One of the intriguing doctrinal developments in this century, especially among those called "fundamentalists", is the oft-heard exhortation to ignore our feelings. "Don't go by your 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 to be found in the Scriptures. In fact, feelings are a precious and an integral part of the kingdom of God, simply because feelings are part of life as God created it, a wonderful part. I suspect that those who preach a gospel which demands that feelings be ignored, preach that gospel so that people will ignore how bad that gospel makes them feel! 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 which they felt was so great that it was virtually inexpressible? Jesus was often grieved, and poured out his soul to God with "strong crying and tears" and, on several occasions, "rejoiced in spirit". The Philippian jailor was moved with terror of God's wrath, and then, after he was baptized with the holy Ghost, "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 neither to be trusted nor given expression?

What is left as a guide, if feelings are removed from the picture? "The Bible", some will say. And to what does the Bible guide us, but to Jesus, who then removes the burden (feeling) of guilt and washes our sins away and gives us peace (a feeling) with God? 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 direct 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 slaughtered beast. Will 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? Jesus spoke to this issue when he found some of the leaders of Israel trusting their souls' destiny to the Scriptures. He said, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life" (Jn.5:39-40).

The Bible cannot give life, because the Bible, as a book, is itself dead. Paul was referring to the Holy Scriptures when he wrote, "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." This echoes what Jesus himself taught in John 6:63, when he said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth [makes alive]; the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Without the holy Ghost, every religion is false religion, every sermon is a lie, and every man is damned. Without the holy Ghost, there is no righteousness, no peace with God, and no hope of salvation. It is the Spirit that will raise up the saints from their graves (Rom.8:11). It is the Spirit which makes us alive to God, right now. The letter to the Corinthians "killeth". The letter to the congregation at Rome "killeth". But the holy Ghost which Paul had, and which the Corinthian and Roman assemblies had, gave life to both him and them.

Perhaps one reason so much is said by so many ministers about "not going by feelings" is that they feel intimidated by what the Spirit is convicting people to do. The greatest threat to every unordained ministry is the reality and wonder of the holy Ghost coming into a person's heart. The ecstatic joy and zeal it brings intimidates every minister whose credentials are not from heaven. I have met more people than I can tell who have gone to their ministers with burdens of not feeling right with God, only to be told not to go by how they feel, but only to trust the Bible's words - as interpreted by their ministers, of course! Friends, if you feel that something is not right in your heart, it can only be because something is not right! A lie is in there somewhere. The very most tragic experience on earth today is the multitudes - millions - who are being told that they are prepared to meet God in the judgment and are not. But the twist which makes it all so frustrating is that so many of them feel dissatisfied and unsettled about their spiritual condition, but when they ask why, they are told to ignore what they feel and trust the Bible - again, as interpreted by their pastors. God help us! We must reach people with the good news that there is a holiness they can know about! Their longings are for something that is there, waiting to be believed and received!

Jesus did not come to begin a religion which is so dead that men have to tell you that you have it. If you can't feel the spirit your preacher tells you that you have, trade it in for one that's alive! The spirit of antichrist is the one which preaches hardest against your feelings, because he is a dead god who brings nothing but confusion and arrogance into your heart. The Spirit of Christ brings the power of life of God into your life. Why, when He enters in, He starts off by speaking through you in a tongue you have not learned, so that others around you can know He is there (1Cor. 14:21). How many times have we heard people say, after they received the holy Ghost, "For years, I felt so deeply that there just had to be something more to serving God than what I had"? Of course they felt that. And they had to overcome a thousand ministers of Satan, telling them to ignore those feelings, to get the real thing. No wonder that these "false apostles" so adamantly warn their flocks not to "go by feelings". They want them to ignore how bad their rotten doctrines make people feel! Jesus said, "Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Satan's ministers say, "Deceived are those who feel a need for anything other than what I've told them they already have."

Don't go by feelings!?! How utterly absurd! Two-thirds of Paul's definition of the kingdom of God is feelings. "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17). Any preacher worth hearing will confess that the fruits of the Spirit, listed in Galatians 5:22-23, are essential to the health of God's people. And what are these fruits? "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance". Now, how in tarnation are you to know that you have joy unless you feel it? Wait for your preacher to tell you that you're happy? And how in the world are you to know that you love, unless you feel it? Ask your preacher to prove it by the scriptures? The only people on this earth who feel nothing are those who are six feet underground. If he is up, walking around, he feels. His doctrine may compel him to deny what he feels, but he feels. And the truth is, most people would be far better off, if they would trust their feelings than the doctrines they are taught. God leads men to Himself through their feelings. "Godly sorrow worketh repentance", Paul said. And Jesus made it very clear that without repentance, a man will never see God (Lk.13:1-5). You feel, because you 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".

Listen to the words that are written about those who are past feeling: "Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness (hardness) of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness and with greediness" (Eph. 4:18-19). Notice, please, that the end result of denying feelings is a plummet into the depths of moral wickedness. God wants you to feel it, when you are not right with Him. There is safety in that. And though Satan can't keep that from happening, his ministers will attempt to persuade you that to listen to feelings shows either "a lack of faith in the Word", or a psychological blemish. Beware, my friend. Anyone who would persuade you not to listen to your feelings would have you to listen to him rather than to God.

Another astonishing doctrine related to this which has gained some vogue in recent years is the doctrine which warns against "going by experience". You won't listen to very many sermons before you'll hear the stern 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 decision 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 the most incredible blessings imaginable. They had been created in God's own image, given dominion over an earth of perfect beauty and peace. They had experienced God's love and care beyond human comprehension. But Satan, through a cunning use of words, persuaded her to make a foolish, fatal decision - based on his lie, rather than what she experienced with God.

Not go by experience!?! How can anyone not base his life on experience? What on earth is not an experience? Being told not to go by experience is itself an experience. And if there is an experience which one should not be lead by, it is that one. We all begin our earthly journey as fools (Prov. 22:15). If we don't learn from experience, we stay that way. Then why should men preach against "going by experience"? The answers are simple. (1) God bears them no witness and (2) the doctrines they teach can not be confirmed in real life. Therefore, they tell their followers (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, "Gentlemen, if your doctrine is contrary to the facts, it's time to get a new doctrine." I thought that was an astute observation. But it is one that seems to be totally 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 swamps, ignoring the fact of human experience with the Spirit's baptism and fruit, and its consonance with the Biblical record. Many right-wing fundamentalists deny the power of the holy Ghost, ignoring the earnest testimonies of many who have come from their own ranks. Let's be honest. Both groups are just too proud to confess their need of a Savior who lives and demands obedience to His word. All their philosophical protestations and angry, Bible-thumping denunciations are "red herrings", thrown behind them onto the road in order to confuse the bloodhounds of conviction.

God has enough precious souls of every economic and social background who have humbled themselves to the power of the holy Ghost so that no honest person anywhere can reject it, either as being only for the poor, or uneducated, or psychologically warped people, or only for those who can afford a lake house, or who can read Greek and Hebrew and know the geography of the Bible. "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 feelings it gives you. In the kingdom of God, it is a dignified thing to dance with all your might in the holy Ghost, to jump for joy, "to speak with tongues of men and of angels". You are blessed, not cursed. If, on the other hand, all this seems strange to you, let me encourage you not to be afraid. All that really matters is that Jesus be pleased with you. What is man, "whose breath is in his nostrils...wherein is he to be accounted of?" When you take your first step toward him, when you kneel alone and sincerely ask him that first question, what you will feel will not be the result of a psychological quirk. It will be the result of doing something Jesus has wanted you to do for a very long time. And if you will follow that feeling, 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.