Description

Amazing Grace

A missionary’s purpose is to bring others to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. Since the days of the Savior, the Amazing Grace of the Lord has driven others to share this knowledge. Almost 300 years ago, a man’s journey to personal conversion opened the way to impact others in his time, but also reached across the centuries to testify of that truth.

John Newton was born on July 24, 1725, in London. His father was a sea captain and his mother a pious dissenter from the Church of England. Life may have taken a completely different course for John had his mother lived long enough for her teachings to take root, but she died when he was only six. His father, gone at sea, left his care to an indifferent step-mother. John ran wild.

Then, at age 11, John went to sea with his father, drinking in the ways of the sailor. After six voyages, John’s father retired. By the age of 17, John was characterized as headstrong and disobedient, and despite his father’s efforts to establish him as a prosperous merchantman, John rebelled and soon found himself kidnapped, or pressed into service, in the Royal Navy.

Not to be cowed, John deserted but was soon captured, flogged, and enslaved on the ship. As fate would have it, John was traded to a slave ship, and soon found himself bound for Africa and a cargo of slaves. Due to his own insolence, his situation gravely worsened over time and John became a servant of the slaves, starved and abused. The slaves pitied him, smuggling food into him, and letters out to his father.

Finally, his father found him and he was freed. It would be assumed that life’s experiences and the lingering tug of his childhood faith would have softened John’s heart, but it did not. He became once more shockingly profane and debauched. Then on the night of March 21, 1748, the ship sailed into a violent storm. Men were washed overboard. The ship pitched and rolled and seemed as though it would capsize. John lashed himself to the pumps, commenting to the captain, “If this will not do, then Lord have mercy upon us.”

The flippant remark latched onto John’s soul and would not let go. He reflected on it all night, finally uttering his first weak prayer. He would later declare this was “the hour he first believed.”

The ship survived the storm. John’s faith ebbed and flowed, finally rooting deep and setting him on a course of humility and goodness that would last out his days. It took time, but he gave up the sea and the slave trade, turning instead to the study of languages and theology. He wanted to be a clergyman but was turned down because he had no university degree. At last though, he was sponsored and ordained a minister.

John Newton became one of the most powerful and persuasive clergymen of his time. Why?

He was passionate and personal when he spoke of sin and Christ’s redemptive power.

He knew his own weakness and when he spoke of the Lord’s mercy and grace, it was from the depth of a grateful heart.

Not content in the boundaries of his own parish, he traveled and taught all who would listen.

Sunday meetings were not enough to meet the need and he began to hold weekly prayer meetings to bolster the faith of the poor around him. Ironically, it was a young man taught and influenced by Newton who would become himself a clergyman, a member of Parliament, and influence Great Britain to outlaw the slave trade—William Wilberforce.

However, it is not for the converts Newton made that he is most remembered. This profane wretch, who once wondered at sea in a deadly storm if he had sinned too much—if heaven still had a place for him, is most remembered today for a hymn that he wrote for a prayer meeting. It was sung for the first time on January 1, 1773. That hymn was Amazing Grace—the spiritual autobiography of John Newton, the sailor.