Amazing Grace

We had our usual cell group this morning and watched again the DVD on "What's so amazing about grace?" by Phillip Yancy. I feel every Salvation Officer, every pastor and lay worker, in fact every Christian should read this book. I've read it several times and it always speaks to my heart. Grace is indeed amazing. Many of you are familiar with the hymn Amazing Grace.

John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace” at a time when he was haunted by the 20,000 African ghosts of his past. At the age of 11 he set sail for the first time and for over 30 years he sold and traded slaves from Africa to West Indies.

At times he felt so wretched that even his crew regarded him as little more than an animal. Once he fell overboard and his ship’s crew refused to drop a boat to him. Instead they threw a harpoon at him and they dragged him back into the ship.

In March of 1748, Newton found himself in the most desperate situation of his life. During the voyage the crew had repeatedly heard his bitter boasting of being a freethinker who did not believe in God. He had even lashed himself to a mast during a storm and dared God to strike him dead, in order to prove Himself real. The ship was leaking badly and in danger of sinking. Terribly frightened, he cried out: “Lord, have mercy on us.” This was the first time he had prayed since childhood.

By the time the storm ended, most of the rigging had been blown away, making navigation almost impossible. After seven days of drifting with no land in sight, the crew was practically without hope. One man had already died when the captain came to challenge John Newton. The captain believed Newton was somewhat like Jonah: “A curse to the ship”. The crew had even discussed throwing him overboard, but decided not to.

As Newton returned to work, he recalled a Bible verse that he had learned as a child. Luke 11:13 “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" Coming to the end of himself, he prayed: “God, if You’re true, You’ll make good your Word. Cleanse Thou my vile heart.”

Four weeks later, the crippled ship made port in Ireland, and there he went to a church and made public his faith. He became a powerful preacher, and song writer: Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

He died in London December 21, 1807. He wrote his own epitaph on the tombstone, “John Newton, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy.”

Just before his death in 1807 at 82, a fellow pastor came to have breakfast with him. John Newton was blind and unable to read, so he sat and listened to his friend read 1 Corinthians 15. When he reached verse 10, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” Newton began to speak. He said, “I am not what I ought to be. Ah! How imperfect and deficient! I am not what I hope to be. Soon, soon, shall I put off, with mortality, sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was, a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge, By the grace of God I am what I am.”