Melchizedek
Sermon Downloads
Sermon Transcript
[00:00:00] We are gonna read the first 10 verses, so if you're able, please stand for the reading of God's word,
and if you're able, please hear it for what it is. The living, the true, the authoritative word of God. Hebrews chapter seven, the first 10 verses for this Melek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God. Who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him in whom also Abraham apportioned.
A 10th part of all the spoils was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of Righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which means king of peace without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the son of God. He remains a priest [00:01:00] perpetually.
Now observe how great this man was, to whom Abraham the patriarch, gave a 10th of the choice of spoils. And those indeed of the sons of Levi, who received the priest's office have commandment in the law to collect a 10th from the people that is from their brethren, although these are descendant from Abraham, but the one whose gene genealogy is not traced from them.
Collected a 10th from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises without any dispute, literally in the Greek, without any contradiction. The lesser Abraham is blessed by the greater melek. In this case, mortal men received ties. The Levitical priesthood. In that case, one receives them of whom it is witnessed he lives on and so to speak, through Abraham, even Levi, who received tithes, paid tithes.
For, he was still in the loins of his father when Melek met him. [00:02:00] May God add a blessing to the reading, the hearing, and obedience to his word. Please be seated.
Children, this story is in part for you, especially you little boys. What would you do kids? If you were in your backyard and you're playing, maybe your sisters were there, maybe you have some friends there, and all of a sudden a big bully with a, a big band of kids came into your backyard, took all your toys.
We live in north Idaho. They have all your guns, and they kick you out of your own backyard, and they take over and they set up camp. We rule here. Now, what would you do, kids? Well, believe it or not, this actually happened in history. Thank you for wanting to answer. I don't always let people answer, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna hear your answer later.
Okay. All right. This actually happened [00:03:00] about the time of the Exodus. It was in the, about 15th, 13th, century, 14th, sorry. Uh, but this actually happened. There was a king, and I'm only gonna say his name once and then I'm gonna abbreviate 'cause it'll hurt me. Chata Chata. We're gonna call him. She. It. But Shaa was a prince and he was about to become king and a neighboring kingdom came and defeated his father and killed his family.
And Shaa had to run away. But Shaa wanted to be king. He knew this was his kingdom. So he went to a neighboring king, and I'll try his name one time. Soupy Lua. Uma. We're gonna name him Soupy. Okay. 'cause it's easier to say. And he goes to soupy, and soupy happened to be a king of the Hittites. We read about the Hittites in the Bible and soupy came alongside of Shaa and soupy told Shaa, Hey, I will protect you.
In fact, I will go back with my [00:04:00] armies and I will take your kingdom back and I will put you on the throne. But in order for me to do this, you need to enter into covenant with me. You need to bow before my gods. Unfortunately, kids soupy was not a Christian. So he worshiped false gods and he told Shay, you need to bow before my gods, and you need to swear to me that you will obey me and you will be loyal to me, and I'm gonna give you rules to follow.
And if you follow those rules, there'll be blessings. But if you break those rules, there'll be curses. I will come and punish you. Not only that, but I'm gonna give you my daughter to marry. And just so you know guys, she was pretty okay. Shea gets a daughter, he becomes part of soup's, family, and soupy goes back and he defeats this foreign king and he gives Shea his kingdom back and Shea rules his kingdom for the rest of his life.
And just so you know, moms and dads, this is a true story. And if you wanna read about it, you can [00:05:00] Google it. It's found in what's called the Treaty of Shaza, and it is probably the most well-preserved political covenant that we have in ancient history. And I don't know if you were following, but the interesting thing about that covenant is it follows the covenants we've been studying in scripture.
A king says, I will protect you, I will take you into my family. But there are requirements and there are blessings and curses, and we become a family. And if you look in your bulletin, there's a couple of things in your bulletin, there's the fill in the blank for the sermon, but there's also a page folded in half.
And on one side of that page, there are some Bible questions. Uh, or some Bible verses and some discussion questions for later in the week. And then on the other side there's this big chart, but I want you to look at the side with the questions because there's a small chart on that side. For the last couple of weeks, we have been going over covenants and I have been trying to demonstrate how covenants, if you're gonna understand scripture, you need to understand its covenant [00:06:00] structure, because the Old Testament literally means old covenant.
The New Testament literally means new covenant. And we've traced God's covenant and there's a little, uh, line on that one page, but we've traced God's covenant from Adam. God entered into covenant with Adam from the very beginning and Adam sinned, and immediately God reenters into covenant. Only this time it's a redemptive covenant and many theologians would call it a covenant of grace because now God is graciously offering.
To redeem Adam and Eve, and he promises Adam and Eve a coming male child who's gonna crush the head of Satan. And God expands this covenant with Noah. He expands it again with Abraham and Moses and then David. And one of the covenants we don't talk a whole lot about, although I may say something about it in weeks to come, is God's covenant with Levi as well, the priesthood.
And ultimately this covenant is expanded in Jesus Christ and we [00:07:00] call that the new covenant. And the reason we've taken about four weeks to cover covenants is to prepare us for Hebrews chapters seven through 10, because in Hebrews chapters seven through 10, actually in the entire book of Hebrews, the word covenant is used 19 times.
Actually, it's. 19 times in the Greek, I'm sorry, 19 times in the English, 15 times in the Greek, but it's implied, so the English adds it. So you've got about 15 to 21 times in English that this word covenant is used. And interestingly, the overwhelming majority all but two show up in chapter seven to 10. So I felt it would be very helpful to understand these.
Now, if you turn that page over and you look at the back half, you look at this one. And I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time here, but I do wanna remind you that these covenants expand on one another. So we start with the creation covenant and we go from Adam to Christ and we're not gonna take the time.
It may surprise you, we're not gonna take the time to go over the Davidic Covenant, and the reason I [00:08:00] decided not to is we've actually covered that in some detail when we were looking at Samuel. So we're just gonna jump back to the book of Hebrews, but I do wanna remind you of some of the elements of the covenant, and that's that left hand column.
In all of God's redemptive covenants, a relationship is sovereignly established by God. And there's a promise beginning with Adam and Eve and and running throughout scripture in a lot of different ways that it can be reworded and worded differently, but it's the same promise. God promises. I will be your God.
You see, God makes the initial step. God is not up there waiting for us to make a move. God moves first. I will be your God. I will be the God of your children and you will be my people. And that promise runs throughout the covenants. There are conditions that run throughout the covenant. There are blessings and curses that run throughout the covenant.
There's this promised seed that's coming, and we saw last week that [00:09:00] ultimately that seed speaks of Jesus Christ. And we see this in all of the biblical covenants, and we see that ultimately Jesus fulfills those covenants. And so we did that in preparation for Hebrews. But before we go back to Hebrews seven, turn in your Bibles to Genesis 14.
We need to remember, I've told you that anytime the authors of the New Testament refer to the Old Testament, we need to treat it as a hyperlink. All right. We need to understand the context. We need to understand what's going on. So we're gonna start this morning with the hyperlink. We're gonna start this morning with Genesis 14.
So if you turn back to Genesis 14,
and we're gonna begin in, uh, verse 17. We've read this so we can go through this fairly quickly. But number two on your outline, I think I failed to mention number one. Number one is simply. Uh, summary and review on your, uh, sermon outline, summary and [00:10:00] review. Number two on your outline is Melek king of righteousness, Melek, king of righteousness.
And we read that story in Genesis 14. And interestingly, interestingly enough, there's only four verses and I cannot tell you the number of books in journal articles, in commentary encounters, uh, have been written in an attempt to figure out who this man is. So what does the Old Testament teach us in chapter 14, verse 17.
Then after his return, Abraham returns from the defeat of Ke Lamore and the kings who were with him, the King of Sodom, went out to meet Abraham at the Valley of Shava. That is the King's Valley. Now, we need to put this in context because one of the things that I've been trying to do since I've been here is not only show you how the Bible's.
You know, flows together, but to, to start learning how to put it together. And so if we're gonna [00:11:00] understand the context here, and you don't need to turn there, I'll just read it to you. But we need to go all the way back to God's initial promise to Abraham to see what's going on. And God's initial promise to Abraham is found in the early verses of chapter 12.
And I just wanna read to you verse three. So Genesis chapter 12, verse three. If you wanna turn back there, it's a page or two back. God promises Abraham. Remember, God sovereignly establishes this relationship. God goes to Abraham. He doesn't really give him a choice. We think of it as a choice. He says, no, leave.
Leave your family. Leave your country, leave your people, and go. And as soon as you get up and go, I'll actually show you where I want you to go. Abraham will obey and he leaves. And so God says, I will bless you. I'm sorry. In verse three, he says, and I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you.
I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be [00:12:00] blessed. Now, hopefully you remember when we looked at this verse a couple of weeks ago when God says, um, I will bless those who bless you, but I will curse the one who curses you. That word for curse, the one who curses you, is actually a very tame word, and all it literally means is the one who slights you, the one who curses you, the one who slights you, the one who shows you dishonor.
I will curse only in the Hebrew. That second word is a much stronger word, and it's basically a death sentence, and it doesn't mean that God's going to kill everyone. Remember the story of Pharaoh. Pharaoh takes Sarah. And God goes to Pharaoh in a dream and he gives him a chance and Pharaoh gives him back.
But God would've struck him dead and we read it in the text. He would've also struck his family. So if someone slights you, Abraham, I will bring my wrath down upon them. Well, hopefully you remember the story of Genesis 14 in the [00:13:00] early verses of Genesis 14. Lot is taken captive. There's four evil kings and they're fighting against five.
I wouldn't call 'em good, but they're the offended kings and in the midst of the battle, they still lot. Well, guess what? There's no reason to believe that they knew lot was Abraham's nephew. And yet, because of that, God uses Abraham to wipe them off the map. He takes Abraham with only 300 plus men. And Abraham and these 300 men go and defeat these four mighty kings that these five other kings have been serving for years.
I will bless those who bless you, but the one who dishonors you. I will curse. And we saw last week that if you are in Christ Jesus, you are Abraham's seed. You are Abraham's spiritual heirs through faith. And so that promise applies to you and me. I will bless those who [00:14:00] bless you because they recognize you're in Christ, but the one who curses you because you're in, in Christ.
I will curse. I will make things right. Look at verse 18 and Melek. King of Salem brought out bread and wine. Now he was a priest. Of God most high. And there's four things that I wanna point out about this verse. First of all, milk ek. It comes from two Hebrew words, Bach, Sadik, and literally in the Hebrew it means king of righteousness.
Another way of describing it is, my king is righteous. But either way, it means the same thing. Melek is described as a righteous man, a king of righteousness, and he's also king of Salem. And we know, uh, from our ancient history. We also know from Psalm 78, um, I'm sorry, Psalm 76, actually, that Salem was ancient Jerusalem.
[00:15:00] Salem was ancient Jerusalem before the Jews defeated it and conquered it before David defeated it and made his capital there. But Salem also means peace. It's literally in the Hebrew Shalom. So Melek is described as a king of righteousness, a righteous king, but he's also described as a, as the king of peace.
He's a peaceful man. The third thing that I wanna point out about this verse is Melek brings out bread and wine. And that's kind of the stickler there because what are we gonna do after the sermon today? We're gonna sing another song. We're gonna do some catechisms, and then we're gonna go to the table and we are going to imbibe in bread and wine because that's what our communion service looks like.
That's what Jesus said to do. We're gonna eat bread. We're gonna drink wine, and there are no contradictions in the Bible, right? And so EK brings out bread and wine, and scholars have spent a lot of time here trying to figure out what does it mean. So two things that I [00:16:00] wanna say and then we'll move on.
Number one, I've already said it. There are no coincidences in the Bible, so could this mean something more? Absolutely. Second thing I wanna say is I don't have a clue. I don't know if it's pointing to something beyond itself. I don't think it's pointing to communion or anything like that. Basically all Mc Melek did was he brought out refreshments.
And if you know anything about the ancient world, wine was safer to drink than water. So he brings wine and he brings bread to refresh these people. And my personal opinion right now, although I'm willing to change, is I think it just means bread and wine. It just, he brought refreshments out. But then lastly, we read that he is priest of God most high.
And there are a lot of Old Testament scholars who aren't believers, and they would say that Melek, he is a Gentile. He is likely a Canaanite, but they'll say that he's worshiping Canaanite Gods here because [00:17:00] Canaanites believed in multiple gods. So Melek is worshiping the chief God of the Canaanites, but that again, does not follow the context.
Okay? The Greek God most high. You've heard this before. If you know Amy Grant ll. That's what it is in the Hebrew God most high God, the highest of all God, the mightiest of all. And in verse 22 of the same chapter, Abraham identifies l elion God most high with Yahweh. So in uh, chapter 14 verse 22, Abraham said to the king of Sodom, I have sworn by Yahweh, L Elion God most high possessor of heaven and earth.
And what's important to know here is based on the context, based on the New Testament interpretation, Mel Ek is a worshiper of the true God. Now, he may not have known his covenant name. He may not have known to refer to him as Yahweh, but he was the worshiper of, he was a worshiper of the true God [00:18:00] ll young God almighty.
Verse 19, Melek. Blessed him, blessed Abraham and said, blessed be Abraham of God. Most high possessor of heaven and earth. Verse 20, and blessed be God most high, who was delivered into your, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. He Abraham contextually. And we'll also see the New Testament interpretation.
He, Abraham gave Melek a 10th of all the spoils. So two things about this particular verse, and the first one is this word blessed. Because I think you know this, so hopefully I'm just pointing out the obvious, but this word blessed can be used in two different ways in scripture, and we use it in two different ways in everyday life.
When Melek blesses Abraham, he's basically offering a prayer. May God bless you, may God give you what you need. May God desire, may God fulfill the desires. Of your heart. It's the [00:19:00] same thing we do at the end of every service. At the end of every service, either myself or Matt will stand up here and we will offer a benediction.
And the benediction is a blessing. It's a prayer. May God do certain things in your life. May you know certain things that God has done in your life. And so Melek blesses Abraham, but he also blesses God. And this word for blessed can also be a praise. It can be used in the sense of praise. I praise you God, because you are God most high.
You are possessor of heaven and earth. You are sovereign over all things. So that's the first thing I wanna point out, how this word blessing is used. But the second thing I wanna point out, and I have pointed this out multiple times, but I will never grow tired of doing this because we need to see it.
Look at verse 20. Mel Blessed. He says, blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And what we have in this text, and we have seen it so many times, is we have [00:20:00] human responsibility. What most people wanna call human freedom side by side with the absolute sovereignty of God. If you read verses one through 16, you'll find out that Abraham decided to go out and fight the four kings.
Abraham gathered his men, Abraham marched and fought against them. Abraham rescued lot. Abraham is now returning with spoils. Abraham made the decisions. Abraham acted on his decisions, and Abraham fought like a mad man and defeated these kings. Human responsibility, human effort, human decision making. But what do we read in verse 20?
It was God most high, El Elion, who has delivered your enemies into your hand, behind our conscious decisions, behind our, our will, behind us deciding to do things. God is sovereignly acting to bring about his plan. [00:21:00] And what Melek is reminding Abraham of is it was God who protected you. It was God who brought your enemies into your hand.
God is sovereign and so God is going to bless you, Abraham, just as God has promised. So what do we learn from this story before we jump back to the New Testament? So let me offer you some options first, and then I wanna point out, uh, five things that I think we learned from this story. Who was this Melek?
What, what do Christians and non-Christians alike say about this Melek? Well, one view, and it's, it's a, it's not a very popular view, but one view says he's the Holy Spirit. He's the Holy Spirit, and he's functioning as this priest king. And it's not a very popular theory. It's never really caught on.
Another theory is that he's an angel, that he's some type of angelic being, maybe Michael the archangel. And this theory actually comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls. And hopefully you [00:22:00] remember, 'cause this is kind of an important theory because when we were studying the first few chapters of Hebrews, remember they were leaning towards angel worship.
And we know through history and and writings that the Jews, the Jews of Jesus Day really didn't worship angels, but there was a sect. That was tied to Kuran where we find the Dead Sea Scrolls that did worship angels and did promote the worship of Michael the Archangel. So some have believed that this is Michael the Archangel.
Others believe that this is the pre-incarnate Christ. That it's the pre-incarnate Christ. That view makes the least sense to me anyway, of all of them, because when we get to the book of Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews is gonna make a comparison between Jesus and Mel Ek. And the comparison breaks down if he's comparing Jesus to Jesus.
But if he's comparing Jesus to someone else, a type a shadow, then the comparison holds. An interesting theory, and it was held by [00:23:00] the, uh, Jews. It comes from what's called the Book of Jahar. And the book of Jahar is actually mentioned in the Bible in Joshua, chapter 10, two Samuel chapter one. Okay. And we have an ancient book that claims to be the book of Jahar.
We don't know if it's the real book, but we have an ancient book that you can read. But in the book of Jay Shar, as well as the Jerusalem Talmud Melek is identified as Shem Noah's son. Now, this is an interesting theory and the reason it's interesting is because the Jews didn't believe that until after the birth of Christianity.
And when the Jews saw that Christians saw a tie between Mel Ek and Jesus, they had to come up with a different interpretation, and they came up with this interpretation that he was Noah as the son Shem. And then lastly, the last interpretation, and this happens to be the one that I hold to, is he was just a man.
He was just a man, but he was a type in shadow of Jesus. He [00:24:00] was a type A picture pointing to Jesus, and we'll see that when we get to Hebrews. So five things. What do we learn about Mel Ek? This is important as we take this information to the New Testament. Number one, he's a Gentile man. Not gentle, but a Gentile.
He's a non-Jew, and that should speak volumes. Because what we see here and what the writer of Hebrews wants to bring out is the Gentiles were always supposed to be a part of God's people. And when God constituted the Jews at the Exodus as a nation, they should have always been sharing their religion with the Gentiles in the Jews, it kids.
There's a, uh, a question on your handout and it asks about Mel Ek. And the answer has something to do with him being a priest of God and a real man. He was a real man. He was a gentile man, but he was also both king and priest. He was king of righteousness and priest of the most high [00:25:00] God. And we read that and it's no big deal, but that would've blown minds in Abraham's day.
You see, in the ancient Near East, that never happened. Rare. In fact, in terms of history, this may be the only place we find from the ancient Near East where a king and a priest, the same man held both offices. You see, they were always separated because they just, they saw a difference. And yet again, from the earliest chapters of Genesis, the Bible is pointing to the seed of the woman.
The Bible is pointing to something greater than Abraham. The Bible is pointing to something greater than the law. The Bible is pointing to something greater than the sacrifices, and this person that the Bible is pointing to is gonna be king and priest. Psalm one 10, he's also gonna be prophet. All three offices in one man.
And we see this already in scripture. He's a real man. Number three, he's a worshiper of the true God. He's a worshiper of Yahweh. Number [00:26:00] four, he blesses Abraham. He blesses Abraham, and he receives a 10th of everything Abraham got from the defeat of the kings. And it doesn't say it explicitly in the Old Testament, although it is implied in any Jewish person reading this, would've recognized it, but it does say it explicitly in the new.
That means Melek was greater than Abraham. Now, when we bring that into the book of Hebrews, we're gonna find out that Melek is greater than Abraham and Jesus is greater than Mel Nik. Therefore, Jesus is greater than Abraham, and Jesus is greater than Abraham's children. Therefore, Jesus is greater than the Levitical priesthood.
It
number five, and I wanna share number five in the guise of a question, what's missing about melek? And it ought to jump off the page at us, but it doesn't, and I'll be honest with you, when I first started studying this, and this isn't the first time I've [00:27:00] studied Mel Kade, so years in the past, it never jumped off the page at me.
Somebody had to point this out to me, but what's missing? And lemme tell you why it should jump off the page and then I'll tell you what's missing. Okay? This takes place in Genesis chapter 14, and there's a theme of thought that runs through the early chapters of Genesis. And if we're not thinking about it, because it's one of those difficult things and we don't like to think about it, so we don't think about it.
But the other thing that should help it jump off the page is Melek a priest. So what's not mentioned, there's no genealogy. Melek is not given a genealogy, and what you may not know is from Genesis one through chapter 14, every godly person in Genesis, chapter one through 14 is tied to a genealogy. Every godly person, every [00:28:00] worshiper of Yahweh who plays a significant role, their genealogy is given.
But Mel EK's genealogy is not given. The other thing that runs through the Old Testament is every priest is tied to a genealogy, and yet Melek is not given a genealogy. Now, keep in mind, 'cause we're gonna take this to the New Testament, I've already argued that he's a man, so he has a genealogy, he has a mother and a father.
He at some point died, but it's not written in scripture. He is presented as a type A picture, a shadow of Jesus Christ. So with that information in mind, turn to Hebrews chapter seven. Turn back to Hebrews chapter seven, and we can cover some of this information quickly. So in Hebrews chapter seven.
Beginning in verse one and verse one is [00:29:00] simply gonna tell us what we've already read, what we've already figured out in the Old Testament. For this, Mel Ek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God who met Abraham as he was returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him. Verse two, to whom also Abraham apportioned to 10th.
Part of all the spoils was first of all, by the translation of his name, king of Righteousness. Then also King of Salem, which means King of peace. So the New Testament confirms our interpretation of the old Melek was king of righteousness, but he's also king of peace. And when we go back to the Old Testament and we search those concepts out, we see that they always point to something greater.
So let me just give you one example. Psalm 97 verse two. Speaking of Yahweh clouds and thick darkness around him, righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Think of Isaiah [00:30:00] chapter nine, verse six, and this has Psalm 97 applies to Jesus, but we know without much argumentation that Isaiah nine, six clearly applies to Jesus.
And listen to what Isaiah nine, six says, for a child will be born to us. The promised seed, the promised seed of Eve, the seed of the woman, the promised seed of Abraham, the promised seed of David. And how is this promised Seed described for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us and the government will rest on his shoulders and his name will be called Wonderful counselor.
Mighty God, eternal Father, prince of Peace. Melek was king of righteousness and king of peace. And that always throughout the Old Testament, I could give you so many other scriptures. It always pointed to Jesus and melek points to Jesus. So now [00:31:00] we can make better sins. Out of verse three. And verse three is the one that seems to throw people without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like.
And it's important to understand this word resembling. The word literally means to resemble or to be like, but if, if you understand the concept and you understand how this works in scripture, you could also to help make sense, translate it. Picturing resembling shadowing. He was made to look like Jesus because he was a picture.
Of Jesus without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made, like made to picture the son of God. He remains a priest perpetually. And what we need to understand if we're gonna follow this, if we're gonna tie it into our Old Testament interpretation, is all the author is saying [00:32:00] is his genealogy is not brought up in the Old Testament.
He has presented, unlike the Levitical priests. Every time the Levitical priests are spoken of, there's a genealogy attached. They had to come from Levi. They had to come from and from Aaron. And not only that, when we studied the Old Testament, they had to come from certain sons of Aaron or they weren't qualified to be a priest.
But here we have one who is priest of the most high God, and yet no mention of his parents. No mention of his genealogy, no mention of his death. Why is he presented this way in Genesis 14? Because he's a picture of Christ. He pictures Christ in His name. He, he pictures Christ in his kingdom. He pictures Christ in his function as king and priest.
He pictures Christ because Christ's genealogy was not a requirement for Christ's priesthood. Yes, Jesus had a genealogy, but not the eternal son of God, not the divine son of [00:33:00] God. Verses four. Now observe how great this man was. Milk Eck. Now observe how great this man was, to whom Abraham the Patriot, gave a 10th of the choice of spoils.
And now he's gonna make an interesting argument. We don't always argue like this, but this was common in rabbinical literature. This was a common way of arguing in Bible times. And basically if Abraham, I'm sorry, if Melek was greater than Abraham, then we can clearly make the assumption that Melek is greater than Levi.
And if Jesus is greater than Mel Ek, then obviously Jesus is greater than Levi. In other words, Jesus is the greatest of the great. Jesus is our great high priest. Jesus came to do what Levi never could. As we continue in the book of Hebrews, year after year, after year, after sacrifice, after sacrifice, after sacrifice, after blood and [00:34:00] blood and more blood.
And the Levitical priest had to do it again, but Jesus only does it once, and Jesus sacrifice accomplishes what he wants to accomplish. So again, in verse four, how observe how great this man was. Verse five. In those indeed the sons of Levi, the priests in the Old Testament, who received the priest office, have commandment in the law to collect a 10th from the people that is from their brethren, although they too are descendants of Abraham.
But the one whose genealogy is not traced, Melek from them, collected a 10th from Abraham, and blessed the one who had the promises. Melek, a greater priest than the Levitical priesthood blesses Abraham. But then verse seven makes it crystal clear without any dispute, and literally in the Hebrew without contradiction, literally without opposing words, you cannot argue against this.
The [00:35:00] lesser Abraham was blessed by the greater Melek. Melek is greater than Abraham, and by extension, Melek is greater than Levi. But again, this has always been told in the Old Testament, and we need to bring these hyperlinks into our New Testament if we're under going to understand it. So think of Psalm one 10.
Think of Psalm one 10, and the writer of Hebrews cites Psalm one ten five times. Throughout his book. And what does Psalm one 10 say? Yahweh says to Adonai, the father is speaking to the son. Here. Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. I'm gonna make you king. Yahweh will stretch forth your scepter, your strong scepter from Zion saying Rule in the midst of your enemies.
The Old Testament has always predicted that the seed of the woman would [00:36:00] be a righteous king. And in Psalm 10, 1 10, verse four, the Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. Yahweh swears you are a priest forever. According to the order of Mel Ek,
I wanna take you back to the story of Shaza. A story I started with Shaza was reinstalled in his kingdom. And he ruled until the time of his death. And when he died, his son took over and his son began to rule. But not only his son, but also the Hittite Kingdom was eventually conquered and sucked into the Assyrian Kingdom.
And interestingly enough, this was the way of covenants in the ancient world because a king could enter in and he could offer help, but he wasn't sovereign like God is. And oftentimes that king would be sucked into a different. Kingdom. Why the connection? 'cause it can't happen to [00:37:00] us. We have entered into covenant with God Almighty and God is sovereign and God's covenants are guaranteed by God himself.
The book of Hebrews teaches the following. We have a better head, we have a better covenant, we have a better priesthood. It because Jesus fulfills all those roles. Jesus is God. Jesus is superior to angels. Jesus is king and creator. This is just chapter one of Hebrews. Jesus is the true Adam who accomplishes what Adam failed to do.
He has been tested, yet Jesus is without sin. Jesus is our high priest, and Jesus has accomplished propitiation. God is no longer angry at those whom Jesus died. He is greater than Moses and Joshua. He is our Sabbath rest. He is the sacrifice for our sins. He is our eternal and perpetual high priest.
[00:38:00] According to the order of Mel Ek, he is superior to Abraham and Levi. He's superior to the onic priesthood. He is the true king of righteousness and peace. And if we were Pentecostals, we'd be dancing right now. Do you believe that? That's the point of this sermon. Do you believe that about Jesus? Do you believe that he holds you securely and you can't fall from his hands and he loves you?
Yes. We'll read later. He may discipline you if you need it, but he will not release you. Amen. And you can have confidence in Christ because he is our high priest. He is our sacrifice. He is not just priest, but he is sacrifice. And he has made atonement. Your sin is covered in Christ Jesus. He has made propitiation.
God is no longer angry at you. God no longer has a legal case against you. For Jesus has paid the price. He's the curse of the [00:39:00] law because he was hung on the tree and he took your sins and the wrath of God was poured out on him. And what did he do for us? He gave us his righteousness. So that when God looks at you and I, God sees the righteousness of Jesus Christ because our sin is atoned, our sin is perpetuated.
And not only that, he is seated at the right hand of the Father. He is sovereign king. He's the king of righteousness, the king of peace, and he rules of this world. And we may not always understand why he does what he does, but he is in charge
and he intercedes for us. Kids, Jesus prays for you on a regular basis. Moms and dads Jesus prays for you on a regular basis. How many times are we struggling with something? And I don't know how to pray. I don't know what to ask for 'cause trust me, I have felt that way. [00:40:00] I don't know what to ask God. I don't know what to pray for Jesus, pray for me.
Not only that, we learn in Romans eight, the spirit of God prays for us because Jesus's work is accomplished because Jesus set out to do what he said he would do. Because unlike the ancient kings of the ancient near East, God took on all the responsibilities of the covenant, all the dos and don'ts Jesus did in the don'ts, he went to the cross.
To pay our penalty and he gives us the dues while he takes our sin, just like God promised with the rainbow, just like God promised, going through the burning, melting pots, just like God promised, every time a lamb or a different animal was sacrificed in the Old Testament, tabernacle and temple, I will take on these conditions.
I will die for you and I will ensure your [00:41:00] salvation because I love you. And contrary to what some in the church would say, Jesus volunteered. He wasn't sent by his father, he volunteered.
We may not be dancing in the aisles, and I really don't want you dancing in the aisles, but I pray you're dancing in your hearts. I pray that your heart's exploding. I pray that you know something of the love of God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, forgive us and I don't need to confess again, Lord, 'cause we've done that.
But
we don't always see you the way we should. Help us to see Jesus the way the author of Hebrews saw Jesus. There is nothing that comes close to the greatness of Jesus. [00:42:00] Nothing that comes close. And Father, as Paul said in Romans chapter eight, because Jesus is superior to all things, because he is God and creator, because he is the promised Savior of the Old Testament.
Nothing, no one, not even ourselves, can take us out of his hand. So spirit of God, strengthen our faith, strengthen our faith. May we understand who this Jesus is. May we understand how Melek pictured him and how Jesus. Far surpasses all the pictures so that we can have confidence so that father, when we're going through hard times, as James says, we can consider it all joy because the one who loves me with an eternal, universal infinite love is not gonna let anything happen to me that he knows I don't need.
Father, give us that faith. Thank you that we have a mighty high priest in King and prophet. [00:43:00] And Father, continue to build our hearts and build our understandings as to what that means. And all of God's people said, amen. Take your hymnals this time you.
