Commandments Fit For A King

Introduction

Well, good evening. We’ve got a really good crowd here tonight for a Sunday evening. Still have a full house, and we’re happy for your presence. And I ask you to be turning your Bibles, if you would, to Deuteronomy chapter 17. We’ll be studying from there. First few moments this evening. Deuteronomy chapter 17. Apologize for missing my last slide a couple weeks ago. I was sick and just did not feel that I could go, or even if I felt like I could go, would not be sufficiently prepared and didn’t want to give anything less than everything at that point. So I appreciate you being patient with me on that one. but I’m happy to get up here. It’s been a little while, so I’m good to be back and speaking for you this evening.

In Deuteronomy chapter 17, we find six commandments that are given to the kings of Israel 400 years before there ever was such a thing. See, God knew that the people would want to set a king up over themselves. And so before that ever happened, he gave instructions to the people on what that king should look like and things that he should do. And when you look at that, you think these are these are commandments of being given directly from God. These are things that he saw fit that a king for a king to do. These are commandments fit for a king. And we use that phrase, fit for a king. You know, it’s something that we use a lot. when we’re talking about something that is the greatest, the highest, the best.

But we that seems a little strange, you know, to be something it’s it’s a commandment for a king. The king’s supposed to be the one giving commandments, right? He’s supposed to be, you know, above the law. If he doesn’t like something, he just changes it. Just makes his own new commandment. And yet, no king is above God. He is the ultimate king.

And I think chances are that none of us ever really think about rules or laws as being great things. You know, we how many of us have ever have a rule or log and say, Man, that what a great law. I’m so excited to follow that and be in subjection to that. You know, I’d much rather do that and just do whatever I want to do. That’s not our human nature.

But God reserved these six rules to bind the eventual kings of Israel. If these laws were the greatest of rules for the greatest of kings, then I would say they probably serve as a pretty good guide for the rest of us, for Christians today, for people just like you and me, who want to live their lives in the best and greatest and highest way possible before God. Here in Deuteronomy 17, we find Moses giving the law a second time to the people just before they enter into the promised land. So I’d like you to read with me, if you would, Deuteronomy chapter 17, beginning in verse 14. He says, When you come to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it, and then say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me.

Now there’s a problem right there. If we’re trying to be like everybody else around us and not like God’s people, that’s a problem in and of itself in a sermon in and of itself, but we won’t go there for our purposes this evening. He says in verse 15, you may indeed set a king over you, whom the Lord your God will choose. One from among your brothers, he shall set as king over you. You may not put a foreigner over you who is not your brother, only he must not acquire many horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses. Since the Lord has said to you shall never return that way again. And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, let his heart turn away, nor he require for himself excessive silver and gold.

And when he sits on his throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests, and it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, by keeping all the words of this law in these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children in Israel. God knew and told them four hundred years before it would happen that they would want a king to be like the nations around them.

And when this finally came to pass in 1 Samuel chapter 8, if he turned with me over there briefly, 1 Samuel chapter 8. Beginning in verse 4. And all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, Behold, you are old, and now your sons do not walk in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations. God knew exactly what they were going to want, exactly what they were going to say at that time, and why they were going to do it. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And so he prayed to the Lord, and the Lord said, Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

And skip on down to verse 10. Samuel tries to warn the people. He told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king. He said, These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. Now, what was it that the king was not supposed to do? He was not supposed to gather horses and chariots for himself. And yet, Samuel warns that’s exactly what he’s going to do. And he goes on to say how he’s going to take all the things from the people, their sons and their daughters and their servants and their lands and their produce.

And that they would be his slaves. And yet their voices prevail. In verse 19, they say, No, but there shall be a king over us, that we may also be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. They didn’t want God to be their king anymore. They didn’t want God to fight their battles for them. They wanted someone they could look at, someone that they could see, someone who had that presence. They wanted a man.

But he has to be a king, a man, with a relationship both with the people and with me. He cannot be some foreigner. He has to be someone who intimately knows God. And why? Because as we look throughout the history of Israel, it was obvious that as went the king, the character of the king, so went the people. They followed him. They followed his example, his leadership.

When a king maintained a trust in God and served him righteously, not only did he prosper, but Israel would prosper. They would be successful in battle. They would be fruitful and multiply and live. But if a king did not serve God, they would lose their battles. They would lose their lands and their goods and their women and children to perish and they would lose their souls. The whole faith of a nation depended on the faith of the king. So God gives him six instructions. These are six things, six commandments fit for a king, brethren. If they were good enough to keep David and Solomon right with God.

1. He Shall Not Multiply Horses For Himself

The first three of these commandments are prohibitive. In other words, these are things that the king was not to do. He was prohibited from doing them. And the first thing it says is that he shall not multiply horses for himself. And we may look at that and say, okay, well, that’s easy enough. You don’t get horses. Big deal. But what is the underlying point? The point is, if he was gathering up horses, that means he’s building up his army. He is trusting in his own physical power and prowess and numbers to be victorious in battle, to lead the people. And it says there, I want us to look at this key phrase that isn’t all of these prohibitive commands. It says there, he shall not do this for himself.

They’re in verse 16. He must not acquire many horses for himself. Or cause the people to return in Egypt in order to acquire many horses. The point is that he should not be about building up his own forces. He’s supposed to be, in other words, like Gideon. I mean, that’s what I’m reminded of ultimately. When you think about having this massive army with horsemen and chariots, being able to just run over anyone, it’s very much the opposite of Gideon and his 300. Where Gideon had to trust in God. And he whittled down and whittled down the number of men until there was no doubt that the reason they won that battle was God. Period. End of story. When the king went out and built up his army in this way.

Garnering horses and chariots in a standing army of his own design. He did not show a reliance upon God for the fighting of the nation’s battles. And yet, that is exactly what Solomon does in 1 Kings chapter 4 and verse 26. He goes down to Egypt and acquires horses. The very place that he was told not to go to. And we’ll look more at that momentarily. Both 1 Kings chapter 4 and 1 Kings chapter 10 and 11. He was not to align himself or cause the people to return to Egypt. The very place from which they had left. They were told that you’re not going to go back there. He left. You don’t need them anymore. You don’t need to rely on earthly alliances for protection.

You rely on the Lord for your protection. But they had already rejected God as their king in their hearts. And so now God is at least trying to make sure that the king would accept God as his ultimate leader. Don’t multiply these horses for yourself. Don’t build your own army. Trust in me to fight your battles. God is saying. I took you out of the land of Egypt. I protected you. I will build your army. I will protect you when you need it. I will keep you as my own people. Don’t depend on yourself or other nations for your survival, but on me. Let me provide for you. And that thought of letting God provide for them continues on throughout the next two prohibitive commandments when he says he should not multiply wives for himself.

2. He Shall Not Multiply Wives For Himself

And again, there’s a basic overlying principle that has a greater underlying principle. It says there in verse 17, he shall not acquire many wives for himself. Why? Lest his heart be turned away. The king was supposed to be one who was fully devoted to the Lord. And when he would ultimately go out after all these multiple wives, and not just multiple wives, but of multiple countries. Foreign women. Of which God had said they must not intermarry with. It shows a distrust in God’s plan. And again, this is exactly what happened to Saul and as we’ll see in a moment.

Multiple wives was a choice. It was not God’s plan from the beginning. And when men chose to fulfill their desires outside of God’s plan, things rarely went well. May I submit Rachel and Leah. May I submit David and Bathsheba. And again, the idea is this do not do this thing for yourself. You are seeking out your own pleasure. Let me provide for you. Let me give you happiness. Let me fulfill you. God is saying, let me give you a wife to serve you from among the people. Don’t go around my plan to fulfill your desires. And we as Christians need to take this in heart and say, how am I trying to fulfill my own desires? Don’t go around God’s plan by going after that which will turn our hearts away from Him.

3. He Shall Not Increase Silver Or Gold

We need to not seek pleasure for ourselves and by our own choices, but accept the pleasures and blessings that God chooses for us. And that’s not just we’re talking about wives, husbands, spouses. But any distraction, any idol that we place before ourselves that draws us away from him and distract us from our focus upon him. And thirdly, he says, he shall not increase silver or gold for himself. And again, this idea of being continued that we not need to rely on ourselves or on earthly wisdom or earthly riches, but on God. Yes, the kings of Israel would be rich. Solomon was rich beyond any of our wildest imaginations because he was blessed by God. And yet he turned towards the end of his life because of those foreign wives to trying to garner more of these things for himself.

The point is don’t make your life about garnering more riches for yourself. When it becomes about us and then money. When the choice is presented between God and mammon, we cannot serve both. The key idea here is that we must trust God. We must let him pave our pathway. We cannot clear our own.

How serious was God about this commandment? Why do we doubt his eternal wisdom? When we look over in 1 Kings chapter 10 and the story of Solomon. 1 Kings chapter 10 and 11, beginning in verse 24 of chapter 10. We read there that Solomon gathered together chariots and horsemen. He had 1400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen whom he stationed in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. Of all these commandments, we’re going to read here that Solomon directly disobeyed all three of them. He garnered horses from Egypt in chapter 10 and verse 26 and verse 28. And says, Solomon’s import of horses was from Egypt, and Q and the king’s traders received them at a price. Number two, he went after foreign women. Chapter 11.

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh. Again, he’s going directly to Egypt, the place where he was told not to go. Not only for his horses, but for his wives. Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonium, and Hittite women from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, you shall not enter into marriage with them. And neither shall they with you. For surely what? They will turn away your heart after their gods. When we pursue that which is not of his plan, it will ultimately turn away our hearts. Solomon clung to these in love, it says. He had 700 wives, princesses, 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David, his father.

He went after foreign women. And third, he increased silver and gold for himself. Back in chapter 10 and verse 27, it says that the king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stone. We just can’t even imagine. It’s just everywhere. It’s basically worthless. It’s like picking up a rock off the ground. That’s how plentiful it was.

God had provided for him, but something changed in his heart. He allowed all these material things to distract him from that which should have been his first love. We need to apply these principles in our lives, brethren. If they were important enough to keep David right with God and powerful enough to lead to the fall of Solomon, Israel’s most powerful king. They’re important for us. And so what is the application of these three lessons? One, let God build your defenses. How do we make it day by day? Is it myself or is it God? Let God build our defenses through his word, through his people, through worship of him and through prayer. Number two, don’t go around his plan for anything else. Let God fulfill the desires of the heart, not just.

Again, in the area of spouses. But anything, any idol that we might put before ourselves that draws us away from serving God. When we abandon what is pure and good and of God’s design for ourselves, when we try and throw away these laws, these commandments that God has set before us, we hurt ourselves and we hurt others. Don’t worship idols, don’t worship the idol of self-gratification. And thirdly, let God fill your cup with blessings in his way and in his time. Yes, we need to work hard. We need maybe we’ll get a raise. Maybe we’ll get a new job, a better job. And he wants us to do that. But he wants us to trust in him more. Don’t forsake him in order to get things our own way.

If we trust him, we will not lack. And that is hard. It’s hard to trust. I know. We all have our own difficulties. It’s hard for me. I’m preaching, I am preaching this lesson to myself. Because when things aren’t going well, when you don’t know how you’re going to pay the bills, when you don’t know how you’re going to provide for your family, you look at it and you’re saying, how.

4. He Shall Write For Himself A Copy Of The Law

In his way, in his time. Secondly. He gives three more commands that are imperative. These are things that this king had to do. You know, I look at this and we see our Christian lives in this so well. You know, we start our spiritual journey and we try, we’re trying just to put away those old things, those old ways, the ways of sin, and we try and put those things away and just not do the things that we’re not supposed to do, that we used to do. And then we turn and we start pursuing that which we ought to do. The good, the things that God calls us to do, the Christ-like ways of compassion, love, and service. And so, how do we start that? Where do we begin?

If we want to know how do I begin that pursuit, this is where we need to look, brethren. When God tells the kings of Israel how they ought to pursue that. We can apply that to ourselves. He says, there one, he ought to write for himself a copy of the law in verse 18. Now that would have been quite an undertaking.

Now I realize, you know, he’s probably just talking about the Torah, the first five books.

And when it says there, when he sits on his throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book, a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. Again, it gives you this imagery if he is sitting on his throne. You get this image of this king, and he’s up and he’s above the people in this way. He’s in this position of power, and yet he is told that he needs to personally go and write for himself. Again, the other things he was doing against God’s will for himself, not trusting Adam, but this is something he used to do on his own because it’s his responsibility to follow God. He was to write for himself a copy of the law. Can you imagine?

I mean, you think of a king and he’s just sitting there, and you know, other places it talks about Solomon, all the provisions that he had every day. And just this excess. And you think of him sitting there, and somebody and just imagine the scenes. One of the priests or the Levites comes up to him and says, Okay, King, now you’ve been given this command back in Deuteronomy that you’re to write a copy of a law for yourself. And you just, I’m the king. Well, fetch a servant to do it for me.

No. That wasn’t it. You don’t skimp on it, you don’t pass it off on somebody else. It’s your responsibility. You write it down because you need to learn it. You need to know it. You had need to have an intimate relationship with it. Even though he had this power, he was to do it for himself, and it was to be approved by the Levitical priests. It was he was supposed to pay attention to detail. It wasn’t supposed to just be like the message. Anybody ever picked up a copy of that Bible, the message and read? It’s just a paraphrase. I mean, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are like a paragraph. It couldn’t be that. It was the whole thing. Word for word, punctuation correct, and all.

Brethren, our personal Bibles are an important tool. They’re an important part of who we are. Imagine if we had to write it ourselves. Now, I’m not saying that you have to go and do that. Certainly wouldn’t be a bad idea. It would be a worthwhile pursuit. But at the very least, we need to have our own copy of God’s word that is ours, that is a part of us. That has our own markings, our own thoughts. It’s the version that we that we like to read that we understand that we’re comfortable with. That shows the wear and tear of many years of use.

5. Read It All The Days Of His Life

That’s how important it is. Because he goes on to say in verse 19 that he was to read it all the days of his life. It says verse 19, it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life. Why? That he may learn to fear the Lord his God. How do we come to know God? How do we come to fear God and obey God? By reading his word. By reading it all the days of our lives.

On some bookshelf. And read it every once in a while and pick it up and knock the dust off. It was his responsibility. It was his copy. He was to read it. He was to open it every day of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord. We need to open up our personal copies. We need to read it. We need to learn it. We need to live it. So that we might carefully observe all the words of the law. It says there at the end of verse 13. Carefully observing all the words of this law. When we know it. As a natural outgrowth of our fellowship with God’s word, the fellowship with truth and the familiarity with the truth. We then follow the truth.

It makes it that much easier. And we act like it’s hard to do. And as Tony was saying this morning, it’s not that hard to just do what he says. But it’s a whole lot harder if we don’t have that relationship with his word. If we don’t even know what we’re supposed to do. But if we have an intimate relationship with it comes naturally. And yet most of the kings of Israel failed to follow, not just one or two or all. They failed to follow all of these commands. I’m reminded of 2 Kings chapter 22 and verse 8 and following. Where Josiah is reigning and he’s trying to do right. He’s trying to reform. And someone finds a book of the law. Let’s go ahead and turn over there.

2 Kings chapter 22.

Hilkiah, the high priest said to Shaphan, the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. I mean, I just imagine this here. They hadn’t seen it in years. They didn’t even know where it was. No one had even been in there. It was in disuse, disrepair. And they find it. And it’s euphoria. I found the book of the Lord. And they show that. They read it before the king. And in verse 11, when the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. Why? Because it had been so long since they had heard it. They didn’t even know what it said. And he realized the error and how far they had gone. They hadn’t just failed to fulfill these commandments.

They didn’t even know what God’s word said. They hadn’t even seen it. The only king that I would say really was fulfilling as closely as possible to God. What God wanted was David. And we look in Psalm chapter 1, verses 2 and 3. And throughout all the Psalms, we see that David delighted in the law of the Lord. He meditated on it day and night. He understood its importance. We need to have our own copy of God’s word. We need to bring it with us wherever we go. We need to bring it with us to worship. And it needs to be not just, it doesn’t need to just sit there on the end of the pew and we find it in our spot when we get back.

And not just one that’s maybe even not just grabbing one of many, but again, having one that is part of us. It is ours. This is mine. It’s easier. And we can build a relationship with it. To build a relationship with God. To read it. To study it. And to live for him.

6. That His Heart May Not Be Lifted Up

God ultimately says in verse, back in Deuteronomy 17 and verse 20, what was the point of all of this? Why should these kings follow these rules? Why should we? It says there in verse 20, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brethren. This was to be a lesson in humility. That he was not above the law. That he couldn’t just change it at every wind, that this was God’s purpose for him and for the people. He was not to elevate himself above the people that he loved and served, and especially not above God. I’m reminded of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 4. When he looks out upon Babylon and says, It’s not this city, Babylon that I’ve made with my own mighty work, my own mighty power.

Is it not so great? And immediately the word of the Lord comes to him that the kingdom is taken away from him. He had looked at the things that he thought he had built and lost his humility. And when we’re successful on our own, it’s tempting, yes? To think that it’s not what I have done, what I have built so great, that I have done by my own power. And yet in James chapter 4 and verse 6. God says that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. We need to be about the business of trusting in God and giving ourselves over to his will. Secondly, why follow them that we might have a focus on our direction? It says there that his heart may not be lifted above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left.

He was to have eccentricity of mind and of purpose. Yes, that is a word. I looked it up. We’re to have a focus on the commandments of God. Walking the narrow way, not turning to the right or the left, realizing that life is found in his words and departure from them is deadly. In order to do that, a daily focus is required, walking a daily walk, focused on the goal, which is heaven. Focus is a fellowship with his word that helps us to hear and obey, knowing that his way is best. And finally, it says there, so that he may continue long in his kingdom. He and his children in Israel.

Conclusion

We need to follow these commands fit for a king. It’s the only way.

Just one generation later. It takes just one generation of failure to follow these commands for us to fall away from him. Why do we follow them? Why should we do this? So that we can make it to heaven. If we don’t trust in him, we’re not going to get there. We need to accept God as our king and the leader of our life. The Israelites, they didn’t do that. They rejected him. They said, we don’t want him as our king. We don’t want him fighting our battles for us. We want to fight them ourselves. We want a man to lead us. They rejected his leadership. We cannot fall into that same trap. The kings they were given were supposed to rely on one. We’re supposed to be one with his word.

They failed. And ultimately they were all destroyed, led away into captivity. And lost. They wandered as a people.

And we can look and see what happened to them. And yet why then is it so hard for us not to learn from their example? It’s so hard.

Trust and obey and have eternal life. Even these kings were subject to God and His rule. Will you subject yourself to Him tonight? Do you want to live like a king of Israel?

This is what they did. It’s what they were supposed to do. We can do that. Make that decision today. To make a resolution to trust in Him implicitly and completely. And to obey His words. If you’re not a Christian, you’ve not been baptized in the watery grave of baptism for the forgiveness of your sins. Make it your purpose to submit to Him and do that tonight. Or if you need the prayers of the congregation for any reason, to repent of some sin in your life, or just prayers of encouragement, we can do that for you tonight.