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

What About Mysticism?

Mysticism is the exaltation of subjective experience over objective truth....  How many times have you heard the plea for us to get rid of our "silly doctrine," and come together in unity?... [Doctrine] is the body of objective truth, the teaching of God's Word.  Doctrine is the only basis for evaluating spiritual experience.  This is why Satan wants to move us away from it.  Without doctrine, all you have to judge by are your own fickle feelings.

Bill Randles, Making War in the Heavenlies, p. 15

What We Believe About God Matters

It does matter what we believe about God, about the Bible, and about what constitutes spiritual growth. Such doctrine dictates how we conduct and live our public and private lives.  If our beliefs on these matters are not solely focused and founded on Scripture without the infusion of human wisdom, carnal compromise, extra-biblical spiritual experiences, and unscriptural demand for physical manifestations, then, ultimately, our hidden life will openly manifest spiritual failures.

Phil Arms, Promise Keepers: Another Trojan Horse, p.99-100

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

What Produces Your Experience?

Experiences can be produced by psychological, physiological, or demonic phenomena.  The only real test for any experience is this: Does it square with the Word of God? 

John F. MacArthur, Jr, Charismatic Chaos, p.50

Experiences Grow From Belief

We are not to base what we believe on what we have experienced.  The reverse is true.  Our experiences will grow out of what we believe.  And we must continually examine and evaluate our experiences in light of the objective truth of God's precious Word.

John F. MacArthur, Jr, Charismatic Chaos, p.52

Subjective Experience vs Objective Truth

There are only two basic approaches to biblical truth.  One is the historical, objective approach, which emphasizes God's action toward men and women as taught in Scripture.  The other is the personal, subjective approach, which emphasizes the human experience of God. 

John F. MacArthur, Jr, Charismatic Chaos, p.36

Experience vs Scripture

There are two considerations:

1. Understanding of scripture

2. Experience in life.

If one places experience first, scripture gives way and one compromises his understanding of it. If scripture is placed first, God will show how the experience fits.  Our faith should provide a basis for our experiences.

Author unknown