Scripture: Deuteronomy 17:1-20 (NKJV)
1 “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.
2 “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, in transgressing His covenant, 3 who has gone and served other gods
and worshiped them, either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven, which
I have not commanded, 4 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, 5 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. 6 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. 7 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.
8 “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. 9 And you shall come to the
priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of
them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment. 10 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. 11 According to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you,
according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do; you shall not turn
aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce
upon you. 12 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. 13 And all the people
shall hear and fear, and no longer act presumptuously.
14 “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,’ 15 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. 16 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.’ 17 Neither shall he multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn
away; nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself.
18 “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. 19 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, 20 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.”
Devotion
There are some sinners who need to be removed from our midst. It is those
sinners who are unrepentant and continue in their wickedness, and even consider
the commandments of God irrelevant. Yes, God forgives, but He does not ignore
impenitence. There is no such thing as universal justification in the Holy
Scriptures. We are all sinners, but we are not all repentant sinners. A
repentant sinner also possesses faith in a merciful God who will have mercy on
him. A repentant sinner is sorry for his sin, and desires to live a more
God-pleasing life. He does not desire to continue in his sin, thinking that God
is going to forgive him anyway, and that anyone who corrects his sin is wrong
for judging him.
The reason why such people must be removed from the Church is that, first, they
are a cancer to the rest of the souls within the Church, and if the cancer is
not removed, the rest of the body is infected. The rest of the people either
start engaging in the same sin, or come to believe such behavior is not a sin.
Second, that person must be removed for his own good, so that he comes to
realize the seriousness of his sin and, by God’s grace, come to repentance.
Third, he must be removed so that we also might be led to daily repentance of
our own sins, so that we might by daily contrition and repentance drown the Old
Adam and each day arise as a new creation before our Lord Christ.
The Lutheran Herald is a publication of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of
North America. These daily devotions are authored by the bishop, pastors, and
deacons of the diocese. Daily posts are provided by The Reverend Jeffrey A.
Ahonen.
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