Pastor John,
Hi! When did you write the BLOG, “On Feelings”?
Jenny
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Hi Jenny.
In the original document that I came upon, I was still using the word “church” to refer to the body of Christ. That, along with some other things in the original text, let me know that it was over 20 years ago that I wrote that BLOG.
Pastor John
On Feelings
One of the intriguing doctrinal developments in the past century is the oft-heard exhortation to ignore our feelings. “Don’t go by feelings,” we are told; “just take it by faith.” When one goes hunting in the Bible for similar exhortations, he returns to the camp with an empty bag. There is no such animal found in the Scriptures.
Feelings are a precious and integral part of the kingdom of God because feelings are part of life as God has created it. We all feel because we are made in the image of God, who is “of tender mercy” and who is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities”, though He be “angry with the wicked every day.” God feels, and He wants to create in us His feelings and thoughts, which He does by the holy Ghost that Jesus purchased for us. Even those who are dead and gone from this life feel things, whether they are in Paradise or in Hell. Jesus leads us to God through our feelings, as Paul said: “Godly sorrow produces repentance (2Cor. 7:10). And Jesus made it very clear that without repentance, a man will never see God (Lk. 13:1–5).
Ministers warn their flocks not to go by their feelings so that they will pay no attention to how empty these ministers’ doctrines make them feel. Jesus said, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled,” but men say, “Deceived are they who hunger and thirst for anything other than what we’ve told them they have.” Peter said that the saints rejoice with “joy unspeakable and full of glory”. Where do you see such joy now? When is the last time you were in a gathering of the saints in which the joy was so great that it was virtually inexpressible?
Jesus felt grief, and he poured out his heart to God with “strong crying and tears.” On other occasions, he “rejoiced in spirit”. The Philippian jailor was moved with fear of God’s wrath, and then, after he was baptized with the holy Ghost, he “rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.” We are exhorted by Paul to “rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.” Whence, then, comes this strange notion that one’s feelings are not to be trusted or given expression? What is left as a guide if feelings are removed from the picture? “The Bible,” some will answer. But to what does the Bible guide us, but to God, who first grants us the feeling of remorse for sin, and then relieves us of the burden (a feeling) of guilt, and gives us peace (a feeling)?
There are even those who suggest that there is nothing for us to go by at all except the Scriptures, that God no longer communicates with man, except by what man reads in the Bible! One such denomination purchased space in my hometown newspaper some years back which proclaimed that the Bible is all we need for salvation. Think of it. No experience with the Lord. No feeling of communion with the Father. No guidance from the Spirit. Just you and your Bible, you and lifeless pages made from dead trees and ink, covered with the dead skin of a dead animal. Should you trust your eternal destiny to something you can hold in your hand? Will you be saved from the flames of eternal damnation by something which itself can be burned up? Jesus spoke to this issue when he found some of the leaders of Israel trusting their souls’ destiny to the Scriptures. He said, “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, but they are they which testify of me, and you will not come to me, that you might have life! (Jn. 5:39–40).
The Bible cannot give life because the Bible itself is dead. Paul was referring to the Holy Scriptures when he wrote, “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2Cor. 3:6). This means, for example, that Paul’s letter to the Corinthians kills, and his letter to the saints in Rome kills. Paul said so. But the holy Ghost which Paul had, and which the Corinthian and Roman saints had, gave life to both him and them. This is what Jesus was teaching in John 6:63 when he said, “It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The things that I am telling you, they are spirit, and they are life!” It is the Spirit, not the Bible, that will raise up God’s saints from the grave (Rom. 8:11). The Spirit is life, Paul said (Rom. 8:10), and it makes us alive to God’s thoughts and feelings now so that we might be found worthy to live with Him forever.
Without the holy Ghost, every religion is false religion; without the holy Ghost, every sermon is a lie; and without the holy Ghost, every man is a hopeless sinner. Without the holy Ghost, there is no righteousness of God, no peace with God, and no hope of salvation.
Ministers warn against “going by feelings” because they feel intimidated by the life that God’s Spirit brings to people. The greatest threat to every ministry of man is the life of the holy Ghost. It is no wonder that such ministers strive to keep people from it! The liberty and joy and zeal that the Spirit brings exposes every man who has no credentials from heaven. Many a soul has gone to a minister with a feeling of not being right with God, only to be told not to go by how he feels, but only to trust the Bible – as interpreted by that minister.
It is a tragedy that multitudes – billions – are being told that they are prepared to meet God in the Judgment when they are not. But the twist which makes it so frustrating is that many of them have feelings of a spiritual need, and when they ask for help, they are told to ignore what they feel and trust the Bible – again, as interpreted by their pastors. God help us reach people with the good news that there is a holiness they can know about! Their longing is for something that is there, that is real, waiting to be believed and felt – and Jesus has it!
Jesus did not come to start a religion so dead that men have to tell you when you have If you can’t feel the spirit that a minister tells you that you have, trade it in for the one that’s alive! Dead spirits can do nothing for you. The Spirit of Christ brings eternal life into your soul. Why, when it enters your heart, it starts off by making a sound through you so that you and others may know you have it (Jn. 3:7–8; 1Cor. 14:21)! How many times have we heard people say after receiving the holy Ghost, “For years, I felt there had to be more to God than what I knew.” And to get that “more”, they had to overcome a thousand ministers telling them to ignore their feelings.
“Don’t go by feelings”?!? How absurd! Paul said that “the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). Peace and joy are feelings! The fruits of the Spirit, listed in Galatians 5:22–23, are essential to the health of the body of Christ, and what are these fruits? “Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, faith, meekness, self-control.” Now, how in the world are you to know that you have joy unless you feel it? Should you wait for a man to tell you that you’re happy? And how are you to know that you love, unless you feel it? Are you going to wait for a man to prove it to you by quoting scriptures? Listen to what Paul said about those who are past feeling: “Having their understanding darkened, being aliens to the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the dullness of their heart, [they], being dead to feelings, have given themselves to licentiousness, to perform with insatiable desire every kind of uncleanliness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard him and been taught by him, for truth is in Jesus (Eph. 4:18–20). Notice, please, that Paul said the end result of denying feelings is a descent into moral wickedness.
God wants us to feel it when we are not on the right track. That is our safety. Men cannot keep God from doing that for us, but they will attempt to persuade us that listening to our feelings indicates a lack of faith in the Bible – as they teach it.
Beware, my friend. Any man who would tell you not to listen to your feelings would have you to listen to him rather than to God.
On Experiences
A strange doctrine which has gained some vogue in recent decades is the doctrine which warns against “going by experience”. You won’t listen to very many sermons before you’ll hear a warning not to depend on your experience. Is this not exactly what the serpent persuaded Eve to do in the garden of Eden? Did he not say, in effect, “Do not make your decisions based on your experiences with God, but on what I tell you about God”? Is that not exactly what happened? Eve had walked with God on the earth; she had talked with Him; she and Adam had been the beneficiaries of incredible blessings. They had been created in God’s own image, given dominion over an earth of great beauty and peace. They had experienced God’s love and care beyond human expression. But Satan, through a cunning use of words, persuaded her to make a foolish, fatal decision –– based on his lie, rather than what she herself had experienced with God.
“Not go by experience”?!? How can anyone not base his life on experience? What on earth is not an experience? Being taught not to go by experience is itself an experience, and if there is an experience which one should not be led by, it is that one. We all begin our earthly journey as fools (Prov. 22:15). If we don’t learn from experience, we cannot grow. Then why do some men teach against “going by experience”? The answers are simple. They do so because (1) They have experienced no ordination from God and (2) the doctrines they teach cannot be confirmed by experience. Therefore, they tell their followers that (1) God no longer bears anyone witness, if he ever did (i.e., “trust me, not God ”), and (2) experience is an untrustworthy guide (i.e., “trust me, not yourself”).
In seminary, one of my professors told us, “Brethren, if your doctrine is contrary to the facts, it is time to get a new doctrine.” I thought that was an astute observation, but it is one that seems to be lost to both the liberal and conservative side of the religious spectrum. Left-wing professors of theology deny the reality of the life of the Spirit on philosophical and psychological grounds, ignoring the fact of human experience with the Spirit’s baptism and its consonance with the Biblical record. Right-wing fundamentalists deny the power of the holy Ghost, ignoring the testimonies of many who have come from their own ranks. Let’s be honest. Both groups of Christians are just too proud to confess their need of a Savior who lives and offers an experience that sets men free from pride. All their erudite, philosophical protestations on one end and Bible-thumping denunciations on the other are “red herrings”, thrown onto the road in order to divert the bloodhounds of conviction.
God has enough precious souls of every economic and social background who have experienced and testified of the power of the holy Ghost that no honest person anywhere can reject it. “Whosoever will” may come if he will humble himself to Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. God is an equal opportunity forgiver.
My dear friend, if you have been blessed by God with the holy Ghost, you need never be ashamed of the wonderful experience you have had. In the kingdom of God, it is a dignified thing to feel the blessings of the holy Ghost, to raise your hands, jump for joy, and “speak with the tongues of men and of angels.” You are blessed by what you have experienced, for all that really matters is that Jesus is pleased with you. What is man, God once asked, “whose breath is in his nostrils! For wherein is he to be accounted of?”
When you take your first step toward the experience of new birth, when you kneel alone and sincerely ask God that first question, the things you will feel will not be the result of a psychological weakness. It will be the result of doing something Jesus has wanted you to do for a long time. And if you continue to follow those feelings, your own experience will teach you that it was the right thing to do.
Those of us who have managed, by God’s grace, to follow His call, are pulling for you.