Page 183 - Push Back

living an immoral lifestyle, yet they continue to fellowship with them, and to break bread with
them? The message that is conveyed is that sin is no big deal. The fear of God is diminished in
the eyes of the child, and this makes their eventual repentance and restoration to God all the more
unlikely.

What if the child is not a professing Christian, but the parents are? Is the situation different? To
answer the question, one needs to understand the role of authority. Authority is granted by God to
uphold His government. Thus, we find in the Old Testament that parents were required to
demand moral behavior of their children, or subject them to discipline.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21
“If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and
when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize
him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his home town. And they shall
say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is
a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall
remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear.”

The Law of Moses existed in an environment where the judgments of God were able to be
carried out on a national level. Israel’s form of government was a theocracy (God rule). Later it
became a monarchy, which is why Yahweh told Samuel that the people were not rejecting the
prophet by demanding a king, they were rejecting God as their ruler.

Christianity exists as a spiritual kingdom. The pattern is “first the natural, then the spiritual.”
Yahshua stated that His kingdom was not of this world. Christianity, therefore, is not involved
with the rule of any nation upon the earth today. It cannot carry out judgment on the citizens of a
nation as Israel’s leaders were required to do in the Old Testament. This is affirmed in Paul’s
words to the believers in Corinth. “For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not
judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges.”

The church has authority over its members. It is charged with carrying out church discipline.
Capital punishment in the church is excommunication. An immoral person may be restricted
from further fellowship with the saints. The church does not carry out physical punishment as do