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 10^th 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 19^th 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.