Now, that’s true, whether you’re talking about a foundation, or putting up the studs, or what else. That’s a principle. It works here in New Mexico as it did down in Alabama. It will work anywhere! So far as I know, that is just an absolutely clear principle of how 90 degree angles are made.

Now, is there a principle that is involved in this matter of not using instrumental music in worship? There’s a passage in Isaiah, chapter 8, and verse 20, which says, “To the law and to the testimony: if they [any] speak not according to this word [this law], it is because there is no light in them.” “To the law”—to the Word of God; to the Testimony of God. We go to the Truth of God, and when we derive from the Word of God a statement of Truth, we are in harmony with that light! If, on the other hand, we do not go to the Word of God, or we misinterpret or misuse that Word, there is a lack of light as a result.

Think with me now about a principle. I want to suggest it, and then I want to elaborate on it and show that it is in harmony with Bible Truth.

There is the principle: When God has told us what to do, and how to do it, we are to do what God said, AND do it the way God said do it. That’s a principle. It’s always true. Now, let’s repeat that: When God tells us what to do, and how to do it, we are to do what God said, AND do it the way God said to do it. Now, let’s look at some passages and see how this principle is involved.

In the book of Genesis, chapter 6, there is the account of the world in the day of Noah. This world had become very corrupt and wicked. God resolved to destroy the world by a flood. The interesting passage for our present study is verse 14. God said to Noah, “Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.”

Watch now, two or three things. Number one: God said, “Make an ark.” God told Noah what to do. AND He told him how to do it: “Make it out of gopher wood.” “Make an ark; make it out of gopher wood.” I do not know what gopher wood was. I tried to study the various sources, and they don’t know, and I don’t know, and if I found out I’ll be happy. But it’s not essential for me to know what gopher wood was. God knew what it was, and so did Noah. Now, if Noah did what God told him to do, he would make an ark, and make it of gopher wood.

In addition, God said, “You are to pitch it within and without with pitch.” I understand “pitch” to be what we would call “caulking, or tar,” or some other kind of material that would be placed between and around the joints to be sure there would be no leaking of water into the ark. Now, God told him to “pitch it. That’s what you’re to do. And you are to do it within and without.”

Well, he could have said, “Now God, I don’t see any sense of that. If we just put it on the outside, the water’s on the outside and it can’t get through the pitch into the inside, so why bother with putting it on the inside?” Or, he could have said, “Now God, if the water is on the outside, it’s going to be outside, and if we put pitch on the inside, then the water can’t get inside because the pitch would keep it from penetrating, so there’s no need to put it on the outside.”

Now, if he’d reasoned like that, what would have been the case? He would not have been doing what God told him to do in the way He said to do it.

Verse 22 of the chapter says, “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Now, that’s the principle we’re talking about—the principle that says, Do what God said, AND do it in the way God said to do it.

Take another example, this time in the book of Numbers, chapter 19. This has to do with the rather interesting account with what was called “the water of separation.” In the day of Moses, they did not have the medical understanding that we have of germs and viruses and all sorts of things. But they did know that when people have certain illnesses, with sores or other parts of difficulty, they might spread it to the camp. And so, they would separate that person a good long way from the camp so that they could not infect the camp. In a day or two, a priest would come and examine the individual. If the person had made improvement to a certain point so that he or she was no longer liable to inflict this pain or illness on others, they could come back. If not…have to wait awhile. When the time came, however, that they could return to the camp, there was what the call the use of “the water of separation.”

It was made by taking the ashes of a red heifer, putting these ashes in a basin, or container, put running water in it, stir it with a hyssop bow, or branch, and then, when the person who was able to return to the camp stood before the priest, some of this solution was to be sprinkled on the person, indicating that “your separation is now over and you can return to the camp.”

“Wellll….let me think a minute about that. What difference, really, does it make whether you have a heifer or calf, or a goat, or a lamb? I don’t see any reason why you couldn’t use, uh…a lamb. And…and besides, what difference does it make what color it is? God, don’t You know that when you burn a black heifer or a white heifer you’ve got ashes? That’s all You want…ashes. Now, why do You do that? Why don’t You just say we just burn something, and go on and let us decide what we’ll burn?” I don’t know if they had chickens, but it would be lots easier to burn a chicken than it would be to burn a heifer. “So, instead of this ‘red heifer’ stuff, let us burn whatever we want to. Okay, God?”