, Texas, but we have a summer home in Superior, Montana. So we are on our way back home right now for the winter. And then next spring we'll come back this way back up to Montana. So I'm going to need two pins. As you were saying that I was thinking I just noticed that we don't have pins in Montana. So you're from Superior, Montana? Yes. So we're very happy to be here today and we're delighted that you're here on your way down to the warm department. God bless for being here. Let's see. Kevin, did I get it right? If you don't mind staying and introduce yourself as well. I'm Kevin. Excellent. We look forward to getting to you, getting to know you. Welcome to Tows, Kevin. Thank you. God blessed you for being here. And we are glad that Julia, for some reason, my mind went to say Sylvia. And I'm like, this is not Sylvia. This is Julia. There we go. We're glad Julia is back with us. Of course. We've been praying for her and the loss of her son, what? About a month ago now. And Julia. Welcome back. Would you like to say anything? Okay. We're delighted that you are. She was such a faithful part of our church for several years when she lived here and now lives out in California. We love having you back, Julia. Which was potluck. Julia always. Yeah, we always enjoy the potlucks together. God bless each one. I think the rest of us are home folk and glad that each one of you are here. Why don't you stand and greet someone before we come and sing here in just a moment. And I'll give out some of these gifts and some of these pins and you say hi to each other and we'll worship here in just a moment. Lisa, thank you. Down here. Are you Washed in the blood in the Soul twinsing? Blood of the lamb? Are you Garmin Spotless? Are they white? And now if you would just remain standing and I'm going to switch the order on us here. We're going to go to the Lily of the Valley. Here hymn number 153, The Lily of the Valley. And I think we're singing two verses on this. Do I remember right? Yeah, I think it's one and three. We practiced number 153. It's the lily of the valley. Him, 153. Let's sing the first and the last. That was fast. Shelley always says you sing them too slow. But we will never fit all these words of verse three. And if we sing at that, we got three verses here. Let's do all three of them. Let's do verse two. It won't take any time at all. I am slowing it down just a tad here. We'll see here as we sing the second we're not going to have an intro. We're going to jump right into it. Okay? Here we go. And all my sorrows born in temptation he's my strong and mighty cry I have all for Him forsaken all my tribes on their heart keeps me in his power though all the world forsake me and faith intense me sore jesus I shall say we reach that door he's a lily of the valley the brighter morning star he's a ferret of 10,000 to my soul on the third he will never never leave me nor yet for take me here while I live by faith to his blessed will be with his manner he might hungry so shall feel then sweeping up to glory to see his blessed face where rivers of the light shall ever roll he's a lily of the valley the bright and morning and now with that. We go to Him. Number 453. Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. We're going to sing verses one and three. I chose this particular hymn because I'm going to preach about a war, the First World War in Genesis, Chapter 14. And we're going to ultimately have lots of wars. But you and I lean on the everlasting arms how's that? I made a connection there somehow, didn't I? Him, number 453 leaning on the everlasting arms leaving arms leaning on the everlasting heart leaning on Jesus leaning on Jesus safe and secured from Allah leaning on Jesus leaning on Jesus leaning on the everlasting arms what have I to drink? What have I to do? Leaning on the airlasting arm I have blessed me leaning on the air and you may be seated. Musicians as well. Thank you. As we come together for a time of offering just before our preaching, we remember our Missionaries of the Month, eric and Rebecca Elrod and their three children. There's a picture of them back there by the map. And this wonderful little family is missionaries to India. And we lift them up. They're actually going to be missionaries of the Month for both October and November. And we are blessing them with the arrival of their newest baby, Elliot. And Elliot arrived about four weeks ago, I believe it was. And so we rejoiced with the Elrod family in that, of course, if you give marked admissions, it will go to the Elrod family. If you give undesignated, then it goes to our church right here and the needs of our local ministry. And we're grateful for all of that. There's an offering box back there. We won't pass the plate, but if you want to get up during the offering time, put it in there. You're welcome, or anytime, you are welcome to do so. And by the way, the pastor and his wife are rejoicing with his son and daughter in law and granddaughter because we found out this week it's going to be a boy. Baby boy on the way. Congratulations to Nathan and Whitney and Halle, who's going to have a little brother come March. And we're excited about that. Now, with that, let's have a word of prayer. Father, we're grateful for your watch care over us. We're grateful for missionaries like the Yale Rods, this young family that does so much good work in India. We just pray that you'd encourage them as we pray for them today and the work that they are doing. We pray for our own church here that you would strengthen a guide and give wisdom and thank you for the way you have always provided down through these decades. And when we don't know how in the world is it going to keep on going. God always brings people and finances and will and the spirit to open the word of God and continue to be a lighthouse in this community. And for this their Heavenly Father, we are most grateful and pray that as we give these gifts, they would be honorable to you and useful was they're given. And then that the sermon, their Heavenly Father also would give us great insight into the word of God. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Let's have a little musical offer, Tory, as we prepare for the sermon. Music video. I just thought it was done, so I ended it. How about Name That Tune? Can anyone name that tune? It's not in the Church of Christ book. You're exactly right. And it was played on the piano, too, so it's definitely not on the Church of Christ book. Somebody, as soon as I say it, you'll know it. I thought John probably would know it. There will be peace peace in the valley for me peace in the Valley. There you go. Yeah. And I had a great prize here. I was giving away a brand new ford if 150 for the name that tune. But I guess we'll just have to forego that here today. Genesis, the 14th chapter, is where we're looking at today. We've been three times now into the fourth time and we're looking in which we're looking at the life and times of Abraham. He's still called Abram here. I will do my best to try to remember to call him Abram, although it may come out as Abraham sometimes. Same guy, though, and you'll know who I'm talking about. And as we look at Abram here, we see a very unusual turn of events. But you may remember last week, if you were here, that we had the I don't know, shall we call it the confrontation with Lot. I don't know if confrontation is exactly the right word, but they come out of Egypt. And almost all of Chapter 13 is filled with this issue about Lot, the nephew, who seems to interject some chaos in the family and shall I say the family enterprise. And they begin to have challenges among the animal herders who are out there over this land and that land, and they separate ways. It is only after they separate ways that God then comes and says to Abram, I am going to give you this land to you and your descendants, who will be like the stars of the sky. And as I presented last week, I believe that probably the reason we are given so much information about Lot and finally he leaves is to tell us, hey, Lot is not the promised One. He is not the heir to all of this, even though at that time we might presume it because Abraham didn't have anybody else, right? Why not give it to Lot, your nephew who's stuck by you, he went with you. He came from Haran up north. He came with you to the promised land. He went down with you to Egypt. He's coming back from Egypt. Lot looks like our guy. But I think the scripture very clearly wants us to know it's not Lot. Don't be following Lot in this. I don't know. Can we call it a who done it? It's not really a who done it, but it's a mystery to see. From whom is the Redeemer going to come? That's really the whole theme of the Old Testament is we're looking for one who will crush the serpent on the head. In Genesis 315, who is it? Should we follow a lot. Chapter 13 says, don't follow a lot. Well, so in chapter 13, Lot separates. God gives them the promise. Now that Lots out of the scene, god gives the promise to Abraham and his seed. And then chapter 13 ended. You may remember Genesis chapter 13, verse 18. It says, Abram removed his tent and came and dwelt at the plain of Mammary, which is in Hebron. And he built there an altar to the Lord. Now, I just speculated, and this is nothing more than a speculation, but I just speculated that he moved to Hebron because hebron was a pretty good vantage point to keep an eye on Lot, I don't think because he's suspicious of Lot. I think because he actually loves the boy, he cares for him, and he knows Lot is getting himself into trouble. He is going down the wrong path. This is not a good thing. And maybe from here at the vantage point of Hebron, I can kind of peek over the mountain and see how things are going down there in the valley and keep my ear to the ground and sort of know what's happening. Now, I don't know for sure that that's why he moved to Heburn, but nonetheless, that is what he did. And then from there we come and we pick up in Genesis, chapter 14, and we have in verses one through seven, what I call a most unusual turn of events that takes place. But first, let's get some artwork here. Here we have Lot carried away into captivity. This came from something called the Ibible. I have no idea what the Eye Bible is, if it's any good or not, but I actually mentioned to Keven this morning I have a hard time finding pictures on certain parts of the Bible. Kevin, could you paint a picture for free? I want to get that upfront on Genesis 14. There is no picture, no classic religious art of the battle between the five kings and the four kings. I think it would make a marvelous picture. Maybe we could put it up there when we replaster the wall. I don't know. Do you do frescas fresco is that way. You say that well, you should learn. Okay? They last a long time. You should learn. They'll last forever outlast. You and me both. And you're younger than I am. Now. Here we go, back to the sermon. Here's a picture of Lot being carried away into captivity. That's the end result of what we're going to have in Genesis, chapter 14, verses one through seven is that Lot really is in one sense, I'll just say he's in the wrong place at the wrong time. He finds himself in the middle of a battle zone and he's on the losing side. Not because he's fighting for anybody. He's not fighting for this side or fighting for that side. As best we can tell. He just happens to be there and the enemy takes him and the enemy captures him. I think he's probably a pretty good candidate for capture because he is a very rich man and take lots take a lot of stuff that Lot has, like all of Lot stuff and you would end up with a lot. And so that is the story. But let's read about it here because there are some big words. I am going to put on my glasses and look like a grandfather. How's that? Here we go. Verse one. But I'm not going to get very far. And it came to pass in the days of can I stop right there? It came to pass in the days of and in one sense, it is just narration. It's moving us on to the next scene. But there's something that interesting when you happen. And this morning in our Bible study, we're talking about how to interpret the Bible. And one of the things I was talking about is letting Scripture interpret scripture and looking at phrases and getting the sense of the phrase. When you take this particular phrase in the days of or excuse me. If you search the phrase, it came to pass in the days it came to pass in the days you search that just in English and you begin to find it through the Scripture, you'll find that it always introduces something that is negative, not positive, which is rather interesting in and of itself. That it's almost this little hint, this little flag to good students of the word. And of course, you're in the advanced class at the Tau Theological Seminary. And so you would know immediately, oh, we got something bad that's about to happen right here. We won't go through those times and look at it. But it is this little indication that an alarm is going off. So it came to pass. Verse 1414, verse one, in the days of Amrafell, King of Shinar, have you ever heard of Amrafell? I guess you guys forgot the sermon I preached on Amrafell. I'll have to do it again. We'll skip that part. That was in the I think it was 30 Amazing Bible Stories you may not know. We actually hit this now that's been a couple of years ago. So I forgive you for forgiving my masterpiece of the sermon. Amrafell, King of Chenar. Have you ever heard of Chenar? Chena? Rings a bell, doesn't it? Chenar tower of Babel was in the plain of Chenar. So we're putting ourself over there in the Mesopotamian region between the Tigris and the Euphrates. So we've got Armfeld, King of Chenar. It goes on to say Ariac, King of Ellisar, heador Loemer, king of Elam and Title King of nations. Now, that king of nations probably means that he had a little bit of a coalition of nations that were given there. Okay, there's four kings in verse one. You got it? There four kings. Verse one going on to verse two, that these made war with Biera, King of Sodom. Well, we remember that Lot moved over there. And Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of ADMA, and Shemabar, king of Zebawim and the King of Bela, which is Zoar. Okay, four kings versus five kings. You got it? Verse three. All of these were joined together in the veil of Sadim, which is the Salt Sea. Now, the veil of sediment vale, by the way, just means valley. So in the valley of Sadim, well, we assume a couple of things. One is we know that the vale of Sadim is in near around with the Salt Sea as it's called here. The Salt Sea. Of course, we today would call the Dead Sea. Come with me to Israel. I'll let you float in next February and we'll go to the Salt Sea or the Dead Sea. Here. It is called the Salt Sea. I think, as I recall, it is never called the Dead Sea. In the Bible, we call it the Dead Sea. Today it's called a number of things in the Bible, but never the Dead Sea. Here. It's called the Salt Sea. And of course, we know exactly what it is, this valley of Sadim. We're not so sure about this valley of Sadim, but we do know that Sadim and Sodom come from the same root word. You can kind of hear it in English because we just put the Hebrew words into English, so Sadim. Sodom it looks like this valley of Sadim probably has its major city being Sodom. And thus here the King of Sodom is mentioned first as it comes into this battle. So. Probably around Sodom. That must be somewhere in this Valley of Saddam, this valley around the Salt Sea. Now, the only thing is, if you've been to the Salt Sea or the Dead Sea today and you've seen the valley around there, you might even have been just a little bit perplexed. Because if you go back to chapter 13, chapter 13, verse verse five, that is wrong. Chapter 13, verse something, you can read it. It says that Sodom was as the Garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. When you come up from Zohar now as the Garden of the Lord, I think it's talking about the Garden of Eden, but it's very clearly talking about a nice place. Hey, this is a lush place. As a matter of fact, you remember the reason that Lot chose this particular valley was because, hey, that's where the green grass is, that's where the good stuff is. I'm going there. So the Valley of Sedime looks to be a very good place. Now today when you go, it is a very dry and very arid place. But we know that a lot of things have happened since then, not the least of which is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which could have made an unbelievable effect on the territory around there and the topography that it's in. But nonetheless, you've got a good place here now, like the valley, like the Garden of the Lord, it is a lush place. Now let me also say that in that point, then at that point in history, what we know about ancient geography and ancient history is that you had really kind of three civilizations. You had the Babylonian civilization over in Chenar in the Mesopotamian area between the Tigris and the Euphrates. You had perhaps the greatest of civilizations there. There was a little kingdom over there called Er of the Caldes. The Caldeans were in the Valley of Chenar as well. So Abram and his family had originally moved from that area over there, mesopotamia, modern day Iraq, Iran in that area. And that Mesopotamian valley was almost the bread basket of the world. That was the place you went, you grew things, you lived, you thrived, you worshiped false gods, all that other kind of stuff over there. Then let's come across the map down to the southwest. You had Egypt in those days, and we know that Egypt in those days with the Nile River, the Valley of the Nile, that Egypt was very lush and productive, producing one of the great ancient civilizations. And so you've got two civilizations here. In the middle is caught what today would be Israel or the promised land, or Israel and Jordan. And this is the land of Canaan as it is here in chapter 13 and 14. And it also was a lush bread basket. So you've got three bread baskets, if you will. And of course, you have to eat, don't you? We all have to eat. Well, when you have to eat, it's easiest to move to a place that's got some water, it grows grass, it grows stuff, it grows crops, all that kind of stuff. Life gets much easier if you live in a place like that. And so this is where all the people lived. And these were the centers of civilization, if you will. And Israel, as we would call it today, or the land of Canaan, was kind of caught in the crossfires because Mesopotamia to the east, Egypt to the west, and you're in the middle, and they're always fighting over and all of history, basically. That little strip there, the Fertile Crescent, as it's often called, that little strip right there, has gone back and forth between the Babylonians and the Egyptians. The Babylonians and the Egyptians. The Babylonians. Who's going to control this area. Now, this is the first of what we see here. So we pick up again in verse three. They were all joined together in the veil of Saddam, which is the Saul Sea. So verses one through three talked about this battle. Now, verse four gives us the reason for the battle. It says, Twelve years they served Hederleymer, and in the 13th year they rebelled. Now, this guy who I wish had an easier name, Teddera Lehmer, he was from Mesopotamia, and for twelve years they served him. Okay, 13th year rebellion. You only like to pay excessive taxes. You only like to pay taxation without representation for so long, and then it bubbles over and turns into rebellion. This is what happened on the third year. Those five kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Saddam Valley there they said, enough is enough, we rebel. Verse five. So in the 14th year came Heterohma and the kings that were with him, and they smote the Raphaems and astroothe Curname, and the Zuze's and Ham and the Emmys and Shaveriot and the Horights, and Mount Sierra unto El Peran, which is by the wilderness. And they returned and they came to in Mishfat, which is Kadesh, and they smote all the country of the Amalekites and also the Amorites, and they dwelt in Harrison, Tamar, and there they went to the king, and then they went to the king of Sodom. They went out to the king of Sodom. Now, let me stop right there. Verses five, six and seven. That was inspiring, wasn't it? Whoa. This is the point in your read the Bible through plan in which you begin to say, is this such a good plan? I got all these big names and places of something really weird happening. I don't really know what's going on. Let me say that I think that it is interesting that here so far, we're down to, what, six verses? No, seven verses. In the first seven verses here, we've got a bunch of names. And places that we have never seen, we don't know anything about other than Chena or a little bit of Sodom and Gomorrah. That's about all we know. And it's this battle. And really, honestly, we're kind of saying, who cares? That was a long time ago. I'm not really interested. Why in the world all of this detail about these guys that honestly, we're never going to be able to figure out who, what, when, where, why, what's all going on there, and it gets into this tremendous detail. And then, by the way, let me mention that before this chapter is out, we're going to get to a guy named Melchizedek. You've ever heard of Melchizedek? And when it comes to Melchizedek, you're like, oh, I want to know, I want to know, I want to know. And there's three verses that don't tell you anything. I don't want to know about Carolmar and all these hit tides and stuff and whatnot. I don't know anything about that. It's not interesting, right? So we come here and we're somewhat perplexed at what is happening. Let me try to give a little bit of view of what is happening here. Again, you got the Babylonians who are controlling the let's call them Canaanites, those who Sodom and Gomorrah in that area, they're controlling them. They have controlled them now for twelve years. On the 13th year they rebelled. On the 14th year, Babylon says, we're coming for you. But if you were to follow on a map, we won't do it. But if you were to follow on a map, all of these places, inverses, the five, six and seven, let's just use the pulpit as an example. Right here. Let's say right here in the middle is the place we want to go, the Valley of Sadim. And Babylon is right over here. And so what should you do if you're going to go against these rebels right here? Well, guess what they do? They go from here to here, to here, to here, to here, to here to here to here to here, and then they go here. Now, geographically, there's really no reason to do that. You can get right there. So the Bible seems to be saying, hey, we're going round and about here. Why are they doing that? Again, we don't exactly know. I suspect that the reason they're doing that is because it is good real estate, and the last thing you want to do is destroy all your workers and all your people. What they would rather have is the people of the valley of Sadim paying their tribute every year and growing the crops. And we don't want a war. We just want these people to be subservient to us, that's all. And so if we go to all these other places that we don't really care about and we pressure them into it, maybe the Valley of Sadim is going to give up and say, we're never going to make it in this rebellion. We ought to just stop there. I saw a quote just the other day from Menachembagan, remember him? I've been learning the life of Monacobagan a little bit. It's really rather interesting. I was in high school and elementary school when he was big, but of course you all remember, but he said something about classic warfare is, which I should have written it down. Classic warfare is threatening the other party so much that they decide it's not worth going to war against you. Now, that's a little bit of a paraphrase, but I think that's what's going on here. They are trying to say, hey, Valley of Sadim, you don't want to go up against us. We are four kings. That kind of wipe you out. We did this. You know another interesting thing, they end up in verse seven. They end up at this place called Hazzan Hazard on tomorrow. Well, we know from further study in the scripture that place is later going to be called Kadesh. Kadesh barnia. Does that ring a bell? A little bit. Kadesh barnea. When you think about the Exodus, the children of Israel spent 38 years out of their 40 years in wandering at Kadesh. And finally, it was at Kadesh barnia that at the end of the 40 years was up and they said, we can go in. Now, if you look to your map over here, remember, Sodom is right in the middle of Kadesh barnias, right over here. Well, they just needed to go right up here to the Jerusalem area, all the things that we call Israel. But you may remember what the children of Israel did. They went down here and down here and down here and up here and up here. They basically followed that route in reverse and they come in from the west. Why did they do it? It's not for geographical reasons. It was a lot easier just from Kadesh barnea, just go right up in and be there. Why did they do it? I don't know exactly why they did it, except that by the time they get to Jericho, remember Rehab and Rehab, when she visits with the spies, she says, I'm going to paraphrase here. She says, hey, Israeli spies, all of us in Jericho, our knees are shaken. We are scared to death because we have seen what you've done all the way around. What are we going to do? We're so worried about this thing. Well, okay, it worked. They were scared to hold up, to lock themselves locked. The gates were hiding out of the bed and when Joshua came, so they didn't have to worry about it all on attack. So I think that's probably what you've got going on a little bit right here. Now we continue in verse eight as we look upon this. And in verses eight through 17, we find a most surprising defeat. Let's go on. It says verse eight, there went out the king of Sodom, the king of Gamora, the king of ADMA, the king of Zebewim, the king of Bayla, the same as they are, and they joined battle with them in the veil of Saddam. Okay, can I stop right there, just in case I lost you anywhere. I went a long way to say, let's just call them the Babylonians, the Four Kings. They didn't attack the Five Kings directly. They scared them, but it didn't work. The five kings said, we're still rebelling, you haven't scared us, we're going up against you. They meet in the valley of Sadim, then in verse eight, a joint battle with them in the valley of Saddam. Okay, verse nine. In fact, I'm not going to read verse nine because it's got all those big words, but it says in fact, it ends I'll read the end of verse nine. Four kings with five. Okay, we got the Four Kings. Let's call the kings the Four Kings, the good guys. I hate to do it because it's the king of Sodom and the king of Gamora, but these are the rebels. We're kind of for him for them. They don't want to pay the taxes. Okay? They're good guys here and they're threatened, but they say, no, we're going. So the five good kings go up against the four bad kings. In verses eight and verse nine, verse ten, it says, the veil of Saddam was full of slime pits, and the king of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there, and they that remained fled to the mountains. OK, let's think about this a little bit. Things didn't go well. The Five Kings got defeated by the Four Kings, the king of Sodom and Gomorrah, they seem to be the leaders of this five king coalition they run. But the valley of Saddam is full of slime pits. Any of you ever got caught in a slime pit? Any of you as a child, worried about that great danger of quicksand? How often every Western they got caught in quicksand? At least once, right? And it turns out not to be quite the problem we imagined it to be. But in that part of the world still today, there are what the King James here translates as slime pits. Now, what in the world is a slime pit? I think that the technical word is john, tell me if I'm pronouncing it right. Bitumen. Bitumen. Bitumen. Do you know vitamin? Vitamin B-I-T-U-M-E-N. Bitumen is the technical term. The Greek term is asphaltus. Okay, asphalt. US, we get, of course, asphalt from that. Now, asphalt, let's just picture asphalt. Asphalt you can do, manmade. Asphalt, of course, that's what we got. But there is natural asphalt or natural bitumen. Also, it is a thick, slimy petroleum. Not the juicy kind, but slime pit. Are you good with that picture? An asphalt pit. Actually, if you go with me in February to Israel, we'll go and I'll look down somewhere. And I'll say, oh, look, there's one of those slime pits right there. They're still there today. And I say, maybe the King of Sodom is in there. No, he's not, because he did get out. We know that because I'm going to read about them later. But here's the area. They get caught in one of these oil pits, let's call it. And that is what are we? Verse ten, the rest fled to the mountain, verse eleven. And that's the four bad kings took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their victims, and they went away, verse twelve. And they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelleth in Sodom and his goods and departed. Okay, not till verse twelve do we kind of say, ah, that's why we have this story, lot, we didn't care anything about the rest of the kingdoms of the world and what they were doing and this battle that was going on. But Lot is there. Abram cares about lot. He's not the inheritance, but Abraham cares about him. Abram cares about them. And so, verse twelve, they took Lot. Now I am going to stop right there and I am going to change pictures. Here we go. Here is a picture of Abram. It says, Abram makes the enemy's flea who held his nephew. It's a 1613 etching by Antonio Tempesta at the National Gallery of Art. Looks like quite the etching. Stephen, do you do etchings? Because we could have one in the front of the pulpit, perhaps of all of these valleys right here. Maybe weekly you could do an etching and I could substitute it right here to go along with it. It would be so nice to have an artist in residence. Now here's the picture of this etching, by the way, from 1613. This is Abraham or one of his men, and he is conquering those who hold his nephew. And you can't see the whole thing here's. The enemy kings over off over here. And that's where we pick up. Now, what are we in verse? Verse 13. Beginning in verse 13 it says, and they came excuse me. And there came one that had escaped and told Abram the Hebrew for he dwelt in the plain of Mammary the Amorite, brother of Escort, brother of Anna. And these were confederate with Abram. Shall we stop right there? Somebody comes and says lots of trouble. And if my theory is right, Abrams says, that's why I chose to live right here in the Plain of Mamarine Hebron, because you could get to me quick, because I knew this wasn't going to end well. And sure enough, here you are. And he comes and tells him lots of trouble. Now, one of the interesting things here is again in verse 13 it calls him Abram the Hebrew. Abram the Hebrew. This is the first time that we have the word Hebrew in the Bible. And it is the first and only time that Abram is called a Hebrew. Abram the Hebrew. The word actually is the Hebrew word I'll pronounce it is Eberite. Here is the ebarite. And Ebarite was a descendant of Eber. E-B-E-R. Through time came Hebrew. But you can begin to see that in there. And so this descendant of Eber, Genesis 1021, which now we know Abram to be, it appears that there's something and some day it would be a fun study to do. There's something about Eber and the Eberites that is to be distinguished right here to say, hey, this is something you ought to take into account. It's not just Abram the Territe or abram from Er the cowboys. This is abram the eberite. The word means the word ebber means one who crossed over. One who crossed over. Actually, Eberwright means one who crossed over. So Hebrew one who crossed over. OK, well, we can kind of see that later. They crossed the Jordan River they come into the promised land One who crossed over. It's the idea of one who crosses over from above, really from above and comes and so it's almost this hint of, hey, you probably now suspected that Abraham was different, but let me tell you, he's different. He comes from above a little bit. He crosses over. Don't count him as you would count the normal guy that comes from Earth, the caldes. Maybe God's on his side. Abraham the Hebrew. Abraite. Incidentally, something that you may not know if you speak English. How many of you speak English? Good. We have a word in English especially. I want you to take the suffix here, the prefix excuse me. And the prefix is hyper. Hyper. Hyper comes from eber Hebrew. And if you go, I don't know, like hypersonic, you are passing over the speed of sound, right? Hyper is the idea of coming over, defeating, going higher. It's kind of interesting that all of our hyper words, especially in the prefix, are used in a sense that comes from this old guy in Hebrew that we don't know much about, named Eber. And the ebarites the crossing over. And that, my friend, is nothing but trivia. And you can take that next time you have some trivial Pursuit with hyper. Okay, so now we pick up and we come on in verse, we read verse 13, verse 14. It says, when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive now, it said in the previous verse that it was in verse twelve, actually, that it was Abram's brother's son, you're just brother. This is one of those areas in which you always read the Bible literally. And when the Bible speaks figuratively, you literally take it figuratively. We know this is figurative because there's been six or eight times already we have been told to the instagree that Lot is the nephew, but he sees him as more than the nephew, he sees him as his brother. So when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive. He armed his trained servants, born in his house, 318, and pursued them to Dan. Now, let me ask you a question. Got four bad kings and their armies, they walk around the map and defeat everybody. They come up to the five kings they're really interested in. They don't really want to fight these guys. Maybe because they're powerful, maybe because they don't want to do a lot of damage, whatever it is. But they end up having to fight them and they defeat them. So these four kings, they got it together militarily, wouldn't you agree? And now comes Abram, the Hebrew with his 318 guys. Oh, this is going to end well, right? But he's an ever write something different about this? Don't count. 318 Hebrews is the same as 318 from all these other armies. This one's going to come out differently. So again, you got in verse 14, he takes us 318, he pursues them unto Dan. Let me just say real briefly here, that is not the same Dan that we're going to later see. That is up north, named after the tribe of Dan. This is a different place. Dan it is down south in the area that we're talking about. So he pursued them to Dan. That would make a good movie, wouldn't it? 318 guys putting these four kings on the run, running, pursuing them from Dan. All I know is Abram had a big can of whooping with him, and he was using it. He was going after these guys. So verse 15, it says, he divided himself against them, he and his servants by night and smote them and pursued them unto Hoba, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods and brought against his brother Inlaw and his goods, and the women also, and the people. Now, what a turn of events. You almost think, is this a Saturday morning cartoon? That all of a sudden, the strong guy comes out, here comes Papa, the sailor man, and he defeats them just like this. How in the world does this happen? From everything we can tell from these verses, stay tuned. But from everything we can tell from these verses, it looks like Abram is just very skilled in military strategy. He has an elite force of 318 that it says he has trained them in his house. He has brought his, as it says there in verse 14, his armed and trained servants. He divides them half over here, I suppose another half over here. He comes to them at night. He says, we're only 318, but if we do this right, we can get him. How many times has military history been rewritten by a small group of people who got smart, right, and carried out in this manner? And so I doubt that we ever look at Abram as a military genius or a man of war, a man of military might. But it looks here like he's got it. As a matter of fact, I would take it from here that there's nothing in this that doesn't speak of just good military strategy. Have the right men trained, they're brave, they can do what they need. They got a commander. He sends them out in this strategy that's going to frighten, and it works. He ends up chasing them off. They run away tail tucked between their legs, and he gets everything, including lotus, brother, and all the women and the people and all the goods. And the story ends. Well, that was a most surprising defeat. We didn't expect these five kings, these four kings excuse me, to be defeated, especially by Abram as 318 men, right? But they are. Now we come on. And the story even gets more unusual. It says in verse 17 that the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter. That's a good word, isn't it? For 318 men from the slaughter of Keto Leomar, and of the kings that were with him at the valley of Sheva, which is in the king's Dale. Now there's the battle. Abram wins verse 18. Here's the parenthetical and Melchizedek, King of Salem, brought forth bread and wine and he was a priest of the most high God. Wait a minute. Melchizedek, King of Salem, he's not in the five. He's not in the four. This is a totally new king all of a sudden, a king that we have not heard from before. Melchizedek becomes out king of Salem, a place that we haven't heard of before, and he brings bread and wine. That's kind of interesting, interesting thing to bring to the warrior there, brings out his bread and wine and then this biblical statement, he was a priest of the most high God. Okay, we suspect, if you're just reading along here, I would suspect, well, Melchizedek is just as pagan as the rest of them, right? And they all have their priest to their various pagan gods out there. But this says the most high God. What is it? If you're reading in Hebrew, it is el Eliahn. El Elion. God most high. So that sounds like Abraham's god. But Melchizedek, King of Salem, I don't know where that guy came. And Abraham doesn't seem to be worshiping a priest and we don't have a priesthood at this point. What all is going on here? In verse 19, we become intrigued. In verse 18, verse 19, it says, angel Kazza blessed him and said, bless thee, Abraham of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth. Now it's the most high God who is the possessor of heaven and earth. In fact, Elian means to possess the God most high, the God who possesses everything, and Melchizedek the stranger, king of Salem, the place we've never heard of, comes out with his bread and wine. Blesses Abraham, Abram the Iberite, the Hebrew, and who just slaughtered five kings four kings have a hard time keeping that straight. Just slaughtered them. And the priest of this Most High God says, bless you. You're on the side of the Most High God. Now, if we just read, not knowing the rest of the story, we would say, I don't know who this no kidding, that guy is, but he's trying to get good on Abraham side. He wants to be good with him since, hey, you and I were under the same team. Verse 20 says he blessed the most High God. Excuse me. He's continuing to give the blessing. And blessed be the Most High God which hath delivered thine enemies unto thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all. Now, this is the first time we've seen maybe something supernatural was going on in the 318, I think they had everything together, militarily and strategically. But now here the Most High God hath delivered thine enemies unto thy hand. And then it says, he gave him tithes of all. Now, I will say that the Hebrew is uncertain here who's giving ties to whom. It's always taught. And I think probably is that Abram gave ties to Melchizedek. The Hebrew actually could go either way, but he gave ties of all to Melchizedek, likely ties of all of the spoils that he had gotten back up there. In verse 16, he gives this to him and we come there. Let me see. Did I have a picture of nokisdeck. Yeah, I do. Here the meeting of Abraham and Mochisadek by an artist from the Netherlands in 1465. It's renaissance art. Renaissance art always kind of dressed everything, everybody up in Renaissance clothing rather than biblical clothing. But nonetheless, here's Abram coming. Here's melchizedek, the priest. You can see the Catholicism influenced in the art there. Kevin, you ought to let your art be influenced by realism rather than reading society into it. But here he comes, Melchizedek and Abram as they come together. And this blessing and this tithing that takes place. Now let's go on to verse 21. It says, the King of Sodom. Remember that's the guy that ran and got caught in the slime pit but obviously didn't die. The King of Sodom said unto Abram, give me the persons and take the goods to thyself. All we want is our citizens. You can keep this stuff. Abram said to the King of Sodom I have lift up my hand unto the Lord, the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth. Oh, those words sound familiar, don't they? The Lord, the most high God. L Elian. I lift my hand up to him kind of like I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. I am on melchizedek side. I'm with that God, the God Most High, the possessor of heaven and earth. That I will not take from a thread, even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made Abram rich. I'm not going to take from a thread to a shoelatchet. We believe we could be wrong, but we believe the word thread there is kind of an unusual word. It's not really this tiny thing, although it fit there, but it's the thing that held the helmet on. So basically from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet. I'm not taking anything. Nothing. It's yours. Why? Because you'd say I made Abram rich one of these days. Abram knows that. Sodom you don't want to be associated with sodom even at this point, Abram knows. Plus, he's saying, I am associated with God, the possessor of all. Well, isn't it kind of duplicitous to say we're associated with God, the possessor of all? But I sure would like some of your stuff. I don't know if we're going to make it. I really need your stuff. By the way, I'll just put in a little my two cent worth here. This is totally free. I'll pay for this with my two cent on my own. But during the pandemic, of course, the government gave out money, PPC loans to businesses and churches and all this kind of stuff. And I disagreed with all my pastor friends who were saying, oh wow, my church got half a million dollars. I heard him say, we got this. And I thought you dumbo. You stand and say, the most high God will see us, but please, government, we're not going to make it if you don't give us a little bit of money. And that will come back to bite you someday. Pastors Abraham knows that will come back to bite you someday. I need to leave this as I'm totally separate from you guys. My wealth didn't come from you five kings down there because I came out and I rescued you. It really wasn't about you, it was about locking my brother. I got locked my brother back. That's good enough. He goes on, I won't read the verses there, but he goes on to those next few verses and says that I'm not taking anything. I'll take a lot. These three guys that were in confederacy with me that we read about earlier, he said if they want to take their tag, they can take their take, but nothing for me. And that is the way that this statement ends. Now, I think that what we begin to see here as we consider this and see the life and times of Abram, we see that Abram Abraham turns out to be a guy who is going to defend that which is right all the way to the end. He is going to go to whatever lengths it takes to take care of those who are his, those who feel he's got a covenant relationship, if you will, here, for example, with his brother, and he is going to watch out, and he is going to care for them in every way. He will risk his life. He will train, he will be prepared. He will have his men. He'll be ready to go. He'll be in the right place at the right time to be able to help out someone. Abraham, to me seems like a guy a pretty good strategy, doesn't it? Abraham, to me seems like a guy who's planning ahead. Abraham, to me seems like a guy who says, okay, I'm going to need some armed men. I'm going to need some smart men, I'm going to need some prepared men, some trained men, and I'm going to make sure that morally and spiritually, I am only connected to the God Mose High, the possessor of heaven and earth. That is who I am. That is going to affect everything. We will come later to know about the Hebrew people in the best of, since what we see in chapter 14 here is what the Hebrew people were designed to be by God. And Abraham is carrying this out. Those who care for their own, watch over their family, those who trust in the Lord, those who are ready at a moment's notice to rise and go and to take care of the enemy. All of this we see in Abrams life as it comes into this battle, and we get a hint of God is in this story in a way that we can't fully understand, like Melchizedek. Who is that guy? Melchizedek? If you ask the Jews, who is melchizedek? They will tell you it is a guy named Shem. Ever heard of him? Shim ham jaffa? Shim the semites. To be antisemitic is to be anti Semitic. And they'll say Shim was still alive, the son of Noah, he was the king of Salem, and he's going by Melchizedek, by the way. Melchizedek is a title. Amelia is a king, and Sadek is righteousness, king of righteousness. So if you ask the Jewish people, they will say that Melchizedek is the king of righteousness. Shim. I'll go with a maybe, but probably not. But I'll go with a maybe. If he is Shim, he's a type of something else. Type is a foreshadow. I think probably he's not even Shim, because when you get into the Book of Hebrews, it tells us a little bit more about Melchizedek. And it says Melchizedek has no lineage, no genealogy. I know Shem's dad right. Noah, who's the guy with no genealogy, who shows up as a priest of the most high God, who brings bread and wine and Abram blesses Abram, and Abram says, yeah, I'm definitely with you. And he gives ties of everything he's got. Sounds like more than Shim to me. I think in Melchizedek we've got the pre Incarnate Christ showing up in Abraham's story. Here he is, out of nowhere, the king of righteousness comes. That later on. And we only see Melchizedek one of the time in the Scriptures. It's Psalm 100, and Psalm 100 has a messianic. Phrase in there that talks about the coming Messiah who is going to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Oh, the Messiah after the order of Melchizedek. Remember I said at the beginning of the sermon that the whole point of the Old Testament is trying to figure out who the Redeemer is going to be. And I think in the artistry of the story here, you've got the Redeemer shows up in a what do you call that role in a movie when someone comes and just sort of sneaks by, and yet there's somebody like Alfred Hitchcock used to walk by in a crowd in his own movies. Cameo. That's what I'm trying to think. Thank you. Cameo. Could Melchizedek here be making a cameo appearance thing? Watch for me. Keep your eyes out. I'll be back. Indeed, he comes from the descendants of Abram the Ebaite. With that, let's have a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we're grateful for the word of God, the intrigue that it brings, the stories that it brings, the imagination that it kicks off our mind, the life lessons that can be brought in so many ways as we can learn about men and their natures and their desires. And we can, you know, from these rebels who didn't want to be under the thumb of some foreign kings, to lot who just wanted to get rich, it looks like, and put himself in danger to Abram, the man of integrity that is prepared and comes through at the right time. So many life lessons from this, and yet, could it be that if we just look at the life lessons, we would miss that which is most significant here? And that is that we just got a glance of the Savior who comes and says, Abram. He's on my side. We pray that we've taken the scripture correctly today. In Jesus name, amen. Well, that concludes this today. Sermons like this sometimes I know that in evangelicalism you're supposed to come down and give a sappy story at the end that makes you either want to give money or walk the aisle. But I'm not that kind of preacher. I'm the kind that says, a sermon like this serves one great purpose. Maybe a whole bunch of little purposes, but one great purpose is, now you know what Genesis 14 is about, which I think becomes a very valuable thing. What if in our life we said, well, now I know Genesis 14, I should work on Genesis 15 and 16 and Genesis and Exodus and then Leviticus and then the Old Testament and the New Testament. And sure enough, before it goes, you've got the full council of God and you're able to make decisions that honor him and that which causes you to have some Abrahamlike characteristics. Well, that is the end of the sermon today. I'm out of time. So why don't we think of the valley of Saddam? Peace in the valley someday. For me, ladies and gentlemen. I'll see you. God bless you. You're dismissed. Don't forget supper on Wednesday night. Bye.