Right In Their Own Eyes
The book of Judges mentions twice that people were doing those things that were right in their own eyes. Some would cheer them on, but the language does not suggest that God approves of such.
Judges 17:6 and 21:25 explains that there was no spiritual leadership and everyone did whatever they wanted to do. However God made it clear that such was not pleasing to Him in Deuteronomy 12:8. Furthermore, for those who would do whatever was right in their own eyes, God would call them a fool in Proverbs 12:15. In Proverbs 21:2 we see that men do their own thing while God wants something else; we see very clearly that while men do their own thing, God will read their hearts. Thus everyone will be judged based upon what they do, and not on what they feel. We also know that God’s standard will be the benchmark for judgment, and not man’s feelings.
The Non-Patternists are in this category. It does not take a rocket scientist to see that when they reject the commands of God, and cease to follow the examples that we have in the Bible, they are doing their own thing and nothing of what God wants them to do. The Non-Patternists have made a mockery out of proven Biblical interpretation and understandings. They make fun of CENI which stands for commands, examples, and inference. While CENI was good enough for Jesus to do as well as the writers of the New Testament, all Non-Patternists reject the principles of CENI. They say it is antiquated and obsolete, and they practice a better hermeneutic. But the problem is that their replacement for CENI is really whatever they want it to be. They cannot even articulate what would be the standard for right or wrong. If we cannot use the Bible to set the standard of morality, worship, and behavior, what would we use? The only answer is “whatever I say and whatever I want”.
When we point out through Biblical authority that a practice is wrong, they are quick to start calling names and using all sorts of pejoratives in hopes of silencing us who speak the truth from the Word. It is so obvious that they reject the word of God as having any authority at all. They refuse to present a viable alternative that we can examine and proves conducive to the Bible, we might drop the CENI and teach the other, but they will not tell us what it is, and all we know is that they consider us wrong to be using CENI, and rather than pull us aside and expound upon us the word more perfectly, they just swoop down and condemn us.
From what I can tell, they only use parts of the Bible when such is convenient. Apparently this makes them feel better about themselves and they can stoke their own superiority. Just let them do whatever is right in their own eyes until they stand before God and learn what God’s standard of right actually is.
The only problem with the last statement is the fact that we care about their souls, and will face the harsh rebukes in order to try to teach them the truth. All they care about is doing whatever they want and calling those of us who would correct them all sorts of names.
By Carey Scott

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