A Limited Monarchy
Deuteronomy 17: 14-20
The Great Covenant
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A Forsythe
Introduction:
Sometimes people think that I read into the Old Covenant texts things,
which ought not to be? Let me assure you that I am very careful to neither add to
nor take away from the scriptural revelation.
Given today’s title – my critics would probably say that it is the
American experience and history that dictates more what I see in the text than
what the text actually says itself.
The most important thing that we
have to remember in our time, after the scriptures –of course, is the
reformational experience within the church of the sixteenth century.
Nothing since the time of Christ, apart from the original catholic creeds
- which teach universal Christian truths, are as vital to understanding who and
what the church is; than the Reformation itself:
an event that is sadly neglected in the secular media and especially more
so, in the neo-pagan school systems which infect our fair Republic with
emotional cultic spores more dangerous than any disease you might pick up in
your mail box.
You see, if we have a right
appreciation of history and the recorded factual evidence of those events which
transpired – we may better understand that those stodgy old Reformers who
sought first and always a sincere and solid understanding of the faith once
given to the saints. In seeking
first that Kingdom of God, other things were added onto the civilization that
was being raised up in the western churches.
Without the Reformation there would have been no invention of a
capitalistic economy or the democratic-republican ideal.
Those two seminal developments gave Western Civilization its dynamic
impact upon the European and American culture wherever both the faith and
freedoms associated with it were treasured in the hearts and minds of an
educated public.
Leviticus 25:10 is
not an isolated text when it justly proclaims: “And
you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the
land to all its inhabitants …” Of
course the old liberty bell wasn’t big enough for the whole verse, so only the
“proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all
the inhabitants there unto” runs in my mind as the inscription on the
Liberty Bell in the old Philadelphia State House. Of course the deist parties to the American Covenantal
documents between enlightened rulers and the general population did not delve
into the Calvinist heritage so much as old John Adams and his kin. So the majestic phrases were tolerated and an obedient spirit
to the God of the Judeo-Christian Heritage was actually encouraged, in the
public schools, which were spreading abroad - to teach children how to read the
scriptures and understand the mind of God revealed therein.
It was good public policy and whether the system of limited government
depended more upon the enlightened citizenry or they upon the biblically
illuminated Covenant remains to be seen. It
is like the old question whether art reflects the public opinion or whether the
public opinion reflects the arts?
So let this be our theme this
morning: to explore the mind of God as it relates to the form of government and
the prosperity of the people who live and breath freedom and all the related
characteristics that proceed therefrom! One
thing we have to remember in the joint histories of Israel and America is that
both areas enjoyed a long period of confederated tribal and local government
before nationhood and centralized governments were established.
Old
Covenant Milieu: While
I was in Atlanta at our Stated Clerks conference for the Presbyterian Church in
America, we were discussing the problems inherent in our somewhat confederated
system of agencies and regional presbyteries that tend to go their own way
without any overall administrative direction.
Both pros and cons of the system as it is were discussed and while some
of us Northern boys were thinking that both American Confederate political
systems failed, we will probably be content to maintain that system, if only to
prevent the rise of a bishop class in our denomination, a class whose vision we
may not appreciate nor be allowed to share in!
In the study of the Old Covenant
period of history, too many scholars act surprised when the people of Israel
demand a king. Samuel rightly
speaks and works against the system – but the apparent wishes of the people
prevail. After all, there were
Philistines, the Girty brothers of their flat landed frontier.
Certainly, God had proven His love, care and concern in raising up Judges
to meet specific threats. However,
the organized threat of the sea peoples and the power of their kings worried
Israel. And just like Americans who
have hardly spoken up about various liberties and freedoms being weakened since
9/11 – so did the people of Israel begin to believe that they would have no
respect in the area of Palestine until they too had a high king to rule over the
land and people.
Moses saw all of this a hundred years and more before it all came about. And within the providential will of God, the necessary covenantal allowance and regulations were recorded not only for the benefit of those ruled by Saul, but also as a limiting admonishment upon all governments of men derived from these selfsame recorded revelations. Our scripture lesson this morning is short but sweet and it outlines a lot more than first appears to meet the eye. Raymond Brown finds “seven important features regarding kingship:
the king must not
be pretentious
the king must not
be afraid
the king must not
be disloyal
the king must not
be materialistic
the king must not
be ignorant
the king must not
be disobedient
the king must not
be proud.”
Verse fifteen tells us that the
king must be one “whom the Lord your God
chooses.” There is no
divine right here in the meaning of that phrase.
God it is who still disposes the rule of nations and more often than not,
the people receive a king, president or dictator they deserve.
But, what of Hitler – you may well ask.
We have to remember that the people of Germany were already politically
disposed to accept his agenda. The
German psychologists were also already to dispose of the human garbage they
believed could not live a meaningful life.
We could go on and on in this regard.
There are still some older people around who loved Franklin Delano
Roosevelt as president precisely because he had no convictions to limit the
empowerment of the federal purse to do their bidding!
Yes, we in this country still
have elections, but there have been more than a few where divine appointment is
more evident than others. Of course
the fall of 2000 is still recent enough in American minds to appreciate that
were it not for the common grace of God and a handful of Marine votes in Florida
– our most recent election could have turned out far differently.
The real man of the last century, Winston Churchill was a special
providential gift of God to the ongoing history of the world.
There was in the forties a brief period of time when the only thing
standing guard for Western Civilization were six hundred pilots of the Royal Air
Force and the lofty, eloquent, bulldog language of the great commoner.
The period of the Judges in the history of ancient Israel was not an
isolated example of God’s men appearing in the breach when all hell threatened
every civilized facet of the western peoples.
To recapture a biblical feel for that idea, you only have to sit through
three hours of the fantastic story of J.R.R. Tolkien as it has been brought to
the screen. More than any other
modern author, Tolkien captures the essence of the fact that “while
man proposes, God disposes.”
The second feature of kingship is
that in counting upon the Triune God of heaven and earth, no king need fear the
horses of Egypt, the tanks of Stalin or the stolen planes of Bin Laden.
Now there is something more in the text here that is not common
knowledge. There are extant records
of Israelite mercenary soldiers way upriver on the Nile at a place called
Elephantine who were serving the Pharaoh! Dr
Brown suggests that they may have been traded for horses for the Israelite Army.
At least the modern Israeli forces have learned to call themselves the
IDF: the Israeli Defense Forces. The
purpose of the restrictions here in these verses of Deuteronomy is to insist
upon just such a position of thought: a proper and rational defense of the
realm. Horses and Chariots were
aggressive weapons systems that cost their weight in oats and left any kings who
would depend upon the Egyptian source in a long-term entanglement. You see most of the exported horses in any time would have
been gelded. The mares and
especially the stallions would have been kept at home to safeguard the
production quality and quantity!
The third feature of kingship
involves a twofold problem: “Neither
shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away …”
Besides the obvious lack of common morality understood from the time of
Adam, in such a multiplication there was not only the divisive claims of many
heirs to divide a country, but also the common diplomacy of the time – where
through marriage a diplomatic unity could be achieved.
Solomon, we know allowed the worship of the only God to be weakened by
the various and sundry household gods of his three hundred wives.
Dr Brown tells us: “Such behaviour was an
act of gross unfaithfulness to the Lord God, and a breach of the covenant which
specially forbad the making of such alliances.”
Attila the Hun was even undone by a Christian girl who was brought into
his tent for his own pleasure. But,
his life was merely forfeited; Solomon and all the others who imitated his
practice could and would invoke the displeasure of the Almighty God of heaven
and earth.
There would also be the prime
example before the nation of such activity.
Drug use in this country declined during the Reagan years, whose
admonishment was too simple for the sophisticated: “Just say no!”
Not surprisingly, the decrease turned around when the next
administration advocated that they “hadn’t inhaled any smoke”!
We also are reminded of the incredible degradation of morality that such
a harem mentality brings upon all who observe such polygamy or even read and
hear about it.
The fourth feature of kingship is
in regard to any special materialism related to the ruling house!
Solomon certainly benefited from one of the first NAFTA like free trade
concessions. So briefly – that
ancient wealth accumulated in Israel and more specifically in Jerusalem.
Like every time and place in history, those who would multiply wealth,
would also multiply power and self. Dr
Brown makes a contemporary application of this problem within the Christian
Church: “Some
ambitious extension and growth ventures appear to owe more to patterns of
worldly self-aggrandizement than Christian humility.
Any form of expansionism always needs to have its motives purified,
especially when large sums of money are expected from the Christian public.”
Lovers of wealth are not to be trusted with either the public or
the church purse, a lesson Moses would admonish us all with in both kingdoms –
if we were able to listen and hear.
The fifth feature of kingship is
that the king must be studious. Perhaps
not a philosopher king, of whom there are precious few who turn out well, but a
king willing to learn from the One whose steward he truthfully is.
Some scholars take this admonishment to mean that the king was to copy
out in his own hand the books of the law – to be ever more familiar with its
contents. Time was, when we all
knew more that we sometimes wanted. When I started college – I always carried my #2 lead copier
with me when I went to the library. Ten
cents per Xerox copy was still a small fortune in those early days when whole
books went for a quarter to thirty-five cents. I remember the one paper that I wanted to illustrate with
three maps and couldn’t find time to trace out by hand, so I had to pay the
machine for its technology! Truthfully
you do learn more when all the information is done by such a method.
I remember one conversation with
Samuel Bluemenfeld who suggested that I have my high school students at that
time copy out their own Declaration of Independence and Constitution for the
added benefit that the intimate knowledge would afford. By that time, we had computers and three of us typed out a
copy and I arranged it for publication with extra wide margins to fit our
departmental needs. Once the
twenty-seventh amendment was passed we were almost a decade ahead of the
textbooks by having that as part of our hard typed documents.
However, the charge here is
meant, it is a serious one that all rulers would be wise to make a part of their
habit. One of the things that I
have tried to do over the years is to be able to sit in on at least one class or
Bible Study a week where I am not the teacher.
Not only does it give me some rest, but it also multiplies the number of
teachers available for the church. Good
rulers are ones whose administration is a school for the future.
Bush the younger has certainly benefited from those who participated in
his father’s school. The
Republican Party in Ohio has fallen on hard times because the former Governor
James Rhodes made it a special purpose to keep anyone from coming up that could
ever compete with him for political power. We see this professional jealousy in King Saul’s
relationship with David as well.
Dr Brown illustrates the sixth
feature of kingship in these words: “The
possession of a law scroll … does nothing to guarantee the holiness of the
monarch. He must not only know the
covenant; he must obey it.” So
here we must understand that the king's calling is the same as that of the
commoner – to obey the just commands of our God and King.
At Presbytery, we are working on a new “improved” set of by-laws.
A task that I am convinced will do no good when it comes to any people
who do not want to be bound by any set of laws period!
It is just because of human nature that we constitutionally nail down
responsibilities and separate the powers of national government.
Would that we had a generation of politicians who loved the truth of our
own National Covenant and were willing to abide by the clear provisions of those
documents. But, they would rather
allow the Constitution to breath the foul air that seeps out of the depth of
their wicked hearts!
Finally, self-assertive
leadership patterns have no place within the servant role of the crowned ruler
of God’s own people. Genealogy
habitually recorded should be nothing more than a review of a godly heritage, a
heritage to live up to instead of to hold over any presumed lesser people.
My brother used to do a genealogy unit in his third grade classes until
the social decay caught up with the traditional relationships.
Suddenly, he began to find children who knew not who their fathers were,
or there were six and even eight grandparents to consider in the forest of
genealogical information that has grown up like weeds in the last few decades.
New
Covenant Continuum: Given
the sordid history of Israel’s kings, I wonder if any one of them other than
David, Josiah and Hezekiah had anything more than a passing knowledge of the
scriptures? At the time of Christ,
King Herod was a real trip. When
the tyrant was belittled because of his Edomite roots, he simply had the
genealogy records all destroyed so that no one had a proven pedigree any better
than his own. European kings, time
after time hired monks to research their ancestors so as to better intimidate
any serious claimants to their precious thrones.
The worldly reality of “Rex
Lex” (the King is law) has conflicted since the time of Moses with the
more biblical position of “Lex Rex” (the
Law is king) which claim was finally successfully advocated by the Reformers in
those countries where they did not loose their heads for so radical a claim!
The Divine Right of Kings has
been more precious than any rightful servant mentality encouraged by the word of
God. Jesus truthfully defined as
well as lived the life of a servant king. In
so doing he fulfilled the permissive legislation formulated by the prophet Moses
in our passage today. Dr Craigie
notes: “This
section, containing laws relating to kingship, is the only one of its kind in
the Pentateuch. It takes the form
of permissive legislation, rather than positing a requirement.
That is to say, it anticipates a time when, for practical and pragmatic
reasons, kingship might become a necessity.
But the legislation does not expound in detail the character of the
kingly office; rather it specifies the attitudes and characteristics that would
be required of a king in a state that was primarily a theocracy.”
May I humbly suggest that the
calling so defined by Moses was and is more than what is humanly possible?
In so doing, I am falling back onto the Reformer’s teaching that Jesus
Christ rightfully fulfills three biblical offices completely and finally:
Prophet, Priest and King!
Contemporary
Application: And
finally, may I make two final points as we apply the admonition of Moses in our
day, culture and time. These seven
measures of a king may apply equally well to those we would choose to rule over
or to serve in Christ’s Church as well as those who would take political
office in our several layers of government.
In the Church we are always
reminded to read the books of Timothy and Titus as we consider those for the
office of Deacon and Elder in our congregation.
In fact, one of the books I recommended to our leadership class this last
summer and fall was entitled Timothy, Titus and You.
There were several other texts that we outlined for future study.
And I would admonish all of those who took the course to consider the
outline laid out today. Use the
seven features of leadership to evaluate your own life, work and witness.
For the congregation, I would encourage you to consider this portion as
well. In about a month we will have
our annual congregational meeting. I
have asked you for at least a month to consider nominations for the offices of
deacon and elder.
This is a small church and I am
sure you have all heard who attended the leadership meeting. Not all of those who participated anticipate or expect
immediate election to office. And
the session is being careful to not go ahead of the congregation and have our
wives nominate those we have trained and prepared. While the scholarship of the course has been completed, and
several of our men are working on their final written test, the session will not
examine the tests or the men until they are properly nominated.
Certainly we anticipate that there will be as much growth in knowledge
and experience after being ordained to office as their preparation for this high
calling before hand.
My second point in closing is
more difficult than the first. And
that is in the application of these measures of those who would lead our
country. Those candidates, like the
judges we discussed a week ago are less likely to be known intimately enough to
evaluate properly. But in a
democratic-republic every voter has a calling to determine as best he or she can
that is a viable biblical candidate for every office.
I have to admit that I leave blanks on every ballot that I cast.
There are people on the ballot that I know nothing more about than if
they are a Democrat or a Republican. I
am sorry, that is not enough information for me to make a decision on.
I want to know a lot more and you usually have to dig for any truthful,
factual information. I have also
refused to vote for any governor in this state for the last eight to twelve
years for the simple fact that the party I would most likely support has taken
the practice of having a pro-life governor paired with an abortion-supporting
lieutenant governor. Now, you all
may come to different conclusions as you work through the biblical disciplines
of choosing leaders from the characteristics listed here.
Kingship, and leadership of any
kind in or out of the Kingdom of the Spirit is an important issue, and the God
of heaven has not left us ignorant of the means of measuring men for the
necessary offices. So let me
admonish you in the same tone that Moses lectured the people of Israel. These are God’s standards, and of course, only Jesus Christ
fully qualifies for any and every office. But,
we want to do the very best we are able with flawed human material.
Look at what the Lord did with David the King in a public office, even
with his many faults! And remember,
however you choose to exercise your vote in our day and time, it is truly the
Lord who selects those who lead and no country does any better than it ever
deserves! Amen.
Resources Used:
Brown, Raymond.
The Bible Speaks Today: The Message of Deuteronomy.
Craigie, Peter C.
New International Commentary:
Book of Deuteronomy.
The Geneva Study Bible:
The Holy Bible: New King James Version.
Copyright
(C) 2002
Christ Covenant Reformed (Presbyterian Church in America)
06 January 2002 Box 13926 - Columbus, Ohio 43213-8049
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