Authority

In my men's D-Team this past week, were discussing Romans 1:18-32.  In this section, we see the results and consequences of man not honoring God as God and not giving Him due thanks.  As a result, God gave mankind over to their depravity and their futile thinking.  In this section, we see a list of sins and wickedness that is beyond comprehension.  

One of the things that we stopped to talk about was in verse 30.

"...slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents..."

The question we thought about was this:  Why does "disobedient to parents" belong in this section?

As we talked it over in context of the entire passage it boiled down to one word:  AUTHORITY.  Man was given over to their sins because they refused to acknowledge God as God.  They refused to give Him thanks.  In essence, they were denying His existence because if they chose to acknowledge His existence, they had to acknowledge His AUTHORITY in their lives and thus submit to it and certain changes must take place.  Children being blatantly disobedient and living a lifestyle of rebellion and disobedient to parents boils down to their refusal to submit to the God given AUTHORITY  in their lives.  Romans 13 tells us that we are to obey our earthly AUTHORITY because it was placed there by God.  God established AUTHORITY because we are sinful and without AUTHORITY every man would do what is right in his own eyes resulting in chaos.  God is the ultimate AUTHORITY as our Creator and God.  Man has, since the beginning of time, tried to ignore and disprove that reality.  They have refused to acknowledge it and even begun to teach that which is now our national creed:  There is no such thing as true for false; there are no absolutes.  

In a word:  RELATIVISM.

Relativism is nothing more than an attempt to ignore and escape from the AUTHORITY of God.

Let me put it this way:

• GOD IS THE ULTIMATE AUTHORITY
  
• God has established a system of government and authority on earth in order to prevent man from doing what is right in his own eyes and chaos resulting.
  
• God tells us that by disobeying this earthly authority, we are really disobeying Him and refusing HIS AUTHORITY in our lives.  
  
• To disobey civil AUTHORITY is to disobey God.  (Unless of course they are asking you to do something that goes against the Word of God.  God's law is higher and His AUTHORITY is greater.)
  
• To disobey parents is to disobey God
  
• Wives, to refuse to submit to husbands, is to refuse to submit to God's authority.
  
• Husbands, to refuse to give yourselves up for your wife, as Christ did for the church, and to refuse to love self-sacrificially is to refuse to submit to God's AUTHORITY in your life.
  

So yes, disobedient to parents belongs in this section of vile sins.  A blatant lifestyle of rebellion and disobedience is a refusal to submit to the God given AUTHORITY in their lives.  Refusing to acknowledge and submit to this AUTHORITY is really a refusal to submit to God and to honor Him as God and to acknowledge His right to rule over you; it is refusal to submit to His AUTHORITY.  

Think about this the next time you refuse to obey your earthly AUTHORITY.  It is not ultimately that AUTHORITY you are refusing or that you will be held accountable too. It is God.