by Arthur W. Pink
by Arthur W. Pink
Philologos Religious Online Books
Philologos.org
by Arthur W. Pink
April, 1937
EXPERIMENTAL PREACHING
It was our desire to say more upon this in the Hebrews' article in this issue, but so as not to unduly lengthen it, we decided to write a separate article thereon. The subject is one of great practical importance and value, though sadly neglected by the modern pulpit. By “experimental preaching” we mean preaching that analyses, diagnoses, describes the strange and often bewildering experience of the Christian. As we have pointed out before, there is a real distinction to be drawn between Christian experience and the experience of the Christian. True Christian experience consists of a knowledge of Christ, communion with Him, conformity to Him. But the experience of a Christian grows out of the conflict of the two natures within—natures which are radically different in their character, tendency, and products. In consequence of that conflict there is a ceaseless warfare going on within him, issuing in a series of defeats and victories, victories and defeats. These, in turn, produce joy and sorrow, doubtings and confidence, fears and peace; until often he knows not what to think or how to place himself.
Now it is one important and fundamental part of the office of God's minister to trace out the workings of sin and the actings of grace in the believer's heart; to turn the light of Scripture upon the mysterious anomaly of what is daily taking place in the Christian's soul; to enable him to determine how far he is growing in grace or is backsliding from the Lord. It is his business to take the stumbling stones out of the way of Zion's travelers, to explain to them “the mystery of the Gospel,” to define the grounds of true assurance, and to undermine a carnal confidence. It is an essential part of his task as preacher to trace out the work of the Spirit in the regenerate, and to show He is a Spirit of “judgment” as well as consolation, a Spirit of “burning” (Isa. 4:4) as well as building, that He wounds as well as heals.
The human soul possesses three principal faculties: the understanding, the affections, and the will; and the Word of God is addressed to each of them. Consequently the preaching of the Word comes under this general threefold classification: doctrinal preaching, experimental, and hortatory. Doctrinal preaching expounds the great truths and facts which constitute the substance of Holy Writ, and has for its prime aim the instruction of the hearer, the enlightening of his mind. Experimental preaching concerns the actual application of salvation to the individual and traces out the operations of the Spirit in the effectuation thereof, having for its main object the stirring of the affections. Hortatory preaching deals with the requirements of God and the obligations of the hearer, takes up the exhortations and warnings of Scripture, calls to the discharge of duty, and is addressed principally to the will. And it is only as these three fundamental offices of the minister are adequately and wisely combined, that the pulpit has performed its proper functions.
Doctrinal preaching treats of the character of God, proclaims His attributes, extols His perfections. It deals with the nature of man, his accountability to God, his obligation to serve and glorify Him. It exalts the Law, and presses its requirement that we love the Lord God with all our hearts and our neighbour as ourselves. It is concerned with showing what sin is, its enormity, its workings, its consequences. It delineates God's wondrous salvation, and shows the grace from which it springs, the wisdom which contrived it, the holiness which required it, the love that secured it. It describes what the Church is, both universally and locally. It expounds the ordinances: their significance, their purpose, their value.
Experimental preaching deals with the actual experience of those upon whom and in whom God works. It begins with their natural estate, as those who were shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin. It shows how, as fallen creatures, we are sin's slaves and Satan's serfs. It describes the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the heart, its pride and self-righteousness. It treats of man's spiritual impotency, and the hypocrisy and uselessness of making this a ground of self-pity, and an excuse for slothfulness. It delineates the workings of the Spirit when He convicts of sin, and the effects this produces in the subject of it. It takes up the heart exercises of an awakened soul, and seeks to counsel, admonish, and comfort.
Hortatory preaching is concerned with the claims of God upon us, and how we should endeavour to meet the same. It bids us remember the Creator in the days of our youth, and affirms that our chief end is to glorify Him. It bids us throw down the weapons of our warfare against Him, and seek reconciliation with Him. It calls upon us to repent of our sins, forsake our wicked ways, and sue for mercy through Christ. It emphasises the various motives unto obedience. It describes the life which the Christian is required to live, and exhorts him to deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Christ. In short, it enforces the righteous demands of the Lord, and urges unto a compliance therewith.
Now it is in a due combination of these three distinct lines of preaching that the best results are likely to ensue. Care needs to be exercised that the balance is properly maintained. If there be a disproportionate dwelling on any one of these, souls are likely to be hindered rather than helped. There needs to be variety in our mental and spiritual food, as much as there is in our material, and He who has graciously furnished the latter in Nature, has mercifully provided the former in His Word. If a person ate nothing but meat, his system would soon be clogged; if he confined himself to sweets, his stomach would quickly be soured. It is so spiritually. A surfeit of doctrinal preaching produces swelled heads; too much experimental induces morbidity, and nothing but hortatory issues in legality.
Alas, one of the most lamentable features of Christendom is the lopsidedness of present-day ministry. Where the Law is faithfully expounded, the Gospel is conspicuous by its absence, and where the Gospel is freely proclaimed, the Law is rigidly excluded. Even when a more or less balanced doctrine is maintained, there is very little experimental preaching, yea, it is generally decried as harmful, as fostering doubts, as getting us occupied with ourselves instead of Christ. In those places where really helpful experimental preaching is to be heard, the hortatory note is never raised: promises are freely quoted, but the precepts are shelved, while exhorting the unregenerate to repent and believe in Christ is denounced as inculcating creature ability and as insulting to the Holy Spirit. In other quarters, one might hear little or nothing except our duties—becoming personal workers, giving to missions etc.—which is like whipping a horse that has had no food.
But of the three it is experimental preaching which is given least place in our day. So much so is this the case, that many of God's poor people and not a few preachers themselves, have never so much as heard the expression. Yet this is scarcely to be wondered at, for experimental preaching is by far the most difficult of the three. A little reading and study is all that is required to equip one naturally (we do not say spiritually) to prepare a doctrinal sermon, while a novice, a “young convert,” is deemed capable of standing at a street-corner and urging all and sundry to receive Christ as their personal Saviour. But a personal experience of the Truth is indispensable before one can helpfully preach along experimental lines: such sermons have to be hammered out on the anvil of the preacher's own heart. An unregenerate man may preach most orthodoxly on doctrine, but he cannot describe the operations of the Spirit in the heart to any good purpose.
Though experimental preaching be the hardest task which the preacher has to perform, yet it is needful he attend to it, and when the blessing of God rests thereon, salutary are its effects. It is calculated to expose empty professors—both to themselves and others—more effectually than any other type of sermon, for it shows at length that the saving of a soul is very much more than a sudden “decision” on my part or believing that Christ died in my room and stead; for it is a supernatural work of the Spirit in the heart. Such preaching is most likely to open the eyes of sincere but deceived souls, for as they are shown what the work of the Spirit is, and the effects it produces, they will discover a miracle of grace has been wrought in them. While nothing is so apt to establish trembling believers, above all, it honours the Spirit Himself.
Let us now point out along what lines experimental preaching is to proceed in order to be most helpful to the saints. First and primarily, its business is to show of what “Salvation” consists in its actual application to the individual. Doctrinal preaching lays the foundation for this by an exposition of the grand truth of Election (which makes known the blessed fact that God has chosen a people unto salvation: 2 Thess. 2:13), and by opening up the subject of the Atonement, showing how Christ has fully satisfied every requirement of Divine justice upon the elect, thereby purchasing redemption for them. Doctrinal preaching is the means which the Spirit uses in the enlightenment, conviction and conversion of the elect, and the practical value of experimental preaching is that it enables concerned and attentive hearers to ascertain what stage has been reached in the Spirit's work in them.
In taking up the Spirit's application of that salvation which the Father ordained and the Son secured, the preacher first shows how the soul is prepared to receive it. By nature his heart is as hard and unresponsive to the Truth as the “highway” is to the reception of wheat: so there has to be a preliminary plowing and harrowing, a breaking up and turning over of the soil of his soul before the Word will obtain entrance and take root therein. Experimental preaching, then, will show which of his hearers is still accurately pictured by the “wayside” around, namely, those whose hearts are thoroughly antagonistic to God's claims upon them, those who are unconcerned about their eternal interests, those who wish to be left alone and undisturbed in their pleasures and worldly interests. The preacher will then press upon them the woeful state they are in, the terribleness of their condition, that they are dead toward God, devoid of any actual interest in spiritual things.
As the preacher develops and follows out the above line of thought, those who have been quickened and awakened by the Spirit of God will be better able to place themselves. As they measure themselves by the message, as they apply to themselves what the minister is saying (which the hearer should ever do if he is to “take heed how ye hear”: Luke 8:18), he will perceive that by the sovereign grace of God it is now no longer with him as it once was. He will recall the time when he too sat under the preaching of the Word with stoical indifference, when it was a meaningless jumble to him, a weariness to sit through. He will remember he rarely gave more than a passing thought as to where he would spend eternity. But now it is otherwise. He is no longer unconcerned, but is truly anxious to be saved. The preacher will point out that this is a hopeful sign, but must press the fact that it is not one to be rested in, that it is the height of folly and most dangerous to be contented with anything short of the full assurance of faith.
Again; the preacher will show that the great work of the Spirit in preparing the heart for a saving reception of the Gospel, consists in revealing to the individual his dire need of Christ, and this is accomplished by His making him to see and feel what a vile sinner he is in the sight of God. A life belt receives little notice from those who are safe on dry ground, but let a man be drowning in the water and he will eagerly grasp at and deeply appreciate one. They that are whole need not a physician, but when they are desperately sick he is most welcome. So it is spiritually. Let a man be unconscious of his moral leprosy, unconcerned of how he appears in the eyes of the Holy One, and salvation is little considered by him. But let him be convicted of his lifelong rebellion against God, let him discover that there is “no soundness” in him, let him realise that the wrath of God abideth on him, and he is ready to give the Gospel an earnest hearing.
Now the great instrument or means used by the Spirit in bringing the people to see their ruined and lost condition is the Law, for “by the Law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20). A striking illustration of this is found in Nehemiah 8. There we read of Ezra ministering to those who had returned from the Babylonian captivity: “And Ezra the priest brought the Law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the watergate from the morning until mid-day, before the men and the women, and those that could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the Law” (vv. 2, 3). He, in turn, was assisted by others, who “caused the people to understand the Law: and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book of the Law of God distinctly, and gave the sense” (vv. 7, 8). And what was the outcome? This, “all the people wept when they heard the words of the Law” (v. 9). The Spirit had applied it to their hearts in power; they were convicted of their wicked self-will and self-pleasing, their disobedience and defiance to the Lord, and they repented of the same and mourned before Him.
God wounds before He heals, and abases before He exalts. When the Spirit applies the Law to a sinner's heart, his self-complacency is shattered and his self-righteousness receives its death-wound. When he is brought to realise the justice of the Law's requirements, discovers that it demands perfect and perpetual conformity to the revealed will of God in thought and word and deed, then he perceives that “innumerable evils have encompassed him about,” his iniquities “take hold of him” so that he cannot look up, and he recognizes that his sins are “more than the hairs of his head” (Psa. 40:12). Such an experience is beyond misunderstanding: those subject to the same cannot mistake it. Unspeakably painful though it be, it is most necessary if man's proud heart is to be humbled and made receptive to the Gospel of God's grace. Such an experience evidences that God has not abandoned him to a heart that is “past feeling” (Eph. 4:19), yet this is not to be rested in as though the goal had been reached.
So far from a state of becoming aroused to see our danger and be concerned about our eternal destiny being, of itself, something to complacently rest in, assured that all will certainly end well, it is one that is full of peril. Satan is never more active than when he discovers souls are being awakened, for he is loathe to lose his captives, and redoubles his efforts to retain them. It is then that he transforms himself as an angel of light, and performs his most subtle and successful work. There are multitudes, my reader, who were shaken out of their indifference, and became diligent in seeking the way of salvation. But false guides misled them, and they were fatally deceived: as Ezekiel 13:22 expresses it, they “strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life.” The sinner must “forsake his way” before he can return to the Lord and find pardon (Isa. 55:7).
Not until we actually comply with the terms of the Gospel, not until we really close with Christ as He is presented therein, is forgiveness obtainable. To stop anywhere short of that, is to gravely endanger the soul's going to sleep on the Devil's “enchanted ground”—to borrow a figure from Bunyan. It is therefore the pressing duty of the preacher to sound the alarm here, and warn awakened souls of the danger of taking their ease, assuming that all is well. The foolish virgins “went forth to meet the Bridegroom” but they went to sleep, and when they awoke it was too late to procure the requisite oil! It is good that the ground should be plowed, yet that is only the preliminary work—seed must actually be sown and take root therein ere there can be any fruit. The anxious soul, then, must be continually exhorted to make sure that “the root of the matter” (Job 19:28) is in him.
This brings us to the next important stage or branch of experimental preaching: the making clear unto the concerned how it may be ascertained whether or no “the root of the matter” is in them; in other words, whether a work of grace has actually been started in their souls. This is a point of vast importance, for it concerns the vital difference between the general and special work of the Spirit—on which we wrote at some length when expounding Hebrews 6:4-6. But the determining if a “good work” has been begun in the soul is far too important for us to dismiss with a few sentences. And too, we desire to also take up the later experiences of a Christian. It will therefore be necessary for us to devote another article to the further consideration of this many-sided and momentous subject of experimental preaching.—A.W.P.
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