0:07 I've never seen a church where the offering box is more hidden than in this one. I mean, we emphasize that a lot that we don't major on offerings. We say the old covenant, they asked you to give money or it wasn't money really, 0:25 they asked you to bring your grain and your flock, your 10% which was income tax. God was ahead of the government and the Levites were the government workers who had to be paid by the income tax, 10% that everybody had to give. 0:39 And uh in the new covenant, God is not a head of government, he's a father. And no father collects income tax from his children. That's why we don't preach the tithe here. Children give joyfully according to how God has blessed them. 0:59 So, I want to turn now to a verse in to compare the old covenant and the new. Will you please turn with me to Exodus and chapter 34. We need to understand what a tremendous blessing it is 1:16 that we are not under the old covenant. And uh when the Lord told Moses to make two tablets of stone, Exodus 34, this was the old covenant written on tablets of stone. 1:35 And it says here, the Lord descended in a cloud, verse five, Exodus 34, verse five. And proclaimed the name of the Lord. Now, here is the name of the Lord, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in 1:48 loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquities, all exciting, transgression and sin. And now comes the serious part. Yet, he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, 2:06 visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children, on the grandchildren, to the third and fourth generation. Moses bowed down and worshipped. Do we have to live like that? Those of us who made a mess of our life, 2:26 is our iniquity going to be visited on the third and fourth generation? No. There is no curse in the new covenant. Now, turn with me to Galatians in chapter three. You know, until we see the contrast of how it was for people in the old 2:44 covenant, we don't appreciate what we have in the new covenant. It's a lot of like a lot of people who live in a country where there's plenty, if you go down to some of the poorest nations on the earth and go to the villages there, 2:57 then our children learn to appreciate what they have. Otherwise, living in a land of abundance and plenty, they never realize and I feel that we need to see how it was for people in the old covenant to appreciate what we 3:09 have in Christ. Cuz I find a lot of Christians don't appreciate it enough. In Galatians three, it says verse 13, what we read there in Exodus 34 just now was part of the curse of the law. You know, the iniquity will be visited 3:25 on your third generation and fourth generation because you lived a life of sin. And it says here, Christ has redeemed us, verse 13, from the curse of the law. So, don't believe all these charismatic preachers who tell you about 3:40 ancestral curse. That's a lot of garbage. They say maybe some ancestor 10th generation before my parents worshipped some idols and that comes down to me. It's a lot of rubbish. Cuz I'll tell you who my ancestors are. Before I was born again, I was in a tree 3:59 called Adam. He was my ancestor and all the way all the descendants from Adam all the way to me. But one day, when I was born again, the Holy Spirit took me out of that tree and grafted me into another tree called 4:17 Jesus Christ. Who are my ancestors here? None of those. That's why I say there is no ancestral curse. It's a lot of rubbish proclaimed by preachers and some famous preachers have preached it and therefore others who don't read the Bible just swallow 4:34 what these famous preachers preach. They don't have a verse of scripture for it. They go back to Exodus 34. But what about Galatians 3:13? Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Redeem means purchases out of the slave 4:49 market. That's The word redeemed means purchased out of the slave market. We were in the slave market. And you know how slave markets are, people are held up there, how much do you pay for this person? And Jesus paid his blood. 5:03 Not to Satan. Some people say Jesus redeemed us from the slave market of Satan and paid his Jesus didn't give his blood to Satan, no. It was the law, the law of God was the slave master. Saying, this guy is a slave because he 5:18 has sinned. And Jesus paid that price to the law, never forget that. Cuz I've heard some illustrations of uh Jesus paying a price to the devil to purchase me from him. No, he didn't. He purchased me from the slave market of 5:33 the law where I was a slave to sin. It's very important for us to understand these things. Jesus owed nothing to the devil and I owe nothing to the devil. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. 5:48 That uh like like that verse I just wrote down, which I read to you earlier, that paraphrase of Isaiah 53:8. Did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare. That phrase has gripped me so much 6:06 in recent times. He died without a thought for his own welfare, but he was beaten bloody for the sins of my people. Beautiful paraphrase. And I see that's what it means to follow Jesus. Okay. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the 6:21 law, but that's just the negative side. And when he hung on the tree, when he hung on the cross, one of the things he did, I mean, he died for our sins, our old man was crucified with him, the devil was defeated, all that is true, and here is 6:35 the fourth thing. He became a curse. A lot of people haven't understood that, you know, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. If you don't know the truth, you will not be free. He became a curse on the cross because 6:51 the law said, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." That's why he had to die on two planks from a tree. Cuz that's how he became a curse for us. And but it wasn't it didn't stop there. It's not just that he took us out of the 7:06 curse in order that the blessing So, it's not just that he emptied out the curse from the vessel, from me, but filled up the vessel with the blessing of Abraham that can come to us who are not Jews, 7:25 that through the promise of the Holy Spirit. So, when the Holy Spirit comes and fills my vessel, first the curse is gone because Christ redeemed me from it. The blessing of Abraham comes to me. And in a spiritual way, 7:44 the earthly blessing of Abraham came to the seed of Israel where they were given a land called the land of Canaan where they are today. God kept his promise which he gave Abraham 4,000 years ago, "I'll give that land to you." And 7:56 they've got it today. But that's not the thing I look for. There's another blessing of Abraham spoken here, and that is before he told him about a land and all that in Genesis chapter 12, when he first called Abraham, before he left Ur of the Chaldees, 8:15 he told him in Genesis chapter 12, This is what the Lord had said to Abraham when he was in his home country, "Go forth from your country and from your relatives." This is when 8:35 he was still staying in his country with his relatives, in his father's house, the Lord told him in Ur of the Chaldees, "Go away from here, from your relatives, from your father's house, to the land which I will show you. 8:47 And I will make you a great nation." And here is the blessing of Abraham. "I will bless you and you will be a blessing." Just that, just two statements. "I will bless you and you will be a blessing." So, that's what the Holy Spirit has come 9:02 to do. It's redemption from the curse and from the guilt of sin is only cleaning out the cup. I don't have to go around with an empty vessel. Thank God all the dirt and filth has been cleansed out by the blood of Jesus Christ. But now, 9:21 as I'm filled with the Holy Spirit, God blesses me one, that means he gives me the fruit of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control, Galatians 5:22 and 23. And then he makes 9:40 me a blessing. Those are the gifts of the Holy Spirit through which he wants to me to be a blessing to other people. Do you know that God wants to make you and me a blessing to every person we encounter closely. I don't mean every person you sit next 9:56 to in a flight or in a bus or somewhere else, but those who are like I said that little world of people who come in touch with you. God's will is that he will make you a blessing. Now, if God were to say to me, "Go and make yourself 10:14 a blessing." I'll make a mess of it. I cannot make myself a blessing to anybody. But he says, "I will make you a blessing." It's good to humble ourselves and say, "Lord, you will bless me and you will make me a blessing to others." 10:32 It's good for all of us. This is what it means, "You shall be my witnesses." And where will you be my witnesses? First in your home. Jerusalem is your home. If you're not a witness in your home, brother, don't try going to the uttermost parts 10:46 of the earth. It's a waste of time. In your home. I mean, would you give an electronic gadget that doesn't function in your home as a gift to somebody? Sorry, this fast forward doesn't work, but here it is. 11:04 You would never do it. Why do you give the gospel to someone else if it hasn't worked in your own home first? It's a sin to give others a gift which did not work in your own home. An electronic gadget which is not working, you want to give it as a gift. 11:21 A gospel which didn't work in your own home. How can you give it as a gift to others? That's why it's so important that Jesus said, "You shall be witnesses in Jerusalem first. Then in some concentric circles, and then Judea, and then Samaria, then you 11:35 can reach the uttermost parts of the earth." I remember that's how God began to deal with me and also when when we started a church in Bangalore. First there, we used to pray, "Lord, if there's anybody in this locality around 11:46 my house where we were meeting who's seeking for a godly life, bring him in touch with us. We want to be a blessing to them." And then the state, and then the rest of India, and then the rest of the world. That's how we did it in the last 43 years. 11:59 So, that is God's will for every one of us that we'll be a blessing. I mean, God determines in to in what extent he makes that, but he wants to do that for every single one of us. And you must believe it. You know, if you say, "Oh, well, I'm so 12:13 useless." and keep looking inward, then you'll just get discouraged. Say, "Lord, I may be the most useless person on earth. So, what? There's nothing impossible with God. You can bless me. And you can make me a blessing. 12:27 And it will not be for my honor. It'll be for your glory. It will not be something that I'm going to boast that I was used to bless so-and-so. No, we don't want to be occupied with that. We want to To me, being a blessing to others 12:41 is an expression of my gratitude to the Lord for what he's done for me. I I I don't want to take any credit for it. I don't want any reward for it. Our entire life must be an expression of gratitude for what the Lord went to the cross without a thought for 12:59 his own welfare, beaten bloody for my sins. Now, Lord, how shall I respond to you? Do what you like in me. Make me a blessing to others. When contrasting the Old Testament and the New Testament, we were looking at Hebrews chapter 8. I want you to look at 13:18 the chapter that comes before that. Some of these things are you know, if we go a little deep into scripture, we discover things that we won't discover otherwise. Just a verse, I'm sorry, before you go to 13:34 Hebrews 7 in Proverbs and chapter 25. It's It's got to do with something to the way to study the Bible. Do you know there are many things hidden in scripture? The things superficially 13:53 is like on the surface of the earth, you have some very good things like apples and oranges and many many good things that you can eat, but gold and diamonds, they're not on the surface. You got to dig 1,000 ft, 10,000 ft into 14:08 the ground to get gold and diamonds. Apples and oranges, and they're on the surface. You don't have to dig deep for that. And they're good, but gold and diamonds are more valuable. Now, keep that in mind when you read Proverbs 25:2. It's the glory of God to 14:23 conceal a matter. There are things on the surface of the Bible that you can read, and you don't even have to be a believer to understand it, like I said. Jesus healed the sick and the story of Jesus, an unbeliever can write the story 14:37 of Jesus. But there are things hidden, you know, I told you the Holy Spirit will take the inner life of Jesus and show it to you. The The glory of God is to conceal a matter. In God's glory is that in scripture he's concealed certain things. 14:52 But now he has made us kings and priests in Christ, and it's the glory of a king to search out what God has concealed. Do you know that's your glory? We're kings in Christ. He's made us kings and priests. And part of our glory is to dig deep and 15:09 not be satisfied with the good things which are on the surface, but to dig deep. People don't become rich collecting apples and oranges. They dig deep and get gold and diamonds. That's how they become wealthy. Apply that spiritually. 15:23 You can get a lot from scripture, a lot of knowledge reading what is in the Bible on the surface. That's okay for children. But when you are mature, we dig deep. So, we mustn't remain like children when it comes to the knowledge of the word of 15:38 God. The things that are concealed, God wants us to discover. Let me show you that verse about children and adults in 1 Corinthians and chapter 14. 1 Corinthians 14. Verse 20. 16:01 Brethren, don't be children in your thinking. In evil, be like a little infant baby. But in thinking, be a mature adult. We have to simultaneously 16:20 in our hearts be like little babies which will not who are not affected or will not take revenge in evil. That means in any plan to do Adults take revenge. That's taking evil. If you go and hurt a little 16:38 2-month-old baby lying in the cradle, it may cry, but tomorrow when it sees you, it'll smile at you. It doesn't remember, "This is the one that pinched me and hurt me yesterday." Only adults remember that. Not infants. In evil, 16:56 be like infants. They don't remember all the evil that you did to them yesterday. That little 1-month-old lying in the cradle. But in thinking, in your understanding of God's word, we must be mature. There we must not be like children. 17:14 Because if you are like children, the Bible says in Ephesians in chapter 4. Ephesians 4. Verse 14. We must not be like children. 17:31 Ephesians 4:14, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming. You know, this is happening in Christendom today. Tossed about by 17:50 winds of doctrine. Particularly, there's a lot of that in charismatic Christianity. There are some wonderful people among the charismatics who my love and respect and fellowship with, godly people, but there's a lot of false teaching there as 18:08 well. For example, you lay hands on somebody and he falls down. And people get taken up with that. There are preachers in India who see somebody in the west do that, and they want to do that. That becomes the fashionable thing for a 18:27 period. And some other time, somebody lays hand on a person and he begins to laugh uncontrollably and starts rolling on the ground. So, that's the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Then they start imitating that in other countries. 18:40 Tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. And there's so many of these things nowadays going on. Those are children pushed here and there. But we must not be like that. If you want to avoid being like that, remember what we read in Hebrews 12. God 18:57 has provided something better for us. Jesus is our example. And so, whenever I see someone saying, "This is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit." It's very easy for me to find out whether it's right or not. I don't need to know the scriptures. 19:12 No. I just need to ask myself, "Can I imagine Jesus doing that?" Jesus was the perfect spirit-filled person. There was nobody more spirit-filled than him. And I I can't imagine my wildest imagination, I can't imagine Jesus lying 19:29 on the floor and kicking his legs and laughing uncontrollably. That's so ridiculous. That reminds me of demon-possessed people. I've seen demon-possessed people lying on the ground and kicking around, and when the demon is cast out, they stand 19:41 up and they are normal. And I I don't know whether you know in Eastern culture, if you show the bottom of your feet to somebody, that's an insult. You never show the bottom of your feet to someone you respect. In Eastern culture, you always bow down 19:57 and many of them even bow and touch the feet of their parents. And so when I see these people lying on these so-called um platforms of healing preachers showing their feet to God, I think the devil has a big laugh. God, look at these people insulting you 20:13 by showing you their feet. They're not bowing down before you like Job and Abraham and John the Apostle did. They're showing you their feet. The insult of it, the very opposite of what the apostles did. And do you know that millions of people who believe this 20:26 is an operation of the Holy Spirit? That's the amount of blindness going on in Christendom today, and I'll tell you hardly anybody speaks about it. Because they don't know the genuine thing. The genuine thing, as I said yesterday, 20:38 is to be a true worshiper. When you're a worshiper, you understand what God is really interested in. Uh so we're not to be like children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. So let's turn to Hebrews 7. Um Hebrews is a great book contrasting the 20:57 Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And in Hebrews 7, he speaks about two priesthoods. Now when you read something like this, Hebrews 7 and verse 11, if perfection was through the Levitical priesthood, 21:16 we're talking about perfection in the New Covenant. We press on to perfection, which they could not have in the Old Covenant. And if that perfection was through the Levitical priesthood, there was no need for another priest 21:32 to arise according to the order of Melchisedec. And Jesus is called here a priest in chapter 6 and verse 20, Jesus, our forerunner, has entered into the most holy place within the veil, 21:51 a high priest according to the order of Melchisedec, Hebrews 6:20. Now most Christians, when they come to a passage like that, you know, you either collect the apples and oranges on the surface, or you dig deep and find out get the 22:07 gold and the diamonds here. And so you read something like Melchisedec and say, "Oh well, Melchisedec, okay, there was somebody like that. I don't know who it is, someone in the Old Covenant. Let's move on to chapter 7." And you miss 22:16 something. It's the glory of kings to search out a matter. Do you know how much you've missed in scripture and as a result in your own life by not digging in, going deep? I'll tell you honestly, when I read the scriptures in my younger days, I wanted 22:34 to know the whole of the scripture, so I used to read a chapter a day. Cuz I hadn't read the Bible at all when I was converted at the age of 19. A chapter a day, and I would go consistently and cover the whole Bible, and I would read the New Testament 22:46 frequently because I wanted to get a overall view of the Bible. But now, and since I've known the scriptures quite a bit, sometimes when I'm meditating, I stop at a verse. And I begin to dig deep. I say, "Lord, I've already collected the 23:01 apples and oranges here. Now I want to dig deep and get some diamonds and gold from this verse." And dig deep and stop. It's almost like a traffic light, red light in front of me, and I can't move from that verse. And and the Lord says, "No, stop here." 23:15 And I meditate on that, and when I've finished my Bible reading for the day and the next morning when I get up, again, it's the same verse. The Lord says that the red light is still there. There's something more I have to get 23:26 from that. This is how I've studied the scriptures, and I've discovered amazing truths that have changed my life, not just head knowledge to preach to others. I don't I don't study the Bible to preach sermons. I want to experience it in my life. 23:41 It's much easier to speak from your life than to speak from things you cuz you need a good memory to speak from memory. But if you're speaking from your life, it's easy. So God's will is that God's word will enter into your life, 23:53 and then when you speak God's word, you're just giving a testimony. Many people say, "I can't preach." Okay, fine. Can you tell me something about your life, your experiences in life? If your physical experiences, that'd be 24:04 very easy for you. You don't even need any preparation for it. You can tell me where you were born and where you lived and which school you went to and what job you took, and so many things you can keep on going for 15, 20 24:14 minutes. It'll be like that if you allow God's word to enter into your life, and you speak from your life. That is how God wants every one of us to speak God's word, whether it's 5 minutes or 1 hour, from our life. 24:32 So, Melchisedec. So, I must say that for many, many years, I just got the surface blessing and went on. But as time went on, I said, "I want to find out what is this business of the priesthood of Melchisedec?" So I went back to the Old Testament, and 24:47 I want to share something with about that from you because this has got to do with the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was the priesthood of Levi. And the New Covenant is the priesthood of Melchisedec, and don't get scared with these big words. 25:00 It's going to be very simple. By the time you finish this session, you'll understand understand it in a way probably some of you never understood it before. God's word is essentially simple. It's not complicated. It's men who have 25:12 made it complicated. I used to tell my children when they went to school, if you've got a good mathematics teacher, math teacher, he'll make math simple for you. If there's some problem which the teacher makes it in a very complicated 25:27 way to you, probably indicates that he or she herself doesn't know how to do that. A good teacher will make complicated things simple. A bad teacher will make simple things complicated, whether it's math or the Bible. 25:44 So when you hear some complicated preaching with big-sounding words, theological words, you know, the guy himself probably doesn't have much experience of it in his life. He studied it, and he's just saying it. The Bible is essentially simple. 26:01 I believe that. Because these first disciples of Jesus, they were not scholars. What was Peter? Which Bible school did he go to? He was a fisherman. And I've gone to the coast of India and seen fishermen, poor, unlearned, uneducated. They probably 26:20 didn't even finish school. Peter was like that. And today people are studying theological getting theological degrees, studying the letters of Peter. And where Peter himself wouldn't have got a theological degree from his own 26:34 letter. It Christianity has gone in a wrong direction. It's meant for your heart, not your head. John, John was another fisherman. These are the people God used to write. And Paul was of course used by God, too, but I'm saying that's not the only I'm 26:50 not saying that intelligent people are not used, but they were not all intelligent, clever people who wrote the scriptures. So you go back to the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 14, you read about Melchisedec, and it's a very interesting 27:03 story because when it's related to the New Covenant, I want to know all about it. I hope you want to also. See, this is the story of Abraham who was living with Lot until Lot got a bit covetous and decided to separate from Abraham, 27:21 and Abraham, the gracious man that he was, he didn't tell Lot, "Listen, I was the one God chose, so I'm going to choose the best of the land. You can take what's left." He didn't say that. In Genesis 13, he said, in Genesis 13:8, 27:35 Abraham said to Lot, "Let there be no strife between you and me because, verse 8, we are brothers." Abraham was no brother. He was an uncle. He could have told Lot, "Hey, listen, you're my nephew. You're junior, man. And God never even called you here. I 27:51 was the one God called. You just tagged along. So I'm going to take the land, and you can take what's left." He didn't say that. What a man Abraham was. He says the whole land is before you. Please take what you want. If you go to 28:03 the left, I'll go to the right, verse 9. If I go to If you If you go to the right, I'll go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw the whole land of Sodom, rich, and grabbed it. There's a beautiful verse here. Lot, verse 11, Lot 28:21 chose for himself. God chose for Abraham. Which do you want? Lot chose for himself. And you read later on that God chose for Abraham because as soon as Lot separated, verse 14, the Lord said to 28:40 Abraham, "Okay, Abraham, I saw what you did. I saw the gracious way you behaved towards your nephew. Just stand on this mountain and look to the north and the south and the east and the west. I'm going to give you all of it 28:54 and to your descendants. Go to that land today, 4,000 years after God said that, and see who's living there. See where the descendants of Lot are. And see where the descendants of Abraham are. God keeps his word, 29:13 whether it's 2,000 years or 4,000 years, he keeps his word. It was only an earthly blessing. I'm not saying about any spiritual blessing. God never promised heaven to Abraham's children, never. He keeps his word. His promise was 29:24 entirely related to this earth. And a lot of Abraham's children have gone to hell because God never promised them heaven. It's the brothers of Jesus Christ who are in heaven. But the promise he gave to Abraham about the earthly blessing, he's kept it. 29:44 And that's just by the way. And so that's why I say Lot chose for himself, but God chose for Abraham and let God choose for you always, even in earthly things. Don't ever get into conflict in family disputes over the division of dad's 30:01 property or will. Let God choose for you. Don't fight for it. I'm telling you from my own experience and what I I preach what I practiced. I will not fight for anything earthly. I will not fight with flesh and blood. I remember years ago 30:19 the Lord telling me from Ephesians 6 and verse 12, we do not fight with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers, with the evil forces of wickedness in the second heavens. And the Lord said to me, "If you want to fight those 30:36 principalities and powers in your life and in your ministry, make a decision today that you'll never fight with human beings. Flesh and blood means human beings. Never fight with your wife again. Never concerning anything. 30:52 Never fight with your neighbors. Never even fight with other believers about earthly things. I will not fight with flesh and blood. Sometimes I have somebody from another church come to see me in my home to discuss some 31:08 uh doctrine which he doesn't agree with me on. And I say, "Sure, I'd be glad to explain it to you from scripture." But when I find after a little bit of discussion that he's getting a little hot under the collar and getting angry, 31:23 um and I see that he wants to win an argument more than understand the truth, I stop. I say, "Listen, let's talk about something you and I are agreed on. Let's talk about cricket. We are We are both We are both Indians. We love 31:40 cricket. And we want the Indian team to win, right? We are on the same page there." I say, "Let's leave this verse aside because this is going to the wrong direction." I refuse to fight even there. Let him imagine that I have no further 31:54 argument, that he's won the argument and he he proved that he's right. He can believe what he likes. I refuse to fight because I want to fight with principalities and powers. It's made a tremendous difference in my life. 32:09 To tell you honestly, I don't know whether you will take it like this. I want the devil to be scared of me. For years I was scared of the devil, I'll tell you that. But I said, "Lord, it's not going to be like that." because of one verse I read 32:22 many years ago in 1 John 4:17, which says, "As Jesus is, so are we in this world." And I said, "Lord, I want that as Jesus is, so am I in this world? Wow! The devil was scared of Jesus wherever he went. I can imagine when Jesus came to place 32:40 all the demons saying, "Hey, hey, hey, he's coming here. Be careful." I said, "Lord, I want the demons to say that about me when I go somewhere. Because of that verse, not because of who I am, because as Jesus is, 1 John 4, 32:55 so am I in the world." That's how I want to be. So, let God choose for you. Don't choose for yourself. But that's the history of this and what happened finally was the king of Sodom and all that place was was over overpowered by some enemies 33:15 came and defeated them and Lot was taken captive. And they it's Genesis 14:12, this is the background. Abraham's nephew and his possessions, they were all taken captive. And Abraham heard about it, verse 13. "Hey, your nephew and his family are all 33:32 taken captive." And he did not say, "The guy deserves it." No, he didn't say that. He was such a gracious man. You know, it says here that so many kings in the first two verses went and fought against the king of Sodom and 33:47 overpowered them. What chance did Abraham Abraham was not a general or something. He didn't have an army. But he was so concerned to rescue his nephew. If his nephew was not there, he wouldn't have gone after that after those kings. 34:04 But because his nephew was there, this fellow who cheated him, who took advantage of him, he goes after him and Abraham heard, verse 14, that his relative had been taken captive. He led out his trained men. He went with an army of 318 people, 34:18 verse 14. Can you imagine going fighting against three or four kings mentioned with 318? He had faith that God would help him. He said, "I don't want to overpower them. I just want to rescue Lot Lot and bring him back." And 34:30 it says here, he fought against these people and defeated them, verse 15, and he brought back all the goods along with his relative, verse 16, and his possessions, and also the women and the people. That's amazing. God must have 34:47 supernaturally helped him, something like the way God helped David to kill Goliath. This is something similar to that. I can't imagine otherwise how he with his few servants could have overpowered four kings and their armies. 34:59 And let You know, in those days if you defeated the enemy, all the goods of the enemy was yours. That was the loot you got from the war was your property. That was your reward for winning the battle. And that's why later on you read in 35:17 Genesis 14, the king of Sodom, verse 21, was so grateful to Abraham for rescuing him and bringing back all his goods. That must Sodom was a rich place and what a lot of goods Abraham brought back. He could have been the wealthiest person in 35:34 that area. So, the king of Sodom knew the rule. He who wins the battle, the goods are his. So, the king of Sodom said to Abraham, verse 21, "Take all the goods for yourself because you won the battle. Just let me take my people back to 35:48 Sodom." And listen what Abraham says. "I have sworn to the Lord God most high possessor of earth, I will not even take a thread or a sandal thong because one day you'll say you made Abraham rich. And I don't want you to get the credit 36:04 for that. My God will make me rich. I don't want any man to get any credit that because of what you did, I got blessed. No, thank you. Keep it. Take everything. Only what these young men of mine have eaten and the share of the men who met with 36:21 me. I'm not here to deprive these 318 of their share. Let them take what they want, but I'm a man of God. I will not touch even a shoelace of yours." Dear brothers and sisters, there's something you can learn from Abraham. 36:36 We call the father of faith. His attitude towards material things. Okay, now we come to Melchizedek. So, when Abraham came after verse 17, here's where I gave you this background so you can understand what I'm now going to show you. 36:52 He came after defeating these kings and the king of Sodom went to meet him. Then, verse 18, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. That means he brought food. That's what basically what it means. Now, he was a priest 37:11 of God most high. He wasn't a heathen priest. I don't know how it was. But you know, there are few people you read of in the Bible who had no connection with Abraham, like Job. Job, for example, had no connection with Abraham. 37:26 He lived about probably around the same time, but somewhere else or probably even 100 years before Abraham. And Job was a man who knew God. In fact, God said about him that there's nobody like him in the whole world. And obviously that must have been before 37:43 Abraham's time. Because if Abraham was living then, God would not have said there's nobody like Job in the whole world. Abraham would have been there, but this is before Abraham, years before Abraham was living. There was this man called 37:57 Job. In fact, Job is the first book of the Bible that was written. Because Moses wrote Genesis and Moses lived 500 years after Job. So, Job is really the first book of the Bible. So, if you want to know what God wanted to write for man in his 38:13 first book, go to the book of Job, not the book of Genesis. It's as if it were God saying, "Creation of the earth and all that That can wait another 500 years, but let me first write about a man. A man of God who feared me, 38:28 who turned away from evil. It didn't matter if he had a difficult wife. Job's wife was really difficult. And a man of God who will be attacked by Satan and who overcomes. A man of God who will be misunderstood by three or 38:41 four of the famous preachers of his time. Doesn't make a difference. That's what the book of Job is all about. But a man who fears me and turns away from evil. And a man who had 10 children and brought up all those children to fear 38:54 God, who prayed for them. Read the book of Job and see what was in the heart of God when he wrote the first book of the Bible for man. That's how I read the book of Job. I say, "Lord, this is the first book you wrote. And I see in the first two chapters what 39:08 your heart is. What you wanted man to know, the type of man you wanted. Okay. So, here we read about Melchizedek like that. He must have been another man like Job somewhere in Abraham's time. He was a priest of the most high God and 39:24 he was a king. Now, this is unique because in the history of Israel, nobody could be a king and a priest. You were either a king or a priest. Uh we read of a king called Uzziah who did a wonderful job as a king. God 39:43 blessed him so much and he ruled Israel wonderfully, but he got so proud. You read about that, I think in 2 Chronicles 26, where he became so proud of his being a king that he decided to be a priest one day. And immediately God struck him down with 40:01 leprosy saying, "You have no right to go outside the boundary I drew around you. You are to be a king. You're not to be a priest." Because the first king priest in Israel will be Jesus Christ. Nobody else. That was reserved. 40:18 And that's why the kings and priests were put separate lines in Israel. But here was a man who had no connection with Abraham who was a king and a priest. And in that sense, he was a picture of Christ. That's why you read about him in 40:35 Hebrews chapter 7. A picture of Christ. And also in Psalm 110, David writes a psalm. I Melchizedek never knew that David's going to write a psalm about him a thousand years later. And the writer of Hebrews is going to write 40:51 about him 2,000 years later. He lived 2,000 years before Christ. Now, what I want you to see here is Melchizedek came out with food for all these 320 people, Abraham's team. And he spoke two sentences to Abraham. 41:10 Only two sentences. "Blessed be Abraham, God of God most high." Verse 19. "Possessor of heaven and earth." "And blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand." And Abraham gave him a tenth of all. 41:25 That was not tithe, by the way. Abraham did not give his money from the loot that he got. He paid for the food that Melchizedek bought for 320 people. If someone brings food for 320 people of 41:43 your family and friends, Abraham is a type of man would say, "Well, I got to pay him." He was only paying him for what he did. And it was from the loot that he had collected. Okay. Now, what I want you to see here is the ministry of Melchizedek. 42:02 The ministry of the Levitical priests, we know, is old covenant. We don't want to concentrate on that. What was the ministry of Melchizedek? Jesus Christ is the high priest after the order of Melchizedek, and we are the junior 42:14 priests according to the order of Melchizedek. Even if you didn't know that, you know it today. What does it mean? The first thing I see here, I just want to point out a few points here. The first thing is here was a man 42:29 who was in touch with God. And one day, he heard God say, "I want you to make a whole lot of food for 3 400 people and go out in this direction. I want you to meet him, a servant of 42:48 mine who's there." He doesn't know what it is. He doesn't know who he is. He doesn't know anything about Abraham. But he heard God. Otherwise, how in the world did he land up there? These are the things you discover when 42:59 you dig into scripture. And he goes there with this food. He doesn't know he's going out in the desert where uninhabited areas. And then he finds this man with 318 servants of his. And God says to Melchizedek, "This is the man. Give him the food." 43:18 So, that's the first thing I see in the priesthood of Melchizedek. I must be in touch with God if he is to make me a blessing to others. You remember we started with the blessing of Abraham through the Holy Spirit, which is to bless you in your 43:35 personal life with love, joy, peace, long-suffering, and goodness, the character of Christ. And then to make you a blessing to others, God made Melchizedek a blessing to others because he listened to him. Lord, what do you want me to do? 43:50 Today, I want you to make food. Take it to these people. And a whole lot of food. And the other thing is, God told him, "I want you to tell him not a big sermon, just tell him these two sentences." The first sentence was "Blessed be 44:10 Abraham, God possessor of heaven and earth." Okay. Why did God tell Melchizedek to say that to Abraham? Because Abraham had all this loot that he got from winning this battle. Huge amount, much more than he had He 44:28 was already a rich man, but here was much more than he had ever seen in his life. And he could have been tempted like all human beings are tempted when when you have worked for something, it's See, those days loot from battle is 44:44 something like you working hard in a company and getting a bonus. If you worked hard in a company and it did well, and you got a few million dollars as bonus, would you take it or not? There's nothing wrong in taking it. You 44:57 deserve it. You worked for their company and they did well. So, Abraham went and fought this battle and they won the battle. The loot is yours. And Melchizedek came and gently reminded him, "Abraham, don't get taken up with all 45:10 the wealth. Your God is the possessor of heaven and earth." And suddenly Abraham's vision was lifted up from all that petty little loot, which was just like a few cents compared to the riches of heaven and earth. 45:30 That's what Melchizedek did. And this is our calling. To lift people's thoughts away from earthly loot that they have accumulated to the riches of heaven and earth. Your God is the possessor of heaven and earth. 45:48 Look to him and not to the king of Sodom to make you rich. That's why later on, when the king of Sodom said, "Take your goods," Abraham said, "No." How did he get that courage to say, "No, I won't take it"? The ministry of Melchizedek prepared him 46:06 for it. That's our calling. To prepare people, to free them from the things of earth so that they can look up to heaven. That's the first thing. Just one sentence. It wasn't a great sermon. You know, sometimes we think we got to 46:23 preach great sermons to change people's minds. One sentence liberated Abraham from covetousness. The next thing. The verse 20, another sentence. God told Melchizedek God He was a listener. Melchizedek was a listener. God told Melchizedek, "Go to Abraham 46:43 and tell him, 'Blessed be God who most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand.'" So, the second thing is, Abraham, remember, you didn't win this battle. It was not you and your 318 servants. They'd have been thrashed left, right, 47:01 and center by those four kings. God Almighty delivered these enemies into your hands. So, don't get puffed up. That was the second danger Abraham was facing there. The first was covetousness. The second was pride. Wow. 47:19 What a victory I won here. You find that sometimes when you have accomplished something for the Lord somewhere, and you begin to get puffed up. That's where the ministry of Melchizedek comes in. It is God who gave you the enemies into your hand. The 47:34 wonderful thing I see here about ministry is this. There are two ways Abraham I mean, Melchizedek could have said that to Abraham. One is, "Hey Abraham, don't keep looking at all this money. This is not important. Turn your eyes away from that." That's 47:51 not the way he said it. In fact, he didn't even give him an exhortation. It's wonderful when we can preach God's word in a way that you're not even exhorting people. You're just turning their eyes away to the things of heaven, 48:08 and they automatically get an exhortation. What did Melchizedek say? Abraham, what a wonderful God he is who's possessor of heaven and earth. That was enough. Is there any exhortation there? No. Not one word of "Turn your eyes away from this or you 48:25 shouldn't be interested in money." How great God is who's the possessor of heaven and earth. And Abraham got convicted. Even the second sentence was like this. Not, "Abraham, remember it was God who gave you this these victory." No. 48:39 There was no exhortation there. Praise the Lord who gave you your enemies into his hand. I tell you, I've learned a lot about that about preaching from Melchizedek. Not this direct approach. You know, sometimes we do that, and 48:55 sometimes preachers, they see somebody sitting there whom they don't like and they preach to him. Or somebody else, you want to give a message to that fellow, and you preach to him. That Melchizedek's ministry was not like 49:08 that. He was always lifting up God and thereby drawing people away from those earthly things. This is the finest and the best form of ministry. It's not the only form of ministry, but I believe it's a very important thing 49:23 where where your ministry is not telling people, "Don't do this and don't do that and don't do the other thing." There is a place for that. Jesus himself said that we must not lust after women and all that. So, there There place for 49:35 that. But what I'm saying is our calling is primarily to lift up Jesus. I remember reading a poem years ago of a preacher being like a person who shines a torch on a picture of Jesus that the hand that 49:54 held the torch was not even seen cuz people saw the picture. Or a person blowing a trumpet and nobody knew where the trumpet was coming from. They didn't know the trumpeter, but they heard the sound of the trumpet and prepared for war. 50:07 That's the best way to preach where you disappear and people attention is drawn to the Lord. That's what Melchizedek did. So, when we think of the priesthood of Melchizedek it is pointing away from himself to God. That's what Jesus did also. 50:22 You remember he told his disciples if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. And he says in John chapter 1 and verse 18 that Jesus has explained the Father. So, Jesus life on earth was pointing away from himself to the Father. 50:41 So, you want to you don't want to know what God is like? That's what I That's what I'm like. And that's you see that particularly in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's called a helper. And the Holy Spirit 50:54 Jesus said he never speaks about himself. He says he will show you things concerning me. The Holy Spirit points to Jesus. And so, if you are filled with the Holy Spirit 51:13 you won't be talking about the Holy Spirit. You'll be talking about Jesus. Because the Holy Spirit points to Jesus. So, how will we talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit? You'll point to Jesus as the perfect example of the 51:27 spirit-filled person. You need to be anointed like Jesus was when he was baptized. And there is an example of those perfect spirit-filled The Holy Spirit shows us Jesus all the time. So, that's what I see here in the priesthood of Melchizedek. 51:42 Not giving direct exhortation so much as God possesses heaven and earth. Praise the Lord. God's able to deliver all enemies oh into your hand. Praise the Lord. And he goes away. So, what did Melchizedek do? 52:01 He brought all that physical provision. See, I believe that's also important. God's not only interested in our spiritual need. He's interested in our physical need also. Jesus taught his disciples to give to the poor. Paul and Peter were burdened to help the 52:20 poor saints. And true Christianity is always interested in helping the poor. Of course, we have to be very wise in this, particularly in a country like India where when they hear that this is a very generous church, a lot of poor people 52:34 come in who want money. And the great danger of that is that you won't build disciples. You'll build a lot of people who are just trying to live off you. So, we made a rule in our church that we never help any poor person in 52:51 our church until he's been with us for at least 2 years and proved that he came to be a disciple and not to feed off the generosity of brothers in the church. And that's protected us from the wrong people coming and joining us, 53:04 cuz then it won't be a church. It'll be a just a social service center and we don't want to build social service centers. There are a lot of other people doing that. We're building the church of Jesus Christ where people are devoted to Christ who 53:16 come to us because they want to be disciples. So, but that is part of the ministry of Melchizedek provide for the physical need of people. And that is a blessing. I mean, when we go down to the villages in India where we plant churches, my 53:33 wife who's a doctor ministers to hundreds of women and children there with a free medical clinic. That's part of our ministry. We have to care for the poor. So, caring for people's physical need is also part and that's what Melchizedek 53:46 did. And the wonderful thing is he just comes, does it and then disappears. You never hear about Melchizedek again in the rest of the Bible. He never appears again. He's there for a few verses in Genesis 54:02 14, 18, 19, 20. Three verses. That's it. Never again in the Bible. That's another part of the ministry of Melchizedek. To minister to people and disappear. Disappear in the sense that you don't want them to be attached to you. 54:21 You have done your job. And they want to They must be drawn to Christ. If you want to be a servant of the Lord, dear brother sister make this your ministry, the ministry of Melchizedek to bless people and disappear. To bless them and disappear. 54:41 And he took took care of their material needs. You know, Jesus taught us in the prayer, give us this day our daily bread. Perfectly right prayer to pray. And if you see the order, it comes even before forgive us our sins. 54:54 So, there's nothing wrong in asking for material things from God. But it's not give me but give us. So, it's not just my material need but Lord, there are others around me in the church who need as well. Give us this day our daily bread, me and my 55:10 brothers and sisters. So, that's what the priesthood of Melchizedek is. Seeing the need not because I know about it, prompted by God and seeing the need and providing it and then disappearing. I don't want any credit or honor. I 55:25 don't want my name to be written there. A lot of people when they donate something they write on it. I remember I was in a church somewhere where it was written on the fan, donated by so-and-so. It went round and round and round so that 55:36 everybody could see, donated by so-and-so, donated by so-and-so for years. And that's ridiculous. That's not the priesthood of Melchizedek. You You do something and you don't even want your name to be attached to it. Unknown, unseen, unheard. 55:49 And also in preaching to bless people and disappear. That's what I see the priesthood of Melchizedek. Wonderful. And I see that also in Jesus, how he would heal a sick person and tell him don't tell anybody 56:08 that I healed you. Again and again and again and again. And that is why I say today's healing evangelists are not at all like Jesus Christ. They don't even heal a person properly and they make him stand in front of the microphone on the platform and say, now 56:23 tell people what you did what happened to you. And he says, well, I couldn't walk properly. Now I can walk a little better. That's not the type of healing Jesus did. And they want to advertise that. Jesus would say, no, no, don't tell 56:36 anyone because this is not what I came for. I didn't come here to heal the sick. I've come here to save people from sin. So, I see that this is the ministry of Melchizedek where you do something and you disappear. You don't want him Jesus would go away 56:49 after healing people. It's amazing and I tell you it's very rare, very rare to find a preacher or a healer or any type of evangelist today who is in the order of Melchizedek who does not want to be known who does not want to promote himself 57:07 who does the job and doesn't hang around to get the appreciation of everyone. He doesn't want publicize himself. No. If you want the new covenant ministry make Melchizedek your example. Meditate on it. There's diamonds and 57:25 golds here. Diamond and gold here. If you dig into this passage and you can get more out of it than from what I've showed showed you. But remember this is brought up in the New Testament to show this is different from the old 57:39 covenant priesthood. It's a wonderful ministry, new covenant ministry. The blessing of Abraham, I will bless you and you will be a blessing. One last verse. Many of us have made a mess of our life. We have not done ministry like the 57:58 priesthood of Melchizedek so far. And we are probably discouraged. The word of God challenges and encourages us. So, every ministry of ours must be challenge and encouragement. True prophecy is exhorting 58:17 and consoling, encouraging. So, here is a verse. We'll close with this. Zechariah chapter 8. Zechariah chapter 8. A lot of prophecies in Zechariah refer to the new covenant. Particularly the latter chapters. And 58:36 even chapter 2, chapter 4. Zechariah chapter 8 verse 13. The Lord says, and take it as a promise for yourself. It will come about that just as in the past you were a curse among the people I will so save you 58:55 that you will become a blessing. You will become a blessing. You were not in the past not only you were not a blessing, but you were a bit of a nuisance and a problem to people in the past. Don't get discouraged. 59:15 Turn to me. You cannot make yourself a blessing, but I will make you a blessing. So, don't be afraid. Verse 13. Let your hands be strong. Be encouraged. All of you. Anybody discouraged here? Because of past failure? Take that word to your heart. I took it 59:32 to my heart long ago. I wasn't a perfect Christian from the day I was converted. I made a lot of mistakes. Lots and lots of them. If I tell you all of them, you'll get encouraged, but I'm not going to tell you. Because they're all blotted out in the 59:49 blood of Jesus Christ, and I don't want to think about them. But I'll tell you this, I made a lot of blunders. And you don't have to sin to do foolish things. A lot of foolish things in our ministry. But God says, "I will make you a blessing. 1:00:06 It doesn't matter." Don't think about those things. As you were a curse in the past, I'll make you a blessing. Take that to yourself. And say, "Lord, I want that in my life from today. I want the blessing of Abraham." Fullness of the Holy Spirit. Bless me 1:00:21 first, and make me a blessing to all whom I meet in some way, small or big. The priesthood of Melchizedek. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that these things will never 1:00:38 remain just as theory, but will become real in our daily lives. For that is your will for us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
