King James Version, with Nii Okai's journal notes · 3 notes
Read Deuteronomy 17 in the app
1Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God.
2If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant,
3And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;
4And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel:
5Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
This was not to be in the coming years, as the people drifted into apostasy and on a national scale worshipped 🛐 other gods.
6At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.
7The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.
8If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the LORD thy God shall choose;
9And thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment:
10And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the LORD shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee:
Here the final judgement is settled by divine direction.
But that was not to be the norm, but rather the extreme exception.
It seems, all through God's dealings with Israel 🇮🇱 becoming a nation, that the end goal is not for God to directly oversee and micromanage,
But rather to set up self-supporting systems controlled by man but governed by God through his laws.
That was actually why man was created, to rule with God. Our rule is on this earth 🌎.
Look, for instance, at the day Israel entered the promised land and tasted of the fruit thereof, that in that same day the manna ceased.
So now I ask, in these times of the New Testament, 2000 years down the line of Christ's kingdom 👑 being established, what are the things pertaining to our time that were not pertaining to the early church, and vice versa?
What does God want us to take up and establish, and what does God want us to cease doing?
God is the Creator, and his Spirit is yet alive in us, so we can definitely know the will of God for our time.
11According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left.
12And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel.
13And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.
14When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me;
15Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.
16But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.
17Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
This exact thing happened to Solomon.
Is it not interesting that God did not attribute multiplying horses 🐴 or gold and silver to the king's heart being turned away from the Lord?
But when it came to multiplying women, God said it was the women who would turn the king's 👑 heart ♥.
Why is this so? We are told the consequences of each... That horses 🏇 would mean alliance with Egypt 🇪🇬, which the Lord abhorred.
18And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:
19And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:
20That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.