Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight, is study #43 of Genesis, chapter 14 and we are going be reading Genesis 14:22-24:

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. We have spent a good while looking at this historical parable that pictures the Day of Judgment. In verse after verse, we have seen how it fits spiritually and how God wrote of these events thousands of years ago, but He was foretelling events that would take place at the time of the end of the world during the final judgment of mankind.

On May 21, 2011 Christ defeated Satan. Prior to that, Satan had been loosed by God and assigned the task of destroying the churches and congregations, spiritually, and he carried out that task very well. Of course, Satan was doing what he does naturally as a fallen angel, which is to destroy. God knew that and God allowed it to happen to the churches. That is what I mean when I say that God “commissioned” Satan or when the Bible calls Nebuchadnezzar (a type of Satan) “my servant.” It just means that God lifted His hand of restraint after loosing him out of the bottomless pit and then Satan did what he had always done, which was to come against the camp of the saints and attack the kingdom of God on earth. That is exactly what God wanted him to do.

There were 23 years of victories for the dark kingdom of Satan and it was a time of great glory for him and the world. The world seemed victorious. Satan appeared triumphant. After 23 years of Great Tribulation with Satan ruling over the nations of the world and over the corporate churches, there was the climax of the greatness of his rule. He had always wanted to be like God and he was showing himself to be like God as he took his seat in the churches. Then came May 21, 2011, Judgment Day, and God took the kingdom, just as Cyrus took the kingdom of Babylon after exactly seventy years. Christ took the kingdom from Satan and Satan was put down from all official rule. That was a real blow to Satan and it struck him where it hurt most – in his pride. He is such a proud and arrogant creature and God struck him there and, yet, Satan continues to exist throughout the Day of Judgment. He is going about as a roaring lion as he has always done and he can stir up trouble as he has always done, but officially he has been put down. That may not mean much to you and me, but it does to him. He has been brought down to “hell” or the condition of judgment, just like all the rest of the unsaved in the world. That is where he will remain, as we continue to go through this prolonged Day of Judgment.

It also means that Satan’s rule over the churches has come to an end. Since Christ took the kingdom of Satan and all he had ruled over, it means that Christ also took over control of the corporate churches and He is ruling, once again, over the churches and congregations. It is not Satan that rules there now, or ever again, but it is Christ that is ruling in the Day of Judgment and, yet, He is not ruling for their benefit or for their good. He is ruling to destroy and punish with a “rod of iron,” just as He is now ruling the nations of the world to punish the unsaved inhabitants of the earth.

It says in Revelation, chapter 19 that Christ will rule with a rod of iron and, yet, in this historical parable in Genesis 14 we see that Abram delivered more than just Lot (the elect), but he also delivered the people of Sodom and their goods. However, he refused to take even a “thread” or a “shoelatchet” from the king of Sodom because Sodom typified the corporate church. We saw how both the “thread” and the “shoelatchet” pointed to evidence of salvation. If one had the “thread,” like Rahab the harlot, it protected her in a time of wrath and judgment. It was as though Rahab is putting forth the “thread” and it was accepted by God and she did not perish; the thread served to deliver Rahab and her house.

In Genesis 14, Abram would not take a “thread” or a “shoelatchet” from the king of Sodom. We saw how the shoelatchet relates to Christ’s shoelatchet that John the Baptist said he was unworthy to loose. If Christ’s shoelatchet was unloosed, it was a picture of Him becoming spiritually naked, as it were, on his behalf as He bore his sins and died on a tree.

The shoelatchet was not accepted by Abram, who is a picture of God. Why? Abram said, “I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.” We wonder why Abram said that. Historically, Abram wanted nothing to do with that heathen, wicked city. They had already developed a reputation and he wanted nothing from them. But, spiritually, it is as if God is refusing the thread or shoelatchet or any goods (vessels) from the king of Sodom or from the churches and congregations in the Day of Judgment.

Yes, Christ has delivered the corporate church out of the hand of Satan, but if anyone has the idea that salvation is possible again because Christ is ruling over the churches or the idea that God would accept anything from the hand of anyone in the churches and congregations, “they have another thing coming,” as the saying goes, because there is refusal by God. As we saw, in the Day of Judgment, “one is taken and the other left.” Nothing will be taken from those in the churches. No (supposed) evidence of salvation presented by any member of any church or congregation in the world will be received; there is an outright refusal. God will refuse to consider anything from their hands that would pertain to salvation and entry into the kingdom of God. There is no exception, just like Cain’s offering was refused and, so, too, the “Esaus” left in the churches will be refused. God had worked out His salvation program for Jacob or for Abel and for all the elect and there will be no further acceptance or the taking of anything at the hand of any of these professed people of God. God gave opportunity, so to speak, when He commanded His people during the Great Tribulation to come out of the midst of the churches, but most did not hearken and they shut their ears, so God finally shut the door of heaven on them and their fate was sealed.

If we go to Jeremiah, chapter 5 we will get an idea about “riches,” since Abram said, “…lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich.” God says of the corporate church, in Jeremiah 5:25-29:

Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you. For among my people are found wicked men: they lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxen rich. They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge. Shall I not visit for these things? saith JEHOVAH: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?

The “houses” represent the corporate churches and they were not careful to bring the Gospel faithfully, which would have served to judge the cause of the “fatherless” and the “poor and needy.” All churches were called and obligated to do this, but, instead, they perverted the Gospel of grace and turned it into a gospel of works and they filled their churches. Through the filling of the churches, there was spiritual wealth as they claimed they had gotten all these people saved. Many of the churches also managed to gain physical wealth; as more people joined the church and gave financially, the churches prospered financially. But God has in view the spiritual appearance as these churches professed with their mouths to be Christians, but the truth was that even though they claimed to be “rich” in wisdom and “rich” in salvation, they really had none of these things. That is what God pointed out in one of His addresses to the seven churches. It says in Revelation 3:17-18:

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.

You see, they claimed to be “rich,” but they were poor and naked and miserable; that is, what they claimed to have spiritually was not the case. They were still in their sins and they still had desperately wicked hearts.

So, in refusing to accept a “thread” or a “shoelatchet,” God is saying, “I will not accept any evidence you put forth in your claim to be my children.” It is an outright refusal on the part of God in the Day of Judgment. If He were to accept these things, then they could say, “We have made God rich,” because it was all done through their own efforts or works. The churches and congregations at the time of the end developed a “works gospel,” like free will gospels, in many cases.

Even the Reformed Churches would give lip service to the ideas of election and faith as a gift, but in their theology, they would introduce works very subtly and, really, very deceitfully: you do the work of believing, but then you say, “I believe because God gave me grace to believe. Through my work of believing, I can know I am a child of God, but if you ask me it is all by grace and the gift of God.” You see, it is very deceitful and very hidden.

That is how it was throughout much of church history, but God overlooked much of it and some of the partial understanding because the Scriptures had been sealed. He kept certain things in reserve until the time when the great multitude would come out of Great Tribulation and then He revealed the true Gospel, which has always been that we are saved only by the faith and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and we had nothing to do with it.

We cannot even “touch” it with little bit of our works, like saying, “We have to believe.” This is what is taught to those that go through the Reformed seminaries. To use an example, they would say, “You are saved by grace and election.” Then, in their theological jargon, they add, “You believe like a Calvinist, but you preach like an Armenian.” In other words, you tell people to believe and then you do that shift. But someone might say to them, “But, Pastor, are you not saying that I must believe and that is a free will gospel, is it not?” Then the Pastor responds, “God calls us to believe, but if we believe it is all by grace and the gift of God.” It is a very underhanded way of handling the question, whereas the Bible is very clear and very straightforward and direct: you can do nothing to get yourself saved. You or I, or any of God’s elect, play only one part in the whole salvation process and that is a part we play very well as a “stinking, dead spiritual corpse” that is acted upon by the Lord Jesus Christ through the Word of God and, as Christ said to Lazarus, “Come forth!” After granting us life through His faith and His work, we come forth and we then have the fruit of the spirit, which is evidence that we have, indeed, been brought to life. This is all in view in Genesis 14:23:

… lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich:

God will take none of what the corporate church offers. He has refused them. They are nothing to God but tares for the burning. Judgment Day is the time of their spiritual burning, so no one should think, “I will go back to the churches because Christ is ruling and Satan no longer has the rule in the congregations.” However, anyone still in the churches is the target of the wrath of God who is ruling over them with a “rod of iron.” In other words, no blessing is being imparted to the congregations, but only furious anger as God pours out His wrath in this Day of Judgment.

Let us go on to the last verse in the chapter, where it says in Genesis 14:24:

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.

There is a principal in view here and it is seen in other places in the Bible, especially in 1Samuel, chapter 30. In this historical account, there were also captives taken by an enemy and David, a type of Christ, as he went with his men and delivered them, including his wives and it says he recovered all that was taken. It says in 1Samuel 30:18-20:

And David recovered all that the Amalekites had carried away: and David rescued his two wives. And there was nothing lacking to them, neither small nor great, neither sons nor daughters, neither spoil, nor any thing that they had taken to them: David recovered all. And David took all the flocks and the herds, which they drave before those other cattle, and said, This is David’s spoil.

We have a very similar picture here. David, a type of Christ, has defeated an enemy, picturing Satan. He delivered captives, just as did Abram, his three friends and his servants went to battle against the four kings and delivered the captives and the goods. What happened in 1Samuel 30 is that they divided the spoil between those that had gone to battle and those that were weary and had stayed behind. David establishes this principal in 1Samuel 30:24-25:

For who will hearken unto you in this matter? but as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike. And it was so from that day forward, that he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel unto this day.

The word “part” is the same word as “portion” that was used in Genesis 14. Christ came with ten thousands of His saints (the elect) and, finally, they will destroy the enemy, Satan and all the unsaved and the entire corrupt creation. They will be utterly destroyed and then Christ will “divide the spoil” and He will “part” it to all the saints with Him. The chosen people of God will receive as their inheritance the new heaven and new earth, the Promised Land. Remember, it was the inheritance promised to Abram and his seed. The “seed” was Christ, in the first instance, and all those that are in Christ (the elect) are counted for the “seed” and will, likewise receive the inheritance. That is what this word “portion” is often tied to and it is the same word used several times in Joshua, chapter 18 where it is translated as “part.” It says in Joshua 18:4-6:

Give out from among you three men for each tribe: and I will send them, and they shall rise, and go through the land, and describe it according to the inheritance of them; and they shall come again to me. And they shall divide it into seven parts: Judah shall abide in their coast on the south, and the house of Joseph shall abide in their coasts on the north. Ye shall therefore describe the land into seven parts, and bring the description hither to me, that I may cast lots for you here before JEHOVAH our God.

It continues the description and uses the same word a couple more times. In this battle, there were men that went with Abram, just like there were men that went with David, and they divide the spoil. Since this battle pictures Judgment Day, the spoil is the new heaven and new earth and the “portion” or “part” of the men that went with Abram, which were Mamre, Eschol and Aner. They were Amorites, if we look back at verse 13. The name “Eschol” is a name that identifies with the Promised Land of Canaan. The name “Mamre” is the same word translated as “Hebron,” which identifies with the parcel of land Abraham purchased to bury Sarah in the land of Canaan. I am not sure about the meaning of the name “Aner,” but since he was their brother, it probably also identifies with the land of Canaan. Abram said, “Let them take their portion.” I know that Amorites do not normally typify the elect, but, at times, God does use types or figures that are not typical, like King Cyrus of the Medes and Persians as a type of Christ or as Ahasuerus as a type of God. Here, it appears that these three men point to those that identify with God and have gone to battle with Him and in the final battle God is only aligned with His elect people – no corporate church and no one else of the world. So, here, it would be pointing to the elect that will inherit the new earth. Remember, the Bible says, “The meek shall inherit the earth.”