Subjective Personal Experience?

I had a Christian individual recently tell me that my testimony of the real and powerful things that Jesus has done for me in my life are just “subjective personal experience,” and that we can’t go by that. He says we have to “go by the word.” What he means is that we have to go by a ‘word only’ Gospel, and that there is not really anything tangible from heaven available to us. Funny, that doesn't sound much like my Bible: “For the kingdom of God is NOT in word, but in POWER” (I Cor. 4:20). Neither does it sound much like “the author and finisher of our faith,” the Lord Jesus Christ: “But ye shall receive POWER, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you” (Heb. 12:2; Acts 1:8). My friend, when the power that created all things comes upon you, it creates in you a powerful personal experience with God! If that power does NOT come upon you, then you have nothing at all, and according to the scriptures you do not belong to God (Rom. 8:9). God’s power has delivered me from sin, and continues to purify and preserve me in his love and holiness daily, as the Bible says it should be (Rom. 6:1,2; Rom. 8:13; Gal. 5:16; I Pet. 4:1,2; I Jn. 3:2,3; etc.). That in fact was the point that this Christian individual was contesting, arguing that we can’t be literally free from sin in our hearts and minds. All that tells me is that he doesn’t want to come clean with God and be washed, sanctified, and justified by God’s HOLY Spirit (I Cor. 6:11). But let me get back to this “subjective personal experience” thing, and how we “can’t go by that.” I suppose we can’t accept the testimony of the apostle Paul, who liked to start his preaching with the account of how Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, spoke to him, and blinded him with his light (Acts 9:1-18; Acts 22:4-16). After all, that was just “subjective personal experience.” And it’s for sure that we have to throw out the four Gospels, seeing they are just written from the “subjective personal experience” of four men who said they were with Jesus, and that Jesus did this and that, which this and that was pretty much all miraculous. That sounds kind of fishy. After all, I wasn’t there, and I didn’t see these things. Let’s also be certain that we throw out the entire old testament too, seeing that it is just chock full of people making these outlandish claims based on nothing but their own “subjective personal experience.” I mean, we’ve got a guy who said God spoke to him about building a huge ark, and that he was going to destroy the world with a flood (Gen. 6:13,14). C'mon now, that’s pretty far out, don’t you think? After all, the smart scientists don’t acknowledge this world wide flood that supposedly took place.

Then we’ve got this guy who claims to have met with God at a bush that was burning but not consumed by the fire, and that God appointed him there and then to go to Egypt to deliver his people from bondage. Then the same guy later claims to have met with God on top of a mountain, and that God gave him all these rules for men to live by. Who did this guy think he was anyway? That’s just a bunch of “subjective personal experience!” Then we’ve got all these guys [called themselves prophets - ha ha] back then that claim that God spoke to them personally and told them to tell everyone to get things straightened out, or hard judgment would come upon them. No wonder the people gave those guys such a hard time, and even killed a bunch of them. What right did they have to impose their own “personal subjective experiences” on all those people anyway? Why, that doesn’t sound very fair to me, does it you? Then we really have to deal with this whole thing about this guy called Jesus. Can you believe that he actually had the nerve to claim that he was the only begotten Son of God, and that he came from heaven to save everyone? Wow! Hey, who needed saving anyway, and who gave this guy the right to make these ridiculously bold claims? Do you know what he actually had the gall to say? “We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen” (Jn. 3:11). There it is again, the same old story; “subjective personal experience” claims. Yeah, yeah, a lot of folks claim that he died for the sins of the world, and that he rose again and went back to heaven. WHO SAYS??!! Why should I believe a report like that when it was just passed along on the testimony of certain people, according to their own claimed “subjective personal experience” of having seen these things take place? As far as that goes, what about this big guy that everybody calls God? Who says he exists? The only way we have supposed knowledge that he does exist, is by the “subjective personal experiences” of people who have claimed to interact with him. Yeah I know we can see the supposed 'creation’ around us everywhere, but who can say that evolution didn’t do all of that? There’s some really smart folks who claim that it did. Why should I believe all of this stuff about God, his Son, and all these people through the ages that have made all of these fantastic claims based on nothing but their own “subjective personal experiences?"

Okay my friend, the joke is over now, and in fact it is no joke at all. I am absolutely certain that you’ve gotten the point here, and that you’ve gotten it in spades. The truth of the matter is that there is no such thing as any knowledge of God APART FROM REAL PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH GOD!!! That’s exactly right, all we have in the entire Bible are the personal experiences of those who have known God for themselves. I’ve got news for you: If you don’t have exactly what they had, you are NOT going to be with them in eternity. If you have the audacity to try to refute the real, true, and powerful experience that another person has with God; you will go where the one who is behind that refute is going for all eternity. One who had great personal experience with Jesus tells us this: "This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth” (I Jn. 5:6). Yes, the Spirit of God is truth, and that same Spirit will teach truth and speak truth to all who will listen today (Jn. 14:26; Jn. 16:13; I Jn. 2:27; Rev. 2:7). As I said earlier, that same Spirit is also power; and that power DOES THINGS for those who receive it and follow after it! Most pointedly it delivers, purifies, and preserves the hearts of those who have it and love it, from sin and ungodliness (Acts 15:8,9; Tit. 2:11,12; I Pet. 1:22). If someone wants to say that my real life, real time personal relationship, experience, and knowledge of God is just “subjective personal experience; that’s just fine. They are only depriving themselves of the most glorious thing ever made available to mankind, and they are also fulfilling the proverb that says; "Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool” (Eccl. 10:3). The Bible I read puts this whole thing in a nutshell for us: “And they [true believers] overcame him [the devil] by the blood of the Lamb, and by THE WORD OF THEIR TESTIMONY; and they loved not their lives unto the death” (Rev. 12:11). So then, without an ongoing real life, real time personal testimony of the deliverance power of God in our lives, we simply will not overcome the devil, and we will not be saved. Simple as that. Amen.