Relationship Between Doctrine/Experience

Introduction: Paul's Praise for the Thessalonians and Key Doctrines

0:04 Let us turn again this morning to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1.

0:13 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1.

0:20 By way of introduction, let me say that I would encourage you to begin reading chapter 2, as the Lord willing, we should begin next week. Our study is in the second chapter of this letter of Paul to the infant church at Thessalonica. We have said on numerous occasions that verses 2 through 10 could well be called Paul's paragraph of praise to God for the Thessalonians and more particularly for the work of God which was obviously wrought in their midst.

0:58 We have been studying for several weeks the last part of this paragraph of praise, verses 8 through 10, in which the apostle declared that from this people sounded out the word of God. The word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place, he says, your faith to Godward is spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything. They themselves show of us or report of us what manner of entering in we had unto you and how ye turn to God from idols to serve the living and the true God and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. And after, after giving a basic exposition of these words, what they meant to this sounding abroad of the word of the Lord and the lessons contained therein for us as a church, I stated that there were bound up, locked in to these verses, some tremendous doctrinal and practical lessons. One of the great doctrines of these verses is the doctrine of saving faith. And we considered saving faith as taught in this passage, that it is always, it is always directed to the objective revelation of God as made in Scripture. He said, your faith to Godward is spread abroad.

2:19 Then we saw that saving faith is always inseparably joined to repentance. For when he goes to describe what this faith involved, he says in verse 9 that it involved a turning from idols, a turning to the living God, a turning with a disposition to submit to him. He turned to salvation. He turned to salvation.

2:39 So we learned that saving faith is not only directed to the objective revelation of truth, but it is always inseparably joined with repentance. And the third thing about saving faith taught in these verses is that it cannot be hidden. That which is an inward work of God will manifest itself in the outward conduct, so that wherever Paul went, he did not have to tell people that someone at Thessalonica had become, a believer, but the report of their faith had already spread abroad, because faith always results in a transformed life, and in the cultivation of the other graces of the Christian life. Then last week we considered the second great doctrine bound up in these verses, the doctrine of divine wrath. For when Paul is giving thanks to God for these people, and he thinks of his own experience, he cannot do so without reminding himself and reminding them that had it not been for the grace of God, for the peculiar love of God, for the power of the gospel of God mentioned in verses four and five, they would have been the objects of divine wrath. So he can never think of his savior only in terms of the positive blessings which he has brought, forgiveness, eternal life, peace with God, assurance of his life, peace with God, assurance of his life, peace with God, assurance of his life,

4:08 he cannot think of his savior only in terms of the positive benefits of redemption, but he always remembers that he's a brand plucked from the burning. He's the savior who's not only brought us to this, but he's brought us from that. He delivers us from the wrath to come. Now, in the light of this, I want to bring into focus a very vital principle, and since it is found everywhere in the scripture, and found abundantly here, I felt this was a good time, to preach on it.

The Inseparable Relationship Between Doctrine and Experience

4:40 This paragraph is eminently a paragraph of Christian experience. Notice what he says in verse five. Our gospel came to you in power. That's experience.

4:51 You experienced something, the power of the gospel. Verse six. You became followers of us and of the Lord. That's Christian experience.

5:00 That's what they did. Verse seven. Christian experience. Ye became examples.

5:06 That's Christian experience. Verse eight. Verse seven. From you sounded out the word of the Lord.

5:10 That's Christian experience. Verse nine. Ye turned to God from idols, to wait for his son from heaven. That's Christian experience.

5:18 You see, this paragraph is shot through with vivid descriptions of valid Christian experience. The experience of conversion. The experience of regeneration. The experience of Christian life, and Christian walk, and Christian conduct.

5:34 It's just full of Christian experience, but wonder of wonder, and wonder of wonder. In the midst of all that experimental teaching, you have some profound and tremendous statements of Christian doctrine. You have the doctrine of God set forth so clearly in verse nine. Ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God.

5:59 He doesn't just say God, as though the fact that they turned to any God was good. No, he identifies the God to whom they turn. He identifies him as the true God, the true God. Every other God is a false God.

6:11 And here you have a reflection of that principle set forth in the Decalogue. Hear, O Israel, the word of the Lord. The Lord our God is one. There is but one true and living God.

6:24 He contrasts this God with everything else that is called God. So in a chapter shot through with the thrust of Christian experience, you run smack into this tremendous doctrine of God. You run into the doctrine of his son. For he doesn't say you simply wait for his son, but he identifies him.

6:46 You wait for his son from heaven, the Christ who's in heaven. Who is he? He's the Jesus who died and was raised from the dead. So here you have the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

6:59 True man. He died. He was raised from the dead. But true God.

7:04 He is the son of God. There's the doctrine of the deity and humanity of Christ. Not in a doctrinal section in which he's trying to prove the doctrine of Christ as God and man, but in a section filled with Christian experience. It just burst out the doctrine of God, the doctrine of the son, the doctrine of eternal judgment.

7:26 Now, what do we learn from this? Well, we learn this tremendous principle that Christian experience and Christian doctrine are inseparable. And so I want to preach to you this morning on this subject. The inseparable relationship between Christian doctrine and genuine Christian experience.

7:49 Now, will you notice the words that I've used and I've used them purposely. The inseparable relationship between Christian doctrine and genuine Christian experience. For there is a spurious counterfeit Christian experience. There are lots of people having all kinds of experiences that have a little flavor of Christ and maybe a little flavor of the cross and a little flavor of God.

8:16 But it is not genuine Christian experience. It is a deceptive counterfeit. And if there's anything I long for as I think of this assembly in my own life and in the church of Jesus Christ at this strategic hour, it's that we might have engraven upon our hearts by the Holy Spirit the principle so clearly taught in this passage that Christian doctrine and genuine Christian experience are absolutely inseparable. You cannot sever them.

The Church's Failure: Dead Orthodoxy

8:51 Now, first of all, consider with me the fact that the church has been plagued by a failure to grasp this simple truth. Then in the second place, we shall consider together how Scripture joins the two and in the third place, some of the practical applications. of those two principles. Now, you've had in the history of the church, on the one hand, those whose concept was basically this.

9:17 We must have pure doctrine. We must think right thoughts about God. We must confess right things about God. We must think right thoughts about His Son.

9:30 We must confess right things about His Son. We must think right thoughts about man, what he is. By nature, what he can be. By grace, we must confess right things about man.

9:43 And this group of people have had a serious regard for what Scripture teaches about God. And so they come to the Scripture, and whatever the Scripture says about God, they accept it as face value. They seek to formulate it. They say, that's what I believe.

9:58 That's what they confess to the world. And they have a high and holy regard for the biblical teaching on any subject. God, man, sin. God, sin, redemption, etc.

10:09 But they make the essence of Christianity having a head that is straight in its understanding and lips that are accurate in their confession. So the whole essence of Christianity to them is this. A loyalty in our understanding and confession of the doctrines of Holy Scripture. But their problem is that they never seem to realize that the end...

10:38 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.

11:00 But then it says, after creating the body, He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul or a living creature, a living being. And up until the breath of God was breathed in, there was no life. Now there was a perfectly structured body. If you were to be a young budding medical student and you were to have taken that body into the lab and begun to dissect it and analyze it, you would have found a perfect body.

11:30 But you see, God had an end in view. His end was making a living soul, a living creature. And the creation of the body was part of that, but it wasn't the end or the whole substance of it. Having created the body, He breathed into it the breath of life.

11:45 Then you had a man. So it is with God's truth. God has given to us the beautifully and perfectly structured system of His truth. Holy Christian doctrine, made up of the limbs of the doctrine of God and the organs of the doctrine of man and the nervous system of its teaching about the world now and the world to come.

12:12 And Christian doctrine is that beautifully structured form of divine truth. Paul said, hold fast the form, the pattern, the morphe of sound words. But you see, the whole end of this is that the breath of life might be infused into that form. That it might become the basis for the housing of people.

12:36 For the Christian experience. And there are great segments of the church, even today, that are like a body with no soul or spirit. They can get all worked up about speaking the truth and about defending the faith and holding fast the faith and contending for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. But the problem is, when you draw nigh to such individuals and groups and movements, you sense something is wrong.

13:05 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. And what happens?

13:21 People look at it and say, if that's what Christianity is, merely having some right thoughts about God and expressing some right things about God, then a plague on your house. And so they turn away from biblical doctrine because all they've seen is a carcass with no life. And they've reacted against it. And they say, a plague on your house.

13:45 If that's what doctrine does, I want no part of it. Now the scripture speaks very clearly to such people and movements. It talks about a dead faith. A faith and a confession that produces no life.

14:01 And it condemns with great vehemence the concept of a dead faith. Our Lord cried out against that worship which was merely a lip worship. This people draw up nigh to me with their lips. What they say about me is all right, but it's merely a confession that is lip deep.

14:19 It hasn't penetrated the heart. And perhaps in one of the most pathetic and touching, moving passages in all of scripture, when the Lord Jesus spoke to the church at Ephesus as recorded in Revelation 2, what was the concern of his heart? He looked down and he saw a beautifully structured carcass. But he said, the soul, the life is going out of that carcass.

14:45 He says, your head is straight. You've tried those that say they are apostles and are not. And you found them liars. Your doctrine is straight.

14:53 What you know about me is right. What you confess about me is true. They were contending for that truth. And he says, you're very busy about my work, but nevertheless I have what?

15:04 Somewhat against thee that thou hast. Thou hast left thy first love. He says, you've got this doctrine, but you're growing weak in your experience. And then he threatens them.

15:15 He says, repent and do the first works, or I will come to thee and remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent. Now later on, in some of the other churches, they were beginning to let go of the body. And he says, you've got some false teachers in that church there, and you're suffering that woman, Jezebel, who claims to be a prophetess. You're suffering her to teach things that are not right.

15:38 And he condemns this group of people in another church because they were not carefully holding to the body of truth. But to the church at Ephesus, there was no condemnation about relinquishing the body of truth. They were relinquishing the soul of truth, Christian experience. And so our Lord speaks to them and warns them and entreats them to return to Christian experience.

The Church's Failure: Experience Without Doctrine

16:02 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.

16:18 You see, as the pendulum moves, it moves fastest through the center of its arc and it's stationary at the end of each extreme. And that's true of individuals and of whole movements. Here, people see dead orthodoxy, as it's called. People that are thinking right and confessing right about God and Christ and heaven and hell and the rest, but no life.

16:39 And they say, If that's what Christianity is, I want no part of it. I want reality. I want to know and experience the truth. And so what happens?

16:47 The pendulum goes over here and they throw out doctrine and they say, Ah, what we're concerned about is experience. Their motto is, If thy heart is as my heart, give me thy hand. I don't care what your head thinks and what your lips confess, just so long as we both feel the same about things and have a warm communion in experience, that's all that matters. So you have the opposite extreme of all experience and no doctrine.

17:15 People who are concerned about true piety and inward reality. These people take seriously what the Scripture says also. But the problem is, they only take seriously what the Scripture says about experience. When they read a verse like Romans 14, 17, the Kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

17:37 They say, Ah, see, Kingdom of God has nothing to do with these externals but it has to do with inward reality. When they read a verse like Philippians 3, 3, We are the true circumcision who worship God in the Spirit, who glory in Christ, who have no confidence in the flesh. They see, Ah, true Christianity is marked not by doctrinal precision but by vital experience. Worship God in the Spirit, glory in Christ Jesus, put no confidence in the flesh.

18:06 And they say, That's what we take seriously. Verses like 1 Corinthians 16, 22, If any man love not our Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. And they say, See, the important thing is not what you believe about him but that you really love him. That's the important thing.

18:22 Well, what do they have? Well, they're trying to have Adam without his body. They want the breath of life but no body in which to have it infused. See, their problem is that they skip the first part.

18:36 God creating Adam out of the dust of the earth. And they say, Well, what's a body? No use. What we're concerned about is the breath of life.

18:43 So they try to have a disembodied spirit floating around. They try to have Christian experience housed in nothing. They try to have the soul of Christian reality without the body of Christian doctrine. And so what happens there?

19:03 You'll get all kinds of fanaticism, all kinds of aberrations and departures from truth. And you have whole movements that are marked by this in the history of the church and in our own present day. This is one of the great weaknesses of this revival, this resurgence of interest in the gift of tongues that has swept across our country and many parts of the world. It seems they couldn't care less what anyone believes.

19:31 And they brag about the fact that this is breaking out in Roman Catholic communions and in liberal communions and they're rejoicing over it. Why? Everybody's having this wonderful experience. Hallelujah!

19:45 Praise the Lord! Well, what do they believe? Oh, don't worry about doctrine. That's just a dead old carcass.

19:50 We've got the soul. We've got the spirit. We've got reality. That's all that matters.

19:55 Well, you see, this is certainly unbiblical thinking because as we look into this portion in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, we see that the Apostle Paul, in just telling these Christians what he says when he prays, how he thanks God, it's so natural for him to think of Christian experience and Christian doctrine being inseparably united that they're joined together even where he isn't trying to prove it. He's just telling them what he thanks God for. But it leaks out all over the place because in his thinking this is an inseparable relationship. Just as surely as the Scripture cries out against that lifeless carcass and speaks of dead faith, of mere lip worship, so the Scripture cries out against false doctrine, cries out against any experience that is not linked to the truth of the living God. In fact, John goes on to say, so clearly in 1 John 2 and verse 24, the following words, If that which you've heard from the beginning, Christian doctrine, shall remain in you, ye shall continue in the Son and in the Father. He said Christian experience

21:22 will go on only as long as Christian doctrine is maintained. Whenever you get the severance of the soul from the body, what do you have? Death. In either direction, you've got death.

21:35 So when you have mere doctrine without experience, you've got death. When you try to have experience without doctrine, you've got death. Wherever the soul and the body are separated, you've got death. You've got death.

21:50 The only difference is the death manifests itself in subtle ways in each case with one where there's correct doctrine, but no life. That death manifests itself in a cold, chilling blast. Over here, where it's all experience and no doctrine, that death is very deceptive because it may have the semblance of life. These people claim subjective, psychological experience, but if it isn't linked to the body of Christian doctrine, it's death.

Scripture Joins Doctrine and Experience

22:21 So that gives you a little perspective, I trust, of the problem that the church has faced, and the church has faced it because individuals like you and me face it, of trying to maintain either doctrine without experience or experience without doctrine. Now, in the second place, let us see very briefly how the scripture joins these two together so that we can make the following two statements. Listen carefully, please. The scripture reveals that the basis of all valid Christian experience is revealed Christian doctrine and that the end of all revealed Christian doctrine is valid Christian experience.

23:06 The basis of experience, what's underneath it? Doctrine. What should always be found on top of solid doctrine? Christian experience.

23:16 The word of God joins the two. The apostle Paul indicates it in the passage that is before us in 1 Thessalonians. Let's look at that for a moment again, just by way of review and bringing into focus one or two principles. As Paul thinks of those people, at Thessalonica, and he rejoices at what happened in their lives, how does he do it?

23:41 Well, you see, he does it in terms of experience linked with doctrine. He said, you turn to God, to the living and the true God, to wait for His Son. Which Son? Well, the Son who died, the Son who was raised, the Son who is coming back again.

23:59 And you have little seeds of all the basic doctrines. The basic doctrines of the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection and the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven, His second advent. Paul sees them inseparably joined. But now let's look at several passages in which he very explicitly states this principle.

24:22 We return to 1 Timothy, chapter 1, 1 Timothy, chapter 1, and verse 3. 1 Timothy 1 and verse 3. As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus when I went to Macedonia, for what purpose? Very clear, here it is.

24:49 That thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine. Timothy, I told you to stay at Ephesus that you might seek to maintain the purity of doctrinal teaching. Now, what's the purpose of this? Verse 5.

25:07 Now the end of the commandment, the goal in mind that I had, the goal that I had in mind when I told you to stay there and charge people to teach nothing but pure doctrine, here's the goal. Love out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned from which some having turned aside have turned aside unto vain janglings. You see what he's saying, Timothy? You must be zealous to see that pure doctrine is maintained to the end that vital, valid Christian experience might be maintained.

25:48 If the doctrine is touched and altered, experience cannot be valid. But if the doctrine is kept pure, it's to the end that the life might be holy. The two are inseparable. Notice again, in 2 Timothy chapter 1 in verse 13.

26:08 Here's his charge to Timothy to hold fast, to tenaciously cling to the form of sound words. The word sound there means healthy words, healthy doctrine. Timothy, I gave you the truth of God not as just some general glob of protoplasm, but I gave it to you as a beautifully structured form. Hold fast that form of sound words which thou hast heard of me.

26:43 In what? In faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. Christian doctrine, Christian experience, they are to be inseparably joined in the life of Timothy. Well, we could go on and demonstrate this from other portions of the word of God, but let me try to use a little illustration that may help you.

27:08 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.

27:28 And what has He done? In the person of His Son, in the revelation of His Holy Word, God has laid a pathway that reaches from the lost, helpless, guilty, hell-deserving sinner right into the very presence of God. Now, what is that pathway? That pathway is the pathway of Christian doctrine.

27:48 What God has revealed about Himself and His Son and the meaning of the death of His Son and all the rest, that's the pathway. Now, what's Christian experience? Christian experience is the sinner getting on that pathway and walking on it in the direction of the living God. Now, why is that pathway there?

28:07 Not that the sinner might stand there and look at the pathway and begin to write a little description of it and say the pathway has this and this and this and on the sides of it is this, this and this and then begin to extol the pathway and begin to commend the pathway to others. No. You see, that pathway was not laid for people to write books about it. That pathway was not laid for people to stand there and simply admire it.

28:31 That pathway was laid to get sinners unto God. That's Christian experience. And so the pathway is there that we might draw nigh to Him. But someone else says, Oh, I have no need of doctrine.

28:45 The important thing is to know God. Yeah, but how are you going to know Him? There's an infinite chasm between a sinful man and a holy God. How is that chasm bridged?

28:54 Well, you see, you need doctrine to be able to know how you get to God. But having found out how, it's God's desire that we actually get to Him. So I hope in that simple analogy you see the relationship the inseparable relationship between Christian doctrine and Christian experience. Now, what does this say to us practically?

Practical Application: The Salvation of Your Soul

29:21 What message does this bear to us as we sit here this morning, December 10, 1967, living in the midst of all the confusion and mess of our own generation? Really, isn't this rather impractical to be spending our time considering the relationship between doctrine and experience? Shouldn't we just be exhorted to get up and do something in a hurry because the world might blow up around us? What's the practical application of all of this?

29:48 Let me say in the first place it's just as practical as the salvation of your soul. Is that pretty practical to you? I hope it is. Is there anything more practical and a vital concern to you than the salvation of your own soul?

30:03 If there is, then all I can do is pray that God would have mercy upon you and show you that that's the place and show you that that's the paramount issue of life, the salvation of your own soul. This is just as practical as that. For how are you to know that you're right with God? There's only one way to know.

30:23 You've got to see if the basis upon which you say you're right with God is the basis that God's revealed in Scripture. That's Christian doctrine. And as John says, if any man does not hold to this doctrine, does not abide in this doctrine, the same hath not the Father. Nor the Son.

30:41 But he says if we abide in that doctrine, we have the Father and the Son. Oh, dear one, don't be content that you've had some kind of, quote, experience. There'll be people in hell maybe comparing their Christian, so-called Christian experiences through all eternity in the pit of the burning. Oh, you've had an experience, yes.

31:03 But what is that experience? Has it been found along the clearly defined pathway of Christian doctrine? Have you turned not just to some God, but to the true and the living God? Have you turned to the God who's the creation of 20th century man?

31:20 Who becomes your little lackey to get you out of the fires and turn you loose to do as you please without any fear of punishment? Or is He the living and the true God? The God whom when we see Him in Jesus Christ draws from us not only faith, but love and submission and adoration and worship and desire to live to His glory. That's the God the Thessalonians knew.

31:46 The true and the living God who when they turned to Him, seeing the beauty of that God in the face of Christ, they fell down at His feet to serve Him. He turned to serve. Oh, you've had experience, yes. Granted, you have.

32:00 But is that experience rooted in sound, biblical doctrine? If it isn't, you better chuck it. You better throw it off as invalid. Now, reversing it, you say, ah, yes, I believe in the pathway.

32:18 I admire the body. Let me ask you, has God breathed into it the breath of life? Has what you know of Christ and of God and of sin and salvation, has it become life-giving truth to you so that you not only know the pathway, but you've been brought into face-to-face communion? Face-to-face communion with the living God?

32:49 The end of the doctrine is experience. Paul would not have rejoiced if the Thessalonians simply had begun to confess the true and the living God and to believe that the Son was coming from heaven. No, he rejoices that they actually turned to that God. When they heard about Him, they turned to Him.

33:08 When they heard about a Son who was coming, they came into a relationship that made them long for His coming. Oh, yes, you believe in the true and the living God. You believe in His Son who is in heaven and will come from heaven. But now my question is, have you turned to that God to serve Him?

33:25 Oh, yes, you believe He's coming from heaven, but do you long for His coming from heaven? You see, this issue of seeing the inseparability of doctrine and experience is as practical and vital as the salvation of your own soul. And if you're here this morning resting content, you've had some experience, but not too much concern, to examine if it is valid Christian experience based upon valid doctrine, then I exhort you to reexamine your foundations. And if you're here this morning as one content that you know all about the road and the pathway, and you know all about the truth, to ask yourself, has it led you into face-to-face communion with the living God?

Practical Application: Prepared for Conflict (Ecumenism)

34:10 Then a second practical application, and I've wrestled with whether or not I ought to deal with this, but I feel it's part of my responsibility as a Christian minister. There's some groups that this is the whole beginning, middle, and end of their gospel, and I never wanted to become such, but it's a vital part of the whole counsel of God. You and I must be prepared for conflict as individuals in a church if we're going to cling to the two things I've mentioned this morning. If we are, by the grace of God, going to stand in this generation, crying out to this generation that there is no valid Christian experience, without true Christian doctrine, and on the other hand, we have not rightly embraced the doctrine unless it leads to experience, we're going to get it from both flanks. For on the one side, there is the great ecumenical spirit. Everybody's having what old Dr. Tozer called a togetherness orgy.

35:05 Everybody's going to get together. And if you only get a group of ministers together that leaps over denominational boundaries, and that's looked upon as sort of a preview to the millennium or something else. Everybody's having a togetherness orgy. None what you believe, just that we love each other.

35:23 That's the important thing, that we just love each other and we show understanding. You don't hear about heretics anymore. No such thing as a heretic anymore. Maybe just a misguided brother.

35:36 Those are the weak, anemic terms used in our day. Misguided brother. Or the Roman Catholics now call us separated brethren. They used to call us, with a few curse words preceding it, something, something, Protestants.

35:51 No longer. We're just separated brethren. And beloved, underneath this has been a wholesale selling out of the very thing I'm preaching to you this morning. That there is no Christian experience unless it's rooted in Christian doctrine.

36:07 Let me read you an article that I couldn't believe. Sections of an article that I couldn't believe when I read it. I've read it three, four, five times. Appeared in the latest Christianity today.

36:17 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.

36:53 One thing good has come out of it, though, he told his audience of nearly 1,500, quote, we can talk to one another as Christian brothers. That's a quote. We can now talk to one another as Christian brothers. And I'll skip over some of it and read from another part of the letter.

37:17 A St. Paul, Minnesota columnist said, Catholics have a lesson to learn from Mr. Graham. And Father John Sheeran of the Catholic World told a Columbus, Ohio audience that Catholics need men with a Graham-like charisma, that is, a peculiar gift, but to promote ecumenism, this togetherness orgy.

37:34 The latest Graham-inspired California group that claims to have conducted the world's first Protestant Catholic evangelistic service in a Methodist church. If the scheduled soloist and pianist had been there, along with the large choir, it would have been pretty close to a Graham meeting. More than 100 clergymen and laymen in Redlands, California, were invited to the service, but only two dozen came. Roman Catholic Richard Sperney's message was a salvation sermon no fundamentalist would object to.

38:01 Afterwards, those who heard it were asked whether they disliked it. None did, though Catholics found the service form uncomfortable. Sperney, this is the Roman Catholic man who started the movement with Methodist minister Samuel Sally, is full of praise for Graham and will go all out for the evangelist if and when he includes Roman Catholics in an ecumenical effort. Sperney and Sally both teach philosophy at Mount San Antonio College.

38:26 Sperney thinks Graham has changed a lot since his younger days. He's now less dogmatic, emphasizes less the second coming as right around the corner, notice, is not hostile to Catholics. Sperney has even written the evangelist at his North Carolina home and has gotten standard appreciative replies. Sperney, who admits he once hated Protestantism as a device of the devil, thinks converts of Protestant Catholic evangelism must be led to read the Bible since both sides agree it's the unerring word of God and common versions now exist.

39:02 Beloved, that's what we're heading for. When a system, and I'm not talking about Roman Catholics as individuals, I love many of them, I'm talking about a system that declares right to this present hour to this world that the Bible is a false law, and the Bible is a false gospel, it's a false scripture. In other words, it's a false gospel of Christ and it's in the language of Paul. The Bible is the gospel of Christ, the gospel of Christ.

39:35 That's what we have to do about it. So, Mary as a co-mediator with the Son of God, the Lord Jesus, not on the basis of valid Christian doctrine, but on the basis of some nebulous kind of Christian spirit which is supposed to bring us all together into one common bond. And beloved, if we dare to stand in our generation in love with tenderness and yet with inflexible boldness and declare, tell me what you believe about God, about Christ, about the atonement, about the blood, about His priesthood, about the authority of the word of God and not any church or pope, then I'll know if I put my hand out and call you, brother. We're going to be attacked from that flank because the ecumenical orgy has pretty well taken the field in our day. We must insist that there is no Christian experience apart from Christian doctrine and we must dare to speak, not the points of departure. You see, if the Apostle Paul had acted this way with the Judaizers, whenever Paul preached somewhere, we're saved by grace alone, through the merits of Jesus Christ, crucified, buried, risen,

41:03 everything went fine, we had problems, but through the Lord established the church, but right on his heels. He'd no sooner leave town sometimes before he even left town and along came these Judaizers and they said, look, everything Paul told you is right. We don't want to cancel out anything he said, but he's a little bit defective, we want to put a little plus sign. Believe everything Paul said, but one thing more, you won't quite be in unless you add to all that Paul has said, circumcision and keeping the law of Moses.

41:30 Well, Paul had a lot of points of agreement with the Judaizers. They believed in the authority of Scripture, they believed in Christ being the Son of God, they believed in his atonement upon the cross, they believed in his death, burial, resurrection, they had much in common. But when Paul wrote back, what issues did he deal with? He did not deal with all the issues they had, in common agreement.

41:50 He went right to the error that would damn the souls of men and he said, if anyone comes and puts a plus sign after what I've told you, let him be anathema. The curse of God is upon him and if you believe their lies, you'll perish. So, beloved, if I had the opportunity of standing and speaking in a Roman Catholic assembly, I would take it, but I would say in love to everyone there, if I were to be faithful to their souls, look, if you go on believing that you've got Christ, in that wafer, in that cup, and that this is a bloody sacrifice, you'll perish. For the Scripture says we are saved by an atonement that is once and for all and Christ is at the right hand of the Father and we come and feed upon him by faith and faith alone.

42:38 And then you see how much they'd want to have an evangelistic campaign with me. Or with you. Why do you do this? Not to be nasty, but beloved, because the souls of men will perish, perish if they're deceived by a lie.

42:53 And if the devil can float a lie in on the logs of 99% of the truth, float 1% lie, he'll gladly do it. As Martin Luther said, to confess Christ means that I must confess him at that particular point where the world and the devil are attacking his truth. And so I submit to you, if we stand in our day to contend earnestly for the faith delivered to the saints, let's not be morbid about it, but let's not be surprised. We shall pay a price.

Practical Application: Prepared for Conflict (Barren Orthodoxy)

43:23 Then the other flank are those who say, yes, correct doctrine. That's it. We must believe right about God. He's sovereign.

43:33 Man is a dead sinner. Only God can quicken him. The grand and glorious historic doctrines of election and the calling of God and the keeping of his people and Christ dying for his sheep.

43:46 When you draw nigh to so many groups in our day confessing these truths and you look for the reality and by the way, the vitality of Christian experience, it's not there. People are growing up exposed to the doctrine, learning the catechism, nodding their head to the facts, but of humility before God, of true brokenness for sin, of hungering and thirsting after holiness. They know precious little. And when one stands in such circles and insists that correct doctrine is not enough that we can perish in hell as orthodox as any of the best creeds that have ever been turned on us, that have ever been turned on us, that have ever been turned on us, that have ever been turned on us, that have ever been turned out unless we come to know God vitally and freely, unless the word comes to us, not in word only, but in power, we're doomed to perish.

44:31 Beloved, then you're going to get it from the other flanks for they will be accusing you of fanaticism and be accusing you of pietism and be accusing you of subjectivism and everything else. I heard the other day how a preacher got very, very upset because someone preaching in his church so emphasized this matter that correct doctrine is not enough that someone whom he described in this way, a person who had walked long with the people of God got upset and this to him was a terrible thing that someone who had walked long with the people of God should get upset. Well, does walking long with the people of God prove that we're saved? Judas walked long with the Son of God himself but went to his place.

45:15 But you see, the issue that was disturbing this preacher was the application of the necessity of experience, not enough to subsist. Describe to the creed and describe the path that leads to God unless you're moving in vital experience in the direction of God and of his Son. In holy desire, in faith and obedience, it is not enough. And so this is the course that's marked before us.

45:39 If we, like Paul, would cling to Christian doctrine as the only basis of valid Christian experience and genuine Christian experience as the necessary result of a right embrace, of the doctrine, on the one flank, the spirit of ecumenism, on the other flank, the spirit of a barren, truncated, lifeless kind of orthodoxy. And there we stand.

The Cost of Contending for the Faith

46:05 Well, what are we going to do? Well, we can become little spiritual cream puffs and say, well, life's too short to get all messed up with controversy, so I'll just, when I'm around this crowd, I'll just let them put their stamp upon me. And when I'm around here, I'll let them put their stamp upon me. From such may God deliver us.

46:27 Or we can cry to God and say, Lord, in the midst of controversy, keep me sweet, but keep me inflexible. Help me to stand and do what you've told me to do. Contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Who was that written to?

46:42 It was written to the saints. The saints are to contend earnestly. Back a few generations ago, there were some Christians who thought when Darwin first put out his book on the origin of the species and it looked kind of convincing, they said to themselves, well, really, really, when you come down to it, Genesis 1, 2, and 3 are so far removed from John 3, 16, where it talks about God loving the world. We don't need to cling to the Bible doctrine of creation.

47:10 We can jettison that to keep the smile of the, quote, modern scientific world. So Christians jettisoned Genesis 1 through 3, thinking, oh, well, that doctrine, the real doctrine, the doctrine that's important is redemption, isn't it? Why? Why get any scars for the doctrine of creation?

47:28 Really, it happened so long ago and we weren't there and we're here now and God's love is there now. We can jettison the doctrine of creation. And you know what happened?

47:38 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.

48:02 Now, if you wanted to destroy that building, how would you go about it? Well, there are several ways. You could start right at the top at the smokestack taking a brick off at a time and work your way right down to the foundations. But if you were in a hurry and had any good sense, you know what you'd do?

48:16 You'd just find a couple of strategic points at the foundation. Move those stones out and what would happen? The whole shebang. Bang!

48:24 It would come down in rubbles. And that's what happened two or three generations ago. The superstructure of the Bible's teaching about redemption, God's saving work in Christ,

48:37 rests upon the foundation stones of the Bible doctrine of creation and the fall of man. Everything that follows from the middle of Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 deals with redemption. But that whole structure rests upon the facts of Genesis 1, 2, and 3. Creation and the fall.

49:00 And unless I understand what man is as a creature of God and what man is as a creature fallen in Adam, the whole superstructure is utterly meaningless or crumbles. And now in our generation, what do we see? We've seen the crumbling of the whole superstructure. And how did it happen?

49:19 The devil was smart. He didn't go around picking one brick at a time. He's playing for keeps. He pulled out the stone of creation and the stone of the fall.

49:33 And now we're living amidst the rubble.

49:37 It's not for you or me to understand why a certain revealed doctrine is important. If Almighty God thought it important enough to reveal it, then we're to contend for it knowing to relinquish it is to relinquish life itself.

49:52 Oh, beloved, I hope you don't think I'm just off on a spiritual binge. But this is a matter of life and death. And the issues and the pressure that surrounds these issues is not going to get any less. But by the grace of God, may we be enabled to hold fast the form of sound words, but in faith and in love.

50:19 So help us, God. This is what we intend to do as an assembly.

50:25 God helping us. I trust this is what you intend to do as a father, as a mother, as a teenager, in the office, in the shop, in every sphere of life. The inseparability of valid Christian experience and revealed Christian doctrine. Let us pray.