No Departures from the Divine Plan
"No departure from the Divine plan can be treated as a trivial matter. It may appear to be of small importance in itself, but it only paves the way for a greater and more serious violation of the mind of God. We need to watch most narrowly the beginnings of things and constantly to bring them to the test of the Word of God. Modern Romanism, for example, is but the matured fruit of principles early adopted, which at first would appear to many as harmless deviations from apostolic teaching and practice, but what serious issues are seen here to hang upon apparently trifling innovations!
Yet not all new methods are necessarily “departures.” What is non-Scriptural may not always be “unscriptural.” Ezra’s “list” of those who left their friends and homes to build the house of God, and Nehemiah’s “Treasurers” were something new in their day. Doubtless a Daniel would make good use of the former in the way of intercession, and many of the Levites who otherwise had been
overlooked were able through the distribution from the treasury to continue their service for the Lord without their eyes being taken from the One Who was their inheritance. Two hundred years ago a Sunday School would be a new method; a hundred years ago, tracts;
fifty years ago, Bible vans and tents; but they were not Philistine devices. The orderly and reverent service of song of 1 Chronicles 16.17, instead of, perhaps, the unintelligent and uproarious shouting of 1 Chronicles 13. 8, was something new, but it was not a “new cart.”
In his zeal David had departed from the will of God, and had brought down His chastening hand by adopting methods which were wrong, not because they were new merely, but because they were contrary to His Word.
Our only safeguard is both to cleave to the Word and to consult the God of the Word. He will never lead us to act contrary to it, but He may, in answer to prayer for His guidance, show us a new way of obeying it.... There must be knowledge of the Word of God for obedience, but knowledge alone may lead to a spirit of independence and of forgetfulness of our need of being constantly at His feet for ever fresh disclosures of the present import of that Word for the need in hand and for the exercise of spiritual intelligence.
To know the mind of God is not enough, for our very obedience, even though honest and intelligent, may, if there is not constant subjection to God in brokenness of spirit, be but self-will. It is so easy for us to lapse from the spirit into the flesh with its pride of knowledge, and thus lose the savour of Christ in our service for Him."
W. E. Vine, from the preface of his book The Divine Plan of Missions
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Vine's warning about small deviations has been mostly ignored. Behold the great variety of so-called "Christian denominations", and sadly, many "little" changes have been made in so-called New Testament assemblies over the last century. For some, only the name remains, and everything else has been modified to keep up with the times. Remember the Lord's solemn warning to Sardis: "I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead" (Rev. 3.1).
