to the end that he shouldn't multiply horses. For as much as the Lord has said unto you, ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away. Neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be, when he sits upon the throne of his kingdom, They shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests, the Levites. And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life. They may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them. That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and they turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand or to the left, To the end that He may prolong His days in this kingdom, He and His children in the midst of Israel. Amen. Today I want to start a series, a short series, on the biblical doctrine of civil government, or the civil magistrate. This is going to be controversial, especially, you know, a few weeks away from the elections, but You know, we know that the word of God speaks to every area of life, including civil government and politics and all of that. And, and therefore we, we have to deal with that. We can't do our politics in a vacuum or as if the Bible has nothing to say to the world about it. The Bible informs every area of life, right? And so what I just read here in Deuteronomy 17 are the biblical qualifications of a ruler as given to Israel. Now, you may say, well, that was just for Israel. And in part, you may be right. We don't have kings, for example. We threw that off, right? And we have what is called a republic or a democracy. But the principles underline these Traits or requirements for a ruler still apply today. We even see in our Constitution, right? Who can be a president of the United States? He has to be a natural-born citizen. He can't be an immigrant, for example. And that's what we read here in Deuteronomy 17. The ruler has to be from among your own people. So we see that carries over, right? How about everything else? Everything else carries over as well, in principle. We all understand that it will be scandalous, and some of us have lived through that history in the United States, where it has been scandalous where a president has more than one wife or has affairs with other women. And what was the requirement here? That he is not to have many wives. So you see that his requirement carries on in a New Testament, and we use it in our own nation. And what else did he say? That he should not multiply to himself silver and gold, right? To avoid bribery. And what's one of the biggest things that nations of today struggle with, even in our own nation. Don't think that our politicians are corrupt or aren't bribed. They are, they are. Regardless of party, they are, okay? And so we see that carries on, right? We see that. And what else did he say? That he should not multiply horses. What does that mean? Military strength. And what do we have today? What is it called? The military what? The military industrial complex. War is good business. And if you have stocks and Lockheed Martin and others, I'm not going to say everything else. I don't want to hit on me. hey, you're going to get rich. Most of our wars have been wars of opportunity, not of necessity. And a few people have gotten very rich off those wars. The more missiles you throw off, the more missiles get built, more money in the stocks. This is, again, a principle that carries on for today. We shouldn't multiply for ourselves horses. We shouldn't have military industrial complex that we have today. We shouldn't. So this is the wisdom of God. And we see the wisdom, don't we? Look at our nation's debt. Look at how many enemies we have incurred because of what we have done. You know, there's only been one person to ever receive two Medal of Honors. You know what a Medal of Honor is, right? Highest military decoration you can get. You know, basically you have to basically die to get it, but you put your life in danger to save others and to accomplish some great military endeavor, you know, you rush the bunker by yourself and take them all out when that bunker was killing your people, right? Something like that. Well, there's this guy named Dan Daly. He was a U.S. Marine. He won two Medal of Honors, two of them. He took out a whole group of Chinese insurgents that were overrunning the fort, and he was basically by himself. He couldn't make this up, and he took them all out. He did it again. He got two Medal of Honors. You know what he said after all this? He said, beware of the US military industrial complex. He spoke against the military. He spoke against what he saw was coming. And if you read his words, he has been a prophet. He spoke against what we have today. He saw that where the Unation was headed was very dangerous. And we see this today. Well, we see then what in Deuteronomy, Choose someone from your own nation to be ruler, not a stranger, not multiplying horses. Don't allow your nation be subservient to another. Don't return to Egypt. Don't have many wives. Don't increase in silver and gold. Avoid bribery. And what is verse 18? And when he sits on this throne, he shall write him a copy of this law in a book, That which is set the priests the Levites and it shall be with them. He should be reading it all the days of his life. Why? verse 19 that he may learn to fear the Lord his God to keep all the words of this law and these statutes to do them that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and they turn out aside from commandment to the right or to the left to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom he and his children and Covenant, right? In the midst of Israel. Brethren, what about verse 18-20 should not be for today? You see, when you talk to Christians today in the United States, they will say, yeah, You know, conservatives, not a lot of money, not many taxes, right? No, you know, extramarital affairs, all this stuff. They'll be on agreement with most of this stuff that we just read. But when you hit verse 18 to 20, why is it that Christian right-wing conservatives go against this for our rulers today? You have Reformed professors at a seminary saying that God does not want a Christian nation. You have Christians in confederacy with non-believers to get this country to its former glory days, whatever they were. Why are we doing this? Why do Christians, when it comes to verse 18 through 20 say, ah, that was old Testament. That's not for today. Why wouldn't Christians want our magistrates to have the law of God that they write themselves and to meditate upon it every day and to legislate in accordance to his word? Why are Christians opposed to this? when this is what the Bible teaches. Yes, Hilda? One's choice. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying that for the mic or for the people on YouTube right now. So you're saying that on Instagram, you saw this, someone was saying that we shouldn't enforce religion. It should be up to people's choice and the government shouldn't talk about religion and things like that. Right. As a Christians are saying this. All right. Uh, Adrian. Right. Yeah. So a lot of Christians believe that the Old Testament is done away with because of Jesus, and they don't apply for it today. But of course, they're going to pick and choose, don't they? Because they will be okay with verses 14 through 17. They'll say, oh yeah, all that is correct. All that is good. Right? All that is second table stuff, by the way. Look at it carefully. Commandments 5 through 10. But 18 through 20 is first table. Commandments 1 through 4. Why then would Christians oppose this? Why is this so wrong? Right? And so, going to what Hillary brought up, that government shouldn't enforce religions or force religions or whatever, the thing is that in verses 8 through to 20, it's not even saying that, is it? It's not saying that the ruler is to impose this on people, per se, as Christians think of it today. It's saying that the ruler is going to be legislating according to the Word of God. He's going to meditate upon this Word. He is going to be wise according to the Word of God. But what Christians interpret is what? Oh, the Magistrate is going to bear the sword and chop off people's heads and things like that because they don't follow Christianity. That's what they're saying. That's what they're afraid of, right? Because in history, it's happened, right? You have Roman Catholics doing that. You have Muslims doing that here today, right? It's happened. It's happened. But just because people have abused the Scripture is not a reason to deny what the Scripture teaches. Just because there's been a few bad actors in the history of Christianity that have abused this part of the Word of God, where people have been put to death, Illegally and against the word of God doesn't mean then that this part of word of God should not be applied in today's society. Because then you use that logic, just do away with Christianity altogether, because all of us have done things we shouldn't do as Christians. Andy. And even when God laid out the law for Israel, Israel didn't have freedom of religion. They didn't allow foreigners to set up temples or any kind of holy places to worship. They didn't force them to convert either. But I don't know. Not to say that we should have Christianity. But that freedom of religion is an abomination to God. That's against the first and second commandment. So there is some aspect that we believe, like the Christian nation, that the government has a responsibility to uphold one true God, not just, I don't know, I guess we're talking about specifically the civil magistrate, but the government itself, which is ruled by the civil magistrate, should be upholding God And before I go to you, Colin, just so you know, so in Israel, if you were a foreigner in Israel, you did not have to convert to Judaism, but you could not set up your temples out in the public. You can only worship in private, right? So it wasn't like, but you couldn't have all the privileges of citizenship either, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Comment? I think if you look at the history of our own nation, the view of of the United States Postal Service requiring their people to work on Sundays. It has been up until this point that they've never been required to work on Sundays universally. And that did not come arbitrarily, but because there was a Sabbath-keeping mindset behind it. And there are still states and counties across the US where those laws are still on the books, even though nobody keeps them. Nobody pays attention to them. Nobody even knows they're there. And yet for Christians to say, nah, we shouldn't be doing that, it's an indictment against the Christian faith. Because they say, oh, look at how great this country was back in the day. We need to get back better. And it's like, OK, but even back then, they recognized that we need to pull the first cable in the civil realm. So we can't have it go through this. And I'm going to get into the blue laws, not today, because we're not going to have time, but I'm going to get into all that, and I'm going to get into how it was 100 years ago in this country, and then 300 years ago in this country. And yes, I know our country is younger than 300, and you know what I mean, before our founding. So the point here is that the Bible tells us what are the requirements for a ruler. And it is not limited to Israel. That's what I'm getting at here. So election is coming up soon. How do you determine who to vote for? Deuteronomy 17 tells you. This is just one of several verses in the Bible where God tells you what to look for in a ruler. So when you're going to vote for whoever you're going to vote for, if you're going to vote for someone, And we'll get into the propriety of even that later. But he says this, the Bible says, are they of this country? Are they going to sell out the country to another nation? Are they people who are immoral with their wives and have other mistresses? Are they ones that will support a military-industrial complex? Are they those that are easily bribed or given over to bribery? Okay, just right there, second table, right? Commandments five through 10. If you're looking, thinking of all the candidates, because there's more than two candidates if you didn't know, which one so far, you can check off, boom, boom, boom, boom, down the line, did they fulfill each one of those? Of the two major candidates, none of them do. So let's keep going. The Bible says, here's the other requirement for a ruler. They are to what? Copy the law. To be with them. To read it all the days of his life. They may learn to fear the Lord his God and keep the words of this law and these statutes to do them. And before that, it has to be a he. The Bible does say a ruler of a nation is to be a male. Start there. Overlook that. Take it for granted. So that eliminates at least one. Only males are to rule a nation. Okay, so of the candidates, which one of these will uphold the law of God? Which one of these love the word of God and love and fear his law? That's what the Bible is laying out here. These are the requirements for rulers. Just like the Bible gives you requirements, gives requirements for men who want to be pastors. These are requirements they must live up to. These are requirements they are to have. Same with ruling elders, same with deacons, same with teachers, right? There are requirements given for each of them. And so there are requirements for rulers. So why is it that the church will say, yup, yup, we'll adhere to the requirements for pastors, teachers, elders, deacons. But when it comes to civil magistrates, suddenly we pick and choose the requirements from the Word of God for rulers. And so you see, there's the contradiction of the church today. This is why the church in the United States is weak and lacks a prophetic voice, because we don't go by what the Word of God says. And we fear what the Word of God says. Right? So we have that. Sorry, there's a noise over there distracting me. And so we continue to see this theme in the scriptures. Isaiah 49. Go look at Isaiah 49. Isaiah 49, verse 23. Isaiah 49, 23 says this. Let me back it up to verse 22 so you can get context that is not just about Israel. Isaiah 49 verse 22, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles and set up my standard to the people. And they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers. And they shall bow down to thee with their face toward earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet. And thou shalt know that I am Jehovah. for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me." What is God saying here? That the rulers of the earth, the kings and the queens, will nurse the church. What does that concept of nursing the church mean? Huh? To lead it? No. Colin? Nurture, care for, protect, and feed. And that's different than lead. And I'll get to a moment as to why. But so, Isaiah's prophesying there's going to come a time where the rulers of the earth will nurture, protect, feed the church. So it's not just about Israel, because he's saying the Gentiles here. Okay? So what kind of rulers are to do that? Rulers that fear God. And so you see it's not just for Israel. This is something for all rulers, all nations. Then we go to Ezra. If you look at Ezra chapter 7 verse 23. Says here, whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven. For why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? Who's speaking there? Who's Artaxerxes? King of Persia. And king of Persia was what? Not Israel. And what did we just read in Isaiah 49? That is exactly what's happening in Ezra 723, isn't it? And Artaxerxes here is speaking about the one true God. It says in verse 21, and I, even I, Artaxerxes the king, do make a decree to all the treasurers which are beyond the river that whatsoever Ezra the priest ascribed with the law of the God of heaven should require of you it be done speedily. Notice that he says the God of heaven, not the God of Israel. Huge difference there. And then he says what? Verse 22, he is nurturing and giving to the church a bunch of money to build out the temple in Jerusalem. And verse 23, whatsoever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be done, let it be diligently done for the house of the God of heaven. For why should there be wrath against the realm of the king and his sons? What did we read in Deuteronomy 17? They didn't say the king and his sons? For the good of Israel? It's the same kind of concept here. And this is a pagan nation, a pagan king saying, let whatever God commands for his church be done. Whatever he commands. For why? For what purpose? For his good and the good of his children and the good of his realm. Do you see how this is not just for Israel? This is for all nations. This is the duty of civil magistrates. And again, you know, again, it's baffling that the Christian church today wants to make a confederacy with pluralism, syncretism with non-Christian religions. It's baffling that many Christian leaders don't want our civil magistrates to rule in accordance to the law of God. And you have Artaxerxes saying what he says here. This is a Persian king who did not have the light of the New Testament as Christian seminary professors, pastors, and leaders do today. And Artaxerxes knew more than these guys today do. But why is that? It's because these men don't trust God. Our Christian leaders today are seminary professors, pastors, theologians that say these things, do not trust in Jehovah God, the God of heaven. That's why. They don't. It's practical atheism. These are the promises of God from Deuteronomy forward. I can bring up Nehemiah 13, 2 Chronicles 34, Psalm 2, Psalm 22, Psalm 72, Psalm 110. They all speak the same way. But our leaders in our church today don't fear God. Don't trust Him. Don't believe that God would do it. They believe that we need to do it. You know, like Sarah, Sarah laughed. What do you mean? I'm going to have a child. I can't have a child. So you know what? Husband, here's my servant girl. Why don't you have a child with her? Hagar. And we'll make the promises of God happen. Let's make the promises of God happen our way. I mean, there's no way me, a 90 year old woman is going to have a baby. So she'll do it in my name. That's what the Christian church is doing today, right? With our rulers, with who we vote for. Well, the election is not about one person, it's about the Supreme Court or whatever. Well, no. We should vote according to what the law of God, the word of God teaches. And God has given requirements for rulers, and these are the requirements. Well, okay, so let's humor those Christians that say, well, that's Old Testament. It's not for today, so let's go to Romans 13 then, because everyone loves Romans 13. This confederacy of Christian pluralists love Romans 13. So let's go to Romans 13. What does it say there? Romans 13, verse one. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God, the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resists the power, resists the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive in themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Will thou then not be afraid of the power? Do thou which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God, a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that does evil. Therefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also, for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. How many times are civil rulers called ministers of God in these verses? These three times. Ministers of God. What does that mean? What does it mean that they are ministers of God? Civil rulers are ministers of God. What does that mean? Anyone? In the Greek, the word there is diakonos. What does that sound like? Deacon. Civil magistrates are deacons of God, servants of God. So the civil magistrate in the New Testament is called to be a servant of God. That goes beyond Israel. This is the requirement of rulers. They are to be servants of God. And people will say, well, yeah, I mean, look at our rulers. They, they, they want, you know, they, they punish murder. Um, well, nothing about adultery. Right. But then, you know, if you steal, you know, IRS will come after you. Right. Uh, perjure yourself in the court of law. Uh, nothing about covening really. Right. Or dishonoring your parents. I'm looking at a public school system. Right. So, It's hit and miss with the second table in today's time period. Romans 13 is not a description of the civil magistrate in the time of Paul. It's a prescription, meaning if you want to be a ruler of a nation, if you want to govern other people, you must be a minister of God. In this sense, you have to be a servant, not a pastor, but a servant of God. And then Paul tells you how he serves God. He punishes that which is evil and oppose that which is good. Who defines what is good and evil? God. Where's that definition found? In the law. And where's that law summarized in? What's the summary of the law of God? The 10 commandments. So the 10 commandments tell us what is good and what is evil. Now. Does Paul here say, well, so magistrate is a servant of God and he's to uphold the commandments five through 10. Does he say that? Does he say, come on is one through four. He just says up. He is a minister of God to punish what is evil, to uphold what is good. That is to be taken for the law of God. All of it. There's no picking and choosing here. Right? So the civil magistrates duty and responsibility is to uphold all 10 commandments, all of them, not just whatever he chooses. And it's not by we, the people who tell the magistrate, which laws of God are to be upheld. Romans 13 is clear. The first commandment, second commandment, the third commandment, the fourth commandment also are to be upheld by the civil magistrate. And when people violate any of those four, the civil magistrate is to punish them. So how does that look like? How does it look like with the civil magistrate upholding the first four commandments? Give me an example. How does a magistrate uphold that which is good in the first four commandments? Okay, good. What else? Adrian? Honoring the Lord's day. Yeah. Ensuring businesses are not open on Sunday. But here's the problem, right? And this is where the Christian right-wing Confederacy comes in and says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Alex and Adrian. If you do that, we definitely won't get the guy we want elected. Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're cutting into my fellowship time at the restaurant, don't you know? Jesus is our Sabbath. Right? That's what they'll say. Do you know if Christians would stop conducting business on Sunday, all these restaurants will have to shut down? It is the Christians that keep businesses alive on Sunday. They will all shut down. But this is the sin of the Christian church in the United States. We, our hands are bloody. It's not them, it's all of us. Every Christian is guilty in the United States as a body, not every single person, but the Christian church as a body is guilty of giving wind to the sails of our civil magistrates by the church, not fearing God and upholding his law. Because the Christian church in the United States conducts business on the Lord's day. The Christian church believes that religious pluralism is a good thing. Our differences make us stronger, right? When God says that these are all false gods, and false gods and false religions lead to immorality. Someone brought up Solomon earlier. His immoral wives and religious idolatrous wives led him to a lot of immorality. You think that the morality of Islam, of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, don't lead Christians astray? They do. They do. And God is telling us, if a nation wants to flourish, if a nation wants to be blessed, they are to repent and turn to God. and the rulers are to do the same. We saw this in Leviticus 4, that it was not just rules for Israel, this applies to all rulers. And so we see from the Old and New Testament, the obligation of the civil magistrate to be a servant of God, and to uphold the law of God. And in our nation, being a republic, where we elect our officials, did you know that when you're electing someone, you're giving them your voice? You're giving them authority. This is why these protests lately have been, one of the slogans is not in our name, not with our voice, because they understand that whatever the civil magistrates do, they're doing it in your name, our name. I'm a citizen, our name. That's when you're voting for someone, you're saying, I'm choosing you to speak for me. I'm using you to be my representative. House of Representatives, right? I'm asking you to represent me in the civil majesty seat. That's what you do when you vote. So the question is this. Voting is not a sin. It's never condemned in the scriptures. But the question in Deuteronomy 17 is this, when you're choosing a ruler, you're to choose a ruler who fears God. So you ask yourself before you vote, does this ruler, this person wants to rule, fear God or not? And what does it mean to fear God? To obey his law, to uphold his law. to do everything according to the law of God. We saw that in Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Ezra, and Romans 13. Right? We've seen that. So you're gonna need to ask yourself, the person I'm gonna vote for, God has told me what the requirements are. Does this person live up to them? Or even try. Make it a little easier if you want to. Do it and try. And you don't see that. You don't see that, do you? The major candidates don't. They don't try. They don't even try. They'll say they're religious. But, yeah, everyone's religious. But they are trying to uphold the law of God? That's the question you need to ask. We'll pick this up next time. I'm gonna end here.