Tuesday, September 11, 2012

AMAZING GRACE!

By Samuel E. Ward

 

September 9, 2012

 

Introduction

"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."

Though some today wonder if the word wretch is hyperbole or a bit of dramatic license, John Newton, the song's author, clearly did not.

Slave trader

Newton was nurtured by a Christian mother who taught him the Bible at an early age, but he was raised in his father's image after she died of tuberculosis when Newton was 7. At age 11, Newton went on his first of six sea-voyages with the merchant navy captain.

Newton lost his first job, in a merchant's office, because of "unsettled behavior and impatience of restraint"—a pattern that would persist for years. He spent his later teen years at sea before he was press-ganged aboard the H.M.S. Harwich in 1744. Newton rebelled against the discipline of the Royal Navy and deserted. He was caught, put in irons, and flogged. He eventually convinced his superiors to discharge him to a slaver ship. Espousing freethinking principles, he remained arrogant and insubordinate, and he lived with moral abandon: "I sinned with a high hand," he later wrote, "and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others."

He took up employment with a slave-trader named Clow, who owned a plantation of lemon trees on an island off of west Africa. But he was treated cruelly by Clow and the slaver's African mistress; soon Newton's clothes turned to rags, and Newton was forced to beg for food to allay his hunger.

The sluggish sailor was transferred to the service of the captain of the Greyhound, a Liverpool ship, in 1747, and on its homeward journey, the ship was overtaken by an enormous storm. Newton had been reading Thomas a Kempis's The Imitation of Christ, and was struck by a line about the "uncertain continuance of life." He also recalled the passage in Proverbs, "Because I have called and ye have refused, … I also will laugh at your calamity." He converted during the storm, though he admitted later, "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, in the full sense of the word."

Newton then served as a mate and then as captain of a number of slave ships, hoping as a Christian to restrain the worst excesses of the slave trade, "promoting the life of God in the soul" of both his crew and his African cargo.

Amazing hymnal

After leaving the sea for an office job in 1755, Newton held Bible studies in his Liverpool home. Influenced by both the Wesleys and George Whitefiel . . . became increasingly disgusted with the slave trade and his role in it. He quit, was ordained into the Anglican ministry, and in 1764 took a parish in Olney in Buckinghamshire.

Three years after Newton arrived, poet William Cowper moved to Olney. Cowper, a skilled poet who experienced bouts of depression, became a lay helper in the small congregation.

In 1769, Newton began a Thursday evening prayer service. For almost every week's service, he wrote a hymn to be sung to a familiar tune. Newton challenged Cowper also to write hymns for these meetings, which he did until falling seriously ill in 1773. Newton later combined 280 of his own hymns with 68 of Cowper's in what was to become the popular Olney Hymns. Among the well-known hymns in it are "Amazing Grace," "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken," "How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds," "O for a Closer Walk with God," and "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood."

In 1787 Newton wrote Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade to help William Wilberforce's campaign to end the practice—"a business at which my heart now shudders," he wrote. Recollection of that chapter in his life never left him, and in his old age, when it was suggested that the increasingly feeble Newton retire, he replied, "I cannot stop. What? Shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?"[1]

I. Has GOD'S GRACE Changed Your Life?

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!

A. Before Christ We Were in a Hopeless Miserable Condition Whether We Knew it or Not.

(Eph 4:17-19 NIV)  So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. {18} They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.  {19} Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

Our condition before Christ was that . . .

1. Our thinking did not lead us to the truth.

2. Our ignorance toward God led us to hardened hearts, darkened understanding, and thus a life separated from God.

3. Our desensification to sin led us to lives of sensuality and the practice of every kind of impurity and desiring more.

B. After Christ, It Was Like Being Found by God and Healed of Spiritual Blindness.

I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

1. It is the Son who comes, seeks, and saves those who are lost.

(Luke 19:10 NIV)  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

2. It is Christ who dispels the darkness of man's knowledge of God by showing us Himself.

(2 Cor 4:6 NIV)  For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

II. Has GOD'S GRACE Convicted You of Sin and Then Brought Relief to You?

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;

A. It Is Through God's Warning about Sin that Gives Us Opportunity to Avoid Its Consequences.

(Heb 11:7 NIV)  By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

(James 1:13-15 NIV)  When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; {14} but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. {15} Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!

B. It Is Through Deliverance from Sin by Faith in Christ that We Receive the Precious Gift of Eternal Life.

(Rom 6:23 NIV)  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

III. Has GOD'S GRACE Brought You a Secure Hope in Christ?

The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;

A. The Promise of Salvation Is to Those Who Believe in Christ

(Eph 1:13-14 NIV)  And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, {14} who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory.

1. The promise of redemption is ours the moment we believe.

2. The guarantee of the promise is the Holy Spirit Who marks us with Christ's seal.

3. The result is that we belong to God to the praise of His glory.

He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.

B. The Security of Our Salvation Is Based upon God's Power to Protect Us from Anything that Would Keep Us from Obtaining It.

(1 Pet 1:3-5 NIV)  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, {4} and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you, {5} who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

1. The strength of God's power is proven by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

2. The permanence of our inheritance is described as imperishable, unspoilable, and forever glorious.

3. The shield and protection of our eternal inheritance is the invincible power of God.

4. The time of the full possession of our salvation is at the end of the ages.

IV. Has GOD'S GRACE Given You Confidence in God's Direction through the Trials of Life?

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;

A. When the Godly Pray, They Can Have Confidence In God.

(Psa 32:6-8 NIV)  Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found; surely when the mighty waters rise, they will not reach him. {7} You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah {8} I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.

1. God is our Hiding Place.

2. God is our Protector from Trouble.

3. God is the Singer of our Songs of Deliverance.

4. God is our Instructor and Teacher along Life's Path.

5. God is our Counselor.

6. God is our Guard.

'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

B. When the Godly Complete Their Service, They Are Carried to God's Kingdom.

(2 Tim 4:18 NIV)  The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

1. Death is a form of rescue from evil attacks.

2. God's heavenly kingdom is the place where the world can't harm you anymore.

V. Has GOD'S GRACE Moved You Thinking About Heaven?

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

A. It Should Encourage You to Listen for the Trumpet

(1 Th 4:15-18 NIV)  According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. {16} For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. {17} After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. {18} Therefore encourage each other with these words.

B. It Should Remind Us that Death, Mourning, Crying, and Pain Are Not Eternal, But Praise Is.

(Rev 21:3-4 NIV)  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. {4} He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

(Rev 5:11-13 NIV)  Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. {12} In a loud voice they sang: "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!"  {13} Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!"

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