Comments for January 7

14:17,18 Two men came to greet Abraham, and welcome him back. One, most wicked; the
other the King/Priest. Abraham gave a tithe to Melchizedek, but not to Bera

WHATEVER WE MAY THINK

Whatever we may think of Lot's behaviour in "lifting up his eyes" (v.10), "choosing him all the plain of Jordan" (v.11) and finally "pitching his tent toward Sodom" (v.12), 2 Peter 2:8 reminds us that " he vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds"

Lot was not sinless, but he put his trust in God & His ways, so that his soul was "vexed" or "distressed". If we are not similarly "vexed" by the activities of the world around us, it is just a matter of time before we become insensitive to their sinful ways. Let us take head to Lot's example and be "vexed" daily as we stand up for the truth in the world around us.

The promise of the land to Abraham's seed is not as clear in the Hebrew and English as it is in the Greek. In the Septuagint the word for seed in Gen 12:7 is the same word as in Galatians 3:16: σπέρματί (spermati). Every time the land is promised to Abraham in Genesis, the same singular word spermati is used. The land has not been promised to all of Abraham's many descendants! It is only for the one special seed, the Lord Jesus Christ!

Gen 13:9-12 When the time came for Abraham to separate from his kindred (Gen 12:1) he gave Lot the opportunity to choose the direction he would go. Lot chose the well watered plain of Jordon and unwisely chose to live in the cities of the plain (Gen 13:12). 

In an act of faith Abraham trusted that the LORD would work in the circumstances to guide him.  So with the eye of faith he was prepared to let Lot choose his direction of travel and he would go on the opposite direction. Abraham was looking a city whose builder and maker is God (Heb 11:10).  When we have problems in life do we remember to place our trust in God that He will work in our circumstances to bring us to His Kingdom?  “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28.

13:5 Lot also had flocks and herds and tents

Ironically, the cause for the  parting of Lot and Abram was the abundance of livestock competing for pasture - yet we never find Lot or his family and their spouses being livestock owners again, after the separation. He chose the area around Sodom for its good pasture. Now the pasture is no longer relevant. The reason for the strife seems to have disappeared, but the separation was permanent. Lot and his family were now urbanites.

13:7 the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land

The Canaanites and the Perizzites either owned or leased the pastoral land. This meant that Abram and Lot, who owned no land, had to negotiate leases with them for their enlarged herds and flocks. The land was still recovering from drought so good pasture would have been scarce and expensive to lease. Hence Lot and Abram's flocks could not readily expand into more pasture. Similarly, the Jordan plain would have needed to be leased from its owners and Lot would have needed to negotiate high prices for its premium pasture. 

Negotiating with the Jordan Plain owners meant that Lot needed to interact with the Sodomites and eventually he seems to have given up being a pastoralist and obtained urban employment.

But Abram, too, had a similar problem - he had to negotiate, interact and live alongside a people and a culture that were steeped in idolatry. Abram maintained cultural separation even though physically he lived among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; Lot did not maintain cultural separation when he lived among the Sodomites. Perhaps he thought that he could change them by being influential among them. Lot even called them "brothers" (Genesis 19:7). Instead he lost everything, including his family.  Cultural separation is critical. When we come home after work each day, we need to physically and culturally, close the entrance gate to our property from the world and  make our homes cameos of the Kingdom.

13:14-17 The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward,  for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever.  I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.  Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”

Notice the background to these promises to Abram:

1. The ecclesia had split - amicably after some tension between Abram's herdsmen and Lot's herdsmen, but irrevocably

2. The Canaanite and the Perizzite owned and occupied the land in the highlands. The Sodomites owned and occupied the land in the east at the Jordan valley. Abram owned no land.

3. Idolatry and wickedness were rampant

4. Violence and violent threats were ever present - Abram needed to give military training to at least 318 of his servants (Genesis 14:14) while entering into defence alliances with neighbours (Genesis 14:13). Bullying kingdoms extracted tribute from neighbouring kingdoms(Genesis 14:4)

5. Abram was childless, getting older, and his wife Sarai was barren

The situation looked hopeless.

Now look at the promises to Abram:

1. Abram would own and occupy ALL of the land including the Jordan Valley in the east

2. Abram's offspring would own and occupy ALL of the land

3. Abram's offspring would be innumerable suggesting that the land would become more fertile that it could sustain so many people and that all other occupants would be gone

4. Abram was to have at least one child so that descendants could occur. 

Lesson: God can turn around hopeless situations.

14:15 And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and defeated them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.

Abram's entry on the international stage was hugely blessed by God (Genesis 14:20). Abram and his forces were the dominant power in the aftermath, with the King of Sodom seeing the need to do a deal with Abram. Abram could have extracted some payback - land, tribute and so on. Abram chose not to exercise these victor's prerogatives. He also did not force the promises that God had given him to dominate the land - now was still not the right time or circumstance. He returned to relative obscurity. Sadly, Lot returned to Sodom, not realising that now would have been an excellent time to make a break from Sodom. Disaster ensued for Lot.

Lessons:

1. We don't force events to fulfil God's promises - we wait on God even if that means a return to obscurity. 

2. Be cautious of accepting worldly honours and gifts. Abram knew that he would be beholden to the King of Sodom if he accepted his possessions and the victory by God would be tarnished by mammon. 

3. As opportunity allows, extricate yourself from worldly connections that destroy spirituality.

14:18 And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) 

Melchizedek was a true mystery. We know nothing of his ancestry, his date of birth or when he died. We know nothing of the community of believers which he headed. Abram appears to have limited interaction with him and when Abram sought a wife for his son Isaac (Genesis 24), he instructed his servant to not seek a wife from Melchizedek's community of believers, preferring to seek a wife from Abram's ancestors in far away Haran whose spirituality was questionable. It could be that upon Melchizedek's death, the community of which Melchizedek was head, dissolved. Sad.

13:13 Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD. 

Notice the emphasis: The people of Sodom weren't just sinners, they were "great sinners" and "wicked".  And their sin was "against the LORD". This may suggest that they had some prior knowledge of God; OR that their sin was so great that God needed to act, similar to how He acted in Noah's day. As well as sexual sin their sin was indifference to the poor and needy. Ezekiel 16:49,50 "'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.

This tells us that indifference to other people's suffering is abominable to God. 

14:16 [Abraham] brought back his kinsman Lot with his possessions, and the women and the people

Lot should not have returned to Sodom and presumably Abram cautioned Lot against returning to evil Sodom. After all, Lot knew:

1. that Sodom's inhabitants "were wicked, great sinners against the LORD" (Genesis 13:13)

2. that Abram disapproved of the king of Sodom's offer that would, if accepted, make the evil king look respectable and compromise God's preeminence (Genesis 14:23). Lot may have been in attendance when Abram conveyed this message to the king of Sodom (Genesis 14:21 shows that that the "people" were still with Abram. This would have included Lot and his family)

Yet Lot returned to Sodom - he could not extricate himself from its appeal. Tragedy follows.

13:12 [Lot] moved his tent as far as Sodom

Lot lived in Sodom as well as the other neighbouring cities: Genesis 19:29: when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. 

Maybe initially, there were ecclesias in each city due to Lot bringing his entourage with him,  and Lot regularly visited and lived in these cities. If true, these ecclesias were all bereft of godliness that they, along with Sodom, were destroyed. Perhaps these ecclesias had closed due to apostasy by the time of the destruction of the cities.

Maybe initially as well, there was an intention by Lot to maintain some ecclesial connections with Abraham through visits but , if it ever happened, it would be made more difficult as Lot and his entourage moved into Sodom and beyond.

14:19 Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth

Notice the emphasis on possessions in Genesis 14:

v11 "So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah"

v12 "They also took Lot ... and his possessions"

v16 "Then [Abram] brought back all the possessions"

v19 "Possessor of heaven and earth" (We normally associate God as Creator of heaven and earth but the record wants to emphasise that God not only created but possesses heaven and earth)

v20 "Abram gave him a tenth of everything [that he possessed]"

v21 "Give me the persons but take the goods [possessions]"

v22 "God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth"

v24 "I will take nothing [of the possessions]"

LESSON: Mankind incessantly  covets and squabbles over possessions. But Melchizedek reminds us that God possesses everything ("Possessor of heaven and earth") including man. Psalm 50:10,11 "Every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine." Everything we have belongs to God including our very lives - we are stewards of the possessions and life God has given us. We should live our lives as stewards of God's possessions not as deserving (and often self-centred) possessors.

14:22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, "With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord, God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth"

Abram was so appalled by the king of Sodom that any benefit conferred by the king onto Abram was rejected - even to the point where Abram swore with an oath to God that he would not accept anything from the king of Sodom! Why? Because Abram did not want to be beholden to the king of Sodom. Abram was beholden only to God. 

LESSON: Be careful accepting goods, privileges and honours from the world, other than that which you receive in your normal employment. Some time ago, a brother in the UK was nominated for a knighthood. He politely and discreetly turned down the nomination. He probably felt that it would compromise his separateness form the world and compromise the message of the gospel which he was obliged to teach to a world that hated the gospel.

14:14 Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his three hundred and eighteen trained servants who were born in his own house, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.

The fact that Abram could equip 318 "trained" men with weapons suggests that whatever else these men did in their daily lives they also were trained for war. This suggest that Abram's existence in Canaan was fraught with tension - he needed to have trained military personnel to deal with the dangers of coexistence with the Canaanites and had formed alliances with friendlier inhabitants of the land (14:13) presumably as a bulwark against attacks from unfriendly Canaanite groups. Abram did not have an easy life -  he owned no land and had difficult relationships with some peoples in the land. He knew that the promises were sure but they were mostly in the future.

Also, it would seem that Abram's only motive for attacking these kings was to free his nephew Lot. Had Lot not become part of Sodom, and therefore not been taken captive, Abram presumably would not have attacked the marauding kings. The freedom of people other than Lot by Abram was a side benefit of freeing Lot. The inhabitants of Sodom who were fellow captives with Lot should have therefore respected Lot rather than later turn against him.

The apple (Heb. ishon) refers to the pupil. This is jet black in relation to the shadow which follows in the verse.  In other words, being hidden (completely) under the Lord's wing would make the shadow pitch black just like the pupil.  Thus, this is a reference to complete security.

The same word for apple is used in Prov. 7:2 where it is talking about the protection of this sensitive apparatus. Apple is translated from the Hebrew word ishon which means little man. As with all small, delicate, and vulnerable things (like a child), protection is paramount. And so, the apple must be protected from any intrusion. It is easy to understand this in a physical application, but it is also meant as a spiritual application. The apple (synonymous with the pupil) lets in light which carries with it the premier source of information. Spiritually useful as well as spiritually damaging instruction both enter through the same portal. The pupil, hence the brain, hence, the heart, hence the spirit, must be protected from harmful influences.

Rich men write their wills and prepare to pass their possessions on to their children (Psa 17:13-15). But, David says, I shall awake. I shall be raised from death. And I shall see God.

JESUS CAME FOR SINNERS

It sometimes seems as if groups of believers are supposed to be the elite of the world. They look perfect, do what is good, avoid sin and look as if they are living a holy and godly life. In Jesus day the Pharisees looked just like that. People looked up to them thinking that they were the perfect godly people. But in reality Jesus came for another group of people completely. He came for those who are struggling with sin and who are struggling with life. He came to help make you perfect - he did not come for those who are perfect already. He came to help us overcome weakness - not to gather the strong.

The sinless, strong and perfect have no need for Christ. They believe they have already made it (although they do not know how far away they really are). But those of us who are weak and sinful have need of the strength and forgiveness that Jesus came to give. So let us never feel to ashamed, embarrassed, sinful or too bad to meet with Christ. You are just the person Christ came to save.. He came to call sinners just like you and me. Let us accept his call and have the faith to fall on his grace and mercy.

v20  When we think of the headlines following a half-successful attack on the Pope in December 2009, we realise how accessible Jesus was - and presumably will be - in the Kingdom

Have you noticed how often faith is mentioned here?: