All glory to God

By Everett Henes

The Apostle Paul writes, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Paul saw the Christian life as including spiritual battles. Not only do we battle spiritual forces, but we fight our pride, we fight our selfishness, and we fight our tempers – everything that would naturally occur to us to do from our sin nature.

The Apostle Peter urges his readers to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against their souls. We are all aware of this battle as we fight to live lives that are pleasing and acceptable before God. There can be no greater discouragement to your faith than to fall back into the sin. But as you do so, you find yourself returning to the grace of God. He alone makes us acceptable. What about when you win a battle with sin? What about when you overcome temptation? You are not driven to God in despair, seeking his grace. Too often we can find ourselves turning to God and boasting of our success – “look what I’ve done, God; don’t you love me more now?” That is, if we turn to God at all in our success. Too often we move on, not even realizing the source of our victory.

This sort of back and forth between turning to God and relying on self is not something new to the faith. The Old Testament saints dealt with the same temptations. To do so they would need to fight many battles. There were numerous inhabitants in the Land, and it was their duty to one-by-one subject them to God’s judgment for sin. There would be times when they experienced great victory. Jericho, one of the greatest cities, was one such victory. There would also be times of defeat. One notable defeat was against one of the lowliest cities, Ai.

In their defeats, they were forced to turn to God but what of their victories? They were to recognize that God had brought them the victory and so they were to offer to the Lord what they had gained. It was too easy in those victories to forget God, to consider that one’s actions had been the sole source of success. Abraham’s history was instructive to Israel even as it is instructive to us. When faced with success that seems like it ought to have been failure the only proper response is to glorify God. We must fight the battles before us, yes, but the glory must go the Lord.

This is put forward clearly in Genesis 14 and Abraham’s victories. What stands out is his humility. The chapter recounts Abraham’s fight with five kings and the rescue of his nephew, Lot. Abraham won a great victory. We can imagine that there were many pats on the back, congratulating him on routing such a great collection of armies with only 318 men. Abraham does not gloat, and he certainly does not seek to gather wealth for himself through this battle. He humbles himself before God.

We see Abraham’s humility in how he interacts with the two kings that come out to meet him. First, we are told that the king of Sodom came out to meet him. Abraham was not commissioned by this king but certainly his victory was beneficial to him. He approaches Abraham, allowing him to keep all the wealth that he had recovered. Essentially, what is happening is that the king of Sodom is swearing allegiance to Abraham. Abraham wants no part of this deal; he will not make a covenant with this king. He has covenanted with the God of heaven and will not be tempted to depart from that covenant by taking a wicked king under his protection.

The next king – Melchizedek – is an enigmatic figure mentioned three times in the Bible (Genesis 14; Psalm 110; and Hebrews 7). He was a priest of God and worshiped the Lord faithfully. Abraham’s humility before him, paying him a tenth of all he had, is instructive. The New Testament will use Melchizedek to remind us that Christ has a greater priesthood than any earthly priest could! He is the priest and sacrifice, and, in his death and resurrection, he defeats our enemies. We must fight, yes, but the victory is not because of us, and this is why we give our God all the glory.

Pastor Everett Henes, the pastor of the Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, can be reached at pastorhenes@gmail.com.