Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #21 of Genesis, chapter 14 and we are going to read Genesis 14:16-24:

And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him, at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king’s dale. And 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 the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto JEHOVAH, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich: Save only that which the young men have eaten, and the portion of the men which went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre; let them take their portion.

I will stop reading there. That brings us to the end of the chapter. We have spent a good amount of time going through this historical event, an ancient battle that took place thousands of years ago. We have seen how God arranged and controlled the circumstances of the battle and how God selected various elements of the battle to include in the Scriptures by moving Moses, a holy man of old, to write down these things that relate to the Gospel. It is information that identifies with the Lord’s end time judgment program.

We saw how the initial battle of four kings against five relates to the Great Tribulation. When Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar went forth to battle against Chedorlaomer and the other three kings, it was a picture of Satan coming against the corporate church, as typified by Sodom and the other four city states.

We saw that the Lord made the statements that the four kings defeated the five kings and then it said in Genesis 14:10-12:

…and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain. 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.

We saw how these things relate to the end of the church age and God’s command to flee out of the churches to the mountains. Also, because Lot is a true child of God, it brought about Abram’s intervention to deliver his nephew Lot and his goods. Abram raised up a personal army of trained servants born in his own house and went forth to battle against the four kings that identify with Satan and his forces. Abram was a picture of God and His army of the elect or Christ coming with ten thousands of His saints in the Day of Judgment. Abram’s battle with the four kings portrayed Judgment Day at the end of the Great Tribulation period. Abram won. We read nothing of any losses for Abram or his servants. It was a slaughter of the kings. That is what it says in Genesis 14:17:

And the king of Sodom went out to meet him after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him…

This same language is picked up in the New Testament in Hebrews, chapter 7 where we also read of Melchisedec. It says in Hebrews 7:1:

For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;

Here, again, it is stated that Abram went to battle and there was the slaughter of the kings. That is what it said in Genesis 14:17: “…from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him…” This would mean that Abram killed the kings, but when kings go forth to battle with their armies you must slay the men their armies, as well as the kings. There was a tremendous victory for Abram and his forces against Chedorlaomer and the other three kings and their forces. We do not find that the Lord focuses on the armies or the bands of men that the kings brought, but He focuses on the slaughter of the kings. At times when God refers to Judgment Day, He will refer to a judgment on kings. It says in Psalm 2:1-2:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against JEHOVAH, and against his anointed,

This is said in the context of God taking them and dashing them to pieces with a “rod of iron,” which occurs in the Day of Judgment.

Psalm 110 is the only other place in the Old Testament that mentions Melchizedek. It says in Psalm 110:4-6:

JEHOVAH hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.

We find the declaration, “Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.” Then it states that the Lord at thy right hand, which would be the Lord Jesus Christ, shall strike through kings in the day of His wrath. Judgment Day is the day of His wrath. That is the spiritual picture God is painting in this historical parable that we are going through, verse by verse, in Genesis 14.

In Revelation, chapter 6 it focuses on the final judgment of mankind and it says in Revelation 6:12-17:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

There will be a “strike through kings in the day of his wrath,” as it said in Psalm 110, and here in Revelation 6 the kings of the earth are hiding themselves from the Lamb, who is the Lord Jesus Christ, in the day of His wrath.

Let us look at one other verse in Revelation 19, where the battle of Judgment Day is in view and Christ is riding a white horse and the armies in heaven (the elect) are following Him on white horses. Then it says Revelation 19:16-19:

And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.

Then it goes on to note that the beast and the false prophet are taken and cast alive into the lake of fire. So, we see the kings of the earth and their armies are in view. We have kings and armies in Genesis 14 that came against the corporate church (in the figure God set up there). Satan and his forces came against the churches and after permitting the church to be overcome (the four kings defeating the five), then God goes to battle at the completion of the Great Tribulation and He goes forth to deliver the righteous ones, as typified by Lot and his goods as the vessels of honor.

This is the battle that is in view. In Jeremiah 25 God speaks of first giving the cup of His wrath to the city called by His name. It says in Jeremiah 25:17-20:

Then took I the cup at JEHOVAH’S hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom JEHOVAH had sent me: To wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing, and a curse; as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people; And all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines…

Then it says in Jeremiah 25:22:

And all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea,

And, in Jeremiah 25:24-26:

And all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert, And all the kings of Zimri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes, And all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.

God is speaking of the cup of wrath that is first given to Jerusalem, the city called by His name, indicating that judgment begins at the house of God. God began the end time judgment with the corporate church, but then there was a transition to the nations of the world and the Lord speaks of that transition here by giving the cup of wrath to the kings of the nations. The reason He refers to kings is because kings rule over kingdoms and all the kings of these nations represent all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. In turn, that would identify with all the inhabitants of the earth. Therefore, we do not see a long list of kings in Genesis 14. We see just four kings: the kings of Shinar, Ellasar, Elam and Tidal king of nations. As I mentioned when we looked at those four kings, the number “four” identifies with universality, like the four points of the compass. It is a figure of the furthest extent of the rule of Satan or the whole earth. So, when the four kings were defeated, it is a figure of the worldwide rule of Satan being defeated. The four kings ruled over four kingdoms and that would identify with all the kingdoms of the world or all the inhabitants of the earth; it is a worldwide Judgment Day. No one is exempt. No one is excluded. No one that is unsaved will escape, but all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth come under the judgment of God.

Abram and his trained servants and his three friends win the battle and it is a picture of the victory Christ won on May 21, 2011 when Christ overcame Satan and put him down, deposing him from all official rule. For the 23 years of the Great Tribulation, Satan had been ruling in a spectacular way over the nations and over 100% of the churches and congregations of the world, which he had never been able to accomplish in the past. At the end of the Great Tribulation, God came and it was the time of the transition of judgment when God would give the cup of His wrath (which had been given to the corporate church) to all the kings or nations of the earth and all its unsaved inhabitants and they would drink of it. The language of the Bible indicates that Christ has smitten Satan, just as Cyrus took the kingdom of Babylon and put to death the king of Babylon and Cyrus began to rule over the kingdom of Babylon. Or, it was also like when Mordecai was given the dominion of Haman after Haman was hanged on the seventeenth day of the second month and Mordecai was lifted up to rule over the house of Haman.

This is what happened, so we wonder why the Lord is bringing Sodom back into the picture, if we are correct about the four kings against five being a picture of the spiritual battle of the Great Tribulation; and if we are also correct that Abram (322 men) going against the four kings is a picture of the battle of Judgment Day and Christ being victorious over the forces of Satan. We had previously understood that Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar are a picture of the corporate church, so when Abram defeated Chedorlaomer and the other three kings, it says in Genesis 14:16:

And he brought back all the goods, and also brought again his brother Lot, and his goods, and the women also, and the people.

Who are these women and people and goods, in addition to Lot and his goods? Well, we know because it told us in Genesis 14:11:

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

Therefore, these are the people and goods that belonged to Sodom and Gomorrah. We do not read of the kings of Gomorrah or Zeboiim after Abram returned from the slaughter of the kings. We only read of the king of Sodom. It is possible the other kings were killed in the battle and it is just Sodom as the lone representative and, of course, Sodom is the figurehead of the city that most identified with the corporate church because in Isaiah, chapter 1 God addressed the rulers of Israel and referred to them as the “rulers of Sodom.” In Revelation, chapter 11 the dead church where the two witnesses are lying in the streets was called “Sodom,” spiritually. So, we know that Sodom was that city state that most identified with the corporate church and to make sure that point is not missed God tells us that the king of Sodom is still in existence; he is still alive. He is coming out and meeting Abram after the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and the other three kings that were with him. We read in Genesis 14:21:

And the king of Sodom said unto Abram, Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself.

However, Abram refused the goods and he responded in Genesis 14:22-23:

And Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lift up mine hand unto JEHOVAH, the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, That I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:

There were goods. There were people that belonged to Sodom. Again, it must relate (if we are to be consistent of our understanding of this spiritual picture) to those within the churches and congregations, so what is going on? What is happening here at a time that can only identify with Judgment Day after Satan has been defeated and after the captives have been delivered and set free? We find this interesting situation with the king of Sodom and the people and goods of Sodom. Again, they must identify with the people of the churches and congregations.

Lord willing, we will look at it in our next study, but just think about it. On May 21, 2011 Christ took the kingdom of Satan, which are the nations of the world including the corporate church and God took over rule of the churches and congregations. He had defeated Satan and all that Satan had owned or possessed, Christ now owns or possesses. So, think of that in relation to what we are reading about after Abram returned from the slaughter of the kings.