The Experience of F.W. Robertson of Brighton

     Born in 1816 in London, Robertson grows up with father and grandfather in Army careers.  His family are faithful Church participants.  Yet, Robertson's health keeps him out of his father's career and impells him to take up a career with the heavenly Father..  Frederick Robertson is a 19th Century English Biblical preacher who summingly rejects the infallibility of the Bible.  His rejection of Biblical fundamentalism draws on examples from Leviticus 21:16-23 and Judges 8:30, where he points out in these two instances (and others) infuse Scriptural conflict with Jesus' teaching.  Using Jesus as prime template, Robertson seeks to clarify, through writing and preaching, the heavenly Father's Authority through Christ in our lives, inspiration through the Holy Spirit, and Christian fidelity in marriage within Christ's love for His Church.

     Robertson reminds us that our Lord said, "I do not seek to destroy but to fulfill" Matthew 5:7.  And within Jesus' fulfillment is New Life in our surrendering our lives to Jesus and becoming His disciples.  Robertson probed the Scriptures for connecting elements of the New Covenant underlying what Jesus teaches us.  
     Biographer, James Blackwood, poignantly wrote this about F.W. Robertson of Brighton:
          Teaching the Bible was the core of Robertson's entire ministry... He read, marked and inwardly
         digested the Holy Scriptures... No small part of Robertson's power lay aim the source of his
         preaching.  Authority!!  He loved to realize the past, to bring it before his eyes, and to make
         it as distinct and read as if he had lived in it; to know David or Paul as a friend; to identify
         himself with the people of the Bible, thought with thought, sense with sense, until he knew
         the inner windings of the characters.  Robertson's teaching were saturated with the Bible.
Robertson, such a Christian!! Do not our hearts resound with such a person as this Robertson?!? Yet this is within each of our reach also. To know the Authority of the Word, Jesus Christ, as our source of strength, through Scriptural immersion, we may then move with Spirit sensitive awareness impacting everyday experiences and relationships.

     As Leander Keck of Yale Seminary reminds us, the forces which seek to exercise command over us yield to the Authority of Christ, these motivational realities of what we say and do.  To be an authority figure at home, work, and within marriage is to know and live motivated by the Holy Authority of Christ whom we know through Scripture, directly effecting ones experiences.  Our lives and this world are our context through which we make moral choices grounded in our Christian faithfulness. 

     Faithful discipleship was found during Robertson's pulpit term, Riots broke out the major cities nearby.   The Chartists were threatening  England with an overthrow of government.  The English pulpits were especially aware of political and social effects on the working poor.  Robertson helped to establish a workingmen's center in Brighton, identifying more with the workers that with the elite of society.  He taught and cared for those we deem the last, least, and lost. He reminded them Jesus speaks to their conditions.  Consequently, some said,  Robertson was 'logic on fire'!!  Scholarship and Imagination fueled by Christ !!

     F.W. Robertson was a bright candle whose wick was shortened, dying young of a brain tumor at 37.  His wife and family wanted a small funeral at his Church yet Brighton-Town would have none of that--- peoples of all denominations, the Societies, those of the workingmen's center (more than 1500 burly men) marched and wept unashamedly out in the streets at their loss of this man who lead them in faith's Holy Authority.  And on Robertson's tombstone reading:: He awakened the holiest feelings in the poor and in the rich, in the ignorant and in the learned."

     The Anglican Church was the spiritual home of Robertson, but Brighton-Town By The Sea took in the whole of Robertson because He lived and shared the holiness of Jesus...  and all because of his continual immersion of himself in the Scriptures and as result it's outward overflow into the lives of a Town touched by the Lord's Holiness, Grace, and Authority.

The Experience Of George Matheson And Your Experience

Matheson had poor eyesight as a boy and by the time he was ordained and preaching he was legally blind.  Just ten years before his death he wrote, "At one time, with a great thrill of horror, I found myself an absolute atheist."  While the Church that he was pastoring would not accept his resignation due to his self disclosure of loss of faith, they firmly held the strong belief that he would regain his faith in full and continue to lead the Church once again. 

As Matheson struggled with his 'dark night of the soul' the Church elders believed and prayed that Matheson would change, and change he did!  When his faith returned to him it came back through the Holy Spirit's fire-in-the-belly and heart, and Matheson's preaching drew others to Christ as never before.  He became evangelical.  He wrote hymns, gave personal witness, and lived news day with spiritual enthusiasm--  life that Christ had given him was fabulous.!  Abundant life took hold of George Matheson's.

It was then that George knew that loving Christ was ultimate and this gave deeper and fuller meaning to his sermons.  While some preached the substance of orthodox creeds, George preached real life faith in Christ where he often brought personal examples of the Holy Spirit's work-in-the-persons-lives into his sermons. 

Read one of his hymns and allow your heart to sync with Matheson's intent:

1. O Love that wilt not let me go,
   I rest my weary soul in thee;
   I give Thee back the life I owe,
   That in Thine ocean depths its flow
   May richer, fuller be.
2. O Light that foll’west all my way,
   I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
   My heart restores its borrowed ray,
   That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
   May brighter, fairer be.
3. O Joy that seekest me through pain,
   I cannot close my heart to thee;
   I trace the rainbow through the rain,
   And feel the promise is not vain,
   That morn shall tearless be.
4. O Cross that liftest up my head,
   I dare not ask to fly from thee;
   I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
   And from the ground there blossoms red
   Life that shall endless be.

The Scotsman, George Matheson, found that his boyhood faith which which grounded in orthodoxy and creeds was frequently enhanced through contact with Evangelical Christianity.  The Evangelicals were Holy Spirit fed and believed that freedom of expression of Christ's activity in their lives was vital to any Christian's spiritual growth.  George's faith was ignited as he yielded his heart's torch of faith to Christ and the Holy Spirit ignited his hear and mind with the real Presence of Christ.

The Wesley Experience

    John Wesley had been a Priest in the Church of England for thirteen years before he had an experience of the heartwarming experience of the Holy Spirit.  His experience happened when he was at a Bible Study and they were reading Martin Luther's Preface To Romans.   From that moment onward he preached and taught with a deepening zealousness to bring others to Christ by allowing the Holy Spirit to ignite their hearts.    John’s next choice was to become a missionary to Georgia, USA, yet he failed at that and was sent back home.  On the way to England a tremendous storm threatened to sink his ship and during this tempest he discovered such a fear of death that he sought solace from other passengers on board, specifically the Moravian Christians.
    The Moravians were not fearful but rather had the peace that passeth all understanding, and Wesley wanted it too (Philippians 4:6-8).  Asking about this and taking instruction as to how to trust Christ like these Christians, by the power of the Holy Spirit Wesley’s fears disappeared.  From this secondmost pivital point in his life he found not only how to have complete confidence in Christ, but also how to show and explain it to someone else.
    From that time forward, because John Wesley had experienced the Holy Spirit's personal care, he had a new clarity that come into his life and his preaching. Wesley patterned his preaching after the Apostle Paul's and brought thousands to Christ through preaching and song writing. 

    Like John Wesley, Jesus calls you to come to Him in humility and submission. Receive the Holy Spirit's Presence through Baptism and New Birth.  Find your abundant life in Christ by talking with other Christians about how to have the Wesley-like heartwarming experience of the Holy Spirit.  

The Experience of the Apostle Paul and your Experience

Many read the book of Romans and assume that they know the Apostle Paul; not so!  To know Paul we start at chapter 7 of the Book Of Acts.  There is the disciple Stephen whose forceful young witness for Christ has brought him trouble and persecution.  Because of Stephen's bold assertions that Jesus is the Resurrected Christ the Roman's decide to stone him to death.  And who is standing by watching, holding the coats of those who throw the stones?  Saul, later to be renamed Paul.

Stephen did not die without a speedy trial!  He was first dragged before the high priest and the rigid religious council, before whom Stephen refused to recant his preaching of Christ the Savior who gives New Birth.  Found guilty of blasphemy he continues to preach salvation in Christ as the stoning ends his life and he commits his spirit to the Lord at last breath.  Saul, the bystander, is receiving Stephen's witness in this dramatic event.

The tentmaker, Roman Jew, devout student of rabbinical scholar Gamaliel, Saul is energized by the stoning-crowd's fury to stamp out the motley fools called Christians of The Way who believe in the Nazarene's holiness.  Saul is now on his high horse traveling a dusty road when a tremendous flash of lightening knocks Saul to the ground, injured and blinded.

All of Saul's dogmatic religious learning falls away in the flash as now, Saul's personal experience takes precedence.  Within those moments of abasement, Christ speaks into Saul's heart and mind then Saul becomes Paul the Apostle of Christ Resurrected.  For all the book learning that Saul has had, it is the personal experience of Christ that transforms him and changes us.

Paul uses every bit of his religious learning as the first step forward when speaking and witnessing to countless others for Christ, yet always culminates with an open invitation to abase and receive Christ in a personal way.  New life in Christ overlays the old ways.  Paul simply explains salvation and new holiness (sanctification) understandable, yet continually drives home each person's personal experience of Christ.  Transformation of heart and mind by Christ is experienced; Baptism into New Life bestows the Holy Spirit or the real Presence of Christ within our hearts.

Paul gives us his theology in Romans.  And in 2 Corinthians his Christian autobiography (a fragment) outlines Paul's sufferings for Christ:  5 times Paul received 39 lashes at the hands of his persecutors, 3 times he was beaten with rods, 1 time he was stoned and lived through it, 3 times on missionary journeys he was shipwrecked and by the mercy of God survived.  There was also danger at the hands of hostile foreigners, raging rivers, bands of robbers, thirsts when drink nowhere, hunger, cold exposure, and abandonment on barren mountain trails.

Baseline theology of Apostle Paul which reflects determination and full confidence in Christ is this:  (Paul's words) Romans 8:38-39 “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Nothing in our grounded

experiences can separate us!  No one nor any event of suffering or persecution can separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.  Love in Christ rules our lives as Christians.  It rules!

Rocky Road

A favorite ice cream at our home is Rocky Road.  It is delightfully mixed and each spoonful provides a mixture of tastes and combinations.  Rocky Road causes me to think about the hikes that I've been on and my mind always wanders back to the time I was on a Rocky Road in Colorado.  It was on the barren rocky side of the mountain that, even though my energy was near exhausted, I drew on God's strength within to drag my feet to the mountain top.

Most memorable to me is a trip up a Colorado 14 footer, Mt. Elbert.  It was there that I found that the beautiful walk upwards through the forest simply gave way to the toughest part of the climb which was the open barren rocky portion of the top of the mountain.  It was there that I found that we cannot get to the mountain top without going through the rockiest part and the greatest challenges.  Like in life, you and I have to walk the rockiest part to get the mountain view.  The top reveals the big picture about what God is doing in and through our lives.

How do you know you have hit the rocky part?  When you are going through a Rocky part of life you may ask these questions:  Doesn't God know that I am hurting here?  Why doesn't God help me when I feel so all alone and secluded?  Why in the world is this happening to me; is there a reason for this to happen?

God does know that you are hurting, feeling alone, and God has the grand scheme of things just ahead of you.  Even though you want to focus on the 'right now' it will be that later you can see the mountain top view of what God is doing.  Do you have to go up the rocky way in order to see the grand scheme of what God is doing?  Jesus did.  He did that so He can show you how to do it.  And one thing that He said over and over again is, "Do not be afraid, I have overcome this."

 

I Really Hope!

    I hope that you are having the time of your life right now and that it continues on and on.  You are certainly blessed to be living with a heart for Jesus.  Remember with me something that should cause us to be thankful we have Jesus. 
     At the beginning of time, because of disobedience to God, life was different.   Genesis tells us about  the garden where stood the tree of life.  Adam and Eve did not take of that tree because they had been banished from the garden and yet Life has graced you in your Savior Jesus Christ.  Jesus is our tree of Life is its entirety  (john 14:6).
Life gives you days that pass by in rapid succession and your decisions at junctures are important.  I hope you’ve figured out how to make your choices--deep prayer and then trust in Jesus.  Cue the singer, “Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road; Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go… I hope you had the time of your life.” 
I hope you are having the time of your life right now.  Grace and peace.
          Via, Veritas, Vita!,  Rev. Walker

Happy

To get happy there is one thing
that you can do. Find great happiness
reading through the first four Gospels
in your New Testament. 

In 89 days, by reading one
chapter a day out of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, you will read
through all four books of the Bible.

You will find personal thought lifters
mood busters, and treasures.
Discover that you're mind clears
of  fogginess and you think better.

Read these and your heart opens
to what is best for you and it will
amend your attitude toward other
people and happy will soon turn
into joy.

Horse For Sale

I'm surrounded by wonderful people who are glorious in so many ways.  For instance, my husband has a way of making me, and others, laugh about any situation and my Uncle used to do that too- and he was my favorite Uncle.  Laughter has healing properties and humor helps us to reawaken to the joy of Christ within us.  Good clean humor sparks lighthearted looks at life's best side.  My family, Mom Dad Brother Sister Daughter Step-kids, all enjoy a good laugh, Praise God!  Here is one of my favorite bits of humor; I pray you laugh loud and long with the blessing of laughter.

A pastor owned a remarkable horse, which would go only if the rider said, "Praise the Lord," and would stop only if he said, "Amen."

The pastor decided to sell the horse, but when he explained the horse's peculiarities to a prospective buyer, the buyer said, "That's ridiculous. I've been raising horses all my life. I'll make him go my way."

So he jumped on the horse and kicked him until he started to run. The horse went faster and faster. Worried, the buyer reined back and yelled, "Whoa!" But the horse wouldn't stop. Suddenly the man saw they were galloping toward the edge of a cliff. Desperately he yelled, "Amen!"

The horse screeched to a halt just in time. Peering down over the edge of the cliff, the man wiped the perspiration from his brow. "Whew," he said. "Praise the Lord!"

(Ha! )

The Holy Spirit has ways of moving us closer to our Lord through both laughter and love.  Clean laughter brings us into a sensibility of living that is unmistakably healthy.  Our inner chemistry is changed by laughter.  And laughing chases away the darkness and brings us into the Light of Christ.  Clean laughter is a priority of faith and I'm surprised that laughing is not included as one of the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from the mountain top.  Jesus laughed and He also weeped, both because of compassion. Laughter can help to lift someone out of suffering, and yet believers are to be mindful that there are instances where laughter is inappropriate. The apostle Paul gives us one last thought--- Paul wrote this while suffering in prison in Rome:  Laugh with those who laugh, and weep with those who weep (Romans 12:15).  Laughter and compassion tempered by the Holy Spirit ... that's what Jesus gives to us from heaven's throne.

                                                             From My Father's Desk-- Rev. Walker

6 a.m.

Today as I sit at my Father's desk words about the Light of God come from  Isaiah's words from the 60th Chapter in the Old Testament:
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
    and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
    and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
    and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light,
    and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

Light is a prophecy about Jesus who clarifies that  He is the Light of the World, whoever follows  Him will have the Light of Life (John 8:12).    Light is remarkable.  Awakening at 6 a.m. it is dark and taking a seat at my Father's desk I'm positioned so that I can see the sunrise dawn of this new day.  Shadows dispense and light shows details and definition.  Jesus' Light is similar within yours and my life.  A shadow of darkness, say, about what we are to do  today is brightened by Christ's Light clarifying we are to move forward with His help, along His guided path, and trusting.  Trust His

Light.