Put Away the Evil From Among You

This Sunday, our elder, Mr. Horn preached a sermon entitled, "Put Away the Evil From Among You" (Deuteronomy21:18-21).

"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," (Deut. 21:18).

(v.18) This passage tells us what to do with a rebellious son, who is starting to effect the community, and won’t obey his father or mother even though they discipline him.

(v.19) In this verse it states that they must physically take him to the leaders of the city, in public, where every one can see and understand what is going on.


(v.20) They had to tell the leaders of the city that they can’t control their son any more.

Mr. Horn said that there had to be three witnesses to prove that the son is rebellious. Since the wife has to conform to the husband, the parents only count as one witness.

(v.21) Once the parents proved that the son was rebellious all the men of the city were to stone him with stones. The first witness was to throw the first stone (the father). The wife is spared of this awful pain. They did this so that the everyone in community would hear about it, and fear of what would happen if they too were to rebel and not submit to the authority of their parents and community.

God is showing great love to his people by clearly explaining what to do in these situations. Sometimes a rebellious child will influence the other children in the family and this is to prevent that. Also, before he is stoned, the parents already have disciplined him, but the child refuses to submit. The rebel is also probably causing many terrible problems in the community. If he is left alone he will probably commit crimes like murder.

In our society, we don’t do this anymore, but if it was done, then we would probably not have so many rebellious children.

Mr. Horn said that if you fear God and love your children you have to discipline them, whether you like it, or not.

I learned that I have to honor, and obey my parents now to keep from getting to the point where they can’t control me any more, and not to obey because I have to, but because I want to obey what they tell me. To obey and please my parents is to obey and please God and then He will bless me.