{"id":4373,"date":"2022-11-15T07:59:07","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T13:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4373"},"modified":"2022-11-15T07:59:07","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T13:59:07","slug":"devotional-on-deuteronomy-21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-deuteronomy-21\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Deuteronomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-zEKSrEt2PJE\/XXVXT1_Q9uI\/AAAAAAABBA8\/yHU8mnyz7Dg4L4DG6CPKS18q8UDB0lkgwCKgBGAs\/s1600\/P7209627.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Along Oregon Hwy 101 &#8211; north of Florence &#8211; Heceta Head Lighthouse<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGod\u2019s wisdom<br \/>\nDeuteronomy 17: Make sure you get yourself a king whom God, your God, chooses.<br \/>\nI\u2019ve read the Bible through several times in my life so I know I\u2019ve read this passage, but it never occurred to me that when the people of Israel demand a king during Samuel\u2019s life that provision was made for it in the giving of the Law.  Apparently, wanting a human leader rather than living in a theocracy under the rule of God alone is just human nature.  Here, we have the aged Moses going through the worship ground rules with his people and the topic of kings comes up.  Moses doesn\u2019t tell them they shouldn\u2019t have a king but he does frame the issue.  He says such as desire is the result of their wanting to be like the heathen nations around them.  Then he sets up some ground rules for that eventuality.  The king must be a part of Israel and he isn\u2019t to spend the resources of Israel in building up a war machine.  Nor is he to amass a large harem.   He\u2019s to have his own personal copy of the Books of Law that he keeps by his side all the time.  The number one requirement is that God, himself, is to pick their king for them.  Obviously, hundreds of years later when the people of Israel demand a king these guidelines are only loosely followed.  Solomon, in particular, leads the way in building a large army and a large harem.  I find it interesting that long before Saul becomes the first king of Israel the Lord, through Moses, gives directions that should have been followed.  Had they been followed Israel would have been protected from a lot of the bad stuff we find in the books of the Kings and Chronicles of our Old Testaments.  This passage reminds me that God knows what he\u2019s doing and that his ways are best in every eventuality.<br \/>\nTake Away: We always pay a price when we neglect the Lord\u2019s instructions for our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God\u2019s wisdom Deuteronomy 17: Make sure you get yourself a king whom God, your God, chooses. I\u2019ve read the Bible through several times in my life so I know I\u2019ve read this passage, but it never occurred to me that when the people of Israel demand a king during Samuel\u2019s life that provision was made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1489,7],"tags":[121,668,772],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4373"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4373"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14046,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4373\/revisions\/14046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}