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Anarchy is the absence of government, meaning the absence of law. It is lawlessness. A growing
number of professing "Christians" in our day believe anarchy is the religious system under
which we live. They claim that God has done away with all law and any attempt to show them the
Truth in God's Word earns one the derisive label of "doctrinal police." Spiritual anarchists
love "unscripted" worship and lawless, God-doesn't-care-if-you're-immoral religion because
that is what folks want to hear and keeps the money flowing into their coffers. The last thing
religious merchants want is for folks to read the Bible with a view to understanding and
following the doctrine of Jesus Christ. So long as people remain uninformed about the
gospel of Christ, the spiritual anarchist can continue to make merchandise of them.
Consider the word "doctrine." It simply means "teaching." In his first letter to Timothy, the apostle Paul told the young evangelist to, "give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine" (1 Timothy 4:13). Then just three verses later, Paul said, "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee" (1 Timothy 4:16). The same apostle told the Christians in Rome they were saved when they, "obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered unto you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness" (Romans 6:17-18). He told Timothy to "charge some that they teach no other doctrine" (1 Timothy 1:3) and said, "If any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words..." (1 Timothy 6:3-4). He further wrote, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Does Paul sound like a "doctrinal policeman?" He does to some preachers today. The man who tells you doctrine is not important is your soul's enemy and will lead you to eternal torment. He's aiming for your pocketbook — not your soul. If he desired your salvation, he would teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ as it is revealed in the New Testament. Don't take our word for it, or anyone else's. Study the New Testament and see for yourself that Christ has a law — the gospel — which has facts to be believed, commands to be obeyed, and promises to be received. |