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How has God's Amazing Grace effected and defined YOUR life?
Posted : 6 Dec, 2010 07:38 AM
In this true story of the men behind the popular, familiar hymn "Amazing Grace", we can find renewed inspiration, encouragement and comfort for our own lives.
I share this biographical article from Charles Stanley's In Touch devotional magazine with you with love in my heart in Christ for each one of you as your brother in Christ.
Steve
Grace, Full Circle
The story behind a beloved hymn proves redemption is stronger than law.
by Erin Gieschen
Abraham Lincoln once said that William Wilberforce should be a household name in America, but most are only now finding out who he was: a young politician who, in the late 18th century, led the grueling fight to eradicate the British Empire's expansive slave trade.
But all of us know the words to Amazing Grace, the hymn for which the recent film on Wilberforce's life was named.And most know that the songwriter, John Newton, was once a slave trader whose encounter with God caused him to leave the deplorable practice and pen that famous line, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me."
But what many don't know is that the lives of Newton and Wilberforce were inextricably linked.
At age nine, Wilberforce was sent to live with his aunt and uncle in London when his father, a wealthy merchant, tragically died. His guardians were devout believers who'd been greatly influenced by the preachers of the Great Awakening (such as John Wesley), and they regularly took the boy to church where their friend, John Newton, was pastor. For a short but momentous season, the young Wilberforce was captivated by the passion and authenticity of this preacher who had been to hell and back.
When his mother objected to the impact this "religious" environment was having on the boy, she had him brought home to the family estate. But Wilberforce would always remember Newton as a man he could trust with his life. So years later, after he'd quickly risen in the ranks of his family's social circle, excelled in Cambridge, and become the youngest member of British Parliament (at age 21), Wilberforce, in a time of need, turned again to the humble preacher from his childhood.
Bucking the System
This was his dilemma: after years of living for himself in a lavish lifestyle of wealth, status, and popularity, Wilberforce had become a real Christian. He'd been challenged to explore the Bible for himself, and its effect on him was earth-shattering. Like many of his day, he assumed that his newfound commitment meant leaving his "worldly" profession to take up one in the church, and his inner struggle was immense.
But Newton saw that God was calling Wilberforce for His own purposes, particularly through the young politician's conviction that Britain's broadly accepted slave trade was morally backward and depraved. In a meeting that would prove to be the major turning point of Wilberforce's life, Newton declared, "I believe you are the Lord's servant, and you are in the post which he has assigned you, and though it appears to me more arduous, and requiring more self-denial than my own, I know that He who called you to it can afford you strength according to your day."
After researching and preparing for the four-and-a-half-hour speech that would define his career, Wilberforce made his public stand in Parliament in 1787. One young man�against hundreds of powerful men who profited immensely from the slave trade�became the public voice of the country's abolitionists (till then, a circle of mostly Quakers, clergy, freedmen, and other Christian activists considered radicals by higher society). Reprisal was almost immediate; most of Wilberforce's peers targeted him with loud, vicious criticism. Yet some, particularly his old Cambridge friend William Pitt (who would later become Prime Minister), began to support his cause.
Newton's encouragement never wavered; when he saw the ripple effect Wilberforce and his friends were starting to make, he said, "I am ready to address you in the words of Mordecai: �Who [knows] but God has raised you up for such a time as this'!" (Esther 4:14)
Revival of the Heart
Wilberforce would go on to fight a 20-year battle�one that demanded every ounce of his resolve and at times threatened to crush him. While public support had increased ten years into the struggle, Wilberforce saw that real change wasn't occurring. By then, the cause was common conversation; the Clapham circle, Wilberforce's band of abolitionists, had used every means possible to educate the public about the true horrors of slavery. Yet, despite impressive petitions and documentation, their bills continued to be defeated in Parliament.
The powerful and highly political Church of England was an immense obstacle, siding with all the powers behind the slave trade: the king, the East India Company, and plantation owners in the Caribbean. So in 1797, Wilberforce launched a new campaign of a different sort: A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. You heard it right�and Wilberforce meant every one of the words he chose for his mile-long title.
For a long time, he'd wanted to write a book about his faith. Now, he recognized that faith was the very heart of this issue. According to Bob Beltz, who recently paraphrased Wilberforce's manifesto (now simply titled Real Christianity) for 21st century readers, "Wilberforce was probably thinking, Why can't the community of Christ�which identifies itself with a theology that claims all men are created equal by God�see the hypocrisy of the slave trade? There's a deeper issue here . . . He began to think through what the Bible said a Christian is, versus how the cultural church of the day defined it."
Beltz calls the book "the Mere Christianity of its time." It became an immediate bestseller, going through almost 50 printings throughout Europe and the United States and being translated into 40 languages. Wilberforce's transparent words eloquently expressed truths his society had only compartmentalized. "Are the foundations of faith of so little significance to the practice of faith that they are irrelevant to practical living?" he asked. Many readers who'd viewed religion as merely a cultural sense of morality came away understanding for the first time who Jesus was�and the radical nature of truly choosing to follow Him.
On topics from apologetics and parenting to thought life, Wilberforce shared his heart in such a way that readers across the board could relate. When Beltz first read the 210-year-old book, his impression was that "all the issues he was confronting in the church in 1797 were basically the same issues we're dealing with today."
Poetic Justice and Strange Grace
Newton, too, knew there could be no correlation between the atrocities of slavery and true Christianity. As evidence against the "the business at which my heart now shudders," the ex-slave trader boldly spoke of his own guilt to the House of Commons: "Should I be silent, my conscience would speak loudly, knowing what I know. Nor could I expect a blessing on my ministry�though I should speak of the sufferings of Jesus till I was hoarse." The old preacher considered himself a "wretch" who'd contributed to the weight of "a millstone . . . of itself sufficient to sink such [a] highly favored nation as ours to the bottom of the sea." So it was with overwhelming relief that the old preacher heard of Wilberforce's victory�on May 30, 1804, his motion on abolition passed.
Britain's Act of the Abolition of the Slave Trade was ultimately signed by the king, and it went into effect in 1807, 20 years from the day Wilberforce first took his stand. And the final note of John Newton's redemption song sounded that same year, when, finally at peace with the ghosts of his past, he died�transformed by grace more amazing than words or music could express.
To learn more about Bob Beltz's new edition of Wilberforce's book Real Christianity, and more of Wilberforce and Newton's story in producer Ken Wale's book,The Amazing Grace of Freedom, visit www.AmazingGraceMovie.com.
#4John Newton quotes and facts are from: Ken Wales, et al. The Amazing Grace of Freedom, New Leaf Press, 2007.
Copyright 2010 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. www.intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.
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