"Doctrinitis"

I do not know whether you will find the word, "doctrinitis" in the dictionary or not. It may be a word I have picked up somewhere, a word I have coined, but "doctrine" means "teaching, and "itis" means disease. So "doctrinitis" is a disease of the spiritual life of an individual characterized by placing emphasis on the doctrines of God's Word rather than the Lord Jesus Christ, or magnifying one doctrine over another. When you do that, your whole life becomes lop-sided in your teaching, in your living, and in your thinking; therefore, you have the disease of "doctrinitis." It is just like any other disease, for instance, bronchitis. This is the disease of the bronchial tubes that results in bronchial asthma, which I have. Now what is the cause of, say, bronchitis or bronchial asthma? Primarily, the cause is a lack of some food value or chemical element in the body. The cause of hay fever and asthma is the lack of blood sugar. Diabetes is an overplus of sugar in the blood, and the cause of asthma or hay fever is the lack of sugar in your blood. Each one can be regulated to a great extent by diet.

When you find a person who is lopsided in his religious thinking, and emphasizes one doctrine over against another, that individual has the disease of "doctrinitis." Now, that's a good word. You may not find it in the dictionary, but Shakespeare coined new words, and we'll coin a new word to describe your lopsided religious thinking. Now you sit down and listen to me, will you?

We are living in a day when there are two extremes in the religious world -- one is cold othodoxy, which puts the emphasis on certain doctrines; the other extreme puts the emphasis on decision for Christ apart from the sound teaching of the Word. In either case, you have a lopsided religious life without Christ. When you hear any preacher or theologian or Bible teacher putting the emphasis on any one or more doctrines and exalting those doctrines above Christ, it shows you he does not know Christ as Lord and Saviour experimentally; therefore, he is afflicted with the dreadful, deadly disease of doctrinitis. Brother, the disease of "doctrinitis" will damn your soul to an eternal Hell. You didn't know that, did you?

On the other hand, individuals who teach that the only thing you have to believe is Christ, and who pride themselves on being what they call non-sectarians or non-denominationalists, are also afflicted with the disease of doctrinitis, because the only doctrine they know is the doctrine of Christ, and they do not know Christ Himself. I have come in contact with hundreds, if not thousands, of those, and I have not yet found one who knew Christ experimentally. They say, "Ah, we preach nothing but Christ. We don't go off on this doctrine or that doctrine -- we preach Christ, and that is all we preach. We are non-sectarians." Let me tell you something, friends, I am one of the strictest sectarians living today. I am. I am as strict as the Bible is, and brother, if you believe the Bible and hew to the line of God's Word, you are one of the strictest sectarians that ever lived. You are stubborn -- you will not bend, you will not compromise God's Word for anybody. I would not compromise God's Word, if I knew it would save you. I wouldn't!

All right, let's turn to John 5:39, and read this Scripture:

"Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me."

The marginal reading in your Bible will give you the literal translation of "Search the Scriptures" --"YE search the Scriptures." Christ here is speaking to a group of Jews, and He is saying to them, "Ye search the Scriptures -- you are students of the Scriptures; but you do it with one purpose in mind, and that is to substantiate your own opinions, or to prove by the Scriptures what you believe. You take only the Scriptures that will prove what you believe, and by doing so, you think you have eternal life." How many thousands of you listening to me at this moment think you are saved because you believe certain doctrines or certain teachings that you can prove to your satisfaction by the Scriptures, and you won't have any Scripture that doesn't prove your own opinion and your idea of doctrines as you see or believe them! This is one of the saddest situations that we face in Christendom today.

Christ said on the other hand, "The Scriptures testify of Me." He said, "You ought to search the Scriptures, but you have missed the main purpose altogether, because the Scriptures tell you about Me. "They testify of Me." "You have so twisted the Scriptures and misunderstood the Scriptures in order to prove your own point until you have missed Me altogether. Here I stand in your midst, the Son of God, the God of the Scriptures, and you will not come to Me that you might have life -- you will not recognize Who I am." In other words, "If you had known the Scriptures correctly, you would have known Me." How many today are blinded by the "god" of this world (Satan, 2 Cor. 4:4), and the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is hidden from your eyes! You have your set of beliefs, you will contend for your doctrines, but you don't know Christ! Therefore, you are dying with the disease of "doctrinitis"! It is deadly -- it is hellish!

Let me call your attention to this Scripture found in Luke 24:25-27,

"Then He [Jesus] said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

It didn't say, "concerning doctrines," did it? No! That isn't the way it reads! "He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." I like that word, Himself. When Christ comes, He, Himself, will return. And He expounded the Scriptures about Himself -- "concerning Himself."

In discussing the Scriptures with these disciples, Christ did not primarily talk to them about doctrines. He didn't sit down and give them lectures in systematic theology. Now wait a minute -- don't you run off at a tangent! I am not against doctrines. No, sir! You just wait now! Don't run ahead of the hounds! Don't run ahead of me and jump to conclusions. But in every Scripture He magnified Himself. When you rightly understand the Word of God, the Bible, every Scripture magnifies the Son of God, exalts the Lord Jesus Christ, and tells us about our blessed Lord from the first verse in Genesis to the last verse in Revelation. The first verse in Genesis says, "In the beginning God" -- ELOHIM. Elohim is the Hebrew word for God, and it is in the plural, referring to the Trinity. The last verse in Revelation says, "I come quickly...Even so, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ..." Every individual out of Christ does not and cannot understand the Scriptures, because your understanding is darkened (Ephesians 4:18), and invariably you will go off at a tangent, magnifying some doctrine or some great teaching of the Scriptures above Christ You can't help it! You have to have something to hold to, and it is usually some doctrine. You cannot separate the Lord Jesus Christ from the teaching of the Scriptures, or doctrine; they rise or fall together. Now you get that! But let me drive home this truth -- let's read the Scriptures and study the Scriptures and meditate upon the Scriptures with one main thought in view, that is, to find out and understand more about our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father, and our Comforter, the Holy Spirit, or the Triune God. Someone wrote me the other day and said, "Brother Shelton, no matter where you preach and what you preach, you magnify the Son of God." That is the way it should be. I don't care if you preach on PRAYER, He is the Object of our prayer, He is the exalted One. He is exalted above every name in Heaven, in earth or sea or sky. Paul said, "Whether in life or death we magnify the Lord Jesus Christ." All right, now, hold your seat!

Yes, let's search the Scriptures, not to build up a certain line of theology, or a certain line of doctrines, and then try to make the Scriptures prove them, but let's approach God's Word with one thought in mind, that every Scripture will magnify the Son of God, and when you do that, every Scripture will fall in its place around the Son of God, and you won't have any trouble with your doctrines. Brother, I am one of the strictest doctrinal preachers in the world, but the Center of every doctrine is Christ! Do you know Him! Do you know Christ?

Let me call your attention again to this fact before we go any further. Christ without the Scriptures as a foundation of our faith is more or less a myth, a phantom. He doesn't exist. There is no Christ apart from the Scriptures. There can be no revelation of Christ to your heart apart from the Word of God. The Holy Spirit reveals Christ to you "through the volume of the Book." There it is. The Lord Jesus Christ is only revealed to the human heart by the Holy Spirit as Lord and Saviour through the Scriptures. All over this country religious groups are going off at a tangent and majoring on some doctrine. They may major on the doctrines of grace, and that sounds great, doesn't it? "Oh, that's marvelous, here is a grace preacher!" They may preach the doctrines of grace with all clarity, according to the Scriptures, and cause many people to follow them, and yet not one time magnify the God of all grace! They will read, study, and they will search every book, even the old Puritan writers. I know scores of individuals who have bought books by the hundreds, and they have searched and searched them for every angle on the doctrine of grace, but they are going to Hell with them; they don't know anything about Christ! Never one time do they magnify the God of all grace. In reality, no preacher can make clear the doctrine of grace until he first knows the Lord Jesus Christ, from Whose lips is poured forth the grace of God. The sovereign grace of God is a great doctrine, but unless you know Christ experimentally in your own heart as Lord and Saviour, you become as "sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." You may have all the knowledge of grace, yet if you have not Christ, you are nothing, and the doctrine of grace becomes an empty sound. I knew a preacher once who was always referred to as a grace preacher. He magnified the grace of God. He often preached on the wonderful, marvelous, matchless, amazing grace of God, but how empty his messages sounded, because he showed no evidence in the world of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ through Whom and by Whom God bestows grace upon poor wretched sinners!

As another example, let's take the great doctrine of the second coming of Christ. You will find groups that have gone off at a tangent and magnify the pre-Millennial return of Christ to earth again, and great numbers follow them, but the doctrine of the second coming of Christ back to earth again is so empty and void if you do not know the Christ Himself Who is to return! They will organize pre-Millennial conferences, but how many really know the Christ Who is to return! To that group, the second coming of Christ becomes largely an event. It is just a cold doctrine, and they'll sit for hours and talk and argue certain points about His coming. I have sat and listened to preachers preach on the second coming of Christ -- and that's all right. I do, too. I love it. And they magnify His coming as a great event and tell you about all the things connected with it as one of the great doctrines, and almost condemn to Hell everyone who doesn't believe as they believe. To that group, the second coming is largely an event; it is just cold doctrine. They will sit and talk and argue certain points about His coming. Let me tell you something, friends, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ back to earth is not just an event to a born again believer; it is the personal return of our blessed Lord! I have four books on the return of our Lord. If you want them, I will send them to you. I would like to place these books in your hands to show you that I believe in the second coming of Christ. I am not discrediting those who believe in the second coming of Christ, but what I want you to see is that they have the disease of "doctrinitis." You see, they have the doctrine as an event, and not Christ; and when they talk about the doctrine, they are not magnifying the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you, friends, the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ back to earth is not just an event to a born again believer, but it is the personal return of our blessed Lord. The Scripture says, "The Lord Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). The Lord Himself! That's not just an event, that's the coming of the Lord; and every individual who has been born again, washed in the blood of the Son of God, is not looking for an event -- you are not interested primarily in a doctrine -- you are interested in the Lord Himself. You want to see the God Who died for you. You don't care whether He comes in the morning or in the evening. You may not know much about the doctrine of the second coming -- and the average individual doesn't -- but if you are saved, you are longing for His coming, you are looking for His coming, and you want to see Him, the Lord Himself. If you are under Holy Spirit conviction for salvation, you are afraid He will come before God saves you.

When I looked for my boy to return from the battlefield, I didn't care so much about the manner in which he came -- I was looking for him personally. That train loaded with returning soldiers was a great event to the officials and residents of the city; but the coming of my boy was personal. He was mine. I didn't watch to see what color that train was, or who the engineer was; I was not looking for the event -- I was looking for my boy. He was coming home. You fathers and mothers know what I am talking about; you were looking for your boy. If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ, you may get interested in a doctrine, and you may travel for miles and miles to hear someone preach on the second coming of Christ, and you will say, "Oh, Pastor, that is what I believe. But let me ask you one question, "Do you know Christ, or just a doctrine? Are you looking for Him, or are you just interested in what the Bible says about His second coming?

You may be diseased with doctrinitis, which will soon lose its attraction, but if you know Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour, you will always be looking for Him, longing for Him, and praying for His return. Brother, when you know the Lord Himself, the doctrine of the second coming of Christ takes on a different hue altogether. It becomes a living doctrine; it centers around the Lord Himself. Do you see it? Do you know Him, or just a doctrine?

Paul said, "I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). When we preach Christ, and Him crucified, we must -- and we will -- preach the whole counsel of God. We will preach the whole counsel of God. We will preach every doctrine of the Word and magnify the Lord Jesus Christ in every one of them! 2 Timothy 3:16 says,

"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."

God's pastor will preach every doctrine of the Word, and magnify the Lord Jesus Christ in every doctrine. Brother, why brand yourself with one doctrine, and become -- say -- a "grace preacher," or a "sovereignty of God preacher," or a "sovereign grace preacher," or a "pre-Millennialist preacher," and when folks who know you refer to you, they say, "Well, there is a man who preaches the doctrines of grace"? God's preacher will preach the doctrine of grace, but he will show that all grace pours from the lips of our blessed Lord. He will preach the sovereignty of God, but he will magnify a sovereign God! He'll preach the second coming of Christ, but he will magnify the coming of Christ Himself! In other words, he will preach the whole counsel of God. My friend, do you see the difference? In other words, when you know Christ, you cannot go off at a tangent on some doctrine.

I had a letter from a friend the other day, a publisher whom I have never met except through correspondence. He wrote me, "Brother Shelton, we are publishing a book on the sovereignty of God, and I want you to have this book at the pre-publication price, so order right away." I read that letter over twice, for I saw there was something wrong with that statement. Then I took my pencil and underscored these words, "I know you love the sovereignty of God." I looked at it and said, "No, no, I don't love the sovereignty of God; I love the Sovereign God." Now, my friend, there is a vast difference. One is a doctrine; the other is a Person. You can go off at a tangent on the great old doctrine of the sovereignty of God and the kindred doctrines, election and predestination, and believe them, yet go to Hell because you do not know the Sovereign God! I know many who are doing it. Let me say again -- I don't love the sovereignty of God; I love the Sovereign God, from Whom flows the great old doctrine, the sovereignty of God, God on the throne. I know a man -- and it's a pitiful case -- who is always talking about God on the throne, the sovereignty of God, but he shows no evidence in the world that he knows the Sovereign God as a personal God, Lord, and Saviour. Yes, I believe God is on the throne; I believe in the sovereignty of God -- anyone who has an ounce of spiritual sense believes that -- but do you know the Sovereign God? Do you love the Sovereign God? Have you ever bowed in the dust of repentance at His feet and come to embrace Him as your personal God?

Take the doctrine of election that grows out of the sovereignty of God; anyone who believes his Bible at all believes in the doctrine of election, but an individual who goes off at a tangent on the doctrine of election will finally drift into Hyper-Calvinism, and then into fatalism. The individual who knows the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour will come to see and to know that he was an object of God's love and mercy back in the eternities, and he will magnify the Lord Jesus Christ for signing his bond and becoming his Surety. Brother, as long as the Lord Jesus Christ is the center of every doctrine, you cannot go astray or be lop-sided in your preaching, or die in your disease of "doctrinitis" and go to Hell.

I read a letter the other day that a pastor wrote to a young preacher who was under fire for preaching sovereignty. Not one time in his letter did he mention the name of Christ, or magnify the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. He always spoke about the "message." Did you ever stop to think that you can preach the Word of God and seemingly be clear on doctrines, yet never mention or magnify the Person and work of Christ? The trouble with this pastor is, he has the disease of "doctrinitis." He knows the doctrine, but not Christ. Get this great truth -- the Sovereign God from Whom flows the great doctrine of the sovereignty of God is the foundation of all the teachings of God's Word. The Lord Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, buried, risen, and exalted at the right hand of the Majesty on High, is the Center of all the teachings of God's Word. The missing note in present-day preaching is repentance; the missing note in present-day personal testimony is the Person and work of Christ. The disease of "doctrinitis" is killing a vast number of our preachers, teachers, and church members. It is a deadly disease, because you do not know Christ, because you are not redeemed by His own precious blood.

Now, let's look at this disease from another angle -- here is a group who preach that you must be baptized to be saved, and in all their messages and testimony they put emphasis on baptism, and not the Person and work of Christ. Therefore, baptism is the center, or pivotal point, of their religion. All their interpretation of the Word centers around baptism, and baptism becomes their god. They will turn earth, sea, and sky upside down to prove that baptism is essential to salvation, which further proves that baptism is their god. They know nothing about the Lord Jesus Christ experimentally, and are afflicted with the disease of "doctrinitis."

Now, let's take another example -- here's a group that has gone off at a tangent on the doctrine of the Sabbath; they see nothing in the Scriptures but the observance of Saturday as the Sabbath. They magnify the Sabbath, they are always preaching about the Sabbath, and they go so far as to say that all who depart from their belief have the spirit of the antichrist, which shows that they have the deadly disease of "doctrinitis" and know nothing about the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. Christ is not the Center of all their teachings; the Person and work of Christ to them does not mean what it does to the born-again believer. The only thing you can do is preach the Gospel and trust the Lord to open their blinded eyes to see the error of their ways, and turn them to Christ for salvation.

Now, look at a further illustration. Here is a group who believe and teach that you must belong to their particular church, or you will not be saved, or you won't be a member of the bride of Christ. They magnify the doctrine of the church and know nothing of the Head of the Church, Christ. Therefore, to them, salvation is mere church membership, which has been reduced to a profession of faith, a decision for Christ, and baptism into the membership of the church. They know nothing about Christ as a personal Lord and Saviour. The Person and work of Christ is a mystery to them. They know nothing about total depravity and the need of Christ, for they have missed Holy Spirit conviction. Holy Spirit conviction to them is an "ancient mystery"; repentance toward God is a foreign language to them -- something they have never experienced.

Let's take one other illustration in closing. Here is a large group who preach and teach and practice that you must receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost in their appointed way and speak in tongues as an evidence that you have received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or you are not saved. This is as far from Bible salvation as the sun is from the earth -- farther, in fact. They are eaten up with the disease of "doctrinitis", and know nothing about Christ as their own personal Lord and Saviour. They are blinded as to what salvation really is, and are revelling in a great experience which is real to them, but which is Satanic to the core; they are on the road to Hell and don't know it.

"Doctrinitis" is a spiritual disease that is eating like a cancer at the hearts of multitudes because they have never come to see themselves as depraved, vile, corrupt, Hell-bound sinners, and come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their all-sufficient Lord and Saviour. Let me say once again, the Person and work of Christ is the heart and center of every doctrine, or teaching, of the Word of God. May the Lord open your blinded eyes, your darkened heart, that you may see yourself as a lost sinner, regardless of what you believe, and come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and as your personal Saviour.

Now, let's remember this one fact -- that doctrines, no matter how glorious they may be, apart from Christ are nothing but bones without meat, a hull without any substance. Then, on the other hand, Christ without doctrines is imitation fruit that satisfies no hunger or thirst of the human heart. The Holy Spirit reveals Christ to the human heart and life through the Word. Christ said, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O God: yea, Thy law is within My heart" (Psalm 40:7-8). The written Word without Christ is death (2 Cor. 3:6); Christ, the Living Word, apart from the written Word, cannot be a reality. Face this one question, "Do you know Christ experimentally?" Stand before a mirror, look yourself in the eye, and ask yourself, "DO I KNOW CHRIST AS MY LIVING LORD AND SAVIOUR?"