KING OF KINGS

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, ‘You are not to go back that way again.’ He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.”

“When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.”

Deuteronomy 17:14-20

This ends our reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

As we continue our study of Deuteronomy, we know that the Israelites are set to enter Canaan but aren’t under the rule of any king but this didn’t mean that they wouldn’t have one in the future. Of course, God knows holds the future in His hands and so He knew well in advance that His people would co-exist among other nations who were led by kings so it would only be a matter of time before they would want to follow suit. Given this, we see Him providing guidance on the matter well before it happened in our passage for today from chapter 17. Look again at those words here:

“When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you the king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, ‘You are not to go back that way again.’ He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.”

“When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.” Vv. 14-20

Here, we see the Lord placing certain requirements on the future kings of Israel:

First, the king was to be an Israelite. No foreigner was to rule Israel.

“He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite.”

Secondly, the king was also supposed to remain modest in the things he possessed. He was to “not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them”. They were to “not take many wives” which would lead to the king’s “heart (being) led astray”. He also wasn’t supposed to “accumulate large amounts of silver and gold”.

Why?

Because the Lord said so, that’s why. Any king needed to know that although they were in a position of authority in Israel, they always answered to a higher power.

This truth leads into the third and final requirement for we read that the king was commanded to “write for himself on a scroll a copy of (the) law, taken from that of the priests, who are Levites”. The kings were to do this when they took the throne of the kingdom and were to keep the scroll with them, reading it “all the days of his life so that” they would “learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and…decrees”. This would result in the king not considering “himself better than his brothers” and keep him from turning “from the law to the right or to the left”.

There was no question that the king would hold the highest position of power over the people of Israel however, the human king’s power paled in comparison to his master, the Lord God Almighty, the King of Kings. It was He and He alone who set the standards by which all other kings would rule by and did it because He expected them to rule as He wanted them to rule, with justice and fairness with humility.

My friends, what an awesome assurance this offers us today as we find ourselves under human, worldly rule. For despite who is elected, believers know and understand who is truly in charge, the infinitely omnipotent Creator God, the One that Paul says is the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Despite what happens in government, we can always find comfort in knowing the One who holds the government on His shoulders (Isaiah 9: 6) and is ultimately in control, no matter who the world puts in charge.

In closing, my prayer is that we all can testify the following as Timothy did about God:

“…the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To Him be honor and might forever.” 1 Timothy 6:15

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.