Relationship Between Doctrine/Experience

Driving home: Here is a beautifully structured confession of Christian doctrine. But somehow this whole thing reeks of death. And you don't feel and sense the pulsing, throbbing context of life.

The creation of Adam's body (perfectly structured but lifeless) and then the infusion of the breath of life is used to illustrate that doctrine is the 'body' of truth, and experience is the 'breath of life' that makes it living and purposeful.

The end for which God has revealed His truth is that we might experience its power. I like to think of the work of creation. It says that the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the earth. He made a body that was biologically and physiologically perfect.

10:38 - 11:00 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin describes the opposite extreme: those who prioritize experience over doctrine, likening it to 'Adam without his body' or a 'disembodied spirit.' He critiques movements like…

The movement of a pendulum, fastest through the center and stationary at the extremes, illustrates how individuals and movements swing between dead orthodoxy and experience without doctrine, reacting against one extreme by going to the other.

Now, on the other hand, you have this continually, you see, in the life of an individual as well as in the life of the church. Speaking in at Columbia University last night, I talked with a young man. I could see this principle so clearly in his life. And I tried to warn him about the pendulum.

16:02 - 16:18 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin asserts that Scripture reveals doctrine as the basis of valid experience and experience as the end of doctrine. He returns to 1 Thessalonians and then explicitly shows this…

God laying a pathway (Christian doctrine) from sinful man to Himself is used to illustrate that doctrine is the means by which sinners can approach God, and Christian experience is the act of walking on that pathway to commune with Him.

God is here, not literally, but I'm just using this for illustration. Sinful man lost in sin with his back turned to God, wandering about in the maze of his own confusion as a fog creature. Utterly helpless and hopeless unless God intervenes. And blessed be God, He's intervened.

27:08 - 27:28 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second practical application is the necessity of being prepared for conflict when contending for the inseparability of doctrine and experience. He critiques the 'ecumenical…

The story of Billy Graham receiving an honorary degree from a Roman Catholic college and his statement about 'talking to one another as Christian brothers' is used to illustrate the dangers of ecumenism and the compromise of doctrinal truth for unity.

Roman Catholic Belmont Abbey College, a few miles away from Billy Graham's birthplace, gave him his Doctor of Humane Letters degree November 21st, making sure that the prophet is no longer without honor in his own country. Christ, you see, was without honor. Now, this article says, and it's written in a commendable way by a magazine that fully supports this man and his form of evangelism. In his address, the North Carolina evangelist spoke of the shaking now going on in religion around the world, and particularly of the discord within Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

36:17 - 36:53 Read in full sermon

The point: Contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints, knowing that this responsibility falls to all believers.

Destroying a 30-story building by removing its foundational stones rather than picking off bricks from the top illustrates how jettisoning foundational doctrines like creation and the fall leads to the collapse of the entire 'superstructure' of redemption.

I want you to look at this platform here and I thought of this driving into Columbia University last night. One of the men was with me and I looked at one of those huge buildings. You see, this pulpit in my body are resting upon that platform. Now, try to project upward here a huge structure, a huge 30-story big apartment building or office building down in downtown Manhattan.

47:38 - 48:01 Read in full sermon