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[Note: <\/strong>This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles 1<\/strong>\u00a0page.]<\/span><\/p>\n In His immortal Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said:<\/span><\/p>\n Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven.\u00a0 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out demons, and by thy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you:\u00a0 depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Mat. 7:21\u201323).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This passage teaches a great and fundamental Truth: the vanity, presumptuousness, and danger of doing anything that Jehovah has not authorized. In His sweeping principle, the Lord embraced every item that one might list as an ingredient of faithfulness to God and His Son. If one has his heart set on doing \u201call in the name of the Lord\u201d (Col. 3:17), he will be faithful in all things.<\/span><\/p>\n Jesus\u2019 statement demonstrates the insufficiency of several things upon which millions are relying in religion. It is not enough merely to:<\/span><\/p>\n All<\/strong> that matters is, does God authorize it<\/strong>?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n To merely speak the Lord’s name over something we are doing is no sign of His approval, as the sons of Sceva quickly learned to their own dismay and discomfort (Acts 19:14\u201316). Jesus\u2019 statement conclusively shows that God not only requires more than mere faith and its confession for salvation, but that He requires more than mere works, also. If one\u2019s works are not the works God has authorized His servants to do, they are all done in vain.\u00a0 That which God does not authorize, He does not recognize!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Jesus once asked the Jewish rulers if the baptism of John was of Heaven or of men (Mat. 21:25). In doing so, he exhausted all possibilities. The wicked Jews knew better than to argue that there was a third possible source of authority. Every doctrine and practice in religion is either authorized by God\u2014or it is human in origin.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0Faithful men have restored and maintained the New Testament church in modern times on the premise of book, chapter and verse\u2014explicit or implicit Scriptural authority\u2014for all that we do and say. The essence of faithfulness as individuals and congregations is two-fold:<\/span><\/p>\n My, how all men, both in and out of the church of Christ, need to be reminded of this fact. Much of the preaching and practice among us since the 1970s has had no more \u201cauthority\u201d for it than one of the well-known evangelical preachers\/writers, some popular psychologist or philosopher, John Calvin, or one\u2019s personal preference. A sad fact to contemplate in all of this is that thousands of saints (including many preachers and a host of elders) do not know how to go about determining whether or not a given practice or doctrine is authorized. Such terms as explicit<\/em>, implicit<\/em>, optional, <\/em>and obligatory<\/em> are like a foreign language to them. Those who teach and preach are greatly culpable in this matter, for we have not taught and preached on these subjects as thoroughly or frequently as the need required.<\/span><\/p>\n One is not faithful to God who is not faithful to Christ (John 15:23). One is not faithful to Christ who does not honor His Word (John 12:48; 14:15). God has given His Son \u201call authority\u201d (Mat. 28:18), and we must scrupulously submit to it. Those who are careless about this subject, whether in the church or out, will arrive at the Judgment to hear the Lord ask, \u201cWho are you?\u00a0 I don’t believe we have met, and it is too late to get acquainted now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n [Note: <\/strong>I wrote this article as part of my Editor\u2019s Clippings<\/em> column in the February 2005 edition of The Gospel Journal<\/em>, of which I was editor at the time.]<\/span><\/p>\n Attribution: <\/strong>From TheScripturecache.com<\/em>, owned and administered by Dub McClish.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Views: 0[Note: This MS is available in larger font on our Brief Articles 1\u00a0page.] In His immortal Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of…<\/p>\n\n
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