Out of Hibernation

I told Jason in a recent email that I feel like I’ve abandoned him on TheoSource. I haven’t posted anything in over a week, not even a comment, while he has posted at least eight times. So I wanted to let everyone know what I’ve been up to. I had to practically seclude myself so I could finish work on a study manual for my church’s Men’s Ministry. We do a twelve-week study twice a year where we read a book together, along with a booklet that guides us through the study. I’ve just finished producing the booklet and am waiting on Kinko’s to complete the printing of enough copies to hand out at our first prayer-breakfast this coming Saturday.

We pick a certain biblical theme or book to study each cycle, and this time we’re studying the Book of Job. To help our understanding of this wonderful book of Scripture we will be reading Layton Talbert’s new book Beyond Suffering: Discovering the Message of Job. The title we’ve chosen for the study manual is Seeing God through the Gloom. That is the emphasis of our study. Just as the Lord redirected Job’s attention from his gloomy circumstances to Himself, so He deals with us in our afflictions. Instead of getting hung up on the question why, we are trying to train ourselves to think biblically and ask ourselves what we should do with our suffering. How do we scripturally interpret it? How would the Lord have us respond to affliction?

What we think about our Christian sufferings and how we respond will determine our level of joy and maturity in Christ. Too much introspection and too little focus on the Lord will hinder us in the pursuit of Christian growth and service. As an example of someone with a melancholy outlook on life we can look to the Anglican preacher F.W. Robertson, who died on this day in 1853. Robertson was born in London on February 3, 1816. He was a military kid, his father serving as a captain in the Royal Artillery. With his upbringing Robertson had the military mindset and planned to join the army. However, his father convinced him that his calling was to be a minister. So Robertson enrolled in Oxford for training. His ministry was short, only 13 years, (he died when he was 37) and he considered himself a failure.

I want to be careful in critiquing a man like this, especially since I’m not in the ministry. But I have a rationale for critiquing: I have some of the same tendencies. Others have analyzed the causes for Robertson’s chronic depression. In his book Walking with the Giants, Warren Wiersbe offers three possibilities:

• Physical reasons—“Robertson was not a robust man and the seeds of death were working in his body years before his friends knew they were there” (p. 29). We must at least consider a person’s medical condition without going overboard with drugs and psychology. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a former MD, counseled that if a true believer did not respond to spiritual treatment, a medical problem may exist. But physical infirmities don’t distance us from the Lord or render us useless to Him.
• Disappointment—Robertson “had always wanted to be a soldier, and when he was made a minister instead, he continued to live like a soldier” (p. 29). Wiersbe explains that Robertson’s concept of the ministry was “primarily militant and in a war you either win or lose. In the ministry the victories are not always that definite; so Robertson was never really able to evaluate honestly the good he was doing through his preaching” (p. 30).
• Self-inflicted loneliness—Robertson was a loner “probably because he did not want to be crushed by another broken friendship” and “because he could not find a group that agreed with him….he identified himself with no group and ultimately ended up criticizing all of them” (p. 30). Wiersbe didn’t include the next point as a possible cause of Robertson’s depression, but I think it explains the “loner” syndrome:
• Theological weakness—Robertson was raised in the evangelical tradition but his theological training at Oxford was “inadequate” and “he never did arrive at concrete statements of the great doctrines of the faith” (p. 31). Also he was offended with the mean-spiritedness of evangelical leaders of his day. He seems to have let subjective feelings take precedence over objective revelation. To his credit he memorized the New Testament in English and much of it in Greek. Yet he never arrived at doctrine that might have guided him through the dark times.

I confess my own tendencies to prolonged introspection and disappointment because of my sins, my seeming lack of growth, and limited usefulness. But I’m trying to train myself to turn away from the mirror to the mirror of God’s Word and see myself the way my Father sees me, accepted in His beloved Son, chastened for sin, yet loved and restored … and bound for a glorious eternity!

“Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.” (Psalm 42:5)

Perhaps the title of this post will describe your feeling of liberation when you clearly see God’s love for you based on the perfect, active obedience of His Son Jesus Christ in your behalf!

In addition to Layton Talbert’s book mentioned above, the following books will help ministers and laypeople alike rightly interpret and respond to their Christian sufferings:

• D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Spiritual Depression. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1966). Edifying sermons. [CBD | WTS]
  
• Sinclair B. Ferguson. Deserted by God? (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993). A study of selected Psalms, very rich. [CBD | WTS]
• John J. Murray. Behind a Frowning Providence. (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1990). Brief, but very helpful booklet. [CBD | WTS]

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ON F. W. ROBERTSON SEE...

James R. Blackwood. The Soul of Frederick W. Robertson. Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1947. [Amazon]

Frederick Robertson. Life and Letters of Fred. W. Robertson, M. A., Incumbent of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, 1847-53. Edited by Stopford A. Brooke.

Elibron Classics, 2001, 420 pages.
ISBN 9780543953896 paperback
ISBN 9780543953889 hardcover

Replica of 1872 edition by Henry S. King & Co., London.

Purchase: Elibron $26.99| Amazon $26.99

Out of Hibernation