The study we’re going to do tonight is one that I consider to be of very, very great importance, and I want to enlist your earnest attention this evening. I want to make two or three statements by way of a forward. I will need to be using some notes tonight, because I will be reading from some quotations that I do not have committed to memory. We will be studying some church history tonight, but I hope it will be interesting to you. It should be. You may think for a while that we’re not going to get to any Scripture tonight, but just stay with me. We will get to the Scripture. We’re going to try to lay a good bit of groundwork in leading up to it.
Our subject tonight is one that, in my judgment, is not studied nearly enough among the Lord’s people today. And consequently, many of the younger generation, or generations, have grown up not hearing and, consequently, not understanding this material and its significance.
I want you to go back with me, as a beginning point, to the year 1809. In the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, near the town of Washington, Mr. Abraham Alters owned a farm. And in the farmhouse, he had a group of people meeting, and he’d invited a man there to address them on a religious subject. This man closed his remarks on that occasion by saying, “Where the Bible speaks, we speak; and where the Bible is silent, we are silent.”
That learned and devout man who made that statement was Thomas Campbell. Two years before, he’d left his native Ireland, sailed across the Atlantic on the advice of his physician for his health. His family would follow him shortly after the time he made this statement in 1809.
Mr. Campbell had come to the shores of our fledgling nation as an ordained preacher in the Anti-Burgher Seceder Branch of the Scottish Presbyterian church. (How would you like that handle?) He quickly got his credentials from American Presbyterian officials to preach in Presbyterian churches. But between 1807 and 1809, he had completely studied himself out of the Presbyterian denomination. They had closed their doors—all of their churches—to him, and so he had to speak to whatever small gathering he could find, or his friends could find for him. That’s why he was in Mr. Alter’s farmhouse that night.
Now, Campbell was not the first uninspired man to call attention to the significance of the silence of Scripture, as well as the statement of Scripture. But others before him who had done so had not made the same application of it that Campbell made. Campbell’s statement actually came to be somewhat revolutionary from two standpoints.
In the first place, those who had called attention to Scriptural silence before him had applied the principle only to the abuses of Roman Catholicism. But Campbell’s intent was to apply it across the board—no exceptions—to Protestant denominational creeds and traditions as well.
The second thing that made Campbell’s statement of it revolutionary was the statement of it itself—an easily remembered slogan. “Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent.”
Was this just another manmade, sectarian, credo statement of some kind, or did it have its basis in Scripture? We intend to answer that question in the course of our study tonight.
But, there’s a question that precedes that one that needs our attention and our answer first. And so, I want to put it before you now. What did Campbell and others who were attracted by this plea mean by the “SILENCE” part of this statement? I’ve never heard anyone question what is meant by the first part, “Where the Bible speaks, we speak.” But what did he mean when he said, “Where the Bible is silent, we are silent”?
There have been two answers—completely different answers—given to that question. In less than 50 years after Campbell made this statement, many of those who had been attracted by the statement, calling them back to New Testament Christianity, had begun looking around and desiring things in the denominational world that this statement and slogan had helped bring them out of. Two things in particular were on their agenda at that time: The Missionary Society, through which to do the work of evangelizing the world (which, of course, the Lord gave to the church) and then very shortly thereafter, the mechanical instrument of music joined that agenda. To justify the desire to have the instrument and the Missionary Society, these brethren argued that the Bible does not forbid them.
I don’t know if you’ve paid close attention to the controversy that’s been swirling the last two or three weeks on the homosexual “marriage” issue. I think maybe some of you have—it’s gotten pretty close to home here. But, one of the defenses that has been argued by some of those engaging in giving the licenses has been, “The State Constitution does not forbid this.” That’s the very argument these brethren were making in 1850 to introduce the instrument and to employ the Missionary Society to do the work of the church. Well, there is no explicit statement in the New Testament that says, “Thou shalt not employ an instrument in worshipping God; thou shalt not employ a society or other organization outside the church of the Lord to preach the Gospel.”
And so, with that defense, they began introducing these two things into the worship and the work of the Lord’s church. They, of course, were allowing their desire to be FATHER of their doctrine, rather than what the Bible authorized to be the father of their doctrine. And anytime anyone sets out on that course, he has set out on a disastrous course, as far as the Truth of the Bible is concerned. (An “Amen” was heard.)
One of the giants among preachers in the latter half of the 19th Century was a brother by the name of Jacob Creath. And as this controversy swirled, it caused much discussion in the Gospel papers of the day. And The Gospel Advocate was one of those papers. Brother Creath wrote an article in 1875, in which he made this statement: “When a man leaps the falls of Niagara, can he stop before he touches the bottom of the falls? When a man leaves the Bible alone, is there any rest for him this side of Rome? The most that can be said for all those persons who have ceased to the silence of the Bible (now, there was the issue) is that they’re only partly in the Reformation (and “Reformation” is the term that they used to refer to the work that they were doing in those days—restoring New Testament Christianity).” Brother Creath realized that this was the beginning of a slippery slope, where you could find no footing until you got all the way to the bottom.
Those desiring the instrument and the Society were so determined to have them that they continued to force them upon faithful brethren. It took half a century for that division to become universal among the Lord’s people. But almost exactly 100 years ago, even a federal census recognized that there was a distinction between the churches of Christ and the Christian church. And so, the division became “official”.
You may not know this statistic—it’s very interesting to me. 85% of those who were members of the body of Christ when that division became “official” went with the digressive group. That left 15% of our brethren who were faithful. You can see they had to almost start all over again. The church buildings, that these brethren had invested their money and their time and their energy to build, were taken from them. They were booted out—they had to start all over again. The schools and the colleges, for the most part, were lost entirely. Faithful brethren had to start those all over again. And if any of this seems to be sounding familiar to things going on today, it should, because it’s happening again. And for lack of respect for the very principle we are studying tonight, it is happening again.
Within 20 years of the division that took place from our brethren, those who separated themselves from our spiritual forebears had themselves divided again. The Christian church divided into two wings in 1926. There was an element of the Christian church, of those who separated themselves in 1905 or 1906, who were extremely modernistic, just beyond being liberal. I mean they were skeptical. The very fundamentals were all “up for grabs” to them—the resurrection of Christ, the virgin birth of our Lord, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the miracles of the Bible—you name it. They would question any of them.
And many of those who wanted the Society and the instrument were not willing to go nearly that far. All they wanted, at first, was just the Society and the instrument. And so, after 20 years of great conflict between those two approaches to religion, those who were less liberal separated themselves from those who were the more liberal, and they became the two wings of the Christian church as we know them today. The ultra-liberal, modernistic wing is the Disciples of Christ Christian church. And in most of our communities, they are the First Christian church. The other wing has been known most popularly, I suppose, as the Independent Christian church, sometimes called the Conservative Christian church, but “conservative” in relation to their ultra-liberal brethren, not in relation to the Bible.
Now, for a number of years, the most visible distinction between the Independent Christian church and our brethren were these two elements, the Missionary Society and the instrument of music. But that has long ceased to be the case. Among those people today, there are many, many denominational practices that have been adopted. And one could have predicted that it would be so, because when one is willing to lower the barrier enough to get the instrument in and the Missionary Society in, there are many, many other things that come across that same lowered barrier. And so, they have come.
There is one thing that these, in both the Disciples churches and the Independent church, are agreed on, however, and that is that we have the right to act when the Scriptures do not speak, that silence gives us LICENSE, or permission. And so, they take that and they add what they choose to add, in many, many cases.
That approach to the Scriptures inexorably leads to denominationalism, to a denominational view of the church and to a denominational organization. It cannot lead to anything else. Any of you who have tried to study with your denominational neighbors and have discussed the kind of music that God wants in worship have heard them say, if you discussed it very long, “The Bible doesn’t say not to use them.” That’s precisely where these brethren left OUR brethren a hundred years ago. And so it has led them back into that out of which their spiritual forefathers once came.
They say that what Campbell meant by this statement was, “Where the Bible is silent, we have freedom to act; we have the right to choose; we can add what we want to.” But I ask you if it makes sense that Campbell would have made that kind of statement, a statement, when he had come out of denominational theology, that would lead him right back INTO it, if he followed it?!? Obviously, that is not what he meant when he said, “Where the Bible is silent, we are silent.”
Now, the other answer to that question is that, Thomas Campbell and his even more illustrious and famous son, Alexander, as they began promulgating the Gospel of New Testament Christianity, and as they began continuing to state this motto because it summarizes so well much of the emphasis of the New Testament—as they went out, they were emphasizing that we have no right to act where the Scriptures are silent, that there is no authority to act where God has not spoken. We learn what God desires, not by what He does not say, but by what He DOES say in His Word.
The very reason that the Campbells and others, who were coming with them and emerging from denominational ties and traditions and things that had been in their families for generations, emphasized that we have no right to act where the Scriptures are silent is because of this respect for the silence of Scripture. This is why they gave up infant baptism in favor of immersion of adult believers, not because the Bible said, “Thou shalt not baptize an infant,” because it nowhere says that. But is says that only believers are to be baptized; only those capable of repentance are to be baptized. That, of course, excludes anyone incapable of doing those things, which would, at the same time, include not only infants, but those who are mentally incompetent, unable to grasp the Gospel, and those, as well, who never would believe.
This is why they gave up such things as a hierarchal system of church government in favor of simple, independent, self-governing congregations, as we see in the New Testament, not because the Bible says, “Thou shalt not have a hierarchy,” but because it gives a simple, autonomous, independent, congregational form of government. This is why they gave up the choirs and the instruments of music, not because there was a, “Thou shalt not,” explicitly forbidding them, but because the Lord authorized in His Word the kind of music that He wants. And so it was with a dozen or more other things that could be named, on the very basis of this part of that slogan, “There the Bible is silent, we are silent.”
Now, this is not a difficult thing to comprehend. Perhaps an anecdote that I heard a long time ago will help illustrate it. The scene was in the later 19th Century in far-eastern Tennessee. It was still horse-and-buggy days back in those areas. And there was a gentleman who was religious, though he was not a Christian, who left on a journey on a Lord’s-day morning, and he’d determined that the first church building that he came to, where they were meeting, he would get out of his buggy, tie up his horse, and go in and worship with them. When he came to one of our little white frame buildings, he tied up his horse—he’d never been into a building that had “Church of Christ” on it before. But he went in and the Bible class was underway. And the first thing that struck him was that he could not see a piano or an organ up at the front of the building anywhere. He’d never been in a church building that did not have one. And he observed in the class that, occasionally some class member would raise a hand, be given [acknowledgment; recognition] to speak, or to ask a question. And so, when he’d been there long enough to feel a little bit comfortable, he dared raise his hand, and he was recognized by the teacher. And he said, “Why ain’t ya’ll got no piano [pronounced “pie-an-o”]? The teacher said, “Who’d like to answer this gentleman?” A brother shot up his hand; he said, “There ain’t no Bible fer it!” And the teacher said, “There you are.” Now, that’s really how simple it is. If there ain’t no Bible fer it, we better not do it; we cannot do it and please God.
I got my driver’s license when I was fourteen years old. It was a hardship case. We lived on a small ranch about five miles out of town, and my Dad could not always find it convenient to run into town for a load of hay or cottonseed cake for the cattle, and sort of thing. So, it was handy to send me into town. So he signed for me to get my license.
I learned to drive in a 37 Ford pickup. It was one of those old pickups—had that oval grill. Some of you fellas will remember them. Had a nice little V-8 engine in it, and it was an old truck, of course, when I was fourteen years old—so don’t start getting any math together there. But I really enjoyed that old truck. I learned how to shift from second to high without using the clutch if I let up on the gas just at the right time. I could just pull it into that fourth for third gear. But you know, I’ve thought many a times, I would like to find one of those old trucks and restore it. And I think it would be a real jewel! But you know, if I did, I couldn’t put an automatic transmission in it. I couldn’t put power steering, power brakes, power doors, power windows—couldn’t put a radio in it, much less a DVD player. I couldn’t put an air conditioner in it. How would I survive in those Texas summers without it now? I did when I was a kid, but I couldn’t now.
When you restore something, you put it back just like it was, don’t you? You can’t add other things to it that weren’t there to begin with, and you can’t leave anything out that was there when it was new. You put it back…just…like…it…was! That’s what this principle is talking about tonight: Where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we’re silent. That’s the only way the church of which we read in the New Testament can…be…restored to its pristine and primitive beauty.
Now, while some have tried to interpret Thomas Campbell’s statement, and some are still trying, to justify a liberal attitude toward Scripture, there were those who lived with Campbell and heard him preach and knew his mind and his thinking very well, who wrote otherwise. In 1879, a brother by the name of Nathan J. Mitchell, who was one of those close companions of Campbell, wrote in the American Christian Review, which was the most widely circulated Gospel paper of its time, the following statement about Campbell: “The order of the primitive churches as to the worship of God under the immediate personal teaching and supervision of inspired apostles was equivalent to a command to us moderns, and that the silence of the inspired apostles on anything was to be sacredly and scrupulously regarded as much as the positive teaching.”
Six years earlier than that, a brother by the name of John West, wrote from Murray, Kentucky, to The Gospel Advocate office in Nashville and asked Brother David Lipscomb for some help with a problem they were having in Murray. There were some people trying to introduce the instrument there. And he said, “They will not listen to me and to others of us, who are resisting the instrument. Perhaps they would listen to something that you might write in The Advocate. And so, in part, Brother Lipscomb wrote the following: “Our worship to God is regulated by laws of God. We have no knowledge of what is well-pleasing to God in worship, save as God has revealed it to us. The New Testament is, at once, the rule and limit of our faith in worship to God. This is the distinctive difference between us and other religious bodies. Others accept the New Testament as their rule of faith but do not make it the limit of their faith. We seek for things authorized; they for things not prohibited. (See the difference in those two things?—dm) Our rule is safe; theirs is loose and latitudinarian. Ours confines us to God’s appointments; theirs opens the worship and service to God to whatever men will [to the will of men].”
These, then, that argue that when Campbell and those other early pioneer restorers began preaching the Gospel and began calling men back to this great principle—Where the Bible speaks, we speak; and where the Bible is silent, we are silent—are wrong on both counts when they say the “silence” part of it gives us consent, or, gives us liberty. They’re wrong historically, because Campbell never had that in his mind. That was an afterthought to justify an unauthorized practice in the middle of the 19th Century. But they’re also wrong Scripturally, as we shall see before very long.
Now, the principle we’re talking about tonight involves a law, or, another principle and it is one that we are very familiar with. It is one that we use everyday. It is one that is so innate to our thinking processes that we use it without even being conscious of it. And yet, there are many people who, when it’s brought over into the realm of religion, become as blathering idiots, almost. They act as if they never heard of the principle; they’ve never thought in these terms; they’ve never operated on this principle, or anything of the kind. It’s sort of like the “seed principle.” Everybody knows that when you plant watermelon seeds, you don’t get corn. Now, if I planted them, I might not get anything, but if I got anything, it’d be watermelons!
I was making this point many years ago in a sermon in Alabama. I hadn’t lived there very long—Tuscaloosa. I said, “If you plant corn, you get corn! If you plant watermelon, you get watermelon!” Some brother came up to me afterwards, and he said, “Well, I can tell you haven’t lived in Alabama very long. It doesn’t matter what you plant here, you get nutgrass!”
But the principle is still true. The seed brings…forth…after…its…kind. And that’s true in every realm—except what? Except religion, of course—you can plant the grossest error and still get true Christians—it doesn’t matter what you plant, you’re still going to get God’s people!! NO, it works in religion just like it does everywhere else. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Paul was making a spiritual application in Galatians 6 when he stated that.
But this principle, or, this law—we might call it by more than one different name. It’s been called “The Law of Inclusion and Exclusion”; it’s been called “The Law of Authorization or Non-authorization”; but they amount to much the same thing. Now, when applied to matters religious, it simply means that when God tells us what to do or how to do athing, He at the same time authorizes what we are to do AND, without having to explicitly state it, He forbids us to do anything different in the same class. Now, let’s apply that in the mundane realm first, and then, perhaps we shall see how it applies in the realm of religion, as well.
When our song leader announced song number 419 tonight, every one of us applied this principle. You know what he [the song leader] was doing? He was not only telling us what song we were authorized to sing—what else was he doing? He was eliminating every other song that’s ever been written—not just every other song in the song book. Did any of you think, as he said, “number 419,” “Well, I think I’ll sing number 100; he didn’t say not to.” No, not a one of us thought that, did we? WHY? Because, immediately we applied this principle, didn’t we?
Down this hallway, I’ve seen a couple rooms—one of them says “Men” and one of them says “Women.” Now the “Women’s” does not say, “No Men Allowed.” Does it have to?! Why? Because we understand and we operate instinctively on this principle!
Did any of you ladies ever order anything from J. C. Penny’s? They get your credit card number; they get your records up; “first item, please”; “item number?”—you give it to them; “second item?”—you give it to them; “third item?”—you give it to them; “fourth item?”—that’s all I want to order. Have you ever heard one of those telemarketers say, “Now, tell me what items you don’t want to order”? That’s the principle right there, you see.
If we had to specify everything we didn’t want anytime we placed an order for something in commerce or in our own homes, the nation’s economy would STAND DEAD STILL INSTANTANIOUSLY! Our whole commercial system rests upon understanding this principle of Inclusion and Exclusion. We don’t have to specify what we don’t order; we specify what we do order, and nobody has the authority to send us anything besides what we ordered. That’s how simple the principle is.
And you know God has been operating on this principle with mankind from just outside the Garden of Eden. When God told those sons of Adam and Eve to bring their offerings, He didn’t just tell one of them what to bring. The implication of Scripture is that they both had the same information of the kind of offering, or sacrifice, God wanted. Abel, by faith, Hebrews, chapter 11, says, offered unto God that acceptable sacrifice. Cain, on the other hand, must have thought, “Well, God didn’t say NOT to offer what I’ve raised in my field out here.” And I don’t know what crop he raised—some say Cain raised Cain! He did spiritually, even if he didn’t physically. But whatever it was, it was not what God specified, and Cain…paid…the price…for it. There’s the first operation of that principle.
Turn to the 6th chapter of your book of Genesis, and you’ll find that verse 5 says that, the world had become so evil at that time that every thought and imagination of the heart of man was only evil continually! Our world is rather wicked today, but maybe it is not that fully saturated yet, though we sometimes wonder. But verse 9 says that Noah found grace, or favor, in the eyes of the Lord. Here is a righteous man in a very, very wicked world.
And in the following verses, we have God’s pattern laid—yes, God is a God of patterns, and let us never be ashamed of it. God laid out His pattern, His blueprint, for the ark: one window, one door, three floors, dimensions and the material’s gopher wood. If I ever saw a gopher tree, I didn’t know it. I don’t think many of them have grown around where I’ve lived. They’re not really native to the places where I’ve made my home. But Noah knew what a gopher tree was. And there must have been plenty of gopher wood around, because it took a lot of it to build that boat.
Now, God never said “Don’t build it out of oak or cedar or pine”—or all the other woods that might have been available. And Noah did not argue, “Well, God didn’t say not to build it out of oak or cedar or pine. I think I’ll use a little of this. Surely it will do as well as gopher wood.” No, verse 22 says, “Thus…did…Noah; according…to… all…that…God… commanded him, so…did…he.” Now, Noah understood this principle. God didn’t have to say, “Don’t use cedar.” Noah respected what God authorized, and recognized that any other materials were, thereby, implicitly prohibited.
Turn a few pages over in your Bible to the 10th chapter of Leviticus. In the first two verses of that chapter, we read of the sons of Aaron (and sometimes we don’t remember that these were nephews of the great man, Moses), Nadab and Abihu by name. In their priestly garments, they brought on their priestly censers fire to the altar of God, and God burned them to death in the presence of the camp. Why did He do so? Moses himself tells us in verse 2 that, they offered strange fire unto the Lord. But listen how it’s described—not strange fire for which God had forbidden them, but here’s the way Moses stated it: “Strange fire which God commanded them NOT.” You see, God was totally silent about that kind of fire [the “strange fire”], and thus, it was forbidden.
Was God trying to tell them and us something? Could it be that this is one of the things that Paul had in mind in Romans 15:4 when he said, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that through patience and through comfort of the Scriptures we might have hope.”? Oh, we had better learn those principles of old.
There are numerous other illustrations of that kind in the Bible, but those are sufficient to establish that this principle is one upon which God operated with men and expected men to understand.
Now, as we’re thinking about these things, let’s make a New Testament application or two. For example, if we think about baptism—believers are to be baptized, Mark 16 and verse 16, “He that believeth and is baptized….” Does Got have to say, “Thou shalt not baptize an unbeliever”? Does God have to say, “Thou shalt not baptize one who is incapable of believing—whether an infant or one mentally incompetent” for us to know that He means that they are not to be baptized just on the basis of His authorizing believers to be baptized? Now, that is not difficult, surely.
When the Lord instituted His supper, it was in the setting of the Passover feast. He used unleavened bread; they used the fruit of the vine, and there is no authorization whatsoever for any…other…elements to be used on the Lord’s table—UNLESS one takes the approach of Cain, of Nadab and Abihu, of some of our brethren in the middle part of the 19th Century who said, “God did not explicitly FORBID waffles and coffee, so let’s put ‘em on the table.” You see, they’re thinking the same way. No, God has forbidden any other food or beverage on the table by simply authorizing the unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine.
Is it so hard for us to see this when we think about the instrument of music and the music that God wants in His worship? There are two key passages about the kind of music God wants, Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16. The summation of those two passages tells us that we’re to speak to one another and teach and admonish one another as we sing unto God our psalms, hymns and spiritual songs “with grace in our hearts unto the Lord.” We don’t have any playing in either of those passages. A congregational setting is obviously what is in view, because we’re to do this reflectively to one another—“speaking to yourselves,” “speaking to one another.”
The Lord does not have to say explicitly, “Thou shalt not use an instrument. Thou shalt not hum. Thou shalt not ‘Oooo.’ Thou shalt not ‘Ahhh.’ Thou shalt not mimic the sounds of instrumental music. Thou shalt not whistle.” He didn’t have to say any of those things, because He’s already said them implicitly when He says, “SING psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.” No instrument, no humming, no “Ooooing” or “Ahhhing” or whistling or instrumental sounds can do any teaching or admonishing! You see, they’re all excluded by what God does include. That’s the simple application of the principle to the music that God authorized in worship.
We’re going to begin winding up this study tonight, but I still have a few things that I think are important that we need to consider. I want to leave with you four reasons why we know this principle is valid, that is, “Where the Bible is silent, we…are…silent.”
Let me say, first of all, that it’s not valid because a man by the name of Thomas Campbell stated the principle. That’s not why it is valid. Campbell stated the principle because he discovered its validity in the New Testament. Now, there’s the Truth of the matter. But upon what basis can we say (besides what we’ve already said) that this principle is a valid hermeneutical principle?
Well, I suggest to you, first of all, because it is a reasonable principle. It is unreasonable and requires the impossible to expect every prohibition that God might have to be explicitly stated. We saw the irrationality of it in commercial matters. It can be illustrated in a hundred ways.
You go to your doctor and he gives you a prescription; you take it to your pharmacist; and your pharmacist gives you 500 kinds of medicines. And you say, “What are you doing?” Your pharmacist says, “Your doctor didn’t say NOT to give you these.” You see, it’s just that simple—you can apply it just over and over and OVER in our daily activities.
The song leader could not have known every song to name and say, “We’re not going to these,” because he doesn’t know all the songs that have ever been written. No man knows all the songs that have ever been written. And I might not be preaching yet if he were still just saying the songs in this book that we’re not going to sing if he enumerated them one by one! You see, we just don’t operate like that. This is a reasonable principle!
Someone says, “Are you questioning God’s ability to list every prohibition of our behavior?” No, I don’t question it at all. It’s a mark of wisdom that God did NOT so do. Who would be strong enough to carry the book around? Who could live long enough to read all of them? God has made it simple! We don’t have to have all of those prohibitions stated in black and white! We just follow this simple principle of “where He’s authorized, He’s authorized; where He’s silent, there’s no authority for it. This is a valid principle because it is rational; it is reasonable.
In the second place, I suggest to you it’s valid because it’s disastrous to ignore this principle. We saw it with Cain; we saw it with Nadab and Abihu; we could have illustrated it with others in the Bible. But then, think of the more recent years, the folly wrought in the church when brethren began to disrespect this principle a hundred and fifty years ago. It brought about the terrible division in the church; the Pandora’s Box was opened and the lid has not been shut on it—never will be shut on it—for those folk. It resulted in that disastrous, heart-breaking division, with families torn asunder, with churches totally divided, with churches stolen, schools taken away from those who were faithful. It resulted in two new denominations, both calling themselves “the Christian church.” And now, we are feeling the pressures of the same…sort…of disrespect for the Scriptures.
Those of you who stay apprised of goings-on in our brotherhood know that there are serious doctrinal crises. Many churches have already divided over whether we shall continue in the old paths of the Gospel, or whether we shall “go out and graze on the hills of the Gentiles.” Many churches have already been captured. In many, many cases—in fact, for the most part—it is the large, metropolitan area churches. There are many, many of these that have been so captured by liberal elements—they want the church to be accepted among the denominations as an equal among them—that I do not believe they will ever be turned back.
Some of our schools have fallen into the very same terrible change-agent mentality. And I do not think those schools can be reclaimed. History does not show instances of their being reclaimed when they go as far as some have gone today.
I do not intend to be an alarmist. I do not think I am one. But brethren, if we hide our heads in the sand, and we do not understand what is going on and what the currents and the issues moving among so many prominent brethren today are—among those who preach, among those who are professors and administrators in many of our schools, among those who edit some of the papers—if we do not comprehend the direction they’re trying to take the church, and have TAKEN some churches and some schools, we are simply not living in a real world, because it’s happening right now, just about on the hundredth anniversary of when the division was finalized earlier.
These things did not start yesterday among us. You can date them back to at least the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, when these pressures began to sort of subtly begin building, and then they have continued and continued and continued until, instead of an 85% - 15% ratio, it will be a 90% - 10% ration. I pray to God, as I know you do, that it will not be so. Brethren, if we abandon this principle, there is no way to keep the church from becoming a denomination. This is really the battleground—the silence of Scripture is the battleground—it is the distinctiveness maker between US and every other religious group. And so, it is disastrous to ignore the silence of Scripture.
The third reason I suggest this is a valid principle is because of the good fruit of respecting the silence of Scripture. We saw it with Noah. He had enough gumption to respect what God said about how to build that ark, and he did it, and he pleased God, and saved his family, and we’re all here tonight because he respected it. Otherwise, we’d have been lost in the flood!
The church of our Lord was restored because of respect for this principle. More than any…other…one hermeneutical principle, this principle is responsible for the restoration of New Testament Christianity. The Lord’s church has been maintained in a restored state because of those who were determined not to give up this principle! And you can see where churches and schools are going, who have abandoned this principle now! Abandoning this principle is exactly why they’re going that direction.
The church could apostatize totally overnight, and yet it could be restored again ANYTIME anyone picked up this Book and saw that principle in it again. But if they didn’t see this “silence principle,” they could not restore the church, because it…is…VITAL…to…that restoration. ONLY good fruit can come from faithfully following this principle.
There’s a story of a courtroom scene a few years ago, where a defendant, who’d been out on bail, his trial came up, the trial date came due, and he was not there. The Judge inquired even of the galley, “Does anyone know where this man might be—why he’s not here?” A man raised his hand. He said, “Your Honor, I know this man pretty well; I’ve known him a long time; I think I might know why he’s not here—maybe three or four reasons why he might not be here.” The Judge said, “Name one.” The man said, “Your Honor, he died three months ago.” The Judge said, “You don’t need to name any more [reasons].”
If you don’t remember the first three reasons, and you remember the fourth one, you don’t need to remember the others. The fourth one is the important one, and with it we close.
This principle [of the silence of Scripture] is valid because inspired writers used it themselves in applying the Word of God. There are several passages to which we could go to demonstrate this, but we’ll just confine ourselves to four verses of Scripture in the book of Hebrews.
After the beautiful introductory statement in the 1st chapter of Hebrews, the remainder of the chapter, verses 5 through 14, has to do with showing the superiority of Christ to all of the angels. And in verse 5, the writer says, “For unto which of the angels said He[that is God] at any time, Thou art My Son, This day have I begotten Thee? and again, I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son?”
And then, move down the chapter to verse 13: “But of which of the angels hath He said at any time, Sit Thou on My right hand, Till I make Thine enemies the footstool of Thy feet?”
Now, what’s the point of that in connection with our study tonight? Here it is: There was only One Whom God denominated His Son and said, “Sit on My right hand.” Not an angel in heaven could make the claim to that honor. But, was it because God went around heaven saying, “Gabriel, you’re not My Son; Michael, you’re not My Son, and to all the heavenly host saying, “You’re not My Sons”? No. God was totally silent about any angel being His Son, or sitting on His right hand. He authorized the One Who WAS His Son, by naming Him, and the One Who WOULD sit on His right hand, and every…other…creature…on earth or in heaven was thereby…automatically…excluded. There’s your argument.
Go with me to the 7th chapter of Hebrews and verse 14. The writer says, “For it is evident that our Lord hath sprung out of Judah; as to which tribe Moses spake nothing concerning priests.”
Move down to the 4th verse of the next chapter [15] and the writer says, “Now if He (Christ) were on earth, He would not be a priest at all….” You mean the Son of God, the sinless Son of God, could not be a priest under the old system of the Law? That is precisely what these verses are saying. Upon what grounds—where does the Bible ever say, “Thou shalt not take a priest out of Judah” (which was Jesus’ tribe)? Never says it, does it. Doesn’t have to, does it! Several times the Old Testament record says that the priests shall come out of Levi! Not only does Moses speak nothing of priests out of Judah, he speaks nothing of priests out of Dan, or Naphtali or Manasseh, or Reuben, or any of the other tribes. Only out of Levi could the priests come. But did God have to say, “Thou shalt not be a priest because you’re out of Judah”? No. Moses was just stone silent. The silence of God FORBADE it! There is the power of the argument as it’s used by an inspired man!
Now, if inspired men respected the prohibitive force of Scriptural silence, I not only may, but I must do so. And if inspired men established obligatory PROHIBITIONS on the basis of silence, so must we, brethren.
Now, I doubt that the brethren who began foolishly questioning the necessity of respecting the silence of Scripture a hundred and fifty years ago would ever have done so had they not first chosen some darling doctrines and practices that they were not willing to give up, and then sought, after the fact, for a justification for them. But tragically, their justification cut…out…from…under them the entire BEDROCK of Scriptural authority. And so, we saw the disaster that came from it.
It is my conviction that no principle of Bible interpretation is more important that THIS one—respecting the SILENCE of Scripture. And I think Lipscomb was just exactly right when he said, “This is the distinctive difference between us and other religious bodies.” Thus, we must understand not merely the importance of inquiring, “Does the Bible forbid it, or condemn it?” The prior and superior question is, “Does the Bible authorize it?” And having found that it authorizes it, our second question will have been answered largely—“Does the Bible forbid it, or condemn it?”
We’ve studied a little bit of church history tonight. If the Lord delays His coming, there will be those, a century from now, who will be studying the history that we’ve made right now, just like we’ve studied that history [previously in this sermon]. What will they see when they study our history? They’re going to see that a small element, to begin with, among us decided they wanted the respect of denominational churches and theologians and schools. They will see that some professors in our schools decided they wanted the respect of their peers in academia, outside the body of Christ. They will see that they began moving the church in that direction, and in order to do so, they...had to…sacrifice…this…principle, which many, many have now done.
There’s no way that brethren could have taken the church where some have taken it now without abandoning this principle. And it will lead them just as surely into denominationalism as it led those a hundred and a hundred and fifty years ago. You can already see it in some cases. Max Lucado has already taken “of Christ” off of his church’s name. Many of us prayed he’d do it years ago! He finally was honest enough to do it. But, I’ll tell you, there are dozens of big city churches that are not far behind Max in their practice and in their THEOLOGY that have just not been as honest…yet. I pray for the day when THEY will get the Lord’s Name off of their church signs, too, because they are flying under false colors until they do. They care one whit about this principle that we’ve studied tonight. They don’t believe the church can be restored or needs to be restored. They want a 21st Century church, not a 1st Century church. And I’ll tell you, a 21st Century church does not resemble in any way that 1st Century church, when we’re talking about the way men put them together. That 1st Century church the one I want to be part of; that’s the one Christ died for; that’s the one Christ will say, “That’s the one I add people to when they obey the Gospel.” And that’s the one we had better be concerned about.
The words of Peter will ring true, and they will be just as true on the Day of Judgment as they were when he wrote them. In 1 Peter 4:11, he said, “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God….” No man has the right to step one step beyond what GOD has authorized in His Word. Let us NEVER abandon that ground. Let us be true to what He’s authorized, and just as true to what, even by His silence, He has prohibited. ONLY thereby can we be His church.
Are you a member of His church tonight? If you’re not, if you’ve been a member of a denomination, this material is very strange to you, I’m sure. It’s brand new to you; you have never heard this material in a denomination. That is why denominations exist, because they do not know this principle, or, knowing it, they do not believe it, or are not willing to follow it! My friend, I’ve spoken the Truth tonight. I’ve justified it on the basis of inspiration. I hope and pray that your heart’s open to it.
The way people become Christians today is the very way they became Christians the first time the full…Gospel sermon…was ever preached—the Day of Pentecost. People who believed that Christ was the Son of God passively confessed it by crying out in the misery of their guilt, “What shall we do?” Acts 2, verse 37, says that they were told, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ unto [for; to obtain; to get; to grasp hold of] the remission of your sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”Verse 41 tells us that about 3,000 souls did that on that day, “…and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” And it was the church to which they were added, verse 47, “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” You can be a member of that very same church. Why don’t you become a member of it tonight? Come. Confess your faith in Christ. Turn away from all sin and error and be baptized into Christ for forgiveness of your sins. He died so that you could do that.
Come back to Him tonight if you’ve strayed away, either in doctrine or in life. Let us stand and sing.