"During the last two or three generations the pulpit has given less and less prominence to doctrinal preaching, until today, with very rare exceptions, it has no place at all. In some quarters the cry from the pew was, ‘we want living experience and not dry doctrine’; in others, ‘we need practical sermons and not metaphysical dogmas’; and yet others, "Give us Christ and not theology."
Sad to say, such senseless cries were generally heeded: ‘senseless’ we say, for there is no other safe way of testing experience, as there is no foundation for practicals to be built upon if they be divorced from Scriptural doctrine; while Christ cannot be known unless he be preached (1Cor.1:23), and he certainly cannot be ‘preached’ if doctrine is shelved. Various reasons may be given for the lamentable failure of the pulpit, chief among them being laziness, desire for popularity, superficial and lop-sided evangelism, and love of the sensational'."
~ A.W. Pink (1886-1952)
Truer even more today than in Pink's day! The WOF, NAR, and Reformergents all want experiences, not doctrinal truth. And their lives bear this out; they are so worldly and so impotent that there is no evidence of the Holy Living God residing within them.
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