Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #15 of Genesis, chapter 14 and we are going to read Genesis 14:11-16:

And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way. And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed. And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

As we have followed the historical account in this chapter, we have seen that Chedorlaomer and the three kings with him came to battle against the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar because these city states had rebelled against Chedorlaomer. After 12 years of serving him they rebelled in the 13th year and in the 14th year Chedorlaomer came against them. We saw how all these numbers identify with the exact time the Great Tribulation period started after 12,000 complete years, figuratively, which was 11,000 years to the Messiah and 1,000 years of Satan’s binding. And, yet, it was after 13,000 years and the beginning of the 14,000th year that began with the Great Tribulation. Then the spiritual battle took place between the forces of Satan, who had been loosed, and the forces within the churches and congregations of the world that were abandoned by God. It was “no contest,” as Satan’s forces overcame the camp of the saints. They were victorious and they caused to fall Sodom and Gomorrah and the other city states, picturing the fall of the corporate church. The churches fled and fell. They were destroyed and they were beaten as badly as Israel was beaten before the Philistines when the ark of God was taken and the glory departed from Israel.

But within the churches, there was a remnant; and Zoar’s presence in this battle represented God’s elect within the corporate church during the Great Tribulation period when judgment began at the house of God. Satan’s forces came against the church and, initially, God’s elect were involved in this. Eventually, the Lord opened up the command in the Bible for His people to flee to the mountains. We read in Genesis 4:10:

…and they that remained fled to the mountain.

Then it goes on to say in Genesis 4:11:

And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way.

This refers to the four kings led by Chedorlaomer, which typified Satan and his emissaries. They took captive the people of these cities and they also took their goods. We will look at that word. They took their victuals and went their way. If that were all they had done, then Abraham would not have gotten involved. He was just a sojourner in the land and he lived at a distance and he did not live in the land of the plain. The fight between the four kings against five was really none of Abram’s business and he would have preferred to stay out of it. However, we also read in Genesis 4:12:

And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

This made it a completely different matter because among the captives was a close relative to Abram, his nephew Lot. And among the goods they had taken, there were good that belonged to Lot. This made the battle and the conquest of Chedorlaomer and the other kings over Sodom and Gomorrah of concern to Abram. Again, he would not have otherwise become involved because it did not have anything to do with him; that is, until they took Lot and Lot’s possessions. Then Abram had a family obligation and responsibility to do something to rescue his nephew. That is what we read in Genesis 4:12:

And there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; for he dwelt in the plain of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner: and these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan. And he divided himself against them, he and his servants, by night, and smote them, and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

Abram intervened. He gathered his trained servants and armed them. He had quite a few of them. There were 318 and they pursued Chedorlaomer and the other kings to deliver Lot and recover his goods. It gives us a kind of overview of the battle we did not have before because no numbers had been introduced concerning the four kings against five. We were not sure about the numbers of people, but here we see that that Abram had the 318 servants, plus three men mentioned earlier, for a total of 322 men. (We will talk about that number “322” later.) But a total of 322 men pursued the four kings that had won the battle over the cities of the plain and they defeated them and rescued Lot and all the other people and restored their goods. It does not give us an exact idea of numbers of the enemy forces because in the Bible it is possible for a smaller force to defeat a greater force.

That happens regularly when the force has God on its side. For instance, Gideon came against a huge host with only 300 men, but by God’s power they defeated them. They designed a plan to sound the trumpet and break their pitchers that would show forth lanterns during the night and that caused the enemy army to “run over themselves” in their flight and they were soundly defeated. Again, it was only 300 men. We could also think of David against Goliath or Saul’s son Jonathan against a Philistine outpost and how many men he slew at once. Or, we could think of Sampson that slew a thousand men with the jawbone of an ass. We do find that often the “few” are victorious over a great many because they represent the elect of God.

So, it does not give us an exact number of forces that Chedorlaomer and the four kings possessed just because they were defeated by a small personal army of Abram consisting of only 322 men. It is possible that the armies of these four kings only numbered two or three thousand men and maybe they had already had many casualties in the battle against the five kings and they were in a weakened condition and caught by surprise as Abram divided his men and came upon them by night. When you put it altogether, it is possible that Abram and his 321 men defeated a force of a few thousand.

We are not told all the information about the battle and it could be that many of them fled, but however it worked out, Abram overcame Chedorlaomer and Tidal king of nations and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar. There were four kings that identified with Babylon and the “four beasts” or Satan’s rule during the Great Tribulation period and Abram overcame them and defeated them. As we have discussed, the historical situation has laid out the spiritual teaching that identifies with the timing of the Great Tribulation and the battle between the four kings and five represent the Great Tribulation period, so what would Abram coming against these four kings and defeating them point to? It would point to the end of the Great Tribulation and the defeat of Satan and the release of the captives, just as at the end of the 70 years, another historical picture of the Great Tribulation when Babylon came against Judah, Babylon was defeated and the king of Babylon was slain. The new king Cyrus of the Medes and Persians made a proclamation to set the Jewish captives free; they could return to the land of Judah. So, we see at the end of the 70-year Babylonian captivity, there was deliverance of the captives. Likewise, after the end of the 23-year Great Tribulation period, God delivered all the spiritual captives that had been held in bondage to sin and Satan; all the elect was delivered through salvation and freed.

We see elements of this, even though this was a small battle, but it has a second aspect to that battle. There was the battle of four kings against five and Abram played no part in that battle. He did not come with his trained men to help Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar. He did not help them against Chedorlaomer to prevent Chedorlaomer from ever winning that battle. Abram stayed out of it, just like God stayed out of the battle between Satan and the corporate churches. God stayed out of it in the sense that He did not fight for the churches and congregations against the forces of Satan. As a matter of fact, God was the one that loosed Satan to bring him (as His servant to carry out His will) spiritual destruction to the corporate church. God was behind it and permitted it to happen and He was not fighting on the side of the churches, but He made sure that Satan would win the battle and overcome the camp of the saints.

So, we have a growing historical picture and another element to this battle that had already been fought and won by the four kings over the five and now we have a “side note,” if you will, with additional information revealed that points to what would happen after the Great Tribulation. It was only during the 23-year Great Tribulation period that Satan was victorious. It was only during those 23 years that Satan overcame the camp of the saints and he won, battle after battle. He won that war, but immediately upon completion of the Great Tribulation Satan was defeated. His forces were overcome and he was deposed and put down and the captives were freed. It was a release of the prisoners, like we see in the Book of Acts, that took place, spiritually.

All of this is in view in this historical parable as it conveys all these pictures thousands of years ago, and, yet, God wrote about it in such a way that they were types and figures of what would (actually) take place at the end of the church age and God’s judgment upon the churches and congregations of the world. Upon the completion of that judgment process, there was a transition from judgment that had begun at the house of God to judgment upon all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth. That is exactly where we find ourselves today in these days after the Tribulation ended on May 21, 2011.

Lord willing, in our next study we are going to look a little closer at the “goods” that were taken from Sodom and Gomorrah and the goods that were taken from Lot, as well as the “victuals.” We will see what that represents spiritually.