Okay, we're gonna look tonight, Deuteronomy 17, and the title is A Word to Kings. And if you would turn in your Bible there to Deuteronomy chapter 17, 14 through 20, stand with me for the reading of the word. So the kings have not been appointed yet. And this is a word for the future, when kings would be appointed. So the word of the Lord says, when you come to the land which the Lord your God is giving 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. You shall set as king over you. 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 this 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 and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he may not turn aside from the commandment 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. Heavenly Father, I just pray, Lord God, this night, a word to kings, that you, Lord God, we would take this word to heart, and Father God, that you would bless us in realizing, Lord God, who we are, our identity in you, and Lord God, how that will be fulfilled in future days. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So as we've been going through these chapters in Deuteronomy, I've talked to you about a number of times things that have been said in the book of Deuteronomy and then taking it back to what is said in the New Testament about our identity in Christ, who we are in Christ. It's critical that we come to know who we are in Christ. That is an imperative. That is what God is trying to reveal to us, who he is and who we are. And so as we've looked, we talked about a few weeks ago that our identity in Christ is that we are priests. We talked about in our identity in Christ is that we are doulos, right? Servants, bondservants of the Lord. And tonight I want to talk to you a little bit about that we are called kings. And actually the word is priest kings. So I want to take you through, let me take you through the historical background of this passage. And then I want to get into an application with you. The first thing, is the appointing of a king. So in verse 14 and 15, 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 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 you shall set as king over you. You may not set a foreigner over you who is not your brother. Now, this was not God's original intent. This was not God's original plan. So this is the Lord looking into the future and foreseeing what would occur in the future because there would come a time when Israel would reject him, would reject the prophets, and essentially Samuel, and then they would cry out for a king. They wanted to have a king like the nations around them who had kings. So it was not God's original plan. If you look at what's happening really in Genesis through the calling of Abraham, the development of Israel, right up until the end of Deuteronomy, essentially what you have, and really into the book of Judges, you have a theocracy. That is God ruling. So now the people, right, this is a preparation for the people when they will reject the theocracy, God's rule, and they're gonna want a leader or a king to be ruling over them. So God here again is foreseeing it, and God warned them, when you choose a king, a man, to lead you, he's gonna tax you, and he's going to force your young men into, he's gonna conscript them into the army. and send them into war. So I just want to show you, I want to show you where this happens in 1st Samuel chapter 8 verse 4 through 10. You ever have people reject you for your faith in Jesus? Here's a great passage to come to that will, that will, it will console you, will comfort you. So in 1st Samuel chapter 8 verse 4 through 10 it says, then all Israel all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah and said to him, look, you are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. So Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord said to Samuel, watch this, Samuel's experiencing rejection here. They're rejecting me. And notice what God says. And the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me. I've been in this pulpit since the start of this church. I've watched people accept God, and I've watched people reject God. And I got to tell you, in the early years, I took it personal. I was taking it that it was me. And I came across this passage, and I'll tell you, it consoled me. It comforted me. If I am being who God wants me to be, and I am doing what God wants me to do in the preaching of the word of God, and some people can't swallow that, some people can't digest it, and it upsets them, right? And they reject it. They've rejected him. Now, it goes on here. According to all the works, which they have done since the day I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, with which they have forsaken me and served other gods. So they are doing to you also. So when you're getting rejected, when you are being true to the Lord and somebody or someone's are rejecting you, right? Just understand you're in really good company because of what they did to Jesus. Some of you right now looking at me and you're going through this right in your life. So verse nine, now therefore heed their voice, however you shall solemnly forewarn them and show them the behavior of the king who will reign over them. So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. So here again, this is God foreseeing this day when this would happen and God's appointed king at this time was Saul. Second thing I want you to notice is warnings for the king. In Deuteronomy chapter 17, 16 and 17, 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." Here's a warning against multiplication. Don't multiply horses, don't multiply wives. For himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself. Why the warning about multiplication of horses? Why the warning for the multiplication of wives. The multiplication of horses, essentially, was that the king was not to put his trust in the war machine. He was not to put his trust in horses, war horses, or chariots. And the warning of not going into Egypt, Egypt was known as a nation that developed tremendous horses. They never used horses for work. They used them for warfare. And they essentially used them, and it was a sign of power. It was a sign that they used of greatness. And they used them for hunting. So here's an interesting thing. Ramses II, he had two horses. One was named Victory and one was named Content. He ate with his horses and considered them more noble than the princes of Egypt. That's the quality. So the war horse, if you know anything about warfare and history, no army could defeat an army with cavalry. No army, no standing army, men standing on their feet could defeat an army that was coming at them with chariots and war horses. So the war horse was very significant. And God is warning the king, I don't want you to put your trust in your horses, put your trust in your chariots or put your trust in your army. I want the king to trust in me. Have you ever heard that in the scripture? Because it's repeated a number of times. Psalm 20 verse seven, some trust in chariots, some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. I want to tell you this right now. You look at the world. I think I think one of the great threats about Israel right now is that they have their trust. They're trusting in their army, they're trusting in their technology, and they're trusting in U.S. army and U.S. technology. Right now, the U.S. Navy has totally, literally encompassed that entire area. But that is where their trust is, and their trust, for the most part, is not in the Lord. People think Israel is this deeply spiritual country. We go to Israel. You go to Jerusalem, and you have the Orthodox sections, right? And they're Orthodox, devout Jews, praying Jews, devote Jews to the Torah. But you go to Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv is like going down into the village of New York. You go up to Haifa. Haifa is, there are a lot of Christian Arabs in Haifa. But for the most part, Israel is a very secular country. And again, there are these spots. And the same thing goes for America. You look at what's going on. I don't want to frighten you with stuff. You got America being threatened by Russia, you got them being threatened by China, you got us being threatened by North Korea, and you got us being threatened by Iran, and you got us being threatened by numerous terrorist organizations around the world. And most Americans are walking around, and they think that we're untouchable. Remember 9-11? Some of you kids, you don't remember 9-11. You remember 9-11? So our trust needs to be in the Lord. So I said, we need to be praying right now. I get down on my knees every morning. I'm praying. I'm praying for a revival to come to this country. I'm praying for this country to turn away from their evil and repent. But I'm praying for protection right now because I believe, I believe, hey, I believe what happened on 9-11. There can be things that happen in this country that make 9-11, right, look like a picnic. And we need to be praying. We need to be praying for the people. We need to be praying for our families, praying for our children, praying for our grandchildren. Now, second warning. Second warning is to not essentially accumulate wives. Why? Right? And you think of Solomon, right? We go to First Kings chapter 11, 14. For it was so when Solomon was old that his wives turned his heart after other gods and his heart loyal to the Lord his God as was the heart of his father David. How many wives did Solomon have? Was it 700 and 300, right? And 300 concubines, right? And what these women were, they were women, okay, that were basically brought into marriage with Solomon and they were political marriages, much like Ahab and Jezebel, if you know the story in Kings. but they were political marriages. So the idea is if I was from a nation and my daughter married the king of another nation, he ain't coming to attack us. My daughter will give him hell if he did that. There were political marriages. What happened was, all these marriages in the life of Solomon, these women came with their pagan gods. So they're worshipping Baal. They're worshipping Ashtoreth. They're worshipping Chemosh. They're worshipping Dagon. And then they're erecting their temples and their altars in Jerusalem. And this was Solomon's downfall. right? Be yoked to an unbeliever. They could pull you down. So I just, I just will say this. We become what we look at. We become what we watch. We become what we listen to. We become what we expose ourselves to. We become what we allow to influence us. And if you think you're above that, you're delusional. If you think that you are so spiritually strong and mighty that you can expose yourselves to things, that things of the world, essentially the world that is under the control of the devil, you are greatly mistaken because it will take you down. You know, you ever hear the saying, you might've heard this, this has come to New Jersey, you are what you eat. Have you ever heard that before? Well, you know what, you are what you eat, what you ingest into your mind, into your soul, right, into your heart. And that's why, again, you have this strong warning. These women will come into your life and influence you and lead you away from the Lord. Now the third, the king in the word. And this is something to really take to heart. This is, God's instruction for the king, and I'll tell you, I think it's instruction for us. So, verse 18 through 20. 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. So, as to where we are now, we're coming to the completion of Torah. Okay, you have Genesis, right? We have Exodus, we have Leviticus, we have Numbers and Deuteronomy. That's what was written. That's what's written in the Bible. The other 61 books have not been written yet. And the first responsibility of a king was to take the manuscript from the priest and to write out that man. He's going to have his own, create his own personal copy of Torah. So I'm reading that. And I love a good challenge. And I love to challenge, you know, I challenge myself every day in the Word and reading the Word and memorizing the Word, right, and reading the Word, studying the Word. God spoke to my heart. There are some people in here, your walk with the Lord has been really incredible. And maybe you've come to a place where, you know what, you've gone through the Word so many times. Think about it. How about taking a nice, thick, thick, thick notebook, the thickest notebook you can find, and writing your own copy, not just of Torah, but of the entire Bible. It was gonna take me a while. First I thought I could probably do it in a year, but then I thought, if you've ever seen my penmanship, because I want to be able to read it. And I want someone else to be able to read. You ever see the way the doctor writes out a prescription for you? That's my penmanship, okay? So I'm gonna have to write really slow. And I'm gonna consider doing it in Hebrew and maybe in Greek. Just praying about that right now. But think about that. That's an endeavor, boy, to write it. Some of us may not complete it. We may go home to be with the Lord. I just thought that, I thought that was great. And then it goes on and says, and the one before the priests and Levites, and it shall be with him. So he's gonna take that, right? He's gonna take that book, that Torah that he has written, it's gonna be with him all the time, right? You ever see, there was an old show years ago called Have Gun, Will Travel? How many of you remember that? Well, you know what? have Bible will travel, right? We should have our Bible with us all the time. I have many, many, you know, many bibles in many places, but there, you know, the word, the word is always there. I don't know if I ever told you, you ever hear a story where, you know, the person wears, you know, they have the Bible in their pocket and somebody shoots a bullet. and the Bible stops the bullet from going to their heart. I don't know if you've ever heard this story, but something had happened to me. I had a bullet that I used to carry all the time. One day, a woman in the church got mad at me, and she threw her Bible at me, and it hit the bullet, and it kept me from, that's a joke, okay? That's a joke. But he used to carry, the king used to carry the word with him and have it on him all the time. And it says, and he shall read it all the days of his life. And I just want you to just zoom in with the word read, because it carries with it more than just the idea of reading word by word. It's the idea of, you know, of meditating, really thinking about what the word is saying. You know, it's reading the word prayerfully, memorizing, you know, digging deep and studying the word. And then it says that he may learn to fear the Lord his God. That is the purpose. to come to a place where you respect God, you honor God, you're humbled before God, and you revere God. You have a sense of awe of God. That is one of the things that, as we study the Word, as you're here tonight studying the Word of God, as you're studying the Word of God on your own, you should be walking away with, again, that sense of reverence and respect for the Almighty who created you, who knit you together in your mama's womb. who brought you into the world. You know, the word of God says that he knew you before you were born. He actually wrote you out on his drawing board. Again, this is an illustration in Psalm 139. But he wrote you out. He gave you that unique personality that you have. The unique body that you have. And he brought you into the world. And even when you wandered from him, right? What did he do? He drew you. He drew you with tender cords of mercy. He wooed you. He called you. He brought people into your life to share his son with you. And He brought you to Him through Jesus Christ and gave you that gift of forgiveness, that gift of eternal life, that gift of salvation. But when we're in the Word, we come to that place again of respect and of reverence and of honor and to be careful to observe all the words of the law and these statutes. Obedience, that his heart may not be lifted above his brethren, that he would stay humble It's one of the greatest, I think, challenges we have. I want to recommend, I'll recommend a great book to you. Have you ever read the book The Imitation of Christ by Thomas Kempis? It's a book written like 500 years ago. If you want to read a great, it's a great companion book to the Bible. It's not the Bible. But Thomas Kempis was a devout Christian. I'll just tell you this about, I'm reading it again in my morning devotions. I've read it a number of times through the years. That man, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he knew more about human psychology. I'll tell you, and I've read many of the, I've read Rogers, and I've read things by Freud, B.F. Skinner, but I can just tell you, his understanding of human psychology, and the things that we deal with, and the way we think, and how we deal with difficulties, how we deal with temptation, it's so incredible. Just a brilliant, every line of it is just so rich Thomas Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. But something that he emphasizes, and I just started reading it again and it's just hitting me, is humility. And just how we can be so naturally prideful. We can be so naturally egotistical and self-centered. And he just brings it to a place where you realize the need for humility. And again, that is something that the Word does. We're not walking around thinking we're better. No, I've said this to you. I'm better than every one of you in this room. I want you to know that. That's something. There's got to be something that I can do better than every one of you in this room. And I guarantee that every one of you can do some things far better than I can. And that's, see, that's the sickness of pride. is the sickness of pride is that I think I'm better than you because, look at this head, are you kidding me guys? Look at this head, look at the shine, I mean, I'm better than you because I'm this, I'm better than you because I'm that, and that's the sickness because you can be looking at people and you're looking down your nose and you're feeling, right, you're feeling superior to them when there are things that they are superior to you in. But the Word of God, the Word of God brings us to a place of humility. And then it says that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or to the left, that he may stay on the straight and narrow. Don't you find that the Word of God does that? You know what's nice about the Word of God? When you're kind of veering off, it'll stick you. But the Lord's stick is far better than when you veer off, and you walk into the thicket. You know we ever walk into the thicket, and right, the crap hits the fan, and all of a sudden everything starts to unravel, and you know, they see that, you know, the pain and the problems and the difficulties that a person can occur in their life, and the domino effect happens. It's like, when you're in the Word, the Lord will, right, He will, kind of like with Peter, when Peter was sleeping, right, and the next day he was gonna be executed, and the angel came, and he said, Peter, right, and then he goes, The angel's trying to wake up Peter. And when Peter didn't wake up, what did the angel do? Yeah, he like cracked him, like right in the ribs, right? And woke up Peter. The Lord will do that with us. And I'll tell you, I'd far rather, right? I'd far rather take a whack on my behind from the Lord. than the pain that can happen when we go off, right? We go off the straight and narrow into the thick. And again, that's the thing the word does. And it says, to prolong his days in his kingdom, he and his children in the midst of Israel. It's gonna bring blessing upon his family. It's blessing upon his people. I just wanna show you again, here talking about the benefits of the word. Proverbs 25.5 is a verse that really has resonated with me. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. We are called kings in the scripture. I'm gonna show you that in just a moment. And it is to our glory when we dig into the word. Geez, I heard that. I didn't quite grasp it. You know, I heard that, but I didn't quite understand it. But I dig a little. I think about it. I meditate on it. I start comparing it with other passages of Scripture. What is the best interpreter of Scripture? Of course, Scripture. And then I begin to understand, and it really begins to, again, resonate in my heart. But it is to our glory that we dig into the Word. We pride ourselves here at Living Word at not being a shallow church. This isn't going to be a little shallow message. This is not a sermonette. You know, sermonettes. You do sermonettes for sermonites, something like that. But to dig, you know, to be people who dig deeply into the Word, to be Bereans who search the Scriptures, check what's being said, making sure it's true. Okay. application. Again, our identity in Christ. So I want to show you Revelation chapter 5 verse 8 through 10. John, right, he describes the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3 and then when you come to chapter 4 and 5, John is in heaven and he has this incredible vision. So in verse 8 it says, Now when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures, and this is Jesus taking the scroll, the four living creatures, angels, and the twenty-four elders, who they be, fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood. Now I just want you to notice angels are not redeemed by the blood of the Lord. He's talking here. These are the 24 elders who are speaking here and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our God and we shall reign on the earth a Basiliya Haron, a kingdom of priests. But who are the ones who are the kings and the priests? The 24 elders. Who are the 24 elders? Who do you think they are? And I believe that it is a symbolic number. How many tribes do you have in Israel? Right? How many apostles did you have? I believe it's a picture of Israel, the redeemed Jews. Right? The Old Testament saints. And then it is the church. They're raptured. The resurrection has happened. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And they're in heaven. But watch. Watch this. You want to get a little confused. Look at verse 10. And have made us kings and priests who are God, and we shall reign where? They're in heaven. And he's saying they're gonna reign on earth. What is that talking about? Right there, they're in heaven. They have been glorified, right? They have experienced, again, the resurrection. They have glorified bodies like Jesus's body, the rapture. They have glorified bodies like Jesus's resurrected body. Again, he said it's not, flesh and blood, but it is this glorified body. He was able to eat, right? He was able to eat, you know, the fish and the honeycomb, and he was able to move through, right, through matter. Pretty cool. This is the glorified saints, okay, Old Testament, New Testament, in heaven, that will rule and reign on earth. When? The millennium. Absolutely. millennial kingdom and if you look right when you look at the millennial kingdom right on the church I believe this is the church taken up right you have the resurrection and the rapture in heaven again this is what John is saying here you have the tribulation happening on earth at the end of the tribulation they return with the Lord revelation chapter 19 we will return with the Lord on horses you're gonna get a horse Remember L.A. Marzulli, right? People wonder, is my dog gonna be alive when I, you know, will I see my dog again? Well, you're gonna get a horse. I don't know about the dog. I mean, a whole lot of things are gonna blow your mind. Let me just say that to you. Heaven is gonna, eternally gonna be incredible. We come back, and then you have what's called the millennium. It's mentioned six times in Revelation chapter 20. It's described throughout Isaiah, throughout Jeremiah, throughout Zechariah, throughout Zephaniah, The millennium is a 1,000 year period where the Lord reigns on earth. We reign with him, with our glorified bodies. And there are going to be people during that time who made it through the tribulation and they were believers who are going to have earthly bodies. I think we're going to have responsibilities in the millennium. Now, 2 Timothy 2.12, if we endure, we shall also reign with him. If we endure, If we abide to the end, if we're faithful to the end, Paul said, if we fight the good fight, finish the race, keep the faith. What did he say? Then there will be a crown. Who gets a crown? The victorious. Who gets a crown? The king. I just wanted to stop and look. If we endure, we shall also reign with him. Presently, What did Paul say in Corinthians? Not many of you, you know, not many of you have noble birth. Not many of you are movie stars from Hollywood. Not many of you are playing first base for the New York Yankees, right? Not many of you are famous opera singers. Many of us. There are brothers and sisters throughout the world right now who are at the lowest rung of the ladder of humanity. They're hated, they're persecuted, they're oppressed. Our brothers and sisters in China, North Korea, the Middle East, North Africa, the world, right? There are segments of the world that just absolutely hate us. You see the Olympics, the beginning of the Olympics? I was just a direct, I mean, this is the Olympics, right? This is the nations of the world. How do they start it? I was just a mockery of Jesus, a mockery of the church. Just wanted to get that picture. The same people will one day reign with Christ. The same people who are at the bottom of the rung of the ladder will reign with Christ, with the King of Kings. What a reward. You know what? What a turnaround! You know, what a prospect! What a promise! The Bible talks about, you know, the crowns that we will be given. The crown of righteousness, the crown of life, the crown of glory, the incorruptible crown, the crown of rejoicing. You go back to Revelation chapter 1 verse 6, And He has made us kings and priests to His God and Father. To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. We will reign with Him. The Bible even says that we will judge angels. Now they're fallen angels. You know the fallen angels, maybe that have been tormenting you. Maybe they have been planning against you, strategizing against you, trying to bring you down, trying to destroy your life. Well, 1 Corinthians 6.3, do you not know that we shall judge angels how much more things that pertain to this life. Here's another interesting passage about reigning. In Luke chapter 19.17, It's the parable of the minors, sometimes compared to the parable of the talents. And understand what a parable, I'm actually, I just finished up with 2 Peter. I'm teaching on parables starting this week. I'm gonna go into September. I'm gonna teach on a number of the parables. I'm teaching on the parable of the sorrow. But what is a parable? A parable means to, essentially, to cast alongside. The idea is it's casting a story, an earthly story, to understand the heavenly realm. It's bringing in a story that is material to help us to understand the spiritual. So this is a story about people who were given, right? They were given money. and they were faithful with it, and then they are given more. But again, it's not talking about the money on this earth. It's talking about our faithfulness to the things that God has given us. He's given us time. He's given us talents. He's given us treasures. And we use, right, those portions to glorify him. So in Luke chapter 19, 17, and he said to him, well done, good servant, because you were faithful in very little, have authority over 10 cities. He's going to create a new heavens and a new earth. C.S. Lewis, he kind of went into this and he talks about, as well as some other scholars, that could God be creating other civilizations? And we will be the ones who essentially are going to reign over those civilizations? We're going to be, in a sense, their kings under the king? And that's a thought, because I think that, again, eternity is going to blow our minds with what God is going to create. You know, the New Jerusalem, that's going to be home base, but he's created a new heavens and an earth. We understand how vast this universe is, and I believe that this universe is only a tiny fraction of eternity. and heaven. So we're going to have these, I think, incredible responsibilities. We're not going to be a bunch of chubby little cherubs sitting on a cloud playing a viddle. If you want to watch a great movie, the Narnia Chronicles, which again, C.S. Lewis had written the Narnia. And I'm amazed at Christians who have seen the Narnia Chronicles and they don't get it. Aslan is Jesus. And the four young kids, they're us. And the amazing thing that happens with those kids are struggling, right? One kid is really struggling in his faith and the witch who is the devil really leads him astray for a time. But Aslan, he dies, right? He dies on that rock to redeem him and to redeem them and save them. But the end, the end of the Narnia Chronicles, You can read the book. You can watch the film. It's incredible because they're given thrones. Now this picture really says it all. He's the king. He's the Lion of Judah. Right? He's the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. But they're each given essentially an authority here. And I believe that's what's going to happen with us. That's going to happen with us. So let me just, I just want to wrap, I want to wrap it up to share with you one more thing. Here right now, it says in the Scripture, we reign with Christ. Now obviously we're not reigning over other people. We're not reigning over cities, we're not reigning over nations, we're not reigning over the world. But the thing that He is giving us that we reign over, we reign over our souls, our sin, our flesh. There's a story of a traveling preacher who went before a king and he said to the king, I'm a king too. And the king looked at him and he smirked at him and said, you're a king, where's your kingdom? He said, my kingdom is in my heart. And we have a responsibility as kings to establish the throne in our hearts. That is our key thing in reigning right now. So I wanna look, Proverbs 25, four and five. Take away the dross from silver, and it will go to the silversmith for jewelry. Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne will be established in righteousness. There is our responsibility. We have a responsibility to remove wickedness from our lives. And that goes for, at times, our own wickedness, and that goes for wicked influences from our life. We have a responsibility to remove those things, media, internet, even people. that may tempt us, but we have to remove those things to establish the throne. The more you do that, the more peace you will have. The more you essentially, you remove those things from your life, and the things in your thought life, things, desires, ambitions that are ungodly, the more peace you will have in this world. The less you establish that throne of righteousness, the less peace you will have in this world. And ultimately, there is one who needs to sit on that throne, right? What does it say? 1 Peter 3.15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. I like chair illustrations. This is a different one. Oh, here he goes again with that same old note. No, this is a different illustration. We have a tendency to do this. Jesus, sit on the throne of my heart, right? Especially when we're in an environment like this. Feel holy, Holy Spirit's like ministering to you, praising the Lord. Jesus, sit on the throne of my heart. But maybe tomorrow morning we kind of do this. Right? Right? Like, Jesus, move over. I want it my way. I want to do my thing. No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to do it your way. Right? Am I the only one who ever has that experience? Aren't you glad your pastor is honest? You see these guys, they're just like, they just act like they never have had a sin in their life. Are you kidding me? You gotta continually yield to him that he could have the throne. And it's thy will, not mine, be done. And he will give you your throne, but that's his throne. Amen? Amen. Let's pray together. Father, thank you, Lord God, for your word. Lord, just as I, Lord, came to Deuteronomy 17, unsuspecting Read it many times, but Lord God, your word came so alive to me, and I pray that it would just be alive in everybody's heart here tonight. That word, Lord God, about scripture, how wonderful. Lord God, just the word about Lord Jesus reigning as kings under your kingship. May we have success, and Lord God, may we succeed, Lord God, in establishing the throne upon our hearts of righteousness. And may we look forward, Lord God, to that day. Lord, we will reign with you in glory. This life, Lord God, is quickly passing. I believe it's gonna be just a tiny little blip, Lord God. But Lord God, we'll be with you forever, serving you as our king, serving you, Lord God, as king priests. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.