Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 589
Delivered on Lord’s Day Morning, September 11, 1864, by C. H. Spurgeon
“And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the Most High God. And he blessed him and said, Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, possessor of Heaven and earth: and blessed be the Most High God, which has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he ga ve him tithes of all.” Genesis 14:18-20.
What a splendid type is Abram, in the narrative before us, of our Lord Jesus Christ! Let us read this story of Abram in connection with our Savior and see how full of meaning it is. Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the abundance of His love, had taken us to be His brothers. But we, through our sin, had gone into the land of Sodom and Jesus Christ dwelt alone in His safety and His happiness, enjoying the Presence of God. The hosts of our enemies, with terrible force and cruel fury, carried us away captives. We were violently borne away, with all the goods which we possessed, into a land of forgetful-ness and captivity forever.
Christ, who had lost nothing by this, nevertheless being a “brother born for adversity,” pursued our haughty foes. He overtook them. He struck them with His mighty hand—He took their spoil and returned with crimsoned vesture, leading captivity captive. He restored that which He took not away. I think, as I see Abram returning from the slaughter of the four kings, I see in him a picture of a greater than Abram, returning “from Edom, with dyed garments from Boz-rah, traveling in the greatness of His strength” who answers to my inquiry of who is he? “I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.” Abram was that righteous man raised in the East, to whom God gave his enemies as driven stubble to his bow.
And so the Lord Jesus has driven our enemies like chaff over to the wind, for they fled at the Presence of Jehovah Jesus, and by the valor of the atoning Lamb they have been utterly broken in pieces forever. Let that thought dwell with you—it may furnish you with matter for meditation at your leisure. We shall this morning rather consider Abram as the type and picture of all the faithful. He was the father of the faithful. And in his history you have condensed—as I think— history of all faithful men. You will scarcely find a trial which will befall you which has not in some respect happened to Abraham.
I will not say that he was tempted in all points like as we are, but he was tempted in so many points that he well deserves to be called the father of the faithful—being partaker of flesh and blood even as all the children are who belong to his faithful family. Observe then, in handling our subject in this manner, that Believers are frequently engaged in warfare. Notice, secondly, that when they are thus engaged they may expect to be met by their Lord, the great Melchizedek! And remember, thirdly, that when they are favored with an interview with Him and are refreshed by Him as with bread and wine, then, like Abram, they consecrate themselves anew and as Abram gave tithes of all, even so do they.
I. We mention, then, what you must all know right well by experience—you who are God’s people—that the Believer is often engaged in warfare. This warfare will be both within and without—within with the innumerable natural corruptions which remain—with the temptations of Satan, with the suggestions of his own wicked heart. And without he will frequently be engaged in warfare, wrestling “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
The peculiar case of Abram leads me to remark that sometimes the Believer will be engaged in warfare, not so much on his own account as on the account of erring Brethren who, having gone into ill company, are by-and-by carried away captive. It was no quarrel of Abram’s—it was Lot’s matter. Lot had gone to Sodom. Instead of standing in the separated path of the true Believer he had joined himself to the world. And when evil days came Lot was carried away captive with the rest.
Abram cared little enough for the king of Sodom—I do not suppose he would have taken his sword from the sheath for all the men who dwelt in Admah or Zeboim. But for Lot’s sake, seeing him in ill company and in danger, he draws the sword. And sometimes, Brethren, when we see those who are God’s servants putting themselves into alliance with evil systems, we find them carried away captive and taken where we believe their hearts would never go. And so we feel compelled to come out and draw the sword against the common enemy of Christ and of all His people. And though they may heartily wish that we would let them alone in their sin and let them be quiet in their evil union, we see into what spiritual capacity it leads them and we cannot be silent. We must draw the sword when conscience and when God demand it and never sheath it until God’s work is done.