In this video, Pastor Chuck Smith teaches on the importance of appropriation by faith. He begins by discussing God's promise to Abram and how God instructed him to walk in the land that He had given him. Pastor Chuck emphasizes the need for faith in appropriating God's promises and encourages believers to trust in God's faithfulness. He also highlights the vastness of God and the humility required to approach Him. Throughout the sermon, Pastor Chuck references the story of Job and his friends' misguided advice, illustrating the importance of understanding God's greatness and our own limitations.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that mold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life and make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse study Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll continue to look at God's promise to Abram As we pick up in Genesis, chapter 13, verse 17 So let's follow along As Pastor Chuck Smith exhorts us on the importance of Appropriation by faith Now the Lord said to Abram, Arise and walk in the land Through its length and its width For I give it to you Now the idea is, okay Abram, I've given it to you Now you step out and appropriate it Walk through the land because I've given it to you And there is always that appropriation by faith God gives us His promises But it's important that we then step out And appropriate the promises of God Where we lay hold to the promises Where we claim the promises of God You'll find that God is faithful He has given it to you It's yours, but it is not yours Until it has been appropriated by faith So Abram moved his tent And he came down really the center of the land Through what they call today the Jerusalem Mountains From Bethel on past Jerusalem Down that mountain ridge Through Hebron And he built an altar there To the Lord Now it came to pass In the process of time In the days of Amraphel, the king of Shinar Ariok, the king of Elazar And Shildilarmur, the king of Elam Entitled the king of the Goyim, or the nations These are the kings actually from the area of Babylon Shinar is another name for Babylon That they made war With Berah, the king of Sodom And Bershah, the king of Gomorrah And Sheneb, the king of Adma And Shemeber, the king of Zebuam And the king of Bela, that is Zoar And so they joined together These five kings, they're near the Dead Sea, the Salt Sea And that Salt Sea is a In the Valley of Siddam, that is the Salt Sea The Salt Sea as it became later Twelve years, they have been in bondage to this Chidur Laomur And in the thirteenth year they rebelled This is the first mention of the number thirteen in the Bible And it is interesting that it is mentioned in the act of rebellion And thirteen becomes the number of rebellion in the scriptures And interestingly enough, it is the number of Satan In a biblical numerical sense And you give to the numbers a spiritual significance Thirteen becomes the number of Satan And interestingly enough, the names for Satan In the Greek or Hebrew Are always the numeric value of the name Is divisible by thirteen That is why thirteen is used so much in the realm of spiritism today If you've ever been through the Winchester Rifle House Up in San Jose The number thirteen was a very significant number Seven steps down, six up and so forth Always thirteen because she was a spiritist And it's a rather weird thing to go through because of that In the fourteenth year Chidur Laomur And the kings that were with him attacked The Rephraim and Asherah Actually they began an invasion These four kings, evidently they had a very powerful army For they came down Conquering many, many cities They went on down Into the Negev area And then coming back up they came to Kadesh And finally They came against the king of Sodom And these kings from the Jordan Valley And there they were joined together in battle In the Valley of Siddam And the valley was full of asphalt pits And the king of Sodom and Gomorrah fled Some fell there and the remainder fled to the mountains And then they took all of the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah And all of their provisions and they went their way And they also took Lot, Abram's brother's son Who dwelt in Sodom and his goods and departed That was their mistake Then one who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew For he dwelt by the Terebinth trees of Mamre The Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and the brother of Ener And they were allies with Abram Now when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive He armed his 318 trained servants Who were born in his own house And he went in pursuit as far as Dan So a messenger came to Abram and told him the fact That Lot had been taken hostage By these kings with his family And these Canaanite kings who were there near Abram Joined together with him But you begin to understand now The vastness of Abram's wealth When he is able to arm 318 servants Who have been born in his house And trained for battle Now when you consider that they had wives and children and all You realize how many people were He had almost a little village or a community all of his own Just his own servants to take care of his goods As the scripture said he was very rich God had blessed him and he was extremely prosperous And so he armed the 318 servants trained in his own house Born in his house And they pursued them up as far as Dan Now this actually is from Hebron A hundred and twenty miles or so From Hebron up to Dan And when they came upon them at Hebron Or at Dan Abram divided his forces And he attacked them at night And he and his servants attacked them And then they pursued them as far as Hobath Which is north of Damascus Now from Dan to Damascus is another Oh fifty sixty miles or so So they pursued them clear on up to Damascus And even north of Damascus to Hobath And he brought back all of the goods All of the spoils that these kings had made in this foray That they had come and captured all of these cities And so Abram came back with all of the goods And he also brought back his brother Lot and his goods As well as the women and the people So Abram was able to defeat these kings And no doubt It was as miraculous as Gideon's putting to flight the Midianites I am certain that Abram was outnumbered The fact that these kings were able to conquer The five kings who had federated together They were able to conquer all of these other cities They no doubt had a very powerful army They also were no doubt taken by surprise There at Dan at night When Abram had divided his forces and attacked them But I do not believe that you can omit the miraculous And I believe that Abraham recognized That it was God who had delivered them But again a man of faith coming out against these odds Trusting in God And so he brought back all of the goods And those that had been taken captive And the king of Sodom Went out to meet him in the valley of Sheba That is the king's valley After his return from the defeat Of Chedorlamor And of the kings who were with him And then Melchizedek The king of Salem Brought out bread and wine He was the priest of God Most High And he blessed him and said Blessed be Abram of God Most High Possessor of heaven and earth And blessed be God Most High Who has delivered your enemies Into your hand Now this person Melchizedek Is one of the mysterious persons of the Old Testament His name is significant Melchizedek the name means King of righteousness But we are told here that he is also The king of peace King of Salem, Salem is peace The Salem is thought by most scholars To be Jerusalem So here is the first mention of Jerusalem Within the scriptures Now if it is indeed Jerusalem Then he is living in a Jebusite city But whether or not he was a Jebusite We don't know There are some Bible scholars Who suggest that this was actually Shem One of the sons of Noah Who was still alive at this time Actually if the chronology charts in the Bible are correct In the genealogical charts if they are correct Abram actually died before Shem If you'll go ahead and figure out their ages and all So just in passing I personally do not believe it is Shem Because in Hebrews we are told That this man is without genealogy If it is Shem we have his genealogy But the fact that he is without genealogy To me would exclude it from being Shem And so though it is an interesting concept I do not think that it is biblical They have Shem going at the time of the Tower of Babel Moving to Jerusalem And becoming the patriarch there But I don't think that that is possible In that Melchizedek we are told in Hebrews 7 Is without genealogy Melchizedek king of righteousness Who was the king of Salem He brought bread and wine to Abram And he was the priest of God Most High Now this is the first mention Of a priest in the Bible Later on God is to establish a priesthood In the tribe of Levi But this is the first mention of a priest in the Bible The idea of a priest Comes from First of all the consciousness of the holiness And the purity of God And of the sinfulness of man God being absolutely pure And man being tainted by sin There is no way that a sinful man Could touch an absolutely pure God Without tainting him That is touch in an intimate way of fellowship Communion, oneness And so for a man to come into Contact with God Touching God Would be necessary to have a mediator A go-between Now Job who probably lived before Abram And as we pass through the genealogies in Genesis We came to Jobab and we suggested That that was possibly the Job of the Old Testament Job who lived in that period Before the priesthood When going through his great difficulties And his friend I believe it was Eliphaz Who said to him Hey just get right with God And everything will be okay He said You don't help me with that kind of advice I know God exists I see the vast universe that He has created But I can't see Him I turn but He's not there And when I realize how vast God is By looking at the universe that He has created Who am I that I could stand before God To plead my own case In order to justify myself You see Job's friends had concluded That his problems stem from his own sinfulness And Job was attesting to his own innocence So the friend said Hey get right with God And you're going to be okay And he said God I can't come before Him to justify myself He's too vast, He's too great And there is no days man between us Who can lay His hand on us both No priest, no mediator No go between And recognizing that This gulf between God and man was so great But he saw it not from the Sinfulness, righteousness aspect But he saw it from the vastness Of God to the smallness of man As David saw it when he said When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers The moon and the stars which you have ordained What is man that you are mindful of him? And the question What is man that God should even be mindful of him? He who Weighs the oceans in the palm of His hand The waters in the palm of His hand He who meted out the heaven with the span And the idea is measured the heavens With the span of His hand That should give you some concept Of the vastness of God As we improve our telescopes The size of the universe increases Ask God how big is the universe you created He'll say well I made it this big So how big is God? When I was a little boy I used to ask my mama How big is God? Is He as big as that telephone pole? About the biggest thing I knew Lived in a small city How big is your God? You know these people have this buddy buddy tummy You know the man upstairs or my pal or my buddy or whatever They have the wrong concept of God completely Oh the infinitude of God We can only comprehend it, understand it It is necessary to understand it To really see myself in the proper light Man who exalts himself Man who is lifted up in pride Man who walks around in haughtiness Is a man who has not yet really comprehended The infinitude of God When I see the heavens Who am I? That God should be mindful of me So the idea of the need of a priest arose And the ministry of the priest was twofold It was his duty to come before God Representing the people The people could not come directly to God They would come to the priest They would bring their offerings to the priest The priest in turn would go before God for the people Representing the people with their offering to the Lord And then he would return and come out to the people And as he spoke to the people he represented God They could not deal directly with God They had to deal through the mediator, the priest Who was the go-between And so Melchizedek, the first mention of a priest in the Bible But he is the priest of God Most High Or the Most High God, El Elyon And recognized by Abram as such For this man who is pointed always as the classic example To those who would believe We are always in the New Testament being shown Abraham and his faith And what was wrought by the result of his faith And he is given to us as the example of one who believed God And inherited the promises because of his faith And yet this man Abram, our example of faith Recognized the superiority of Melchizedek As a priest of God and offered unto him tithes And received from him a blessing And as we read in the book of Hebrews The lesser is always blessed by the greater And so the fact that he received the blessing from Melchizedek Is an indication of the superiority of Melchizedek over Abram Thus the superiority of the priesthood of Melchizedek Over that priesthood that was yet to come from Abram's seed Through the tribe of Levi For Levi was in Abram paying tribute to Melchizedek As Abram paid the tithes And that tenth may not be just of the spoil But it could be of everything that Abram had He gave him a tenth of all that he had So Levi in a sense was also paying tithe to Melchizedek in Abram Showing the superiority of the Melchizedek priesthood order We'll return with more of our verse by verse study Through the book of Genesis in our next lesson As we learn more about the King of Salem And we do hope you'll make plans to join us again But right now I'd like to remind you That if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy For that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting One of our customer service representatives And they'd be more than happy to assist you With the ordering details Simply call 1-800-272-WORD And phone orders can be taken Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time Once again our toll-free number is 1-800-272-9673 And for your added convenience You can order online anytime When you go to TheWordForToday.org And while you're there Be sure to browse through the additional resources That include Bible studies Commentaries, CDs, DVDs and so much more Once again that's TheWordForToday online At TheWordForToday.org And for those of you who still prefer to write You can use our mailing address Which is The Word for Today P.O. Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include the call letters Of this station with your correspondence And now on behalf of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues His verse-by-verse study Through the book of Genesis That's right here On the next edition of The Word for Today And now once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith May the Lord bless you And cause you to grow in grace And in knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ May you increase In your understanding and knowledge of Him May you be freed From that power of darkness The corruption that is in the world through lust And may you grow up in Him in all things Being strengthened And may you increase day by day In His richness In His love, in His grace, in His Word In Jesus' name Kids, I've got some exciting news Pastor Chuck has written a book just for you Called The Story of David and Goliath Just listen Smells delicious David had many older brothers His brothers were big and strong And tough enough to fight in a battle It's so much fun to read along with Pastor Chuck And learn about God's Word God helped me to slay the lion and the bear So God will help me to slay this giant Lions? Bears? Goliath? Oh my! And parents, it's never too early to start reading to your children These timeless Bible stories taught by Pastor Chuck Imprint God's Word upon their little hearts As you read these stories over and over again And as a gift, each book contains an audio CD of Pastor Chuck Actually reading the story of David and Goliath So your kids can read along To order your copy, call The Word for Today at 800-272-WORD Or see a sneak preview of The Story of David and Goliath Visit us online at thewordfortoday.org Again, the number to call is 800-272-9673 This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California