In Scott Brown's sermon titled "The Superior Laws of a Good Governor," the focus is on Deuteronomy 16:18 through 17, discussing the divine principles and laws provided by God for governance and worship. The sermon covers the appointment of judges and officers, emphasizing just judgment and the avoidance of partiality and bribery. Brown warns against idolatrous practices and the dangers of syncretism, using historical examples to illustrate their destructive nature. He stresses the importance of personal character in leaders and highlights the role of local governance. The sermon explores God's authority over worship, urging adherence to true worship practices and the rejection of blemished sacrifices. It also outlines the process for dealing with transgressors and the necessity of witnesses in establishing guilt. The sermon concludes with the responsibilities of a king, advocating for a ruler who is guided by God's laws, emphasizing humility, trust in God, and the rejection of earthly wealth and power. Throughout, Brown underscores the harmony between God's sovereignty and human responsibility, illustrating how God's laws are meant to guide and govern both civil and spiritual life.

Okay, our text today is Deuteronomy 16 verses 18 all the way to the end of 17. So it's going to be kind of a long one. Starting with Deuteronomy 16 verse 18. You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the Lord your God gives you according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. You shall not pervert justice.

You shall not show partiality, nor take a bribe. For a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not plant for yourself any tree as a wooden image near the altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God. You shall not set up a sacred pillar which the Lord your God hates.

You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God a bull or sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God. If there is found among you, within any of your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, a man or a woman who has been wicked in the sight of the LORD your God, and transgressing his covenant, who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the hosts of heaven, which I have not commanded, and it is told you, and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently. And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination has been committed in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has committed that wicked thing, and shall stone to death that man or woman with stones. Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses. He shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness.

The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall put away the evil from among you. If a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God chooses, and you shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days and inquire of them, and they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you, according to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you.

You shall do, and you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God or the judge that man shall die. So you shall put away the evil from Israel, and all the people shall hear and fear and no longer act presumptuously. When you come to the land which the LORD your God has given you, and possess it, and dwell in it, and say, I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me. You shall surely set a king over you whom the LORD your God chooses, one from among your brethren, and shall set as king over you, one from among your brethren you shall set as king over you.

And you may not set a foreigner over you, who is not your brother. But he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. For the LORD has said to you, You shall not return that way again. Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. Also it shall be, when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book, from the one before the priests, the Levites.

And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law in these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted from above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandments to the right hand or to the left, and that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children, in the midst of Israel." Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for its clarity and its applicability to everyday life. Lord, it's just extremely practical in this text. I pray that you would open our hearts and that we would hear what you would have us hear.

In Jesus' name I pray, amen. It's always a joy to open up this book here on these Sunday mornings because what we find is that when we open it, God uses it to change us. And what we've all experienced over the years is that God has been changing us. And it's a special joy for someone who preaches the Word of God to find it to be true that you have a people like the people in Fesul and Ica. When the Apostle Paul went there and he reflected upon their life together there, he says, we give thanks to God without ceasing, because when you receive the Word of God, You received it not as the word of man, but as the word of God.

And I'm very comforted to know that that is what happens here, that the word of God is clear And it's clear enough that we would know what to do in response to it. And so here we find ourselves again in another amazing text in Deuteronomy. As we move into this section here, we've moved out of a commentary on the Fourth Commandment to a commentary on the Fifth Commandment. And as you know in Chapter 14 through 16, We dealt with the day of delight, the day of rest, the Sabbath, the feast, the release, the releases from debt, the releases from slavery, all these wonderful delights that God ensures for his people. God has wired his world to delight his people.

And now we move to an exposition of the Fifth Commandment, which helps us understand the authority of God and the way that God has built authority into his world. Honor your father and your mother. And that is the beginning of all honor of authority and all success in life. If a son and a daughter honors father and mother, it will be well with them. Same thing with those who honor those other authorities that God has placed in the world.

So now we move into this area of honor and authority. And in here what we find are various commands that a good God gives to his people. And we find superior laws from a superior governor. It is true, as we've seen many times, God does desire to govern your life. He wants to run your life.

He wants to run your calendar. And he wants to fill it with good things. And so he brings many things to us. And so as Moses moves to explaining our relationship with authority, many interpreters have just been so clear in explaining that this is an exposition of the Fifth Commandment. First of all, he explains the rules that we should use to choose authorities, and then also how people should respond to that authority.

If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see that's the first section here. And then second, He explains his authority over worship, and he discloses his will on matters of idolatry and syncretism. And then thirdly, he explains how to deal with difficult matters. There are situations that seem to blow your mind, and you don't know what to do with them. So what do you do?

And an explanation is given for how you deal with that. And then lastly, he outlines the duties and the priorities of a king. And these are very wonderful, wonderful statements that we find there at the end of chapter 17. So we have all of these laws. How do we deal with all of these laws?

And again we see that God desires life on planet Earth to be governed by His laws, not man's laws. Not the laws of man's heart, but the laws that have come from the Spirit by the Word of God. And We've just been given a number of very practical things. You might say, would it be better if there were no laws? Would it be a better world if there were no laws to govern the choosing of a king?

Would it be better if there were no obligations to obey any of the laws of the authorities that are there? Well, that is answered here in this text. Would we have a better church If there were no guidelines for worship, you know, in an antinomian age that we live in, we don't naturally like the 16, 613 laws of the Old Testament. But the truth is that there are 1, 050 laws in the New Testament. And so if you think that you move to the New Testament and escape laws, think again.

There are not quite double specific laws and commands in the New Testament of the old. And so there is a way that seems right to a man. And its way is death. But God's ways are pleasant ways. And that's what we find here before us in these laws here.

Now, first of all, there's an explanation of an orderly civil sphere, an orderly civil sphere, in the appointment of righteous judges. And so this first section that goes from verses 18 to 20 in chapter 16 begins with a command, you shall appoint two things, judges and officers in your gates, which the Lord your God gives you according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. So that's the basic idea. It begins with a command to establish two kinds of functions, judges and officers. So what we learn here is that God desires the civil realm to be governed by these kinds of functionaries, and that there would be judges and officers installed.

And God would use these to do his bidding in the world. God works through representative authorities, always. He does work often directly through lightning and thunder and rain and storms and things like that. But he also uses fathers and mothers to govern households. And he uses civil governors to govern the civil realm.

So God desires the civil realm to be governed by judges and officers. And I just want to emphasize that there are different ways of governing. Some of you work for major corporations and you know that all policy manuals are not the same. You know there are there are good ones and there are bad ones and the policy manuals, The government of God is wonderful, and it handles everything rightly. Am I on yet here?

Okay. So what we have though is a good shepherd. A shepherd that gives us good laws. And the laws that are given here regarding the appointment of righteous judges really hearken to what we already read in Deuteronomy chapter 1, verses 9 through 18, and also in Exodus 18 regarding Jethro's appeal to Moses to appoint righteous men. And many of the same things are here that are there.

And another thing that we understand about this, and we can see it in the way that our own government is structured. And that is that God appoints leaders through the selections of His people. You have that? God appoints the leaders through the selections of the people. Isn't that contradictory?

Wouldn't it be, if just God were making the choice, it would be so much clearer. But no, he uses his people to make the choice as well. He says that, which the Lord your God gives you, in other words, that's the sovereignty of God, and you shall appoint judges and officers. So you have both. You have the sovereignty of God and the selection through his people and his overall government of it at the same time.

So God appoints through the selections of his people. And then we also notice in these verses here that there's a restraint against wicked human tendencies. And this is one of the great values of government. And there are a number of destructive tendencies that are handled right here in verses 18 through 20. The first destructive tendency is the tendency of mob rule.

The second destructive tendency is the tendency of individual retribution. And the third tendency that's destructive is the tendency of unjust treatment, because they shall judge the people with just judgment. And so there's this restraint against all these different kinds of tendencies and sins of mankind in dealing with civil matters. And then also here is the importance of character. You can't separate personal life and position.

During the Clinton administration, it was proposed by those smart people who were there in Washington that character doesn't matter. That was one of the most ridiculous propositions made. People used it with a straight face. It is an absolute contradiction to the Word of God. Character does matter.

Character is the only thing that matters, really, in matters of civil selection. And so you can't separate personal life with position if you're going to think biblically about things. And he speaks of a couple of issues of character. First, partiality. He mentions it here, that partiality is one of the character qualities that needs to be considered.

If a man is given to partiality, then he cannot rule. And then also his susceptibility to bribery. He says, nor take a bride, for a bride blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous. And we also learn that the judgment is local. It is in all your gates.

So the judgment is local with people that you know. There's a gentleman running for mayor of Wake Forest, a guy who I used to go to church with. I'm really glad it's local because I know the guy. And it really helps when government is local and you actually know who these people really are. And so here judgment is local, it's within your gates.

It's also by tribe, verse 18. That means that there's a geographical governance because the tribes are placed in geographical areas. And then there's a conditional promise in verse 20. It's a promise of success in which Moses says, You shall follow what is altogether just, that you may live and inherit the land in which the Lord your God is giving you. So there's a promise associated with this kind of government that God gives to his people.

So this section establishes a system of governmental authority of two functionaries, officers and judges. And you can see these same kinds of positions in our own society. And it's a good thing. It's good to have some kind of government. All government is not bad, as long as it's governed properly by godly principles.

And so our attitude toward government is important. And do we despise all civil authority? Do we sneer at all of our local civil structure, and the officers and the judges that are there? Are we always looking for a way to escape their laws? Those are critical questions that are really raised through this, because there is a way that government should operate.

And there is a local element of government that is godly. So this first area of the authority of God is thrown out here in these two verses in chapter 16. And then in verse 21, there's a change of subject, but the theme is still the same. It's God's authority over worship. All of this is about God's authority.

People hate authority. Often there's something in the spirit of a child that sometimes is never broken, and that is a hatred of authority. And often that hatred of authority is built by bad authorities. But we all must grow up someday and understand that God places authority over us. And if we spend all of our lives kicking against the authorities that God puts in our lives, we'll have trouble in this world.

And so God gives one authority after another in order to train us to learn to honor the authorities that are with us. He gives us fathers and mothers and He continues to place us under authority. One of the saddest things there is, is for men particularly, they move from one job to the next and they always hate their authority that God gave them and it never stops. And that's because There's a misunderstanding, there's a sin regarding the authority of God, and a rejection of the sovereignty of God. It is God who places those in authority over us.

And we have to reconcile ourselves to these things. So He moves now Moses from this idea of civil authority in government and the requirements for it to his authority over worship. And what he says in verse 21 begins to take us into the area of his authority over worship, that man can't worship any old way that he desires. And so he says in verse 21, you shall not plant for yourself any tree, as a woman it would an image, near the altar which you build for yourself to the Lord your God. You shall not set up a sacred pillar which the Lord your God hates." So what is this all about?

I mean, you read this and you think, well, I've never planted a tree or gone to a, or made a woman, wooden image or, I've never built anything like this. This doesn't apply to me. This must be for some other people. And so what is he talking about? Well, there are 40 references to these things in the Old Testament, to Ashura poles particularly.

They're mentioned in Exodus and Judges and Kings and Chronicles and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Micah. And the term here that we see, the term Asherah is used in the King James. Here, what were these trees? What were these wooden images? What was this all about?

We have to be very clear about this, lest we misunderstand what he's talking about here. These trees and images, they were just staging points for gatherings of a certain kind. And at these gatherings, there was always riveting entertainment in the form of lurid and defiling stories. These places were gathering places. They were more like movie theaters where immoral stories were being played.

They were really more like a YouTube site that has something defiling and wicked and attractive, something idolatrous or sexualized in an ungodly way. That's what these places were. So don't get confused and think, well, I don't go to a tree. Well, these were places of entertainment and seduction and they really were more like theaters and movie houses and internet sites. That's really what they were.

They're just a number of places where scripture speaks of what was happening here. But when you read ancient Near Eastern history, You understand that we found these monuments and their inscriptions on them, and that's what was happening in these places. And there were all kinds of stories of Baal and El and the Asherah having these immoral relationships, violent adulterous relationships, murder, incest, every manner of sin was displayed in these locations. And so these places were a snare to the people because they were places of idolatry and immorality. The Asherim, they were female erotic images.

And what was going on around the asher upholstery. It was drunkenness, it was ritual prostitution, it was nudity, it was adultery, it was homosexuality. There were dancers and singers and healers and preachers of techniques of fertility and success. That's what it was. It's way more common and normal than what you might think when you read about the grove.

Why would anyone want to go to a grove? Why would anyone want to go to a pillar? No one wants to go to a pillar, but it was happening around the pillar. That's what was interesting. And there were business implications to this.

They were all connected to the guilds. The business community was organized into guilds, and the guilds took dues for participation. And if you didn't go to the high places and pay your dues, then you were kind of on the outs in the business community. So if you were a believer, if you were a follower of God and you didn't go to the high places, it meant something. It touched your pocketbook.

It affected your business relationships in the community if you didn't go to the gentleman's clubs of the day. That's really what they were. So let's don't be confused about what this was. We read that it was poles and groves and things like that. But it was far, far more than that.

They were the places where destructive mourning practices were on display. We've already read in Deuteronomy that we should not mourn like the pagans and cut ourselves and mark ourselves and color our skin with tattoos. We've already read about that. That's what the pagans do. Don't mourn like the pagans, Moses has already said.

Well, there was all this pagan mourning also going on in the groves and around the Asherah poles. It was a place where child sacrifice was practiced as well. Many of the foundations of these areas that had been discovered, you know, contain the bones of babies. You know, even in modern Israel, at the end of the runway, at the Damascus airport, they found a pit, and in it were the bones of many, many babies, one and two years old. These were the offering places of MOLAC.

These were the high places. These were the groves. That's what they did. They were killing their children and offering them as sacrifices to Moloch. They were dancing around.

It was like Mick Jagger at the Super Bowl. When you read about the high places, think about the Super Bowl and Mick Jagger prancing around. That's exactly what it was. It was the pronouncement, the acceptance of idolatry into the culture. That's what it was.

And so we have to be very clear. It was also a place of worship of nature. The worship of nature was very prominent in these places. He speaks here of the moon, and worshipping of the moon, and the stars, and the constellations. That was also part of the package.

It was nature worship. It was the environmental movement on steroids really going on. It's nothing. The modern environmental movement that worships the earth is nothing new. It's old.

It was right here in the grove. It was right here at the base of the pillar where there was a worship of nature, the mother goddess of earth. This is nothing different than what Mikhail Gorbachev communicated when he said, I believe in the cosmos. All of us are linked to the cosmos. Nature is my god.

To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples. And forests are my cathedrals. That's Mikhail Gorbachev, the elite, erudite leader of the Soviet Union, who's doing something now. I don't know.

He's still worshiping the trees. This is nothing. What Mikhail Gorbachev was doing is nothing different. It's not odd, it's not strange, okay? It's not some ancient strange world.

Men and women have not changed. The hearts of men and women still desire adultery and all manner of wickedness before God. And that's what was happening here. And it was adding to what God had commanded and doing what God had not commanded. And so what's the significance of the tree, the Asherah pole?

Well, it's really nothing different than the temptations of our hearts today. When you have your finger on your computer and you're tempted to click on that Internet site, you're going to the high places again. That's all it is. So we just have to be very clear about what was really happening at these places here. And so it was a place of engaging in the practices of the culture.

It was taking God's things and getting it close to the things of the pagans. That's what Moses is speaking of here. There are a number of examples of men who confronted this whole culture. Of course Gideon, Gideon is one, he tore down the altars of his father. And boy, it was a rough deal.

He did it in the middle of the night because he knew people were going to be mad when he did it. So he took ten men, tore down his father's high place, and boy, did all hell break loose. Everybody from the city took after him and he was now man on the run and he needed an army. And God gave it to him. Or we could go to Josiah in 2 Kings chapter 23 where Josiah finds the book of the law.

He reads the covenant of God again. He's reading the book of Deuteronomy and he realizes that Even the temple is filled with idols. And so he takes the ashrim out of the temple. He kicks the priests out who are practicing these things. He takes the booths where indecent things were being done with the priests.

And he destroys them. And he's a brilliant example of someone who deals with it. And he was dealing with the Acacia groves. He was dealing with all these same things that Moses was speaking about here in this text. And so here is a confrontation against these idolatrous practices.

You know, what is idolatry? It's not bowing down before a pole. It's a heart that does not obey. It's the finger that clicks on the site. It's the man who goes where he shouldn't go.

It's the cultivating of things that are against God. That's what idolatry is. You know, an idol can be a number of things. It can be an inappropriate relationship. It can be an obsession of interest.

It can be lots of things. John Calvin said that the human heart is a factory of idols. The problem with idols is that they just keep popping up. You get rid of one and there's another one right behind it. And so that's why they take on so many different forms.

And so what should we do with this today, even this morning? We need to ask ourselves, has anything captured my heart? Is there any evil in my heart that I need to repent before God. Because idols are constantly presenting themselves to us. This week as we were going through this, I was seeing my idols pop up before me every day.

Every day. Throughout the day. Everywhere I went, I would see these idols. Now, we must learn to hate the idols that would be there to destroy us, rather than to cult, to nurture them, to nurse them, to like them, to pet them, to keep them around. We don't want to keep them around.

We want to get rid of them. And that's really the biblical pattern. An idol is anything forbidden, anything forbidden of the Lord. And so we have to be very well aware of idolatry. And so then Moses speaks of sacrifices.

He's talked about places of sacrifice, these high places, these groves. And now in verse 1 in chapter 17, he talks about true worship. He takes us from false worship, from idolatrous worship, and he moves us to true worship. And then he says, You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God a bull or a sheep which has any blemish or defect, for that is an abomination of the Lord your God. So now Moses is trying to establish a principle of true worship.

And he's saying that We compromise our worship when we bring something blemished or sick or inadequate. In Malachi chapter 1, there's an illustration of this where Malachi says, as a son honors his father and a servant his master, if then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I'm a master, where is my reverence? And then Malachi goes on and explains half-hearted worship. He explains a heart disconnected.

He explains a person who comes into the place of worship, but the heart is far from God. A cold heart. Now have you ever come to worship with a cold heart? Well, of course you have. You might even have it right now.

Well, what do you do? Well, you cry out to God, you repent, you ask for His mercy, and you present to Him a perfect sacrifice. And what is that sacrifice? Well, that sacrifice doesn't come from you. It comes from God.

There is a perfect sacrifice there's an unblemished lamb for all cold-hearted worshippers and that is the Lamb of God who Had no blemish at all and he he alone is our sacrifice And so Moses is beginning the shadow. He's casting the shadow of what is to come with a perfect sacrifice. He calls the people to a perfect, unblemished sacrifice, and it really prefigures the sacrifice of Christ. And it had to be pure for the Israelites, and it has to be pure for us as well. In 1 Peter chapter 1, we read of this sacrifice.

Peter says in 1 Peter 1, 18, He says, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." So Moses, first of all, he attacks idolatrous worship, tainted immoral thoughts that are associated with your life, which is worship, and then he comes and he talks about your sacrifice for your sins. The sacrifices that you bring in worship have to be unblemished, like a spotless lamb. And so he makes that very clear here. And we're not redeemed with corruptible things, but by the precious, spotless blood of the Lamb. You know, if the sacrifices of God were dependent upon your own mind and your own heart.

You know that you never could receive forgiveness from sin. But there is one sacrifice that can secure it, and that's the blood of Christ. So the gospel here is all over this. The first part of the gospel, be saved from this wicked and perverse generation. Get away from the high places and the poles.

But what do you flee to? You flee to the precious blood of a Lamb. You flee to a sacrifice that was capable of dealing with your great sinfulness because your sinfulness is greater than your ability to atone for by your good works. So he brings in the Gospel again through an image of a perfect lamb offered for us. And then he speaks of the common problem, and that is that there are still those in the community who transgress the covenant.

And he speaks of how dangerous this is. He speaks of how despicable it is in his sight when one begins to worship nature and believes the God who created them. And so he speaks about how to deal with wicked transgressors of the covenant in verses 2 through 7. And he says, if there is found among you within any of your gates, which the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who has been wicked in the sight of the Lord your God, transgressing His covenant." So he's really expanding on what he already talked about in chapter 13, where he talked about those who would secretly entice you to reject the gospel. And what do you do?

This is shorthand for 13, verse 12. And this is the case of those who have exchanged the truth of God for a lie. And they love nature, and they replace nature with God. And It identifies who, male or female. And then it says that they were wicked, and they transgressed the covenant, and they served other gods and worshiped them.

Those are the violations. So I want us to just make sure we understand all the characters and all the issues here. And then what kind of worship is unauthorized? He says it right here, which I have not commanded. There's worship unauthorized, and it's the worship that God has not commanded.

That's the regulative principle of worship. We're only authorized to worship in the way that God has commanded. When we worship in ways that God has not commanded, We're idolaters. We're inventing our own religion. We're making it up as we go.

We're trying to find something more interesting than God. And so here, the kind of worship is, worship which I have not commanded. And Then there's a response to the people when this happens. First they hear of it, do you see that in the text? And then they inquire diligently about it.

In other words, this goes beyond rumors and feelings. There's an inquiry that's engaged. And then there's verification of it. And then there are two or three witnesses. So that's what establishes the guilt.

There is hearing of it, There's inquiry, there's verifying it personally, and then there is the establishment of witnesses. That's the process that these officers are to engage in. Now, these are not individuals that go around throughout the society and do this. These are the officers that are doing this. This is happening in the civil realm.

And so this law requires two witnesses, as we have read before. In Numbers chapter 35 we read the same thing. The Lord Jesus Christ himself quotes this text in Matthew chapter 18. He takes the principle of witnesses out of Deuteronomy 17 and he brings it into the discussion of church discipline. And the Lord Jesus says, If your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone.

That follows the pattern of verification, right? There's the same process that we see in Deuteronomy. If he hears you, then you've gained a brother. But if he will not hear you, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." So Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy. You know, we know this.

Jesus loved the book of Deuteronomy. He quoted the book of Deuteronomy more than any other Old Testament book. And here, in speaking of the way that we deal with sin in the church, he goes back to Deuteronomy and he finds this principle of witnesses. And also, I believe that this process in Deuteronomy is really mirrored by what Jesus says here. And then in verse 17, if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church.

But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector." So here, Jesus is taking this principle of dealing with idolatrous people and taking it and bringing it to his disciples so that they might learn from it. And so Jesus here is quoting the law of witnesses. Now we recently had the occasion where we did church discipline on one of the men of the church who is no longer here with us. And we took a vote here in the church. We took a vote because in the New Testament we learned that there must be a majority in order to establish excommunication and to deliver a person's flesh to Satan.

And so it's a very, very serious thing. And when we took that vote, we had a couple of options. We could have taken the vote silently. It could have been a private vote where people voted in private. Or it could have been a public vote.

We chose to do a public vote because of this principle here. That there are witnesses who speak. It's harder for someone to stand up and cast the first stone. And that's what Jesus did when he was dealing with the woman caught in adultery. He also was quoting Old Testament civil law regarding how you deal with adulterers and idolaters.

And what he said to those people who had brought the woman to him, he said, he who is without sin casts the first stone. He was also coming back to this principle here, that the accusers lay their hand first. The accuser must pony up publicly, not privately, not privately on a ballot. He must stand up and look the victim in the eye, or the accused in the eye, and the whole community in the eye, to be done in plain view, not silently, not in a private ballot. But one must lay everything on the line in order to do that.

And so it restrains people from gossip, from slanderous accusations just done in quiet and in secret, and not willing to look the accused in the eye. Because when you have to look someone in the eye, there's a greater sense of your own responsibility. And to have to look everyone in the eye. It's even greater. Because what we did in our taking of our vote, we realized that it would be harder for men to stand up in an entire congregation and cast a convicting vote for church discipline than it would for them just to make a mark on a piece of paper privately.

So that's why we did it. Why do you do public votes? Well, you do public votes because the accusers have to cast the first stone in public. And then here in Deuteronomy, the rest of the community does it afterwards. So it's of a very public nature so that relationships aren't wrongfully dealt with and so that there aren't silent slanderers, but that men stand up and they say what they believe about a certain matter.

And so here we find Jesus in two counts. He supports this principle. First, the casting of the first stone in the incident with the woman caught in adultery. And secondly, in the instance here in church discipline, where there must be two or three witnesses. Now, many people believe that in the incident of the casting of the first stone and the woman caught in adultery, Jesus was just saying, hey, adultery, all is forgiven, don't worry about your adultery.

Let's just have mercy on everybody. That was not what was happening there. The Lord Jesus was confronting wicked men who were trying to accuse a woman without proper evidence. They were following their own hearts. They were not following the law of God regarding laws of evidence.

And so the Lord Jesus, though acknowledging perhaps her sin by saying, Go and sin no more, at the same time he was acknowledging that they were breaking the Old Testament law of evidence. Let's just be very clear about it. Jesus was not washing away requirements or punishments of the Old Testament. He was actually, in fact, establishing them that they are true and that he was the fulfillment of all these laws. And he was right there in front of the people interpreting those laws for the people and showing them how they applied at that time.

And so here there's this method of dealing with those who would worship idols in the community. Community. And then Moses turns to how to handle difficult matters to judge in verses 8 through 13. And so he says, if a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge. So now we come to those difficult situations.

And of course, there are often situations which they just turn our brains all upside down and tie us in knots. We don't know exactly what to do. And this is that kind of situation. And Moses identifies sort of the broad categories of these problems. First of all, is it too hard for you to judge?

Between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates. So these are the kinds of problems. Big raging controversies, how much punishment, how little punishment, really hard questions. What do you do? Well, you take, he says here, that You go to the priests and the Levites.

You take it to those who have dedicated themselves to the law of God. That's the idea. And then they will judge. And then he says that there's a requirement here. And that is that obedience is required in verses 10 through 11.

He says, you shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the Lord chooses, and you shall be careful to do all that they order you. So here, not only is there sort of a higher court, and it's a court of priests and Levites, but when they rule, you may not like the ruling, but you have to abide by it. It's just like church discipline. Every single person whose discipline may not agree with it, but they must abide by it. And so here the discipline or the obedience is actually required so that the sentence is carried out.

And Here's what we learn. God has established an orderly society. It's not a perfect society. Will all the judgments that these men do be right? No, they won't.

That's not the point. Yes, there will be some people sent for capital punishment wrongly. Some will be punished wrongly. But that's not the point. The point is that there's an orderly society.

Imagine if you took off all order, if you took off all laws, what would happen? Then it would be absolute pandemonium and chaos in the culture. So God brings restraints. And He actually puts sinners in the place of officers and judges. And they may be wrong from time to time.

That's true. I had a brother, a Christian, a friend of mine, we were having this discussion. And he said, our judges today are not capable of the moral distinctions that are necessary for making sound judgment. And to that I said, I agree with you. I absolutely agree with you.

But that doesn't mean that we throw off all law and authority that the civil government has placed upon us. Because yes, there will be sinners and there will be degrees of understanding of law. But the point is that God has established that there would be imperfect men in the places of officers and judges and in priests and Levites. And when they rule, you must obey, and they may be wrong. Mark Devere in commenting on the firing of Jonathan Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards, perhaps one of the greatest theological and spiritual thinkers in American history, American Christian history, was fired by a vote of 90% of his church. Devere says they were wrong, they were probably just absolutely desperately wrong, but he had to abide by the ruling. So that's the idea that's here. They might be wrong, but God has established order in society. He's established judges by his sovereignty.

He places them in place. He knows what they can and can't do. And he will render the judgment by his own hand. And that's the principle that's here. And obedience is required.

So that's the basic idea. And then there's punishment for disregarding the judgment. Did you notice that in verses 12 and 13? Now the man who acts as presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God or the Judge. That man shall die.

Now, this is the guy who says, hey, that judgment was wrong. Okay? I'm above the law. I'm smarter than the Judge. Now, that would be easy to say in a number of situations.

I'm just going to rebel. No? God says no. He says there's punishment for disregarding the judgment of the civil authorities that God has placed by His sovereign hand. It is God who places those in authority.

This idea here is where we, this of the priests and the Levites, is where Our founding fathers have gone to get the idea of the Supreme Court. In a number of commentators that I read, they mention this. One commentator titled this section, the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court rules they may be wrong, but you have to obey. Unless of course it forces you to break the law of God.

Obviously. And then there are laws here for appointing of kings and being a king. Now, this I think is really one of the truly wonderful sections here. Because there are so many principles about leadership and kingship and what God desires the civil realm to be ruled by, and that is the Word of God. And we have this beautiful picture of a king writing out the law of God in his own hand, in his own hand, taking the time to write it line by line, to put it in his heart, and then to review it constantly, and keep it his whole life long with him.

A king who has, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people and resources to copy it for him. He can have it copied in a day by having his scribes do it, but no, he's required to do it with his own hand. That's very inefficient. You can move much faster as a king, don't you think, by delegating this responsibility? No.

Not in God's realm. He desires the king to submit himself to a laborious, detailed process of understanding and then placing himself under the authority of the King of kings, of the God of heaven, who gives the very best laws to his people. And so he says in verse 15, Moses does, that the king is one that God chooses, verse 15. Here we have the same language that we encountered in the appointment of the officers and the judges. It's the same language.

Now look at it. Be very careful to understand what this means. You shall surely, surely set a king over you. Okay, that's your part. You set a king over you.

Now finish the sentence. Whom the Lord your God chooses. You thought you were choosing the King, but God was choosing the King. Here we find this in one sentence, a beautiful mingling of the responsibility of man and the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. How men act, they're required to act according to biblical mandates, but at the same time it is God who chooses.

If anyone can explain that, Please attempt to do so for the 15th time. But nobody understands that. The human mind isn't big enough to understand it. But we know that both of these things are true. You choose, and God chooses, because He is sovereign.

And then we also learn that He should be a brother and not a foreigner. This is another principle. Perhaps you've heard the debate over whether Barack Obama is a foreigner or not. Have you heard of that debate? Why is that even being debated?

It's being debated because of Deuteronomy 17.15. That's why. Because in the heart of our government is this memory. It's a vague memory that he should be your brother and not a foreigner. That's why.

And so it's an important debate. It matters. It matters because God said that that issue matters. These people aren't just arguing some arcane nuance out of their own fanciful considerations. Not at all.

This is being argued because of a verse of the Bible, and it's this verse right here. You see, I hope you've seen how many elements of our own government are established from these principles. That we have local judges, we have local officers, they're appointed locally. Here he's a brother, not a foreigner. And then in verse 16, we learn about his behavior, not multiplying horses.

Verse 16, he says, but he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses, for the Lord has said to you, you shall not return that way again." The people believed they were exposed and they believed that in this time of crisis being out in the wilderness, They needed protection. They wanted the horses of Egypt. They didn't have, the people of God always feel like they don't have enough protection. So they try to go get it on their own. Here, he says, don't go back to Egypt and get horses.

You don't need horses. All you need is me." So he can't be a king who multiplies horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. You know, one of our favorite Psalms in our family, we call it the birthday psalm, Psalm 20. And it's a prayer for the king. It's a prayer that the will of the king would be established.

And It's a beautiful psalm or a prayer. But toward the end of the psalm, David says, some trust in horses. Some trust in chariots and some in horses. But we will remember the name of the Lord our God. And so here, Moses is saying, don't trust in the means of man.

Don't trust in yourself. Don't trust in your artillery. Trust in me alone. Some trust in chariots. Some trust in horses.

But not we. We're the people of God. We'll remember the name of the Lord our God. And the whole matter of trust is brought up. The King is a man who trusts God alone in everything.

He is relying on God. Psalm 20 verse 6 says, Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed, and he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand." That's a prayer for a king. That kings would know that only God can save. And then multiplying wives in verse 17. Not only horses, but wives.

And there's a reason why he shouldn't multiply wives. If anyone is looking for an argument against polygamy, here's one in verse 17. Lest his heart turn away. The multiplication of wives is bad news. Okay, it's bad.

Anybody who ever did it found lots and lots of trouble. Is there a specific command against polygamy? No. But we do understand from Genesis That the two shall become one. One.

And that's the biblical pattern for marriage. That's the biblical argument against polygamy. And then when you find all the travails and trouble that come as a result of it, you can understand it. And then this argument here, let's his heart turn away. Why is polygamy bad?

Because it messes with your heart in a big way. And that's a long discussion that we won't get into this morning. But that's what's wrong with multiplying wives. And then not multiplying silver or gold. In other words, he shouldn't be getting rich off his time in the government.

Isn't that an interesting requirement? That would wipe away all kinds of government functionaries today. Why is there so much poverty in the world? One reason there's so much poverty in the world is because kings, particularly third-world kings violate this command, and they take the resources of their nation and they put it in Swiss banks and they buy property all over the world and their people lie in languishing poverty because they violate this principle. Kings are not to be getting rich on their kingship.

They're supposed to be prospering their own lands and that's the principle that's there. And then in Verse 18, my favorite part of this, he copies the law in a book. This is very precious. Verse 18. When he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests in the Levites.

And so he takes it and He makes a copy. Imagine the humility and the submission of this. This is a king. And he is sitting down spending his days, many days. How long does it take to copy the law?

Was he copying the Pentateuch? Possibly. But whatever it was, he had to sit down and take the time to understand every single word. When you copy something, you have to write every single word. Every word is important.

Every word of God is pure. And the King has to recognize that. And with every word, the authority of God is coming out on the page. And then in verse 19, what does he do with it? He reads it all the days of his life.

He doesn't write it and then set it aside. He reads it all the days of his life. Imagine a king sitting each day contemplating the law of God. What a blessing that would be to a nation if a king would have a humble heart and place himself under the authority of God. A king does not stand above the people in this matter.

He stands under the authority of the King of Kings. He's not a law unto himself. He's a man under the law of God. He is under the authority of God. He is honoring his father who has given him life.

He is coming under the great and marvelous, beautiful government of God. Because God gives the very best laws. He gives the very sweetest laws. And that's why really The only appropriate response for us is to receive these things as the Word of God, because we know how precious they are. We know that His ways are pleasant ways, and all His paths are peace.

And He's a tree of life to those who embrace him. And that's the principle that's here. And here the king is reading these things all the days of his life. And then in verse 20 is really the conclusion of this section about the king. And there's something here that we cannot miss.

It says here that his heart, his heart is not lifted up above his brethren. In other words, he's a humble disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the kind of governor we need. That's the kind of officer. That's the kind of president that we need.

One who is not lifted up above his brethren, but who is under the great and wonderful law of God, and that he might not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. So here we've had this survey of these wonderful laws that begin with how to appoint righteous judges and then how to preserve godly worship, how to judge difficult matters and then finally how to appoint kings and how to be a king. And here is another testimony for us that God desires his people to be a holy people and to do a work of holiness in the world through the selection of his leaders, through the keeping from idolatry, through the trusting in the only sacrifice that that can deal with the sinfulness of man. And that's the pure and spotless blood of the Lamb upon which all of these laws are founded. Would you pray with me?

Lord, we pray that you would teach us to number our days, like this king, to take these laws, to meditate upon them all of our days. Lord, we thank you for your Son and the great sacrifice that He made for our sins. His perfect sacrifice is more wonderful to us, Lord, than anything we ever could have acquired in this world. Amen.