In this sermon, the preacher discusses the encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek, the king of Salem and priest of the Most High God. Abraham refuses to accept any material possessions from the king of Sodom, declaring that he will only accept what his young men have eaten as their rightful pay. The preacher highlights the significance of Abraham paying tithes to Melchizedek, emphasizing that it symbolizes the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ. The sermon also explores the concept of monotheism and suggests that all humans originally had knowledge of the living and true God.

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