"I DIDN'T ORDER THAT!"

By Boyd Sellers

We all demand that our silence be respected. No one has the right to presume about what we did not say. Suppose, for example, that you order a pair of socks and a shirt from WARDS. Three days later a pleasant caller informs you that you order has arrived. At the catalog center, you give the attendant your name and you ask for your order. Minutes later he returns with on small package and two large ones. He enumerates orally, “One pair of socks, one shirt, one riding lawn-mower, and one lounge chair.” “The socks and the shirt are mine,” you say, “But I did not order the mower and the chair.” What would be your reaction if he offered his apologies and then told you they were yours anyway because you didn’t say not to send them? Would you feel obligated to pay for the mower and the chair?

Or, to further illustrate, what would you do if your overzealous mechanic changed your oil as your requested, and also fixed you up with a new set of tires because you didn’t say not to? Would you refuse those tires? I believe there is a principle involved in this matter: Your spoken word is sufficient and final as far as your order is concerned. By that word WARDS knew exactly what you wanted, and it gave them authority to act on your behalf with your approval. On the other hand, your silence did not authorize WARDS to send you anything, and what you did not say gave the mechanic no authority to fix you up with new tires. It matters not how badly the mechanic thinks your car needs new tires. All they have to go on is your word; what you did say! It would be foolish indeed to think that WARDS was authorized to charge you for every item you did not want, or that a mechanic could do anything you didn’t tell him not to do! When it is not on the order, it is refused! WARDS gets the mower and the chair back. The mechanic gets his tires back. All you ordered was a pair of socks, a shirt, and an oil change, and that is all you wanted!

Now all of that is trivial compared to the message I want to convey. Jehovah demands that His silence be respected! It matters not how “well-meaning” people might be, or how badly some might think God needs something new. All we have to go on is what God has revealed in His written Word, the Bible. God has always rejected human wisdom that presumed to know something He had not revealed. When it was not “on the order” God refused to accept it. He rejected Cain for that very reason (Gen. 4). Nadab and Abihu offered “strange fire before the Lord, which He commanded them not” (Lev. 10:1-2). In effect these two priests sent the Lord something they thought He might like. After all, they liked it. “And there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord” (vs. 3). God rejected their “strange fire.” They tried to charge God with something that He did not order and He refused it. After their death, God said to their father, Aaron, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh Me, and before all the people I will be glorified” (vs. 3). It is a matter of fact that God is not sanctified in the life of a person who comes before Him with worship or work “which He commanded them not!”

And yet, it has become all too common in our day for people to offer to God worship and work that He said nothing about. They like it so they think God will. Sometimes they even tell us that they do it because God didn’t say not to! How unreasonable and unscriptural!

We need to understand that, “God…hath…spoken…” (Heb. 1:1). His revealed will has been written down and delivered “one time for all time” (Jude 3). It is complete and perfect (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The New Testament of Jesus Christ is God’s all sufficient message to man. Some have charged that because God does not speak orally to us today, He either does not care or His is nonexistent. On the contrary, the fact that God does NOT miraculously intervene today shows that His written Word, the Bible, is infallible, all sufficient, complete and final! When the One with all authority has spoken, there is no need for Him to repeat it or to continually content with quibbles. God hath spoken! Man must act now, and we must act in response to that Word. We cannot respond to what God has not said. We cannot know what God wants by what He did not say. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). The “secret” things are the things God has not revealed. They belong to Him. The “revealed” things belong to us that we may do them. That makes sense doesn’t it? We are just to do the “revealed” things. But, look at some of the religious practices of our day. Can you tell my why they are being done? For example, why does your church:

1) Use instrumental music in worship?
2) Sprinkle babies?
3) Observe the Lord’s Supper only once a month?
4) Have special choirs?
5) Make donations to human institutions?
6) Have elders overseeing works besides the flock “among you?”
7) Have elders overseeing more than one local church?
8) Have special services to honor a preacher?
9) Provide suppers, parties, and entertainment?
10) Build gyms, kitchens, or “fellowship” (banquet) halls?

It may surprise you to know that with the possible exception of the first three, the above mentioned unscriptural practices are practices of many churches of Christ. And did you know that God didn’t order any of it? “Why do they do it,” you ask? For the most part, “Because God didn’t say not to.” (Remember why you refused those tires?)

Sometimes (in the same vein) digressive brethren will consider some unscriptural practice and ask, “What’s wrong with it?” That’s the wrong question. They need to asking, “Where did God say it?” It is a fact that God will reject you and your “good works” if you offer what He did not order. Remember, it was a perfectly good mower you returned to WARDS. You didn’t send it back because it couldn’t mow. You sent it back because you didn’t order it! The Bible says, “He that…abideth not in the doctrine of Chris hath not God” (2 John 9). If you do things without Bible authority, you go without God. Your “good works” may seem wonderful to you, but you will finally be judged by the very Word you ignored, and you will then be found among the “workers of iniquity” to be cast into the lake of fire (John 12:48; Matt. 7:21-23; Rev. 21:8). “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus…” (Col. 3:17).