Sounds Like Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation, et al.

Profession of sound doctrine alone—that is, mere assent to propositional truth—is no substitute for a living faith. But apart from biblical doctrine, the activity of worship becomes bit nature less a service to a holy God and more an emotional experience employed as a tool to pacify a conscience troubled by corrupt behavior.

While advocates of “contemporary” worship certainly have no corner on sinful behavior, it has become increasingly less shocking to hear of immoral behavior by preachers who trade on feelings, have marginal interest in doctrine, and follow CCW forms of worship.

Craig S. Bulkeley, Hope for the Children of the Sun, pg. 39

Is it Praise or Just “Feeling”

One might get quite caught up, for example, in singing about “Majesty” with hands raised, eyes closed and the body moving with the crowd and with a bit of a sway. There may be a feeling, a great sense of closeness to the “divine” and the “Infinite.’ But the individual so engaged may be far from praising the God who in His majesty decrees whatsoever comes to pass (Eph.1:4, 11) and demands that every thought and action become captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). 

Craig S. Bulkeley, Hope for the Children of the Sun, pg. 38

Are Feelings Your Ultimate Authority?

As the CCW movement has turned to “feeling” as the ultimate measure of spiritual authenticity it has ceased to worship the external, independent, and objective God of the Scripture. He is not their authority. Those who claim to affirm God’s authority but make feelings their ultimate reference point for interpreting spiritual matters ultimately deny Him. This primacy of God is at the heart of the First Commandment.

Craig S. Bulkeley, Hope for the Children of the Sun, pg. 37

Feeling in Spiritual Matters

When man makes his feeling the measure of spiritual matters he does little more than deny the God of the Scripture and set himself in His place.

Craig S. Bulkeley, Hope for the Children of the Sun, pg. 36

Satan, the Counterfeiter

For individuals who are caught up in the heady intoxication of profound spiritual experiences, it is easy t slip into error.  Not that there is anything wrong with such experiences per se, but spiritual experience is only one leg of a three-legged stool.  Unless it is balanced by the Word of God through Scripture and through other Christians, as well as the daily living of a life of self-denial, obedience and repentance, the stool will topple.

Satan is a master counterfeiter, who is able to imitate every spiritual experience which a Christian can have, including the "inner voice" of the Holy Spirit.  Time after time we have seen cases of an especially "anointed" personality, who will lead a flock of gullible sheep into the strangest heresies, because the sheep have not yet learned to know their Shepherd's voice, and follow Him.  Not nearly enough has been preached under the title: "Beware the Christless Pentecost.”

Peter Marshall and David Marshall, The Light and the Glory, pp.200-201

Experience -- Satan's Authority

If [Satan] can't take the Word of God away from us by undermining its authority, he will take us away from the Word of God by giving us another basis of authority.  Satan has developed just such a substitute, and it seems to have a great attraction for may people.

It's called “experience."

People become so wrapped up in their spiritual experience that they no longer look to the Word of God for their authority.  Their experience becomes the determining force in their lives.

Two groups, then, are vying for our minds - but with the same end in view.  The liberals would take the Bible away from us, and those who hold to the experiential view would take us away from the Bible.  Whenever experience is placed on the same level as Scripture, the experience group will always overrule biblical interpretation. ... When you go with your feelings, you're on a trip that ends on a dead-end street.

David Jeremiah, God In You, pp.60-61

Feelings Come and Go

Feelings come and feelings go

And feelings are deceiving;

My warrant is the Word of God, 

Naught else is worth believing.

Martin Luther

Emotion Without Knowledge

All the Puritans regarded religious feeling and pious emotion without knowledge as worse than useless.  Only when the truth was being felt was emotion in any way desirable.  When men felt and obeyed the truth they knew, it was the work of the Spirit of God, but when they were swayed by feeling without knowledge, it was a sure sign that the devil was at work, for feeling divorced from knowledge and urgings to action in darkness of mind were both as ruinous to the soul as was knowledge without obedience.  So the teaching of truth was the pastor's first task, as the learning of it was the layman's.

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 70

Emotionalism Cannot Be a Guide

We must judge teachings and practices, and these cannot be judged accurately apart from the Bible.  We must not judge something to be of God merely because it results in changed lives for the better, particularly when it is presented as a "new move" that all must accept.

If an individual's emotions are the most important activities of life, as they must be if by them alone one reaches God, then no person has any basis to complain against any emotion which another person cares to make supreme.  Emotion is supreme and is therefore its own and only judge.  The intellect is enjoined from interfering.  The emotionalist must therefore assert that there is no reason for selecting one emotion above another. The emotion which emotes most emotionally is on its own authority best and most valuable.

Gordon H. Clark, A Christian Philosophy of Education, p.148

Don’t Run On Emotions!

Just because we have a moving experience when we read a passage of Scripture does not mean that we have understood it properly, or that it is God telling us something through that verse. What God tells us through a verse is what the verse actually means in context. God is not going to tell you  something through a personal, emotional experience that is contrary to the meaning of the passage. You cannot let your emotional experiences be the standard by which you determine the meaning of Scripture.

Thomas A. Howe, “How the Cults MisInterpret the Bible,” Areopagus Journal, July 2002, pg.27.

Are You a Victim of Deceitful Schemers?

The perfect spiritual victims for deceitful schemers are those with warm hearts and empty heads. The church is full of folks today who have “a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge” (Rom. 10:2). They have a form of godliness but it is not biblically grounded. They are seeking feelings and experiences but not doctrinal truth. They are content to attend churches that do not expound the Scriptures, just as long as they are emotionally moved by the music or drama and comforted by relevant programs.

Gary E. Gilley, Is That You Lord? Pg.23

Emotion Will Not Sustain Faith

Just as a marriage cannot be sustained by the tumble of infatuation, a life of faith cannot be sustained by passionate emotion. Yes, it may be a wonderful (and necessary) entryway, but without depth of knowledge and understanding, it will be “blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming” (Ephesians 4:14).

Ethan Renoe, The Tragedy of Dumbing Down Christianity

Emotion vs Emotionalism

What is true emotion as contrasted with both emotionalism and sentimentalism?  It is never artificially or lightly produced.  man cannot create emotion; it is too deep for that.  It is always the result of an understanding of truth itself.  True emotion always results from a recognition of the truth; and the result is that it is characterized by depth.  There is also an element of nobility in it, and of wonder and amazement.  You never find that in emotionalism, which is all excitement, frothy, voluble, on the surface.  Neither does emotion have the politeness of the mere sentimentalist. . . . 

Emotion is profound, is noble; there is always in it an element of wonder, surprise, amazement.  The whole person is gripped and moved in the manner I have illustrated out of Scripture.

Another very valuable test is that true emotion is always energizing.  It is like an electric battery which gives you power and it moves you and stimulates you.  It has not the excess, the riot of emotionalism; it is not the mere playing with emotion that characterized sentimentalism; but is the result of the energy and power of the Holy Spirit.  It means that the whole man is galvanized by the life of God.

The result is that true emotion always leads to action, and always makes a difference.  If you think you have felt something in a service now and again, and you desire to know whether it is true emotion or not, the time for testing is not while you are still in the building; it is the day after.  You can experience emotionalism and sentimentalism in a meeting; but if it is a true emotion as a result of seeing something of the truth, or a glimpse of God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, and some recognition of the glory of it all, it will continue.  It will move you to action.  It will master you, guide you, direct you; it will be with you; it will have energized you, it will have been productive.  It is comparable to what the Apostle is writing to the Galatians calls “the fruit of the Spirit”; and it is glorious abiding fruit.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10-13,” pg.204-205

Emotionalism By-Passes Understanding

In the first place emotionalism is generally worked up.  In some shape or form it is artificially produced.  Its second characteristic is that it always lacks the element of understanding.  It is always a direct assault upon the emotions, it by-passes truth.  Emotionalists care little about the source of the feeling as long as they get it.  Hand-clapping, tambourines, anything may be used to work up the feelings and make a person lose himself.  The swaying of the body also in rhythmic fashion may be used.  It is always produced in a way that by-passes understanding.  The third characteristic of emotionalism is that the element of excitement, of rowdiness, of excess is present.  Emotionalism is always characterized by this element of riot and excess.

Another most important fact about emotionalism is that it always leaves you exhausted.  It tires you, it takes energy out of you.  It is the same as alcoholic drink which seems to fill a man with energy, but which in actual fact is sapping his energy, and leaves him with a horrible tiredness, weariness, and exhaustion.  Finally, it never affects the life and the living in a good sense.  Obviously it cannot do so, for it is not based on truth.  Men may have wonderful experiences, and riots of the emotions; but their lives often indicate something very different.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10-13,” pg.202-203

Living on Emotionalism

Some people live on emotionalism or on sentimentalism.  As they believe that nothing matters except this kind of riot or excitement of the emotions, they will, of course, do everything they can to encourage it; and quite often it is deliberately worked up.  There are services in which people clap their hands and shout and sing and repeat certain types of choruses — it is done deliberately to work up excitement.  And the more excited they get, and the more emotional they become, the more wonderful, they think, the blessing of the Spirit has been.  It is mere emotionalism.

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “The Christian Warfare: An Exposition of Ephesians 6:10-13,” pg.198-199